#i guess living a life of peace isn't allowed

[levi-my-beloved]

don't kill me.

please.

i have been bombarded with work. my publishing client didn't turn up for our meeting sO I DONT KNOW IF THE RESEARCH IM DOING FOR HER IS RIGHT, my job has me bartending 7 days a week and i have a 8,000 word stage play and 4,000 words of my YA novel due...

i now know what being actually "busy" feels like. ackerbond is still on my radar but the "short" is no longer short beCAUSE I KEEP ADDING SHIT. also passively looking for another beta reader 👀👀 but that won't be for a while.

i am writing, just amidst shooting caffeine straight into my eyeballs and sending passive aggressive emails to creative directors of large and scary publishing houses...

[tobiasdrake]

Here we go. It's time to talk about my personal fave. As I said before, this is my Main. In Dragon Ball fighting games, this is the character I seek out to play whenever the roster allows. Also arguably the character who's been done the most dirty by just about every form of Dragon Ball, manga included.

The vanguard of a brand new status quo and a brand new direction for what Dragon Ball would even be, washed away by the tides of a status quo resetting to zero.

We're here to talk about the champion of Satan City who carries the spirit of Dragon Ball in her heart: Videl.

(And that is one cookie to @jcogginsa who guessed it.)

Videl was a kid with a chip on her shoulder. I mean. How could you not be? Her father was the legendary world martial arts champion who famously defeated Cell seven years ago.

Don't pay attention to that. He just tripped for a moment. Once he got his second wind, he came right back and showed Cell what for! It was due entirely to Mr. Satan and nobody else that the Earth was spared from the apocalyptic horror that is Cell.

Look, he even said so himself.

Are you gonna call that man a liar? The man who defeated Cell!? I think we can trust Satan's word over yours.

This is the shadow that Videl grew up under. Raised in what had previously been called Orange City, but was renamed Satan City in honor of the world's greatest hero.

Or "Hercule City/Herculopolis" in the versions that edit out Satan's name.

As his daughter, Videl has a perspective on Satan that neither the world nor the audience gets to see: He's a womanizing playboy who cashes in on his world-savior fame for booty.

He also forbids his teenage daughter from dating by putting up the stipulation that any boy interested in her has to be stronger than him, the world champion - A stipulation naturally designed to weed out any possible suitors through intimidation. Wanna date Videl? FISTFIGHT THE MAN WHO DEFEATED CELL.

Oh, but he doesn't teach her a goddamn thing; At least, not anymore, as she does suggest there was once a time when he was her mentor. She's forced to study martial arts entirely on her own because her dad is utterly disinterested in her development in the art.

This is an angle on Satan we never get to see onscreen. Apparently he's pretty shitty about women. You know, I can believe that.

Videl, when we meet her, is trapped in an unenviable position as a martial artist. She hates what the fame of being a legend has done to her dad and wants to knock him down a peg, but she has no foundation to develop her abilities from. The one man who's supposed to be teaching her isn't doing it, and she's been passively discouraged from pursuing more esoteric martial arts because the world champion said that stuff's all fake.

Videl makes for a fascinating foil to Gohan, because they're both children living in the shadows of legendary fathers.

Gohan is expected to be Goku's successor, but wants to live a peaceful life of academia. Meanwhile, Videl is being denied the ability to become Mr. Satan's successor, but craves the opportunity to prove herself.

Nonetheless, both of these kids are prodigies. Videl has a wealth of potential. She doesn't even realize that, despite these limitations, she surpassed her father long ago. Despite being a self-taught teenager with zero comprehension of ki cultivation, Videl hones her skills and developers her art the only way that's available to her: By punching it out with armed robbers in the region.

Backpack Town isn't even her city! She's a one-woman SWAT team for the tri-state area.

As ambitious and driven as she is, Videl is also clever. The anime extrapolates the adventures of the Great Saiyaman into a several-episode arc as Gohan deftly avoids detection by Videl over and over again, but this has the knock-on effect of depriving Videl of one of her best moments.

Because she pegs him instantly. She was already suspicious of Gohan being the mysterious "Golden Warrior", when he tried to use his Super Saiyan form to disguise himself as a superhero.

Which also showed that she was open-minded about the other people who fought Cell. Satan says they were doing a bunch of tricks, but Videl's willing to consider the possibility that there exist people who can turn blond on command.

And then Gohan did this shit.

Because he was raised in the woods by the devil and Goku. Despite trying to keep a low profile, he has absolutely no idea what the baseline for ordinary human ability is.

So. Y'know.

That's pretty fucking suspicious.

Which brings us to Gohan's second outing as Great Saiyaman, and his first meeting with Videl under his new identity. Whereupon she, uh....

Plays him like a fucking sap. It's a great moment that doesn't get its due if it takes several episodes and misadventures for her to reach this point. Videl is exceptionally skilled in the field of paying attention to that time Gohan jumped thirty feet in the air and naturally drawing conclusions from it.

And also his voice and posture and other dead giveaways. Gohan sucks at secret identities.

He's just. So obviously Gohan. There's no way anyone would be fooled by this.

But she's not only adequate at seeing things with her eyes; She's also a legitimately brilliant martial artist in her own right. Due to her upbringing, she's had zero experience with ki cultivation for obvious reasons.

And yet she's talented enough and smart enough to pick up the basics of Bukujutsu in one day.

Oh, don't mind her; That's just Videl making a mockery of Tsuru-senryu by effortlessly devouring their signature technique. This is Goku's first Kamehameha all over again.

She may have started small but Videl learns fucking fast. She has all of the drive and the ambition that Gohan lacks. She wants to be part of this world, she has a ravenous hunger for self-improvement, she's clever and observant, and she picks up concepts insanely quickly.

Videl is fucking primed to be a key player in Dragon Ball's next generation.

...

So now we need to talk about what happened to Videl.

Videl has one major fight in the entire series: Her 25th Tenkaichi Budokai bout against Spopovich.

Which she absolutely dominates. She's stronger, better, and faster than Spopovich. Even the experienced martial artists agree that she's infinity times better than him in every way.

But there's something wrong with Spopovich. He's a decent martial artist, far from the top; He'd competed in the 24th Tenkaichi Budokai and made it through the qualifiers, but was eliminated in the first round. So, y'know, he had no chance in hell against Videl; She's already surpassed Mr. Satan, who won the 24th legitimately.

Uh, by virtue of none of the Kame-senryu or their rivals attending. Mr. Satan is top dog of the same weight class as Pamput from the 22nd.

But, despite being outclassed in every category, Spopovich is also a dead man walking.

He's similar to the Androids in a sense. Spopovich has no ki signature at all, nor does he get worn down by the damage he's taking. This is Vegeta vs. 18 and Piccolo vs. 17 all over again; He isn't feeling the pain from the hits she's landing on him, and so he's able to outlast.

But Spopovich isn't an Android. He's more like a zombie?

At one point, Videl cuts loose and breaks his goddamn neck. Because he's pushing her hard enough that she realizes she needs to go harder, but his body can't take harder. He isn't a match for her. He just. Isn't going down despite not being a match for her.

He can't take this level of force. But he and his ominously vacant absence of ki can put his head right back where it was and continue the fight, no problem. That's honestly scarier than if he'd regenerated.

Also despite not even having the barebones ki signature of a normal person, Spopovich can perform Bukujutsu and fire ki attacks.

Which a fighter of his meager ability shouldn't even be capable of.

All of this adds up to an unwinnable fight for Videl and the setup to... Something. This match has been criticized pretty heavily in the fandom because it gets pretty gruesome and doesn't have a payoff.

We've seen fights go fucking bad for our heroes before. Piccolo once broke all of Goku's arms and legs as well as shooting a hole in his chest, right here in this same arena.

But it's typically building to something. When our heroes get trashed, it's the lead-up to a reversal down the road. Maybe in the same fight. Maybe in a later one. And we seem to be heading in that direction?

After Spopovich and Yamu leave the tournament, we get VIdel a Senzu and she's right as rain.

Spopovich and Yamu steal energy from Gohan and fly off to Babidi's Ship so they can awaken Majin Buu. Kaioshin recruits the various protags to make that not be a thing that happens. And then. Something switches in the narrative flow of this arc.

You can feel it happen.

As our heroes prepare to pursue Spopovich and Yamu, Videl volunteers to join in as well. She's had her eyes opened to a whole new world or possibilities and is hungry to develop her abilities.

And. Then. One chapter later. It's suddenly decided that Videl will not be a part of this storyline after all, and she basically leaves the plot forever.

WHOOPS! Never mind! Didn't want this character here after all. Go home, Videl.

While her adversary Spopovich is unceremoniously unwritten from being a thing that exists.

Babidi just. Kills him. For no reason. Even though his job isn't done yet. Babidi's like, "Oh good, you collected a fraction of the energy we need; That's fine, you can be fired. I don't need anyone to finish the job."

We're just. We're not telling that story anymore. We already threw Videl in the trash; we don't need her nemesis. We're doing a different thing.

Also, because we still have too many characters in this scene, Dabra erases Krillin and PIccolo with magic spit that never comes up again or is meaningful in any way.

You'd think this would be, like, setting up something? Like. Having witnessed it ahead of time, Gohan's able to figure out something about the way Dabra's spit works. So when he fights Dabra in a climactic battle, he can turn this around.

Like when Goku was able to counter Tenshinhan's Taiyoken/Solar Flare in the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai, because he'd seen it before and understood how it works. That's usually what Dragon Ball does with this sort of advance notice of opponent abilities.

But. No. The most this ever comes up again is that it momentarily costs Gohan one of his gloves. It's just here to winnow down the cast because Toriyama brought too many characters to this scene.

You can feel the burnout taking hold. As janky as the Android arc was, the Buu arc's level of jank is through the roof.

And that became it for Videl. Denied any sort of payoff for her one fight and instead relegated to background character, Videl never got a chance to live up to the intriguing potential she was introduced with. She was the face of a new direction for Dragon Ball, a direction that ended up strangled in its crib as the series reverted to old ideas and old formulae - strangling her along with it.

Videl is a character I look at and can't help but wonder what could have been. What could have been if Gohan got to keep his focus, and Videl got to remain a key player in a story about him? What could have been if we got to see Videl developing her skills at the same fever-pace that she learned Bukujutsu with? What could have been if she got that rematch with Spopovich she seemed to have been promised by the narrative, and then got to stay involved throughout the Buu arc?

But I guess we'll never know.

[knightotoc]

I always liked the riddle scene in the Hobbit, but I never knew what it really meant until I read the original just now. The main idea is lost in adaptations because you need to get into their heads. I knew it was a high-stakes version of a kids' game and a mythology/fairytale reference, but it still seemed pretty random and hard to believe, since these two are the last characters you'd put in a battle of wits.

But the scene is actually about how people's environments shape the way they think. Bilbo and Gollum are both so flustered that they can only think of what are, to them, very easy riddles. They keep feeling ashamed that they can't think of something harder, and confident that the other guy will get this immediately. But the other guy is stumped, because his mind works differently, because he lives in the opposite environment.

Solving the riddles isn't actually about being smart, but being empathetic in Bilbo's case and nostalgic in Gollum's. Bilbo is only able to comprehend Gollum's nasty way of thinking because they are in his lair, amongst the dark and fish. Bilbo is repulsed and even unable to guess Gollum's final riddle, only winning by luck (he stutters "I need more time" so badly it sounds like the correct answer, "time").

Gollum is only able to imagine Bilbo's pleasant answers by thinking back to his past, when he was a normal guy who lived with his grandmother near flowers, eggs, and cats. In this book, he isn't confirmed to be a former hobbit, but the parallel becomes more tragic with this retroactive backstory. Gollum indirectly tells Bilbo that time is the only thing that separates them, and Bilbo does not understand this. If Bilbo had the "more time" he requests, hundreds of years here in the dark, he would become like Gollum, wisdom at a terrible price.

The main theme of The Silmarillion is how immortality affects people. Elves are fated to live forever in the undying lands of Valinor. Humans instead have the "Gift of Ilúvatar," the great mystery of an unknown afterlife. Elves are counterintuitively jealous of this gift, since death allows humans to escape the music of Arda, the fate which defines all creation.

Bilbo and Gollum, who were so different in life that they could barely follow each other's thoughts, also end up with the opposite deaths. The elves take Bilbo to Valinor, while Gollum goes to the mysterious afterlife of the other unchosen mortals. (At least two elves, Lúthien and Arwen, chose this fate for themselves out of love for a guy. But generally this is the unchosen/fate defying route for souls to go.)

So during their first meeting, Gollum is the one who understands the destructive power of time. But in the long term, Bilbo will come to understand time as an endless font of wisdom and peace, since nothing can be destroyed in Valinor. We don't know how or even if the mortal afterlife experiences time; if Gollum's pessimistic definition would hold true, or if that, too, would eventually change.

[thelargefrye]

February Filth Fest : DAY EIGHTEEN : SIZE KINK … mature one - shot

pairing : norse god!seonghwa x greek goddess!f!reader

genre : smut, viking au, god of war inspired – so a mix of norse and greek mythology in this

word count : 2k

warnings : language, mentions of blood / fighting / weapons (swords, axe, bow and arrows, etc.), hunting for food, feeling grief over a loved ones death, long haired seonghwa in a half-up ponytail, seonghwa is mentioned to be bigger than yn

smut warnings : unprotected sex, size kink, seonghwa's got a breeding kink

honorary tag : @sanjoongie

after having traveled all over midgard with seonghwa and fighting for your lives, the two of you can finally settle down and have a moment together.

DAY SEVENTEEN ↤ SPREAD THE ASHES ↦ DAY NINETEEN

a grunt left your mouth as you were flung into a large tree. you stumbled to your feet, seonghwa swung his axe at the trolls that were around him. blood flown through the sky, some landing on his face as he kicked one troll away before rushing over to you.

his hand wrapping around your forearm and hoisting you to steady feet before swinging at another troll. a smirk decorating his lips as he gave you a side glance.

"come on now, y/n, surely someone who killed all of olympus isn't getting beat by some trolls," he says, the cockiness thick in his voice and you roll your eyes before slashing and stabbing at the nearest troll – the one who sent you flying.

"shut your mouth and focus on fighting before i kill you next," you said and seonghwa lets out a loud laugh before he jumping and hacking at two trolls and effortlessly cutting them down.

when the trolls were all dead, you and seonghwa stood in the middle of the clearly covered in blood before sheathing your weapons.

"well that was a little more excitement than what i was anticipating," he says, turning to you with a smile on his face. but seonghwa always had a smile on his face. "i remember seeing a river along the north trail, lets go wash up before setting up camp."

you nod your head and allow seonghwa to lead the way, following closely behind him as you walked down one of the many dirt paths in the forest. you notice that every once in a while, seonghwa will look over his shoulder to make sure you are still following behind. silently noting your quietness as normally the two of you are going back and forth with each other in a playful bicker.

"what's the matter?" seonghwa finally asks once you are at the river. the both of you stripped down from your bloody armor and carefully washing the blood out. there was nothing you truly hated more than bloody armor, such a disgrace.

you turn towards him, clenching your clothes tightly, "i was thinking about my family," you say trailing off and at your words seonghwa also stops his scrubbing.

his now doe eyes looking at you softly and you hate how he makes your heart flutter and stomach do flips. seonghwa only knows a little bit about your family from greece and olympus, how went on this journey of revenge for your family after zeus took everything from you. you guess his comment from earlier was making you think.

but think about what exactly you aren't sure.

perhaps settling down with seonghwa after this and finally living a peaceful life. but was that something you even deserved?

"y/n," seonghwa is close to you, his bare skin touching your own and it brings you out of your thoughts. you look at him with wide eyes, surprised by how he moved this close to you without you noticing and he easily towers over you. perhaps that's a benefit from him being a frost giant? "what are you thinking? tell me," he sounds like he's pleading almost.

"i want to live a peaceful life, but i don't think i deserve it," you tell him, a chill running over you as you feel seonghwa's hand travel around your waist and pulling you closer to him.

"why don't you deserve it?"

"i've done a lot of bad things seonghwa, killed a lot of people, gods, monsters."

"but you've paid your debt, stop living in the past and focus on now. you aren't in olympus anymore, darling. you're here with me now. i don't think hongjoong would want you to live like this, feeling guilty."

your eyebrows furrow at the mention of your dead lover. husband. you felt angry that seonghwa would mention him as if he knew him. without thinking you shove seonghwa away and the water around you two splashes up against you both. seonghwa looks at you in shock.

"don't you dare talk about hongjoong like you know him!" you feel the tears beginning to build up in your waterline, but not from sadness but anger.

"i lost him and our daughter because i was stupid! their deaths haunt me and i see their bodies every time i close my eyes. no matter how hard i try to move on i will always be haunted by their deaths and my mistakes, so don't tell me to not live in the past when that's all i can see!"

seonghwa said nothing as the two of you looked at each other. he was calm and collected while you were the definition of rage. heavy breathing, clenched fists, and tear-stricken face. his silence only made you more upset.

"i'm not asking for you to forget hongjoong and your daughter," he says after what felt like an eternity of silence. "but..." he trails off taking a cautious step towards you, "i want you to realize that you don't have to let their death weigh on you forever."

"seonghwa..."

"you said you wanted a peaceful life, well we can have one. we'll settle down at the small cabin and have our own children. you paid your debt, but you have to give yourself this second chance," he says as he stops back in front of you. his cold hand feels safe when he touches your own.

"i... i don't know," you pull away from him once more, turning away and walking out of the river, clothes and armor in hand as you walk back to the camp you two had set up at the clearing, leaving seonghwa by himself.

the two of you spent the rest of the evening and early night in silence. the two of you having traveled and been doing this long enough that you could do things around camp without actually talking to one another. seonghwa had went and brought back deer he hunted for the two of you two eat.

and so you sat at the campfire in silence, the smell of meat feeling your nose and cracking of the fire filling your ears. your mind still reeling from what was said earlier. seonghwa was right because he was always right. you didn't need to forget hongjoong and your daughter, but you needed to let their deaths not haunt you anymore.

your eyes flicker to seonghwa from across the fire, his own eyes already looking at you. he had finished eating a while ago while you were still picking at yours. he rolled his shoulders before standing up, walking over to you and pressing a kiss to the crown of your head. silently bidding you goodnight before he enters your shared tent.

you don't know how much longer you sit by the fire, long enough for it to die out on its own. you stomp out the remaining glowing embers before crawling into the tent and laying down next to seonghwa.

you think you made up your mind.

"seonghwa," you know he's awake, he always waits for you to join him as you do for him. "can we talk?"

he turns over on his back while you lay on your side to face him. your hand reaches out to take his, linking your fingers together.

"i want to live a peaceful life with you. i want that small cabin, i want our children – your children, i want to take in the wolves, i want to love you everyday that i am able to wake up next to you and after that. i want to try and let go of my guilt enough for this to happen, please help me seonghwa."

seonghwa gives your hand a firm squeeze before he's rolling you onto your back and hovering over you. you let him pin your hands above your head and you can't help the arousal that runs through you when he does it with only one hand. his black locks framing his beautiful face that his clean of blood and war and his eyes are filled with something. lust? love? something else perhaps?

his large frame bends down to kiss you, his hands groping your body as he removes your undergarments so you are now bare and fully naked before his eyes. you watch as he lowers his head and trails his lips down your body; licking, biting, and sucking different marks over your tattered and worn body.

"s-seonghwa," you moan out when he finds home between your legs and licks your pussy slowly and lazily. his eyes never once looking away from yours. he makes out with your pussy, kissing it and letting his tongue drag in and out of your pussy and licking up any juices that you leak. like he's a man dying from thirst and your pussy is his oasis.

seonghwa effortlessly brings you to your first orgasm before he's finally pulling away, but not before pressing one last kiss to your pussy. he once again towers over you, a layer of sweat covering your entire body but you happily wrap your arms around seonghwa to bring into another kiss. your taste yourself on his lips, but you honestly don't mind.

the both of you are breathless when you finally break away, "seonghwa, i love you."

"my y/n, darling, i love you more than you can imagine," he says spreading your legs easily and you can't help but clench at knowing is coming.

"seonghwa, seonghwa, please!" you beg, hands combing through his long locks and brushing them out of his face.

"you know... if we start now, i could have you full and breed by the time we get back to the cabin," he says as you feel the tip of his cockhead running between your folds. "i can just imagine it," he says, slowly pushing himself inside of you, "fuck– you would look so beautiful with my child."

you clench around him the more he pushes inside of you, back arching as his lips latch onto your breast and begin licking and sucking on your nipple.

this isn't the first time you and seonghwa have fucked, but for some reason this felt different. as he thrusted into you, your name leaving his lips and his name leaving yours, you felt full. you felt a warmth spread through you as his taller stature curled into yours and you wrap yourself around him to bring even closer – if it was even possible.

"fuck– seonghwa, i-i'm close!" you could feel your second orgasm coming and it only seemed to drive seonghwa to move his hips faster.

he gave you his smirk, his eyes glazed over with lust, "i'm going to fill you with full of my cum over and over again, darling, until your stuffed and pregnant with my child," he says and you clench at his words. seonghwa does only a few more harsh thrust before you are both cumming. you fill his cum slowly filling you up and and some of it even leaking out around his cock from how much it is.

seonghwa is breathless as he pulls out and quickly folds your legs up and stuffing any cum back into you. you can't help but feel a little flustered at how he that, eyes staring hard at your cum-filled pussy. you then begin to feel a wave of exhaustion rush over you and you are lazily pulling at seonghwa to have him lay next to you.

he lays down next to you with a small 'ugh' sound leaving his lips as he does. you cuddle up next to seonghwa, and you realize that before meeting him, you never would have done this. you rest your head on chest as seonghwa draws his fur cape over the two of you. you can't help but let out a laugh at how it doesn't even fully cover the two of you.

"i want a daughter first," seonghwa says quietly and more to himself than you. "i want to name him dal-nim. it was my mother's name."

"its beautiful."

"what would you name her?"

"idonia," you whisper back, reaching up to kiss his collarbone.

"loving one," is the last thing you hear before you close your eyes and let sleep consume you.

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[metalomagnetic]

Hi Metalo!

Have you ever thought about potential patronus animals for the Black family? If so, what kind of animals would fit in your opinion?

As always, your questions make me think a lot. This one is sooo difficult!

Ok, so this might be unpopular but I feel Bella would be a lioness. She is a figure of strength, is territorial, she works hard, perfect hunter that takes down prey twice her size, devoted mother (to her child or to her little sisters) teaching her youngster skills they need to survive, and protecting them so fiercely.

Narcissa is a spider queen. Spiders also have *remarkable* maternal instincts, more developed than in many other species of the earth. Spiders can be aggressive, but also quite peaceful, depending on circumstances. She weaves a beautiful home, but that can also turn into a trap. She isn't showy in her strength, prefers to lure her target into her web, where she can deliver that final, venomous bite to an unsuspecting target that dared trespass against her.

Andromeda is a fox. Cunning, agile and highly adaptable. not overly aggressive, preferring to live their life in stealth mode.

Regulus is a coyote. Almost like a dog, only much shier than a dog, and more cautious. However, when push comes to shove, coyotes are quite territorial and willing to die for what is theirs.

Sirius, obviously, is perfect as a dog. (And I also used him to give Regulus and Andromeda similar patronus forms, from a canidae family, since they are related and one would assume they share traits.)

Ok, so these are the only ones we know from canon, or at least we know something about them that allowed me to try to guess their patronus.

Now, for my head-canon about the rest of the Black family and their personalities, which I depict in 'It runs'.

Waburga is a polar bear. Polar bears are aways striving for the highest possible standards. They are fierce, and they are obsessed with their children. They protect their cubs with their lives, but they also expect their cubs to behave and fall in line. It's a tough life out there, so a polar bear mother needs to teach her youngsters to be ruthless. They love their children, but can be a bit rough in handling them. They can also be very gentle with their cubs, when there's no 'emergency' situation going on. Polar bears are strong, fearless but so lonely. Something about Walburga ending up alone, defined by solitude in her last years, reminds me of a polar bear wandering alone in a harsh, cold environment (Grimmauld, cough cough). Polar bear mamas are also one of the few animals species that become depressed, distressed and vulnerable when they lose a child. They can even stop hunting after such a loss, and waste away.

Orion in 'It runs' is an eagle. Fearless, confident, quite arrogant. Extremely territorial. An eagle will never surrender, regardless of the size or strength of its opponent. It will do anything to regain its territory and it will always defend its nest. Eagles are quite paternal, like most raptors. An eagle father will bring sticks to the nest, and will bring food to the young. When babies fall from nest, a father often dives to catch them on their wings. However, an eagle father also picks favourites, and there's a food hierarchy going on, often choosing to give more food to one baby, encouraging sibling rivalry, which is apparently important for the development of a raptor. Eagle males do form a pair bond with a single female, however, if the female isn't available in mating season, he will find another one.

Cygnus would be a tiger. Not the most paternal, but a fierce predator. They're also one of the few brave enough to get into fights with bears. Tigers and dogs are amongst the few that will look at a bear and go 'yeah, I can take that' (hence why Cygnus and Sirius are the only ones mad enough to get into fights with Walburga). Also, he's a tiger mostly because I want Bella to take after her dad, the only big cats in their immediate family.

Alphard is a lone wolf, to keep up with many of the Blacks having canine counterparts. He's majestic, he's fierce, too, he loves a pack, but at some point he got into too many fights with the leaders of his pack and took off on his own, though at night sometimes he cries to the moon, missing them.

Arcturus is a hawk. Similar to his son, but a tad less fierce. Just a tad.

Sirius the old was a sphinx. He's a special badass, and the world sees him as this almost mythological creature. He has the body of a land apex predator, like many of his descendants (lion, like Bella), but he also has the wings of an eagle (like Orion). He's enigmatic, merciless, and has a gaze that will see straight into your soul. He knows everything that goes on, everywhere. A sphinx represents royalty and sacred status, which is how he views his family (and himself).

This was so much fun. I really like how they turned out, and I love that in this family of vertebrates, Narcissa is the only invertebrate (since she's always the outliner with her blonde hair). She's no less lethal, no less impressive, but she's a tad different from the rest.

I hope you liked it! ❤️

[horreurscopes]

So, I could be out-of-bounds here since I think you meant it as dark humor, but what did you mean in the tags of that 'israel-hamas war' post? I suspect you(and op) are criticizing that framing because Israel is obviously demolishing much more than 'Hamas'(and probably doing a terrible job of actually targeting terrorists- they seem content to reduce Gaza to rubble even if the brass of Hamas escapes). I'm guessing that by saying "joining the Israel-Hamas war on the side of Hamas" you mean, if they're going to conflate Palestinians with Hamas unilaterally, then you're saying, whatever the media wants to call Palestinian civilians- you still support them. I am asking anyways though bc, given reports of increasing antisemitic activity in the US and Europe, I am worried about the potential for blurring lines between the cause of Palestinian civilians and the alt-right individuals who are likely masking their antisemitism in the context of being anti-Zionist. Although Israel's government has been the source of Palestinian loss for decades, (it seems to me that) even joking about supporting terrorism is enough to reinforce the persuasion that Israeli/Palestinian Jews and Palestinian Arabs must be mutually-exclusive peoples. I don't think it's fully rational per se(tho I'm not claiming to have all the relevant information myself, and I'm white US American goyim so like- grain of salt-), but I think that existential fear is the incredible hurdle facing Zionist Jews. (Idc too much about the opinions of non-Jewish Zionists bc I don't grant that they are dealing with the same emotional complications at this time, although that doesn't stop me from arguing w my acquaintances abt their callous acceptance of US/Israeli propaganda.) I just think..... isn't it overall harmful to allow anti-semitic rhetoric, even used sarcastically, to enter the genuine humanist cause for Palestinian liberation? Or, have I misunderstood, and you actually are not in opposition to Hamas, or something else I didn't think of?

hi! thank you for approaching the question thoughtfully and with curiosity, i really appreciate it. i was being kind of flippant with that meme, but this is the only ask i'm going to reply to on the matter given that i am neither jewish nor arab, so i'm going to answer in earnest:

hamas is a political resistance movement with an armed wing, much like the black panthers party was, and like the bpp, a large part of the organization is dedicated to social welfare and civic restoration.

they have stated that they are not against judaism, but against the zionist project. they openly support political solutions.

labeling hamas a terrorist group is a propaganda tactic used by the united states and israel to justify the horrors of settler colonization.

hamas is palestine, a part of it, even if palestinians like any other demographic on earth, are not a unified, single-minded people. to declare hamas a separate entity falls prey to the imperialist lie that there is an enemy to fight "fairly" within the people they are displacing and exterminating.

am i rejoicing in the deaths of israelis? of course not. killing civilians and taking civilian hostages is a war crime, whether it is committed by the opresor or the oppressed. the israeli government is not its people, and many jews, within israel as well as in the US, are bravely risking their lives to publicly dissent the criminal acts of the israeli government. all loss of human life is a tragedy.

no one should ever be faced with the choice between annihilation and murderous violence after exhausting all other forms of peaceful protest and being massacred like animals.

but why is it that we consider a resistance group formed within a population with a median age of eighteen a terrorist group, and not the IDF, a US-backed military force with an annual budget of twenty billion dollars?

i am currently reading hamas and civil society in gaza by sara roy to learn more about hamas and the history of israel in palestine. i'll remember to post more excerpts which i am admittedly terrible at.

but all of the information above can be found by reading wikipedia. investigating with duckduckgo searches (not gonna pretend google isn't prioritizing propaganda, to be fair), and reading reliable news coverage like aljazeera and the many journalists who are at risk of, or have lost their lives, reporting on the ground.

i have also appreciated reading posts from @determinate-negation @opencommunion @fairuzfan @ibtisams and @bloglikeanegyptian amongst others

in conclusion:

[mswyrr]

They presented the possibility of older women--who were repeatedly described as "covenless witches" in a story that also repeatedly told us a witch needs a coven--finding community again and a new reason to live in each other and their own power and then "subverted our expectations" with these women dying to serve a male character's story.

That was the point of their stories. Him.

It isn't common for older women in US pop culture to get depicted as people who are capable of rebirth. Of lives, desires, hopes and dreams that matter beyond solely being a mother. It rarely happens, and it didn't happen here.

It's rare for stories to deal metaphorically with real things - like women who get clean or make positive change in their 40s or 50s. Women who find each other and aren't alone and "forgotten" anymore. These things happen -- yes, sisterhood is sometimes a lie and sometimes "people never change." Sure, those things happen. But sometimes sisterhood isn't a lie; sometimes people make change in their lives.

You don't see these stories when they're women though, especially not older women, especially not gay women.

I'm glad for Jen. She doesn't have a community, though. A witch needs a coven they told us, over and over again. They showed us them getting one small taste of the joy they could share together, in their scene of flight. But that was just for Billy too. And now everyone else is dead. To serve the male character's journey, give him some angst.

Agatha is forever spiritually dead--not experiencing any kind of emotional breakthrough or change--because she's not the lead, so she's static so she can serve as a device within the true lead's journey.

She can't even be allowed the growth I pictured as the worst case scenario - where she dies for *the coven*--so they can live and have community and spiritual rebirth together--and makes enough peace to go with Rio. She doesn't even get that much, to get to have a real death that matters and has a sense of completion to it, where we can imagine her reunited with her child and/or at peace with Rio. She can't have that because she has to be Billy's amusing sidekick, his Jarvis, his moral warning lesson about his powers and the witches he got killed and his angst. Because his story matters and theirs didn't.

I was talking to a friend the other day about how love stories often have a "point of symbolic death, when all hope seems lost" (concept from Pamela Regis's study of romance novel structure) and with mf couples they get to rise again from that, into rebirth, into new life. Ff canon couples in stories often, due to a bunch of reasons, aren't allowed that narrative power. They remain trapped in tragedy and despair. I thought surely Agatha herself though, as the lead character, would get to have some kind of change or rebirth as part of a community of women, given that her core wound is betrayal by community -- but she, as a character, doesn't get to go into the symbolic underworld and change and be reborn, because she was never the lead character to begin with.

Sapphic love remains broken once it breaks, the "point of symbolic death" is literal death or a shattering end, there is no rebirth. We, I guess, lack the symbolic potency to come back, in the eyes of the world? We are not generative. "Which one's the man?" "How do they even have sex?" "Your marriage isn't real because you can't make babies." (Kudos for subverting that one, though, show! Except... a child born of women, without a man, cannot live a full life I guess?) And specifically, as a 30something queer woman, people who call my wife, after I've described her as my wife, my "girlfriend" and are shocked by how long we've been together. That we're grown women and our commitment is right down to the bone, that it has blood in its veins. We are not little girls playing dress up. But that is how a ton of nice people see us; we exist but we are spiritually empty, lacking potency. And the stories reflect that. That energy, that core belief that we are the juvenile, non-generative form of love and relationships. And this woman too, she remains in a kind of eternal spiritual death.

That's why people are mentioning the Hayes Code, they're feeling how that aligns with larger cultural prejudice against us and our humanity and capacity to have the kind of power of living and loving that is ascribed to mf love and that more (though not always, misogyny is a hell of a thing) straight women get in stories.

The idea that it's GOOD for a story to do this, because "sometimes sisterhood is a lie" and "sometimes people don't change" ignores that context of who precisely this narrative "subversion," this spiritual aridity is given to. And who gets to live and grow and be reborn and strive and learn and become in stories, to be allowed to connect with the transformative potential inside themselves and each other.

The show did give us a lot -- I think it's important to recognize that. The canon ff love; I would have never expected that. The canon kiss. They put a lot into that and I honor that. This wasn't a classic "bury your gays" and I'm not mad at them. They did their best. A lot of the issues I have are probably due to the problems of the mcu overall and how static it is. But the deeper themes are also just incredibly disappointing to me, and I wanted to outline why.

It's entirely possible to be disappointed but appreciate context and not be unkind to creatives who did their best within overall industry/cultural limitations, which is where I am at and what I mean with this.

[tsbs-shipfessions]

*CrAshEs out from the tragedy SolarNexus closet; in an absolute mess.*

Salutations folks of all nations, it's me again! And I bring a new proposition!!

V4 Eclipse shipped with EAPS Moon (+EAPS Sun for the double AI shippers).

Reasons?

*Slaps billboard of opportunity.*

(Ramble warning ahead!)

V4 Eclipse has gone through it; lad had learned that the best way to live is to live alone. Antagonism brings him nowhere.. and being some emotional fellow isn't his cup o' joe. Yet we know, we know, that this is not entirely true.

Factually stating, especially with recent episodes (of other characters being ridiculously pushy towards Eclipse, mind you. They need to STOP. That's nOt how you hElp somEoNe.) is that Eclipse's anger has died down to a tired state. He's sickly annoyed on how he is, yet he has no proper reason as to why it stays this way.

Eclipse doesn't understand positive social cues nor how to be a "normal" being. Though instead of actually taking the heartfelt effort to learn anew, he stays stagnant in his gifted role of just: being the one nobody likes. And by my guess: it's because he doesn't see himself to have the ability to be loved.. tis either through fear or anger.. trauma stabbing his core and bitterness in his mind. It's always been like this since day one after all. How could it possibly change for him? This is who he is.... or, who he was that he has to keep up.. right?... there's no way life could ever get better than the consequences he laid out for himself! No matter how many times he died over and over- it's always the same!

Though in some small quiet way, Eclipse wishes to be wanted. All parts. Seeing right through his stubborn, biting behaviour and to be understood. With no harsh criticism and judgment that makes him regret ever being in the conversation.

There's a reason why he mentioned all that he's done to Puppet and such- he tries to make a statement that he is no good. Like it's verbal confirmation for himself that this is how it is and ever will be. That there is no hope for Eclipse.. always the asshole nobody wants... yet in it's own way it is also a cry for help.

One that many characters seem to miss as blatant sarcasm.

Eclipse doesn't wish to be forced, not monitored and tracked like he's some dog meaning to play tricks. Not shunned for "repeating and wallowing his complaints of all his wrongs". No. No, actually seen and allowing him to ease into this frightening change of peace in his own time.

But at the same time Eclipse fears it. He doesn't know how it'll end.. believing he'll be so vulnerable and pathetic.. but.... would it really be that bad?

We do see this with Earth when it comes to recognition, and their friendship has grown so sweet which I deeply appreciate! But she isn't always around for him, so aid is rarely available for his daily struggle now.

But I think EAPS Moon (and at times EAPS Sun) successfully inch towards that comforting direction too. In... their own playful way.

They're talking together, asking the right questions, showing genuine concern when Eclipse is unwell. None of it is fake or selfish, most likely due to EAPS Moon's/Sun's innocence.. but it's needed for Eclipse's sake.

He needs a breather.. and I really do believe EAPS Moon provides that.

Calm, open minded, confused at Eclipse's actions at times yet tries his best to understand. Allows Eclipse to do what he needs to do when it comes to precaution; because he knows there is careful meaning in there somewhere.

Heck, even managed to have Eclipse say and do some rare polite things. And Eclipse doesn't entirely push EAPS Moon away and listens to some small suggestions. That's slow growth and improvement! A healthy way to transition to a more passive life! To find himself with some sweet soul as EAPS Moon. :)

I hope to see this to grow further, perhaps comfort deeply when Eclipse be having another panic from a nightmare. A non-pushing conversation that allows Eclipse to share whatever he wishes. Maybe have the two gain an interest in some fun activity to enjoy life a little better. To prove how there is such thing as a good day. Maybe EAPS Moon can have more updates on his little game for Eclipse to test. :3

It feels like a good opportunity to break harmful habits, you know?

Besides... tis a gay silly nerdy game-dev X grumpy ex-villain ship with a hopeful healing arch. How could I possibly resist? I.. I mean come on! That's adorable!

Quite the long read, eh? Heheh.

Thanks for allowing me to share this confession! As a treat have a song that I've been listenin' on repeat while writing this. Tis fitting for how I see V4 Eclipse's mindset: ' girl in red - i'll die anyway. '

As always: Have a pleasant day/evenin' to everyone who read this! Till we meet again! :)

All of these color-coded essays are so fun to receive.

[rosamariaa]

I've been thinking a lot about a remus/sirius Ministry of Magic office AU..

Often I see ppl talking about what would Sirius work with if there wasn't a war going on and he could just live his life in peace and one of my favorite headcanons is that he would be an 'Unspeakable'. Those are the ppl that work in the department of mysteries, that by itself is one of coolest things in the wizarding world, according to me. The department of mysteries is responsible for confidential studies of death, love, time etc (A lot of crazy things that honestly no one should have to mess with but obvs they do anyways...) It's high-level security place, no one besides the researchers are allowed in those chambers. No one even knows who are those researchers and what they do, actually.

Buut, its sirius we are talking about and the guy is a genius but also can be pretty reckless and, in this specific scenario, I think he would be a borderline "crazy scientist" so. He fucks up down the line. I don't know what he does, exactly, but it's something that put his and others researchers' lives at risk. Bc of that, he is sent to work in a waaay more mundane department: Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. It's a cool department!! Remember that first poa scene where harry turns aunt marge into a balloon etc? well those are the guys who they call to fix that. They even have a Obliviators division, responsible for changing Muggles' memory in case they are exposed to accidental magic. Those guys are full of themselves and annoying as hell, btw.

and I see Sirius being sent there, after The Accident. It's cool in theory, but most of the time it's puuuure paperwork and it bores sirius to no end.

well, guess who works there as well. Our guy, Remus j. lupin.

Remus isn't one to do field work so he mostly works in the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee division (god I love those long ass names). Basically he comes up with stuff to excuse magic happening in the muggle world etc. like when peter killed a bunch of muggles and the muggle paper said it was a "big gas explosion". Pure paperwork. Boring as hell.

Anyway, Sirius turns up there out of nowhere and he is the office sweetheart. It fucking boggles remus mind, like. Sirius always goes to the office parties and seems to be friends with everyone but no one knows anything about this guy. He just gets there, a almost 30 yo with a bunch of obscure work experience and no one knows what he did before that, who his family is, where he is from and how the hell does he knows the stuff that he knows.

Sirius is great at field work, he mostly works directly in the Obliviators division and remus is really great with the paperwork stuff sooo they get paired up a lot. At first, they are a bit annoyed by each other (my fav wolfstar flavor). It's funny because they actually agree with almost everything but they just approach things veeery differently and so they are bickering all the damn time. And Sirius is a Certified Little Shit™ and is constantly doing things that drives remus a bit crazy. Once they had a case of a water fountain exploding bc two wizards were fighting in a public park and instead of obliviating the muggles into believing it was only a piping problem or whatever, he went out of his way to turn it into a sort of elaborate flash mob that went viral on tiktok. Remus spent the night awake documenting everything. He wanted to strangle sirius that day.

between late nights working and lots of crazy field work (thanks to sirius) those two end up getting closer and closer. Remus still thinks Sirius is a bit insane, but now in a I-want-you-to-fuck-me-into-this-desk type way. Sirius, on the other hand, doesn't let go of his previous research. I think that back then he would, specifically, study and experiment a lot with Love, in special familial love (yep.) The thing about those confidential dept. of mysteries' experiments is that they can be pretty... unethical. And that's the break point of their story: Remus finding out about Sirius research and finally wondering at what lengths did sirius went to understand something as complicated as Love and what the fuck he did to get banished from the department back then, and worse: if he ever used remus in those experiments. and even more worse: The fact that remus doesn't stop loving him even if he did.

A last fun fact is that they, at one point, would have an inside joke about that "MIB: man in black" movie, they watched it together one late night and sirius kept referencing it when he went to obliviate muggles and remus thought it was the funniest silliest thing ever

[gwenllian-in-the-abbey]

What do you think of book&show!Rhaenyra as characters? And who do you like more?

Hi anon! I've been turning this one over in my mind since you sent it, because I wanted to give it some thought (and anyone who is sick of reading show critical stuff, just skip this one. I don't hate the show, I just think it's interesting and fun to dig a bit deeper). What it comes down to for me is that while book!Rhaenyra is fun, I wish the show had been braver with their depiction of Rhaenyra.

While book!Rhaenyra's motivations are not particularly complex, I feel like I understand her better than show!Rhaenyra. She hasn't heard a prophesy, nor does she feel any real responsibility toward the kingdom to make her second guess the war; her father had made her heir and that was that. Anyone who disagrees can go ahead and die. Her motivations are not particularly noble or self-sacrificing. If anything, it's the opposite. Book!Rhaenyra loves the finer things in life, she's headstrong, and a bit of a mean girl. She goes after what she wants unapologetically, lies through her teeth and never backs down. Book!Rhaenyra never weighs the consequences of her actions, she is vengeful and reactive. She is given terms which would allow her to keep Dragonstone in perpetuity, and unlike her show counterpart, she doesn't even consider them. She says no outright, even before Luke is killed, and replies to tell Aegon that, "I shall have my crown or I shall have his head." And while surely she values the lives of her sons, you get the sense that she never even considers the danger this war puts them in because losing isn't even an option for her. She's going to win because of course she is. And as a reader, you never question her motivations really because, whether you agree with her or not, it is easy to understand that she is fueled by a self-righteous conviction that she will be taking what she feels belongs to her, and woe be to anyone who gets in her way.

Show!Rhaenyra, on the other hand, is more thoughtful. We see this when she's crying at half-dead Viserys' bedside telling him that being heir is a burden, and we see it when she truly considers Otto's peace offer, when she tears up to see the page that Alicent saved from their girlhood. We see it in how she talks to her sons and in the way she apologizes to Alicent at the dinner table. She seems to have some concept of what is at stake, and understands that the throne is a tremendous burden and responsibility, and that the lives of her people are in her hands, and moreover that she does have the option of backing down. When she considers the peace offer, she very clearly states that the prophesy means that she has a responsibility to keep the realm stable, and maybe it is not the best thing for the realm is to throw it into civil war in order to sit the throne at all costs. But all of this, the added sense of awareness of the enormity of the the responsibility and the desire to do right by the realm, while they make her an easier person to support, also makes a lot of her actions that much harder to understand.

One of my main nitpicks with the show as a whole is that the actions of the book characters do not always fit the personalities of the show characters, and so the characterization seems inconsistent. Rhaenyra is aware of the gravity of her position, she learns about the prophesy and the threat to the realm, and then proceeds to have three bastard children (and this is a problem, because it jeopardizes her position. If she gets caught or Corlys/Laenor change their minds and disavow those kids, it's over for her). We have things like Rhaenyra asking for Aemond to be "sharply questioned," which comes from the book, when the episode before she was offering up a dragon and a Jace/Helaena engagement (a show invention, and even though it's not a great deal for the greens if you give it some thought, it reads to the audience as a peace offering). Or you have her telling Daemon she needs his help to fight the greens, and there's this whole conversation about making their enemies believe they're the kind of people who will kill to protect Rhaenyra's claim, but then in episode 8 they have this attempt at reconciliation between Alicent and Rhaenyra and in episode 10 Rhaenyra is going on about how Daemon has "gone to madness, gone to his war." She's seriously entertaining Otto's peace offer (which never happened in the book) while sending her sons off to muster support.

F&B has pretty thin characterization, but what is there comes mostly from the characters' actions and their dialogue. To create a consistent character, the writers needed to start there and ask, what kind of person would say these things and do these things, rather than taking the character they conceived, and trying to shoehorn canon events into that characterization. And the thing is, the show could have created a more fleshed out version of book!Rhaenyra and still made her sympathetic. Take Shiv Roy from Succession, for instance. Shiv is someone who is a victim of misogyny, but also undeniably not the best choice for CEO (neither, of course, are any of her brothers). She's overprivileged and not nearly as experienced or as smart as she thinks she is, she gets in her own way, and in trying to be "one of the boys," she consistently overshoots and alienates actual allies. But she's also a victim of misogyny-- she is expected to provide a woman's touch to delicate matters, but is expected to be as ruthless and cutthroat as the men. Her fuckup brothers are given endless second chances, but Shiv has no such leeway. The specter of motherhood hangs over her constantly-- once she becomes a mother, she will be cast out from the world of men, an asterisk beside her name. And show!Rhaenyra does lean into this a bit (think of Rhaenyra's boobs leaking in the small council, her being stuck giving birth at the moment when leadership is needed in episode 10), but it doesn't commit to the darker side of this. It is not brave enough to make Rhaenyra a bad person as well as a victim.

The thing about Succession is that the show never asked us to view Shiv as good, or as a better choice than her brothers. It didn't even ask us to find her particularly sympathetic, although I certainly do find Shiv sympathetic in some ways. She has a genuine love for her family that makes the moments when she betrays them even more bittersweet, and we can understand her as a pretty bad person while still understanding the ways in which patriarchy screwed her over. In fact, in some ways it was refreshing to see that a woman could be privileged, ruthless and occasionally cruel and still get fucked over (this article is a good breakdown of Shiv-- now imagine a Rhaenyra in this mold!). But central to the difference between HotD and Succession is that Succession doesn't ask us to view the "throne" as a force of good, nor the position as a force of change. The CEO position in Succession is pretty explicitly toxic. Roman refers to the company itself explicitly as a cage. The audience is meant to understand that the person who "wins" is going to be more miserable and more morally compromised as a result. And the Iron Throne is similar. It's a throne made of literal swords! The closer you get to it, the more cursed and compromised you become. But so far, HotD not only insists on casting Rhaenyra as a protagonist, with the addition of the prophesy and the vision of the white hart, winning the throne becomes something she must do for the greater good, her claim something she has been righteously chosen to uphold. And if winning the throne is righteous, then the throne itself must be righteous too. And that's a framing that I don't think can hold up through the Dance, but I fear that the show may have backed itself into a corner by casting Rhaenyra as the correct choice, which inherently frames the throne as something she is right to fight for, no matter the cost to the people, her family, or herself.

[lavenderstobins]

Here’s a masterlist of all the Stranger Things fics I’ve posted! Mostly Robin/Nancy and Steve & Robin 💜

Last updated: 09/11/24 | AO3 | Twitter | ☕️ Ko-Fi

🪻Highlights

➤ love will tear us apart Steve & Robin | T | 12k Robin gets Vecna'd. ➤ leave the speaker on and stay Steve & Robin | T | 8.6k | stobin month 2023 Steve and Robin meet in 1984 instead. ➤ through the years we all will be together (if the fates allow) Steve & Robin | T | 19.6k Steve and Robin work on Christmas. Everyone brings a little bit of Christmas to them.

🌿 Multichapter Fics

➤ you're out of touch, i'm out of time Steve & Robin, Robin/Nancy, Steve/Eddie | T | 12/12 | 75.5k Steve and Nancy travel back in time to 1983 and try to fix things.

➤ in the web that is my own, i begin again (WIP) Steve & Robin | T | 6/11 | 32.5k Steve struggles to balance his superhero identity with his regular life.

➤ one more or one less (WIP) Steve & Robin | T | 1/? | 2.5k After Starcourt, Steve realises that Robin's missing.

➤ holding my last breath (WIP) Nancy/Robin | M | 1/12 | 3.6k | Scream AU There's a killer targeting teenagers in Hawkins. After the killer takes the life of one of Nancy's friends, she'll stop at nothing to get justice.

➤ chasing visions of our futures (WIP) Stevie/Eddie, Stevie & Robin, Robin/Nancy | T | 2/7 | 4k Stevie's dead set on nudging Robin and Nancy together. She's not expecting to realise her feelings for Eddie along the way.

➤ separation brings us awfully close Robin/Chrissy, Robin/Nancy, Chrissy/Nancy, Chrissy & Eddie | T | 3/3 | 9.8k Chrissy learns the hard way that Spider-Woman can’t save everyone.

➤ you’re someone (who knows someone i once knew) (WIP) T | 1/3 | 4.4k Steve Harrington dies. Decades later, Dustin Henderson resurrects him. This is not that story. That story’s already been told. No, this is about what comes after.

🍊 Oneshots

➤ you got light in your eyes Steve & Robin | T | 7.2k | Sequel to Out of Touch Steve can't stop thinking about what Mr. Hauser had told him about Robin.

➤ the pleasure, the privilege is mine Steve & Robin | T | 7.6k Robin won’t let Steve go alone. Not even at the end of the world.

➤ share the same space for a minute or two Robin/Nancy | G | 2.4k Nancy isn’t yet sure what to do with herself now that the world isn’t ending. Robin helps.

➤ the future's unwritten, the past is a corridor Nancy & Eddie, Steve & Robin, Robin/Nancy, Steve/Eddie | T | 26.3k Robin and Nancy have just moved into their new house with their son, next door to Steve, Eddie and their daughter.

➤ guess i'm a coward (i just want to feel alright) Steve/Eddie, Eddie & everyone | T | 7.2k When the bats attack, Eddie sticks to the plan, and he runs, and he lives. He thinks, maybe, that he’ll hate himself forever for it.

➤ cracks in your ceiling Robin/Nancy | T | 9.9k Nancy has a movie night with friends, invents a new disease, and quite possibly has her life ruined by Sigourney Weaver.

➤ in war, in peace, in death Steve/Eddie, Steve & Robin, Robin/Nancy | T | 7.8k Steve realises Robin's alive, trapped in the Fade. (A Dragon Age AU)

➤ now i've found a real love  Robin/Nancy, Nancy & Mike | T | 8.7k Nancy Wheeler deserves a good Christmas. In fact, they all do.

➤ used to be you but now it's you and me Steve & Robin | T | 2.4k | twin stars stobin zine contribution It's only natural to cry on your birthday.

➤ 'cause i'm gonna be free and i'm gonna be fine Steve & Robin | T | 7.5k Two decades after the Upside Down closes for good, Steve's daughter goes viral on TikTok, and things quickly escalate from there.

➤ this dream isn't feeling sweet Lucas & Robin, Robin/Vickie | T | 13.1k Lucas finds himself struggling at the post-championship game party.

➤ there’s joy not far from here (i know there is) Steve & Robin, Steve & Robin & the Party | T | 3.7k Steve, Robin and the party have an important discussion about homophobia.

➤ HOW TO SURVIVE THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE: A GUIDE BY DUSTIN HENDERSON Dustin & everyone | G | 2.5k Dustin's guide to the apocalypse.

➤ this is how we'll dance Steve & Robin & Eddie, minor Robin/Carol, Steve & Dustin | T | 1.8k Prom night 1985 from Robin, Eddie and Steve's perspectives.

➤ hold onto hope if you got it Wayne & Eddie, Wayne & Everyone | G | 2k When the trailer park is destroyed, Wayne loses his mug collection of twenty years. Eddie decides this is unacceptable and must be rectified.

➤ you will surely be the death of me  Steve & Robin, Steve & Robin & the Party | G | 4.4k When Eddie plans to go out of town, Robin and Steve finally agree to play a D&D campaign, on the following conditions: 1) it’s one session, and 2) Robin’s the DM.

➤ life among the dead  Nancy & Robin & Steve, Robin/Nancy | T | 1.3k A Pushing Daisies AU in which Nancy can resurrect the dead.

➤ tonight i'll dream while i’m in bed Robin & Steve, minor Robin/Nancy | G | 4.1k Steve and Robin met, once, long before Scoops Ahoy and Starcourt Mall.

➤ sing me to sleep Robin & Steve & Nancy | T | 1.5k Nancy goes searching for Robin in the Upside Down after Steve dies.

➤ caught up in the motion Robin/Nancy, Robin & Steve, Robin & the Party | T | 3.2k Robin accidentally wears Nancy's Emerson t-shirt to work. Problem is, nobody apart from Steve knows that they're dating.

➤ kiss and (don't) tell Steve/Eddie, Eddie & the Party | T | 1.8k Eddie has a hickey. The party try to figure out who gave it to him.

🩵 Josieverse

➤ bright as the morning sun Steve & Robin & Josie | G | 1.4k | stobin month 2024 A slice-of-life oneshot revolving around Robin, Steve and Josie.

➤ here's to my future (here's to my yesterday) Steve & Robin & Eddie | T | 3.3k Robin’s three months pregnant and still only two people know. They’ve been invited to Dustin’s Halloween party, though. She can keep it a secret. Probably.

➤ all for freedom and for pleasure Steve & Josie & Eddie | G | 0.8k Eddie discovers that Robin’s daughter has learnt how to blackmail people.

➤ what you fear the most Steve & Robin & Josie | G | 1k Steve comes home to find Robin and her daughter Josie seemingly trapped.

➤ somebody that you used to know Robin/Valerie, Steve & Robin | M | 1.9k Before Josie was born—before everything changed—Robin had had something with Valerie. Nothing serious, nothing labelled, but it mattered all the same.

➤ when you touch the stars, hold my hand Steve & Robin & Josie | T | 3.3k Josie is confused about why she doesn’t have a dad.

🌹 Smut fics

➤ if this feeling flows both ways Robin/Nancy | E | 9.1k Nancy accidentally receives a sext from Robin and can’t stop thinking about it.

➤ i’d suffer hell if you’d tell me Robin/Nancy | E | 8.8k It’s been a while since Nancy’s had time alone with Robin. She intends to make the most of it.

🌸 Rarepairs

➤ every time it rains Steve/Kali | G | 1.6k Kali wouldn't class herself as someone fond of walks, but she is fond of Steve.

➤ neck full of mockingbirds (WIP) Robin/Carol | E | 9/? | 7.5k Carol and Robin, from start to end.

➤ i wanna be adored Nancy/Eden | G | 1.9k Nancy's lonely. Eden's there.

[oceaneyesinla]

7 + Chuuya

Dear sweet anon, thank you for your submission, and thank you for allowing me to write for the love of my life! I hope you enjoy this fluffy stargazing with Chuuya <3

Part of my Fluff, Fluff and More Fluff Event - submissions still open!

Prompt 7: late night stargazing when they can't sleep

Chuuya x gn!Reader, nickname 'angel' used

Divider by @/adornedwithlight

Beneath a Starlit Sky

You should be asleep. It was already late when you arrived back to the safehouse, moon rising into the sky as you and Chuuya made yourselves at home in your temporary accommodations. Chuuya immediately took the role of checking the small cabin for any dangers (you can never be too careful in your line of work), and the way he gently shifted you behind him, one hand on your shoulder and the other on your waist, is still on your mind even now. You swear you can still feel the phantom warmth of his hands on your skin, even though there were his gloves and your clothes between you. Just the thought of his touch has your cheeks heating up, and you're almost glad of the distraction.

Because your confusing, not quite platonic feelings for your closest friend aren't the reason you're awake. What's stopping you from slipping into the slumber you desperately need is the adrenaline still coursing through your veins, and the lingering anxiety still running through your mind. Realistically, you knew the danger was minimal - Chuuya has proven time and again that he will keep you safe whatever the circumstances; there's a reason your trust in him runs so deep. It isn't your safety that concerns you. An attack out of nowhere separated you, and for a split second you thought Chuuya was seriously injured, or worse. Even thinking about it now, hours after the fact, chills you to the bone.

The uncertainty was short lived - Chuuya called out to you moments later, and you could breathe again. The memory, however, lingers in your mind, making you restless and uneasy. A glance out the window reveals cloudless, pitch black night, and you decide to try and ease your mind. You creep through the cabin, stopping for a moment to sweep your eyes over Chuuya's form, the tightness in your chest releasing with every breath you watch him take. He insisted on taking the couch, ever the gentleman, and the way he’s tucked himself in under the thick fluffy blanket is adorable.

There's a smile tugging at your lips as you let yourself out the front door, and the cool night air that greets you only serves to calm you further. It's peaceful out here - you're away from the city, and as much as you love Yokohama, it's a relief to be away from the lights and the noise and the expectations, just for a little while. The darkness envelops you like a blanket as you wander away from the cabin, towards the grassy slope you walked up to reach the place earlier. You settle on the grass there, lying back so you have an unobstructed view of the entire sky above you. The Milky Way trails through the sky, millions of pinpricks of light scattered across its dark canvas. It's infinite, and it's awe inspiring.

Distracted as you are by the sight above you, you don't notice another presence until the grass near your head rustles. You make to sit up in a rush, but a smooth, quiet voice relaxes you immediately.

“It's me, angel.” The term of endearment is unfamiliar, but by no means unwelcome. Chuuya drops something on top of you before lying down by your side, close enough that your hands could touch, if you shifted just a little.

He's brought you a blanket, and you can't stop the smile that grows as you drape it over you both, "I'm sorry; did I wake you?”

"Nah, couldn't sleep. Guessing you couldn't either?” Something brushes against your hand underneath the blanket, and you decide to match his actions with your own, linking your pinky fingers together. You can't bring yourself to look at him, but the little squeeze he gives your finger tells you everything you need to know.

"Yeah, same.” The silence that falls between you is comfortable, and the warmth of him next to you loosens your tongue, relaxing you into confessing just why sleep is evading you, "You scared me, you know?”

Chuuya doesn't speak, but you can feel his eyes watching your profile, patiently waiting for you to continue spilling your secrets. It's testament to the bond you share that the weight of his gaze is reassuring instead of overwhelming.

"That guy came out of nowhere, and you were just … gone. I …” Your voice trails off, and you pull your pinky away from his, only to lace your fingers together instead. His hand is warm, skin soft against yours.

"I should have called out. I was so focused on keeping you safe, I didn't even think.” You weren't expecting him to say that, and when you turn your head to meet his eyes, you see nothing but honesty shining back at you. Moonlight reflects off blue irises, and you squeeze his hand a little tighter in yours, savouring the feeling.

Out here like this, under the stars with Chuuya by your side, you can feel the remnants of tension seeping out of you. Your eyes are drawn back to the endless stretch of cosmos twinkling above you, and you can't think of anyone you would rather experience this with.

"Don't get sights like this back home, huh?” Chuuya's voice is quiet, and filled with a wonder you've never heard before. When you turn your head to look at him, his smile is as bright as the moonlight bathing you both. The hand not wrapped up in yours lifts to point out a particularly bright star, and you hang onto his every word as he begins to explain each feature in turn. You didn't know he was an astronomy buff, but you're captivated by his enthusiasm.

You're not sure how long the two of you lie there, taking in the sky and indulging in each other's company. Eventually, Chuuya's words slow, and your eyes start to grow heavy. You both yawn in sync, and when you meet each other's eyes, neither of you can stop the giggles that escape you. Chuuya helps you to your feet, keeping a hold of your hand the entire time.

Back in the warmth of the cabin, he moves to release your hand, and you can tell he's just as reluctant to part as you are. So you grip his hand a little tighter, meeting his hopeful confusion with a smile, "Bed is big enough for two.” You suddenly feel vulnerable under his steady gaze, but you know he won't judge you, "Please don't leave me alone.”

He meets your plea with a soft smile, and he lifts your joined hands to press a kiss to your knuckles, "I'm not going anywhere, angel.” He's promising more than just for tonight, and you can't wait to see where this development takes you. For now, though, you'll sleep in his arms, and dream of dancing under the stars.

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

A 70 years old Israeli farmer has been killed by Hezbollah rockets fired from Lebaon at Israel. May his memory be a blessing.

The death toll of the IDF ground operation in Gaza is now at 87.

Following the US congress discussion on antisemitism, where the presidents of prestigious universities couldn't clearly define calls to genocide the Jews as bullying and harassment, an Israeli professor at Standford, Jonathan Levav, who has lived there for years, and who said he's raising his two kids as typical American teenagers, was interviewed by his journalist friend in Israel. He talked about the fact that since Oct 7, he has felt antisemitism in the US and on his college campus in a way he never has before. "I would rather be in Israel right now," said the professor. "Really!?" asked his journalist friend, his voice making it clear that he's completely astonished. After all, our lives are currently under threat from several fronts. The professor reaffirmed the sentiment. "It's better to be hit by rockets in the face, than by knives in the back."

Here's another reminder that "Free Gaza from Hamas" isn't just a slogan, we're actually listening to people in Gaza who are pleading for a better life, and to even have a future:

And while some Gazans suffer immeasurably under Hamas, this terrorist organization's leaders and those affiliated with them live like kings. Better than most Israelis, in fact. The IDF revealed receipts for purchases made by Hamas people of luxury items, including jewelry. A single receipt was sometimes for a sum of money equivalent to two years worth of work on Gaza's average salary. Among the receipts found, were ones for purchases made by the son of Hamas's leader, Ismail Hanyieh. While Gazans suffer the consequences of Hamas' massacre of innocent civilians in Israel, Hanyieh is living in a luxury hotel in Qatar. Hanyieh's personal wealth is estimated to be 4 billion dollars, roughly 4 times greater than Taylor Swift's (Google says she has a net worth of 1.1 billion dollars).

Dozens of men in Gaza turned themselves over to the IDF today, they were arrested, not killed, a reminder that all Hamas needs to do for everyone to live is surrender.

The following infographic is a bit outdated (from roughly 3 weeks ago, I think), but it shows how much more attention the dead in Gaza get, than the dead anywhere else in the world, in conflicts far bloodier. Even more than in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. So what stands out about this, what makes everyone pay more attention to dead Gazan civilians than to dead Ukrainian civilians? My personal guess is that it's not the Gazans themselves. When Palestinians are killed by other Arabs in Lebanon, Syria or Jordan, no one pays attention to them. When Palestinians are killed by their own leadership, whether Hamas or the Palestinian Authority, no one talks about it. What changes suddenly, when Israel is a part of the picture? My guess is that it's the fact that then, it can be used to attack the Jewish state, excuse the massacre of Jews, and inspire attacks against Jewish people all over the world. Even on the campuses of the most prestigious US universities.

Why do I bring this up now?

The UN secretary general had been silent on the rape of Israeli women for almost two months following the Hamas massacre, had barely talked about Hamas' war crimes, had failed to talk about Hamas' use of Palestinians as human shields, and his workers had collaborated with Hamas for years, in turning a blind eye to Hamas' use of UN schools and hospitals to attack Israelis from, as well as since the Oct 7 massacre, in holding an Israeli kid hostage without providing him with enough food.

This man is now invoking article 99 of the UN charter.

This article allows him to call a special session of the UN security council, based on his concern for world peace.

He did not use this article during any other conflict, no matter how bloody. Not during his years in office while the civil war in Syria continues to rage for over a decade, with hundreds of thousands killed, and millions displaced. He did not invoke it during the war between Russia and Ukraine, which has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people on both sides in less than two years.

Or let's put aside at the number of victims, and look at the possible risk to world peace.

The global power that is Russia is in the middle of a war, with all the allies it has, and the places where it exerts its influence, such as Syria, and all the countries that are looking at Russia, waiting to see what they can learn from the war's results, and that doesn't make the UN secretary general concerned enough for world peace to call a special session! I'm not even going to talk about the geopolitical results of the war in Syria, which was a training ground for Islamists from other countries as well (for example, we know Hezbollah's terrorists returned from the war in Syria with more military experience than anything they got before). But that wasn't concerning enough!

There's so much that was said over the years about the UN's anti-Israel bias, but it feels like this one really takes the cake.

Once again, the only conflict involving the one Jewish state is also the only one getting disproportionate attention, which essentially (please excuse my language, but I am angry) fucks over every other victim of every other conflict. Never forget that antisemitism doesn't just hurt Jews, there are non-Jews who pay the price for it as well.

On the first night of Hanukkah, there will be 138 hanukkiot (Hanukkah menorahs) lit at the Western Wall, the same number of the hostages who are still being held in Gaza. (this is a small reminder that Hanukkah is a Zionist holiday)

This is 25 years old Gal Meir Eizenkott.

It was published just minutes ago that he was killed in the fighting in Gaza. Gal is the son of Gadi Eizenkott, who is currently an Israeli minister, and the former IDF Chief of Staff. NOBODY in Israel is sending the soldiers off to fight without a care in the world. Pictured below is Gal with his dad. May his memory be a blessing.

These are 3 years old Emma and Yuli Kunyo, twins.

They were held hostage by Hamas. We know now that at a certain point, Yuli was separated from the rest of her captured family, and kept alone. The two girls were released in the hostage deal, together with their 34 years old mom. Today, these girls were discharged from the hospital. They still don't have a home to return to.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[mask131]

You know what? I will actually make my post about this problem (and even talk about some misogynistic implications! yeepee!)

It all started with the recent depiction of Hestia in the show "Blood of Zeus". Now... I did not watch the second season of Blood of Zeus, because the first season already gave me enough reasons to dislike the show and rank it among the bad depictions of Greek mythology. But I couldn't escape the massive success and presence of season 2 on Youtube, so I did watch some of the scenes of "Hestia doing battled" and throwing fire-balls and fire-tornadoes at people.

I do not take offense to that. Why? Because this fits the show's aesthetic and goal. As much as I dislike this, the show is about doing huge battles and being an action-piece filled with gore, taking cues from things like God of War, and depicting the gods as violent and destructive and warriors always fighting and killing people. So having Hestia weaponize her fire was expected from this show - I would have been surprised she didn't do it.

HOWEVER! What I take offense to is how people reacted to this. I saw the flood of comments which were basically "Yas girl, show them queen, burn them to a crisp, show you're the oldest and most powerful!". Some even said "This is the best depiction of Hestia alongside Riordan's". And to THAT I take offense. Now I know there is a symbolic plotline about Hestia protecting the omphalos, and honestly this sounds cool and good, but I am not speaking about it. I am speaking about Hestia you know, fighting monsters and demons by unleashing winds and waves of fire on them.

This isn't what the Greek goddess Hestia is about. She is not a fighter, she is not a warrior, she is not a power of destruction or war, she literaly is the most passive and peaceful entity you can find in Greek mythology. And in this light, Riordan's depiction of Hestia in his novel "The Last Olympian" is far superior because Riordan gets what makes Hestia who she is, and he prepares the story to show her in the role she fulfills: a woman sitting by a fire, welcoming people, feeding them, talking to them, guarding and staying awake and behind, and just... keeping the last fort, so to speak. And by doing so proving herself immensely cool and powerful and important. (That's another tip for writers out there: if you are confronted with a conflict of character versus plot... you know you are supposed to sometimes tailor the plot specifically to allow the character to shine as they were intended to be, and you are not forced to modify a character to fit your plot? Don't want to depict Hestia as a warrior deity because she was not that? Simple: don't show her being directly in battle or in need of defending herself. Write about something else instead).

I will admit that my teenage-self would have loved to see Hestia throwing fireballs - because that's the edgy stuff teenagers love (and I guess this is why "Blood of Zeus" works so much, it was literaly designed for your edgy teens). But I am an adult now and I know better. And I have also enough experience to see that people wishing and craving for a fireball-throwing Hestia is symptomatic of something much wider.

This wider thing being: modern audiences have a very hard time understanding that you can have immensely powerful characters who are mighty without being violent, agressive and hostile. I will be biased because events in my life and the real world are revealing we are living in an hyper-violent time, but this indeed led me to think about this topic.

Hestia is a manifestation of this idea that "might and importance does not mean violence". But there are many, many others, and to take a similar example I will dig up a Tolkien example I adore. Melian, from the Silmarillion. People got into a whole drama when "The Rings of Power" was released because of Galadriel's depiction, and I am NOT getting into that. But Melian and Morgoth's fight is linked, because it was Tolkien's precursor to Galadriel's battle against Sauron. So, what about Melian? She is a demigoddess among mortals, a divine spirit more powerful than the magic users we are knowing in the Tolkien universe (more powerful than Gandalf or Saruman), and one of the main ennemies of Morgoth himself, the OG Dark Lord and the baddest of the big bads. She is one of the mightiest entities to have walked Middle-Earth outside of the Valar themselves, and how does it manifests itself?

By the Girdle of Melian. A magical protection of her land. But does this magic wall manifests as spikes of fire? Are trespassers killing by a thunderbolt? Not at all. You can't even see the Girdle. Melian's magic simply... protects her land, and shields it from the eyes of evil. It makes intruders confused and lost and it leads them astray, without actually harming them. And Melian repels all the evil spells and dark curses and malevolent forces. And that's it. Simple, invisible, passive - and yet one of the most powerful enchantments and impressive feats of magic of Middle-Earth, able to keep Morgoth himself at bay.

This later would earn Tolkien's writing some criticism, as Tolkien was very fond of this idea of "passive power" for women (outside of his two famous "active" women, Eowyn and Luthien), and it fed into the unfortunate fantasy stereotype of "women are passive, men are active" (itself a manifestation of the underlyng misogyny among 20th century fantasy literature as a whole). But this is a good manifestation of how Tolkien imitated and took inspiration from old mythologies and legends - where this idea of "passive power" was VERY prevalent and important.

Hestia and Melian are just two examples I took out of my hat, but there are many many more, and they all rely in one principle: you have great and mighty powers that make some characters (or places, or items) dreaded by villains and beloved by the good people ; you have these forces that repel all evil and that are to be considered sacred and to be protected ; you have these ancient and immensely powerful entities that outrank everybody... and yet who never lift a hand against someone else, and who don't unleash floods or storms onto people, and who never even threatened to harm anybody. Because their very power relies on other principles, because they are a form of sacred power in what it has of... essential I'll say. This specific motif is VERY prevalent among Christian legends (at least European Catholic flavors) because it was heavily used when depicting saints and angels. One of the recurring motif of hagiography (the life of the saints and the legends surrounding them) is how the saint does not threaten those that wish to put them to death, never lift a finger against those that try to harm them - but by the very power of their sacredness, love/wisdom/goodness, weapons break against them or cannot reach them, and those that wish to destroy them are rendered powerless. In a wider scope it is also reflected in other Christian-derived myths like the vampire myth: before people decided to "visualize" the vampire's weakness to sacredness by having crosses or churches burn the vampire alive, it was just... the vampire literaly couldn't enter the church, and just fled away, like some mental compulsion, before the cross.

It is a concept and idea of the "sacred" and of the "sacred power" (so to speak) that existed since the Ancient Greeks to modern Catholics, and that heavily fueled and fed our fiction from old fairytales to modern fantasy novels. And it is something that is being completely lost as today power means: fighting, hitting, beating up, unleashing storms and chaos, and threatening to break every single finger of the people who are angry at you. It is even more annoying because we are not speaking about real life here. We are talking about MAGIC and about FANTASY and so EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE.

And I promised you more misogyny well here it is... I noticed something recently and that might be just me extrapoling things, but while this whole "passive power" idea has been heavily criticized for female characters (in a very right way, as one cannot deny passive women in fantasy was indeed a big problem) and is now fully rejected, I can't help but notice that when it comes to male characters suddenly it is praised and glorified, especially as how it depicts men "not being violents for once". And... I can't help but think, cynical little mind that I am, that maybe by trying to flee one form of misogyny we enter another one, because the implicit of "passive power" being good for men but laughable for women, is that... women need to be active and violent and brutalizing to prove themselves, while men do not have to. The sort of inherent sacredness and respect people once gave to women has now passed onto men - because men do not need to "prove" they're strong anymore, everybody is supposed to know this - while women, if they try to just be a power in themselves and by themselves, get ridiculed because "If someone comes with a mace, they won't be able to defend themselves". Almost as if people can't take seriously anymore the idea that you just have women so powerful they don't even need to fight to defeat you.

I don't know, here I am truly rambling around, and this is a Charybdis and Scylla scenario because you literaly have problems whether you depict women as active or passive, since both sides are hated by different people and both bear their inherent biases and stereotypes.

But conclusion: I wish when it comes to power and magic and gods we had more depictions of passive and non-violent forces. I am tired enough of the violence in the real-world I don't need even more added onto my screen in an unecessary way. If I want to see a goddess burn everything to the ground, I go look for Pele, or Sekhmet. I don't look for Hestia.

[mirikitakato]

[Translation] 4th Anni Card Episodes of Shino, Heathcliff and Oz.

Because they're nicely written by Bunta so I think I should translate them when I have them in hands. I also like the Oz's one a lot because it's funny but when you think about it, it's pretty wholesome in a very Northern way.

CARD EPISODE: SHINO AND THE DOOR OF DAYS BYGONE…

Akira: I heard that on the shores of Borda Isle, there is a door that allows you to see the past. Speaking of the past, when I first came to this world, I still had a lot of uneasiness in my heart. But when I recalled a certain memory, I felt at ease.

Shino: What memory?

Akira: The memory of a trusted adult reading a book to me as a child.

Shino: Is that so.

Akira: Is there any memories that would act like a talisman for you, Shino? Memories that provide comfort to you.

Shino:..... Somehow...

Akira: Yes?

Shino: I keep thinking about Heath.

Akira: Ah, I see. You two are childhood friends after all...

Shino: No, it's not good because I'm a servant. Memories of being with my master shouldn’t make me feel at ease. By the way, what did Heath say?

Akira: I haven't asked him anything yet.

Shino: What? Why didn't you?

Akira: S-sorry...

Shino: The feelings I had before were not for Heath, but for the time I spent with the master and mistress.

Akira: Would it make you feel at ease to remember that?

Shino: Guess so. Taking care of Heath is just a forced job.

Akira: You're saying that again...but your relationship isn't a forced one.

Shino: I know. Heath is my true master now. I can't allow myself to feel at ease when I think of my master.

Akira: I see...

Shino: I'll set an image for myself to remember. If I repeat it enough times, I can control these feelings.

Akira: Huh......!? Is that something you can control yourself?

Shino: If I have these feelings because a certain image comes to mind, then I can. Hmm, what kind of scene do I need to remember to feel at ease and become stronger?

Akira: (Even if you remember Heath, you won't become weaker though...)

Shino: Maybe Oz? After all, he's the strongest in the world. Hmm...? If I feel relieved when I see a strong guy come along, does that mean I'm weak?

Akira: It feels like a very random stream of consciousness, but thanks anyway...

CARD EPISODE: HEATHCLIFF AND THE DOOR OF DAYS BYGONE…

Akira: I heard that on the shores of Borda Isle, there is a door that allows you to see the past. Speaking of the past, when I first came to this world, I still had a lot of uneasiness in my heart. But when I recalled a certain memory, I felt at ease.

Heathcliff: A certain memory...Can I ask what it’s like?

Akira: The memory of a trusted adult reading a book to me as a child.

Heathcliff: Ah, I see. As a child, I was always drawn to the stories that adults would tell me.

Akira: Is there any memories that would act like a talisman for you? Memories that provide comfort to you.

Heathcliff: Hmm...well...there are many. Compared to other wizard children, my parents' love for me even made me feel guilty. They must have taken extra care of me so that I, who was born a wizard, wouldn't be in pain. My parents told me countless times how much they loved and cherished me. So...I've been living a peaceful life since then. Shino and the people who work at Blanchett also make me feel at ease. I'm so grateful to everyone for being able to live like this.

Akira: (Heath... Just listening to him makes me feel so happy...) (For some reason, he can't catch his breath. Is it because he’s suffocating or because he feels guilty?) (It's like he's talking to himself.) (Maybe because Heath is so sensitive, he knows that his parents and Shino want him to have a happy life.) (No matter what it is, if you're expected to do something, it's bound to put some pressure on you...) (...Heath has it tough too...)

Akira: I'm glad that Heath is surrounded by kind people. I also want Heath to live a peaceful and happy life.

Heath: Thank you, Sage.

Akira: But...I'm not saying I want you to live a perfect, ideal happy life. What I mean is that I want Heath to be able to live freely like everyone else, according to his own will. To enjoy happiness and sadness. Isn't that what everyone else wants?

Heath: Sage... I remember something. A scene that made me feel at ease when I was sad...

Akira: Please tell me about it. What kind of memory is it?

Heath: I may have mentioned this before, but... It's a memory of the orange tree in the greenhouse near Blanchett Castle.

CARD EPISODE: OZ AND THE DOOR OF DAYS BYGONE…

Akira: I heard that on the shores of Borda Isle, there is a door that allows you to see the past. Speaking of the past, when I first came to this world, I still had a lot of uneasiness in my heart. But when I recalled a certain memory, I felt at ease.

Oz: A certain memory...?

Akira: The memory of a trusted adult reading a book to me as a child.

Oz: ........

Akira: Is there any memories that would act like a talisman for you? Memories that provide comfort to you.

Oz: .....Making myself feel at ease with memories...?

Akira: I-is my question strange?

Oz: No... I always win against Mithra.

Akira: Yes.

Oz: I’ve never lost to Owen and Bradley. The same goes for the twins and Figaro, I won't lose to them now.

Akira: I know.

Oz: These memories and achievements make me feel at ease. It's not to the point of being relaxed, but just a statement of fact.

Akira: Okay...

Oz: Is this what you want to hear?

Akira: To be honest, that's not what I meant... It should be more heartwarming memories, right? The kind that can make people relax...

Oz: ......

Akira: (Oz and the Northern wizards, do they not have any memories that make them feel at ease, or any moments of relaxation?)

Oz: A long time ago, when I was still small and my power was far from what it is now... The twins and Figaro made me drink poison.

Akira: Eh??

Oz: Of course, I would never drink it obediently. I resisted with my life, and those guys were also seriously injured. After a few similar incidents, I understood. What they were giving me wasn't poison, but medicine.

Akira: (It's a little story about feeding medicine to a wild beast...)

Oz: I didn't know there was such a thing as medicine back then. I used magic to heal myself from minor and major injuries. And the medicine tasted terrible. But now, I can drink it without worry. Will a story like that do?

Akira: (It's barely heartwarming...)

[antianakin]

Sorry if this isn't the kind of thing you want asked, you can ignore this if it isn't.

But in a no Palpatine AU, let's say Anakin matures just enough to realize that Jedi life isn't for him and leaves the Jedi Order. What do you think he'd do with his life after leaving? And do you think he'd stay friends with people like Obi-Wan?

This is totally the kind of thing I want asked!

Okay, so, the way I see it, there's two options for this AU.

Option 1: Everything stays the same up through TPM but Palpatine like slips on the stairs before Padme arrives on Coruscant or something, so he doesn't become Chancellor and never meets Anakin.

Option 2: Palpatine died before TPM or just never existed, and so the events of TPM go radically different or just don't happen at all, which has a lot of ripple effects on the entire storyline.

I think Option 1 is probably the scenario you were imagining with this ask, and it's the easier one to answer, so I'll do that one first.

I think Anakin could really mature a LOT via the Jedi lifestyle, actually. Anakin in TPM as a 9 year old is a genuinely kind, compassionate, sweet kid who seems to just want to help people and has a somewhat child-like naive idea of how that would actually work in reality. Living as a Jedi without the intervention of Palpatine telling him he can't trust the Jedi would allow him to really benefit from all of their lessons. He'd learn to be more than just mature, he could learn real mindfulness, he'd learn to let go, he'd learn to be at peace with the world around him and with who he is and what he was.

I think Anakin could leave at a few different points, but I usually assume that in this kind of situation, Anakin would leave probably shortly before he gets Knighted. Because I think Anakin would have benefited so much from the Jedi's teachings that it would feel wrong to him to take those oaths, knowing that he doesn't truly mean them and can't truly commit to them. But he stays as a Padawan as long as he can because he does LIKE a lot of things about being a Jedi and the longer he stays, the more he can learn. If Obi-Wan and the Council trust him to be a Knight, he can trust that he's probably gotten about all he can from the experience and it's time to move on. He might not even entirely consciously REALIZE that he's doing this until the moment comes and he has that particular epiphany that he's just been waiting for that validation to know that it's okay to leave.

And in this scenario, there's probably no Darth Tyrannus, either, and likely no Separatists, so there's nothing putting Padme's life in danger which means Anakin and Obi-Wan probably don't end up coming back into her orbit before Anakin leaves the Order. There's no secret relationship of any kind. But on Padme's end, this means there's no WAR and a lot fewer difficulties in the Senate probably which might mean she feels more comfortable stepping away from being a Senator than we know she does in canon.

As for what Anakin does after he leaves, there's SO MANY options. A lot of people assume he'd go into engineering, which is valid. It'd be a pretty easy job to pick up after leaving, maybe on a ship that needs a mechanic on the crew or something so he gets to travel around a bit. He could be a pilot, get a ship of his own and get some kind of piloting job. He could just go into racing I guess, although I feel like his time as a Jedi and his desire to help people would keep him from making that a whole career.

My favorite option though is that he goes back to Tatooine to try to do some abolition/grassroots work out there. It'd be really interesting as a parallel universe storyline if one of the things he actually ends up focusing on when he goes back to Tatooine is learning to understand the Tuskens better and trying to build a better relationship between the Tuskens and the settlers. I think he'd obviously focus a lot on the slavery issue, but it'd be interesting if the Tuskens got folded into that at some point, too. Maybe that work eventually leads him into politics and back to Coruscant and the Republic Senate at some point and that's how he gets back in contact with Padme. Or maybe Padme leaves the Senate and starts working with grassroots organizations herself afterwards and ends up remembering her time on Tatooine and deciding to go there to help and that's how they reconnect.

This also allows Anakin to reconnect with Shmi who, if we take into account the deleted dialogue that implies Palpatine and Dooku were behind the capture by the Tuskens that led to her death, is alive and well and doing just fine on the Lars homestead. So not only does Anakin get his mother back, he gains an entire step-family along with her. Anakin and Owen might butt heads occasionally, but they do love each other and consider each other family. Anakin and Beru get along SWIMMINGLY, much to Owen's irritation. Maybe the Tusken connection happens via his family and their struggles with the local tribes.

And in this AU, there's no reason he WOULDN'T remain friends with Obi-Wan. It might be a more "Jedi-like" friendship in the sense that they don't necessarily see or speak to each other super often, but they share an unbreakable bond from the years they spent together as Master/Padawan and do reach out when they have the time or are in the same area, etc. There's no attachment, no obligations or expectations that either of them has to live up to, just... compassion and friendship and respect.

And this brings us to Option 2 which runs into a lot more speculation and can go any number of ways.

If Palpatine dies prior to TPM or just plain doesn't exist at all, this likely means that the events of TPM don't even happen. So whether Anakin ever even becomes a Jedi is completely questionable and if he does, his route to becoming one could be radically different which would impact the kind of Jedi he becomes and his relationships to both Padme and Obi-Wan. It's entirely possible he'd never even MEET Padme until he was either fully a Jedi or had left the Jedi, so whether he'd end up in a relationship with her is completely up in the air. He might not even be into her depending on what kind of person you assume Anakin and Padme end up becoming in this particular AU. Maybe Obi-Wan doesn't become his Master. Maybe Qui-Gon DOES become his Master because he doesn't die on Naboo and survives to the end of Obi-Wan's apprenticeship. Maybe Anakin stays on Tatooine and when Cliegg comes along, he frees both of them and Anakin grows up a Lars for a while and meets Beru and joins her in abolition efforts. Maybe he becomes a celebrity via the podracing gig and this gets him enough money to leave Tatooine to pursue a career doing something else. Maybe Quinlan is involved in discovering Anakin since he's halfway canonically on Tatooine at the same time as Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan.

Option 2 is kind-of a free for all, take your pick sort of option, so it's a little harder to definitively answer your questions about what he'd do and how his relationships would end up.