#i love that they kept their height very book-accurate

[bikkue]

Oz No Mahoutsukai (1986) - Height Chart

[trippingontheescalator]

Which Classic Novel Should You Read Based on Your Fave Snape Pairing

Snily - Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1847). Let's see, a low class and abused, brooding Byronic leading man? Check. Madly in love with a woman who ends up marrying a snobbish rich man who looks down on our hero? Check. Obsessed with her even decades after her death? Check, check, and check. Oh, and let's not forget that the child the woman has with her husband shares her eyes. Hm, suspicious.

Snames - Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson (1740). So, as a fellow snames fan, let's be honest with ourselves: all of our fics can be boiled down to "I can change him." We want James to be despicable, inhuman, and cruel to Severus, and then we want James to realize how disgusting he is and grovel at Severus's feet, because we are all basic bitches. So basic that one of the earliest novels in the English language is basically this. Pamela originated this trope.

Snirius - Deep Water by Patricia Highsmith (1957). Snirius fans are unafraid of dark, toxic relationships and unhappy endings, and, well, here's a book for you! Deep Water is about as toxic as you can get. It's about a man who murders his wife's lovers.

Snucius - Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw (1913). Alright, alright, so this isn't a novel, this is a play, but fans of this pairing definitely seem to be into the whole sugar daddy/"I can turn this feral street child into an elegant gentleman" kind of vibe, and this is what this play is all about. Audrey Hepburn is fantastic in the film adaptation My Fair Lady (1964).

Snupin - Bear by Marian Engle (1976). You Canadians are probably like, "What the fuck? Is my OTP a joke to you?" The answer is yes, but that's beside the point. Hear me out. The main character is an archivist who is very bad at relationships and kind of shuns society in general. Like our Snape. She ends up in the Canadian wilderness on an assignment going through a dead person's belongings. Also, this dead person kept a pet bear that our heroine now has to take care of. Our heroine begins to yearn for something wild, our pet bear is a literal bear, but also incredibly pathetic and docile just like Lupin. Anyway, the two fuck. Literally, she fucks a bear. THIS BOOK WON THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD. THAT'S LIKE CANADA'S PULITZER I THINK. None of you werewolf-fuckers should act shocked and dismayed by this. We all know how you really think Sirius's prank should have gone (in which instead of James rescuing Snape, Moony makes sweet sweet love to him).

Sorry, guys, no Snarry or Snamione. I don't really read those pairings so I can't give an accurate recommendation. But if you've got thoughts, add to this!

[worstjourney]

The Millennials' Polar Expedition

A year ago today (23 Nov 2022), I launched Worst Journey Vol.1 at the Scott Polar Research Institute. This is the text of the speech I gave to the lovely people who turned up to celebrate.

As many of you know, my interest in the Terra Nova Expedition was sparked by Radio 4’s dramatisation of The Worst Journey in the World, now 14 years ago.  The story is an incredible story, and it got its claws into me, but what kept me coming back again and again were the people.  I couldn’t believe anyone so wonderful had ever really existed.  So when I finally succumbed to obsession and started reading all the books, it was the expedition members’ own words which I most cherished.  These were not always easy to come by, though, so plenty of popular histories were consumed as well.  Reading both in tandem, it soon became clear that, while there were some good books out there, there was a lot of sloppy research in the polar echo chamber as well.

I also discovered that no adaptation had attempted to get across the full scope of the expedition.  There has never been a full and fair dramatic retelling, all having been limited by time, budget, or ideology from telling the whole story truthfully.  I was determined that my adaptation would be both complete and accurate, and be as accountable as possible to those precious primary documents and the people who wrote them.

So the years of research began.  I moved to Cambridge to be able to drop in at SPRI and make the most of the archives.  Getting to Antarctica seemed impossible, but I went to New Zealand to get at least that much right, and on the way back stayed with relatives in Alberta, the most Antarctic place I could realistically visit.  I gathered reference for objects wherever I could.  Because Vol.1 takes place mainly on the Terra Nova, which is now a patch of sludge on the seabed off Greenland, I cobbled together a Franken-Nova in my mind, between the Discovery up in Dundee and the Star of India in San Diego.  I spent a week on a Jubilee Sailing Trust ship in order to depict tall-ship sailing correctly.  I’m sure I’ve still got loads of things wrong, but I did all I could, to get as much as I could, right.

But still, everyone I met who had been to Antarctica said, “you can’t understand Antarctica until you’ve been there, and you can’t tell the story without understanding Antarctica; you have to go.”  So I applied to the USAP’s Antarctic Artists and Writers Program, with faint hope, as they do “Ahrt” and I draw cartoons.  But I must have blagged a good grant proposal, because a year after applying, I was stepping out of a C-17 onto the Ross Ice Shelf.  The whole trip would have been worth it just to stand there, turn in a circle, and see how all the familiar photographs fit together.  But the USAP’s generosity didn’t stop there, and in the next month I saw Hut Point, Arrival Heights, the Beardmore Glacier (including the moraine on which the Polar Party stopped to “geologise”), and Cape Crozier, and made three visits to the Cape Evans hut.  Three!  On top of the visual reference I got priceless qualitative data.  The hardness of the sound.  The surprising warmth of the sun. The sugary texture of the snow.  The keen edge on a slight breeze.  The way your fingertips and toes can start to go when the rest of you is perfectly warm.  The SHEER INSANITY of Cape Crozier.  The veterans were right – I couldn’t have drawn it without having been there, but now I have, and can, and I am more grateful than I can ever adequately express.  With all these resources laid so copiously at my feet, all I had to do was sit down and draw the darn thing.  Luckily I have some very sound training to back me up on that.

Now, this is all very well for the how of making the book, and, I hope, interesting enough. But why?  Why am I putting so much effort into telling this story, and why now?

Well, it means a lot to me personally.  To begin to understand why, you need to know that I grew up in the 80s and 90s, at the height of individualist, goal-oriented, success-driven, dog-eat-dog, devil-take-the-hindmost neoliberalism.  It was just assumed that humans, when you get right down to it, were basically self-interested jerks, and I saw plenty of them around so I had no reason to question this assumption.  The idea was that if you did everything right, and worked really hard, you could retire at 45 to a yacht in the Bahamas, and if you didn’t retire to a yacht, well, you just hadn’t tried hard enough.  Character, in the sense of rigorous personal virtue, was for schmucks.  What mattered was success.  Even as my politics evolved, I still took it as a given that this was how the world worked, and that was how people generally were – after all, there was no lack of corroborating evidence.  So: I worked really hard.  I single-mindedly pursued my self-interest.  I made sacrifices, and put in the time, and fought my way into my dream job and all the success I could have asked for.

And then I met the Terra Nova guys.

What struck me most about them was that even when everything was going wrong, when their expectations were shattered and they had to face the cruellest reality, they were still kind.  Not backbiting, recriminating, blame-throwing, defensive, or mean, as one would expect – they were lovely to each other, patient, supportive, self-sacrificing; in fact the worse things got, the better they were.  They still treated each other as friends even when it wasn’t in their self-interest, was even contrary to their self-interest.  I didn’t know people could be like that.  But there they were, in plain writing, being thoroughly, bafflingly, decent.  Not just the Polar Party – everyone had to face their own brutal realities at some point, and they all did so with a grace I never thought possible.

It presented a very important question:

When everything goes belly-up, and you’re facing the worst, what sort of person will you be?

Or perhaps more acutely: What sort of person would you rather be with?

It was so contrary to the world I lived in, to the reality I knew – it was a peek into an alternate dimension, populated entirely with lovely, lovely people, who really, genuinely believed that “it’s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game,” and behaved accordingly.  It couldn’t be real.  There had to be a deeper, unpleasant truth: that was how the world worked, after all.  I kept digging, expecting to hit bottom at some point, but I only found more gold, all the way down.  How could I not spend my life on this?

Mythology exists to pass on a culture’s values, moral code, and survival information – how to face challenges and prevail.  Scott’s story entered the British mythology, and had staying power, because it exemplified those things so profoundly for the culture that created and received it.  But the culture changed, and there were new values; Scott’s legacy was first inverted and then cast aside.  The new culture needed a new epic hero.  You’d think it would be Amundsen, the epitome of ruthless success, but “Make Plan – Execute Plan – Go Home” has no mythic value, so he didn’t stick.  The hero needed challenges, he needed setbacks, and he needed to win, on our terms.

Shackleton!  Shackleton was a winner!  Shackleton told us what we knew to be true and wanted to hear at epic volume: that if you want something badly enough, and try really hard, you will succeed!  (Especially if you can control the narrative.)  Scott, on the other hand, tells us that if you want something badly enough, and try really hard . . . you may nevertheless die horribly in the snow.  Nobody wants to hear that!  What a downer!  I think it’s no coincidence that Shackleton exploded into popular culture in the late 90s and has dominated it ever since: he is the mythic hero of the zeitgeist. I am always being asked if I’ll be doing Shackleton next.  He has six graphic novels already!  That is plenty!  But people still want to tell and be told his story, because it’s a heroic myth that validates our worldview.

That’s why I am so determined to tell the Scott story, because Scott is who we don’t realise we need right now – and Wilson, and Bowers, and Cherry, and Atch, and all the rest.  The Terra Nova Expedition is the Millennials’ polar expedition.  We’ve worked really hard, we’ve done everything we were supposed to, we made what appeared to be the right decisions at the time, and we’re still losing.  Nothing in the mythology we’ve been fed has prepared us for this.  No amount of positive attitude is going to change it.  We have all the aphorisms in the world, but what we need is an example of how to behave when the chips are down, when the Boss is not sailing into the tempest to rescue us, when the Yelcho is not on the horizon.  When circumstances are beyond your power to change, how do you make the best of your bad situation?  What does that look like? Even if you can’t fix anything, how do you make it better for the people around you – or at the very least, not worse?  Scott tells us: you can be patient, supportive, and humble; see who needs help and offer it; be realistic but don’t give in to despair; and if you’re up against a wall with no hope of rescue, go out in a blaze of kindness.  We learn by imitation: it’s easy to say these things, but to see them in action, in much harder circumstances than we will ever face, is a far greater help.  And to see them exemplified by real, flawed, complicated people like us is better still; they are not fairy-tale ideals, they are achievable. Real people achieved them.

My upbringing in the 80s milieu of selfishness, which set me up to receive the Scott story so gratefully, is hardly unique.  There are millions of us who are hungry for a counter-narrative.  My generation is desperate for demonstrations of caring, whether it’s activism or social justice or government policies that don’t abandon the vulnerable.  We’ve seen selfishness poison the world, and we want an alternative.  The time for competition is past; we must cooperate or perish, but we don’t know how to do it because our mythology is founded on competition.  The Scott story, if told properly, explodes the Just World Fallacy, and liberates us from the lie that has ruled our lives: that you make your own luck.  What happens, happens: what matters is how you respond to it.  My obsession with accuracy is in part to honour the men, and in part because Cherry was the ultimate stickler and he’d give me a hard time if I didn���t, but also because, if I’m telling the story to a new generation, I’m damn well going to make sure we get that much RIGHT.  It’s been really interesting to see, online, how my generation and the next have glommed onto polar exploration narratives, not as thrilling feats of derring-do, but as emotional explorations of found family and cooperative resilience.  We love them because they love each other, and loving each other helps get them through, and we want – we need – to see how that’s done.  It’s time to give them the Terra Nova story, and to tell it fully, fairly, and honestly, in all its complexity, because that is how their example is most useful to us.  Not as gods, and not as fools, but as real human beings who were excellent to each other in the face of disaster.  I only hope that I, a latecomer to their ways, can do them justice.

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

This Rotten Work Playlist: Lefstebany Acosta!

As @evelynhug0 so kindly requested, I'm going to release each of the main character playlists (and one for the main ship, Rachel and Daiyu) once a week leading up to the release of the book!

Fourth up is Lefstebany "Stebbie" Acosta. Though a Render by magical gift, she is damned if she will let anything disturb her pacifist values. The best friend of a hot-tempered Chosen One and in love with a man who thinks that Mountain Dew is the height of cuisine can sometimes make this difficult, not to mention having to survive a death tournament her freshman year of high school. Being the most well-adjusted of any of the graduates of the Academy of the Rising Sun doesn't mean that she doesn't deal of nightmares of her own; it just means that she's more able to call out Rachel and Zell when they start spiralling.

Excerpt:

Stebbie’s a Healer. Well, more accurately, she’s a Render: someone who can manipulate the insides of bodies, coaxing veins and tissues and cells to heal or fray further. Headmaster Nightbane had the same powers, though he used his very differently.

Stebbie’s nothing like the Headmaster. She hates violence. She loathes the idea of bringing harm to anyone, even those who hurt her. She refuses to use her powers for anything but healing, and as far as the Academy was aware, that’s all she was able to use it for. She was constantly kept at the bottom of the class in battle classes, thus preventing her from ever breaking into the top ranks of students despite her clear academic superiority. The Academy under Julien Nightbane treated healers like the lowest of the low, practically useless. Even Katalyn was considered higher than her, as Katalyn would at least participate in battle training. 

It rankled Stebbie, going from the top of her middle school class to so low at the Academy of the Rising Sun, but she refused to give up her pacifist values for anything. She made it through the Tournament entirely by her survival skills instead of by violence.

Her punk aesthetic actually comes from that attitude. Punk, Stebbie likes to tell Zell and I, is about revolting against the system by being kind, treating people better than the system wants you to. It’s about hanging fairy lights and clay calaveras skulls on the walls of the living room, about caring about those who no one else cares about.

@snazzy-hats-and-adhd @blufox3542 @neshatriumphs @khruschevshoe @weedpoop @thesirhandsome-tepalehuia @sillylittlecheeto @nefertittti @henrythepug @meet-me-behindthemall12 @aboutblankpages-blog-blog @artemisiaarm @profiterole-reads @marchionessdebrannas @harrietmjones @thearcaneuniversity @little-bloodied-angel @artemisbones @jacksope-lives @fleuranna @shehungthemoon @spacecatrainshell @celestedeluna @thefiresofpompeii @gerardway-jpeg @fleuranna @smokecloudsandrollingpapers @idealuk @aceumbrellaheroes @evelynhug0 @madhare0512 @fool-for-luv @nealmcclure @elposting @mikereads @corvidspectre @thanatosdetesreves @sapphicsigh @ameliapondmd @possumsmushroom

[ohhicas]

what do you think writers who want to write a good accurate James should know? :)

Oohh I haven't done this in awhile I know I'm gonna forget some Huge Important Beats

He's like, legitimately(ish), friends with Catwoman. They are on non-murderous speaking terms, she respects him for as far as that word can stretch, and he was able to clock her by walking style alone but kept teasing her cause it was funny. The story ends on a positive note; they do not hate each other. He gets along with her.

Dude beat the devil, like, twice. He is on Neron's immediate shit-list cause he ruined his plans. He doesn't have special powers or abilities (will get back to this), he's just A Dude with a charisma dumpstat who lives up to his Trickster title. He also has a biological son with a direct path to a (good) God figure, so he's somehow managed to place himself square in the middle of "Jesus loves me, Satan hates me". (And with the pure headcanon he was raised religious and later dropped that whole thing cause he formed his own opinion as his parents were Italian(retconned to this, originally they were just white) in the like, 60s? this is very funny to me.)

and James isn't special. He's a tightrope walker and acrobat who is afraid of heights and opted to study antigravity in his freetime just to survive until he could blow that popsicle stand. He then turned to crime Only Because he wanted to be a little silly, and hey his name was James Jesse, he really likes Cowboy penny books, and Jesse James is pretty cool. It's gotta be fate.

James was, possibly, one of the youngest Rogues in the original unit. I'm talking like, Original Original unit. This isn't necessary understanding to a 'needed for writing' scenario, but it does add to it. It adds to the silly, and it adds to how Impressive he is for what he does/doesn't do, as he's hanging around with a bunch of blue collar con-men just wanting to slap around possibly The Strongest and Certainly The Fastest Hero DC had on it's roster at the time.

He's best friends with Pied Piper; you cannot take this from me. I have panels to prove my stance but they're generally seen hanging out together 'off shift' in comics (once Piper goes to his more heavier set, longer hair look seems to be a turning point for it). When the rest of the guys rag on Hartley for his gay status (Digger, mostly), James doesn't join in. He lets the guy into his house several times just to chat and gossip about the others. when James receives a phonecall that his ex-girlfriend's son has been kidnapped and is in danger, he calls Piper to come help. When James goes FBI, he gathers Piper (and Mick) to help. He tells Piper to his face he doesn't understand why Piper would give a rats ass about the others when they were so cruel to him before. They are friends, and Several headcanon-based reasons have been created over the decades for why James would've acted the way he did in Countdown (outside of just, "Countdown is a bad comic". Which it is. But if you're trying desperately to make it make sense, the 'attempted lore patching' flies)

Speaking of

James isn't a murderer; if he has a body count it's entirely on accident. He's not purposely running around trying to murder anyone and he certainly wouldn't join in on beating a child to death.

Leaving the bulletpoint categories; he's also "popular" in Hollywood, and i'm using """""Popular""""" with a lot of """""". On top of his (legit) devil/angel connections, he's also besties with the Blue Devil (the original one) and knew the Kid Devil before things happened. He was practically living in the (blue devil) man's house, hanging out at movie sets, casually tweaking his car to fly just because he could. They are! Friends! James is REALLY GOOD at making friends with an eclectic group of people!

He also canonically dressed in drag (it was like, the 80s, so 'drag' isn't what you're thinking) just to tease and harass Captain Cold, lying to the man's face with some goddamn Bugs Bunny looneytunes antics while in a cheap wig and cottage cheese, and the man bought it. He is SO GOOD at what he does. James is so good. He's a jackass and he's Not Kind and he will rob you blind for one corn chip if he's feeling up to it, but you'll survive the encounter. When Axel Walker stole his shit and started tying bombs to strays and the homeless, dragged the Trickster title through mud, he went on a war path and threw the boy in a dumpster as a threat. He cares for his name and reputation, cares for his (actual) friends.

Watering James down to some "Joker Lite" old man who is some kind of FBI's Most Wanted murder comes from the old, silly live action show that sold Hamill his future Joker roles and isn't James in the slightest; and writers looking at the DCAU, Original Flash Show, and Current Flash Show as "the best place for James information" need to be taken out back and slapped with the whole of Waid's run. It's such a disservice.

[empoleonebuonaparte]

I was watching this tv show I liked as a kid, Time Warp Trio, about three kids who travel through history (usually accidentally) with a magic history book. And then I got to the Napoleon episode.

It's set when Napoleon escapes Elba, right before the Battle of Waterloo. They go with short Napoleon very much playing up his temper. The episode starts with Napoleon trying to enter Paris after escaping Elba.

I was surprised they included Bertrand but for some reason they made him a ginger. Unfortunately he doesn't do much in the episode besides being completely willing to flog two kids at a moment's notice.

They gave Naps quite a tan too. More is included under the cut because this got longer than intended.

Look at this height difference

Anyway back to the plot. Napoleon finds the magic book and it talks all about Waterloo so he uses the knowledge of what will happen to win. He returns the book so the kids can go forward to their own time.

But winning Waterloo leads to Napoleon winning the Napoleonic wars and for some reason taking over the US establishing it as New France. Napoleon VII is the emperor now and apparently he's not a very nice person. Everyone speaks French and eats quiche instead of pizza which is hilarious to me since Napoleon is Corsican.

So they have to stop Napoleon from winning and go back in time to take the book before the battle.

They catch him sleeping with the book isn't he adorable? Love that they made him tan but kept his hairline lmao. Also in his sleep he's muttering Josephine's name awww.

Nostalgia: 10/10 I remember this episode pretty vividly as I had just done a school project on Napoleon

Accuracy: 5/10 not a bad introduction to Naps but obviously not the most accurate. They do include Napoleon cheating at cards lmao

French accents: 2/10 they kept saying "le empereur" and it bothered me

Overall: 7/10 a cute episode of a cute show but if you didn't grow up with it then it might not be for you

Here's one more picture of Naps being carried by soldiers after he pulls his whole "shoot me if you want" shtick

[shadyteacup]

Part two of Partners

Tw: None..only some fluff..

A plethora of muffled noises filled your ears. It felt as though you had been under water for as long as you remember, and had just peeked at the surface.  Your eyes were still closed, but you could see a white light above the surface. You push yourself to swim to the edge, towards that light. As you swam closer, the noises became clearer. Louder. It hurt your head. But you had to continue forward. So you pushed yourself to the surface.

Finally opening your eyes, it felt as though you had broken through the surface that was trapping you in a deep slumber. You were no longer under water. The voices became much clearer. You could hear multiple people. Some of whom you recognized.

You took in a deep breath, feeling the crisp air around you.

"Y/N?"

A silky voice said, right next to you.

You peered your eyes open a little more, fighting the sting of the brightness of your surroundings.

You could see a pale ceiling. And smell antiseptic. You were in the hospital.

Looking to your side, you were met with concerned brown orbs.

"Hey.." You smile at him.

All of a sudden, he hugs you. He buries his head in your neck, whispering an almost inaudible, "I almost lost you.."

You froze. You could smell his cologne. It was refreshing. Soft brown hair tickled your face as he stayed like that for a while. You didn't know what to do. You and Dazai have been friends for a really long time, and have hugged before. But this time it felt different. It felt deep and meaningful. You just stayed there, letting the feeling of his warm breath on your neck, his strong arms around your shoulders, and the concerned, timid tone of his voice sink in.

Abruptly pulling back, he stands up straight, facing away from you. Placing his hands in his pockets, he mumbles,

"I'll tell the others."

With that, he was out of the room in an instant.

You were so confused. Did he just hug you? Does he care about you? Did he fear losing you?

And what's this warm feeling? Do you like him?? Well, ofcourse you like him. But does he like you too?

"You're awake!"

Kunikida strides in, followed shortly by Yosano and Ranpo.

"I'm so glad!", Yosano says as she hugs you, kissing your cheek.

You hug her back, smiling at them.

"Hey, guys!"

Ranpo was quietly watching you.

"Hey Ranpo San.. "

He acknowledged you with a nod.

"Is everything ok??", you ask, worried about him.

His green eyes bore into yours.

"I was worried about you. Don't do that again. I missed you."

That was huge coming from him.

"Come here" you open your arms, inviting him for a hug.

You hugged the emerald eyed man child; Yosano forcefully pulling Kunikida along with her to join you guys. You lot bonded over a group hug.

"Y/N San!! Are you OK! I was so worried! I'm so glad you're awake!"

Atsushi rushed into the room, followed by Kyoka and Kenji, hot on his heels.

He and Kenji joined in the hug.The usually conserved Kyoka also jumped into the hug. You kissed their tiny heads, telling them how much you had missed them.

A few moments later, the president walked in, carrying a cup of tea for you. He said that he was glad that you were feeling better. The tea he had gotten had healing qualities, so he pretty much forced it down your throat.

"President, about the case.. What happened?"

The president filled you in.

The girl you two encountered, Sakura Yagami, wasn't the one that was kidnapped. She was an ability user who could mess with minds. She wasn't very experienced, but she had mastered the art of making her opponents see a different face when they saw her, making them believe that she was someone else entirely. Her height and build matched that of the girl that was taken. She used her ability to manipulate your mind, and make you believe that she looked like Aiko, the missing girl.

Sakura had used the help of light and shadows to mask majority of her features. Afterall, the ambush had taken place in a dark, abandoned warehouse, where there were no artificial sources of light. This resulted in half of her features being hidden in the shadows, making it difficult for Dazai, who wasn't affected by her ability, to recognize a different face. Most of the time, Dazai stayed behind Ito and Sakura, and hence never got a chance to properly inspect her facial features.

Meanwhile, Aiko has been kept in some hideout. The ability users will shortly be interviewed, and hopefully, the location of the missing girl will be known.

"I see. So she was the mastermind of the entire fiasco, not Ito."

"Correct."

The president then excused himself, along with Yosano and Ranpo, who had to carry out the interrogation.

Atsushi and Kyoka were forced out by Kunikida, who believed that they would only cause ruckus in here.

"Have you talked to Dazai yet?"

He asked you.

"Yes, and no."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I did get to say hi, but didn't get a chance to say anything more.."

"I see... He was very worried. The most worried, actually."

Oh?

"I'll go get him."

Kunikida left to get Dazai. He didn't return, only sending Dazai to the room.

Dazai walked into the room with a smile, one that didn't reach his eyes.

"Y/N! Don't tell Kunikida, but I stole his glasses "

You giggled.

"You really don't change, do you?"

He grinned boyishly at you.

"Never!"

You hesitate to ask him, but you do anyways.

"Dazai, why were you so worried about me?"

He blinked for a moment, processing what you had asked him, choosing his next words carefully.

"Because you are a valued member of the organization, ofcourse!"

Your heart sank at his words. Maybe you had overthought. Maybe it was just one sided. You had always liked him. He had a certain aura around him that dragged you in. But you were never able to guage whether he liked you back. So you never said anything. You understood him, in a way. The darkness that he tries so hard to hide, is pretty easy to notice for you.

You have been through quite a lot, seen a lot, and have experienced a similar darkness. You used to be a part of that darkness too. But not anymore. Now, you were trying to heal. And so was he. You thought you understood him to a deep level, because you both were going through the same process; the process of healing. But maybe, you were reading a little too much. Maybe, there isn't anything in between the lines. Maybe, he doesn't get you, or maybe you don't get him at all.

"Why do you ask?"

"No reason!", there it was. Your own mask. Dazai was amazing at hiding his emotions behind a façade. But so were you.

"Ne, Dazai, what are you going to do with those glasses? Do you have anything planned? I want to join in the prank!"

You say, grinning at him.

He stays silent, observing your face.

"What are you thinking?"

He moves closer to you, seating himself on the chair next to your bed.

"Y/N.. I.."

His heart was thumping in his chest. It was beating so hard, he felt that at any second, it would jump out and start dancing on the floor.

He had seen your expressions just now. It was just for a split second, but you had let your guard down, and a variety of emotions had run through your eyes. He had seen that. He had seen the slight disappointment in your eyes when he had closed himself up from you.

Nobody understood him the way you did. Whenever he was having a bad day, you would always cheer him up. And not always in a traditional way, either. You could read his feelings. He felt like an open book when you were around. He couldn't hide his thoughts from you, even if he tried. You would accurately gauge what he was feeling, and do whatever you deemed would make him feel good. And it always worked. Sometimes, it was a random walk at 3 am, when he would text you telling you that he couldn't sleep.. Sometimes it was some stupid prank that you would devise, roping him in, and relieving him of the pent up stress he was experiencing. At other times, you would randomly show up at his house, carrying cans of crab, or bottles of sake and beer , distracting him from his dark thoughts. He didn't know how you managed to do that, how you always knew that he needed you, and what you needed to do to make him feel better. He really cherished having you in his life.

He had harbored a crush on you for months now. He hadn't said a word about it, fearing that all you felt for him were friendly feelings. He always held himself back, and had to control his urge to shout his feelings for you from the top of some building. He liked you so much, he knew it was love. Lord, you hadn't even started dating yet! Still, he knew he loved you. You are a unique, amazing person, and he couldn't imagine his life without you in it. So when you were hurt today, when you passed out from the pain, he almost lost it. He couldn't think straight. He doesn't even remember what he did afterwards. All he remembers is thinking ,'Please be ok, please be ok ' on repeat. His sole purpose was to get you to safety. When you had finally gained consciousness, he had let all his guards down. He couldn't help the overflow of relief that flooded his body at that moment. So he hugged you.

He thought that maybe this is the right moment to finally tell you how he truly felt. But what if you don't like him back?

No. He had seen your expressions. You could read him easily, but he could read you too. He knew now, for a fact, that you felt the same way. He had seen it on your face. But what if he's wrong?

Well, one must take a chance to know the result.

"I like you, Y/N."

He finally says.

You look at him wide eyed. Then start laughing.

"You're scaring me."

You wipe your tears.

"No, please don't misunderstand... I like you too! Oh my God, I was so worried! I thought you didn't like me back..."

You continued laughing. Dazai sighed in relief, happy to know that his feelings were reciprocated.

"How long have you liked me, Dazai?"

You ask him.

"How long have you liked me, Y/N?"

He countered.

"Ha! Don't turn the question on me! Answer me, first!"

Dazai stuck his tongue out, shaking his head like a child.

"No way. I bet you have been liking me for over a year now. I'm so charming, afterall!"

You gasp at that.

"Don't tell me.... you've been liking me for months now, haven't you!"

"Hah?? I never said that!"

"Oh, but you made it quite clear!"

"How so?!"

"You said 'you must've liked me for a year'!"

Dazai scoffed.

"That  doesn't prove anything!"

"It does! You tried to quote a time period greater than yours, to seem superior!" You exclaim, pointing your finger at him.

"It's simple psychology. You should know this by now.", you say smugly, smirking at him.

"You're a terrible person reader!"

"Seriously? 'Person reader'? Improve your vocabulary."

"Haah?! You tell me what it's called, then!"

"It doesn't matter what I say! You suck!" You stick your tongue out this time.

You two are children, I swear.

"I suppose you leave me no other choice."

Dazai smirks, leaning closer to you.

"Oh? And what are you going to do exactly? You lost. Accept it-"

He shut you up with a kiss.

Your face flushes a deep red, but you don't miss the light red that coated his cheeks.

"You're blushing!" , you say.

"That's funny coming from you!"

"I'm not blushing, idiot.. "

Dazai pinches your cheeks.

"Aww.. is my baby embarrassed?"

You push his hand away, annoyed at his antics.

"Oh my, you really are embarrassed! How cute of-"

This time, you shut him up. With a kiss. A slightly more heated one.

He just stares at you with wide eyes, a deep red tint on his face.

You smirk at him, proudly announcing your win.

You two continued bickering, until a nurse had forcefully shoved Dazai out, as he wasn't letting you take rest.

[outoftheframework]

characterization cheat sheet: the batfamily boys

Hey everyone! I had the idea to compile a comprehensive list of different traits and attributes for each member of the batfamily based off of both canon and fanon interpretations. I think this could be useful for new members to the fandom, or those looking to write and/or draw for these characters. Remember that these will have a slight bias considering I, a fanon creator, am creating the lists. But I’ll try to make them as accurate as possible.

Appearances vary from artist to artist, so I’ll try to stray away from general details and add more little things you can consider in your art.

Bruce Wayne:

Age: 35-45

Appearance: Extremely physically fit, but signs of aging and prolonged exertion can slip through. Has a collection of scattered scars varying from fresh to fully healed. Strong, dark features. Conventionally attractive, but can easily switch to be foreboding/intimidating. Well kept in public appearances, but can look like death incarnate when in private.

Personality: Dual personas: “Bruce” (at home, but not as batman) and “Brucie” (public appearances like galas, news interviews). Bruce is stoic, well-read and educated, well-mannered, and occasionally can be witty and laid-back. Smirks rather than smiles. Brucie is loud, spontaneous, charming, and sometimes oblivious. He is the womanizer and scandal-maker. Often the actions of Brucie are motivated by Batman’s interests.

Speech: Bruce was mainly raised by as English butler, so his speech patterns are proper and smooth. Rarely uses speech fillers such as “uh” and “um,” except when interrupted while concentrating. Despite living in Gotham his entire life, he has not picked up the accent. His voice is newscaster American, almost impossible to pinpoint to a certain region. His speech as Brucie changes to relate more to the audience he is addressing. Speeches to Gotham high society will sound different than those aimed to the general public.

Additional Attributes: Bruce Wayne in all of his personalities is fiercely protective, and can easily slip into a deeper voice to intimidate. Bruce can be extremely empathetic and slightly impulsive when it comes to children who have lost their parents. As learned through his training to become Batman, Bruce is disciplined and can work for hours straight.

Dick Grayson:

Age: 23-29

Appearance: Dick Grayson mirrors a young Bruce Wayne despite their not being blood related. This could be a subconscious action by Dick to absorb traits of his father figure. His lean acrobatic body starts to set him apart from Bruce’s image. Dick manages to be well-built but still limber and flexible. His feet and hands are rough and calloused. His hair can get long but usually stays at a length in between Bruce’s and Tim’s. His eyes are bright blue without even a hint of green or brown. 

Personality: In one comic I believe it was Superman who said that Dick Grayson is a universal constant, meaning that on every alternate earth or timeline, you can always rely on him to be good and pure. I think this really sums up who Dick should be. He is kind to a fault, and can sometimes be naive and not think things through. He loves to love, be that in his family, in his romantic relationships, in his friendships, and even in strangers. He is a chronic hero who only wants to see the world as a better place. But it’s important to note that Dick can get angry when pushed, and holds grudges.

Speech: Dick is an extremely interesting study in speech patterns. As a child he traveled with the circus, until he lived with clear-spoken Bruce Wayne and a proper English butler. So influences to his speech and accent come both internationally and locally to Gotham and Bludhaven. As a child living at Wayne Manor, Dick picks up a slight Gotham tinge to his accent with some British flourish in his vowel sounds. He regularly speaks in slang. As Nightwing he is able to suppress his unique speech to sound more evenly American.

Additional Attributes: Dick acts differently around each of his family members as to be what they need in a big brother. For example, he is more fatherly to Damian while to Tim he is more an equal. Dick can fidget and has less of an attention span than Bruce. He can use jokes as a coping mechanism.

Jason Todd: 

Age: 22-26

Appearance: Hair is often long on top and shorter on the sides, sometimes with a white streak as a side effect from the Lazarus Pit. Tallest and heaviest of all the kids, very physically intimidating. Has a lot of scars and burns, and in some fan works he has a “Y” shaped scar the length of his chest from his autopsy. Never skips leg day. Green/blue eyes.

Personality: Jason goes through a lot of character development, but for this list I’m going off a timeline of post-Under the Red Hood, where Jason is on okay, yet still a little shaky, terms with the rest of the family. Jason has a hard time separating vigilante life and civilian life; his death as Robin ended his life as Jason Todd, blurring the lines between the two. Jason is legally dead, so he is basically building an identity back up. He holds some attributes from childhood: brave, impulsive, loud-mouthed, and street-smart. But his experiences post-Robin have made him a hardened loner. He lives modestly and with some semblance of order. He’s hard to foster a relationship with, but can be a passionate friend/family member when he opens up.

Speech: Jason probably has the least influence from Bruce and Alfred’s speech patterns, seeing as though he spent a lot more time with his biological family/on the streets than he did as a preteen in the manor. He is the definition of Gotham vernacular, with a rough edge. So much so that as a child, the high society gala attenders sometimes had a hard time understanding him. Often talks in curt, short sentences.

Additional Attributes: He has trouble expressing his emotions, more specifically anger and/or grief. Can both love or hate furiously. Inherently good, but sometimes does “bad” things. Protective over children, especially those living on the street. Very much a believer in “the ends justify the means.”

Tim Drake:

Age: 17-20

Appearance: Pale skin, dark hair. Sharp cheek bones and jawline, mostly from how skinny he is. His body isn’t technically “built” to be extremely athletic, but he’s forced a nice lean build from stringently working out. Easily loses and gains weight as a direct result of his work, causing fluctuations in his build. Five foot something, will eventually be out-grown by Damian. Long hair that can still be styled to look professional.

Personality: Tim Drake is very passionate in pretty much everything he sets his mind to. He feels as though he imposed himself onto Batman to become Robin, so he works twice as hard to prove his worth. He can be self conscious and deprecating. Tim as Robin or Red Robin is very different than civilian Tim; his hero personas can be bolder and more confident. Despite dropping out of high school, he values education.

Speech: Tim grew up rich, and his speech reflects an intelligence gained from private tutors. Despite this, he knows how to interact with those his age in using less formal language and slang. Often quotes books and movies. Can be awkward and stumble over his words when teased by his friends/family. He can manipulate people easily in business settings by talking fast and confidently while explaining complex topics.

Additional Attributes: Tim’s demeanor is directly tied to his varying levels of confidence and anxiety. Tim is has above-average intelligence and is diligent in detective work, but can still act like a teenager. He can be stubborn to extremes and will patiently play the long con. He does not cope well with loss.

Duke Thomas:

Age: 17-19

Appearance: Short dark hair, shaved on the sides and/or the back. Often wears the colors yellow and black. Around the same height as Tim, but a little taller. Stronger and heavier build more alike to Jason than Dick, but he’s still light on his feet. Expressive face that can give away his feelings easily. Still a bit of a baby face, but he’s still well-proportioned and conventionally handsome.

Personality: In my works, I’ve often described Duke as having a “sun-shiny” personality. He is one to not even think twice about putting others before himself. Duke uses his own personal experiences to guide him as a hero rather than suppress his emotions. Duke went from being an only child to having a large family, so he can sometimes feel overwhelmed. He is on friendly terms with every member of the batfamily, as well as many other heroes. Duke is self-sacrificial and is still learning how to effectively work as a detective.

Speech: Duke grew up in a middle class Gotham family, so his speech is influenced by his parents as well as his city environment. Duke has a mild Gotham accent and speaks a lot in modern slang. He hasn’t had much influence from Bruce and Alfred, considering he hasn’t lived with them for long. It’s possible that as he grows he will pick up some influences from Bruce and Tim’s way of speaking, but will most likely hold onto the accent of his childhood.

Additional Attributes: Duke is a metahuman vigilante in a city where Batman typically bans them, which causes a bit of an insecurity and a perfectionist drive. These are exasperated by the long line of history preceding him, as well as the fact that he involved himself in the Robin movement rather than being handpicked by Batman. He and Tim can relate in that way. Duke is an ardent student of Batman and is dedicated to the cause.

Damian Wayne:

Age: 10-14

Appearance: Looks similar to Bruce when he was the same age, yet stronger and with tanner skin. His hair is expertly cut and styled, but still age-appropriate. He is the shortest of the batkids, but still has a lot of time and potential to grow. He pretty much won the genetics lottery with Bruce and Talia as his biological parents, and is made for athletics. He has some scars that stand out with their pale coloring against his tan skin. 

Personality: Damian is slowly becoming less of a brat, to put it bluntly. He admires his family and tries to mimic them, but will never confess it. Damian is quick to judge and will voice his opinion no matter how scathing it may be, both as civilian and hero. Damian is slowly realizing he may not want the Batman mantle as quickly as he planned. Jon is a perfect foil to Damian, and often makes him a better person when they’re together. 

Speech: His speech is proper and formal. Prefers formal titles: ex. “father” over “dad” and last names over first. Damian is at least bilingual (Arabic and English), and can switch between languages easily. Most of his speech patterns developed from his tutors in the League, and more recently, Alfred. Influences like Jon and Dick have introduced him to a more modern, laid-back way of speaking, which he sometimes utilizes when relaxed.

Additional Attributes: Damian has problems with authority, especially those that he doesn’t respect like his teachers at school. He can be arrogant and childish ever though he often acts like he knows everything. Damian is still a child and has much to learn from batman and family as well as unlearn from his time at the League. Dami was forged to be a ruthless warrior, but now has to find a balance between the hero Robin and the child Damian Wayne.

Hope this helps someone! Feel free to add on if you think I missed anything. Just please remember to be civil and respect different interpretations of these characters. Let me know if you want another one of these posts outlining the girls or other characters.

[unpopularopinionbydemand]

Cherry Blossoms After Winter series review ✐∗  ˖࣪ ༻

Same review on MDL!

Rating 𓄷 8 - Wish I would've watched while it was airing. Some minor issues, but overall, it was a lovely watch.

Spotlight Aspect of CBAW 𓄷 Set & Scenery (superb)

Recommend ? Definitely recommend this K-BL. It's super cute, and if the story doesn't do it for you, the height difference will.

Review:

CBAW is an unexpectedly decent K-BL, and it could even be labeled better than that. I've noticed with K-BLs to keep my expectations below surface level so by doing so, I won't lose any hope I had. Even with CBAW, I read the manga (my first one ever) and I still watched the live adaptation and thought it was on point from its book form (kinda). CBAW took me only a day to watch, it piqued my interest, and kept hold of it throughout the episodes.

Let's Dive In.

꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦꒷꒦꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦꒷꒦꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷

Cherry Blossoms After Winter is a live adaptation of the manga following the same name. The basic synopsis is that Haebom lost his parents, so his mom's best friend takes him in as her own where he would live with Taesung, his best friend who indicates that he doesn't want Haebom to be his brother. Years passed and they're now seniors in high school navigating their strange feelings for one another. It's obviously a lot easier to tell a story full of detail in a book than it is in a dama, but in my honest opinion, I believe they did an impressive job at following along with the manga, even having the same lines said from the book. Add that on top of perfectly casted actors and you've got yourself an A+ K-BL.

What needed some work: I'm the type of person who usually doesn't read original work before watching the live adaptation, however, I wanted to give it a go here, and now I've unlocked a new hobby (great, something else to take up the time I don't have). But for the people watching without having read the manga, there are a few things that would seem very off and weren't given enough time for a thorough explanation. Like why Haebom just lets these bullies abuse him (and why they just vanish all of a sudden), or why Taesung is so standoffish and the reason Haebom thought he hated him. There are some other smaller implications, but those were the larger ones that needed more of a story behind them. If I wouldn't have read the manga, I would be partially confused throughout the series. Just a few fixer-uppers would've done the job.

I had to get used to the cinematography of this series that I've never (at least can't remember) seen in any other K-BL, let alone any BL. For a while, it looked like I was watching a vlog on Youtube and it kept throwing me off my wagon. Some of the scenes shot are a little shaky, I'm sure that's how they wanted to interpret the moment being shown, but if it's not fluent throughout the series, then those small moments when they do happen, it's a huge eye-catcher, and a bit of a bothersome. While the sets and the scenery were absolutely breathtaking, the color-grading and editing could use a lot of work. There were so many scenes that just got cut off in the midst, and it happens quite often, causing a stir of annoyance. There were a few very subtle ad placements that I appreciated for their subtleness, but by now, I can tell an ad from an actual motivated action.

Onto what I loved: The casting for CBAW was probably as accurate as I could imagine. Jinuk did an incredible job as Haebom, playing almost perfectly into his shyness, bubbliness, and everything in-between. I just wanted to pack him in my pocket and protect him for the rest of his life. Hui did an excellent job as well playing into Taesung's character. I'm also glad they decided to not make his character as stoic as the one in the manga, and this Taesung actually has some personality. Yonghee is hands down the best-casted character, and Gun did a fantastic job. Everyone else was really good too, even down to the guest roles.

The plot is handled very well and follows the exact same story. Obviously, some things are different (like Haebom working in a flower shop, or the friends all going on a camping trip) but their implications helped to move the plot along, and they were good anyways. Again, the story is about as accurate as they could've gotten it to the book, and it was fun catching all these different moments that I remembered from my read. The time jumps can be easily missed for someone not truthfully watching, but I think even those were done pretty well. The writers do a superb job at connecting the feelings and emotions of the characters in the story, which boosted its ability to give me the feels for everyone involved.

The chemistry wasn't as strong as it could've been between the main leads, but they still were able to give us a real relationship that wasn't full of forced touching and kissing. From the cuddles scenes all the way up to their more intimate scenes, both actors did a great job at making it look natural. I felt more of a connection closer to the end, but in the midst, it felt a bit lacking.

Not very important, but the height difference gets to me. Taesung was a whole ass head taller than Haebom. When he bent down to hug or even when Taebom reached up to hug, it was a-fucking-dorable. God, I can't explain to you how much height differences mean to me.

Ratings:

Story: 8 - Loved the story, also loved how accurate it was to the book. All the characters were genuine, everything flowed nicely, and I wasn't dissatisfied with any of it. I'll take off one star for some of the jumpy cuts and another for some of the weaker storylines.

Acting - 9.5 - Superb acting. everyone did an excellent job, but Jinuk was the best. Gun also put on a very strong performance that outshined the others.

Music - 5 - didn't pay much attention to it, meaning it wasn't distracting. Good.

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[prideandpen]

A Far Too Long ‘Iron Widow’ Review That No One Asked For

(and one person supported! Shout out to @tea-and-pirates​! And I think @the-demi-jedi​ was the other person I spoke with about reading this book - sorry if it wasn’t you!)

Little disclaimer of sorts: I have not read YA fiction in a hot minute because I've been wanting to read the stories of characters that are closer to my age, however I was compelled by the concept of ancient china meets pacific rim and the prospect of an endgame poly relationship, so I picked it up anyway.

*further disclaimer: I’ve linked a couple words to their wikipedia articles because I learned some cool things through them but I have no knowledge of how accurate they are.

Review under the cut because apparently I’ve got a lot to say.

I honestly have quite a lot of complaints because I wanted so badly to love this book, so lets start with what I feel was done well: Xiran Jay Zhao created a fascinating world by taking ancient China and propelling it - it’s wardrobe, it’s values, it’s patriarchy - into the future. A future, specifically, where Huaxia is under attack from the Hunduns which appear to be this world’s equivalent of alien invaders. They’re described on the first page as being rotound and faceless and that’s how they appeared to me throughout the novel - I didn’t have a clear grasp on what they looked like so if that’s what Xiran Jay Zhao was hoping for then they succeeded.

I also appreciate the way they tied the beginning and the end of the book together, and admired the subtle hints throughout the story for something we learn at the end.

The concept of this world was fascinating and the plot lined out well. It is, ultimately, the world building that kept me reading.

I say that because, if it weren’t for the interesting world building I probably would have put this book down pretty early on.

Going back to YA for the first time in years I was prepared for a few teenage eye-roll moments, but what I found myself faced with was a maturity in the protagonist that I struggled to imagine for a fourteen year old, let alone an eighteen year old character. That immaturity carried itself throughout the story and reappeared on several key occasions, though the height of it was in chapter two.

The immaturity of the protagonist, Zetian, made her annoying, frankly. I wanted to like her and revel in her anger at the world, at the system, at the people who have failed her. But Zetian herself was, maybe not one-dimensional, but kind of flat as a character. She was anger and rage and for a large portion of the story lacked compassion even when reasons to give it made themselves clear (I actually feel as though this is a part of Zetian’s trauma response but felt that it needed to be addressed deeper, especially since the story is in first person.)

One more comment on Zetian specifically: I was immensely disappointed with her ‘feminism’. Right from the start she’s angry about the way women are treated and though her first goal isn’t to become any sort of champion of women, it is the way she appears to align herself with her talk of how women shouldn’t be underestimated and don’t deserve the reality that they’re given. Except for her astounding ‘not like other women’ syndrome. I want to choose to believe that the author’s intent was to write this attitude as a character flaw, but there was very little evidence to support that being the case.

I will say Zetian grew as a character, but that leads me into..

The character growth for these characters felt sporadic. Which. No. backing up a moment

Lets start at the romance. Zetian, Yizhi, and Shimin. It wasn’t unbelievable, but I felt as though the characters lacked any real chemistry. They felt flat and so because of that their romance was lackluster. Significant parts of it felt much more like Zetian trying to prove a point rather than genuinely falling in love. And while I understand that since it’s written in first person we don’t get a firsthand account of Yizhi and Shimin’s feelings but because we miss out on the development of their relationship beyond a glimpse here or there from Zetian’s perspective it feels rushed.

Which brings me back to the character growth being sporadic. Zetian’s jumping from immature to in love and yizhi’s... well where was yizhi’s character growth, honestly? I guess a tiny bit from how he just wants Zetian to pick him at the very beginning to him trusting her decisions at the end, but it’s so detatched from the story that we don’t actually see the growth. Shimin is probably the character with the clearest growth. But I spent the middle section of the book just wishing Zhao had gone deeper with these characters and explored more of their feelings and built their relationships slowly. It felt very sudden.

The dialogue. Oh the dialogue. Most of it is fine. But there are honestly so many moments that ejected me from the story so fast. Either it was just too awkward every time Zetian (and a couple other characters) went to try and say something Cool™ or when other characters were having deep conversations with her it felt more like we were getting a peak at Zhao’s internal monologue because the characters who were saying important things mostly weren’t built up enough for it to feel natural to hear them say these things.

I think that just about covers it? I’m sure I’ll think of something after this is posted and I start feeling guilty pulling apart a book I wanted so badly to love.

Did I love it? No. I did not. Sadly, there is just too much empty space, and while most plot holes were filled before they could become such there was a lot of room for Xiran Jay Zhao to go deeper.

That said I didn’t hate it! Please don’t think I hated it. I liked it, I liked it in the sense that I feel as though I read what should have been an excellent first draft. But that’s just it. It feels incomplete, unfinished, raw. I want more from it.

I want more from it because in the prologue - written in third person following Yang Guang - we get to see what Xiran Jay Zhao is capable of. This prologue is where their writing style shines I think. It’s a shame the story wasn’t written in third. I would have loved multiple perspectives and I think it would have given Zhao the chance to dig deeper on these characters, relationships, and touch up the parts of the plot that felt rushed.

If you’ve read this far I commend you, honestly. I knew I had some Thoughts on this book but I didn’t expect them to fill this much space.

In the end I would say it was an easy enough read and worth it if you’re interested in some interesting world building and can overlook some weak and rushed characterization. Assuming Zhao continues Zetian’s story - will I read the second one? Undecided. Possibly. Admittedly if I had read the first two chapters of this in a bookstore instead of buying it online because people were talking about it I probably wouldn’t have read it in the first place.

[potassium-pilot]

Prompt 24: Illustrious

“Is it done, Alphinaud?” Dia pestered excitedly.

“No, it is not.”

She waited for approximately five seconds before asking again, “How about now?”

“Do you really want me to rush through this?”

“You’re the Artist Alphinaud, I am your assistant; what else can I do if not make sure you finish?”

“Will you ever let go of that?”

“Never.”

Alphinaud sighed defeatedly and continued his drawing. He was commissioned to create a current portrait of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn to hang in the Solar. To their relief, he had everyone’s figures wrote to memory and therefore, did not require them to pose. That in mind, Dia couldn’t help but be a shadow to the boy, watching his artistry at work. The Warrior of Light was many things; an artist, she was not. It seemed the act of using a paintbrush did not come with the same ease as using a sewing needle, or a cooking utensil.

In the middle stood what he believed looked like himself holding a carbuncle while Alisaie stood on his right side at roughly the same height with her rapier held out in front of her. Dia towered behind him carrying Tataru on her shoulders (at her behest) with Thancred on her left with his arms crossed, Y’shtola on her right with a cane being wielded, Urianger on Thancred’s left with a book in hand, G’raha between Alphinaud and Alisaie with a big grin on his face, and Krile in front of Y’shtola to the left of Alphinaud leaning up against him.

“All right, I’m not done, but what do you think so far, Dia?” She scrambled from the Solar door to the desk to look it over with enthusiasm. “Ahh, I love it so far! Why’d you make yourself so short though?”

“What do you mean?”

“Alphinaud, you’re not that small. You almost made yourself into a lalafell compared to me.”

“It feels accurate to me…after all, ‘tis no secret I’m of a smaller stature in comparison to many of you.”

“Smaller stature, sure, but you’re not miniature. Give yourself more credit.” He shook his head before she inquired, “And where’s Estinien?”

“Oh…”

“What?”

“He…told me not to draw him…”

If her eyes could turn red in fury like Nidhogg, they would have in that very moment. “Give me but a moment, Alphinaud…” she told him quietly. She turned away from the smaller elezen and exited out the door in a seemingly calm manner, concealing her fury.

*********

Estinien, Thancred, and Urianger enjoyed a cup of coffee in the lobby.

“So you sort of just…wait for an assignment?” Estinien confirmed. The other two nodded. “Frankly, it’s been a bit more trouble to have the patience recently, particularly since our last assignment wasn’t exactly taken by choice”, Thancred stated.

“Indeed. Though we only aged some few moons in the Source, our souls hath lived on for years in the First, and kept us all plenty occupied, particularly when our friend finally arrived”, Urianger affirmed. Estinien made a hum. “What did you do while waiting before?”

“Oh”, Thancred began nervously, “Nothing too unusual. We just took our rest, did something leisurely, enjoyed ourselves whilst we waited.”

“Is that what thou calleth courting several maidens at once?”

Thancred scowled at Urianger while Estinien made a slight smile at the remark. Suddenly, Thancred and Urianger made horrified faces and scattered from their positions, abandoning Estinien to his fate: a furious Warrior of Light, wearing a look she wore when she killed gods.

“Do you want to explain your thought process here?” Dia confronted him.

“You’re under the assumption that I care to explain anything.”

“Look, I get you that you like to work alone; frankly, it’s understandable in a way. Twelve knows half the work I do needs to be done alone, lest anyone without the Echo be tempered, but I have news for you: you are not alone anymore!”

He growled, “I still don’t know what you’re talking about.” She placed her face in her palm, then explained annoyedly, “The portrait, Estinien.”

“By the Fury, you’re angry with me about that?”

“Yes, yes I am.”

“It’s a bleeding portrait. What does it matter?”

“It matters, Estinien! It matters a lot to me, to Alphinaud, to quite a few of us.”

His face betrayed his befuddlement. Not having been a Scion for very long, her irritation seemed misplaced.

“That portrait’s not my place”, he attempted to explain, “And quite frankly, I don’t understand why you all so desperately want this portrait in the first place.”

“We want to commemorate our little family.”

“This isn’t my family. It never was.”

“Never?” she repeated incredulously.

He raised an eyebrow at her tone.

“Estinien, Alphinaud fought for you after your possession by Nidhogg. I fought for you. When everyone seemed intent on killing you, even yourself, we did everything we could to keep you alive. We even entreated Hraesvelgr to help us save you when Aymeric seemed content with just stopping Nidhogg at any cost. Then you go and follow us through Gyr Abania, to the point where you even pushed back an Ascian in the body of Zenos yae Galvus, and pulled my comatose body out of a battlefield and back to the front. And on top of that, you helped take out Black Rose facilities for us while the rest of us were off in another world. You mean to tell me that meant nothing?!”

Estinien blinked.

“Guess what, dragon boy? You were a Scion before you even offered your lance!”

He looked away to the floor, pondering her words, irritated by the nickname.

“Don’t call me ‘dragon boy’…” he snapped.

“That’s what you’re taking from this?”

He remained silent, still thinking through. What in hells had he done? What did he get himself into? He let out a frustrated breath and walked away. She watched him get away from her in disbelief, and followed him as he aimed for the Solar.

Estinien opened the door and called, “Alphinaud?”

The young elezen looked up and away from his efforts. “Yes, Estinien?” The dragoon hesitated, then begrudgingly ordered, “…put me in your damn portrait.”

Dia flashed a huge grin, and Alphinaud’s eyes lit up in excitement. “I’ll do just that! Thankfully, I was still sketching, so I can find a way to add you.”

“Hm…good, I guess.” He closed the door behind him and glared at Dia, still chipper from his agreement. “You’re a pain in my side, Dia Sito.”

“You have to be to do what I do. Thank you, Estinien. He’s a great artist; he’ll do you justice.” He shook his head and stomped off while Dia hurried back inside the Solar.

*********

A bell had passed since Estinien agreed to be in the portrait. Making sure he wasn’t followed, he quietly slipped into the Solar where Alphinaud continued his work unabated. He sat down in front of the young artist and bade him, “How goes the portrait?”

“Quite well, all things considered. I did have to remake the idea a bit, but overall, I’m quite pleased with how it turned out.”

“I see.” The dragoon shuffled in his chair for a moment, unsure how to phrase his next question. “Alphinaud…you are doing this of your own free will, correct?” He brought his attention from his work to the question brought before him. “Of course I am”, he answered incredulously.

“You’re sure, Alphinaud?”

“I am. Why do you ask?”

“I want to make sure this is something that you truly wish to do. Dia has a tendency to be a bit dramatic as I’ve recently learned.”

“Fear not, Estinien. I’m under no influence but mine own.”

Estinien let out a long breath and asked, “I know her reasons, but what of yours? What does obsessing over a painting get you?”

Alphinaud smiled at him. “I get a chance to relax.”

“Really?”

“I do. The past few times I’ve drawn, ‘twas out of necessity in order to locate our missing comrades or to gain entry into forbidden cities. This isn’t like that at all. Despite our friend’s being a bit more enthusiastic than I’m used to, I feel no pressure.”

“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself at the very least, Alphinaud. But is that the only reason why?”

Alphinaud brought his gaze back to the portrait. In particular, he focused on the outlines of two people; Dia and Estinien.

“When I lost command of the Crystal Braves…when I heard that everyone I knew had been lost to that bloody banquet, all I felt was hopelessness. I felt stuck in a dark abyss, where nothing could see me nor pull me from it’s shackles. That’s what I earned for dehumanizing those who would help me, for seeing them all as pawns in my game to unite Eorzea.

Then Dia pulled me out of it. So did Tataru and Haurchefant.

Despite everything I ever thought of her, despite the way I would send her out as though she were my trusty god-slayer from my toolbelt, she stood with me, and helped me find a new home. Had she not saved Haurchefant’s friend from the Inquisition, and slayed Shiva, and the dragon that threatened the gates of Ishgard, we would not have found refuge within it’s walls.

After everything that came of our tenure in Ishgard, the Scions became something different. Especially now that my blood family has forsaken me, the bonds I’ve formed with my comrades became a great source of comfort to me. Everyone has their reasons for why the Scions are their home. If we wish to commemorate that with a painting, I see no reason not to oblige.”

Estinien didn’t usually pry into this sort of business; that was Aymeric’s domain. Yet, he did find himself in a better understanding of Alphinaud after that. He met the boy when he was still so immature, inexperienced in many things that were obvious to him growing up with Ser Alberic. It was interesting to hear how he changed, and what he missed.

“So this truly is more than just Dia’s will being imposed on others, then.”

“Dia’s not wont to impose her will onto others. She merely expressed a wish that the rest of the Scions shared, myself included.” Alphinaud raised an eyebrow. “Now that I think of it…I’m not entirely sure what her will is on a normal day. What does she want?”

“I have no idea. Perhaps it’s best for that to remain her business, hm?”

“When this is all over, and the Final Days are halted, I mean to express my sincere gratitude to her in any way I can.”

“Heh. Good luck with that”, Estinien commented as he rose from his chair. “Well, I won’t pry from your work any longer. Keep at it, Alphinaud.”

“I will, Estinien, thank you.”

The dragoon turned away and left through the door to the Solar. Alphinaud returned his full focus to the portrait.

******

The days passed while Alphinaud took his time to focus on the painting. The Solar was nearly forbidden territory, with the exception of Dia, who nobody would dare try to stop. After nearly a week’s worth of effort, Dia finally opened the door, and approached her fellow Scions.

“If any of you would like to view the portrait and help us decide where to place it, that would be most welcome”, Dia announced to the group as they sat in the lobby. All but Estinien rose from their chairs and walked towards the Solar.

“That means you too, Estinien.”

“Your suggestion is noted.”

“Get in here, or I’m telling Alphinaud to put it on your bed.”

He stood up reluctantly and followed her into the Solar, where they beheld the group fawning over the portrait. Estinien and Dia looked to each other, Dia wearing a smile on her face, Estinien his usual stoic look. He slowly walked towards the portrait to join the group.

For the most part, the positions of everyone stayed the same with one notable exception; Estinien stood between Dia and Thancred with a smirk and with his hand placed on Alphinaud’s head.

“I’m glad he took my suggestion and made himself taller”, Dia mused. Estinien tore his eyes away from the painting and looked to Dia. “Didn’t he do a good job with you, Estinien?” He nodded, “Aye, he did.” He brought his attention back to his portrait self.

Is that how he sees me, he thought.

“All right, now the question remains: where do we place it?” Alphinaud asked the group.

Everyone took a moment to think. “What about up there?” Estinien suggested, pointing to a spot above the desk…the spot that once held Tupsimati. Most of the group shifted uncomfortably with the exception of G’raha and Dia.

“Well…” Alphinaud started.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Dia defended. The group made faces of disbelief towards her. “Look, I will never forget Louisoix, nor will I forget Moenbryda’s sacrifice. But that spot is perfect. Anytime we walk in, we’ll see us hanging there proudly. After all, Tupsimati’s not hung there in how many moons now. Why don’t we use that spot to honor a new legacy?”

The Scions considered her words. “Did I touch upon something sensitive?” Estinien whispered to Dia. “‘Tis a long story. You did nothing wrong”, she whispered back to him.

“All right. Perhaps it would be better for us all to let our own story be told. After all, we saved not just one world, but two. That should be worth a nice spot, don’t you think?” Thancred reasoned. The group nodded.

“Allow me”, offered G’raha. He took out his staff and levitated the portrait from it’s spot. Y’shtola took out her cane and prepared a nail for the painting to hang upon. The two combined their efforts, and in a matter of minutes, the portrait hanged proudly in the very same spot Louisoix’s legacy once stood, the legacy that Dia had unfortunately sacrificed along with Moenbryda in her attempt to destroy Nabriales.

“There. I like it there quite a bit”, Dia complimented. “Thank you, G’raha, Y’shtola.”

“Of course. Now would you care to explain to me why that spot seemed to cause discomfort?” G’raha questioned.

Dia smiled. “I owe you two an explanation, it would seem.”

[lazyevaluationranch]

13/08/2020 We're worried this vaguely disgruntled adolescent chicken might be a rooster. Her comb is a suspiciously bright colour, and it looks like she's growing saddle feathers, the long droopy feathers that trail across a rooster's back. 

They're all supposed to be hens, but determining the sex of a newly-hatched chicken by peering at its undercarriage is only about 95% accurate. Sooner or later, if you buy chicks, you'll lose at Rooster Roulette. We've had hens with saddle feathers before, though, so we're hoping we've dodged the Rooster of Damocles for another year.

600ish words on chicken history and 1800s farm blogging might be a bit much even for readers of this blog, actually.

In 1843, Britain forced China to sign the Treaty of Bogue, which granted British traders access to several areas they had previously been blocked off from. British traders started buying live Chinese chickens and shipping them west. The Chinese chickens were much larger and fluffier than western chickens, and so gentle that roosters didn't fight each other, and sometimes sat on eggs. Queen Victoria was presented with a pair as a gift. She loved them, which of course means that the chicken world lost its collective mind.

The ensuing chicken-breeding craze was called Hen Fever and lasted from about 1845 to 1855. Individual chickens sold for hundreds of dollars. People invested in fancy breeds of chicken, expecting great profits, clearly the very soundest of financial ideas. This was chronicled by chicken breeder George P. Burnham in his 1855 book A History of the Hen Fever: A Humorous Record.

Hen Fever and the fact that we hadn’t yet realized that the sneaky descendant of the dinosaurs were biding their time and hiding out as birds made Breeding the Largest Possible Chicken seem like a good and normal idea. Breeders developed the “Brahma” breed from the chickens imported from China. Burnham described the Brahma, which he calls the "Bother'em", in totally scientific and unsarcastic fashion. Behold, some vintage 1855 chicken mockery! Burnham describes the breed’s edibility:

They are remarkable for producing bone, and as remarkable for producing offal. I have had one analyzed lately by a celebrated chemist, with the following result:

    Feathers and offal,    39.00 

    Bony substances,     50.00 

    Very tough muscle and sinew,    09.00 

    Miscellaneous residuum,02.00  

    ——— 

    100.00"

Their diet:

A peculiarly well-developed faculty in this extraordinary fine breed of domestic fowls is that of eating. "A tolerably well-fed Bother'em will dispose of as much corn as a common horse," insists Mr. Snooks. This goes beyond me; for I have found that they could be kept on the allowance, ordinarily, that I appropriated daily to the same number of good-sized store hogs. ... 

But Snooks is correct about one thing. They are not fastidious or "particular about what they eat." Whatever is portable to them is adapted to their taste for devouring. Old hats, India-rubbers, boots and shoes, or stray socks, are not out-of-the-way fare with them. They are amazingly fond of corn, especially a good deal of it.

Their size:

This rara avis in terris grows to a height somewhere between .00 feet .16 inches and 25 feet. Its weight somewhat between .06 pounds and 1 cwt [100 pounds]. ... They are very inquisitive in their nature. Their habit of stalking around the dwelling-house, and popping their heads into the garret-windows, is evidence of this peculiar trait.

He also supplies this extremely accurate scientific diagram of the breed. Behold, the majesty and grace!

So anyway, some people thought it would be funny to have one giant extra-fluffy Brahma hen. Which means, uh, if we lose Rooster Roulette, we might end up with an omnivorous farm dinosaur a meter tall. Oops. 

(Luckily (?) for us, she doesn't seem to be purebred. Wrong comb.)

Please enjoy this video of Fitim Sejfijaj’s Brahma rooster, originally posted to Brahma Club Kosovo on facebook:

[marryat92]

As the prospect of war—with the United States in alliance with France—darkened, Midshipman Marryat was, in November 1811, appointed to another frigate, the Spartan, commanded by another such officer as he would himself have chosen. Captain Edward Brenton had succeeded his brother Jahleel in the command and both were gentlemen of literary tastes as well as fighting captains. The Brentons belonged to an American loyalist family and this was a bond with Marryat as Edward Brenton recognised the boy’s latent qualities and encouraged them. The captain was, declared Marryat, ‘refined in his manner, a scholar and a gentleman. Kind and friendly with his officers, his library was at their disposal; the fore-cabin, where his books were kept, was open to all; it was the schoolroom of the young midshipmen and the study of the old ones. He was an excellent draughtsman and I profited not a little by his instruction.’ Marryat, profiting by this and the former influence of Captain Webley, had begun to amuse himself and his messmates with caricatures and he added what was, for him, becoming a new and exciting interest: ‘He loved the society of ladies and so did I.’

— Tom Pocock, Captain Marryat: Seaman, Writer, and Adventurer

I think this passage from Pocock's biography of Frederick Marryat is accurate, when it comes to describing the relationship between Midshipman Marryat and Captain Brenton, but the quotes are from the (admittedly very autobiographical) novel Frank Mildmay (The Naval Officer). Throughout his biography, Pocock uses quotes from Marryat's novels to stand in for the experiences of Marryat himself.

It's part of a long tradition of parsing Marryat's writing as reflecting his own experiences (and his daughter lends a lot of support to this in her father's Life and Letters), but not without pitfalls. His novels are works of fiction, even though they often draw from his lived experiences.

Frank Mildmay, in particular, describes Marryat's experiences in the War of 1812 off the coast of New England and Maritime Canada (awkwardly, his mother's family of American loyalists lived in the same areas targeted by the Royal Navy). As much as it flatters Marryat with Mildmay being a handsome officer who has every girl in Halifax swooning over him, it leaves out some of his most truly heroic acts.

It was up to Captain Joseph Pierce of the privateer Ida, American War of 1812 veteran and former prisoner of war, to recount how Lieutenant Mildmay defied the orders of his tyrannical captain to bring necessary supplies and comforts to American prisoners. Captain Lord Stuart ("his lordship" of Frank Mildmay) had forbidden his officers from so much as communicating with the American prisoners of war, and only Marryat defied him. It took real bravery to do that.

Frank Mildmay is a heartbreaker and a rogue who in some ways is more appealing and heroic than the real Captain Marryat, but Marryat also made his self-insert character more selfish and cold-hearted. There is a distance between Marryat's fiction and his real life.

HMS Spartan at Quebec, Heights of Abraham, original drawing by Captain Edward Brenton, 1818. Marryat might have been present in the original scene that his former captain captured in this work of art.

[heavenlyhaechan]

A Fateful Delay

Pairing: Jaehyun x Gn!Reader 

Genre: friends to strangers to lovers au, fluff, 

Word Count: 4.1k 

Warnings: swearing, kissing, lots of dialogue 

Rating: PG-13? 

Note: Happy birthday nct aquarius boy 5/5! Forewarning I am an amateur tarot reader, so if it’s not entirely accurate *shrugs* Heavily inspired by Jaehyun’s I like me better cover video. (p.s. you’re a real one if you recognize the book quotes.) 

Gate 26, gate 26, gate 26, you repeated in your head, not confident that your half awake mind wouldn’t forget. Heathrow airport was still quite empty at this hour, with only a few other stragglers hanging about. 6:00 am wasn’t exactly the most desirable time for a flight after all. 

Here it is, you sighed in relief when you saw a crowd still waiting to board the early flight. You looked down to check that you had your boarding pass before looking up and suddenly being transported back to an older time. 

“Jaehyun,” you said it without thinking, prompting him to look up from his phone and make eye contact with you. Recognition flashed across his face almost immediately, along with something else you couldn't quite place. 

“What are you doing here?” you asked as you reached him, setting your backpack down on the bench beside him. 

“I’ve been studying here,” he said. “What about you?” 

“Just traveling. I’ve been in Europe for,” you paused to count in your head. “A little over two months now.” 

“Alone?” 

“Mostly, yeah.” 

He whistled. “That’s pretty impressive.” 

“It’s been an adventure, that’s for sure.” 

You lapsed into silence, your mind still reeling with the fact that you had run into Jaehyun here of all places. And as coincidences like this didn’t happen very often, you quickly resigned yourself to the fact that you would probably never see him again. 

Except…

“Flight 2491 from London Heathrow to Incheon International Airport has been delayed 18 hours,” a nasally voice announced over the speaker. Groans erupted all around you as they continued. “Boarding will commence at 12:00 am. If you have any questions or wish to board another flight please come to the front desk. Thank you and have a good day.” 

Jaehyun sighed, reaching up to run a hand through his hair. 

“Good thing I checked my bag,” he said as though he was trying to find a glimpse of good in the situation. You nodded emphatically. 

“I was just thinking the same thing.” 

“You know what I need now?” 

“What?” 

“Coffee.” 

——

Once you’d left the airport the two of you entered the first cafe you could find. Unlike Heathrow, this was it’s busiest time of the day. You looked around as you waited, observing the artwork and the office workers that came and went without a second glace in your direction. They must be used to tourists. 

“Does this place have a bookstore?” you asked as you peered past the espresso machines. You repeated your question to the barista when you reached the front of the line, and learned that yes, there was a bookstore just down the hall. 

“Lets go,” you said once you’d ordered. 

“Now?” 

“When else?” 

“You go,” he said. “I’ll wait for our coffee.” 

——

The bookstore was even quieter than the airport, with not a soul to be seen but your own. You ran your finger along the bookcases as you explored, the rough texture and musty scent of the books making you feel at home. Jaehyun found you sitting on the carpeted floor in the aisle between two bookcases, a stack of hardcovers next to you. 

“Watcha doing?” he asked as he handed you your coffee and sat down next to you. 

“Let me read you some of my favorite lines,” you said in place of an answer. 

“Didn’t we read that in high school?” Jaehyun asked as you picked The Sun Also Rises from the top of the pile. 

“Yeah,” you said. “Junior year.” 

Eventually you found the page you were looking for and read the line: “I can’t stand it to think my life is going so fast and I’m not really living it.” 

“Damn,” he sighed. 

You nodded. “That’s why I decided to come here. To Europe I mean.” 

You picked up the next book. 

“Okay here’s another one. ‘Brave doesn’t mean you’re not scared. It means you go on even though you’re scared.’” 

“How are you finding these so fast?” Jaehyun asked, dimples appearing on his cheeks as he smiled. 

“I’ve probably read them too many times,” you laughed along with him, ripping your eyes away from the ever endearing marks. 

A minute later: “We accept the love we think we deserve.” 

“Ouch.” 

You laughed again, and he forced himself to smile with you. 

“Okay last one. ‘That’s what love is. Love is keeping the promise anyway. Don’t you believe in true love?’” 

“Do you?” 

“What?” 

“Believe in true love.” 

“Yeah, don’t you?” 

He sipped his coffee as he considered the question. 

“Yes,” he said finally. “I just don’t think I’ll ever find it.” 

You were taken aback by that. Jung Jaehyun had always been one of the most desirable people you knew, and from what you could tell the last six years had done nothing but make him even more so. But maybe that wasn’t what mattered. 

“Doesn’t it scare you?” Jaehyun interrupted your thoughts. 

“What? Love?” 

“Yeah.” 

“I mean yeah I guess so, but isn’t true love worth the fear?” 

Jaehyun smiled again at that, nodding quietly as his gaze moved to focus on the floor between you. You weren’t sure if the nod meant yes, but it brought an end to the conversation anyway. 

——

As the morning turned into midday the two of you found yourselves in a quieter part of town. The sky had begun to darken as you walked and it casted a looming shadow over the street, filling you with a strange sense of foreboding. 

Soon enough raindrops began to fall, creating dark spots on the concrete beneath your feet. You ducked into the first shop you could find for shelter, not paying any attention to the signs posted outside. Thus you were surprised to see the crystal balls, tarot decks, and palm reading books laid out on the tables inside. 

Incense filled the air, and midnight blue and royal purple drapes were hung along the walls, highlighted by shimmering golds and silvers. A woman stood at the counter wearing colors to match. Other than her the store was empty, which didn’t surprise you considering the fact that it was late morning on a Monday in February. Not exactly the height of tourist season. 

“Welcome,” the woman said, her voice soft and silvery. “Are you looking for something in particular today?” 

“Uh, no,” you looked back at Jaehyun. 

“We were just escaping the rain,” he finished for you. 

“Well then, perhaps you’d be interested in a reading?” 

You felt bad for seeking refuge from the rain but not buying anything, so you agreed. You followed her to the back of the shop with Jaehyun close on your heels. An embroidered curtain was pushed to the side to reveal a small table with a few chairs scattered around it. 

“Please take a seat,” she said as she pulled a deck of tarot cards from a drawer in the table. You and Jaehyun sat next to each other on the side closest to the curtain, and she sat across from you. 

“So, I want you to think of a question,” she said as she began to shuffle the cards. “It could be about anything really, but please make sure that it’s clear and specific.”

You played with your hands where they rested in your lap, feeling quite put on the spot. 

“Take your time,” she smiled at you. 

Your mind came up with and then discarded a million questions as the seconds ticked by, but eventually you settled on one. 

“Our uh, flight was delayed this morning,” you explained. “Do you, or do the cards think that it was delayed for a reason?” 

“Hmm,” she nodded in understanding. First she split the deck in three, then put it back together as a whole in no obvious order, before finally beginning to place the cards on the table. 

“Let’s see,” she pondered, looking down at the cards she’d laid out. First she pointed to the world and high priestess cards, both reversed on the table before you.“It looks as though you lack closure, likely because of some feelings that you’ve repressed or kept hidden.” Next she pointed to the hermit and the ace of swords. “But you are searching for the truth, which will soon lead to a breakthrough that will provide you with clarity.” 

Now she pointed to the page of wands. “You have been exploring recently, or maybe you still are.” Next to the knight of wands and the knight of cups. “You are fearless right now, and are ready to follow your heart. This will lead to new beginnings,” the fool, “dreams come true,” the ten of cups, “and a unique and deep partnership,” the lovers. 

“Taking all of this into consideration, I’d say that yes, it did happen for a reason,” she finished. And although you weren’t one to believe in the superstitious, when she looked up at you with a twinkle in her eye you had a feeling she knew something that you didn’t. 

——

Your stomach grumbled as you left the store, which made you realize that you hadn’t actually had a proper meal all day. You hadn’t had time on your way to the airport that morning, and coffee didn’t exactly count as food. 

Like he could read your mind Jaehyun pointed out a fish and chips place nearby. It was lunchtime, so the place was bustling. Nevertheless you were quickly escorted to a booth made of dark wood with faux leather seats. It had been placed near a window looking out on the street you had just left behind. 

Music played through speakers, battling the rowdy conversation of your fellow diners. Your still complaining stomach prompted you to order without much consideration, confident that you were hungry enough to enjoy whatever you were served. 

“Do you believe everything she said back there?” Jaehyun asked as you waited for your food, his nail tracing a crack in the table. 

“Yeah?” you phrased it as a question, watching as the group next to you was served. “I mean I wouldn’t usually, but a lot of what she said rang true.” 

You lapsed into silence again, and you noticed a newfound awkwardness filling the space between you. An awkwardness that had nothing to do with the time that had passed since you’d last seen each other. You couldn’t stand the feeling, and so no matter how out of character it was for you, you felt that you needed to disrupt it somehow. So you said the thing that had been dancing around in the back of your mind since you’d first laid eyes on Jaehyun that morning. 

“I liked you in high school you know.” 

“Oh. You did.” He tilted his head, the look in his eyes hard to decipher. It wasn’t a question but you answered anyway. 

“Yeah well I mean everyone probably liked you at some point, but,” you bit your tongue, already regretting your words. 

“So you liked me because everyone else did?” 

“No! I liked you a lot more than everyone else did.”

You only registered the teasing lilt in his voice after you’d finished blurting out the confession, and you felt your whole body go hot as the smile dropped from his face. The pause felt like it lasted for centuries because of your embarrassment. 

“Why?” he asked eventually. 

“Why what?” 

“Did you like me.” 

“Um,” you fiddled with your paper napkin to focus your thoughts. You second guessed yourself yet again. Were you really going to spill your guts to him now, here, after all this time? 

Fuck it. When else? 

“It always seemed to me like you didn’t care what anyone else thought of you, but not in a high and mighty way, you just minded your own business. Everyone either wanted to be you, or be with you in high school, but you didn’t let it affect you. It never got to your head, and you were always equally kind to everyone no matter what.” 

Your eyes didn’t leave your hands the entire time you talked. Your fingers shredded your napkin methodically, too embarrassed to even imagine looking him in the eye ever again. 

“Plus, you’re not bad to look at,” you said with your last ounce of confidence, before descending back into silence. 

Luckily you didn’t need to say anything else, as just then your server arrived with your food. You dug in despite your now roiling nerves, still too scared to look up. If you had, you would have seen the fond look in Jaehyun’s eyes, and the way his dimples couldn’t seem to be tamed. 

——

After lunch you walked across the Thames, but were eventually forced to make way for two small children zipping by on their scooters, their faces both full of pure and unadulterated joy. You couldn’t help but smile as you watched them go by, remembering when things had been that simple for you too. 

“Do you want kids?” 

You don’t know why you’d asked. Maybe it was something about the way his eyes had sparkled when he’d moved for them to pass by, or the small smile that still graced his face almost a minute later. 

“Me?” he laughed a little after he said it, knowing full well that he was the only person around for you to ask. “I…yeah.” 

You nodded, not particularly inclined to say anything more, but he went on anyway. 

“Sometimes I think about like, having a house with a big yard, and a dog, and some kids, and just all the people I love with me,” he trailed off. “I guess it sounds kinda cliche to say it out loud.” 

“A little,” you chuckled lightheartedly even as your heart leaped in your chest. “But I know what you mean.” 

——

Soon enough you stumbled upon a covered market set up along the river selling everything from clothes, to records, to furniture. You wandered into the clothes section while Jaehyun browsed the rows of records. 

Eventually you found a mirror and started trying on the most ridiculous accessories you could find. Jaehyun found you adorned with a lime sunhat, sparkling ruby red glasses, and a fluffy green absinthe scarf. 

“Why does that kind of work?” he chuckled as he looked you up and down. 

“Complementary colors,” you said simply, trying to ignore the way his eyes surveyed your figure. His mouth was smiling, but his eyes were serious. They took you in like you were a statue in a museum, something to treat delicately and with reverence. 

“I had an idea,” he said as you began to shed your layers of color and ludicrous. 

“What kind of idea?” 

“I thought maybe we could pick something from all of this,” he waved his arms around, gesturing to the market around you, “and buy it for each other.” 

“Like a secret santa?” 

“Kinda, yeah.” 

“Okay,” you nodded. “Meet back here in say, twenty minutes?” 

“Sure.” 

You set off in opposite directions, not wanting to spy on each other’s search and spoil your own present. Twenty minutes later you met back up where you’d started, before quickly deciding that you needed to find somewhere to sit while you shared what you’d bought. You chose a loveseat in the middle of the furniture section, it’s surface made of navy blue linen. 

“You first,” Jaehyun said once he’d made himself comfortable next to you. 

“Okay but fair warning, this is kind of dumb,” you said before pulling a white mug from behind your back. On its surface was painted a singular peach hued letter J. 

“I just had to,” you laughed, relief filling you at the look of amusement on his face as he took it in his hands. “You can use it when you get that house you were talking about.” 

His smile softened at that, and he looked up at you with a genuine look of gratitude. “I love it. Seriously. Is it weird how much I love it?” 

You laughed again, your cheeks aching with delight. 

“Okay my turn,” Jaehyun turned serious again as he leaned down to carefully tuck the cup into his bag. When he straightened up he had a record in his hands. Taking it from him you saw that it was the self titled Hozier album from 2014. 

“I remembered that it was your favorite album in high school so I uh, yeah,” he trailed of as you looked back up at him, your eyes as big and sparkling as the full moon. 

“I can’t believe you remembered.”

“Yeah well, maybe I liked you a little bit in high school too.” 

Your stomach dropped at his words and you forced yourself to swallow back your surprise. 

“Really?” you managed to get out, desperately searching his eyes for any hint of insincerity. But when he nodded you found nothing but nerves at his years awaited confession. 

——

Eventually the two of you found yourselves in a sprawling garden backed by a row of old Victorian houses. Wide walkways created borders between garden beds full of both familiar and unrecognizable plants, the air full of their sweet scent. 

You split off to wander on your own for a while before meeting back up at a bench near the back of the garden. Jaehyun presented you with a one of spring’s first daffodils when you reached him, and you bit down on your bottom lip hard as he tucked it behind your ear. 

“I bet a lot of people get married here,” he mused a while later, arms propped up on the back of the bench. 

“Yeah, it’s beautiful.”

The foolish part of you let your mind imagine yourself having a wedding here. As your eyes traced the slope of his nose you wondered who would be in attendance, what food would be served, what you would be wearing. 

“Do you ever think about all the things that had to happen for us to run into each other this morning?” Jaehyun asked. “Like I never thought I’d ever see you again, and even if I did I thought it would be at a reunion or something.” 

“And what if our flight hadn’t been delayed?” you considered. You knew what would’ve happened. You would have gotten on that plane without speaking another word to each other. Maybe a brief goodbye in Incheon, but that was certainly the very most. And then you would go your separate ways yet again, passing it off as an innocent coincidence. 

“I’m glad it was,” he said as though, yet again, he could read your mind. Or maybe he was just thinking the same thing. 

The sun was setting now and his face was lit up by its fiery glow. It turned his deep brown eyes gold and his cheeks rosy. His lips were parted the tiniest bit, like they were trying to grasp onto a word that he couldn’t quite remember. 

“Stop looking at me like that.” 

“Like what?” you asked. 

“Like you,” his jaw clenched as he paused, eyes flickering with uncertainty. “Like you could fall in love with me,” he finished finally. 

“Maybe I already have.” 

He ripped his eyes from the setting sun in favor of looking at you. The corners of his lips were down turned, and his eyes were set in shadow. You decided you liked them better this way, twin pools of warmth that you could fall into and stay in comfort forever. 

“Would it be crazy if I kissed you right now?” he whispered just loud enough for you to hear. 

“Yes,” you said breathlessly, your lungs not working quite the way they were supposed to. “But you should do it anyway.” 

And so he leaned forward that left over inch, and your lips melded together like honey in the golden light of the sun as it sunk beneath the horizon. 

——

As night fell upon the city you decided you needed something sweet to end your day. You ended up at a diner near the center of the city, with milkshakes and french fries set on the table between you. You dipped one into your shake and then huffed out a laugh as Jaehyun grimaced. 

“It’s good!” you defended yourself. “At least try it before you judge me.” 

“Fine.” 

He reached forward and dipped a fry into his vanilla milkshake before popping it into his mouth. He considered carefully, eyes never once leaving yours. 

“Okay I admit, it’s pretty good.” 

You cried out victoriously before he’d even finished his sentence properly, pumping your fists in the air. It was Jaehyun’s turn to laugh now, the indent of his dimples enchanting you for the thousandth time that day. 

“Do you think,” Jaehyun began, spinning the shiny silver spoon in his cup around in circles. 

“Hm?” 

“Are you…happy?” 

You blinked. As an adult people would always ask you how your career was going, if you were married, or if you’d bought a house yet, as if life was some kind of grocery list where you had to check off each item in order for you to be complete. He was the first to ask if you were happy. 

“I think so,” you leaned down and took another sip of your milkshake to give yourself a chance to think. “I’m not unhappy,” you decided after a moments thought. 

“You know what makes me happy?” he asked next. 

“What?” 

“You.” 

You stared at him, your mind reeling. A thousand thoughts came to you, but none of them expressed quite what you were feeling. But maybe words weren’t what you needed right now. 

You reached across the table, pushing your cups and fries out of the way until you could lean forward free of any obstructions. He met you halfway without you needing to do or say a thing. 

This time he tasted sweet and salty, like adventure and familiarity all wrapped into one. Fireworks erupted behind your eyelids as you kissed, disrupting the calm darkness you usually found there. When you pulled away you became starkly aware of the countless eyes on you, but you couldn’t find it in yourself to care. The only eyes you cared about were the chocolate ones looking straight into yours. 

As you sat back down you noticed the flower that had fallen from behind your ear and on to the table top. Jaehyun noticed it at the same time as you, and carefully he reached forward to pick it up and twirl it between his fingers absentmindedly. 

“One of the classes I took while I was here,” he started. “It was just for fun, an extra credit course you know. And at some point we talked about the language of the flowers.” 

You watched the flower spin, a yellow blur under the diner’s fluorescent lights. It was mesmerizing, or maybe you were just tired. 

“Do you know what the daffodil’s meaning is?” he asked. 

You shook your head. 

“Unequalled love.” 

——

You reached gate 26 for the second time that day with nearly half an hour left until midnight. Some of your fellow voyagers sat around in groups, some by themselves. Some lay across the airport benches like cats trying to enjoy their midday nap. There were tired eyes everywhere you looked. 

You, on the other hand, felt more awake than you had all day. None of it had felt real, passing more like a dream than real life. You had been tempted to pinch yourself several times that day, and now you finally decided to submit to the urge. You pushed back the sleeve covering your left arm and gave the skin underneath a quick pinch, if only to confirm that you were indeed corporeal. 

You sucked in a short breath at the small tinge of pain, but then smiled at the ground at the confirmation that everything that had happened today was in fact real, and not just a figment of your overactive imagination. Jaehyun looked over at you with curious eyes at the small sound. You shook your head at the unspoken question, preferring to not indulge exactly how surreal all of this felt. 

“What’s your seat number,” you asked instead. 

“Uhhh,” Jaehyun rummaged around in his bag for a second before pulling out his boarding pass. “32F. How about you?” 

“32G.” 

You stared at each other for a second before Jaehyun burst out laughing. 

“You’re telling me that our seats were next to each other this whole time?” 

“I think so,” you looked down at your boarding pass once more before joining in on Jaehyun’s disbelieving laughter. 

“Well would you look at that,” Jaehyun said, pulling your right hand into his lap and squeezing it gently. “I guess this really was fate.” 

[ieatmypizzawithaforkandknife]

MAG 021 - Freefall

Summary: Jonathan reads the statement of Moira Kelly, regarding “the disappearance of her son Robert.”

This was one of my least favorite episodes my first time through the season, which is kind of funny considering how much I loved it the second time around. (I didn’t hate it the first time around, for the record - I think it was just overshadowed by the plot-heavy two-parter right before it and by the one after it, and I just didn’t give it the consideration it deserved.)

That poor woman. Like Father Burroughs, as far as we know, Robert Kelly did nothing to “deserve” his fate, and his mother certainly didn’t deserve to see that happen to him. She only saw him a few times a year because of how busy he kept himself, and then he comes home unexpectedly and poof! Gone the next day forever.

The incident on his last skydive seems to have been abrupt and without warning: as far as we know, Robert doesn’t know anything is wrong prior to Simon saying those three words to him. Like so many of these stories, I’m left wondering: Why Robert? Why did Simon (apparently) choose him? Did something else happen that we don’t know about that would explain it, or was it just a wrong-place-wrong-time type thing? If Robert wasn’t targeted for a specific reason, then what was Simon’s motivation?

“Enjoy sky blue” intrigues me, not because of what it is but what it isn’t. I’ve come to expect that, when a character says something Grade A Creepy, we’re going to hear that creepy static/interference over their words. But here it’s conspicuously absent, and if it weren’t for the immediate dizziness and the endless sky Robert found himself in a moment later, the words wouldn’t have been much more than a blip on my radar. Was it an oversight when they were editing in the sound effects? I can’t imagine that they’d just forget to put something like that in, especially when it’s been pretty consistently sprinkled throughout the rest of the season so far. So it bugs me.

I really liked the apparent contrast (but really parallels) between this episode and episode 15, “Lost John’s Cave”. In this episode Robert’s mother says that he always enjoyed high-risk activities involving heights, that he “always climbed higher” and “always pushed further” than his friends. In episode 15 Laura says that caving was her only real hobby, partly because of the cost, but also because she loved the feeling of being deep down in the earth that much. And in the wrap-up for this episode, Jonathan says that “Open Skydiving” has never existed - or, more accurately, there was no trace of any of the licenses or permits that would be required for a skydiving business, though there were a few mentions of it in newspapers around the time; likewise, in episode 15, Jonathan notes that there is no trace of the permits Laura claims to have gotten for their caving trip. Lastly, there is the climactic event itself: a person’s unexplainable disappearance. In both cases, a person straight-up disappears under circumstances that don’t make any kind of sense for a person to disappear under. In both cases it’s either implied or said outright that nature itself swallows them. Laura doesn’t see the exact moment her sister Elena disappears forever, but several times during her statement it seems like the rock shifts around her, and in this episode Moira saw the sky twist and shift and, for lack of a better way to describe it, eat Robert.

Which brings me to my favorite part of the episode: Moira’s description of the sky when Robert disappeared. She says at the beginning that “it makes my head hurt awfully when I try to remember it well enough to describe”, and when she actually gets to that part of the story, she doesn’t describe what she saw so much as explains what she didn’t see: “He didn’t fall or fly or take off. There wasn’t anything in the sky that took him - it wasn’t a hand that reached out and grabbed him, it was the sky itself - the whole sky, as far as the horizon I could see, that twisted around and moved like…like the shifting of sand.” Like the pile of meat that “opened all its eyes” in episode 18, something happened right in front of our narrator that their mind just could not comprehend somehow. It’s incredibly cool to think about, but also absolutely terrifying.

I have to wonder what made Robert push her away from him at the very end. Did he see something, like the beginning of the shifting of the sky that Moira described? Or did he feel something, like the plummeting sensation of falling or the dizziness and confusion he felt during his last skydive?

I thought it was really cool that his last skydive was described as “bright, he kept saying, it was so bright”, and just last episode Father Burroughs described the church in his fever dream as “it was bright...so bright”. I don’t mean to imply there’s any kind of specific connection here - I just think back to what I was feeling and picturing at those moments in each episode and once again have to commend Jonny on his amazing writing and performance, because these two nearly identical lines felt so completely different.

But I am wondering if there’s a connection between what happens to Robert in this episode and Ex Altiora (the Leitner featured in episode 4). The book’s title alone would make me wonder, but more important is the contents of the book and its effect on those who read it. Dominic says it contains a series of illustrations: “a mountain or a cliff or in one picture what appeared to be an empty night sky. I felt an odd sensation when I looked at that image as though, simple as it was, I was about to fall into it, and my stomach gave an odd jolt”. Dominic lost time (about an hour) while looking at the book - the opposite of what happened to Robert, as it felt like he was falling for hours or even days when he only fell for an extra 15 minutes. Also the-same-but-opposite is the fact that the main Ex Altiora illustration featured in episode 4 was of a night sky, whereas Robert’s experience was with a day sky - “an endless sky blue nothing”, as Jonathan calls it.

I’d like to end with my favorite Jonathan quote of the episode, from the very beginning of the wrap-up at the end: “Before I address the central point of this statement, namely the question of [sigh] whether the sky can eat people”. ily Jonathan lmao please never change.

This post is part of a series where I write my thoughts about each episode and obsessively connect dots in an effort to figure out The Big Mysteries of the series. All posts in this series are tagged “is this liveblogging?” Comments and messages are welcome but I have only listened to season 1, so I ask that you not spoil me for anything beyond episode 40. In the words of Jonny Sims…thanks for listening!

[honeyyoni]

Welcome to the last part of my mini series about the Qmx Star Trek figures.

Qmx launched in 2016 a series of high-quality action figures to celebrate the 50th anniversary of TOS. I am lucky to own a little collection of them and introduce them to you.

From the first time I watched TOS, I was crazy about one pointy eared scientist. I was a little girl and always sat totally confused in front of the TV, puzzling why all the weekly changing and barely dressed Ladies (almost) always ignored the most handsome half human being I've ever seen and looked instead at this honey blonde guy beside him. Today, decades later, I know that this was the concept of the show and the honey blonde guy who got at least in the show the majority of the female attention, represented the classical hero.

I'm sure you already know who the honey blonde guy is I'm talking about:

Today we will boldly got to complete the holy trinity of Star Trek with the amazing Captain James T. Kirk. Sorry but I had to put him in such a heroic pose.

The gentleman you see in front of his box is the re-issue version of Kirk that Qmx released quite lately.

I don't own first issue Kirk because I became aware of this marvelous figures very late in 2017 or so and only bought Spock and later Bones. So I was very delighted to hear that Qmx would do a re-issue of Kirk and Spock.

So without any further due, let's check out our favorite Star Fleet Captain and start with his box.

From the release of Scotty on, they changed the design of the boxes. On the right you see first release Spock's box as a reference, because first release Kirk's box looks the same.

I like this first release boxes especially because they open and close like a book, very unboxing friendly. The new boxes show a picture of the figure on the front and slide open and close. And, as I already mentioned in another review, I'd like it better if they kept one design for all but it is as it is, so let us have a look at the most important thing: the figure itself.

Re-issue Kirk has a good quality body with a very good articulation that allows him to strike very lifelike poses just like his first release crew mates. Although when I hold Kirk and Spock in my hands I have the feeling Spock's body is slightly heavier.

Coming to his uniform, from the release of Scotty on, Qmx improved the fit of the shirts.

Kirk's shirt is better fitted than those of his two favorite senior officers and also the sleeves are a bit longer, good to hide joints in dynamic poses.

And of course, just like first issue Kirk, re-issue Kirk has a soft little pad around the tummy area sewn into the underwear - yes, I'm not kidding, to make this figure as accurate as possible to the real captain, he has a tummy.

The pants of all gentlemen are similar to each other and also the boots seem very similar to me although I heard that some people say the boots of the re-issued version would be glossier.

The insignia on the chest are quite identical except for Kirk's appear slightly bigger (so slightly that it is not really visible in this picture).

Looking at the insignia on the sleeves instead you will notice a big difference. While Bones and Spock's look very detailed and dimensional, re-issue Kirk's look more like painted on the cuff. But they are accurate for each of the gentlemen's different ranks.

You may also notice that re-issue Kirk's relaxed hands are different from Spock and Bones, but I will come to the hands later and continue with Kirk's accessories first:

A Captain has not only very curious officers but also a lot of paperwork to do! Or let's better say: virtual paperwork.

Yes, Kirk comes with the kind of tablet he sometimes used in the show, mainly in the early episodes if I remember correctly.

To me it's a funny piece, I just think it would look better if the pad would show something and not be blank.

Apart from this pad and pen, Kirk comes with a Communicator and Phaser as well as hands to hold this accessories and a very funny pointing hand as well as a hand to knock down somebody annoying.

Re-issue Kirk is only available with this accessories. First issue Kirk instead was available as a standard version just with the same accessories and as an exclusive version that included a Phaser Riffle. However I don't remember if he ever used this in the show, I just remember it from some early promo pictures.

Kirk's relaxed hands are just like Scotty's a bit out of scale compared to the hands of the first issue figures. But it is not too bad.

They still put a lot of love to the detail into thise figures, they gave Kirk his (in?)famous little tummy and even considered the height of the real actors. Just like in the show, Kirk is shorter than his Vulcan First Officer.

And the head sculpt is a real master piece from the lifelike eyes to the kind of slightly smirking facial expression that is very character like IMO.

There you have all the gentlemen together and ready to boldly go where no action figure has gone before!

If you are interested in the review of the other gentlemen, you can find it here.