#i definitely didn't post as much this year as i wanted to

[seungcheorry]

Ot13 reaction on how many kids SVT would have?

how many kids svt would have:

seungcheol probably wants to have two at least. i can picture him having a baby girl and then getting too excited once his partner is free from the whole post partum thing and getting them pregnant again right afterwards. he would really wish for a baby boy then.

jeonghan would love to have two as well, and i can see him having twins - i don't know why, something in him just screams FATHER OF TWINS to me. probably two girls? it's a lot of work though, he'll be done with having kids, would probably even do the surgery so he can't have any anymore.

joshua is very similar to seungcheol to me, would probably have a boy and then get too excited and have a girl because his dna is just good like that. the prettiest kids to ever exist actually, and he's so in love with them that it can be quite easy to talk him into having another one after a few years.

junhui screams boy dad to me, so yeah. i can see him having only one child, a really savage boy just like minghao was back in the day? weird but in a good, chomical way. he would be really good friends with his kid, like a partners in crime type of relationship.

soonyoung... oh, soonyoung. he says he wants to have lots and lots of kids because he loves having his house full but after the first one - a baby boy -, he gets so tired that he actually apologizes to his mom. might slip or be talked into having another one (he just wants his kid to have a relationship like the one he has with his sister); would really hope for a girl then, would probably get another boy though.

wonwoo is a definitely a girl dad too. he would really hope for a boy (i don't know why, i just feel like he would) but then it comes a baby girl and he turns into mush for her. such a goner, i can't even begin to describe - she can tell him to stay put for 20 whole minutes while she pretends to make tea and he won't move a muscle, just stay there and watch her because she told him to. would probably just want one.

jihoon is a girl dad and i will die on this hill. he's also a goner for his girl, he's very strict with things but also he doesn't like to be rough to her so he's just, i don't know, the perfect balance? most likely to be the favorite parent and learn about his daughter secrets before his partner because she just trusts him like that. would also just want one.

seokmin would love three - the first one (a boy) is probably planned; the second one (a girl) is probably an expected accident as he doesn't mind having sex without protection even though he knows the risks; the third one (another boy) is probably an unexpected accident that he cries in joy when he sees for the first time. he would definitely tell his partner "i'm so glad we got drunk that night" while seeing his two oldest children ganging up to change the new baby's diaper.

mingyu definitely wants two kids, he loves his sister too much and knows how a sibling relationship can literally save someone. most likely to have two girls, and his partner might ask him if he isn't sad that they didn't have a boy but he's too busy to answer as he's teaching the girls how to make ramyeon :(

minghao already said himself, he's not the one who gets to decide how many kids he and his partner will have, but he wants two - and can be bend into having a third one. i can see him having a boy and then a girl, and if he and his partner decides for another one, then it would be another girl, probably.

seungkwan would have two girls and his dramatic ass would say it's karma because what do you mean he grew up with his older sisters and now he has to take care of yet other two girls who will bicker and gang up on him just like his sisters did? behind that facade though he would love to take care of them and to see them grow together. most emotional dad, for sure.

vernon is a boy dad to me and he would say he only wants one kid but then he sees him growing up on his own and don't get me wrong, the kid is totally fine with it, but vernon can't stop thinking about how sofia changed his life and he would go "yeah, we might need another one" to his partner. makes a whole deal about it when he finds out his second child is gonna be a girl. "REALLY, WHAT ARE THE ODDS?"... but it's not that hard, vernon. i'm glad you're happy though, i know you love your kids.

chan is also a boy dad and he would probably want another kid but once he realizes how much work and effort it takes, he's sticking to just one. if his partner ever wants another one they would have to really talk him into it, might even need to ask seokmin for help, because chan would stand his ground and say no. but honestly? he's a loverboy, at the end he might just say yes and then meet his cute little daughter and be like "oh my god, why didn't we make her sooner?"

[iwasbored777]

I've been reading posts about GUN and I know they're going to be so bad in the fourth movie. Because not only is it possible that Rockwell, you know the openly xenophobic agent, will be the leader, but we're also going to have the Metal Sonics. When GUN sees alien threats built from the image of the alien they hate the most and can't chase, it's going to be the perfect excuse to want to capture Sonic and also Tails and Knuckles for sure. Not only that, with Amy in the movie it's going to get worse! If she really can travel through time with her chaos energy, I have no doubt that GUN will want to capture her too so they don't get this insane trump card. I dare say that a Team Heroes X GUN conflict is kind of inevitable.

Thanks for this ask cuz I feel so honoured to shame GUN for everything they've done. That previous post about Shadow wasn't enough, they did so many terrible things and I can't believe I didn't write this before your ask.

I can barely list all the worst things they did but I'll try and I'll answer to your other stuff so I hope you're ready and I hope you don't mind this whole analysis 😅 but I really wanted to talk more about GUN and since you clearly hate/dislike them just as much as I do (and many feel the same way) I really want to complain about them to someone who'll listen:

They were the ones that sent Robotnik in the first place. At least at the beginning he was just doing his job.

They knew that Gerald was Ivo's grandfather and alive all these years but they chose to not tell Ivo and let him think that he has no family his entire life. They used him because he was a genius and wanted him to make all those inventions for them and when they thought that he died they just acted as if he never existed.

They hired one of their agents to seduce Sonic's aunt, propose to her, and plan the whole wedding so that they would capture Sonic (I'm sorry I'm trying to stay serious but what the hell is wrong with GUN?! I don't know if I should cry or laugh and this is only the beginning). Poor Rachel too! They didn't care about anyone whether it was humans or aliens. I kinda wasn't happy that Rachel couldn't stay mad, what they did to her was horrible.

They captured Sonic and Tails. Tails was injured when they captured him and they didn't do anything about it, they simply put him and Sonic in cages after they tased Sonic to make sure he's unconscious too, they arrested Tom too when he tried to defend his son. This scene always breaks me, poor babies 😢

They found Shadow when he landed on Earth, kidnapped him, held him in a cryo pod and were doing experiments on him. (Gee, I wonder why Tom and Maddie didn't trust GUN with Sonic and kept Sonic hidden in their house instead after the first movie).

They were responsible for the death of a child, Maria (Walters did try to protect her and Shadow but when others killed her he mistreated Shadow. He definitely had more sympathy for Maria, she was a human child after all.) This moment right here physically hurts me cuz not only that they don't seem to care about the child they just killed but also they're surrounding Shadow and Gerald with weapons as if Shadow and Gerald were the ones who did something terrible here... They didn't care about the child they just killed, they only wanted to capture Shadow, that was their priority and Maria was just a collateral damage.

Right after they killed Maria they threw Gerald, her grandfather who loved her, in jail for 50 years and forced him to make Eclipse Cannon, that can destroy the planet. He went crazy because of all that and WHO WOULDN'T?!

They froze Shadow for 50 years (would definitely stay frozen way longer if he didn't escape) because they just didn't know what to do with him and kept him awake and fully aware of what they were doing to him during the process. I'll once again remind y'all of Walters' comment that Shadow was "too valuable to destroy", because Shadow was property to them and not a young living being with feelings and trauma that they gave him. His face here breaks my heart... Look how helpless he was here...

I added as many examples of how terrible GUN is as I can remember but if there are more you can always add them in the comments. I could easily add every scene and every screenshot with GUN cuz even at their better moments, they're still really bad, but I tried to pick the most important parts.

As for Rockwell, yeah she's gonna be a handful. She's definitely worse than Walters. At least he realized in his last moments that you can trust some aliens, but she isn't going to be easy to convince. They'll probably be even worse from now on and they probably didn't learn their lesson after Shadow. They better not hurt my baby girl Amy or the Colorful Bunch. I have some theories but I'd rather wait and see what's next.

Amy was hiding her identity here from Metal Sonic but I'm not sure if she doesn't want GUN to find her either cuz she's not hiding from Sonic, she let him see her.

Either way, it's not going to be easy for our alien kids and GUN gave me no reason to trust them so far. It says a lot that Robotnik and Stone were WAY more likeable to me than GUN. I hope GUN will leave Shadow alone and if they can't, I hope he'll kick GUN's butts again.

[bloodygyaruuu]

Show us your Kirby gijinkas. Now. (If you even have any.)

sorry abt the long wait, but here u go

im SOOOO happy w how these turned out.

sorry, but i only really have set designs for meta and ddd at the moment but i'd LOVE to do the other characters. i know you didn't explicitly ask for mtdd, but I just couldn't help myself <3

(ill go into more detail about my choices under the cut, I just love to yap)

okay now that ur stuck here with me, I'm gonna start with my design headcanons and inspirations.

Meta Knight:

Okay for Meta I wanted go with a more slender-ish, short-statured body will a bit of a baby face. I really tried leaning into a bit for vampiric features like fangs, desaturated colors, and the signature vampire bites (although these ones are just moles for the aesthetic). I wanted to give him a good chunk of unique features too like a scar under his right eye, a few beauty marks, pale-white eyes, prominent fangs, like 2c/3a hair (this means curly/wavy incase ur unaware), permenant eye bags, and a hooked nose for good measure. Ski-slope nose meta is evil propaganda which shall not be trusted.

yes yes, i can hear u saying "he looks like a twink" and to that I respond, "well, I'm fucking trying. he looks strange w facial hair to me and also Im a raging lesbian who only draws women over and over again". Also I made him Mexican because have u SEEN the anime dub. its fucking gold. and while I'm not Mexican, I AM colombian and black, so I thought this would be a good time to flex my liberal wokeness and make meta darker than a piece of paper. excuse the egregious anime hairstyle, I like anime and don't get out much.

King Dedede:

Alrighty I REALLY stepped out of my comfort zone here. I'm gonna be honest and say not only do I not draw a lot of men, but I don't draw a lot of men with larger body types like ever so this was definitely a bit of a challenge. god bless the "fat guy" anatomy tumblr post I saved a year ago, it came in clutch. anyways, I wanted to add some traditionally black hairstyles to my kingy king so I did a bit of thinking until I came to a realization. BEARD. LOCS. it was genius. I scrolled thru this guys page on tiktok who also had beard locs but they had jewelry on them and I just thought "wow, el, ur a genius." so I threw them into the design ofc. I like how a few other gijinka designs of ddd give him a long braid in the back. It's very regal. So I did that too but it's a braid made up of locs. Dedede's head is probably extremely heavy from the hairstyle I gave him, but he'll live. To list off some attributes; I gave ddd a wide, flat nose, vibrantly dark skin, like the underbite kind of fangs that u see in werewolves(not sure what it's called exactly? anti fangs??), locs, bushy eyebrows, and blue, tiny pupils. Again, I am VERY happy w/ my resdesign of him since my design of MK didn't change all that much from 2022.

In Conclusion:

thank you to anyone who made it this far!!1!!1

I know I say a whole lot of nothing sometimes, but I'm just so touched somebody out there wanted to see MY gijinka designs. its so funny cuz that's literally what my first ever post was on this app and Its nice to see things come full circle for once. hopefully, you all think Ive improved since then. personally, I think I improved a wee bit, but ill always strive towards improvement so I can have enough talent to consider redrawing the designs I just made, but even better <3

[oikarma]

terrible things

pairing: max verstappen x reader

summary: people like to say love is a static thing-it sparks at first sight and never fizzes out. but maybe it just takes on a different feeling, quite like the ever-changing colors of a flame.

a/n: new month new ending! this is the last part to the number one girl series. hope you enjoy <3

part one / part two / part three

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liked by 703,924 others

f1gossipofficial: Max Verstappen was spotted walking Y/N L/N to dinner from electric lady studios! Two things are on our mind: new music and an old flame.

tagged: yourinstagram, maxverstappen

view all 53,681 comments

user1: i feel like this is going to get messy real quick..

user2: MY YNMAX HEART 🥺 ARE THEY FINALLY TOGETHER

user3: hello? what about lewis FREAKING hamilton?

user4: not y/n in her homewrecker era

user5: woah woah she was there WAY before kelly user6: kelly and max announced their split months ago user7: ikr how are people defending her

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@/charmschoolgirl She is definitely releasing new music. So happy! I hope the Grammy's don't snub her this year.

@/its2ayem freak bro 😭 she just said that her and lewis have never agreed to anything beyond friends & he is one of her closest friends

@/genericuser5 who is this diva 💜

@/bananas I lowk felt bad when the interviewer asked about Max. You could like...see it on her face. How she didn't want to talk about it.

@/charlesdannate but!! she said they were on talking terms again!! and they'd reconciled and also that photo of them leaving els!!!!!!! YN LOVE SONG ABOUT MAX?

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liked by lando, jennierubyjane and 3,910,514 others

yourinstagram: TOO MUCH TO LOSE / FEB 2

view all 702,193 comments

francolapinto: mother 🛐

user1: oh next year is going to be HELL for him user2: @/lewishamilton @/maxverstappen idek which one of you she's dating but DO SOMETHING yourinstagram: oh franco...don't you think i'm a bit too old for you? user3: @/yourinstagram y/n bae he dated a mother of like 3 kids or something age is nothing LMAOAOAO user4: franco's mommy kink allegations r never going away

user5: red is SO your color!!

user6: i love how even her looks r maturing? like on burnout it was all schoolgirl, teen, naive and this album is SERVING.

luxurylaw: pleasure to style you !!

yourinstagram: nono it was MY honor

user7: time to wager. is this a baddie (i eat men) album or a breakup (???) album

user8: well she's all cozy w max now so maybe something happened with lewis? user9: @/user8 WHYYY I LOVED THEM TOGETHER

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r/popheads · 1 wk. ago jammies_on_all_night

Y/N L/N - TOO MUCH TO LOSE [MEGATHREAD]

This megathread is to be used for discussion regarding Y/N L/N's second album, as well as articles and reviews of the album. The album, Too Much to Lose, comes out at midnight in PST.

Please keep all reviews to the megathread - I will attempt to keep the post updated with reviews, please feel free to DM me if I've missed any.

Links to any leaks, as well as asking for any, will not be allowed in this megathread.

Album Links:

Spotify

Apple Music

TIDAL

Amazon Music

Tracklist:

we can't be friends (wait for your love)

prelude in e minor

cornerstone

tis the damn season

i love you, i'm sorry

heavenly

terrible things

don't look back in anger

This thread will be updated with important links for release day events, reviews of the album, etc.

ynsgirlfriend: I was expecting another pop-y album but this was so much more heartfelt. WCBF eats so hard. SO HARD.

↳ dannyric03: Love her growth. Also, the way the album goes from distancing herself (we can't be friends, duh) until the time is right and finding so much beauty in what time you have (terrible things). I don't even want to speculate who the album is about. It's...beautiful. ↳ User5: calling it rn. wcbf (wfyl) is going to be a smash hit on the radio

CharliesPrelude2: literally came up w my user after charlie's prelude (based off of chopin's prelude in e minor) SO Y/N ACKNOWLEDGED ME

↳ SalsaBird: LOL. Loved her on that track. Didn't expect them but they were haunting. Honestly, I'm surprised at how insane her vocals are.

Sharks1039: Trying to decode this. bear with me. [1/2] 1. we can't be friends (wait for your love) - i feel like this is pretty obviously about max. not exactly, bcs i think we've garnered it was y/n who left him first after THAT night (thanks burnout!!) but the fact that she's learning to live without him. even though she still wishes they could be friends. just my interpretation. 2. prelude in e minor - i don't know. it's beautiful. it's chopin. it's y/n. it's just there and a good transition into the rest of the album? it really cleared up my mind and helped me appreciate the other songs. 3. cornerstone - seeing that person in every place. "thought i saw you at the X, but it was only a lookalike." idk who's perspective this is supposed to be from. the message is imo such longing you look for it everywhere. 4. tis the damn season - i feel like the lyrics point toward max (hometown, etc.) but i also feel like we've never really seen anything in the last 4 years indicating a reunion like that. after we stopped seeing her and lewis (we saw them SM last year) i thought something might've gone wrong? i'm p sure they're still on friendly terms, they comment on each other's posts, etc. but less close. maybe some regret from her side?

↳ ApplestoApples: I KNEW I wasn't the only one who thought "tis the damn season" gave Lewis. They hinted at a sort of romance. Especially when Lewis visited Y/N in her hometown (they took a few pictures with fans who'd spotted them). "It always leads to you, in my hometown" is probably about her thinking a lot about that. Sad they didn't work out. Loved how well he treated her and how happy they seemed. ↳ Sharks1039: @/ApplestoApples how did i not know that. omfg it's so about lewis. ↳ Shakes1039: anyway part two of my yap. [2/2] 5. i love you i'm sorry - "you were the best but you were the worst, as sick as it sounds i loved you first" ??? i don't even know what this means but damn girl i hope you're ok now. 6. heavenly - this is such a love song. lowkey found it a TINY bit jarring when we went from ilyis to heavenly but it's more like. i love you (im sorry) to i love you (i'm not)? that's the only explanation i can think of. banger, though. 7. terrible things - MY FAVORITE SONG. ALSO SHOULD BE YOURS. "i can tell by your eyes that you're in love with me" hello. i bawled hearing this. i'm so glad she's found love because it seemed like the max thing shook her up so bad. "don't fall in love, there's just too much to lose ... i beg you to choose to walk away" oh my god. she still sounds pretty worried about how strong love is and how losing a loved one will hurt... 8. don't look back in anger - oasis cover. live. i feel like given the previous song (terrible things) it's like when you walk away to protect yourself from love, don't look back in anger. and at the end of the day, i think this is an album about max. some people talk about how she has growth through the album but honestly idrk about that. it's just her coming to terms with her actions. it's an album about being in love and all the bad things that happen when you're in love. it's an album about deciding to walk away to not hurt yourself. but at the end of the day, people are overcoming that desire to protect themselves. they want to love, even if it hurts.

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

liked by lewishamilton and 1,203,864 others

yourinstagram: hello everyone! happy valentine's ♡ i just wanted to take a moment to thank all of you for the support you have shown my music. everyone says this, but the songs i put out are pieces of my heart. they are lessons i have learned and stories i want to tell. some of you have already figured this out, but a little piece of advice:

don't be afraid to love. there are much more terrible things to experience.

view all 291,473 comments

yourinstagram: i mean don't be afraid to love in reasonable circumstances!! 😭 don't be afraid to love if people discourage it, if your heart truly wants it. pls be afraid to love if you're being forced against your will. love you all so much, take care and make good decisions!

user1: she's so real for freaking out over misinterpretation user2: sorry ma'am reading fics of your man as a mafia boss has stopped me from mafia reasonable decisions

lewishamilton: happy valentine's, y/n

yourinstagram: hope the grapes did something for you user3: roman empire unlocked. user4: omfg 😭 not the grapes

user5: hold up. why is no one talking about that photo. it's not in any of her music videos?? she's in that dress in the dlbia live performance but WHEN WAS IT TAKEN

user6: i bet it's max. user7: it's totally max. user8: RELATIONSHIP UPDATE PLS @/yourinstagram

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

liked by yourinstagram and 5,019,432 others

maxverstappen: Home is where the heart is.

tagged: yourinstagram

view all 715,893 comments

user1: HARD LAUNCH HARD LAUNCH

user2: it's real omg!!

user3: haven't seen y/n in ages THANK U FOR THE CRUMBS MAX

user4: the way he looks at her...

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

liked by 732,891 others

f1gossipofficial: Max Verstappen spotted crying after last Dutch GP. All our hearts are equally as heavy.

view all 13,405 comments

user1: poor man. last year of zandvoort. i'll miss it too

user2: i'm sure y/n will cheer him up! missed seeing her at the last few races

user3: omg what if she's pregnant... user4: girl 😭 i like to think max would've learned from kelly and put a ring on her BEFORE the baby user5: @/user3 yea the last photo we saw of her was like months ago and she was wearing a fur around her waist so we couldn't see much

user5: rip dutch gp.

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

maxverstappen: Life can do terrible things. But you are the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.

tagged: yourinstagram

Comments on this post have been limited.

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

BREAKING: Max Verstappen has retired from racing. He has reportedly moved back to the Netherlands with remaining family.

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

INTERVIEW WITH HUGH L/N-VERSTAPPEN

...

INTERVIEWER: Moving on, congratulations on the Best Actor award!

HUGH gives the interviewer a shy smile. He takes a sip of the coffee in his hands: Thanks. I was so surprised. I didn't think people enjoyed my performance that much.

INTERVIEWER: Well I guess you were proven wrong. How do you feel about following in your mother's footsteps, instead of racing like your father?

HUGH pauses before speaking: I suppose...I sometimes wonder if I would be suited for it. If I could've done more. At the end of the day, acting feels like keeping my mother's legacy. Many people remember her as my dad's wife, or just a songwriter. She went into acting because she loved it. I just wish she was more recognized for it.

[ There is a moment of silence as Hugh plays with the cup in his hands. ]

INTERVIEWER: I know your acceptance speech brought quite a few people to tears. It was very moving.

HUGH nods: I didn't mean to. I just wanted to thank my mom one more time. And my dad, too.

INTERVIEWER: It was a good kind of tears, I'm sure.

HUGH laughs.

INTERVIEWER: Which of your mother's songs is your favorite?

HUGH: Well, my dad used to try singing "terrible things" to me. He's not a great singer, so emphasis on the try.

INTERVIEWER: If I'm not wrong, the song does say "now son, I'm only telling you this because life does terrible things." Is it like a message to you?

HUGH: Yeah. I know the song is about how hard love is and how painful it is. But she did it anyway. What's my excuse? Life is short and there's so much to experience.

INTERVIEWER is handed a note. THEIR eyebrows furrow, looking at HUGH: Sorry, would you be comfortable answering a question about your dad? I know you only agreed to talking about Y/N. We can cut this part out if you mind.

HUGH shakes his head: No, it's quite alright. What was the question?

INTERVIEWER: Well, your father hasn't made any public appearances save for your Academy Award win. It's been many years...would he like to pass on a message?

HUGH: Oh, my dad loves to talk. Let me think. He's old, you know that. I think he enjoys the quiet life. He would've survive in an F1 car nowadays, but he still enjoys driving.

[ HUGH thinks. The INTERVIEWER doesn't prompt him. ]

HUGH smiles to himself: I don't think he'll be showing up at any of my future premieres. Don't expect that. It's been a while, yeah. But he's happy with his years. He said he was close to seeing her again.

INTERVIEWER only nods. There are tears in both their eyes.

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

a/n: it's over! lowk felt bad for the ending. but i think i like it this way. sorry ynlewis stans. i just think. at the end of the day they would find their way back to each other.

[sweetcircuits]

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[yupuffin]

I think the aspect of the 2.7 story that felt most impactful to me was something that was previously addressed in the Penacony main story, but was reemphasized and expanded upon with Sunday being the narrative focus of this update:

Sunday is scared.

His motivation to protect the people and things important to him -- Robin is an excellent example -- manifests as a desire for control, to eliminate potential dangers. This motivation is based in fear; he's afraid to lose what he has to factors beyond his control, like the bullet that nearly took his sister's life.

And part of the "true paradise" he longs for involves preventing the sense of powerlessness that accompanies that fear. He believes that humanity sleeps because "we are afraid to awaken from our dreams." Indeed, the appeal of the "sweet dream" of Penacony is freedom from the uncontrollable and inevitable tragedies of the waking world.

It's part of what made him such an effective villain in the Penacony arc; even though you may disagree vehemently with his actions, you can understand with and sympathize the rationale behind them. In his mind, absolute control over the Dreamscape -- the elimination of frightening unknowns -- is the most effective way to keep everyone safe and happy. However, this undermines the real freedom and autonomy of the affected populace, many of whom are unaware of the Dreamscape's true nature.

In the 2.7 update, Sunday is "nerfed after turning into a good guy," to use March's words. Previously, he enjoyed immense social status as the head of the Oak Family -- and as the imposing, invulnerable, "final boss"-style antagonist. Now, his role is effectively reversed; he's a fugitive who has to disguise himself to evade the potential consequences of simply being seen.

He's an incredibly vulnerable position.

Not just physically -- as the audience, we also get intimate insights into his feelings and thought processes. Now he recognizes the scope of the harm he was previously willing to cause in the name of absolute control, and shoulders the responsibility of dealing with the repercussions.

His newly evident guilt and shame is emotionally moving on its own...

...and becomes even more poignant when you realize that guilt and shame and vulnerability has been a crucial aspect of his character from the very beginning. After all, so much of his deep-seated fear of the unknown stemmed from him blaming himself -- his lack of control over the situation -- for Robin's unforeseen injury.

I found the scene at the Dream's Edge the most touching in this update. Sunday's conversation with Robin is a bit of a paradox: he is deeply sincere and vulnerable in speaking to his own sister, yet guarded because he must avoid revealing his true identity. And Robin, in turn, directly provides an alternate outlook on Sunday's character, describing him as though to someone who's never met him, as though he isn't there.

And Robin's perspective reaffirms that Sunday's apparent invulnerability was essentially a facade. He may have been the head of the Oak Family, and the imposing final boss, but at the same time, on the inside, he was continually paralyzed by fear.

Sunday has always been vulnerable. He has always been scared.

And I think what makes the conclusion to the 2.7 story so satisfying and triumphant is that Sunday begins to properly address his fear, his persistent guilt and shame. He moves beyond simply acknowledging it, and recognizes not just how indulging his fear can bring further harm, but also what good things (that otherwise wouldn't occur) can happen when he overcomes it -- as it were, when he doesn't let his fear control him.

I'm going to be real, I probably had an intelligent-sounding conclusion for this, but... it took me several weeks to write this and I've forgotten any idea i might have had previously, so let's just say he definitely hit me right in the feels. 🤣

[abitofboth]

GOD HELLO YES I’M SORRY IVE ONLY JUST SEEN THIS BUT ABSOLUTELY!!!!

I've started to see more welsh!owen popping up in the fandon recently which is making me SO happy!! it's one of my favourite headcannons for him and honestly, at this point, it's cannon in my eyes lmao

it started for me because I'm welsh myself and I hit all my favourite characters with my welshification beam, but aside from that, one glaring reasoning is his name actually! the origins of 'owen' come from the welsh name 'owain' (pronounced oh-wine) which is a pretty common welsh name.

there's a very famous man in welsh history called owain glyndŵr (oh-wine glind-ooh-er) who was the last native welsh person to hold the title the prince of wales, and he was born in 1359 so it's been a pretty long fuckin time since someone welsh has been on the throne (not that I support the monarchy, but it's worth noting because there's a lot of history between the welsh and the english with a lot of animosity between the two nations). all of this to say, owain glyndŵr led a 15 year long revolt to end english rule in wales, which I think is interesting to think about the comparisons of owen going against the world's leading governments with his work with chimera post-fall, even if the contexts are wildly different lmao. (glyndŵr did a lot of other very interesting things in welsh history which is definitely worth a read about)

I also really love the idea that owen was born in and grew up in wales, then later moved to london when he was a young adult. the thought that once he crossed over the border, he was saying goodbye to his old self and signing his life away to the british government and fully stepping into the world of spies. combined with him then going on to dedicate his life to chimera's cause, it's kind of heartbreaking to play with the idea that once he left wales his life was never really ever his own. he just became weapons for other people.

I also have the hc that he taught himself his RP accent. not so much any more, but back in the day many english people looked down on the welsh (look up the 'welsh not' for example) and I feel like owen would have this fear that his welsh accent would hold him back. he worked with/for the most powerful people in the world, he rubbed shoulders with the british government, he wanted to be respected, he wanted to be in a position of influence within the agency: he was not going to get that if he didn't sound like a rich english man. he had to fake his existence in high society and the easiest way was to force the accent out of himself. I like the idea of him involuntarily slipping back into it when his guard is aaaaaaall the way down (namely, when he feels safe with curt. :') )

speaking of, I LOVE the idea of him throwing in welsh words and phrases every now and then. I don't think he'd be fluent, but definitely knows enough to hold conversations with family etc. he absolutely calls curt 'cariad' (love/darling). 'del' is another cute one that can mean pretty/sweetheart that I think he would like using- “ti’n iawn, del?” would mean "you alright, sweetheart?" which HELLO!! is such an owen phrase to me

I also have a separate owen hc that his favourite book is the hobbit, and tolkien was pretty heavily inspired by wales when writing those books!!

and one last thing because I realise I'm word vomiting here: the welsh word 'hiraeth'. there's no direct english translation for this word, but it's essentially the feeling of a deep longing for something, especially for one's home. I think owen's entire being is stained with this feeling. a grief filled homesickness- whether in the context of his actual home, or the home he finds within curt, he goes kind of mad with it. it's even more heartbreaking to think of this feeling immediately after he fell and was left alone with no home to speak of. owies!!

I've sprinkled welsh owen into a few fics I've written in the past and I love seeing it pop up in other people's fics (one I remember and love was written by @considerablecolors with such a lovely subtle detail of owen's first crush being a boy called gethin) and it's just a hc that I really hold near and dear!! I've probably missed things out that I'd love to talk about but this is very much just a stream of whatever came spewing out first. I'd LOVE to read other people's thoughts and headcannons if anyone is willing to share!! <3

owen carvour my welsh king

[kveom]

booseoksoon in 2023

thank you for saving my kpop booseoksoon <;3 i'd been drifting away from kpop for a bit but then booseoksoon happened and look at me now. changed my whole year literally don't know who i'd be if it wasn't for booseoksoon comeback. thank you for providing amazing music, even better performances and just entertainment all around. kings of fun, kings of energy, kings of adlibs, kings of performance please come back next year 😫 cr: x

[froschli96]

You know what, fuck it, I have to speak my truth! (this is gonna be a rant, so anyone who actually likes assassin's creed revelations and/or the secret crusade, be warned or maybe don't read this at all)

remember how altaïr talks to king richard at the end of ac1, and richard is like "[humans] come into the world kicking and screaming, violent and unstable. it is what we are. we cannot help ourselves."? and how altaïr answers "no. we are what we choose to be." and how that ACTUALLY has meaning bc he himself was "violent and unstable" at the beginning of the game but he has learned and is now CHOOSING to be a better person who cares about others and humanity at large? remember how his calmness and gentleness was something that he ACQUIRED over the course of the story?

and remember how in revelations they then suddenly had a PRE-AC1 altaïr say about the first of his targets "no man should pass from this world without knowing some kindness." and be all wise and calm and collected during a nice little chat with al mualim, who suddenly acts all fatherly? (like, this is suddenly supposed to be a positive relationship? what??)

also, during the confession the target says to altair: "you put too much faith in the hearts of men, altaïr. [...] humans are weak, base, and petty." and altaïr answers: "no. our creed is evidence to the contrary." KJASJFJDKL???? like, it’s almost insulting how close this exchange is to the one with richard. you know, the one that was actually earned after a whole game of character development. like WTF??? cool congrats now that development means nothing. like, apparently that was just altaïr reverting BACK to being the exemplary assassin who understands and believes in the creed that he was apparently just born as. (i also hate how having a young inexperienced altaïr saying this implies that altaïr's faith in humanity is a sign of naivete instead of a sign of the wisdom he has gained after being confronted with counter arguments for a whole game, and also something that distinguishes the assassins from the templars who use humanity's supposed wickedness to justify controlling them like in AC1, but whatever)

altaïr’s development in AC1 mattered BECAUSE he is not NATURALLY a good person, it actually said something about humanity's capacity for both bad AND good and how humans don't have to be forced to be good through mind control bc they can by their own free will choose to be better when taught how and when allowed the freedom to grow. but no. apparently altaïr has just always been calm, wise and gentle. and he just sort of forgot about that during AC1 bc…. ? bc of adha?? bc of abbas???

oh don’t get me started on the whole abbas thing. (it doesnt even make sense that abbas is so hung up about his father and "his family’s honor", like what about the whole point of al mualim not allowing parents to be close to their children bc it would make them weak? like, my dude, you’re not supposed to HAVE any family aside from the brotherhood)

they used the throwaway character that had like 5 lines and made him into altaïr’s main antagonist in revelations… like, abbas wasn’t supposed to be this ONE dude who had personal beef with altaïr, he was just supposed to show how while altaïr’s revered by many, a lot of his brothers also hate him, bc 1) altaïr is a shitty person at this point and 2) bc there’s no real feeling of community and family in this version of the brotherhood, but just a pervasive sense of competition and jealousy — these assassins don’t care about their goal of safeguarding humanity bc they’re too hung up on petty squabbles and divided by rivalries (you know, the things that made malik hate altaïr even before solomon’s temple and that he overcomes in the end which enables him to forgive and to reconcile with altaïr so they can work together and stop al mualim? (you ever just think about "we are one. as we share the glory of our victories, so too should we share the pain of our defeat. in this way we grow closer. we grow stronger." and cry? bc i do. all the time. malik, the man that you are))

and now abbas is altaïr’s childhood best friend turned lifelong enemy?? like, bowden bent over backwards to come up with an explanation for why altaïr is an arrogant ass at the beginning of AC1, when the explanation is right there: he was raised to kill without asking questions and was constantly praised for how good he is at murder, which resulted in him becoming arrogant and disregarding human life. like, it doesn’t have to be some shakespearean family feud type shit. and guess what, this "simple" explanation actually plays into the story’s themes, who’da thunk!

(like, abbas might not have been a "fleshed out" character in AC1, but he had a specific function and now that function is gone. mr bowden, mr mcdevitt, you know characters are allowed to simply exist to tell us something about their worlds and the systems they live in and sometimes that’s more important and also more interesting than having every single character have a detailed backstory to explain all their behaviors, right?)

with all of this revelations loses all nuance in regards to the levantine brotherhood and also the creed in general. like, altaïr being a master assassin at the beginning despite being a terrible person and not actually understanding the creed is a criticism of the brotherhood and the creed itself. like, it said something about the order that someone like altaïr was able to get that high in rank, simply bc he's good at killing, which also tells us what is considered important in the al mualim era assassin order. when you make altaïr’s arrogance the result of his personal conflicts instead of how we was raised by a brotherhood that only valued one's ability to kill, you lose that characterization of the assassin order itself!

and by suddenly making al mualim a semi good "father figure" you also downplay his manipulation of not only altaïr but all those under his care. (altaïr says something about al mualim being "as a father" to him exactly twice in the codex, but he doesn’t mean by that that he WAS a father to him, what he means is that he was the CLOSEST THING he had bc HE DID NOT HAVE PARENTS, not because his mother died in childbirth and his father was executed when he was young btw, BUT BECAUSE IT WASN’T ALLOWED, like his parents actually lived but weren’t allowed to be close to him, he says he came to view al mualim’s "weak and dishonest" love as enough and even better BECAUSE HE HAD NOTHING ELSE, BECAUSE AL MUALIM ISOLATED HIS ASSASSINS FROM THEIR FAMILIES. al mualim "loved" him bc he was good at killing people for him! hm, i wonder if this could be trying to say anything about cults and indoctrination and the inherent contradiction in fighting for peace and free will by taking children away from their parents and raising them to become killers?? like, altaïr wasn't ~the special orphan boy~ taken in by al mualim bc his father died a hero's death, it was "the way of the order" to have al mualim be the closest thing to a parental figure for everyone to ensure absolute loyalty! altaïr saying al mualim was like his father is not supposed to make you go "oh, he must have actually been a good guy for altaïr to consider him a father", it should make you go "oh that's kinda fucked up that he considers the dude who made him into a killing machine and who manipulated him a sort of father figure"!)

and then in revelations they suddenly portray that relationship as positive and healthy??? like, it would be one thing to give it some nuance by delving into the psychology behind al mualim’s "love" and maybe showing how al mualim did care about altair in a complicated, fraught sort of way (like, you know, there’s a lot of interesting things you could say about al mualim at several points addressing altaïr as "my child" in AC1 and how that parallels Garnier referring to the people he drugged and abused as his "children", and what that says about how the templars view the people who they say they want to save and in whose best interests they supposedly act (in any case, al mualim doesn’t use that phrase because he has any real parental feelings but rather to patronize and to invalidate any objections, like in a "mother knows best" way))

but they even fucking DARE to parallel that relationship with that of altaïr and darim in revelations, by having the reflection in the puddle of darim hugging altaïr showing altaïr hugging al mualim…. like their relationship wasn’t inherently abusive but just tragically cut short because al mualim was just "corrupted by the apple"… like WHAT???? so it’s not the very real problems like grooming, manipulation and indoctrination and the hierarchical structure of the brotherhood itself (all of which are antithetical to the assassin ideology), it was just the evil apple all along. great. that’s DEFINITELY a lot more interesting.

god im sorry i really dont want to spread negativity but this is driving me INSANE. like, somebody please tell me im not crazy bc i feel like somehow most of the fandom is in agreement that revelations and the secret crusade have better storytelling and characterization than ac1.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, can we talk about how, even IF we completely ignore AC1 and treat revelations altaïr as his own character…. the narrative still doesn’t really work?

basically, the whole point of his story in rev is that "he gave his whole life to the brotherhood", this obsession led to him not using his time with his family which has him ending up dying alone in a dark library and this in turn makes ezio reevaluate his life choices…. except. he doesn’t? neglect? his family? or whatever? like, his devotion to the assassins is sort of painted as this tragic flaw that leads to a lonely death bc it supposedly comes at the cost of his family, but… his wife has joined the assassins, (at least) one of his sons is in the brotherhood and even when he goes to protect the assassins against the mongols, he takes his family with him (except for the son who stays behind bc he has a family of his own and who, ironically, ends up dying bc of that)… like, you can’t describe altaïr as a good husband and father in the database and have his son tell him that "everything that is good in me began with you, father" when they say goodbye, and then want to make us believe that he put his family behind the brotherhood and that that is a character flaw that leads to his tragedy.

because you HAVE to have a character’s tragedy be the result of a character flaw. like. that is how tragedies work. otherwise it just becomes tragedy for the sake of tragedy which is… boring bc it has no purpose. and we know it is SUPPOSED to have purpose bc ezIO FUCKING QUITS BEING AN ASSASSIN AFTER WITNESSING IT!

it’s like they want to have their cake and eat it, too — they didn’t want to actually make altaïr a bad husband/father, but still wanted to make his life a tragedy where he loses his family which is why instead they outsource all responsibility to abbas who now has to be the reason for ALL the deaths.

like, they try to make at least maria’s death kind of sort of the result of altaïr’s rashness or whatever but like… these guys KILLED THEIR SON and TOLD HIM THAT ALTAÏR HAD ORDERED HIS DEATH. like, altaïr losing it in response to that is not rash, it’s fucking logical and justified! if anything the scene made me angry at maria for trying to stop him. like, GIRL, he was YOUR son too??? but god forbid we give female characters actual real emotions, she has to fill the role of "voice of reason who dies for altaïr’s man pain" i fucking guess.

like, it’s this weird mix where his tragedy is simultaneously painted as his own fault but also not really bc abbas is the one responsible for all the shit that happens. it just… it just doesn’t really go together.

the only way to make his story make sense narratively and to give it actual purpose is by looking at it in the context of ezio’s story, bc the things he sees in altaïr’s memories are supposed to be a revelation (ha!) to ezio specifically. and i guess that’s maybe the crux of it all — altaïr’s story in revelations was conceived of first and foremost to support ezio’s story and development. which is probably also why many people maybe don’t notice bc, having skipped ac1 and started with ac2, the majority of people mostly care only about ezio and only really appreciate altaïr’s story in as far as it serves to push ezio forward. (tho i’ve also seen a few people say that ezio is also written kind of weird in rev, but i’ve never really been an ezio girly myself so i can’t speak to the truth of that)

like, altaïr dying alone in the library doesn’t really have to make sense for his character, i guess, bc it’s only really supposed to be a cautionary tale for ezio.

so, i guess, for once, they actually had a MAN dying for another man’s character development, which is pretty woke actually. ubisoft, i take everything back jksdsfjhgdsahfhsdhfghfdsgjhsdgjh

[witchysniffles]

new year's eve

A/gathario ft. sick A/gatha being too stubborn for her own good. 8.7k words (💀) There WILL be a part 2 to this at some point, but given how long this took it might be a minute lol.

All of this was inspired by @flutterytickles's tags on this post about the idea of a professor AU and a New Year's Eve party, and when I say I took that and ran with it...😳

I am MORE than happy to yap about this AU forever, but really all you need to know for this is that everyone's teaching at a small, liberal arts college in Boston. A/gatha was hired as an English professor, but now mostly teaches American history through literature and print culture. R/io studied environmental science with a focus in botany and also poetry in school, and she took a pay cut specifically to teach at a school that would let her do both. Other than that, I feel like it's pretty self-explanatory. Enjoy!! <3

Please don't reblog to non-kink blogs! Minors DNI.

“So it’s not going to be a party,” Rio said. “At least not according to Lilia. But Alice and Jen will be there, and a few other faculty members and some of Lilia’s grad students, and Alice assured me there will be good food, lots of drinks, and probably karaoke if they can find a way to hook it up to Lilia’s TV. Sounds like it’ll be a good time.”

“Hmm,” Agatha hummed. Rio had her on speakerphone on her desk while she was tidying up her office, using the time that barely anyone was on campus to prep for the spring semester without anyone commenting on how many empty energy drink cans she was hauling out to the recycling bin.

“Well you know how I feel about karaoke,” Agatha said. Rio thought she heard the sound of her clearing her throat, but she chalked it up to static on the line. “But is Lilia actually inviting me or is this you asking me to come with you?”

“Both,” Rio said. “Lilia doesn’t have your number and she figured you wouldn’t be checking your work email over the holidays, so she asked me to ask you. And I would like it if you came with me.” Rio paused. “You know, if you want to.”

There was another little burst of noise on the line—this time it almost sounded like a sniffle—before Agatha spoke again.

“Well, I promised Nicky I’d take him to the parade and the fireworks at the Common tomorrow, but that’ll be over and done by eight.” Agatha paused and this time Rio was sure she heard a sniffle. “Let me talk to the kid next door, see if he can sit in after I put Nicky down and I’ll…”

Agatha trailed off, and Rio frowned.

“You’ll…?”

“Hh-hold on, I n-need—”

Rio could hear Agatha’s breath stutter, and then before she could even process what was happening, she heard what sounded like a poorly-stifled sneeze from a distance like Agatha was holding the phone away from her face.

“Bless you?” Rio still wasn’t a hundred percent sure she was hearing things right, but she still spoke loud enough for Agatha to hear and—she assumed—roll her eyes at. What she wasn’t expecting, though, was Agatha’s shaky voice when she brought the phone back.

“D-don’t,” she started. “I’m not…n-nah…not…hheh’EHTtschu!”

That was definitely, for sure a sneeze that time, and though Rio couldn’t see it, she could tell by the involuntary little groan that followed that Agatha wasn’t happy about it. Whether it was about sneezing in general or about Rio acknowledging it with another, more enthusiastic “Bless you!” was anyone’s guess.

“Ugh, sorry,” Agatha said after collecting herself again. “You were saying?”

“I think you were saying something about getting a babysitter? But, if you’re not feeling well we don’t have to—”

“I’m fine,” Agatha said firmly. “It’s just some gunk Nicky picked up somewhere. It’s probably just one of those twenty-four hour things, I’m sure I’ll be fine tomorrow.”

Rio was pretty sure that wasn’t how colds worked, but Agatha’s tone told her the topic was not up for discussion, and Rio didn’t feel like pressing the issue would be helpful. This was Agatha, after all.

Last spring when they’d first gotten paired up to teach an interdisciplinary studies course on floral symbolism in classic American literature and poetry, Agatha had neglected to inform Rio that she was horribly allergic to about half the flowers they’d be talking about, so Rio hadn’t thought twice about showing up to the very first class with a fresh arrangement of native wildflowers to sit on the podium between them as they took turns going over the syllabus.

Agatha had done an admirable job downplaying her reaction for most of the hour-long class, only stifling the occasional sneeze into near-silence over her shoulder, but the second class was dismissed, she’d dissolved into the single most dramatic, drawn-out fit Rio had ever seen, blushing furiously the whole time and still insisting she was fine when she could gather enough breath to speak.

Rio had run up to her own office to grab her own bottle of Zyrtec, sure the whole time that this was going to get the whole class cancelled, and her partnership with Agatha would be over before it had even properly begun. With the meds in her system, though, Agatha had pulled herself together shockingly quickly to teach her afternoon class, and to Rio’s surprise, not only did their joint class proceed as planned (after a serious, Rio-initiated discussion of what parts of the syllabus Agatha was and wasn’t allergic to—which Agatha was also blushing furiously through—and an Agatha-initiated tacit threat to never speak of the incident again), but Agatha had been grateful enough for Rio’s help to offer to repay the favor by taking her out to dinner.

One thing led to another, and now, nearly a year later, they were dating, all because Agatha was enough of a stubborn bitch about her allergies to not keep antihistamines on her.

Rio had never actually seen Agatha sick before, but she assumed she probably wouldn’t handle that much better.

“Hh-ITSchu!”

Another sneeze from Agatha drew Rio from her thoughts.

“Ble—”

“Not yet, I…he’ETshiu! Ugh, fuck.”

“Salud,” Rio said.

“Shut up,” Agatha grumbled. “I’m fine. Just let me talk to the kid next door. I would never say this to his face, but he’s a total loser, there’s no way he’s got plans. I gotta check if Hanukkah changes anything, but I’ll text you when I know?”

“Sounds good. Love you, and get some rest!”

She could practically hear Agatha roll her eyes before she shot back a, “Love you too,” and ended the call.

Not half an hour later, Rio’s phone lit up with a text from Agatha.

Teen’s free to babysit. Pick me up at 9?

It’s a date, she replied.

~**~

Agatha was already waiting on the front steps when Rio’s overpriced Uber pulled up in front of the elegant Beacon Hill brownstone. Her hair was down, falling in loose waves over her shoulders, and she was wearing lipstick­, which wasn’t unheard of, but the deep raspberry red shade of it made something in Rio’s brain short out, and suddenly her only thought was about how badly she wanted to fuck it up at midnight.

As she drew closer, though, she realized that the lipstick was a distraction—and a damn good one at that—from the subtle little signs of illness on the rest of her face. Her makeup was impeccable, but up close, Rio could see the shadows of dark circles under her eyes, the barely-there pinkish tint at the tip of her nose, the subtle crease in her foundation that showed just how often she'd been—

Right on cue, Agatha scrunched up her nose with a small sniffle, and judging by the way her hands twitched at her sides, she was really fighting the urge not to rub it. Rio would never say it out loud, but she was pretty sure it was one of the cutest things she’d ever seen.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey, yourself,” Agatha said. Those raspberry lips twitched upwards, as Rio wrapped an arm around her waist and kissed her lightly on the cheek. Her skin felt a little warm for someone outside in the middle of winter. Rio couldn’t be confident it was high enough to be a fever, but she filed the thought away for later.

“So…,” Rio started as she pulled out her phone to look up Lilia’s address. “How were the fireworks?”

Agatha sighed heavily. “We didn’t end up staying. Nicky didn’t sleep well last night, which meant I didn’t sleep well last night, and we only made it halfway through the parade before he decided he wanted to go home.” Agatha sniffled and scrunched up her nose again. “Poor kid was practically falling asleep on his dino nuggets. I put him to bed and hh’he was out like a li-ihh­-light.”

The slight hitch of her breath drew Rio’s gaze upwards, and out of the corner of her eye, she could see Agatha scratching the bottom of her nose with her thumbnail.

“Oh poor thing,” Rio said, definitely not talking about Agatha; that would be ridiculous. “And how are you feeling? You sure you’re up for a wild party?”

Agatha rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “I think I can hiih-handle whatever Lilia’s got planned.”

“You sure?” Rio lowered her phone and met Agatha’s eyes. “Because we can just stay in, especially if you didn’t get much sleep last night. I hear they’re letting Andy and Anderson drink on CNN again this year, and we could do those Lego flowers from Christmas and just take it easy.”

Yeah, Rio thought to herself; that was a safe angle to approach it from. Asking outright if she was under the weather was a surefire way to get her to dig her heels in deeper, and while Rio was pretty sure that was going to happen anyway, she wanted to make sure Agatha knew she had an out if she wanted it.

As Rio had predicted though, Agatha shook her head.

“No,” she said. “I’m fine. I already missed the baby fireworks, and I don’t even remember the last time I got to go out for New Year’s, so I’m not missing this.” She punctuated her statement by audibly clearing her throat, and she glared at Rio for noticing. “And I feel fine,” she snapped. “Stop looking at me like that.”

“Ok,” Rio raised one hand in a mock surrender. “In that case, it looks like we have a choice between a pretty straightforward thirty minute walk, or we can take an Uber that’ll shave a whole five minutes off that time for…” she refreshed her app and her eyes widened in shock as she wordlessly showed Agatha the inflated price on the screen. “Suddenly I’m thinking it’s a great night for a walk. What about you?”

When she didn’t get an answer right away, Rio glanced up from her phone and took in the dazed look that had settled over Agatha’s features, the way those raspberry lips parted, one hand hovering in front of her mouth as her she scrunched up her nose once more in vain before—“hiET’SHhiew—‘ITSHhyu!” She aimed both sneezes into her elbow at the last second and then sniffled wetly as she rummaged around in her purse for…who the fuck still carried handkerchiefs in the twenty-first century?

“Bless you, bless you,” Rio said lightly, as Agatha blew her nose once, dabbing lightly at her nostrils to keep from completely destroying her foundation. Rio couldn’t help but notice that once she was done, she shoved the handkerchief in her pocket instead of putting it back in her purse.

 “Thanks,” Agatha muttered. “How long did you say the walk was?”

“Google says thirty minutes.”

Agatha gave a haughty sniff as she tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Closer to twenty if you walk like you live here,” she said. “I vote we do that.”

There was a part of Rio that thought about protesting further, but she knew it wouldn’t do any good, and besides that, Agatha was a grown woman who could listen to her own body. If she wanted to push herself for the sake of a stupid work party then who was Rio to stop her? And also, Rio selfishly really did want to mess up that lipstick against a backdrop of fireworks.

“Alright,” she sighed. “In that case, vámanos.”

With a swish of her long coat, Agatha set off down the block at such a pace that Rio had to jog to catch up.

~**~

Lilia lived on the top floor of a refurbished tenement building in the North End that was all decorative brick work and copper patina on the outside, with an interior that looked authentically pre-war. Which war exactly was anyone’s guess, but Rio was putting money on Civil.

The chilly night air had made both of their noses run, and they paused in front of the elevator to collect themselves. Rio pulled the sleeve of her sweater over her hand and swiped briefly at her nose. Agatha, on the other hand, took a bit longer to recover.

She’d been mostly alright on the walk over as far as Rio could tell—the fresh air really had seemed to be a good move—but now that they were back inside the dry heat of the building, it was clearly taking Agatha a second to gather herself. She had her handkerchief out and was running it on one finger under her eyes and around her nostrils, but her nose, it seemed had other ideas.

Her breath hitched once, twice, and she tipped her head back, her mouth just open enough that Rio could see she was pressing her tongue to the roof of her mouth to try to hold it back. It wasn’t enough, though, and Agatha let out a particularly vocal gasp right before she pitched forward with an itchy-sounding “hiih’IIShu!”

“Bless you,” Rio said.

“Ugh, thanks,” Agatha grumbled. “Must be the temperature change. I’m fine.”

She at least had the decency to flush as Rio eyed her skeptically, but before Rio could say anything else, Agatha was slipping the handkerchief back in her pocket, sliding open the metal grille in front of the elevator, and waving Rio inside.

“Can you just promise me something?” Rio asked as the elevator groaned and shuddered its way upwards. Agatha didn’t say anything, but she side-eyed Rio curiously. Rio took a deep breath and flexed her fingers at her sides as she said, “Promise me if you reach a point where you want to leave tonight for any reason you’ll tell me?”

“I’m—”

“I know you’re fine,” Rio said. “And I’ll let you be the judge of your own body. I’m just telling you that if you want an out you’ve got one, no questions asked.”

Agatha considered her words for a moment. Her lips were pressed in a thin line as she ran her tongue along the inside of her cheek, and then she sighed.

“Alright,” she said quietly. “Thank you.”

“Any time.”

The elevator jolted to a stop and they stepped out into a long hallway. There was music and laughter and a scent that Rio could only identify as ‘miscellaneous party food’ wafting from their left.

“I’m gonna take a wild guess that Lilia’s that way,” she said. She glanced over at Agatha who just tossed her hair over her shoulder, cleared her throat, and sniffed once more before nodding in the direction of the sound.

“Shall we?”

Rio hesitated for just a moment, captivated by the way Agatha’s mask slid so smoothly into place. She had hardly realized just how much she got to see when they were alone until suddenly she was faced with the Agatha that was ready to actually walk into the party.

The little signs were still there: the way that her foundation was starting to separate and smudge around the tip of her nose, the way her lips parted ever so slightly so that she could breathe without the air catching audibly on the building congestion in her sinuses.  It was an impressive performance. Frankly if Rio hadn’t seen evidence to the contrary, she might have even believed Agatha’s little act.

Of course, the fact that she had gotten to see that evidence to the contrary at all—even if Agatha was denying it the whole time—was also not lost on Rio. It made her stupid, lovesick heart flutter in her chest just realizing that Agatha trusted her that much. It was also mildly annoying knowing that it would be that much harder to tell if Agatha reached her limit tonight, but they’d cross that bridge when they came to it.

She must have lingered a bit too long, though, because Agatha noticed she wasn’t following and raised an eyebrow at her.

“Are you okay?” she asked, looking pointedly at Rio’s hands.

Rio hadn’t even noticed that she was fluttering her fingers at her sides, but the sudden awareness made her stop and flex her hands.

“Yeah,” she said. “Let’s do this.”

Rio reached the door at the end of the hall first and knocked right below the brass 4F affixed to it. When no one answered right away, Agatha tried the knob and found that it was already unlocked. She glanced at Rio with a shrug before pushing it all the way open and leading the way inside. 

Rio's first impression upon stepping into Lilia's space was that it perfectly answered the question, "What if an eccentric gender studies professor with a fortune-telling side hustle had lived in the same rent-controlled apartment since the 70s?" which wasn't a question Rio had been asking, but it was nice to have an answer nonetheless. The entry way led into a spacious living room filled with squashy, mismatched furniture. Decorative lamps on various surfaces gave the room a soft, warm glow, and there were tapestries and artwork covering nearly inch of exposed wall. It was inviting and a little overwhelming in the same way that Lilia herself could be and Rio found that she kind of liked it.

Her second impression was that she and Lilia definitely had different ideas of what "not a party" meant. There were far more people than she had expected here. She vaguely recognized some other faculty members and a few of Lilia’s grad students and TAs who hung out around her office a lot, but she was only halfway through her second year of teaching, so there were still more unfamiliar faces than familiar ones.

"Soo…," Agatha started, leaning close to Rio's ear as she slipped out of her coat, "Are we sure that Lilia understands what a party is?”

Rio bit back a laugh as the hostess in question rounded the corner. “Did I hear a knock? I thought I—oh, Rio, you came!”

Before Rio could react, Lilia swept forward and enveloped her in a brief, but warm hug that had Agatha pressing herself flat against the wall to stay out of the way.

“Oh, I’m so glad you were able to make it,” Lilia said. It wasn’t until she stepped back that she seemed to notice Agatha. Something flickered behind her eyes for a fraction of a second before her wide smile was back in place. “Agatha, it’s nice to finally see you outside of the office for a change. Did you two come together?”

“Sort of,” Agatha said at the same instant Rio said, “Kind of.”

Lilia raised an eyebrow, and Rio glanced over at Agatha who was starting to get a sort of dazed look in her eyes, so Rio quickly took over.

“We split an Uber,” she said. “Those holiday prices are crazy, but if the alternative is the green line on New Year’s…” she trailed off with a shrug and an eye roll, and that seemed to be good enough for Lilia. Or at least, if she had further suspicions, she was good enough not to voice them.

Out of the corner of her eye, Rio could see Agatha bring her hand in front of her mouth in a loose fist, her thumb resting along her jaw and her first finger pressed against the bottom of her nose. It wasn’t entirely out of the ordinary—one thing about Agatha, the woman was always touching her face—but Rio guessed from the way Agatha scrunched up her nose that it was a little more practical at the moment.

Rio was about to come up with some excuse to try to shoo Lilia away, when someone else called her name from elsewhere in the apartment. Lilia glanced in the direction of the voice and sighed.

“I suppose I should go see what all the fuss is about,” she said. "You two feel free to make yourselves at home. There's food in the dining room, drinks in the kitchen, and I think someone brought some..." she mimed smoking a joint as she trailed off, and Agatha snorted. "If you want to do that, though, just do me a favor and take it outside or on the fire escape. The scent lingers in here like nothing else.”

“Understood,” Rio said.

Lilia gave a satisfied nod before turning on her heel and disappearing back into the festivities.

Rio turned towards Agatha just in time to see her shove her face into her bunched up coat and muffle a forceful sneeze into it. She came up for air with a slightly dazed look on her face, her mouth still open in preparation, but after a long moment of anticipation, nothing else happened. Agatha exhaled with an angry huff and hung her coat up on an empty hanger.

Rio did the same after her, except she nearly dropped the hanger when Agatha suddenly swore behind her. Rio whirled around just in time to see Agatha crush her nose between her thumb and forefinger as she pitched forward with a pair of stifled sneezes that were nearly silent save for a soft, choked off little gasp.

 Rio almost felt a little guilty for it, but she couldn’t help noticing just how different these cold sneezes were from Agatha’s allergic fits. It was a strange thing to think about, but with her allergies, Agatha seemed to have some semblance of control, at least at the start. The tickle tended to be a slower, more torturous build that Agatha was shockingly good at hiding, and the sneezes themselves started off as soft, tickly little things that she was scary-good at keeping quiet. This cold, by contrast, seemed to keep her on her toes, sneaking up on her and then backing off just to come back with a vengeance, and Agatha was clearly already getting frustrated.

Agatha released her nose with a heavy sigh and a wet sniffle, and when she noticed Rio looking at her, she frowned.

“What?” she snapped.

“Nothing,” Rio said. “Bless you.”

That seemed to soften Agatha around the edges for a moment, and she muttered a quiet, “Thanks,” before she brushed past Rio into rest of the apartment. “Let’s find the kitchen,” she said. “I don’t know about you, but I could use a drink.”

Rio rolled her eyes, but followed along anyway. It was less than two and a half hours to New Year’s, but she had a feeling it was going to be a long night.

~**~

When Lilia had said there were drinks in the kitchen, Rio had expected champagne, some prosecco, maybe some kind of fancy Italian wines and some seltzers in the fridge for the grad students. What she hadn’t expected was a downright undergrad-rager amount of boxed wine and a rainbow of Jell-O shots, but now that she was looking at the spread, she realized that yeah, actually, this kind of tracked.

There was indeed an array of random seltzers and cheap beer in the fridge along with a couple of bottles of something bubbly with sticky notes on them warning that they were not to be touched until midnight. Rio grabbed a mango White Claw and turned around to see Agatha debating between the wine and the shots like it was a matter of life and death. After a moment, she reached a compromise with herself in the form of downing a purple Jell-O shot and then immediately grabbing a plastic cup to fill with room-temperature Franzia, because sure, why not?

“Hey, Rio, you made it!”

Rio spun around to see Alice approaching with a beer in hand and a bright smile on her face.

“Of course,” Rio said. “I wouldn’t miss it!” She took a sip of her seltzer and surveyed the room. “Although there are a lot more people than I expected when Lilia told me specifically that this wasn’t a party.”

“That’s Lilia for you,” Alice said. “Anything less than a full-on rager doesn’t count as a party to her. But for what it’s worth, it’ll probably start to clear out by 11:30ish. Most people just use this as a rest stop for a bit and then walk to the waterfront to catch the fireworks. But they’re missing out because that’s usually about when Lilia gets stoned enough to break out the oracle cards and that’s worth sticking around for.”

“Sounds like fun.” Rio hadn’t even heard Agatha come up behind her, but there she was eyeing Alice over the rim of her plastic cup of cheap wine. “When do we break out the Ouija board and start telling ghost stories?”

“Oh hey, Agatha,” Alice said. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other as she glanced from Rio to Agatha and back again like she was trying to connect some invisible dots. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Yeah, good to see you too,” Agatha said flatly. She took a long sip of her wine, and she held her cup in front of her face a second longer than strictly necessary to block her nose from view as it twitched just the slightest bit. A tense moment passed where Rio couldn’t tell if Agatha was actually going to sneeze or not, but she recovered quickly, lowering her cup and shouldering past Rio towards the dining room. “I’m gonna get some food.”

“Ok, bye, Agatha,” Alice said drily. She shot Rio a look. “I didn’t know you two…”

She trailed off, and the implied ellipsis hanging off Alice’s words felt like a set trap for Rio to walk into. She’d had the feeling that her officemates were starting to suspect something for a while—from the sounds of it there was even a betting pool now—but Rio wasn’t going to give anyone the satisfaction of knowing that easily.

It wasn’t so much that they were trying to keep it a secret—sneaking around like teenagers wasn’t really all it cracked up to be when they were both parties involved were closer to fifty than fifteen—but with a kid in the mix, and Rio being so new, and Agatha’s…well, being Agatha, they just…never really cared to make a grand announcement to their colleagues. At some point it would come out, that much they both knew, but for now it was still sort of thrilling to have such a secret that was theirs and theirs alone.

So it was with all of that in mind, that Rio managed to say, “Lilia’s the one who invited her.” She took a swig of her seltzer and wished she had grabbed something harder. “We just split an Uber here.”

“Ah, sure,” Alice said. “It’s just funny; Lilia’s been trying to get her to come to stuff for years now, but this is the first time she’s actually shown. I wonder what changed.”

“Yeah,” Rio mused as she watched Agatha disappear around a corner. “I wonder.”

“Ok, well…” Alice bounced on the balls of her feet and clapped her hands together as she took a slow step back. “I need to track down an HDMI cord to try to set up karaoke, but I’ll be around.”

“I’ll see you,” Rio said.

She gave Alice a half-hearted wave and then followed Agatha’s trail into the cramped dining room where she found Agatha trapped in conversation with a short woman with a neat blonde bob who Rio vaguely recognized from the…admissions office? Student life? Something like that.

Whatever they were talking about, Agatha hardly seemed to be in the mood for it, but the woman clearly wasn’t taking the hint. Agatha had her hand in front of her face again, the knuckle of her first finger moving slowly back and forth under her nose as she nodded absently, her attention clearly more on her nose than her conversation partner.

If Rio had felt a little guilty about watching before, she felt downright voyeuristic now. From the corner of the doorway, Rio had a perfect view of Agatha’s profile, and she watched with rapt attention as Agatha managed to wrestle the tickle back long enough to interject.

“That sounds great, Sharon, but you see, the problem is that I don’t want to, so…” she trailed off with a contemptuous, open-handed shrug, and the woman—Sharon, apparently—just laughed.

“Oh, I’ll get you one of these days!” She wagged a finger playfully in Agatha’s direction before glancing down at her empty cup. “I’m gonna get some more wine, but I’ll email you once we get back on campus!”

“I’ll delete it,” Agatha called after her in a mocking tone.

She waited until Sharon was safely out of the room before whirling around and coughing into her elbow. She recovered quickly enough, but kept her arm in front of her face for a moment too long. Rio could see her shoulders tense and then release as she smothered a trio of sneezes against her sleeve, each tripping over the next like they had taken umbrage at being held back for so long. “Hiih’TSHh!-h’TSHh-TCHhu!”

“Bless you,” Rio said.

Agatha startled at the sound of her voice and spun around to glare at her.

“I’m fine,” Agatha said through gritted teeth.

“I didn’t even ask.”

“Well you were thinking it and that’s bad enough,” Agatha snapped.

Her voice was starting to take on a more noticeably-congested edge, and Rio found herself wondering if she’d have to put her foot down at some point. Either Agatha was a better liar than Rio had thought if she had been feeling this bad this whole time, or she was going downhill faster than Rio had assumed she would, and frankly Rio wasn’t sure which was worse.

“Is this where the…oh. I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

Rio and Agatha both spun around to find Jennifer Kale smirking at them from the doorway like she very much hoped she was, in fact, interrupting something.

“You wish,” Agatha growled. “What do you want, Jen?”

“Maybe to socialize?” Jen said slowly like she was trying to explain the concept to a child. “At a social event? Although I can’t imagine you have much experience with those.”

“Can it, Kale,” Agatha snapped. She took a long sip of her wine and shouldered past Jen on her way back into the kitchen. “I’m not in the mood.”

“Nice to see you too, Agatha!” Jen called after her. She turned back to Rio and rolled her eyes. “You really can’t take her anywhere, can you?”

The question felt equal parts loaded and rhetorical, and given Jen’s…history with Agatha, Rio figured her safest option was to plead the fifth. She ignored Jen’s pointed smirk and took another long drink of her seltzer.

“Well, forget her,” Jen said. “I was actually hoping to run into you here. I heard back from my mother about those old Home Garden magazines we were talking about? She found some of my grandmother’s old issues, and she said she’ll send them out to me next week. I can bring them into the office when they get here if you want to go through them.”

“Oh, sweet!”  Rio had been working for most of the fall on a proposal for a class on Victory Gardens and the development of urban home gardening, and some of the earliest primary sources had proven to be a bit of a bitch to track down. “Yeah, I’ll be in and out of the office the next few weeks before the semester starts, but I’d love to get my hands on anything you’ve got.”

“Cool,” Jen said. “I’ll keep you posted.” She gave Rio a soft smile and looked like she was about to say something else, but Rio took the pause as an excuse to slip away.

“I’m gonna go mingle a bit more. You know, network or whatever, but I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah,” Jen said. “Yeah, I’ll see you.”

Rio grabbed a star-shaped sugar cookie off a platter at the end of the dining table and popped it into her mouth as she slipped out into the living room before Jen could say anything else.

Agatha was across the room, in another tense conversation with a woman Rio definitely recognized from the library, but she couldn’t quite place the name. Dottie? Sarah, maybe? Either way, Agatha saw Rio looking and shot her a sharp glare. Rio took the hint and headed over to where Alice was fussing with Lilia’s ancient CRT TV.

It turned out it didn’t even have an HDMI port, which meant the karaoke idea was getting nixed, but after a little bit of snooping in the cabinet underneath, Rio found a dusty plug-and-play joystick with a collection of old arcade games that was still in working order, and it only took a few rounds of Frogger before a full-on tournament broke out.

Rio lost sight of Agatha as a small crowd started to gather around the TV, but despite that, if she was being honest, she was kind of actually starting to have a good time. As the clock ticked ever closer to midnight, the crowd did in fact start to thin out, and those who were left were mostly reaching a pleasant state of being under their influence of choice. Conversation and laughter flowed easily, and Rio found herself suitably distracted from worrying about Agatha.

That was, at least, until she caught sight of Agatha slipping away from the rest of the party, making a beeline for the bathroom down the hall with her hand against her face.

That got Rio distracted enough that she ran Ms. Pacman straight into a pixelated ghost to a collective groan from her audience, but Rio found herself not really caring. She passed the joystick off to Alice who was going for the high score on Galaga, and picked her way out of the crowd.

“You good?” Jen asked.

“Yeah,” Rio said. “I’m just gonna grab another drink.”

She headed into the kitchen and grabbed another seltzer—a wild berry Truly this time—and made a pit stop in the dining room to grab a couple of those sugar cookies in a napkin before following Agatha’s path down the hall towards the bathroom. She was barely halfway to the door when she heard the unmistakable sounds of Agatha…well, struggling.

“Hih-TSSHhiu! Heihh-hhETshiw!” Rio heard what she assumed was a hand slamming down hard on the edge of the sink, followed by harsh fit of coughing that only seemed to feed back into the cycle as Agatha paused just long to inhale sharply before—“HHET’Sshiu! Motherfucker!”

“Agatha?” Rio knocked lightly on the door with her knuckle. “It’s just me. You ok?”

“F-fuck off,” Agatha growled. Her voice was really starting to go now—it sounded low and scratchy, cracking between syllables—and though she made a point of turning on the water in the sink, Rio could still hear her sniffling miserably.

“Agatha, come on, don’t do this to yourself.”

She got no response to that, presumably because Agatha knew that her voice wasn’t helping her case at this point. Rio checked the time on her phone; it was after eleven now. If she’d known a few hours ago that this was where they were going to end up, she’d have put her foot down at the start. She should have pushed harder when Agatha was still malleable. Now it felt like she was talking to a brick wall. Or a closed wooden door, she supposed.

Just as she was about to get up to go back to the party, she heard Agatha clear her throat.

“If I’b bothering you so mbuch you can just fucki’g leave,” she snapped.

“Agatha, that’s not…” Rio trailed off as Agatha’s words actually hit her.

Oh.

So that’s what this was all about.

“Listen,” Rio said. “I’m not leaving you. Not because of the party and definitely not because you’re sick. You’re kind of fucking stuck with me whether you like it or not, and I’ll give you space, but I’m not leaving you. Take as much time as you need. I’m heading back out to the living room, but I’ll be here for you whenever you’re ready.”

The water stopped running and Rio could hear Agatha sniffle again. She didn’t say anything, but then again, she didn’t really have to. It was enough just for Rio to know she was actually listening. As she started to turn away, she suddenly remembered the cookies in her hand.

“Oh, and I brought you a little something to eat. They’re right out here if you want them.”

There was a narrow little table with a collection of candles and crystals next to the bathroom door, and Rio set the napkin-wrapped cookies on edge before she headed back down the hallway. When she reached the end, she heard the bathroom door open and shut, and when she turned around, the cookies were gone.

~**~

By 11:30, the party was smaller, but rowdier than ever. Lilia, who had been out on the fire escape more than once, was giggling her way through a tarot reading for Jen over the arm of the other couch. There was music blasting from someone’s phone, and a cheer went up as Alice finally broke her high score. Everyone that was left was talking or laughing, and it was easy enough for Rio to slip back into the fray and plop herself on an overstuffed couch cushion without so much as a glance her way.

The minutes seemed to drag by impossibly slow. 11:45 turned to :50, turned to :55, and Rio was starting to think she might have to press her luck and check on Agatha again when she felt a hand on her shoulder, and speak of the devil, there she was. Her hair obscured most of her face so Rio couldn’t get a great look at her, but she tapped Rio’s shoulder and nodded towards the fire escape, and that was all Rio needed to scramble to her feet and follow her.

There was no one out there at this time of night; everyone left was inside, watching reluctantlyas Alice unplugged the game and tuned the TV in to the Times Square ball drop. Agatha slipped out the open window onto the metal platform, and before Rio could even process what they were doing, Agatha grabbed the railing of the narrow stairs leading up towards the roof and started to climb.

“Ok, not that I’m not glad you’re out here again, but what are the fuck are you doing?” Rio asked, trying not to notice just how high above the city streets they were.

Agatha paused and looked back at her. “I wa’t to watch the fireworks.”

She said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world, like it had been her plan this whole time, and though Rio hated the thought of setting foot on those narrow, creaking stairs, she had to admit that, yeah, she very much did want to watch the fireworks too.

She followed Agatha, and they both scrambled over the lip at the top. After the hazy warmth of Lilia’s apartment, the chill breeze was a welcome change, and Rio had to admit, the view was nice from up here. Rio checked the time on her phone. Two minutes to midnight, and she swore could feel it in the air.

“You don’t have to kiss mbe or adythi’g,” Agatha said. “I just thought this mbight be dice.”

Ninety seconds to midnight.

“Would you stop me if I did?” Rio asked.

Agatha scoffed. “You’d really risk catchi’g this?”

“What can I say?” Rio shrugged. “I’m feeling lucky this year.”

“But I’b gross.”

Rio pressed her cold hand against Agatha’s fever-warm cheek—oh yeah, she was definitely going downhill—and guided her gaze up so she could take her first good look at Agatha’s face in the moonlight.

Agatha’s bright blue eyes were watering so badly it looked like she was crying, and though her mascara had held up valiantly for the last few hours, it was starting to smudge in earnest now. The makeup around her nose was a patchy mess, clinging to the dry, reddened skin where it hadn’t been rubbed off entirely. Her lipstick had honestly held up surprisingly well, although the edges were starting to get fuzzy. All of that coupled with her irritated frown as she sniffled and wrinkled her nose again made her look so pathetically adorable that Rio could almost melt.

“See that’s the funny thing,” Rio said. “You’re saying gross, but all I’m seeing is the most beautiful woman in the world.”

Agatha blushed furiously, but she let Rio pull her closer.

Ten seconds to midnight.

The air was humming with electric energy. Rio was sure there was nowhere else on earth she’d rather be.

Five!

They could hear the countdown from all directions.

Four!

Agatha swore as her nose twitched and she aimed a loud “Hh-ITShoo!” into her shoulder.

Three!

Agatha sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve.

Two!

“Last cha’dce to back out.”

One!

Rio smirked. “Not on your life.”

Happy New Year!

All at once, the city erupted around them, but Rio hardly paid it any mind as her lips met Agatha’s, waiting and eager, and for a moment, they were the only two people in the world. Rio could taste the artificial vanilla of Agatha’s lipstick, could feel Agatha’s poor, abused nose against her cheek as she tangled her fingers in Agatha’s hair and savored absolutely everything about the moment.

Agatha was the first to turn away, gasping for breath that couldn’t break through the wall of congestion in her nose, but she didn’t pull away from Rio’s arms.

They stayed like that for a long moment, foreheads pressed together as the fireworks over the water lit up the night sky around them.

“Rio?” Agatha finally croaked.

“Yeah, love?”

 “I dod’t feel very well,” Agatha said. She let her shoulders drop and rested her head on Rio’s shoulder so that her next words came out even softer. “I thigk I’b ready to leave ndow.”

“Oh, you are, huh?”

Agatha nodded weakly against Rio’s neck. Rio bit back a chuckle and carded her fingers through Agatha’s hair, which just made Agatha press closer. She was for sure running a fever now, but Rio didn’t think she needed to say that part out loud.

The fireworks were starting to die down now. The city that slept by 10pm was already quieting again, and a cool breeze blew across the rooftop, making them both shiver. That was enough to finally spur Rio into action. Despite Agatha’s low whine of protest, Rio took a step back, and reached into Agatha’s pocket to find her crumpled handkerchief. She offered it to Agatha who rolled her rheumy eyes, but accepted it gratefully and set about wiping away the tear tracks and the smudged eye makeup. There wasn’t much she could do for her foundation at this point, but after a moment she managed to pull herself back to some semblance of her usual self.

“Ready?”

“H-hold on.” Agatha held up one finger as she inhaled a shaky breath. Her eyes fluttered shut, her lips parted, and she stayed like that for a long moment, before—

Fuck, I lost it.” Agatha scrubbed at her nose with the crumpled handkerchief in frustration before flipping her hair over her shoulder and following Rio to the edge of the roof to step gingerly back onto the fire escape.

The party was well and truly winding down now, but those that were left seemed occupied with champagne and company, so no one seemed to notice when Rio and Agatha slipped back inside. For a second, Rio almost thought they could make a clean break for it. They’d grab their coats and slip outside, and Rio would text Lilia a brief goodbye once they were in the Uber back to Agatha’s place.

That kind of luck didn’t seem to be on their side, though, because Lilia caught them as they passed the kitchen doorway.

“Oh, Rio, are you leaving?”

Rio stopped dead in her tracks like she’d been caught sneaking in after curfew. She could feel Agatha stiffen and clear her throat next to her.

“Oh, uh, yeah,” Rio said with a nervous glance at Agatha. “It’s getting late and—”

“I have to let the babysitter go,” Agatha chimed in. “Rio offered to split a car.”

Her voice was fading in earnest now, but Rio noticed how carefully she was choosing her words so at least she didn’t sound too congested on top of it. Her explanation seemed to be enough for Lilia, who smiled at them both.

“Well, get home safe,” she said. “Happy New Year! And Agatha, I hope you feel better soon!”

Agatha’s jaw dropped and she looked like she was contemplating homicide or suicide or both, but Rio just gave her a shove in the direction of the door and gave Lilia a soft “Happy New Year,” and a shy wave in return.

She grabbed both of their coats out of the closet with one hand while she pulled up Uber on her phone with the other. No way they were doing that walk again tonight.

“Ok, driver’ll be here in three minutes,” Rio said.

When Agatha didn’t respond right away, Rio looked up to see her frozen in pre-sneeze torture, her lips parted, eyelashes fluttering, brows knitting together as she took a breath in, and then—

“Oh fuck mbe!” Agatha scowled and pinched the bridge of her nose hard.

“Oh, pobrecita,” Rio breathed. “Let’s get you home.”

Agatha rolled her eyes, but before she could say anything, the lost sneeze snuck back up on her with a vengeance just as Jen and Alice passed by on their way to the kitchen.

“HHT’SCHiu!”

“Bless you, Agatha!”

“Fuck off, Jen!” Agatha called back.

With that, she flipped her hair over her shoulder, held her flaming cheeks high, and stalked out of Lilia’s apartment, leaving Rio to call out a soft, “Happy New Year, guys!” before jogging to catch up.

~**~

The ride back to Agatha’s place was short and quiet, and even though she hadn’t strictly been invited, Rio followed Agatha inside where Agatha paid the babysitter, kicked off her shoes, and tossed her coat in the vague direction of the coatrack before throwing herself down onto the couch in the parlor.

Rio had been in Agatha’s house more than a few times, but this—Agatha being this miserable in her own home—was new enough territory that she wasn’t quite sure what to do with herself. She shed her own coat and shoes, and picked up Agatha’s so at least they wouldn’t be a tripping hazard later, and returned to stand behind the couch.

Agatha had one hand dangling towards the floor and the other over her eyes like if she blocked her vision, she could pretend the night had gone differently.

“So,” Rio started carefully. “What are you thinking? Do you want me to stay?”

Agatha moved the hand over her face and looked up at Rio with red, watery, exhausted eyes.

“I cad take care of byself,” she said.

“I know you can. That’s not what I’m asking.” Rio leaned over the back of the couch and reached one hand down to brush a lock of hair out of Agatha’s face, curling it gently around her finger. “Do you want me to stay?”

“You’ll get sick,” Agatha whined.

“Again, not what I’m asking. And for what it’s worth, you did have your tongue in my mouth less than an hour ago, so I’m pretty sure that ship has sailed.”

Agatha started to laugh, but it quickly turned into a cough that only seemed to irritate her nose as she quickly brought her hands up to cover an itchy sneeze. “hH-IItschu!”

“Salud, baby.”

“Thagks,” Agatha grumbled. She sniffled wetly and wiped her nose roughly on her sleeve. “Ugh, feel gross! I hate bei’g sick.”

Rio bit back a laugh. “I don’t think most people really enjoy it.” She had moved from playing with Agatha’s hair to scratching lightly at her scalp. Agatha’s eyes fell closed and she moaned into Rio’s touch.

“Let me ask a different way,” Rio said. “Do you want me to leave?”

Agatha’s eyes opened again, and when she looked up at Rio with her flushed cheeks and her sniffly nose, Rio felt like she could melt into a puddle on the spot. The flush in Agatha’s cheeks deepened as she slowly shook her head no.

“Ok,” Rio said. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“Shut up,” Agatha muttered without any bite.

“Ignoring that because you’re sick,” Rio said.  “Now what do you say we get you somewhere more comfortable than the couch so you can get some actual rest, hm?”

It took a few more minutes of gentle prodding from Rio to get Agatha to her feet and up the stairs, but once she was moving, she seemed to be able to handle herself. She poked her head into Nicky’s room before heading to her own room to change while Rio busied herself digging around in the bathroom medicine cabinet.

All Agatha seemed to have was a bottle of Advil, a box of Zyrtec, and a mostly-empty bottle of grape-flavored children’s cold medicine that was missing the measuring cup. Rio vowed to make a supply run in the morning, but for now, the Advil was probably better than nothing. She filled a glass with water from the sink, and then grabbed the allergy meds for good measure and headed for Agatha’s bedroom.

Agatha had already changed into an oversized t-shirt with an ambiguous number three on it, and a pair of worn flannel shorts that were practically indecent. She’d pulled her hair into a loose bun, and she was just finishing wiping off the last of her makeup with a wipe that she tossed carelessly in the direction of the trash can. It missed by a long shot, but Rio thought it was cute that she’d tried.

“Here,” Rio said, holding out the water and two ibuprofen tablets. “You didn’t have much, but this should help keep your fever down.” Agatha took the meds and washed them down without protest, and Rio offered her the box of allergy meds. “I don’t know if these’ll do much, but they might at least take the edge off until I can run out to the store tomorrow.”

Agatha’s cheeks flushed a deeper pink. “About that…”

“What are you…?” Rio trailed off as she pulled the blister pack out of the box and found it completely empty. “Why was this still in the cabinet if you knew it was empty?”

“To remind myself to buy more,” Agatha said like it was completely obvious and not actually one of the most ridiculous things Rio had ever heard.

“Ok, scratch that then.” Rio tossed the empty package into the trash can. “Do you want anything else?”

Agatha shook her head as she set her water on the nightstand.

“Just hurry up and c’mere,” she said, making grabby hands in Rio’s general direction. It was quite possibly the cutest thing Rio had ever seen, and she wiggled out of her nice jeans and into a spare set of pajamas as fast as she could so she could crawl under the covers with Agatha, who immediately attached herself to Rio’s side.

“I’b sorry I was a bitch earlier,” Agatha mumbled.

Rio chuckled as she leaned her cheek against the top of Agatha’s head. “Lucky for you, I kind of like it when you’re a bitch, because I know you don’t mean it.” Agatha grumbled something unintelligible against her neck, but Rio continued, “And because the sooner you get being a bitch out of your system, the sooner we get to do this.”

“Love you,” Agatha mumbled sleepily.

“Y yo a ti, mi amor,” Rio said. She reached back to turn off the lamp on the bedside table and then pressed her lips against Agatha’s warm forehead as she settled back down.

Agatha was already out, her breathing coming in congested little snores that made Rio’s lips twitch into a smile as she felt her own eyes growing heavy. Her last conscious thought before she slipped into sleep herself was that there was nowhere else on earth she’d rather be starting the new year.

[lukas-wrld]

This was another reminder to actually put myself together and get my story written, so thank you @mjparkerwriting for tagging me!

I shall be using my yet to be properly introduced, or planned, or actually started story idea, How to be the Perfect Daughter (working title)! The idea is that in the process of answering these questions, I'll figure out more of the story, so without much further ado-

What is the main lesson of your story? Why did you choose it?

I'm still not sure how to put it into precise words, but I'm playing around with the idea of "the ability to define yourself/choose your future/live your life gets increasingly difficult if the context you're in doesn't really let you do that" or something like that. Currently, anyway. Definitely liable to change at some point, lol

I didn't necessarily choose it, but rather, it's kind of the culmination of a couple of years of mulling over this story idea and changing as a person and the idea becoming more than just a way for me to vent out my frustrations and anger

What did you use as inspiration for your worldbuilding?

The real world. My own life experiences, as sparse as they are, lol. Childhood rage from lockdown

What is your MC trying to achieve, and what are you, the writer, trying to achieve with them? Do you want to inspire others, teach forgiveness, or help the reader grow as a person?

Daughter wants to be seen as more than just that, more than just a second mother or a soon to be wife despite her entire culture kind of telling her otherwise.

With her, I'm trying to achieve some kind of catharsis. Maybe show people that the proverbial glass ceiling is sometimes there, and sometimes sucks, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you can't make the most of what is beneath that ceiling

How many chapters is your story going to have?

I'm not sure. If you couldn't already tell, I'm barely even on the planning stage XD

Is it fanfiction or original content? Where do you plan to post it?

Original content! I hope to publish it some day, though I think I wouldn't mind if I just posted it somewhere on the internet and called it a day

When did you start writing?

The earliest time I can remember that wasn't school assignments was probably around 2018/2019. I had recently discovered fanfiction and had stumbled across the wonderful realisation that I could write my own!

Do you have any words of encouragement for fellow writers of writeblr? What other writers do you follow?

As much as I'm pretty much just reiterating what's already been said;

your writing is a lot better than you think it is, so keep on at it!

write out your ideas and your hopes and all the vibes you want to incorporate into your story

write away your fears and insecurities and the stagnation that wants to settle

write whatever your head won't let you forget and the aches that linger in your heart

but just make sure that you write

I remember a really cool analogy that I saw somewhere here that went something like;

your words and works and WIPs that you write down are like seeds you plant in a garden;

sometimes they won't always come out looking the best;

they may not be vibrant or fruitful or even very pretty

but because you planted them, and when the time comes for them to die,

they'll make for excellent fertiliser for the next batch of seeds

and you best believe after all your hard work with the first batch

the next one will turn out much, much better

and the one after that, and forever

so make sure you plant your seeds!

Gently tagging: @the-ellia-west @the-stray-storyteller @aalinaaaaaa @hero-coded

@blackwood4stucky @bebewrites @hayatheauthor @agirlandherquill

@ashwithapen @friendlyshaped @dendotdrabbles @cupandquillcafe

and of course, any other writer who's interested!

author ask tag

Thank you @the-inkwell-variable for tagging me. I had to think hard on these answers.

I'll use my current WIP for this. It was once called TLBH. Now, its WotG. We will see if it changes again.

What is the main lesson of your story? Why did you choose it?

I think the main lesson would be that there's always something bigger than you, and sometimes you have to decide whether or not that something is great enough for you to change as a person. My characters go through and will continue to go through a lot. They are constantly tested and while some of them rise above it all--no question about it, others struggle with every step. Some are never able to stand up at all.

What did you use as inspiration for your worldbuilding?

I used the real world as inspiration. I really like history and religion, so I studied tons of cultures and languages and historical events. I have a lot of mythology, history, and religion/philosophy books and links saved because I'm just so fascinated with how everyone sees and understands things differently.

What is your MC trying to achieve, and what are you, the writer, trying to achieve with them? Do you want to inspire others, teach forgiveness, or help the reader grow as a person?

It is multiple POV, but without giving away too much, I’d say that every character is searching for purpose and acceptance in one way or another. I think I, as the writer, want to show how motivations change as we change as people, and that's okay. I want to tell a story that inspires people to love, change, fight, and live.

How many chapters is your story going to have?

I'm currently looking at a series with five books total. This first story will have 35-36 chapters.

Is it fanfiction or original content? Where do you plan to post it?

All OG. I want to publish traditionally, but we'll see what happens.

When did you start writing?

Since I could string together semi complex thoughts and also hold a pencil lol. I've always liked writing. I started writing fanfics some time in high school, maybe around age 15. If you want to get technical, though, my first fanfiction was in elementary school and it was about young Jack Sparrow before he became THEE Jack Sparrow.

Do you have any words of encouragement for fellow writers of writeblr? What other writers do you follow?

WRITE! Who cares if you think it's ass?

Write the story you always wanted to read but could never find.

Talk to other writers. Make friends. It can be very lonely, but having people that understand what you're doing and are also going through the same process is helpful.

I'm still working on the last one.

I follow a ton of writers on here, so I think I'll tag a bunch of people just for the hell of it.

@frantheram @mrbexwrites @stargazingdustbunny @marsh0mallows99th @cwritesfiction @writingamongther0ses @paintedbutton @inkednotebook @lukas-wrld @writinglittlebeasts @vicwriting @kae-luna @the-orangeauthor @kckramer @ghost-type-writer @phynewrites @wildswrites @jamieanovels @tabswrites

[cryptdfish]

“white mourning.”

[pixie05love]

.

[ceramicbeetle]

the thing is, you’re absolutely right! because what neurotypical people sometimes don’t understand is the massive difference between the average level of social interaction that they themselves vs other people get outside of organized or scheduled events like work or school, and also don’t understand the massive difference between what failure looks like, and how those two things overlap. i’m told that among the average neurotypical person, they’ll make a point to talk to people in their lives or hang out with friends or go on dates or chat with other people in public spaces, al to have casual interactions, multiple times a day, multiple days a week. meaning, if they have a failed social interaction, it’s buffered by the many successful interactions they’ll go on to have. failure most likely won’t mean complete isolation, because they have multiple avenues of interaction to fall back on. and, moreover, a failure in a social interaction when you have (on average) fewer than most means that now rather than that person going “oh that was a weird interaction, i talk to them a lot and it’s not usually like that, maybe it was an off day” they go “huh i don’t know that person very well maybe they’re just like that?”, which means that the odds are way different on whether relationships stay good after mistakes.

social skills are not actually as inherent as neurotypical people like to think. it’s just that when you’re always in practice, always getting back on the proverbial horse, the advice “just get back out there!” does actually work very well. but if you’re not able to do that for any variety of reasons, you can’t play the game the same way. my advice is not “try harder”, it’s “lower your expectations for yourself on what a good interaction and a moment of connection might be”. just as it’s possible you’re somehow unintentionally upsetting people, it’s possible you’re unintentionally making them feel happy, or valued, or heard, even in small, passing interactions. remind yourself that you’re working with fewer resources and a much more limited data pool. a lot of the advice being given is coming from someone who assumes they understand what the math looks like for you, because it’s very difficult to imagine that other side. so instead of trying to overlay a system made for someone who has resources that you just don’t have, you need to figure out what a functional system of interaction looks like for you, and adapt the advice given to fit your situation. my advice, bearing that in mind, is that finding communities and groups can look like a lot of different things, and getting your social needs met can come from a lot of sources, and ideally should! you would understand best what your situation is, and there’s no shame in changing tact to accommodate for your own needs and boundaries.

forgot to answer this for a bit lol BUT yeah, the post was a little bit more about the Conceptual argument than it was about me specifically, so I'm definitely already with you re: 'finding out what your Individual social goals are and working based off of those instead having high expectations based off of other people's metric' stuff. You definitely have a huge point with the "social buffer disparity" between NT people and ND people, where failures are both less demoralizing internally and less impactful externally when you're able to have a greater average of interactions generally also

but I really appreciated the "just as it’s possible you’re somehow unintentionally upsetting people, it’s possible you’re unintentionally making them feel happy, or valued, or heard, even in small, passing interactions" aspect of this message. I do definitely have a recurring problem of like, labeling Myself as an Uncanny Valley Person and automatically assuming that every interaction I'm involved in must be some level of uncomfortable for the other person -- it actually was kind of a revolution moment reading this and realizing that OH it does make sense that if I can unintentionally make people uncomfortable, it's statistically just as likely that I can unintentionally lift people's spirits in one way or another! So thank you very much for that!!

[sysig]

What you’d least like to hear (Patreon)

[spocks-kaathyra]

what if I kill myself