#i like war crimes but he doesn’t cut it for me sorry

[sculptorofcrimson]

If i write Lanius getting his shit absolutely railed, would you please please please stop yapping about Fallout yaoi on my feed?

[threeacttragedy]

Entry 11: The One About the Heart of the Ocean

My father is a big history buff. He fancies himself a bit of an expert about the U.S. Civil War, U.S. Presidents, and World War II. In fact, he’s gifted me with the Useless Knowledge of which four U.S. Presidents were assassinated while in office (Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and Kennedy – you’re welcome for that little addition to your own Library of Useless Knowledge).

But, more importantly, my dad has instilled in me the importance of a timeline. The idea that, if you’re collecting information, it’s vital to keep it in chronological order, that way you can look at it, (try to) understand it, and theorize about what happened before and after an event. If the facts are out of order, the conclusion you reach may be in error.

My father and I also like to solve True Crime together. When he visits, we spend hours on the porch studying some random, usually cold, true crime event. We timeline the shit out of it, connect the puzzle pieces together, and exclaim in the end, “We’ve solved it!” I suppose that is part of what keeps me interested in Lukola – not that there is anything criminal in Lukola, except perhaps the “Single White Female” that pops up behind Nicola from time to time – I just enjoy the game of trying to put the pieces together.

Lukola has become a rather intriguing puzzle, don’t you think? It’s definitely one to which I do not have all the pieces. I do, however, enjoy collecting the information and chronologizing it, and now I find it enjoyable to scribble my thoughts out on Tumblr.

So, how did I get here?

Well, it started with boredom and ended with a timeline.

My first entry to the timeline?

July 20, 2024.

What happened on that date?

Well, nothing spectacular really, except JVN posted –

HOLD UP!

HOLD THE FUCK UP!!

OH SHIT!!

YES!

YES, you guessed it! After blowing JVN off for at least three, maybe four, posts in a row, I’m finally getting around to dedicating an entire entry to Their Royal Highness.

JVN is such a fascinating creature. I mean, you get beautiful, witty, and intelligent wrapped into one human being. Oh, and they are kind of a catty bitch, too, and who doesn’t love one of those? That’s why they're the Heart of the Ocean on the USS Lukola; they just give off this very rare blue diamond vibe. Well, that, and because something they did marks the focal point – the heart – from which the rest of my timeline branches.

*I will cut in here to note that I am referring to JVN as they/their in this entry as their Instagram bio indicates they accept “they/he/she.”

Okay, back to July 20.

On that date, JVN posted to TikTok their version of the Charli xcx “Apple” dance. You know that annoying TikTok trend that took over our summer? Yeah, that’s the one – the same one Antonia tried doing – she just couldn’t pull off the JVN version of it. Dear girl couldn’t come close to matching JVN’s “enthusiasm,” and JVN’s version was only made more enjoyable in that they were seemingly mocking Antonia!

But, all’s fair in love and war, right?

JVN’s bestie, Nicola, had already spent the entire summer subtlety combating Antonia over social media. The vibe in the fandom was that Antonia was always trying to one-up Nicola, with Nicola always coming out the victor. I’m sorry, Antonia, you just can’t beat some perfectly timed BTS drops.

So, why did JVN’s TikTok post intrigue me? It wasn’t because it was that amusing. It was because they’d done something I hadn’t noticed before – they’d taunted Antonia on a public forum.

Curious, that.

Now, I’m not saying it was the first time JVN mocked Antonia, but July 20 was the first time I noticed it. That date is the heart of my timeline, but it does not have to be the heart of yours. We can all start at different times but still reach the same conclusions, so long as we keep the information in order.

You would think one wouldn’t mess with the “girl friend” of your best friend’s “best friend,” at least not publicly. But, here was JVN shamelessly mocking Antonia on TikTok. And, just so we’re clear, the public opinion of what JVN was doing with this TikTok is available to view in the comments of their TikTok post. It wasn’t just me that came to this conclusion – and JVN has left these comments up for four months at this point.

JVN’s “Apple” dance was only made more interesting the following day – July 21 – when they included it in their Sunday Dump post on Instagram.

And, Nicola liked it.

Hmm, things were becoming curiouser and curiouser.

Let’s not even pretend that Nicola isn’t street savvy and didn’t understand the context of that video. And, let’s definitely not underestimate the length of her claws.

To be honest, I hadn’t paid too much attention to Lukola since mid-June. It was an “it is what it is” thing for me. Even though I believed the relationship between Luke and Nicola was complicated (see my first blog for that story), Luke had also apparently disappeared into the summertime sun with his friend group, which included Antonia.

Something about JVN openly making fun of Antonia, and Nicola, at the very least acknowledging it with an Instagram like, made me realize something in Luke’s situation must be shifting.

What have I said about little changes? That deviations in modus operandi are what make people start giving the side-eye to a situation.

And, side-eye I did!

I started paying attention to JVN and, on July 25, they posted a series of photos on TikTok and Instagram showcasing “What I would wear if you invited me to your…” We will fast-forward through all the slides until we get to the last one, which read, “…just got dumped and going to take 8 shots dinner at Lupe’s in SoHo.” Was it possible that JVN was hinting at a dumpster fire at the Soho Farmhouse?

If you don’t know what the Soho Farmhouse is, it’s the place where Luke and his friend group, including Antonia, frequented, probably on Luke’s dime (*insert wicked laugh – oh, and a disclaimer that this is all speculation).

Funny that Nicola liked this post on Instagram, too, and it wasn’t even buried in a Sunday Dump.

At this point, JVN had really sparked my damn interest. Like, dear one, what are you hinting at?

On July 29, Deux Moi creeped out from under its rock and reminded the fandom to hate Luke by rehashing Papsmear. Thank you, we needed that. I mean, half of us almost forgot how much we hated him! That’s me being a sarcastic tart, by the way. If we were to fast-forward to today, I’d argue that Luke was the most darling thing to come out of Bridgerton.

Any ways, again, thank you, Deux Moi, for those suspiciously timed Papsmear pictures because they aligned perfectly with the pap pictures People dropped the following day – July 30.

Yep, I am talking about those strangely awkward pap pictures of Luke hanging out in the murky waters of Sorrento with Antonia. Oh, and let’s not forget the video footage of that encounter, which I am sure still upsets and confuses people to this day. In fact, I know it does because, as I was researching this, I had a couple of people get annoyed after I asked them to view it. Funny thing is, that shit never bothered me (I didn’t say that it didn’t later confuse me!). The first time I saw them, I was like, “Luke is not into that girl at all,” and my next thought was, “I wonder how old these pictures are because I would have sworn JVN was hinting at something.”

Now, this story wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t address the rumor portion of it.

First rumor? That Antonia set up the entire Italy pap photo-op because she seemingly knew where to find the cameraman. So, let’s discuss that video everyone seems to hate to acknowledge exists. In the video, you can see Antonia maybe looking in the direction of the cameraman. She then leans into Luke, either to whisper something to him or to reach for something behind him. In my opinion – and this is strictly my opinion – it looks like she’s pretending to reach for something over his shoulder. Still shots of this interaction are the photos People published, presumably because Luke and Antonia looked like they were cheek to cheek.

Okay, notice I said, “first rumor,” because, yeah, there’s a second rumor, too! But, it fits snuggly into that first rumor. Almost immediately – because that’s how fast the Lukola Sleuths get to work around here – rumors began to circulate that Antonia was following on Instagram the photographer that took the Italy pap pictures. In fact, several people I’ve spoken to swear that they witnessed during a TikTok Live a host prove that Antonia was following this photographer. That’s a bit suspicious, isn’t it? Yeah, it fucking is.

Let’s keep moving.

That same day, we had that video drop of Luke watching fireworks, at night, with sunglasses. Speaking of sunglasses, I guess Luke found those motherfuckers because he sure as shit didn’t have them while floating around in that dirty ass water. Any ways, at the end of the video, Rory appears behind Luke, looking in the direction of the camera and smiling like a condescending, sneaky little shit. Now, who was the cameraman? Well, a possible suspect would be Antonia since she was not seen in the video. Go figure.

Alright, so that day finally ended and on July 31, JVN posted to TikTok a cutesy video of themself at the market titled, “When you catch someone trying to sneak a pic but you were born for these moments.” They prance around the market and randomly look at the cameraman (Mark) with a smile and a pose. The caption reads, “I welcome sneaky pics but I can’t guarantee I won’t sneak some back or put on a show for you.”

WAIT A MINUTE!

Did JVN just inexplicably confirm Luke was getting papped by his own friends?

Yeah, I kind of think JVN did.

And, Nicola liked this one as well when JVN posted it to Instagram on August 8.

Didn’t I tell you JVN was a fascinating creature? And, to be honest, JVN only gets better as this Lukola ship continues on its voyage.

Oh, strangely enough, a few days after the Italy pap crap, Luke returned to London alone. The friend group became unsettlingly silent, and Nicola started to get really, really loud – Chaos Week was incoming! And, so were some more JVN crumbs (and nicely timed clap backs).

[trickstarbrave]

People being wrong about Princess Mononoke is gonna be the death of me I swear

Ashitaka did NOT go on the journey to cure his curse. “Well then what’s the point if he was going to die anyways? Then the story is meaningless!” No it’s not. Princess Mononoke is a story about war, imperialism, and colonization.

Ashitaka is told he can’t cure the curse. It will slowly kill him. The poison from a conflict that has NOTHING to do with him will be the death of him. He is the last prince of their people and he doomed to die. He can sit here and die quietly, or he can lead to seek answers and resolve the conflict that caused it so no one else has to suffer like he did.

Both sides are morally grey. Lady Eboshi is not evil. She took in people others left to die: lepers, beggars, prostitutes. She wanted to build them a life they had agency in and could be proud of. A place they could call home, fall in love, have children in. She wanted to give them the ability to defend themselves. And in the end she made tools of war that poison those around her.

The forest gods can be finicky and cruel. The ape tribe are ready to rip humans apart and eat them in violence. They will kill and maim civilians for the crime of being on the same side. Their territorial battles get people killed. And they also will take in humans as their own and raise them and love them. They try to have balance.

Even the god of the forest, beautiful giver of life and guardian, is at night the thing of nightmares. A being that can curse those who look at it and roams the forest. He takes life away, sometimes in ways that seem too soon. He refuses to curse Ashitaka when he probably could. When his head is cut off in a rage he destroys the whole forest, poisoning it and killing all the animals and spirits within it.

Each figure thinks themselves justified. Are you going to condemn a widow mourning her husband who was ripped apart by wolves when his only job is to carry rice? Who never even shot a gun? Are you going to condemn the wolves protecting their home and the trees humans are uprooting for iron, weapons that are unnatural and rot away in their bodies? Condemn Nago who was driven mad by hatred and war till he couldn’t think straight and ended up trying to kill people who had literally nothing to do with the conflict?

It’s a cycle of violence. In the end more bloodshed won’t undo the tragedies. Won’t end the conflict. They will fight until they’re dead and the whole forest is destroyed along with iron town in total annihilation. Ashitaka cannot undo his curse caused by the conflict by killing them, or asking a higher power to undo it. He knows this.

In the end the curse was undone, but that wasn’t what he expected, and it still left a scar. Iron town and the forest were destroyed. But more people lived. The forest can grow anew. Eboshi resolves to build a new town that doesn’t need iron and smelters so they can live in peace and also be left alone by the emperor (hopefully). Both sides still don’t like each other and can’t forgive the other, but they’re also both victims of imperialism and colonialism like ashitaka’s people were.

The story has meaning. Sorry it isn’t a traditional quest where the hero uses violence or magic to undo all the wounds of the past. That’s not how real life works. We can dismantle institutions, but we cannot undo all the harm. More bloodshed or a higher power won’t resolve it.

[amummy]

I have some Arc*ne thoughts but i’m always afraid to voice my option online so i’ll put it under a cut

I like Arcane which is why I feel so frustrated by the writing of season 2. This will be a LOT of rambling with no content structure as a warning.

For example. Amanda Overton out here saying that Sky was the only person who understood Viktor. I’m not saying this with shipping goggles on when I say that Sky was barely a character. She may of understood Viktor but Viktor didn’t know her. He only knew her through his guilt of her death. And even then she felt oddly inserted into scenes when Viktor was exploring the Arcane. This isn’t Sky hate… it’s just that her entire role in the story is to make Viktor feel bad.

In the same breath i feel similarly about Isha and literally any of the child characters that aren’t the main cast. None of them have lines and all of them are employed to be a short cut for emotional weight and attachment. Yes, Isha was mute I know that and It is nice to see the representation. But her entire purpose in the storyline is to give Jinx a chance to heal and take that away from her.

And that’s another frustration I had was Jinx was a great character but reading an interview with fucking Christian Linke (fuck that guy) and Amanda Overton it seems like they had made it so that no matter what happens Jinx’s ENTIRE storyline is that she is a Jinx. That she’s not allowed to be happy because she will just ‘Jinx it’. They boiled down her entire story to her being unlucky and making everyone around her miserable. Riveting. No healing to be had. Because characters aren’t allowed to move on or have redemption I guess.

Back to Viktor. Ignoring my frustration with how disability is handled in the show, his entire plot in Season 2 made me angry(affectionate?). He had so little agency in almost every scene he was in. He was brought back from death TWICE without his consent(once by Jayce, second by Singed). He left the lab and seemed to follow the Hexcores guidance. When he healed Huck his hand seemed to puppet itself to do it. This isn’t to say he didn’t make his own choices after that for a time. Him healing people because it felt right to him was very much his choice. Him trying to save Vander’s humanity was his choice.

Jayce killing him then made him spur into a sad monologue about human nature. And from there i feel like the through line to villain hood was fast tracked and given literally no time to breathe.

A big part of why the league fans of Viktor liked him was his self modification. His experimentation with his body. Yes that happened in the story but only until a point. Him being fused with the hexcore was NOT his choice which flavors the whole interaction. I’m not saying he’s morally better or worse than the League version, because the LOL one took away free will as well. But all the build up in season 1 lead to a very weird escalation in season 2.

Mel’s plot while good in a microcosm was incredible shoehorned in and wasn’t necessary at all in the overarching plot. Ambessa acted pretty nonsensical in act 3 imho. She was very smart through out the show but her invading Piltover seemed blatantly dumb even with Viktor’s power.

Caitlyn… oh Caitlyn. Her plot while natural, completely undid ALL the development she has in season 1. I don’t think it was BAD to say how she was written, what was bad was how all her war crimes were swept under the rug in the end. And that dumb sex scene in the jail cell. Sorry I know people liked it but for me it felt wildly out of place for where it was placed.

Don’t even get me started on the class war that got shoved under the rug. The antisemetic language Linke used for Zaunites. How in act 3 Sevika doesn’t get a speaking line and is on the council as if that was ever a thing she would have accepted.

My favorite characters have always been Silco, Viktor and Jinx. So i guess in the Silco department I won. But ugh.

I’m not saying I was expecting a happy ending. But it was incredibly french to have an ending where literally everyone died but the lesbians p much.

I don’t know where i was going with this. I guess it’s hard to tell i really love arcane from the complaints but I truly do. I complain BECAUSE I care.

[good-beans]

Please tell me about Lukas.

Sincerely, a poor soul who is obsessed with Milgram but knows very little about Fire Emblem.

Lukas is my beloved character of all time :) Comfort character to rival all comfort characters :) He’s just like me fr :) He’s so healing to watch heal :)

He’s from Fire Emblem Echoes, and for a good portion of the game he’s that mentor/tutorial character who helps you/the protagonist through the new world you’re thrown into. The thing was, they put together an incredibly complex asexual, neurodivergent guy who’s not really in it for the fighting (but is damned good at it anyway). They gave him the sweetest and saddest smile possible. They gave him the most relaxing voice you could imagine. They gave him two of the wackiest and complimentary friends. How could I not fall in love?

Basically, he reveals that he’s not involved in this whole war because he wanted to be – his father and brother conspired to send him away to fight for their own gain, not really caring if he lived or died. He took on the new life with just as much motivation as if he chose it himself, though. He’s not here for any dreams of glory or violence, he just wants to help the new friends he’s made ;-; He has a really big heart, but he’s not afraid to make the tough call and commit war crimes. He’s gentle to the child soldier protagonists, but is the first person to trust them and allow them into the army. 

Fire Emblem is notorious for its fanservice, which is why I will forever be Insane over his support conversation with one of those friends I mentioned. He describes his struggles with romance and desire, perfectly describing an asexual experience. His friend, Python, responds with so much kindness. It’s done with a lot of tact and respect, and was one of the final pieces to my own acceptance of my asexuality. 

Less intended, but he talks about his struggles with emotions that comes off as low-empathy neurodivergence, or a form of Alexithymia. He doesn’t feel strong emotions most of the time, then occasionally gets swept up in them and lashes out. (Sorry for all the tmi but) this is also something I struggle with. Though I come off overly excited online, I’ve dealt with the same coldness/heartless accusations he has. His writing and voice acting really drive it home, and it’s wonderful to see. Once again, he’s treated with immense respect for this trait. He feels self-conscious about it, but the cast sees that as a strength of his.

His relationship with the other two knights is super fun! I could go on separate rants about Python and Forsyth, but just know they are equally perfect. They all compliment one another so well, and hype each other up in such lovely ways. They've even got a fun RGB color scheme going on :3

OKAY I AM CUTTING MYSELF OFF because I could go on forever about him 😂 He holds such a special place in my heart -- it's silly, but thank you sm for asking :’) And, since you mentioned Milgram, this reminded me of a super goofy comparison to Yuno I made as one of my first Milgram posts, as well as my wips of the Fuuta-Lukas outfit swap I need to finish...

[bakugoushotwife]

Inextricable Angst Ending

a/n: here's the angst ending! meant to be read after Sasuke is healed. it's painful im sorry

fluff ending // first part

Kakashi was chosen to be the Sixth Hokage, and at the time you were thrilled. You knew Kakashi had what it takes to keep the village safe. He instills Itachi and Shisui as village heroes, which delights you. He’s able to pardon Sasuke for his crimes considering his war efforts and sacrifice to the village. 

He hates what he has to do next. Ultimately he has to do it for the sake of the five hidden villages, they’ll never feel safe with the possibility. He’s watched you and Sasuke grow closer than ever before, and he can see the love you have for one another. So the day he calls the two of you into the Hokage’s office to announce these plans, his heart breaks. All Five Kage had thought about this painstakingly, and this was the best resolution. 

“Sasuke, Y/N. Thank you for responding so quickly. I..well.” He clears his throat, wondering what exactly is the right thing to say in a situation like this one. “The five Kage convened recently, here in the Leaf. The other Kage have made me aware that they are..worried about the two of you rebuilding your clan. They fear a repeat of the earlier histories.” Kakashi explains wearily. 

Sasuke straightens his back, looking over at you quickly. “What are you saying, Kakashi?”

“I’m saying the Kage agreed to intervene to prevent you two from marriage and having children. Y/N…will be married to the Kazekage in three weeks.” He replies, clearly pained by the ordeal. He can’t even meet your eyes. 

Your world comes crashing down around you. Sasuke and you just found each other, spending every night talking and touching and being together, like you’re inextricably obligated to. Sasuke’s eyes widened. He opened his mouth to speak, feeling only those nasty flames of anger and hatred licking back up his body. 

“I–I can’t believe you would do this to me.” You whisper softly, devastated that Kakashi could settle for such an arrangement. 

“I had no choice. Either that, or they want your original sentences served for desertion and treason. Y/N…I’m sorry.” Kakashi frowns, arms folded over his chest. “Sasuke…I know that Sakura would make a lovely partner, and she cares for you very much.” 

His words cut both of you down, sucking the wind out of your lungs. All this heartache and pain that you’ve gone through, it’s not over. It would never be over. You’re forbidden to be together, just like in all those awful books. Is this really how your story ends?

Gaara is a wonderful man and you’ve always been happy to call him your friend. You’re sure he would do his best to be a good husband to you, but he wasn’t Sasuke. He could never fill that gap, no matter how hard he tried. And to think about Sasuke with Sakura…it was torture. You got up and slammed the door behind you on the way out. 

Over the course of the next few weeks, you met Sasuke when you could. Each time it felt worse and worse, because both of you knew it was closer to the last time. You hold each other a little closer, he kisses you a little rougher than intended, but he just wants to savor the way you taste and the shape of your body under his hand. He knew you would be safe, and as happy as anyone forced into a marriage can be, but every bone in his body wanted to take you and leave this village again. 

But he knew that you didn’t want that life of danger, and neither did he. He wanted to protect the Leaf, and make it up to the people who couldn’t trust him to marry the woman he loves. Maybe he could prove them wrong. But it would be too late by then. Maybe this is what you meant when you said that life doesn’t work off of deserving, but he had to disagree. This is exactly what he deserves. He’s done so much bad, how could he think he was going to get his happily ever after? You were an Uchiha Princess, you deserved to be married to a Kage and be forever safe and catered to. But he stole all the time with you he could. 

True to Kakashi’s word, three weeks from the day he told you about the occasion, you were being wed to the Kazekage. It was a grand spectacle, you think mostly to ease the nerves of the other Kage. The entire Leaf and Sand combine into one massive cathedral-esque type of building, and it’s decorated to the gods. You can smell all the food that’s been made in preparation as you stare at yourself in the mirror. You looked beautiful. This was a fact, your hair was pinned in elaborate braids and your makeup was perfect. You wore a simple but beautiful and traditional Sand style gown. You had citizens of the sand excitedly racing around your room to make sure every detail was in place, and it was magical. 

If only the groom were your preferred choice. Not that you really had one. 

Kakashi walks you out, the previously raucous crowd falling silent at the sight of you. “You do look beautiful, sweet girl.” He hums in your ear. 

“Thank you.” You return politely, not trying to make a spectacle. You can feel Sasuke’s eyes, and you find him easily. He smiles sadly at you, receiving a pat of support from Naruto. Sakura is on his other side. You smile sadly too.

The ceremony is nice, Gaara is kind and you hope you can come to love him in any way similar to Sasuke, because he deserves a good wife. He has made you comfortable since you arrived and tried to give you whatever space or comfort you’ve asked for. He held your hands now, in front of both of your villages, and swore his loyalty to you. 

“I, Gaara of the Hidden Sand, the 5th Kazekage, swear my life to yours. I will make you happy, protect you, and give you anything you ever want or need. I will love you and honor you for all our days.” 

Sasuke is visibly upset, though he tries to hide it just for you. Naruto squeezes his friend’s hand. He was upset for the both of you, having third wheeled your relationship for most of his life. 

The crowd anxiously waits for you to speak. Gaara squeezes your hands in support, and you can tell he’s trying to be the best for you. You smile softly.

“I, Y/N Uchiha, of the Hidden Leaf, the Sharingan Princess, swear my life to yours. I will make you happy, protect you, and give you anything you ever want or need. I will love you and honor you for all our days.” You repeat, allowing him to lean in for the first kiss of your marriage. 

And just like that, you were the wife of the Kazekage, Sasuke Uchiha's Princess no longer.

[heliads]

Bubbly attitude!male reader with reality warping powers x tasm Peter, and one night Peter and reader go out to fight someone ( I’ll leave this up to you) and the villain starts saying stuff and gets into peters head basically telling him that he knows reader is a powerful reality warper and basically telling him the relationship is not real , they eventually beat the villain but later when they get home Peter asks reader did he reality warp their relationship and the reader gets startled and confused on where it came from which starts a argument where the reader starts losing control kinda just changing things around them unintentionally, to which reader calms down and tells him the relationship is real 💖 just some little angsty fluff

hell yeah wandavision his ass

masterlist

Peter Parker has only been awake for about an hour and a half before the city wrecks itself again. It’s a Saturday, too, which makes this latest crime against the public and his patience that much more heinous. He only gets two days off from work and whatnot, can whatever garden variety criminals currently lurking somewhere down there in the streets of New York please keep their illicit affairs to a work week basis? Or at least give him a little longer to lounge around and pretend like he doesn’t have a thousand things to do?

Peter covers his face with his hands, fights the urge to scream, and promptly loses that battle. His neighbors should be used to random shouts of anguish; he’s been living here for a couple of years now, this is nothing new. 

Peter forces himself up and into his suit, keeping the police broadcast on while he does so. As he pulls his mask, a new detail pops up on the ongoing situation, one that makes Peter’s attitude change from irritated to actually concerned. 

It’s not a group of  random crooks or thugs that’s terrorizing a crowd of people several blocks away, it’s one guy. One guy, who can throw cars with a wave of his hand. One guy, who’s tearing down buildings like tissue paper. There’s only one explanation for it, which is that Peter’s latest target isn’t human. 

This is really not good. Peter can and will run headlong into any fight that comes his way, but the inhumans are a little more difficult. Usually, taking them down means Peter’s going to get his ass kicked within an inch of his life and the property damage will be awful accordingly. This isn’t going to be a one and done, half hour max encounter with some guy who’s just down on his luck, this is going to be a full scale war. 

Not great, to say the least. Well, whenever Peter’s facing less than stellar odds, which ends up being more often than he’d really like, he knows what to do, what he does every single time. It’s time to phone a friend. 

More importantly, it’s time to phone his boyfriend. Y/N L/N is also an inhuman with some seriously wicked powers, which definitely give Peter a leg up in whatever fight he finds himself in. However, his work may be cut out for him. Peter has hardly reached for his phone to text Y/N for help before he hears a knock on the door.

Heading over, Peter can’t keep a smile from his face when he undoes the latch and sees Y/N waiting for him on the other side.

“How’d you know I was going to ask?” He questions, stepping aside to let Y/N into his apartment.

Y/N chuckles dramatically. “You couldn’t live with your own failure. Where did that bring you? Back to me.”

Peter frowns. “Is that a reference I should know?”

Y/N sighs, shaking his head solemnly. “Sorry, wrong reality. It would be really funny if you were there, though.”

Peter can’t hide a small smile of his own at that. “I’ll do my best to fix that next time.”

This isn’t exactly an uncommon occurrence. See, Y/N’s powers aren’t something mundane like pyrokinesis or telepathy, he can change the very fabric of reality itself. Peter can’t fathom what it would have been like to grow up as a child with the ability to reshape reality, but the learning curve must have been seriously steep.

Regardless, Y/N managed to get a hang of things, and now he’s a great help on patrols and whatnot. They’ve been dating for a few months now, so Peter has come to appreciate Y/N’s gifts more than ever. They work well together, both as normal people and as well-intentioned vigilantes. To Peter, that means more than he could ever put into words.

Y/N jerks his head towards Peter’s police scanner, which is still faintly spitting out the latest reports on the ongoing inhuman situation. “What’s got you so worried now? I could practically sense your unease from a mile away.”

Peter grimaces. “I’m not sure yet. Sounds like some guy with crazy powers, at least super strength if not telekinesis or something along those lines.”

Y/N makes a face. “Sounds like a wonderful morning. Are you ready to finish this?”

“Always,” Peter grins, and, crossing the room to the window he always leaves open, hurls himself out into the open air of the city.

The fall only lasts a couple of seconds before Peter snaps out a hand on reflex, sending a spiral of spiderweb towards the nearest building. At times like this, he can’t possibly imagine how webswinging had ever been difficult to learn. It’s a part of him now, a practice just as unconscious as running or jumping. All he knows is the crisp wind blowing against him, the lurch as each web connects just for him to throw himself forward again.

Y/N’s not far behind him, creating a constant platform under his feet so he can run. Peter watches out of the corner of his eye. He’s always found Y/N’s powers cooler than cool, even a display so simple as turning shifting air into a solid form. The platform disappears a few feet behind Y/N, a continuous cycle of creation and destruction, purpose and nothingness.

Peter’s attention is yanked away from Y/N when he first hears the shouting. It creeps up on him, causing the hair on the back of his neck to stand up. He turns towards it instinctively, before he even has eyes on the situation at hand. His knee-jerk response isn’t wrong, either; it rarely is in cases like this. Three blocks left, two straight, there’s an intersection currently being blown to bits as some guy in a dark hoodie picks up a car just to slam it into a power line a few yards away. It looks like he’s targeting the electricity going into a bank.

Not the worst strategy, but certainly not one that Peter can legally condone. By now, Y/N’s seen the disaster too, and the two of them arc down towards the scene so they can put a stop to all of this.

The guy is waiting for them, or so it seems; they hardly touch down upon the surface of the cracked asphalt before a Honda Civic is hurled their way as a rather violent hello. Peter sidesteps the vehicle in the nick of time, close enough to see his reflection in the chipping paint. Y/N opts for a more dramatic approach, shifting reality such that the car turns into a swarm of cerulean butterflies. They part around him, one mass of shifting sapphire, then reform into the car a few yards behind him.

The villain of the day doesn’t seem that startled by Y/N’s display of power. Instead, he just chuckles, as if hoping for something like this. “See,” he calls out to them grandly, “this is why you come to New York! Street magic like nothing else.”

Y/N’s gaze flattens. “I’m better than street magic, you idiot. You can’t even throw cars right.”

Peter bites back a laugh. “He’s got you there. Your aim was atrocious.”

To counter this claim, or perhaps simply to shut them up, the inhuman launches another frenzy of attacks their way, this time involving a telephone pole and two sedans. Peter and Y/N fall into their usual routine of dodging and moving steadily forward, and soon they’re close enough that Peter can web up the guy before he can charge them any longer.

The inhuman isn’t going to let them have the last word, though. He spits on the ground, narrowly avoiding Y/N’s shoes. “You should be fighting with me, not against me. This world will never accept us.”

“Well,” Peter says, scratching the back of his neck absentmindedly, “that’s going to happen regardless. I don’t think the bank robberies are really helping with that part of our image.”

The inhuman scoffs. “And what, you’re so much better than me? Running around with him, you don’t ever think twice about what you’re doing?”

Y/N’s face darkens in an instant. “What do you mean, with him?”

The inhuman just shrugs, or does his best impression of a shrug given the copious amounts of spiderweb currently keeping him in place. “You know what I mean. Spider-Man may not, but that all depends on how much you’re messing with his head.”

Peter shakes his head. “Nice try, buddy, but it won’t work. I know he isn’t using his powers on me. That’s not what he does.”

“Isn’t it?” The inhuman asks, cocking his head to the side, “how do you know for sure? Has he ever shown up places without you asking? Answered your questions before you asked them? Always been the only thing you need to be happy? Maybe not all of that is you thinking. Maybe some of that is him changing your reality, too. How do you know where he’s drawing the line?”

“That’s ridiculous,” Peter claims. He tries to say it authoritatively, but his voice wavers on the last syllables, making him sound less sure of himself than he really is. Or maybe Peter isn’t sure of himself at all, maybe what the inhuman is saying makes more and more sense the longer Peter stands there. Come to think of it, how had Y/N known to show up at his apartment that morning? He could have heard the police scanners, but that doesn’t mean he would have instantly been ready at that very moment.

There are a lot of coincidences like that, actually. Times when Peter couldn’t be more grateful to have Y/N around, when the surplus of positive emotion flowing from him seemed too good to be true. Maybe it was too good to be true. Maybe none of this is true at all.

Y/N is looking at him now, beseeching him to understand. “You can’t possibly believe him on this. You trust me.”

“Yeah,” Peter says, “of course I do.” Do I?

He shoots a web at the inhuman’s mouth before he can question himself any longer, leaving the guy for the police to nab. Peter stays quiet the whole way back to his apartment, wondering why it feels like he’s just pulled a blindfold away from his eyes only to stare, dazzled, into an endless torrent of light. Nothing makes sense, but it feels like he’s learned something very important indeed.

Only once they’re back in his place does Y/N finally let his irritation flood the room. “Peter. Peter. Don’t tell me you’re actually buying into what that guy was saying. You know he was doing anything he could to convince you to let him go, right?”

“So he picked the most obvious distraction. Right. Why is it that someone who’s never even met us before would so easily come up with that sort of truth?”

“Because it’s not the truth, Peter!” Y/N seems on the verge of a breakdown, but how does he know if that’s just what Y/N wants him to think?

Peter shakes his head slowly. “And how do I know that?”

Y/N opens his mouth, closes it, then takes a deep breath. “Same way I know you don’t have any powers you’re keeping from me. Same way I know you won’t tell anyone else I have these abilities. I know you, and I know you enough to trust you, even if you don’t trust me.”

Y/N swallows thickly, almost on the verge of tears,  and Peter at last realizes that he’s being a complete and utter idiot. Of course Y/N isn’t messing around in his head. They’ve been through enough trouble for him to say with certainty that if Y/N was messing with their reality on a daily basis, he’d change a hell of a lot more than just Peter’s feelings from time to time. 

“Y/N, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”

Y/N looks at him hesitantly. “Does that mean you believe me?”

“Of course I believe you,” Peter says in a rush, “I love you, remember? That means your word means more to me than some bank robber we met twenty minutes ago.”

Y/N smiles slowly. “I’m glad to hear it. You had me worried for a second there.”

Peter waves a hand dismissively. “I’m just sorry I thought about it in the first place.”

He starts to leave the room, ready to change out of his Spider-Man suit and into some more comfortable clothes. Maybe he can even manage to rest today after all. As he goes, Peter catches sight of something out of the corner of his eye, a brief flash of light emanating from the area around Y/N’s fingers, which are extended discreetly by his side. 

A mere sign of agitation, the aftereffects of such strong emotions during the fight. Or maybe more.

marvel tag list: @namoreno, @thatfangirl42, @rogueanschel, @mycosmicparadise, @ellobruv, @callsign-scully, @with-inked-solace, @sher-lokid7, @amortensie, @23victoria, @watchreadfangirlrepeat, @gods-fools-heroes, @w1shes43, @deafsuperhero, @fadedver

[nadjasworkshop]

Nadja's NPC dialogue

I've seen some people doing this for their builders so here's Nadja. There are several extra lines because I feel some parts had to change at certain points of the story. It's very long.

Intro: "Hello. I’m Nadja, the new Builder. Seems like Sandrock is such a close-knit town… I may need some time to get used to it. See you around.”

Acquaintance:

Hey there. Need something done?

The Saloon is all the way down this str-Sorry, I thought… Is there anything you want?

Oh… don’t mind me. 

No, really, don’t mind me. I’m trying to stay out of sight for a while.

Buddy:

They all must think I’m trying too hard to prove myself. Maybe there’s some truth to it but honestly I want to prevent Mi-an from getting burnt-out.

I wonder… why are they called Fireside Meetings if there’s no fire? Well, surely it gets heated up at times.

[At night] I shouldn’t stay up late at night but sometimes I enjoy being awake the moment the whole town falls silent and you can only hear the wind. It’s a bit scary. You know, the vastness of the desert.

[In summer] How do you turn off sweating??

I share many beliefs with the Church of Light. However, being right about some things doesn’t give anyone a foolproof insight on everything all the time. But hey, you never heard it from me.

Good Friend:

This town is made of layers of grief one on the top of the other, like Old World relics under the sand. Sometimes I’m afraid of getting to the bottom.

If I was granted a superpower, I’d wish for being able to see through people.

I find myself spending more and more time listening to old Mort. Somehow I want to share a bit of the weight he carries on his shoulders.

Of course I’d like to find someone to share my life with… I just don’t seem to get the hang of relationships. One day you feel butterflies in your stomach and then all of a sudden the butterflies grow teeth and start eating you from the inside.

[Extra, pre-Duvos] I didn't feel truly at home in Sandrock until everyone believed me when I was being framed. Now I’m ready to defend this town as if it was my own.

[Extra, post-Duvos] I’ve always feared living through a war. Now I understand: when the war comes upon, you're scared but you can't afford panicking.

[Extra, post-Greenification] I can’t help feeling kind of iffy about seeing Sandrock suddenly brimming with business again… But hey, you know me. 

[Extra, post-marriage] If there's anything both Miguel and I learnt from this whole deal is to embrace uncertainty. 

[Extra, post-marriage] I don't really expect anyone to understand. The last everyone has seen of Miguel was him framing me for his own crime and trying to shoot Logan, and it happened in minutes. No one knows the path to making amends we took together afterwards… well, apart of Burgess, bless his heart.

Sandstorm:

“Whatever we did to the desert, it’s surely getting back at us.”

“Dry rain… Kind of ironic if you think of it.”

Rain:

“I never thought I’d see a celebration out of a rainy day. It’s funny how we take natural resources for granted.”

“Back home I’d stay indoors and listen to the rain hit the window. Here, I feel like playing in a puddle. Am I reverse-aging?”

Player has a new haircut:

“You’ve cut your hair, right? At least you didn’t have to do it yourself. Pablo says I could never pay him enough to cut my hair short.”

Player has panda eyes:

“Sometimes I have trouble sleeping too. I tried an experimental remedy from Dr. Fang. It worked so well that I slept for three days straight. It was cool.”

Player cuts a tree in front of Nadja:

“Wait, you’re not supposed to do that here! There’s a reason wildlife conservation is no small matter in Sandrock.”

Player attacks Nadja with a weapon: 

“Hey! What are you doing?”

“P-put that thing back, please. It’s dangerous.”

Birthday:

"My birthday is on the 14th of Autumn… What? No, I’ve never sent you an invitation for a birthday celebration in the Commerce Guild with an entrance price of 5000 gols! Who in their right mind…? Oh, wait. I get it. That would be my boss.”

Day of the Bright Sun:

“Even if this is supposed to be a celebration of kindness and hope, I’ve seen it bring the worst out of people… But maybe I’m being too harsh. Nothing wrong with a little festive bloodshed.”

Showdown at High Noon: 

“Yay, let’s blow off some steam! Funny how good it feels compared to how terribly scary real fighting is.”

“Aw, sorry, I’ve already partnered up with Grace. Isnt’ she cool…? Eh, maybe we can pair up next year!”

Day of Memories: 

“Once someone told me they had nightmares about seeing this celebration from the afterlife and there was no one to fly a lantern for them. I wanted to answer… So, nobody cried? Nobody suffered? You just left this world for an everlasting peace? How is that nightmarish?” Fortunately I was smarter than to speak my mind.

[Extra, post-reveal] “There are several kinds of mourning. Some of them aren’t caused by death.”

Tour de Rock:

“I’ve always been a bit afraid of high speed. Being in control of my surroundings is difficult enough under regular circumstances…”

Running of the Yakmel:

“Umm... I'm not sure if I got the tale right. Usually the ones who start the fight get away with it safe and sound, while all the poor simpletons who join in end up in a pile of corpses on the battlefield."

Winter Solstice:

”So far I’m loving the fireworks but I think I’ll head back home now. The end of the year gets me in the mood to reflect by myself.”

[Extra, post-Greenification] I’m happy to share the festivities with you, but… I’m needed somewhere else. I don't want anyone to spend this day alone.

Loved gifts:

[Highwind Fried Rice] ”Wait, this smell… Do you want to make me cry? Thank you so much, you can’t imagine how much this means to me.

[Eagle flute] Why, thank you! How did you know I could play the flute? Oops, don’t tell anyone... I wouldn’t mind you listening, though.

[Rosestone] These are lovely! I guess they’re a common sight for locals but for me… a rose naturally made out of stone? It's like a miracle. Thank you! 

Liked gifts:

[Headwear and scarves] Thanks! I’ll try it on right away.

[Materials and building components] One can never have enough of these! Thank you.

I really appreciate this, thank you!

Neutral gifts: 

Thanks. I guess I’ll find some use for it.

Disliked gifts:

Eh… not really my thing, sorry. Do you keep the receipt?

Hated gifts: 

Wow, you're SO funny.

Oh come on...

Complimenting work:

I’m glad to be of service. In spite of my boss, I find it easier to make myself useful here than I would in a thriving environment.

Thank you! Maybe I should have gotten into building earlier in life?

[Extra, post-Greenification] Being part of the healing process of an entire region is more than I could have dreamt as an underachieving student. Thank you all for trusting me. I mean it.

Complimenting personality:  

Thank you, really! Now I’m going to try my best not to dodge the compliment. It’s a bad habit of mine.

Aw, thanks. I know I’m not the life of the party but I hope I can make up for that… somehow.

Asked about her past:

I only left a few people behind when moving here, and I make an effort to keep contact even if I don’t really have anything to tell them. There’s this friend, Nia, who I’ve known since the day she was born. All cheerful and bubbly… The last person you’d imagine being friends with me. You see, she and her family lived next door and I saw her as the little sister I never had.

The final paper for my Art History degree was named “Art and propaganda: history of visual creation as a means for both the Free Cities and the Duvos empire to appeal to the public opinion”. I managed to make all sorts of people mad, but at least I got a decent grade. 

Have you ever been in Highwind? I still miss it sometimes. It’s a great place… unless you want to make a living there. That's the catch.

Asked about work:

Ever since I was a kid, I loved mechanics: fixing appliances, building little gadgets… However, I always saw it as a hobby. My real passion was more on the academic side: Art, History, Literature. Gathering knowledge about how the world works… not in a practical way but on a human level. However, I ended up stuck in a loop of working part time to pay for my studies to get a better job to keep studying. In the end I got afraid of becoming a mere spectator for the rest of my life. Well, in fact I’m afraid of many things, but that’s part of the point. So I ventured to the Builder Academy and it turned out better than I expected.    

I don’t think I’d be able to run a workshop in Highwind. The Academy environment was so competitive that I’ve had my fill of self-made go-getters. The silver lining would be having a better boss. Whoever they would be.

Asked what she likes to do:

I learnt to play the flute by myself. In fact I was just procrastinating on a mid-term paper and it kind of got out of hand.

Asked about her favorite things:

I’ve always enjoyed spending time on my own. Maybe it’s because I have trouble making friends. With you it’s fine, though. 

A couple of weeks after I arrived here, Owen noticed I was missing home, so he brought me a dish of Highwind Fried Rice. I had never gotten so emotional over food before.

One of the best things of ruin diving is that I get to find little mundane Old World items. Not technology, just trinkets and small tokens of what people used to hold dear in their daily lives. Keeping them makes me feel like we’re bonding with each other through time.

Anything I can wrap my hair in always comes in handy with this weather.

[zorosdimples]

i really appreciate you holding on for the wild ride, it ended up being much more of a word vomit than i anticipated 😅 this is also gonna be long to explain it all but:

okay so my OC, calrik, is from an original fantasy fiction work i have tentatively called ‘homeward bound’; it’s been a passion project for like idk 10+ years and the characters in it are like the original 4 OCs for me lol. he (funnily enough) resembles laios physically (blonde, 6’4, a guard so Fit, brown eyes) but also has freckles and is a wolf shapeshifter (simply put, but it’s more complicated than that) (which is probably that’s why I love laios, your honor). premise of that WIP’s world is an empress (ilantha) of celestial blood and her three closest and highest ranked guards (saelihn, merric, and calrik) (none of which start out in those positions except the empress) up being divinely intertwined in changing the course of the empires’ history. fated love, fated loss, coronations and galas and sneaking away to not get caught, fae and wolf shapeshifters, personified celestial bodies and primordial / ancient spirits, heinous war crimes, children with trauma responsible for way too much, not a parent in sight lmfao. that being said, the kidnapping was happening from the Big Baddie™️ in that world and calrik busted in.

with the SW AU, it’s an AU of my own work (lmfao). calrik is an inquisitor, brother to merric (supreme leader); sae is a force sensitive rebel (not proper Jedi) and tasked with transporting / protecting ilantha (actual Jedi, Princess of Alderaan). the girls get captured, put on star killer base, and interrogated by the guys. of course they pair bc where else would the enemies to lovers come in. cal interrogates sae, and she’s restrained. since sabers turn on, they have an activation mechanism hums. so while he’s interrogating her, choking her, calling her pet and telling her to speak up, he traces the humming, vibrating end of the saber—while ignited—along her body until its against her thrumming cunt. hence: a lightsaber vibrator as means of an interrogation method.

now Laios…… holy shit yeah. that’s exactly what im thinking about!!!! an aphrodisiac that the longer the body doesn’t register you’re breeding (aka using it), the worse it gets. teaching him how to touch you, and he ends up being exactly the touch you’ve always imagined having. its so innocently perfect, and before he’s even had his turn, a glob of cum has stained his pants. he’s panting, pupils swollen; at one point you have to remind him to take the armor off because he’s so into you, enraptured. now imagine you’re the monster that hit him with the pollen……………….. like a fae dryad or somethin………. holy shit yeah.

thank you for indulging me 🙂‍↕️ im so sorry this is a damn novel lol

putting this under the cut since i rambled A LOT!

sav what the FUCK that world you’ve built sounds so incredible and well thought out; i LOVE fantasy but it’s daunting to write/create fantastical worlds because there are so many elements you must consider and balance. effective world building is a feat—and you have so many interesting characters that you’ve also created to boot! i’m obsessed with how similar cal is to laios ooohuuhgghhhhhh i will lose my mind (go insanely horny) over him.

AND THE STAR WARS AU???????? okay first of all: brilliant, show-stopping, incredible. putting your own ocs from an original story into a pre-existing fictional universe is so big brained of you i don’t even know what to say. and enemies to lovers…my favorite flavor, truly. can i just say i wanna be in sae’s place because oh my god? i’m seeing the vibrating lightsaber vision and i want to experience it so desperately it’s not even funny.

finally LAIOS, MY LOVE! i have a bit of a reputation on my blog for being a virgin killer because there’s nothing more sexy and delicious to me than teaching someone inexperienced how to touch you; molding their concept of sexuality, exploring their interests, and leaving a lasting impression on them (even if you don’t stay together because they will never, never forget their first). and laios is the perfect virgin in my mind because he’s eager to please and he’s utterly shameless. he will lick your armpits and spit on your clit and suck on your tongue without a second thought because it feels and tastes so good; he has a one-track mind and it makes sex with him almost a religious experience. the sex pollen trope on top of that makes him feral for you…i don’t even know what to say about the idea of you being the monster—like…UGH. he gives you a run for your money!

anyway thank you for sharing with me; i’m kissing you and your gorgeous brain <3

[unrivalling]

5, 18, 29?

5. What’s a fic idea you’ve had that you will never write?

So I don’t like saying never, since things could always change. Some ideas never take off and some ideas seem dead before rising up out of the ground like zombies to torment the living.

I do have a Lot of Sk8 multichapters that there just simply is not enough of me to write. Maybe I’ll pick one of these up if/when we get an S2, or if I manage to publish an original book between now and then and feel better about writing longfic. They include:

1) a three part Fodlan AU epic where the Sk8 crew starts as a group of Robin Hood-esque outlaws before being arrested by the notorious Hubert von Vestra and conscripted as agents of Adrestia. Starts as adventure but turns into a war epic where they all struggle to recognize not only each other but also themselves.

2) Sk8 pirate AU

3) Sk8 thriller/murder mystery where someone dies via overdose of a mysterious new drug at S. Adam is caught between the yakuza, who think he’s branching out into dealing on their turf, and the police. The crew has to solve the crime before either party catches up to them.

4) Not a longfic, just not high on my list per se because it’s a little too bleak even for me.

Eden. Zombie apocalypse fic where skilled skateboarders, cyclists, rollerbladers etc are the best way to get messages or resources around the island. It starts out as the 8 of them but the crew dies one at a time as the years go on, until Adam and Langa are the only ones skilled enough to still be alive. They find comfort with each other in their shared history and shared solitude, and by the end it’s the only thing keeping them going.

18. What’s one of your favorite lines you’ve written in a fic?

Oh man this is a good question. There’s a lot I’m genuinely proud of, but probably this bit from From the Garden. (Sorry, including the whole paragraph because my fave lines doesn’t make sense without it)

Then there was Tadashi.

They’d been close, then far apart, then close again. The stubborn silence and hurt of the last seven years lived in Ainosuke’s bones right along with them coming back together, wanting to build a future after wasting all that time in an emotional standoff. No matter which way he looked at his life, it was a palindrome, with him and Tadashi growing distant and then close again.

Finally, he settled on memories of being a child with Tadashi, of that spectacular summer where Tadashi taught him to skate and they’d spent every day together. No matter what else had happened, Ainosuke had just needed to see Tadashi and their decks and he’d feel like he could fly. It was the happiest he’d ever been.

If he was fading, those were the memories he wanted to fade into.

29. Share a bit from a fic you’ll never post OR from a scene that was cut from an already posted fic. (If you don’t have either, just share a random fic idea you have that you don’t plan on getting to.)

HMM there was an original draft of the Grell peril scene in Passing the World By that was a little hornier (inspired by a scene in the second Elvira movie), to the point where I decided to cut it and possibly expand it into its own fic at some point. This text won’t stay the same, but I want to repurpose the scenario.

To his surprise, he arrived in a chamber that was dimly lit by oil lamps. A desk littered with papers sat at one end of the room with a messy bookshelf behind it. All around the room, old torture devices lay in all sorts of configurations, rusted, dusted, and covered by cobwebs.

Sebastian fought the urge to stop and organize things. Just because someone was an occultist was no excuse for mess. In fact, he’d seen plenty of examples for why one should keep a tidy workstation when communing with the nether reaches of reality.

However, a steady, loud, clicking sound coming from the next room drew his focus instead.

When he opened the door to a spacious antechamber with a stone dais at the center, the person inside made eye contact and grinned wildly, tinged with a panic he’d rarely seen in a Reaper’s green eyes.

“Bassie! Oh my, how long has it been? Thirty years?!” She shifted uncomfortably, her back against stone. “I know I always say this, but I am glad to see you. Your timing is impeccable, you know that?”

Sebastian stepped through the entryway and took stock of the situation.

Grell Sutcliff was bound to a stone dais in the center of the room, her arms held over her head in a pair of strong metal stocks, while her ankles were locked in a second pair at the end of the dais. A matching metal collar was wrapped around her throat, her hair bunched up underneath it at the hinges as it kept her from lifting her head too high. Her captor had left her glasses, which didn’t seem like a mercy, considering the circumstances.

Overhead, a bladed pendulum hung in the air, swinging ominously back and forth directly over Grell’s stomach—it would have been nearly imperceptible to a human, but Sebastian could see that it was dropping further down. The sharpened blade glinted in the light, and it was easily identifiable as a reaper’s scythe.

He caught himself smiling. What an interesting predicament she’d found herself in.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you arranged this.” Sebastian leaned over, then glanced up at the blade overhead as it swung and ticked a notch closer. “Did you really miss me that much?”

[impossiblycolorfulpanda]

Aang: Hey guys. Zuko and I are gonna need Appa for a while. If anyone wants to come with us, by all means hop on.

Katara: Why? What’s going on.

Aang: Vaatu has Azula. We’re going to get her back.

Katara: You two are still trying to save her? Still trying to fix her? Even after everything she’s done?

Aang: First of all, I don’t like the term ‘fixing,’ she’s a person, not a wind-up toy. Secondly, what are we supposed to do? Just let her suffer and die?

Katara: (shrugs)

Aang: You don’t have to come along, ya know. We all know how much you don’t like her.

Katara: And why do you think that is? She took over Ba sing se, it was her idea to sentence the entire earth kingdom to suffer the same fate as the air nomads, she shot you and Zuko, she tried to shoot me, she attacked Suki, and held a bunch of kids hostage. She’s dangerous and insane. She had plenty of chances to change and rejected them.

Zuko: I won’t let her commit any more war crimes, but I won’t turn my back on her either. I owe her too much.

Katara: I get that she’s your sister, she helped save your life and overturned your banishment, Zuko, but she tried to kill you and corrupt you afterwards and has become viciously psychotic. (To Aang) Don’t you get it? She almost killed you! Another fire nation monster almost took someone else I care about the most away from me! I swore to myself I wasn’t gonna let that happen! Not again!

Aang: This isn’t like with your mom or with your dad, Katara.

Katara scoffed.

Aang: Your mom dying, Vaatu killing your dad, none of that was your fault. Don’t ever tell me that I don’t understand!

Katara: I’m sorry I dismissed your tragedy before. I just don’t get how you can be so easily forgiving. I once told you that I will never forgive Yon Rha, regardless, if Hama killed him or not. As for Vaatu, he’s proven to be the worst of the worst, I, personally, wanna do a lot more than just kill him. I want him to suffer as badly as possible, for everything that he’s done. And he’s going to. But I thought what I said about the southern raiders would teach you something.

Aang: Teach me what?

Katara: That some people don’t deserve to be forgiven. You don’t owe people who hurt you any forgiveness.

Aang: Look, I’m sorry I was demanding and forceful about forgiveness before. I realize that I wanted you to forgive for my sake rather than for your own. But forgiveness is not about deserve, it doesn’t make you weak, it doesn’t make you a doormat. You can still set up boundaries, you can still be concerned for your own safety. Yes, it is hard, but trust me, it’s worth it. Once the threat level of your enemies is neutralized than that’s the moment where it’s recommended to forgive them, not for them but for yourself, if you don’t then they take power over you. Forgive them for your OWN sake.

Katara: You think rescuing her will reduce her threat level and it’ll persuade her to be on our side? Even when she’s good enough of a liar to fool even Toph? You found out that the air nomad philosophy was flawed and sometimes hypocritical. You’ve broken your no kill rule many times and you’ve never even noticed but learned to be ok with it. I bet that means you understand that some people deserve to die.

Aang: Are you saying I should kill her when I get the chance? I don’t need to kill her. I’ve said before, ever since I reopened all my chakras, Azula and I have become more connected than ever. I can see past her lies better than Toph can. Yes, I’ve broken the oath, as did the other monks in a desperate attempt to survive, even when that meant going against their own lessons. It all still haunts me, but it shows that things aren’t as clear cut as I used to believe, and a certain amount of inner darkness is needed for internal balance. My culture’s a part of me but it doesn’t define me, and as the avatar, I’m required to embrace all ideologies, even some completely opposite of my own, I don’t need to trade one for the other.

Zuko: Can we hurry this along? Azula still needs us.

Aang: Clocks ticking guys, anyone who wants to come needs to head on Appa now.

Sokka: We’ll likely run into Vaatu again. You’re gonna need all the help you can get.

Sokka, Suki, Toph, Mai, Ty Lee, Aang and Zuko hopped on Appa. Zuko saw Katara standing there.

Zuko: Katara, please.

Katara clutched his fists, sighed and climbed aboard.

Aang: Yip-Yip.

Appa than launched off.

[tovaicas]

@vexatious-knight​​ sure, I can get into it! I know I make it seem like I utterly hated HW in those last few points but I actually don’t, it’s one of my fav expacs. it’s mostly just that I like to bitch abt the weaker parts of things I like bc constructive criticism is love and the finest form of flattery to me.

details under the cut. this is gonna be real long lol I’m sorry

ARR: full warning, I did ARR in a complete state of ‘near mental breakdown from uni stress’ kinda fugue, combined with me being more focused on Learning The Game than paying close attention to the writing (as it goes with the early stages of a new video game), so my initial memories of ARR are a lil’ hazy. regardless I’m in the camp that it Wasn’t That Bad, and knowing the backstory behind its existence makes it easier for me to forgive a lot of it’s flaws. it’s slow and a little poorly paced and very long (and the scions have little character, and the less that’s said abt their voice acting the better, tho I miss some ARR voices like ARR-ysayle, misgardsormr, and merlwyb), but it’s otherwise a fine introduction to the game. I disagree with the fandom optic of ‘skip ARR you don’t need it!’ and how people act like it’s the worst content in the game, bc ARR sets up at least some of the basics for what happens down the line, and again I don’t think it’s that bad. it’s definitely not winning any narrative awards, but it’s serviceable (esp. for smth cooked up quickly after the near-demise of a previous game version).

HW: so far competing w/ ShB for my fav expac. something to note is that I’m a writer, not a game designer, so some of my criticisms are petty just because I theoretically have the time and ability to expand as much as I want on the things I feel could’ve been done better, because I do. I understand that sometimes game design and MMO writing is just Like That bc of time and scope restraints. okay.

I generally really enjoyed HW - though I think it had a couple of missteps, it generally kept a tight narrative and kept sight of its themes. Ishgard is still my favourite setting (bc who doesn’t like rubbernecking a dumpster fire) and I like how it flipped a lot of character genres on their heads (estinien is the broody dark character but he explicitly isn’t an asshole, he’s just traumatized; aymeric is the cool collected golden boy but displays an impulsivity (that gets someone he respects killed) that you’d more expect out of someone like estinien; ysayle is almost sisterly in how much she cares for other people, and instead of being the violent cult leader you initially knew her as she’s literally the matron for a group of outcasts abandoned and harmed by the system). I like how uncertain it initially feels, I enjoy the couple of moments where the wol starts feeling less like a player avatar and more like a realized person by having character reactions and traumas (they’re utterly devastated by haurchefant’s death, and are shown to be explicitly traumatized and worn down), it does a good job of not sugarcoating how much of a hellhole ishgard is, and for the most part it does a fairly good job of having people like aymeric recognize they’re complicit in why their country is this way and making real meaningful steps to change it. I liked the revelations abt what was really going on w/ the dragonsong war.

also i’m native, so seeing a catholic church analogue get thoroughly dunked on, acknowledge, and make actual steps towards reparations (while acknowledging that an apology requires actual action and not just words) for a crime they committed is a little bit more personal to me than it might be for some others.

as for things I think were weaker....I’ve mentioned a few of them before. like I said a few times I think estinien was an exceptionally flat character and that the reveal could’ve been so much better had he been allowed to have a modicum of growth and agency and actually been made to grapple with the reality of the situation and what it means for him and his sense of self. HW has a weird fixation on humbling ysayle (ravana, focusing on how ‘wrong’ she was during its most important scene despite the fact her not knowing makes little sense bc vidofnir) and the reveal + her completely unnecessary death makes it harder to enjoy for me. speaking of, I find the fact that after she dies the heretics are completely forgotten abt to be a particularly big fumble, bc the entire reason they even exist is a huge portion of HW’s message (they’re not all evil fanatic dragonfuckers, many (if not most) of the heretics are otherwise normal people who have been harmed by the system often through no fault of their own, ex. heustienne as shown if you did HW DRG quests, and will be killed if they go back to Ishgard), so it’s a little strange to me that their voices and plights are quietly dropped as soon as they can when they really should be some of the loudest, as should brume residents. another sore spot for me personally (that I’ve mentioned) is that neither aymeric nor the game wants to acknowledge the awkward truth that aymeric, as leader of the temple knights, is directly complicit in their many (not secret at all) crimes and how his failure to control them reflects back on him as lord commander. that he can’t seem to reconcile with this and blames everything on his father is a fun character flaw, but I’d like to see it more acknowledged (both canon and fandomwise) that aymeric fails in some pretty important ways and makes some weird decisions (like restoration-era ishgard still has the inquisitors. aymeric. you kept the fucking heresy police?). I’d like to see his characterization of ‘perfect golden boy’ to be challenged more often, but I’m not gonna hold my breath lol.

StB: oh boy. as you probably know, stb is obviously (so far) the weakest expac in terms of writing - it fails in a lot of ways, sometimes to the point things actually get offensive. what I liked abt it was mostly mechanical. a lot of it’s fights were really fun, and stb is abt the point (other than fights like nidhogg) where the game starts upping the ante on mechanic difficulty across the board and starts taking the training wheels off (just a little), and I think a lot of its maps were nicely designed and are nice to look at. omega was a fun raid storyline, and I also liked little details, like how this expac’s ‘beast tribes’ are treated as equals in contrast to the uld’ahn assertion that eorzean ones are violent savages that need to be monitored and put down when they get too uppity (this is why I have very mixed feelings on the scions as an organization, but that’s for a separate post).

narrative-wise tho.....stb is a mess. it’s the classic case of biting off more than it could chew, bc it tries to do two storylines at once and fails at this hard; the ala mhigan sections are too short and underwritten across the board, and they spend too much time faffing abt just getting to Doma that that section feels too short as well. shinryu is a massive sore spot; a bahamut+ level primal is born, disappears, and just.....is never mentioned again except at the very end, where you had no buildup or way to predict this happening. I spent literally the entire expac wondering when people were gonna worry abt shinryu on the loose potentially causing another dalamud situation at any moment. things that are super interesting and have a lot of implications, like zenos’ (fake! manufactured!) echo, which is hydaelyn’s power, giving him the ability to body hop (which is in all previous appearances something only granted by or exclusive to ascians) is inherently interesting and a good segue into the shb revelations but it’s literally never brought up again.

I also didn’t really enjoy it character-wise; papalymo and lyse have absolutely no depth or development in ARR or HW so his death is utterly wasted and the reveal that yda is a fake persona has literally no punch (haha) to it bc yda had no character beyond comic relief in ARR anyway. lyse unfortunately never gets out from under the shadow of her comic relief designation, and due to pacing issues her arc is anemic as fuck (she never really grows and keeps asking the same questions over and over) and never actually materializes into what the devs wanted it to be; lyse as resistance leader was a point that was never going to work as-written, and that’s before the colourism issue comes into play. I don’t think she’s necessarily an awful character, but she was definitely mishandled.

I’m not going to talk abt hien or gosetsu here. know that I absolutely despise them, hien especially, for a lot of reasons. but if I get into these reasons I’ll write a 5k word essay on just that so I’ll spare you the pain and save it for a different post. but hien makes me angry as a character so. yugiri is the best character here by process of elimination, fight me.

yotsuyu’s arc is unsurprisingly a mess, and the post-patches fail to actually engage with it bc her main deal is that she’s been horrifically mistreated, especially by men, her entire life, and the entirety of the post-patches are hien treating her like an object to traded around and gosetsu making funney ‘jokes’ abt women. it’s awful. note that I’m not excusing her actions - yotsuyu is an awful person who’s done awful shit, and the inherent moral dilemma of how to handle her crimes as tsuyu is an interesting beat - but everything abt her is mishandled and so...egregious that at times it almost feels exploitative. it makes me wonder that as written if she’d been better off literally just being an awful person because she’s an awful person, and not awful bc she’s a sexual assault survivor (which, I want to stress, this is not the first time this game has made the implication that women who are sexually assaulted are just morally broken afterwards (the first was eline roaille) which is quite the stance to take). all in all I think stb is just across the board unsatisfying and is just a complete mess of an expac. fun fights, tho!

ShB: this is as far as I’ve gone and I’ve not started post-patches yet, so I’ll only be talking abt base ShB. like I think I mentioned right after finishing - I liked it! I think it did a good job of keeping to a tight narrative, and one of it’s bigger strengths is that none of its zones overstay their welcome (like. cough cough. ruby sea. cough cough). other than a couple areas I think it did a genuinely good job of telling what it wanted to tell, and it’s competing w/ HW for my favourite of the bunch.

it’s maps are super pretty (lakeland has some of my favourite bgm so far), it’s fights are fun as hell, and the lightwarden narrative is genuinely gripping. I really enjoyed the bleaker, more dark fantasy tone starting out, I enjoyed how it didn’t pull its punches regarding how ever-present and how...inevitable the sin eaters feel as a threat (it reminds me of ishgard somewhat, in that way). after an entire expac of feeling like a weapon and almost background character just here to solve problems through violence, shb’s narrative of the scions actually (finally) coming to care about your wellbeing as a person as you’re literally dying for the world and working as a team and the MMO player tendency to just follow quest objectives being somewhat used against you as it’s your ‘but thou must’ violence that ends up nearly killing you is a nice subtle meta thing. the worldbuilding for the first feels fairly grounded (by final fantasy standards) and I don’t really have any issues with it. I wasn’t expecting to like the emet-selch arc at the end but I actually really did, I feel they delivered on that front.

eulmore is my biggest sore spot for this expac, bc I think that while their viewpoint re: the end of the world is interesting I don’t think they’re used well. I get that their existence is to highlight the forces keeping norvrandt divided, but just...hm. I didn’t find them super compelling or dangerous as a threat. you really get the sense that without ran’jiit these guys are just hilariously incompetent. and though I’m not going to talk abt it, it’s not my place, eulmore is fatphobic as fuck.

speaking of ran’jiit, he’s obviously the weakest part of the whole show. I find him to be an utter waste of a character, especially once you consider his hook is kinda interesting in its own right; he’s the only eulmoran we see to be in it and loyal to vauthry for reasons that don’t appear to be selfish, but we never actually learn what these reasons are. nothing abt him is explained (he has a dragon? how are there dragons on the first when dragons in this universe are space aliens deposited on the source? he can fuse with it? how? the only other time we see draconic transformations is in ishgardians bc of ratatoskr’s latent aether. is this a real dragon or just smth shaped like one? what is it? we never see any other creature that looks even similar (the closest is alte roite in omega raids). how is he so strong?), and what little character he does have is often ignored if it’s in the wol’s favour (this is a man who kicks y’shtola and his own man off the side of a bottomless pit, but for some inexplicable reason fails to do the same to the wol, his greatest enemy, when they’re distracted by it). his unwinnable fight schtick is not only old at this point but it’s infuriating - I can forgive zeno’s scripted fights bc it’s reiterated over and over again that he’s not exactly normal when it comes to his combat prowess, and the first go around is shocking in its own right bc it’s the first time you’ve lost a fight soundly, not through any trickery or magic or anything. He’s legitimately just stronger than you. ran’jiit just shows up. wrecks your shit. the exarch gives a weak ‘oh no, ran’jiit!’ as explanation. nothing else is ever explained. he’s just this inexplicably strong dude following you around as an unnecessary motivator to kill lightwardens faster, that’s it. it’s a disappointment in an otherwise strong expac. ryne is however my baby.

I’m not entirely sure on how to feel abt the exarch/g’raha rn, that will probably depend on how the post-patches handle him. know that I intensely disliked him for much of shb, bc I read his actions as deeply horrifically manipulative and genuinely thought he was going the be the main villain he was so fuckin shady. no I don’t really care he was doing it for a good cause, he still forced the wol into a war he knew could kill them without giving them full information abt the consequences and held their friends as ransom and only told them the barest of information after they were already in the shits (holminster). so we’ll see how it goes.

my other quibbles are pettier, and are more the result of time/mmo constraints. like I said once, I’d have liked the lightwarden corruption to be more obviously present (as the game pointedly goes out of its way right at the start to show you exactly what being mid-change looks like) and for maybe at least one more containment failure scare in the tempest to really hammer home how little time you have left (was genuinely surprised there wasn’t one) but that’s easy as fuck to fix in writing when you have unlimited scope.

tl;dr: it’s not that I hate what happened in HW, it’s that I think that while it’s an overall good scene a lot of it’s potential was wasted by a failure to give certain people (estinien) agency or depth (despite the fact he has massive stakes in them), and focuses on the wrong aspect bc it wants to laugh at a woman being wrong instead of the big picture. I think that all of the expacs have their fumble points, and I think these deserve to be talked abt critically. I otherwise really enjoy and even love HW/ShB.

StB is however an entire trip into a minecraft canyon of an expac. I don’t think it’s irredeemably awful, but you can definitely feel the writing issues. the less I say abt hien the better.

[thebigshotman]

Hello once again everyone! Still been busy IRL, between working on newspaper articles now that I’m a freelancer and helping get our pool finally up and running as well as other yard work. I’m fairly certain I’ll be actually able to come back within the next couple of days, however, so stay tuned for the threads I owe and a few other things! Hopefully no bad surprises happen 🤞🏻

In the meantime, remember those movies I was reviewing that I saw in film class that I just…completely forgot about? Well, under the cut you’ll find my paragraph long thoughts on the rest of the ones that I saw! Kind of a little thing I’ve been meaning to do for a while to hold you guys over til then. If anyone wants my full thoughts just ask and I will gladly give them.

Quick PSA because there’s another Woody Allen movie down there (yeah my teacher likes him despite everything I guess 🤷‍♀️) please do not come after me because I judged it objectively and separated the art from the artist while viewing. With that out of the way, here they are!

And also a very happy belated birthday to @hxzelwallflower before the cut 🥳🥳 Sorry I’ve been busy IRL and I couldn’t send anything with Spaul to celebrate. But I hope you had a very happy birthday nonetheless!

Network-The one with the “mad as hell” and “you will atone” rants! Everything about this one just kind of broke me, especially as some one who’s going into broadcasting/media herself. Back then, it was a satire, but now it’s practically a documentary; everyone was amazing, and the story had no trouble keeping me entertained. My only gripes were a couple of scenes that reminded me of the more…interesting scenes in Annie Hall that didn’t age well. I highly, highly recommend renting this one! You will not be disappointed; top 5 movies that I saw in this class for sure.

Apocalypse Now-The one with “the horror”; this one also broke me, but not in a good way. This 3 hour long half-action film half-snuff film goes out of its way to brutalize you with the horrors of the Vietnam war and war in general, and it’s something else, alright. I’m not going to get political, but this thing makes me hate war and needless conflict more than I already do. I would never watch this thing again, at least not for fun. However, if you’re interested, I watched the theatrical cut, so check it out if war films are your thing. TW for violence and an animal killing on screen towards the end, though: This movie pulls no punches.

Crimes and Misdemeanors-The one where a guy orders a killing and has an existential crisis about it until he suddenly doesn’t…yeah, this is the Woody Allen one. My feelings are more conflicted about this one compared to the other one of his we watched; on one hand, both of the stories it presents are compelling and compliment each other. One is the drama and the other the comic relief, with the lead of each meeting during the ending in a moment that genuinely felt like a superhero crossover for me and a lot of other people in the class; however, the transitions between them aren’t exactly smooth, leading to frequent whiplash. The aforementioned existential crisis is very well done, though. I’m a sucker for jazz, so the music choice was stellar, and the comedy was pretty good but a few jokes did not age well.

If you’re even vaguely interested in watching this thing I will link you to a YT playlist of it in 15 parts-please do NOT, under any circumstance, support this man by renting it and giving him your money. All in all, though, it was alright! Definitely not as good as Annie, though.

Everything Everywhere All At Once (we were supposed to watch Schindler’s List but we didn’t)-The one I won’t shut up about 😅. Third time’s the charm with this one; what can I say about it that I can fit in three sentences and hasn’t been said already? Every single actor is remarkable, the special effects are amazing and throughly believable for being made by a team of seven, the story is wacky, raunchy, and goes to a million different places, but it’s also a story about a mother and a daughter. Jobu is one of the best antagonists I’ve seen since I first discovered JJBA, and I relate to her and Joy’s struggle to be seen and accepted. To say anymore would spoil it: Please, no matter what film Twitter or anyone else says about this thing, go and at least attempt to watch it. Assuming you aren’t overwhelmed or turned off by the humor-which is perfectly okay-I promise you will love it.

“Please, be kind. Especially when we don’t know what’s going on.”

That thing is going on my tombstone lol 🤣

[theinsanecrayonbox]

X-Force #38

Conclusion of the Xeno stuff! Huzzah!

Apparently this was all about Dom, cause she’s got internal narration throughout. Whatever, that’s fine.

So we pick up where we left off with our merry trio going to Moreau island and finding skinless monkey minions…I’m sorry, it’s Attack on Titans not monkeys

See, that totally Attack on Titan

Deadpool cuts his way out of the giant. It dies. The other two land their plane. This stupid happens

I’m on board with the vampire analogy, and yes I gave in with a cannibal joke, but cmon guys! Arkady doesn’t lick up random viscera. (Now if he’d actually licked Wade here maybe it’d be fun then but cmon)

Peacock man turns on his little telepath. The gang gets into the lab.

Look it Arkady being a good and helpful boi

The “omnimutant” attacks, and it does not look nearly as silly as the version on the cover; it looks mostly like a composite Beast/Wolverine but has Arkady’s coils for some reason. Anywhos, it’s a tough fight

See he’s a good boi and wants to help his team mates, while Beast just cares about the download. He unplugs at 98% to help

Oh that’s kind of a neat effect, wonder what psychic power that is-

WTH??? The death spores haven’t been shown to MELT people before. And one would think you’d be immune to your own power like this one, wouldn’t you?? Is Arkady dead now??? Also, how’d you get his genetic material to use Mr Peacock; I could buy you got the classic X-Force gang’s cause they’ve apparently fought you already? But Arkady hadn’t. And why are you interested in keeping and testing out Wade as if you didn’t already have him; we saw you had clones of him already.

Ah yes, Beast being horrible and terrible. But also (sorry this was before the memo but my caps got mixed up)

Xeno’s plan is literally SoS; is the X-stable just rehashing their own CURRENT ideas now?? Because Xeno’s “augment humans with mutant biotech/powers” is exactly what Graydon has Orchis doing over in Sabretooth/Exiles.

Anyways, kiddo controls omnimutant, they defeat Peacock. Domino goes to kill him, sees his scarred face then decides not to…but totally leaves his monsters to kill him. She goes outside to rejoin Deadpool who’s entertaining the kid…Arkady is lying on the ground by the plane maybe dead? Deadpool carries him into the plane in another panel…

Right Dom, because no one else has never ever EVER stolen you’re genetic makeup to make a super powered entity. Nope. Weapon H is not real. Never ever.

My last snarky comment aside, that’s it. They blow up the lab on Genosha and head home I guess. Why was Colossus on the opening cast page if he was Sir Not-Appearing? I know he and Laura are joining next issue, but what?

Overall…eh, I’ve said it in other posts; this was billed as a finale for several books/storylines that I guess centered on Domino. But as someone who jumped in late to this series and didn’t read the others from the beginning either, it was lacking substance, not helped by the lack of footnote caption boxes to remind readers where to find plot points from the back issues. Is that on me for being late, well not the missing caption boxes, but yeah I give you it is a bit. But again, as a finale for several long things, it wasn’t really good.

And Beast still has to answer for his war crimes more so than just getting the cold shoulder from ‘his friends’ at the lunch table. Arkady was a good boi though (cannibalism aside) and made a new best friend in Deadpool, so that’s nice. It’ll be interesting to see what Colossus and Wolverine can bring to the team (and hopefully no more Logan since we get Laura??)

[smidgen-of-hotboy]

Reblogged the first time on accident bc i fat fingered teehee. anyway.

ZEPH I AM BITING YOU BITING YOU BITING YOU WTF I I I I I- NO WORDS HEAD EMPTY JUST YOUR VOICE I LOVE BONUS CONTENT!!!

Jay's Thoughts: Extended Cut

“Voices singing in harmonies, orbiting in perfect rhythm, chasing like the sun and moon across the sky, echoed in the deafening silence of Hadestown.” OHOHOHOHOHHOHOHHOHOHOHHOHOHOH- THE SUN AND MOON IMAGERY!!! THE ECHO OF DEAFENING SILENCE, THE ECHO OF VOICES SINGING IN HARMONIES!!! Eating this opening line up it is so good.

“And for the first time in a long, long time, the workers didn’t care” BARK BARK BARK BARK!!!!! My brain is drawing parallels between this and Our Angel og Brahma, Eevee and the other Dome Wardens going on their strike. Oh boy. Surly this can’t end badly!

I already gave my thoughts on this section when you posted the snippet a couple of days ago, but to recap: - “Took beatings from the executives…” this line reminds me again of Our Angel of Brahma - “creeping thyme” language of flowers meaning = courage, strength power, bravery. The Greek origin word “thumos” means “courage.” - i can’re read the word ceaseless without thinking of tma and i don’t even go there… but also smth smth- hermes “no hammer swinging… no pickaxe ringin… and they stood and listened” (i jumped ahead to persephone singing “how long” and ivfdsjgvnsjfibfnkrskjb AMBER GRAY LOVE OF MY LIFE I GOT TEARY EYED JUST READING THE LYRICS) - “Gilded cage” LIKE THE FUCKING TITLE!!!! Making ME think of Red Queen, “King’s Cage” now!!! (rip mare barrow)

Still thinking on King’s Cage and Slip is very Maven coded holy shit. He is obsessed with this boy like Maven was obsessed with Mare… OKAY YEAH HOLY SHIT WAIT- “doesn’t want him associating with those kinds of people anymore” THOSE KINDS OF PEOPLE???? REALLY SLIP! HOMELESS BOY GETS A TASTE OF POWER AND BECOMES A FUCKING TYRANT GRRRRR- SENTENCE HIM TO THE MEAT GRINDER!

“something he saw as clearly as if the sun were shining down through the rock overhead. Slip was afraid of Juno.” SLIP WAS AFRAID OF JUNO. 1) love the imagery 2) SLIP WAS AFRAID OF JUNO!!!!! Our lady failure makes this 3ft tall king shit his pants <3 /j

“a well of dread” oooh love this line

“it’s the scared animals that are the most dangerous” smth about eurydice who once stepped on a snake, smth about SMTH ABOUT THE SNAKE IN JUNO’S STOMACH-

I like the mental image of slip chewing his thumb staring out his glass office, his glass fortress, looking down on hadestown, and he glances up at Nureyev’s reflection to catch his sign and he gets fucked sassed. Get dunked on Slip Hackoff.

“He’d already lost so much to this man he could barely remember” TERRIBLE WASTE REFERENCE- STOLE HIS STORY REFERENCE-

HOW LONG, HOW LONG, HOW LONG!!! Again. AMBER GRAY MY BELOVED, ME SWEETHEART, MY DARLING, LOVE OF MY LIFE I FUCKIGN RFUIEGHBRF GGYHJDSFN- i love “how long” so so so so so much. And the way you’re working it in is chef’s kiss. The flip of persephone taking pity on orpheus trying to convince hades to feel the same, to nureyev taking pity on the workers trying to get slip to understand how fucked he is. 

He thinks of this as BUSINESS???? BRO- i they don't even get health insurance out of this motherfucker for how much they work and how long their hours are. That should be like. A war crime. Slop Jackloss wtf. (terribly sorry about my name butchering, i love Sip Jakeson in equal parts i want him dead in canon)

“A small, scared kid.” FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK- he was just a boy in love! FUCK- THIS IS HOW 3FT KING AU/HC CAN STILL WIN!!! /heavily joking. 

“Everything I ever built for you” parallel to “feel that fire, think of it as my desire for you!” Chant reference!!

OH BRIEF ANECDOTE TIME!! …”one could kill you and the other could dispose of your remains” love that they found this funny. Teenage children are morbid… 

“No one is going to die!” Slip: proceeds to die first.

“Nureyev was left standing in the office, facing a man he had known so well decades ago, but didn’t know anymore.” ougggggg- this hurts. Hurts so good. 

SLAP FUCKOFF YOU ARE DELUSIONAL BOY- WHTA THE EVERLOVING FUCK!!! MY MAN!!! OF COURSE HE MOVED ON!! OF COURSE HE DID!! HE HAD NO CHOICE BUT TO!!! OF COURSE HE GOT MARRIED! OF COURSE HE FOUND HOPE IN SOMEONE ELSE!!! Smh juno steel is the problem for a lot of people but he is not to be blamed for your ex-bf moving on with his life, should’ve tried harder not to die so young Slappery smh.

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK NOOOOOOO LEAVE THEM ALONE!!! LEAVE BEN AND VESPA AND M’TENDERE ALONE!!! Vespa died a meaninglyess death, you stole Ben once already, AND YOU ALREADY PUNISHED M’TENDERE ENOUGH JFC- what’re you gonna do to them anyways?? Have them be killed again??? Double death? Death times two????????

Oh i can perfectly see Nureyev signing that. Rigid, stiff, and big. When you want to yell in sign, you make your signs bigger. Sing language is a visual language. So even tho nureyev is flat, not exclaiming, he is stern. Giving that thousand yard stare down. 

Nureyev wanting to grab juno by the shoulders and run, get him out of there, get him safe… Smth smth “why are you following me juno” and nureyev at the end of terrible waste still pulling on the net and being shocked and still trying to free juno… 

How fucked tho would it be if this wasnt juno, it’s ben, old switcheroo or smth. How fucked would it be if slip was playing coy “do you know who he’s associated with?” and then dragging in ben anyways. 

JUNO STEEL CAN YOU STOP BEING GAY FOR YOUR HUSBAND FOR 2 SECOND FJSKGCJF- at least peter has a braincell. A. as in singular.

“A wave of dread” first as small as a well. Now a wave as big as a tsunami. Before a tsunami makes landfall, the tide gets pulled out….

Slip blaming Juno for preaching fair work practices is actually kinda funny ngl

“Before we dispose of you?” WHAT??

“That look meant Juno had a plan” MAKING ME THINK OF WHAT LIES BEYOND!! When juno is talking with buddy and sasha and they’re all coordinating a plan together without actually being able to talk to one another, and buddy is the Captain but she puts her trust and faith in juno to pull this plan together and get at least one of them out of that ordeal.

“The smallest spark of hope ignited in Peter’s gut.” fuck-

“And then Juno opened his mouth, and began to sing the song of spring.” DOUBLE FUCK. it's orpheus singing epic iii the end of his song, his final plea to hades, melting his heart, reminding him of the woman he loves, reminding him of the world that could be! and Juno singing to Slip, reminding him of the boy he loved, reminding him of the world he used to live in, reminding him that he is allowed to grieve and ought to learn how to- FUCK THIS SHIT I CANT TAKE IT ANYMORE! I'M TIRED OF THIS GRANDPA!! (well that's too damn bad!!!)

SONG FOR A CAGED LOVEBIRD: PART 15

wow. wowie wow wow. this section got me up to a little over 19,500 K. that's fucking INSANE homie!!!

this section took me a while to work out bc i knew what points i wanted to hit but not the order I wanted to do them in, so I had to break some stuff apart and rearrange it. hopefully this makes sense? this sections got a weird energy to it and i'm not sure why. but we are in the home stretch of this fic guys!!!! maybe like 3 or 4 more chapters max and then it is FINISHED, which is so crazy to me

alsoooo enjoy some bonus content!! aka me singing a lil bit of epic iii in honor of this absolutely insane milestone

HEY GANG IT'S FRESH FOOD: @smidgen-of-hotboy @ceaseless-watchers-special-girl @urjover @waters-and-the-wilde @gwenlena

@demonic-panini @the-private-eye @one-joe-spoopy

Voices singing in harmonies, orbiting in perfect rhythm, chasing like the sun and moon across the sky, echoed in the deafening silence of Hadestown.

The workers had stopped showing up a few days ago. Wouldn’t pick up their pickaxes or lay a hand on their wheelbarrows. Slowly, the factories ground to a halt. The furnaces died down. The wall stopped being built. And for the first time in a long, long time, the workers didn’t care.

They took beatings from the executives with a smile and a song on their lips, a song that spoke of unity in the face of loss with a melody that grew like creeping thyme through the town. It had been a while since Peter had heard Juno’s voice, but he knew. Even from this distance, he knew it was him. His strong, clear voice helixing through the air with another voice that he assumed must have been Ben’s. And the world stopped its ceaseless grind and listened.

And from his gilded cage in Slip’s office, Peter watched with no small amount of pride as his beloved husband brought the hell of Hadestown to a screeching halt.

Slip stormed back and forth in his office. Nureyev had been up here for…. Well, he wasn’t quite sure, but his best guess was a week. Slip had taken him up here after his executives had beaten Juno and left him for dead. Something about how he didn’t want him associating with those kinds of people anymore. 

Nureyev knew that was bullshit. There was something else at play here, something he saw as clearly as if the sun were shining down through the rock overhead.

Slip was afraid of Juno. 

He could see it with every furious step and angry huff. An undercurrent of fear laced his every move. Juno had crossed some sort of line, broken some sort of spell that Slip was afraid might never be put back into place. He was getting more erratic and scattered as the days went by. And for some reason that Nureyev couldn’t quite explain, a well of dread was beginning to bubble up in the pit of his stomach.

After all, it’s the scared animals that are the most dangerous.

“Godsdammit all, why won’t they work anymore?” Slip snarled, steps heavy but quick as he paced across the room.

Nureyev turned his gaze coolly away from the window. “Don’t know. Maybe they realized the lies and bullshit you’ve been feeding them!”

“Keep talking like that and I’ll leave you right where I left your precious husband.”

“Oh, I don’t know, he seems to be doing quite well for himself so far, considering he’s brought your whole town to a standstill.”

Slip stopped pacing like a frustrated predator and stared at Nureyev. Nureyev wasn’t scared. He’d already lost so much to this man he could barely remember. What was losing a little more? He stared right back, almost daring Slip to make a move.

“What else did you expect, Slip? You lie to these people for years, force them to work for nothing, keep them away from their homes and families, and expect they’ll be happy? That they’ll listen when you speak? That they’ll care about you and your opinions?” His motions were jerky with a deep set anger and hurt that was starting to burn hotter than the heart of the Hadestown furnaces.

Slip’s jaw was beginning to tremble, but in rage or fear or pain, Nureyev couldn’t tell.

Go on. Tell him. Tell him what he needs to hear.

“How long did you think they’d put up with this before they turned on you? How long do you think they’d wait for you to change?”

How long did he think you’d wait for him, little songbird?

“They’ll put up with it for as long as I am in charge of this town.”

Nureyev sighed deeply. “You don’t get it, do you?”

“What is there to get, Petya? That these people don’t comprehend the logic of a business?” 

Slip threw his arms open wide. Even now, even with all his power and might and control, he still looked like what he had been the last time Peter had ever really known him: a small, scared kid.

“They’re going to destroy everything I’ve ever worked for. Everything I ever built for you. And all because of that husband of yours and his fucking music.” 

“Everything you built….for me?”

Slip sighed, and his expression softened slightly. “Of course. I made this town for you. I was going to show you all of its wonders. But you never came to find me, like you said you would. Remember?”

Peter couldn’t. Not at first, anyway. But slowly and surely, a memory began to creep back into his consciousness. 

He was young. Couldn’t have been more than 12 or 13. The last of summer was still in the air. Slip had just finished telling him the old Story of Hades and Persephone, a story the two of them shared like their stolen food and blankets. Peter had cracked some kind of joke, something about the two gods in the story being a perfect pair because one could kill you and the other could dispose of your remains, and he and Slip were howling with laughter.

When the laughing had died down, Slip turned to Peter, suddenly serious. “Petya, can you promise me something?”

“Of course, my love, anything.”

“If one of us dies before the other… can we send a message to them from Hades? So the one that’s still living knows to go get them?”

“Slip, don’t talk like that. No one is going to die!”

“I know, I know, but…. Just in case, you know? If I die, I’ll send you a sign. A huge sign. I’ll…. I’ll get rid of the spring altogether! I’ll keep Persephone locked up in the underworld until you come to find me!”

That sent them both into another peal of unstoppable laughter.

And then the memory faded away, and Nureyev was left standing in the office, facing a man he had known so well decades ago, but didn’t know anymore.

“I should have brought you down here sooner, you know,” Slip said, chewing on his lip. “I thought, if I can take Persephone’s reincarnation and keep him down here, and change the world above, he will notice and come for me. Surely, if I just hold out a little longer, if I just let the winter go a little longer, let him starve a little longer, he’ll remember the promise he made to me. He’ll come to find me. But no.

“Instead, you moved on. Grew up. Got a respectable job. Even got married! All while you left me to fester down here. But it’s okay, my love. I don’t blame you. No. It’s all that Juno Steel’s fault.”

Nureyev suddenly realized his mouth and throat had gone bone dry, and a slightly manic gleam had entered Slip’s eyes.

“He stole you away from me. He’s what’s keeping us apart. You know, I should have killed him when I had the chance. Maybe I can still kill him now. You wouldn’t happen to know which of my workers he’s associating with, would you, Petya, dear? Maybe I could hurt them too.”

Peter’s whole body went rigid with fear. 

“Don’t you fucking dare.”

He could barely make his hands shape the words. The sudden adrenaline rush made him shiver. He could barely imagine the pain Juno felt when he woke up and discovered his lover was gone. He couldn’t imagine having to go through the same pain.

Slip just looked back at him, face calm and still and eyes shining as he slid into the chair behind his desk, and Nureyev knew. If he made one false move, Juno would suffer the consequences. He swallowed hard.

An executive rapped on the door. “The leader is here to discuss negotiations, my associate.”

Slip’s eyes never left Nureyev’s face. “Of course. Bring them in. You might want to stay for this, Petya. I’m sure you’ll find it interesting.”

Nureyev didn’t move a muscle.

A moment later, Juno stumbled through the door, an executive hot on his heels, and Peter couldn’t decide if he should let out the breath he was holding or grab his lover by the shoulders and sprint out of the room. Maybe both.

Once Juno regained his balance, he glanced around the room until his eye rested on Peter, and a soft, relieved smile inched onto his face.

“Hey, babe, what’s going on? Where have you been?” he said gently, taking a few steps in Peter’s direction. 

Peter wanted so badly to run to him, to kiss him, to leave town and never look back. But Slip’s threat had been genuine. He knew that. He stayed where he was, silently willing Juno to read the room and get the hell out.

“Mr. Steel. I will kindly ask you to keep your conversation directed to me, seeing as I am your host here.”

The smile fell from Juno’s face, and a mix of determination, fear, and hope appeared in its place. Simultaneously, a wave of dread crashed over Peter like a tsunami. Gods above, he wanted to throw up.

Juno bowed his head slightly in a greeting. “Slip.”

Slip bowed his head in response. “Let’s skip the pleasantries, shall we?”

“Sounds like a plan to me.”

“What the hell do you mean by shutting down my whole town, Mr. Steel? I knew you were a troublesome one, but I never knew you had the guts to take it this far.”

“Oh, this isn’t my doing. It’s theirs,” Juno said simply, pointing out the window to the gathered crowd of workers partying in the street. “They decided they’ve had enough of being treated this way, so they decided to stop showing up. I had almost nothing to do with it.”

Slip leaned forward over his desk. “But you are the one who taught them that song, right?”

“And what if I am?”

“That still makes you an accomplice. You gave them the song that they unified around, and that would be considered a crime down here. And now that I’ve got you in my office, right in front of me, well…. I suppose it only makes sense that I punish you. I suppose you’ve been told how we punish those who step out of line down here?”

Juno’s jaw was set. He nodded. Peter wanted to scream.

Slip stood. “Very well then. Do you have any last words before we dispose of you?”

And suddenly, Juno looked very calm. Calm and careful, but still living up to his last name, with features set like quenched metal.

It took a moment, but Peter realized knew that look. He knew it very well. He knew it from all the nights of playing cards with Buddy or figuring out how to stack a new shipment of crates or watching him discover a new piece of the never ending puzzle that was his song.

That look meant that Juno had a plan.

The smallest spark of hope ignited in Peter’s gut.

And then Juno opened his mouth, and began to sing the song of spring.

[jimblejamblewritings]

snow falls hot | part 5.

Summary: (Y/N) Snow isn’t a Snow at all. She’s a Targaryen— Rhaegar’s child. Taken in by the Starks, she leads her life as another on of Ned’s bastards. Will she be able to live in Westeros comfortably? More importantly, does she have any ambition to see herself one day on the Iron Throne?

Warnings: in this part none but this is game of thrones so…

Pairing: robb stark x reader

Word Count: 2.9k

Previous Part | (Series Masterlist)

The heavy rain woke you up. You reached for your husband, eyes opening when you didn’t feel Robb in the bed. With little thought, you left the room in just a nightgown. The rain was chilling to the bone but the sight in front of you was what truly paralyzed you. Lord Karstark was kneeling over a block while Robb had a large sword in his hands— Edmure and Catelyn pleading with him. Karstark lifted his head.

“We are kin, would you really execute me?”

“Kin didn’t stop you from betraying me and murdering those boys. It will not stop me from executing you now.”

“It wasn’t meant to stop you. I hope it stays in your mind till the day you die. Lannister wears the badge Kingslayer, you will be known as a kinslayer. King in the North, huh. You are no king of mine.”

Robb didn’t flinch. “My father always said he who carries the sentence must swing the sword. Lord Karstark, for murder of the Lannister boys, I sentence you to die.”

Your eyes went wide and you gasped as the sword was brought down on Rikard Karstark’s neck. Robb, Edmure, and Catelyn looked over at the noise. The sword dropped from Robb’s hand as you shook your head and began to run back inside. You could hear his heavy boots as he chased after you. Robb caught up to you and grabbed your hand. He brushed the wet hair out of your face— you continued your head shaking and couldn’t look him in the face. Robb kept pleading and eventually your eyes met his.

“Was it worth it?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Was justice that important to you that you couldn’t keep Lord Karstark in prison? At least until we won?”

“He murdered those boys.”

“And you have lost half your men, Robb.”

“So I should have let him go unpunished? He sat for a fortnight in that dungeon, not ashamed at all of his crime.”

“You should have deferred his punishment. We need them, we are in a war.”

“War doesn’t mean we throw away our morals—”

“Are you so determined to die like Eddard!”

Robb got quiet. He couldn’t tell what were your tears versus what was the rain still on your face. You had never yelled at him. In a thousand years, he couldn’t remember a single moment that you had yelled at him. Even if annoyed. Your hand shook despite being covered by his.

“I watched Eddard’s head cut off by his own sword and then stuck on a pike like he was nothing. Your father died by honor, I will not watch you do the same. Do you hear me, Robb Stark?”

“I understand. I made a mistake, sometimes justice should wait. My mother and uncle were right as are you. I will fix this. I’ll find a way to form another alliance with Lord Frey, we’ll take Casterly Rock, and then… I will plead for the Karstarks to come back. Give them Casterly Rock if I must.”

“No more stupid decisions by honor.”

“No more mistakes by honor,” he conceded.

“Good. Because I cannot rule without you.”

“You won’t, beloved.” He kissed you sweetly. “You’re absolutely soaked. You need a fire before you get sick.”

You didn’t have a chance to protest before Robb picked you up bridal style. He passed Edmure and his mother on the way to the large hall.

“Send a raven to Frey’s sons. Have them meet with us to discuss a new alliance and Casterly Rock. Tell them to tell Lord Frey that none of his demands are too great. I apologize for his trust being lost in us but would like to make it right.”

Edmure nodded. “You sound like a true king now.”

“I should have listened to you and mother. Uncle Edmure, you are my hand of the king. Truly.”

“An honor so great. I will send the raven immediately.”

Edmure and Catelyn continued on their path as you and Robb continued yours. He set you down in front of the fire and then left for a moment. When he returned, Grey Wind and Godswood were with him— as well as Shadow flying in. Robb was also holding a pile of furs and a new gown. Despite seeing you undressed plenty of times, ever the gentlemen, Robb turned around to make a pallet of fur as you stripped off the nightgown and changed into the dress.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Robb said as he made the pallet. “When did you know how to use a sword? Or arrows for that matter? I saw the bow in our room.”

“Ser Jaime taught me while in King’s Landing.”

Robb stood up. “Jaime Lannister?”

“Are you jealous?” you asked with a mix of a smirk and an amused smile on your face.

“I am not jealous, I just don’t like the thought of the Kingslayer near you.”

“You don’t like the thought of him running his hands down my arms as he showed me the proper technique.” You mimicked your words with action as you let your hands dance along Robb’s arms and shoulders.

“If you wanted to learn, you could’ve asked me years ago in Winterfell.”

“I don’t know, I learned a lot from Ser Jaime. He was really informative on how to handle a sword.”

Robb gave a dry laugh. “You are asking for trouble, Targaryen.”

“St—”

“Stark.” Robb cut you off. “Targaryen Stark.”

He gave you a peck. “I have to go. I need to discuss more with the men left on how to fix my mistake. Will you be fine here?”

You nodded. “I will probably sleep again, maybe figure out reforms for when we take over?”

“That seems like a fantastic idea.”

Robb left and you laid down on the pile of furs. Grey Wind and Godswood curled up around you— Godswood behind and Grey Wind in front. Shadow tucked herself between the three of you in the small space above your head where Grey Wind and Godswood didn’t quite touch. You sighed as the fire warmed you and started to dry you off. Your eyelids got heavy and you slowly let them close.

The ruins of the tower looked less destroyed than last time. The book was still in the middle of the room although the pages seemed less damaged and torn. You took a step before a shadow casted over the place. Turning, you barely saw the flash of scales as a large dragon flew past the windows. You quickly ran down the stairs, ignoring the danger of going so fast, to try and chase after the creature. When you reached the bottom and entered the courtyard, the dragon was nowhere to be seen. You called out to it. Nothing.

You kicked a rock by your foot in frustration. Looking around, you realized something you didn’t notice the first time. Maester Luwin and Old Nan had told stories. Ned and Catelyn made sure you knew where you came from. You recognized the landscape— Old Valyria. But were you looking into the past or what was currently there? Were you even looking at the actual Valyria or a version of it that you created in your head? Starks were known to be of magic but Targaryens were as well. Your house escaped death in Valyria due to the dreams of Daenys Targaryen— she saw the Doom coming and instructed them to flee. Her magic dreams saved them. Magic was lost though. At one point, so were dragons. There was nothing more to think about but to just accept for now.

You almost jumped at the thumping behind you. When you turned, a large dragon was staring down at you. It resembled your Shadow— only much, much larger. The dragon bowed their head. You had to remind yourself that you couldn’t show fear as you extended a hand to pet their snout.

“Shadow?”

There was no reaction. The dragon wasn’t yours, at least not the one back in Riverrun. The dragon blinked and you felt nothing before staring at yourself. Just like with Shadow, you had warged into this dragon. You were pulled out before warging again. The dragon puffed out smoke from their nostrils when you could see through your own eyes again.

“(Y/N)?” you asked, tentatively.

The dragon nudged you with her snout. It didn’t make sense to you. How did the dragon share the same name as you? Before you could ask anything else, the ground shook and you almost lost balance as a second dragon landed followed by a third. Just as big as the one that shared your name, the other two looked at you expectantly. You petted them as well, expecting to warg into them but nothing happened. The other two circled and piled around the first dragon until it looked like one creature. A single creature with—

“The dragon has three heads,” you whispered.

That phrase, the unofficial words of your house. Your whisper seemed to set the dragons off. All three lifted their heads and were alert, aware of your presence once again. You were almost afraid to utter your next question but the large creatures looked at you as if they were begging you to say something.

“Am I not alone?”

A puff of smoke was the only thing you were granted from each of them. You needed to be clearer.

“Am I not the only Targaryen?”

You ducked as all three dragons blew fire into the air. In awe, you watched the large flames. Three concentrated streams of heat blazed over your head before stopping.

“Where are the others?” you asked with a buzz.

Your face fell as one dragon flew off followed quickly by the other. You looked expectantly at the (Y/N) dragon but she stayed. She stayed and slapped her back foot against the ground repeatedly before flying off herself— straight up in the air before being out of sight. You looked at the spot she had been slapping. Her claws had dug out parts of the soft stone— the ruined floor never stood a chance against her. The marks left behind looked like a very crude map of Westeros and another large island. You looked to the side where the first dragon flew off. In the exact direction of the other place.

“Essos?”

Turning your head, you kept your eye line in the direction of where the other flew off. It wasn’t to the west of Westeros. The other dragon flew off in the confines of the continent.

“The North? No, north of the North?” You laughed a little to yourself. “Right, Maester Aemon.”

A far away roar sounded.

“Am I wrong?” you yelled into the air.

Abruptly you were awoken, staring at the ceiling of Riverrun. Grey Wind lifted his head at your gasps and the way you sat up before settling himself down again. The three creatures were asleep around you. You stared at the fire that was still well lit— either Robb or someone else must have come by to add another log to it. It was stupid, you were aware, but you crawled towards the fire anyway. It didn’t burn when you stuck your hand in. You could have sworn you heard the familiar roar of the dragon you had just met— the sound gone when you pulled your hand away.

~~

Walder had sent his sons Lothar Frey and Black Walder— his bastard— to meet with you. Shadow stayed in the confines of you and Robb’s room. The rest of the Seven Kingdoms didn’t need to know so soon about the return of the Targaryens. You chewed on your lip, thinking of the risk that some Karstark men knew and you just had to hope they would keep your secret. Robb looked over the letter that they brought with them. He nodded along, not an ounce of protest on his face. The Frey brothers waited patiently, one picking at his nails.

“Tell Lord Frey we agree. Not only will I apologize here but when we win the Seven Kingdoms, I will apologize in front of all of Westeros. Harrenhal, its land, all of its income will be under House Frey.”

“And your uncle?” Lothar asked.

Edmure perked up at this. He grabbed the paper from Robb and quickly read over it. “I will not marry a woman I have never met.”

“Uncle, please.”

“Those are Lord Frey’s commands, he will not accept less,” Lothar pressed.

You placed a hand on Edmure’s shoulder.

“It isn’t ideal, I know. But please, we need this. Many a woman has been married to a man she didn’t know… I was to be promised to the Kingslayer to create a stronger alliance with the North and the Crown.”

Edmure made a face at that. He looked at you and then at Robb. Edmure even passed over Catelyn who, instead of being on his side, also offered sympathetic looks and pleading eyes.

“Is she beautiful at least?”

Black Walder shrugged. Edmure sighed but agreed anyway. You thanked him and so did Robb who swore he would owe his uncle for life. Robb sent the Freys ahead to inform Lord Walder of the agreement and the new alliance while you and Edmure gathered the men to tell them to prepare for leave. They moved quicker than you thought they would, most having experience quickly packing up a military camp. One last night at Riverrun and the camp set off.

The clear days quickly ended but you were only halfway to the Twins. With reluctance, Robb decided to camp it out. Most of the men agreed. Everyone would have rather continued but the mud was too high, the rain too harsh. It made more sense to camp in the less than ideal so they would be alive to make it to the Twins. Catelyn and Edmure sat in you and Robb’s tent. Edmure was delighted with throwing small scraps of meat to Shadow and watching her cook it before eating. Catelyn grumbled as she pulled back the tent flap before letting it close again.

“The rain mocks us. Lord Walder will take our delay as an insult.”

Edmure chuckled as he threw another scrap Shadow’s way.

“Frey should be excited. He is getting the wedding he wanted, not our fault we can’t control the weather.”

“It is a wedding but the one he wanted was to a king, my husband all but ruined that. And his mad son,” Catelyn said with a glare, more playful than anything considering it was Ned’s letter that began the ordeal.

Robb laughed at his mother. “Lord Walder is getting the best marriage offer he’s had since House Frey was conceived. Who better than a Tully?”

“He wanted a Stark. King in the North.”

“If Lord Walder wants his daughters to marry a king, he only has to wait a short while,” you said. “Maybe his granddaughters. He’ll have his Stark king in a matter of months, unless it’s a girl. Does Lord Walder have sons?”

The other three looked at you. Edmure had stopped what he was doing while Catelyn looked like she couldn’t decide whether to smile or cry to show her happiness. Robb was frozen in place. His gaze went down to your stomach and then to your face.

“Are you serious?”

“I haven’t bled since being at Riverrun.”

Edmure and Catelyn excused themselves. Robb pulled you to him, his hand starting to rub your stomach. He kissed your hair and rested his forehead on your shoulder. You settled your hands on top of his.

“We must end this war quickly now,” Robb decided. “For our child.”

“For all the children,” you reminded him. “I’m sure they would like to not have soldiers turning their playing fields into battlefields.”

Robb chuckled along with you. “I’m pretty sure a little girl glared at me as we left the Riverlands. I think one of our horses trampled her little house.”

“You deserved it then.”

“It was a dirt mound!” He joked.  

“She probably made it special for a fairy or… what were they called? A child of the forest.”

“Children of the forest are make believe.”

“So were dragons,” you countered. Robb hummed in response.

“Make believe or not, this is real. I can’t wait to welcome our child into the world.”

“Prince or Princess of the Seven Kingdoms. Following in our footsteps, you’ll teach them to be honorable.”

“And you’ll teach them to be good.”

You melted more into his arms as he fully pulled you into his lap. The scene at Valyria flashed in your mind. You sighed and titled your head up to try and look at him. A large grin was on his face as he looked down at you.

“My house has a lesser known saying… the dragon has three heads. One, two, three.” You pointed to Robb, then yourself, then your stomach.

“The baby is also a Stark.”

“So we are a pack… A pack of dragons.” You smiled when Robb didn’t try to argue. “If it’s a girl we name her Naera, it’s an old Valyrian name.”

“Naera Stark, I like that.”

You picked at Robb’s fingers. “And if it’s a boy… Eddard.”

He took your hand and kissed it before settling back on your stomach, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. Robb nodded and tried to shake the tears away but couldn’t help himself. He leaned over you a little more so he could kiss you.

“The lone wolf dies but the pack survives,” he whispered against your lips.

(Part 6)...