#i think about sara a lot actually

[momentomori24]

Keiji is a character that I'm pretty sure every one of us can recognize is an absolute weirdo (ok maybe some are too hard on copium for the "weirdo" part) and sketchy as hell, but thinking about everything he's done it really feels like he's so much shady and ruthless than we give him credit for. So here's me bulletpointing some the moments that I haven't seen too many talk about, a little theory throwing his status into question and addressing the massive elephant in the room that almost everyone refuses to acknowledge. If there's something else you feel I missed or wanted to evaluate on, do leave it in the comments.

[Also, disclaimer: I will be discussing Keiji and Sara in a romantic light near the end of this post, so if that makes you uncomfortable please proceed with caution or skip entirely. This should go without saying but for my own sake I will say it anyway-- No, I do not condone their relationship in real life. No, this is not meant to be "shippy" or endorsement of any kind. This will simply be pointing out their dynamic as another example to prove the whole point of this rant. But if someone else does ship them that's totally fine. Fiction doesn't equal reality and if you harass a real person over fictional characters you will not see the light of heaven. Be civil, please and thank you. My block button is rated E for Everyone and if anyone decides to ignore the warnings and be an asshole I won't hesitate to use it. Thanks for listening. Disclaimer over.]

*Being a murderer.

I feel like I should start with the most obvious and undeniable. I don't think this is debatable to anyone here. Mr. Policeman may have been an accident and kinda confirmed by Midori to have been set up, but he still shot and killed an unarmed man in a moment of panic and recklessness. Even putting that aside, there's no denying that he killed Megumi in cold blood to get out of his debt to her and covered it up to the group to preserve his credibility. Regardless of what you think of Megumi, he has no excuse here. Not only is he one more kill away from being a serial killer, he's the only participant in our group that has actually killed people directly aside from Alice. Another reason why I bring this up is cuz something that completely flew over my head is this:

At the start of the game he had the audacity to complain about not having a partner or someone he knows with him like Sara does as if he didn't literally let Megumi get ripped apart by chains probably not even an hour ago Keiji what the hell--

*Throwing Kanna under the bus repeatedly.

Despite positioning himself as a protector and someone to rely on, he's far from above putting their youngest members in danger. Next to voting for the fourteen year old girl to die, he had the great idea of letting said fourteen year old be the one to babysit their biggest liability. Up to the point where they would stay in the same room both day and night. While I absolutely 100% trust that Sou would never EVER do anything to her, Keiji had no guarantee of that when he send her off. Hell, he literally just got done accusing Sou of setting Joe up to die (which I don't believe almost solely based on the fact that he said it, more on that another time maybe). He knew Sou was bad news, and openly acknowledges how adults can be terrifying, but he did it anyway. The dubiety of throwing the already traumatised little girl to keep watch on what they thought to be the most dangerous adult that had manipulated her once before is not lost on me, and that he didn't take any responsibility for her afterwards isn't lost on me either. To be fair, the Sou and Kanna thing doesn't just fall on him, it falls on everybody (Alice gets a pass because he actually swapped out with Kanna to watch Sou for her), but he was the one with the final say on the matter and who encouraged her to take the role despite Reko's rightful protests. The fact that he also voted for her to die in the Main Game, and is the only adult to do so, doesn’t help his case.

*Attempting to frame Sou knowing Reko was actually responsible.

While you could argue he was trying to cover for her since he knew why she did what she did, trying to pin this act on Sou to cast more doubt on his is extremely shitty. Never mind the blatant corruption and the irony of a supposed man of the law abusing his power to knowingly frame an innocent person (in this situation at least), and him sowing more seeds of confusion and resentment within an already rattled group, and giving Sou legitimate reason to be suspicious of him (and by extension Sara)-- this makes it so difficult to trust him after realising he's done this. Literally every time he accuses someone of being or doing something suspicious (mostly Sou), I always have to think in the back of my head if he’s telling the truth or just telling a blatant lie. He's shown that he's willing to not only lie to cover for himself, but to lie to delegitimize someone else. And Sara never caught onto it (Sou and maybe even Nao likely did tho). She never openly acknowledged it-- No one did. The complete lack of mention of what he did here makes this action quite missable. Hell, I didn't even catch it the first time. Has he done this before? Who else has he lied about? Who else would he lie about? Who else would he knowingly pit against the group? You don't have to wait for that answer, because I will provide an example later. And with "later", I mean now.

*Casting suspicion on Gin before the vote while hiding the fact that he killed Megumi.

While it's not as blatant as with Kanna, there are two instances where Keiji shows a readiness to either put or leave Gin in harm's way. The biggest one for me is in the Main Game. Like, how dare you. That is a furry child, sir. This kid’s like TWELVE. Even though he makes a valid point about calling out suspicious actions to clear them up so we can all trust each other, casting doubt on Gin of all people right there feels pretty screwed to me. This was before the preliminary vote. His words could’ve very well gotten Gin voted for if he couldn’t disclose why he did what he did for whatever reason and therefore being unable to clear himself from suspicion. It’s even more fucked when you realise that Keiji has literally murdered his partner and is currently planning to get Sou killed while giving this whole spiel about doubting others so that we can believe them and pointing the finger at a little kid to make an example to the group. But when Nao, Sou and Sara call him out on his suspicious actions that could rightfully damage his credibility, he tries to shut them down completely. My brother in Christ, you brought it on FIRST (don’t get me wrong I’m very much aware he didn’t really mean the whole “trusting each other” bit but come on dude)--

Speaking about not meaning what he says:

*Letting the group think he’s Ok to vote for knowing he’s the Keymaster.

This kinda got to me because I thought this was Keiji actually being… vulnerable? Accepting the consequences of his actions and allowing them to vote for him in their distrust without protest even tho it could cost him his life, maybe. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I can’t remember a lot of times-- or any times, really-- where Keiji has willing put himself into the line of fire, at this point at least. He always finds a way to keep himself safe, give himself insurance, and I thought that this would be the one time he doesn’t do that. But this feels so ominous looking back knowing that he was the Keymaster the whole time. That our distrust and betrayal and his resignation to it all didn’t matter because he was going to be safe no matter what. That he knowingly allowed us to assume that he was a safe vote because he didn’t want his plan to kill Sou to be ruined, which narrowed down choice of people we can safely vote for even further. That this action is ultimately the reason why Sou and Kanna were our only options to kill off in the end. If he had admitted it there, we could’ve found someone else to vote for so our final options could consist of three people, not two. But he didn’t, and the rest is history. There’s a lot of things he’s done I can’t get over. This one ranks pretty high. The second Main Game is already a huge sore spot for me for obvious reasons; knowing that a lot of the things that happened were due to his inaction where it truly mattered and activity in all the wrong places doesn’t make me fee any better. He didn't say he was a safe vote-- he didn't lie-- but his words carefully omit that voting for him means a total party death, something he should've stated then (and before this, really).

*Leaving Sara with the sacrifice card.

Despite making a big show about “always being by her side” and being her “reliable policeman”, he chose to look away when she was in real danger. He attached himself to her as her right hand man, made her shoulder the responsibility of being the leader, constantly manipulated and flattered her to win her trust and gain her favour-- but when she needed him the most, he basically left her for dead because it was the most beneficial to him. Keep in mind that not only did he know about her getting the sacrifice (he was also the sage so he'd have seen the trade happen), but he had the tokens to help her get rid of it. But those tokens weren’t for her life. They were for his. He used them instead to give himself the Keymaster as insurance for the Main Game (the Keymaster he stole from Sou/Kanna most likely to buy Sara’s trust btw). His desperation for survival outweighed his sense of obligation to keep her safe, and that’s the most subtle yet transparent he’s been about his selfishness. What makes this so much worse is that Keiji is our support character. He’s an ally, and our closest one at that, to the point where Sara burned her hands in a futile attempt to rescue him and signed her life away to save his. And yet his loyalty and protectiveness pale in comparison to other characters. Compare his actions to Sou’s: one of their many parallels and similarities is that both their girls get hit with the sacrifice card. As we’ve established, Keiji was fully aware of Sara being send the sacrifice by Sou, had 50 tokens ready to go and chose to secure his own survival than save her life. Kanna ended up doing it instead, attempting to trade the card off Sara with Sou realising what happened immediately. And what does Sou do? Completely bend over backwards trying to keep her alive. He lied about being the Sacrifice so the others wouldn’t suspect Kanna of having that role, meaning he could try gathering vote for her without anyone seeing his true intentions. He tried to stop her about coming out with the truth of what she had done so she doesn’t sentence herself to death. After everything he did to survive-- after how much he lied, how much he schemed, how much he hurt, and how he had thrown himself away to replace everything that made him Shin with the man that had traumatised him years before the game began to scrape together even the tiniest chance to survive-- he threw it all to the wind and was willing to let it all be in vain if it meant she got to make it out of the Main Game alive. The worst part is that Sou had never intended to make it through that Main Game. He confessed to already knowing that Kanna would choose Sara over him if she truly had the Sacrifice card. Yet he still did what he did all in the hopes that she could win. Because it was all about her survival first, not about them surviving together.

It also gives a different context to Sou's panic and him stumbling over his words trying to come up with any argument to get them to stop. At first I thought that Sou was afraid for his life. Which would make sense-- Keiji and Q-taro set him up to die and seemed pretty adamant on having everyone voting for him to get it all over with. But he was already prepared to die the minute he realised Kanna traded with Sara. So it means it wasn’t his life he was fearing for here-- it was hers. To him, if they voted for him there, it wouldn’t have just been his end but hers too. But we know that Kanna isn’t the one who has the sacrifice. It’s Nao, and considering how the Main Game can end either or both of them dead, I wonder if he regrets not having given up there, not letting Keiji get away with that shitty stunt he pulled knowing it would’ve at least guaranteed her safety than leave her fate in hands of a girl with enough reason to kill her. Ignoring the sounds of my heart shattering into pieces for the 100th time thinking about the Greenblings, it’s so fascinating that our biggest rival and most distrusted member has a greater sense of loyalty and responsibility for his ally than Keiji has for his own. Sou can be a liar and manipulative and selfish, but for how unpredictable he is something I can always trust is his love for those he holds dear (Kanna) and general desire to protect our most vulnerable (Gin). Sou loves Kanna, and so he’s fine with protecting her even if it comes at a price he never wanted to pay. Keiji surely cares about Sara, but unfortunately that is something I can’t say about him-- at least at that time (also the fact that Sou ended up taking more care and responsibility for Kanna despite Keiji having been the one to throw her on him in the first is so ironic).

*Continuously pushing Sara to take on the role of leader.

I think one of Keiji's biggest failures in the game come from his treatment of Sara despite positioning himself as her most reliable ally and her partner. From the very get-go, he was very adamant of making Sara be the one to shoulder the responsibility of the group. He, along with Joe (he didn't do anything wrong here), pushed Sara to be the Challenger during the Russian Roulette, despite Q-taro and Kai being readily available. He made Sara be the one to interrogate the suspicious convict while distancing himself from the situation. And he encourages her to lead them through the Main Game, lets her make the choices that steer them all forward and as a consequence take the fall for them as well. Rather than take on the role himself, or let another adult take it, he places his full trust in her and makes her shoulder everyone's weight so he doesn't have to. And he can see the effect it has on her: having horrific hallucinations due to the immense guilt she feels. But having Sara as their leader gives him a greater shot at survival and helps his credibility, so even though he tries to provide her comfort he still continues to keep her in that role. Again, the high schooler taking responsibility for the adults falls on a lot of the older people here, but Keiji was the one who kickstarted it rather than just go along with it like everyone else had. Gin, Nao, Kanna, Reko and even fucking Sou to an extent all have moments where they take the burden off her and relieve her of that pain she shoulders all the time (or at least try to). I need Keiji to take more responsibility for both the group and for her.

*Pitting Sara and Joe against each other.

This is just another example of the previous point. This isn't as bad, and I could give him the benefit of the doubt that this might have not been intentional, but it's something I want to bring up regardless. I'll be the first to say that Keiji wasn't wrong here. Prying into everyone's votes is a very bad move, especially since no one knew that Mishima would actually die (it was introduced as a practice round, after all). I agree with him, Joe was being rash, but instead of leaving the conversation there, he decided to throw Sara into it to pick a side. Which is... not good. He already won the argument and already had Reko on his side. Bringing in Sara could not only make Joe feel worse and potentially strain their relationship (especially if she rightfully chooses Keiji's side like he was expecting and hoping for), but just puts Sara in the spotlight during something she doesn't want to be part of. While there's a chance he might've done this because he know Joe is more likely to listen to her than him, he should've known better than that. It again makes her take the responsibility of giving the final verdict that would've otherwise gone to him.

*Asking Sara to take responsibility for his life

I've got nothing other that the grown adult swearing his life to the grieving, unstable teenager to take responsibility for while asking her if she'd die along with him is weird as heck. Keiji's said weirder things prior to this, but this one is a different weird. I think Beanieman's post mostly echoes my thoughts on this on, so I'll link it here for this point. This part kinda bothers me:

He shouldn't be encouraging her taking on anymore responsibility than she already is. He knows that the deaths that happened under her leadership haunt her. He knows that she's very much unstable enough already, to the point where he takes baby-steps to avoid triggering her trauma over Joe. He positioned himself as her reliable partner, her rock to lean on (quite literally sometimes). We see first hand how emotionally dependent she is on him. If he died, it would destroy her-- she'd destroy herself over it. He knows this (or should) but he still does it. His disappointment and dismissiveness when she understandably rejects him makes it worse. The guilt of potentially not living up to his expectations is not what she needs.

*Potentially working for Asunaro

This is more ambiguous than everything else here and more a theory than anything but it's been on my mind for a long time that Ranmaru might actually be onto something here. We know that Asunaro has a strong hold on the police. Midori was able to infiltrate the force, and they were able to get rid of Mr. Policeman for looking into the corruption going on, first having Megumi fire him and secondly getting Keiji to kill him by planting false info about the suspect having a gun. Megumi was also able to get Keiji off the hook for murder, which I believe Asunaro had a hand in too (I theorize this might've been her wish). There's also Alice, who was arrested and sent to prison despite the fact that he (legally) didn't kill anyone since Midori was a doll. The police are connected to Asunaro-- by extension Megumi and extending further potentially Keiji.

Something I've seen someone rightfully point out is that neither of the options you're given to say in response to the accusation... actually deny it? Both choices dance around answering directly, which is suspect as fuck. If Keiji truly wasn't with Asunaro, why not shut that theory down immediately? There's no benefit to answering anything but "no" when he's innocent, and he's lied straight to people's faces for less. So why not just debunk it? I think it's cuz there might be some truth to what Ranmaru was saying here. The biggest reason I think this is because despite the fact that Keiji quit the force, he and Megumi were still associating with each other years later. They were kidnapped together and partnered up for their first trial. One missable piece of dialogue is Keiji admitting that he was with his partner-- or rather a "coworker"-- before getting knocked out.

That slip of the tongue and backtracking makes me believe this part to be true. Him switching from "my partner" to "a coworker", which is a lot more distant and impersonal, makes me think it's got to be Megumi. However, I don't believe that Keiji would wanna keep in touch with her after what happened willingly, so I can only imagine that it's due to that debt he has to her. My little game theory here is that after the shooting, the debt he owed her was a forced recruitment into Asunaro. It's the only thing I can imagine he meant by "the worst kind of debt", a debt he'd literally let her die for to get out of. And if this is true, then it could also explain away his instant attachment to Sara, since he'd know beforehand that she's someone he can depend on due to her having the highest chance at survival. Maybe he already knew about her beforehand, one way or the other. We know Hayasaka did (which I think we as a fandom moved on from way too fast btw). Kai and Sou did too. There's always a chance. And unlike Sou's victory rate and Midori's favourite number, it's not zero. One person made a comic about this idea I recommend checking it out, it's tastefully unsettling. But still very much unsetling and uncomfortale. Be warned that it's also Keisara-centred, so if that makes you even more uncomfortable they did the job right you can ignore it. Proceed with caution or don't read if you don't like.

*Being a predator

I have been waiting so long for this one XD For context: a while ago I made a longpost discussing the sanitisation of soushin and this kind of toxic attitudes in fandoms regarding "problematic content" (ships, characters, shows, you name it). In it, I mentioned that it's not only soushin that receives this treatment but a certain other dynamic too. It's not a rainy day, however this has been way overdue and if I don't get this done now I never will.

Something I've seen a lot, and I mean a LOT-LOT is this notion that Keiji acts "like a father" to Sara and that their relationship is a completely platonic father-daughter bond and that he's the resident dad of the group? Like, it's cute, but that's not at all what their relationship is. At all. Not even a little bit. We called Sou and Kanna siblings before the Greenblings reveal. The difference is that not only does half the fandom think this man is gay, but he's only ever been protective and caring and loving without any romantic intentions towards Kanna ever. His title as her brother was deserved, based on the genuine affection and platonic protectiveness similar to that of Alice's. Keiji has made advances tho, on many occasions, and his flirting is repeatedly acknowledged by other characters. Namely Sou and Reko.

(Sou grills him for being a creep every chance he gets I love him XD) But yeah, these are not the type of reactions and comments you receive when being a "father-figure" to the teenager. You get all this when you hit on the teenager. Which he does all the time by calling her "cute" every time she asks something and his "cute little detective", swearing himself to her by saying that "he's always on her side" or something like that, asking her if she'd die alongside him, repeatedly claiming or insinuating that they're on a date, or ""having a moment"" and going to ""take the next step"" when in private (*cough* groomer *cough*)-- you name it, he likely said it. He's a walking-talking ladykiller machine and teenage girls aren't safe, apparently.

(Quick note: The dialogue for the Russian Roulette one is a tad different now. In the new translation he says "cause you're so darn cute" now. I dunno if that makes it sound any less weird, but I felt like putting that out there. What I'm also putting out there is that according to the trivia he calls her cute 8 times throughout the game so. Yeah. *Cough* groomer *COUGH COUGH*)

Like, who tf says this?? Especially that last part 💀 Even if you wanna die on the hill that these are supposed to be "jokes" not to be taken seriously, we should all be able to agree that the (ex)police officer in his late 20s jokingly hitting on the high schooler he follows around is still weirdo behaviour at best and down right despicable at worst. The fandom seeing lowkey predatory/inappropriate behaviour from a figure of authority persistent for almost three entire chapters and dismissing it as "fatherly" and "platonic" is, well, concerning. It's very concerning. If your dad acts like Keiji, you should probably call the police. Unfortunately for Sara, Keiji is the police. And considering this guy got away with manslaughter, I don't think said police would do anything anywho. But yeah-- he uses flattery and flirting to distract her from prodding to much at him while simultaneously aiming to gain favour in her eyes. He showers her with reassurance of his loyalty and affirmation of his deeper attachment towards her and her alone every chance he gets to cement his position as her closest and most trustworthy ally. He insinuates a romantic partnership between them to others to mostly keep her to himself or the two of them alone (he always does that when they're investigating or going to investigate by themselves). There's such an obvious romantic undertone to their relationship and his actions that it going almost completely ignored in the fandom feels weird to me.

I want to make clear that there's nothing wrong with headcanoning Keiji as a father figure to Sara. It's cute. Keiji didn't have a dad himself, and the closest thing to a father figure he had was the man he shot dead. He's a damaged and hardened guy. But Sara's dad is involved with Asunaro and Gin's is an alcoholic, and in a situation where they both need guidence and protection he tries his best to grow and change, fumbling to become that decent father none of them got to have. It's nice, and a wholesome dynamic for our "characters with memorandum counterparts and only non-determined deaths" trio. But that's obviously not what their dynamic is. There's a difference between headcanoning something and erasing canon and the Yttd fandom leans heavily into the latter. Keiji's a creep, he always has been, yet 90% of people I see always portray him as a Mr. Dad Guy or completely sanitise him to hell when him being creepy and unnerving to be around is what made him such a fascinating character. Just like I said with Soushin, the sanitisation to make canon more digestible is one thing: harassing or insulting the people that explore canon is another. I'm gonna take a bullet, derail this rant and say it-- Keisara shippers get so much shit for literally being right it's so infuriating. Keiji does hit on Sara, a lot. He's creepy and weird like that. Him flirting with her isn't a "mistranslation" or a joke or anything like that; his dubious wording and antics are very much intentional. Yet the only people I see actually addressing and acknowledging that without adding fluff is keisara shippers and other ""proshippers"" only for them to get fucking sniped for it I cannot 💀💀 I have yet to meet a single eastern fan who calls this cop "fatherly". This really feels like such a western issue cuz the majority of the japanese fandom agrees that this man's a predator (correct me if i'm wrong but keisara is the most popular ship in the japanese side of the fandom, right?). Then again, eastern fandoms are more chill over there when it comes to separating fiction and reality in general anywho.

*Yeah, I think I'm done with the Keiji slander. Yay. Time to unceremoniously end this.

There's more to say about that, but this is a Keiji post, not another shipping discourse post (although it's hard discussing Keiji's predatory behaviour without bringing it up too). Before I do spiral from the original point, I'm going to try and reach some sort of conclusion here. While I did spent the majority of this post just reading Keiji to filth, and am very salty towards him in particular, this was not just to rake him through mud for my own sanity (tho it's part of it XD). Keiji's character is that he started off as someone who wanted to do the right thing, someone who wanted to be good and moral and protect others by joining the force only to kill all the progress he made along with the person who inspired him to become an officer in the first place. It heavily contrasts the Keiji we have now, a sleazy, unreliable and corrupt ex detective who flirts with underage girls and is willing to resort to the most bankrupt of decisions to save himself. A man that has long lost hope of his wounds healing that he lets them fester and his rot spread onto others. And while I headcanon Keiji to just inherently be a piece of shit, his former self tried his best to be genuinely good before he became so convinced he can never be better that he made peace with his shittiness in the end.

With all this I wanted to highlight some the shadier and bankrupt things he's done that I haven't seen much discussion around and refresh myself on them before the final part. Both so no matter how emotionally dependent and therefore rose-tinted Sara is about the man I don't forget what he's actually like and what he's done while also being able to appreciate how much he's changed for the better. Some of my favourite examples about how he's changed are these:

Before the second Main Game Keiji was willing to let Sara and Kanna die because it was the most beneficial option for him, but in Chapter 3 he takes the on the role of "it" from Kanna and refuses to tag Sara when he thought he was gonna die after failing to beat Midori.

Actually showing more sympathy towards Sou after the Main Game. He was very mean about dismantling his pretence of a cold front to Kanna's death, don't get me wrong, but he showed a lot more consideration and understanding for Sou's feelings and acknowledgement about his active role in it than he ever had beforehand.

He was genuinely fighting for everyone to survive the game, not just himself. While Keiji would prefer everyone making it out safely, he has a tendency to guarantee his own survival first through any means necessary. His plan to corner Midori in the banquet could've cost him his life if it weren't for Q-taro's final stunt, yet he still reassured Sara to save Gin even tho it could've resulted in his execution from Meister potentially finding him guilty of violating the rules.

Him hugging Mai and trying to be more cheerful was cute as heck. I'm sorry but him showing more vulnerability around his allies and being less closed off in a way he hasn't been before is something I'm very head empty about. That he was hugging and interacting with Mai without making any unwanted advances or ladykiller jokes and generally just having a more friendly vibe was nice. It makes his creeping on Sara more unfortunate, but I'll take what I can for now. The bar is in hell.

And that's it, I think. Overall, I hope they do address some of his actions here in the final part or make them have an impact on his and Sara's relationship. Especially that Asunaro part. The person who wished for Sara to join the death game is still unknown and so is Keiji's consent form wish (same goes for the Dummies, Hinako and Megumi), so I'm curious if they're related or not. If he's going to go down an even darker path or redeem himself as much as he can we'll see when the final part drops. He has the potential to go both ways. This is going to be kinda awkward if the next part reveals him to have been a decent guy all along, so hopefully that doesn't happen. Please be morally bankrupt, man. This post didn't end up the way I wanted it to, nor bring up as many points as I would've liked, but I know I won't finish it if I went full perfectionist on it (I already spent months on this writer's block do be a bitch) and it's looking kinda long already. Hopefully it's still decent enough as is right now. I'd like to say that this is my apology for the last longpost I made, but I brought up one of the most controversial and hated ships and traits of Keiji's character and defended them, so maybe I shouldn't 🙃 Anywho, hope you enjoyed and cheerio.

[atopvisenyashill]

THE PACT OF ICE AND FIRE

so there's an aspect of this one i don't think has really been delved into that I think may be important when it comes to canon jonsa and I wanted to do my own lil analysis, along with maybe some tin hatting at the end here.

this is what the pact is (or what we know of it at any rate, Munkun is not exactly a good source of information):

Cregan Stark and Jacaerys Velaryon reached an accord, and signed and sealed the agreement that Grand Maester Munkun calls “the Pact of Ice and Fire” in his True Telling. Like many such pacts, it was to be sealed with a marriage. Lord Cregan’s son, Rickon, was a year old. Prince Jacaerys was as yet unmarried and childless, but it was assumed that he would sire children of his own once his mother sat the Iron Throne. Under the terms of the pact, the prince’s firstborn daughter would be sent north at the age of seven, to be fostered at Winterfell until such time as she was old enough to marry Lord Cregan’s heir.

There's two parts to this that I think are important here. Here is the first, which is the basics of the pact, and that most Jonsas are familiar with:

Jacaery's First Born Daughter Is Fostered At Winterfell -> She will marry Cregan's first born son and heir.

Obviously, this never happened for several reasons and the pact is forgotten but perhaps it will be fulfilled anyway by...

Jon, a secret Targaryen bastard, is "fostered" at Winterfell -> he will fulfill the pact by marrying a Stark Maiden aka Sansa.

Basically, it's a genderswapped version of what the pact entails. I think given George's fondness for how Tolkien was a hater of Macbeth because he thought the "no man of woman born" should have indicated a girl and not just a man born via c-section, I think the genderswap aspect fits George's style.

The second part however, has more to do with Jacaerys and Sara and I feel like it's glossed over a bit. See here:

They had spoken their vows in Winterfell’s own godswood before a heart tree, and only then had she given herself to him, wrapped in furs amidst the snows as the old gods looked on.

Jacaerys, a "secret" Targaryen bastard who gets his family name and allegiances through his mother, not his father -> Rumors of a secret marriage in front of a Weirwood with a Stark bastard, Sara

Listen. It doesn't matter whether Sara Snow is real, you believe whatever makes you happy! But what IS real and relevant is that this part was included in F&B for a reason, and is indicated to be the catalyst for the pact. Jace and Sara get secret married in front of a Weirwood, and this is what calms down Cregan so they can make their pact. And here is how (I believe) it applies to Jonsa:

Jon, a secret Targaryen bastard, but who gets his look and his allegiance not through his father but Lyanna's blood -> Jon, a Stark bastard, will marry an Heir in secret in front of a Weirwood tree.

THAT is, imo, the most important aspect of this scandalous story from Mushroom - that a secret bastard, a targaryen and a stark, secretly marry in front of a Weirwood tree just before a bloody war kicks off. People tend to make Sansa the Sara in this part, which is valid, but I think Sansa's role in this is not just to be the pretty Stark maiden, but to be the HEIR that is secretly marrying for love, like Jacaerys is, and that Jon's role will be about his status as a bastard, so that both parts kind of apply to both characters. And given that, if Jace and Sara had married, their daughter would have been a Starkgaryen with "secret" bastard heritage (from both her parents), marrying a Stark Heir, it does make sense (at least in my mind) that this may apply to Jon and Sansa's future plot. the That's something I touched on here in my "what will Jon's endgame" post.

Then there's the Vermax of it all...

Mushroom also claims that Vermax left a clutch of dragon’s eggs at Winterfell, which is equally absurd. Whilst it is true that determining the sex of a living dragon is a nigh on impossible task, no other source mentions Vermax producing so much as a single egg, so it must be assumed that he was male. Septon Barth’s speculation that the dragons change sex at need, being “as mutable as flame,” is too ludicrous to consider.)

This brought to mind the ole' Jonnel and Sansa (the first) thing - beyond the J&S similarities (Jacaerys & Sara, Jon & Sansa, Jonnel & Sansa), I think it's also important that Jonnel and Sansa never have any children, though they're married for several years. Jacaerys and Sara also never have children, yet there's the rumor Vermax laid eggs in the crypt, with some believing this may have meant Sara was pregnant (but perhaps miscarried) when Jacaerys left. I think however, the fact that both J&S couples kind of mysteriously do not have children of their own, and that their Houses descend from someone else to be important.

I've kind of briefly gone into the idea that Bran rules in a parliamentary style over (what's left of) Westeros, and while I'm not too committed one way or the other on whether he physically has children or whether they elect the ruler on the Iron Throne more often starting from Bran, the succession is significantly less of an issue because of the permanent Great Council/Parliament that will exist. Sansa (and Jon, for that matter), however, is the heiress to a long line of kings and lords and needs some sort of heir. I don't think it's out of the realm of possibililty that while in the Vale, she connects with some of Jocelyn Stark's descendants (the famous "Vale cousins" that Catelyn mentions as heirs for Robb) and makes one of them her heir, or even names the children of Arya her heir, and pulls a Queen Elizabeth, but then I thought of Vermax laying dragon eggs that are never found, and Jonnel and Sansa never having children, and George's love of threes and thought...perhaps Jon and Sansa will have an heir, but Sansa can't claim the child as hers.

In that same vein, it’s noteworthy to me as well that Serena and Edric (Sansa's younger sister and Jonnel's younger brother) have TWO sons but the line completely bypasses them. We have no idea how the Northerners felt about these marriages beyond the fact that they didn't like Lynara's sons because their rules were plagued by troubles. Is it possible that they chose to bypass Edric's sons because of the incest, and Sansa/Jon may be forced to reconcile with how the realm views him (as Ned's son) and what he actually is (Lyanna's son) when it comes to the line of succession? IE - Vermax is rumored to lay an egg in the crypts but no one ever finds out, Sansa is rumored to have have had a child with her “brother” but no one ever finds out the truth.

TO SUM UP: I think the Pact of Ice and Fire is a hint that Jon and Sansa will secretly marry in the godswood of Winterfell, and it's likely that when Sansa is named Queen in the North, her heir will be "fathered by a wolf" or a "wildling" and she and Jon won't be able to tell anyone that Jon is the father.

[artsycooky13]

top 3 fave bbys in the burrito show (bonus SUPER LONG tags on how i feel bout the characters)

[the-words-we-sung]

Season 3 ending

So... It's been almost a week since the last episode, almost a week trying to wrap my head around the end of the show, trying to manage my feelings about it all.

It's hard to end up feeling the complete opposite of nearly everyone on my dash but I've come to terms with the fact that I didn't love the ending. I didn't love this last episode. (I shouldn't feel ashamed or weird for saying so but you guys loved it so much that I feel a bit like an outsider right now 😓)

I haven't been a fan of the show for as long as most of you, but it means so much to me. These characters carved a place in my heart and in my head, and they've made me happy for months now. They helped me get through some stuff, made me discover some amazing artists, meet even more amazing people through this fandom. And I loved the story. Even in its darkest, saddest parts, I loved it. I was invested.

I love Wilhelm and Simon, together and separately. They mean so much to me. And I loved season 1 and 2. It made me happy, and sad, and frustrated, and exalted. But overall, I trusted the show and I was not disappointed.

Season 3 was a lot. I liked the first 5 episodes. I can't say that I loved everything about them: I was not expecting things to get so hard for Simon, with no reprieve in sight. I was not worried about Wilmon being endgame (I know it was a big stress for the fandom but honestly I never doubted that they were endgame), but I was wondering how the show would go about tying all the knots it made (I should even say all the knots it added during this last season).

(Under a read more because it's a bit long and I don't want to bother those who don't wanna read more of my frustrated thoughts ^^')

And unfortunately the last episode was a huge let down for me. Yes, it's partly because nothing I was hoping for actually happened, but mostly, it's because the choices they made did not feel very satisfying to me: ⁕ Simon was barely there. We went from him being bullied online/offline non stop for 5 episodes to almost nothing. It makes 0 sense to me. ⁕ Kristina suddenly feeling better: she was having break down upon break down for an entire season, could barely look at her son or even just talk normally and all of a sudden she's back, smiling and agreeing to everything Wilhelm says? I'm sorry but I don't buy it? Where did this Kristina hid during the entire show? ⁕ Wilhelm deciding to not be king, talking for 3min to his parents about it, them agreeing and him running into the sunset with Simon. I'm sorry, what?? I love that they end up together of course, but it makes very little sense to me? It won't change any of the issues they had this season? They're still gonna be famous? And bullied online/offline? (Probably even more so now?). I'm not obviously saying that Wilhelm staying in line to become king was the only or the best solution, but I wanted more from this storyline. I wanted to believe it. And right now, what we got? It feels a bit cheap (and I feel bad for saying that because the ending was cute and romantic and all, but it felt too disconnected from the rest of the show for me ><)

And apart from these few points, the big issue I had with this episode was: The Angst. So that might be a me-problem, but it was too much for my poor little heart (I haven't rewatched the episode yet, and I'm not sure I'll be able to anytime soon ><). I spent like 40min of the episode with a huge knot in the stomach because the heartbreak between Simon and Wilhelm was too much to handle for me. I can see how it was beautifully made, that having lots of throwbacks to the previous seasons, the Wille song, all of that was great cinematography. But it was just too much for me. I got in the season spoiler-free but for this episode? During the lake scene I had to take a break and check online if they were actually endgame because it was starting to actually give me a stomachache. So yeah, this part might be me being too sensitive but I did not like that they made me see them fight for each other for 2 seasons and 5 episodes, but then just giving up for 40min before finally running back to each other during the last 10min. It was just too much sadness for me ><

So yeah, maybe my expectations were too high? But I feel sad, and kinda cheated. Too many things are left wide opened. Too many things make zero sense to me. And of course I'm happy we got our Wilmon endgame, but I'm less happy about how it happened.

It's a bit hard being on Tumblr right now and seeing everyone who thought it was the perfect episode >< And I don't want to "yuck anyone's yum" (as the saying goes), but I still wanna be able to share my thoughts! I probably won't write super angry/unhappy/complaining posts about the season/the finale, but I still wanna be able to chat about it. I did see some posts on my dash from people not being entirely satisfied with this ending so it's a bit comforting. And I hope we can share some nice headcanons, or just discussions about different plot points.

But yeah, I guess that's why I haven't really been active this week! Trying to get over the double heartbreak of the end of the show + being disappointed with the ending! I'm gonna come back though! I miss hanging out here, I just need to strengthen my heart a little bit more :p Gonna get back to writing about my thoughts episode by episode for this season (I can't promise I can rewatch the last one though 😖 It might take me a bit of time to get there). And I want to continue my song analysis of the show!! I'm not even done with season 2 yet, I have some work to do there ^^

So see you back here very soon 😘

[shimmerluna]

Sara was literally so scared to go to school at Marieberg that she was at risk of failing her grade and her mom suggested they both go back because of Simon?

[lavellane]

infamous mcs i am frothing at the mouth over all of u btw

[unearthly-doting]

finding their soulmate: genshin edition.

a/n: i haven't made a post here in a hot second and i honestly apologize about that lol. the motivation to write just hasn't been there but!! here's a small lil genshin post for now. i just spun a wheel to pick who i write but if u want me to write for some of the others then just lmk!!

includes: xiao, kaeya, kujou sara, albedo, tartaglia, and ayato.

warnings: mdni, yandere content, not edited, gn reader, kidnapping, forced relationships, arranged marriage, manipulation, reader injury in both kujou sara's, albedo's and tartaglia's parts, childe stabs you :peace sign:, canon is a very vague concept in my writing more often than not btw, this is kinda cringey </3, the yandere content in albedo's part is actually very mild bc i was restraining myself bc there was a lot i wanted to do w it.

XIAO — never really cared much about finding his soulmate. His entire existence was dedicated to protecting Liyue, even if the nation no longer needed his protection. Besides, with how long he's been around, he just assumed his soulmate was long dead and that he'd never meet them. Though, a small part of him wondered... what was his soulmate like?

And, almost as if the universe had been listening, he ends up meeting you. His soulmate. It wasn't a classic, romantic meeting. He didn't save your life or anything like that. You were just a traveler who decided to stay at the inn.

He didn't think much of you until his eyes met yours and suddenly color was flooding into his world. It made him dizzy, and it stunned him into absolute silence because all he could so was stare at you with wide eyes.

You were clearly going through it as well, because obviously. You just met your fucking soulmate on a damn business trip. What the hell were you supposed to do now? It would be awkward to just... ignore what had happened, right? I mean, he's staring right at you and this was all just very overwhelming.

It was an awkward first meeting, that's for sure.

But during your time at the inn, whenever you were free from work, you spent it with Xiao. He was closed off, clearly keeping his guard up and not letting you get too close. You didn't know the reasons, but you didn't expect him to tell you his entire life story just because you two were apparently bound by the universe.

Honestly, you just assumed he didn't want to be with his soulmate. This didn't upset you. It wouldn't work out, anyway. You're only staying for a few weeks before heading home.

But archons, did Xiao want you. Behind his typical, distant behavior, Xiao was taking note of everything about you. Your interests, your habits, your sleep schedule, your favorite foods and desserts... everything you told him or subconsciously revealed, Xiao was tucking it away in his mind.

He wanted you. He wanted you to stay here, in Liyue, with him. Where you belong. But he didn't know how to express that. He's never been in love before, and it's not like he'll just suddenly become an expert at romance after meeting you.

When it was time for you to leave, he was crushed. He needed you to stay. He needed you by his side. Letters wouldn't be enough to fill the emptiness in your wake if you left. You had to stay.

You will stay.

And when you wake up to find yourself no longer in the inn, and instead in some small home deep within the mountains of Liyue, you're distraught.

Xiao looks genuinely guilty, robbing you of your freedom but... you understand, don't you? You have to understand. He just couldn't let you go. You're his soulmate, you were destined to be with him! You'll love it here, he'll make sure of it.

Just stay.

KAEYA — had always wondered what his soulmate was like ever since he was a child. He would spend hours just staring at the small crescent moon forever stained on his wrist, wondering if and when he'll meet the person with a matching mark.

Of course, as he got older he spent less time thinking about such things, though he did always hold out hope that he might be able to one day meet his soulmate. Little did he know, he's met his soulmate already. Multiple times.

You took over Sara's shifts at the Good Hunter whenever she had other things she needed to focus on, so Kaeya has spoken with you on numerous occasions, he's just never realized you were his soulmate because you keep your wrists covered. He's not one to judge, his wrists aren't visible either.

Him finding out was an accident. You had been handing him his order when your sleeves rolled up a bit, and his gaze just so happened to look at your wrists and he saw the very same crescent moon that was on his.

And for a moment, he froze. He just stared. Long enough that you were starting to feel a little uncomfortable. But before you could awkwardly send him on his way, he was showing you the crescent moon on his wrist as well and thus began your love story.

Or... well... it's what Kaeya had hoped for, but you didn't seem interested in soulmates at all. You didn't want the universe to decide who you were meant to be with, you wanted to make that decision yourself, so you had, to put it simply, bluntly rejected him.

And he gets it! It hurts, sure. He spent his entire life dreaming of this day, and it's not turning out the way he had hoped, but... you guys can be friends, at least, right? No strings attached?

For a while, Kaeya was fine with that. You and he had a really strong friendship. He cared about you, and you cared about him. Though your feelings were platonic, he was holding on to the hope that maybe one day, you'll realize you two were meant to be together.

But it was starting to seem as though that day might never come, because almost a year into your friendship with him, you had told Kaeya that you were thinking about entering the dating scene. He was... not too pleased about that, honestly. It was pretty obvious too, the way his entire mood soured the moment you brought the topic up.

He didn't stand by idly while this happened. Any person he saw you chatting up with romantic intentions would suddenly avoid you like the plague the next time you saw them. Any blind dates would end with you being ghosted. Hell, even some of your friends, the ones who were helping you get dates, were starting to avoid you too. It was so confusing.

But not Kaeya. No, Kaeya was always by your side.

Whenever you needed him, he was there. He always seemed to be able to make time for you. He listened to you vent your frustrations out, never once judging you or telling you that you were being dramatic. He was the only constant in your life these days.

Of course, you were completely oblivious to the fact that he was the cause of all of this. It's not that hard to blackmail people, he's learned. But they didn't deserve you anyway, seeing how easily they gave up on you the moment he approached them.

Maybe... maybe dating Kaeya wouldn't be so bad... I mean, you're the one deciding this, right? The universe isn't having any play in it. This is your decision. Isn't it?

KUJOU SARA — never cared about her soulmate. She knew she had one, you were in every dream she had. She found it to be more of a nuisance than anything else.

Her entire life was dedicated to her training, and to the Raiden Shogun. She neither had the time, nor the interest in searching for her soulmate. Besides, it didn't seem as if you resided in Inazuma. Your clothing was similar what people in Fontaine wear, and Fontaine was far away from Inazuma.

She was confident that she wouldn't be meeting you any time soon, so she never gave you any thought when she was awake. She never made any plans on what she would do if she did, by any chance, meet you. It didn't matter.

And she can't help but regret that, now that you're standing in front of her. If she had known that meeting her soulmate would make her feel like this, as if everything in the world suddenly made sense, then... well... she doesn't know what she would've done, to be honest.

No matter, Sara had no time to entertain you. Your stay in Inazuma was only temporary, so she saw no point in trying to form a bond with you. You, however, seemed to have different plans. She was used to seeing you in her dreams every night, but she was not used to seeing you in her waking moments.

Whenever she wasn't preoccupied with something, you were there to offer her company. It was annoying, and she's sent you away more than once, but that didn't seem to deter you. If anything, you seemed to become more determined each time she brushed you off.

At some point, she had given up on avoiding you. It was easier to just let you stick around. And, the more time she spent with you, the more attached she was becoming. It wasn't smart, she knew that, but could you blame her? You're so... irrevocably you.

Her fondness for you didn't go unnoticed.

Many people in Inazuma treated you with the same respect they treated Sara. You were her soulmate, after all. Should someone insult you, they would in turn be insulting her. Nobody wanted to get on her bad side.

There were, however, a few bad apples.

It should come as no surprise that a target was placed on your back the moment people took notice of Sara's attachment to you. She didn't think she'd have to worry much, because no one would be idiotic enough to actually try and harm you under her watch, but she should've known better.

It happened a few days before you were set to leave Inazuma to return home. A disturbance was going on within the city so Sara wasn't with you when you went on your daily walk just outside of it. It was supposed to be safe, but it wasn't.

Some vagrants had got the jump on you, and you nearly lost your life. You were lucky enough to have been found by some bystanders, but Sara was less than pleased when she heard about this. She had never taken pleasure in killing anyone before, but there was a deep-rooted sense of satisfaction deep within her chest when she watched the lives of those who hurt you fade away.

And as she sat by your side, waiting for you to wake up, she came to a decision. You can't be alone. If you are, you'll get hurt, and she won't be able to protect you. She can't let you leave Inazuma. She knows you'll more than likely hate her for making this decision for you, but if it means she can keep you safe, keep you alive and by her side, then... that hatred is something she'll be willing to bear.

ALBEDO — doesn't have a soulmate. At least, he's not supposed to. He's an artificial being, so it wouldn't make sense for him to have a soulmate. Of course, he does find the concept of soulmates to be intriguing. Who, or what, decides who people are destined to be with? It's a question he hopes to find an answer to.

So he wasn't surprised when he found you passed out in the snow, deep within Dragonspine. He's seen this countless times before, travelers who don't take precautions before trying to brave the deadly cold that comes with being here. He assumed he would just nurse you back to health and you would go on your merry way.

That changed, however, when he was cleaning your wounds and he saw his name inked on your skin, right on your collarbone. In his handwriting, at that. It confused him, because... that would mean that he's your soulmate. But he can't be. And yet, it didn't come off when he tried wiping it off. It was a part of your skin.

This left him with many questions, though none of them got answered when you woke up. You couldn't remember much about yourself, other than your name and a few other details. You didn't even know why you were in Dragonspine, or where you were from. You did hit your head pretty badly, judging from the headwound, so that would explain the amnesia, though he's not sure if it was going to be something temporary or not.

You both decided it would be best to just have you stay here until you were able to recover some of your memories and although Albedo wasn't eager to make friends with you, he was grateful for the company. He was incredibly patient with you too, answering any questions you may have had ranging from a multitude of different topics.

And in return, you helped out as much as you could without overexerting yourself and making your injuries worse. You'd make sure to keep his little lab tidy when he was away. You'd help out with some of his experiments too, if he knew you wouldn't get hurt doing so.

All while trying to figure out how he could possibly be your soulmate. He checked over himself. Four times. Your name was nowhere on his body. So why? Why was his name on yours? As much as he hates to admit it, he thinks he may never get an answer to this mystery.

Though... that's not such a bad thing, he thinks. He finds himself enjoying your company more and more with each passing day, the whole soulmate thing rarely even crossed his mind. At least, until you had asked him why his name was permanently etched into your skin. It was fairly easy to explain everything to you, though he was unable to answer a few of your questions, sadly. Soulmates were still a mystery, after all.

And when you asked if you could write your name on him so you two could match, he found himself unable to say no. He found himself unable to speak at all, actually, as you wrote your name on his shoulder. You even added a little heart next to it.

But no, Albedo was too busy coming to terms with the feelings he has for you. They weren't new. He's been aware of them for a week or so now, he just never gave it much thought until now. Now, with you so close to him, it was simply impossible to ignore.

And once you pull away, you smile at him and say, "There! Now I'm your soulmate too, right?" And oh.

Oh.

There was no way Albedo was going to let you leave Dragonspine now.

TARTAGLIA — feels a little bad for his soulmate, whoever they are. They can feel his pain, and he can feel theirs. So... they probably hate his guts, considering he's not the most careful person in the world. He pushes himself to his limits and beyond, and his soulmate has no doubt felt every single second of it.

Don't get him wrong, he would love to meet his soulmate. It's been a dream of his since he was a child, always eager to hear the story of how his mom and dad found out they were soulmates. Even as he grew older, the desire never went away. It was just... buried.

And his soulmate just so happened to be you, the significant other of a man who owed the Northland Bank a lot of money. He doesn't normally partake in debt collections, but he didn't have anything better to do so he decided to take this one on. He was going to use you as an example to your husband, though the moment his blade stabbed you, he froze.

He felt the pain. He stabbed you, and he could feel it. Oh fuck, he just stabbed his soulmate. That's definitely not the picturesque first meeting he was hoping for. Probably wouldn't be a good idea to tell his family this either...

Stabbing aside, he was utterly delighted. You, on the other hand, were terrified. Not only did this man just fucking stab you, his expression went from bored to something akin to crazed glee. He stared at you with a hunger that made you want to shy away from his gaze.

He doesn't care that you're already in a relationship with someone else. Not anymore, you're not. You're his, destined by the stars or however the story goes. And if your lover tries to get you back, he'll just kill them. Easy as that. Absolutely nothing will get in the way of him having you.

And he likes that you fight back against him. He especially loves it when you manage to escape. Hell, sometimes he'll even let you go just so he can chase you down again. It sends a thrill through him like no other when he catches you, and you stare at him teary-eyed and out of breath.

You're always so scared that he'll hurt you, but he would never do such a thing. He treats you like you're royalty, spoiling you with a seemingly endless amount of gifts. You're not quite sure how he knows what you like, and you're too hesitant to ask.

Honestly... he'd probably let you stab him. Y'know, he stabbed you, so it's only fair that you get to stab him in turn, right?

You think not. You're very hesitant, staring at him as though he were insane for even proposing such an idea. A part of him was disappointed. He wanted one of the many scars on his body to be from you. But a much larger part can't help but go soft at the sight of you shaking your head, sternly refusing to hurt him.

If he wasn't obsessed with you before, he certainly was now. You're too good. Too kind. He's holding you captive (lovingly, of course) and you refuse to hurt him? You don't even want to pinch him? How adorable.

Why, if he didn't know any better, he'd think that you might care about him.

He was nothing if not stubborn, of course. You might not care about him now, but you will in the future. He'll make sure of it.

After all, he's spent his whole life waiting for you.

AYATO — never had the time to think of his soulmate. He was blessed (or cursed, depending on who you ask) with the ability to see the red strings that tied people together. When he was younger, before having to take on the duties of the Kamisato name, he would always stare at the one tied to his pinkie.

He even has the habit of twirling the red string around his finger whenever he gets stressed. Only behind closed doors, of course. It would probably appear strange to others if they saw.

Meeting his soulmate was something he had always planned out in his head as a child, and when he finally did meet you, it was so... simple. There was nothing magical about it, you had just bumped into him one day when he was out in the city and that's what started all of this.

For you, it was a forgettable encounter, one that would never cross your mind again. For him, it was everything he had been waiting for. Thoma thought it was a bit strange, but he dutifully gathered information about you when Ayato asked it of him. He needed to know everything there was to know about you.

He already knew what he was going to do when he met his soulmate, the only thing left was to actually do it. And you were definitely shocked when Kamisato Ayato himself showed up at your home and asked you to marry him.

You said no, obviously, because why the hell would you agree to marry someone you didn't know? Ayato had planned for this, of course. That's why he had Thoma learn everything about you, so the moment you declined his offer, he just smiled and made a comment about your family. It was very obvious what he was implying.

And even if you aren't close with your family, you can't live with blood on your hands. You were pretty much forced into accepting Ayato's marriage proposal. He was pleased with this outcome, promising to take care of everything himself.

Marrying him meant that you would, unfortunately, have to leave your home and instead live at the Kamisato Estate. Everyone was under the impression that this marriage was one of love and not coercion. You highly doubt that anyone would believe you if you told them the truth, and you were too concerned about what the consequences would be if you did.

Everyone at the estate was nice to you, at least, though the only people allowed to actually get close to you were Ayaka and Thoma.

And when the wedding was over, it was time for your honeymoon. You were not excited about that, but it seemed Celestia itself was on your side during that time because he was too busy to spend time with you.

If he wasn't threatening the lives of your family, you would have made numerous escape attempts by now. Still, you've made it very clear that you hate his guts.

Your hatred is something he detests, though he can't fault you for it. He understands that what he's forced you into is wrong, but in his mind, it was something that had to be done. He's sure that given enough time and space, you'll grow to understand why he did what he did.

And even though you scorn his existence, Ayato looks at you as if you've placed the stars in the sky.

Your strings are forever tied together, so there's no getting out of this. He doesn't plan on ever letting you go. He'd be a terrible husband if he didn't keep you close, wouldn't he?

[miengsol]

🎶✨when u get this, list 5 songs u like to listen to, publish. then, send this ask to tag 10 of your favorite followers (positivity is cool)🎶✨

@voxvulgi putting my spotify on blast :'D

but of course sara!!

one. escapism by rebecca sugar. two. back to you by selena gomez. three. choice by choi minho. four. caffeine by kiro akiyama. five. ferris bueller by emei.

[catmintbreath]

Ultimately, I think Simon's arc throughout all 3 seasons of YR is both about learning to set boundaries and not lose himself for the people he loves, and about discovering that his philosophy of giving people second chances WAS right all along, and holding onto that belief throughout everything, despite all the pain and betrayal he might've experienced as a result.

As a character arc it's a lot more subtle and unconventional and not as epic as Wille (who's the main character so of course) but it IS a character arc. Simon isn't just the love interest or the "emotional support poor." I think Sara cements it in words in the scene where Micke gives them the car: "I think it's brave, actually."

Then, the culmination of that arc is Simon still mustering the bravery to give Wille one last chance, and stop the car to hear him out at the ending scene.

And he's finally, finally rewarded - it's all worth it, in the end. And I think that's such a beautiful and humanistic message to send.

[cheesesoda]

calling you out based on your favorite triplet!

it’s ya girl back at it again with the call out posts

cw: mentions of mental health issues, sexual trauma, and EDs

nick: if you’re a nick girl/boy/person, i get the feeling you’re the oldest. you sometimes tend to feel sorry for yourself and then you feel bad about feeling sorry for yourself and it becomes a vicious cycle. you probably have either dealt with body image issues or an eating disorder (idk every nick person i’ve met has dealt with that). you’re probably pretty insecure and you constantly compare yourself to all your friends and it’s tearing you apart. you have a hard time accepting compliments because you simply don’t believe them. i think there’s a lot you don’t talk about but then you blame others for your secrecy and feel bad for yourself, as if they just don’t understand. maybe try letting people in and let them have a shot at trying to understand you. you’re not an enigma.

songs you remind me of:

prom queen by beach bunny

not strong enough by boygenius

idontwannabeyouanymore by billie eilish

sippy cup by melanie martinez

orange juice by melanie martinez

tv by billie eilish

matt: if you’re a matt girl/boy/person, you’re probably the quietest one of the group. you possibly grew up without many friends and you often feel left out or unseen. you were the quiet kid and never really talked. you’re very nurturing and you try to take care of all your friends because you want them to know you see them. you’ve most likely dealt with mental health issues (specifically anxiety and/or depression). you tend to overthink a lot and you probably have a lot more to say than you actually say. you were probably the one who walked on the grass, the one who was the photographer but never in the photo, and the one who sat alone at lunch. as a kid, you went unnoticed but now you’re not. as a result, you end up purposely excluding yourself from your current friend group(s) because it’s what you’re used to and then you end up isolating yourself but you don’t realize that you’re doing it to yourself. i hope you’ll see that people do notice you and they do care about you. you’re not invisible.

songs that remind me of you:

the archer by taylor swift

chosen last by sara keys

letter to my 13 year old self by laufey

nobody by mitski

afraid by the neighbourhood

everything i wanted by billie eilish

chris: if you’re a chris girl/boy/person, i think you grew up too quickly. you probably had to start looking out for yourself at way too young of an age and now you have a hard time accepting nurturing and loving treatment. i get the feeling that you were sexualized from a young age too and you probably have some sexual trauma. as a result, you act hypersexual because it’s what you’ve been made to believe you’re supposed to be. people don’t take you seriously, probably because you are the funny one or the pretty one but you’re actually very observant and analytical. you notice things most people don’t. you’ve often been the butt of the joke in the friend group so now you make fun of everyone else before they can make fun of you. you might come off as mean but i think you’re just scared of being vulnerable. you definitely have commitment issues which probably stems from your childhood trauma (including but not limited to family issues). you end up getting yourself into dangerous or unhealthy or self destructive situations because it’s what you’re used to and you think it’s what people expect from you. you don’t have to follow your self fulfilled prophecy. you don’t have to be what others tell you that you are.

songs that remind me of you:

goddess by laufey

labyrinth by taylor swift

safeword by tv girl

don’t miss me by claire rosinkranz

brand new city by mitski

first love/late spring by mitski

[actiniumwrites]

kiss me (not)

synopsis: how they’d react when you dodge/ wipe off their kisses for a day as a prank

characters: gaming, kujou sara, heizou, tighnari, cyno, kaveh, and lyney x gn!reader

warnings: fluff, angst, hurt/comfort, some humor, established relationships, etc

notes: i love this prompt so much omg. i’ve read a lot of fics other people have written for different fandoms and i’m actually shocked i haven’t written it before considering i eat it up every time (especially when there’s some angst 🫠)

gaming:

the first time he sees you wipe off his kiss, something in him dies a little, especially when you don’t say anything after he asks if you’re okay

so he starts doubting himself and compensating for where he may went wrong

maybe he had bad breath? or you weren’t having a good day today?

he hates that he doesn’t know what he did wrong, and even worse, why you keep doing it throughout the day

you only stop when you see the way he genuinely starts beating himself up over it, deciding it wasn’t funny anymore and honestly never was

“it was a prank,” you nudge him softly, regret overflowing from your voice, “i’m sorry, i didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. i shouldn’t have kept it going for so long.”

a relieved breathe and a small smile from him follow right after. you can tell he’s still a bit stuck on the whole thing, but deep down, he’s just grateful he didn’t screw up somewhere because there’s no way in hell gaming would ever let himself lose you

“it’s okay,” he breathes out, clutching your hand a little tighter than usual, “just please, don’t do it again, okay?”

kujou sara:

to say she’s confused is an understatement

she’ll immediately backtrack to make sure she actually just saw that correctly. did you really just wipe off her kiss?

so she goes in for another one, and sure enough, you dodge her this time and send her a quick goodbye before slipping out of the house and running off to work

it legitimately ruins her whole day. she can’t even function at work because it’s all she can think about

and by the time she’s home at night, she’s already tired and just wants you but she’s also too afraid that maybe she did something to upset you

fortunately for her, you spare her of the prank knowing your girlfriend well enough to know that the second she walks through the door she had a shitty day

so you apologize and tell her it was just a prank and you didn’t mean any harm

and she wants to be so mad at you for it, but literally can’t no matter how hard she tries so instead she just gives in and gets the kiss she’s been thinking about all day

heizou:

he realizes right away what you’re doing and finds it rather amusing

so he’ll play along too, not trying to kiss you at all and even going a step further and not showing you any sort of physical attention

try to hold his hand? not happening. hugging him? not a chance

and it ends up becoming a competition, because what can you say? you’re both competitive people

goes on until the end of the day and only ends when you’re both too tired to keep it up

“you’re no fun, you know?” you poke his chest as you tiredly lean against him

he smiles down at you, “how so? i let you play your little pranks, didn’t i? i even played along.”

you just scoff and scoot away, tucking yourself into the warm blankets and ignoring his teasing

but then he’ll grab you and pull you into his chest, giving into you, “fine. next time i’ll give you the reaction you want. happy now?”

tighnari:

the opposite of heizou: he’s very unamused, and is very aware of what’s going on.

as soon as you back away from him after he tries to kiss you, his face falls into a deadpan and he crosses his arms menacingly

“i’ll have you know i don’t find pranks like these very funny,” he’ll immediately tell you off, not wanting to act so childishly when it comes to affection

tighnari cares a lot about people, whether he shows it or not, so to have you pretend to dodge it upsets him — even if it is meant to be a mere lighthearted prank

so you apologize instantly, feeling a little bad over the whole ordeal, “it’s just a prank, you know? i thought it would be funny to see how you’d react.”

definitely the kind of person to feel a little bashful and guilty for overreacting over something so silly, but also doesn’t want to admit it

so he’ll just silently kiss you and act like nothing happened, secretly hoping you’ll never try to pull something like that again

cyno:

at first, he thinks it’s kinda funny since he always plays jokes. however, i think he’s similar to tighnari in the sense that he also takes a little offense to it

like, he knows it’s a joke, but he just can’t help feeling a little hurt over it

“is something the matter?” he’ll ask while you’re both on the way to meet with friends. you shake your head no, fighting a smile

defeatedly, he leaves it at that, knowing you won’t budge. he’ll feel miserable the entire time and won’t stop thinking about how you won’t give the prank up, even in front of your friends

and when you both leave for the night, he crosses his arms and confronts you as you both walk home, “it isn’t funny.”

“what isn’t funny?”

“your prank. it isn’t funny. i don’t like the way you’re avoiding kissing me,” he says bluntly. it makes your heart sink into your stomach a bit, admittedly starting to feel a bit bad

so you apologize and work everything out, telling him you got the idea from alhaitham who was curious to see how he’d react in a situation like that — that, and he felt like pissing cyno off for a day, but you didn’t need to know that part

he’ll get frustrated, but is glad it’s all settled. he’ll also be extra affectionate throughout the next week, feeling as if he somehow lost time with you

kaveh:

gets so offended omg he will literally hate you

the first time you do it, his jaw drops to the floor and he calls you out on it immediately

“what was that?” he points an accusatory finger at you

you bite back a smile and feign innocence, “huh? what are you talking about?”

will not let you leave for the day until you drop the act and properly return his kiss

when you continue to go on with the prank, however, he’ll start to get all pouty and just ask you to kiss him

and he just looks so cute that you cup his face and give him a big fat kiss and walk out the door immediately after without a word and a big smile on your face, satisfied with his reaction

lyney:

he gets so dramatic about it it’s not even funny

will literally clutch his chest and fall to the ground in public so that you stop him

when you don’t and you let him face public humiliation (because you find it funny too), he stops himself and gets back up

follows you around like a lost puppy all day and will constantly try to sneak in a kiss while you’re caught of guard, but you never fall for it and he gets so much more frustrated each and every time

then he begs lynette and freminet to help him, except they think it’s funny too seeing how whipped he is for you

and he knows it’s a prank too, but the fact that you won’t break makes him so lovingly annoyed with you

you don’t stop until lynette genuinely intervenes, complaining about how annoying lyney had gotten throughout the day, “please end his suffering already. you know my brother is an idiot who doesn’t shut up and i’ve had enough of him today.”

you laugh it off, but ultimately agree

so you go and find him, which wasn’t that hard, and tap him on the shoulder before planting a gentle kiss to his lips, “sorry for pranking you. it was just too funny of an opportunity to pass up.”

“you’re so mean to me,” he’ll complain, but will then continue to kiss you so often that you’re now the annoyed one instead

[cometcrystal]

dwampyverse orientation and gender headcanons

phineas - i don't know . in my defense i dont think he would be able to tell you either if you asked.

ferb - straight but in a way that makes people question him. maybe nonbinary and straight. he's gnc for sure.

isabella - bi. very vocal about this. has a patch on her sash for it. etc

baljeet -bi and an enormous chad when he gets older. has to fend people off by whacking a broom at them

buford - gay and and angry about it. now this doesn't mean that he wishes he was straight. he ACTUALLY wishes he was aro/ace so he didn't have to deal with any mushy romantic feelings at all

candace - straight trans girl. self explanatory

jeremy - bi and chill about it. a lot of his friends don't even know just because it's never come up

stacy - lesbian and suspected it for a while but she wanted to make SURE by dating boys first. hesitates to tell candace because candace will go overboard with enthusiastic support

vanessa - lesbian.... simple as

perry - canonically asexual and im fine with that decision. also transgender. he's narratively transgender.

doof - bisexual loser. nobody's doing it worse than him

monogram - cishet. is the most awkward ally in the world but he tries at least

carl - gay

linda - you know this bitch is cishet but shes WAY better at ally stuff than francis

lawrence - bi trans man

norm - he would try every letter of LGBT out to try and figure out which one he is and when he's done he just says "I'm Norm!"

irving - this kid is gay

milo - he'd just go with "queer" and call it a day

melissa - if you asked her what her orientation or gender was she'd ask if you were a cop

zack - bi loser (also poly with melissa and milo, since i didn't mention it up there)

sara - bi but she acts like a scene kid about it

diogee - he's a dog he doesn't really give a shit

dakota - gay.

cavendish - gay.

bradley - gay but one of those really annoying ones

amanda - bi trans girl. she went through at least 7 different crises before she figured that out

gretel - nonbinary lesbian...i just know it in my soul. halfway influenced by meli povenmire

kevin - loser bisexual. absolutely no rizz with any gender

fred - i KNOW they're a nonbinary dyke i just KNOW it. runs in the family. maybe kevin figures out he's one too. you never know

hiromi - cishet but she's cool

bailey - transbian 100% and dating gretel when they get older

hamster - it's the first ever gay rodent

[thecapricunt1616]

Carmy X Nervous about a home birth

Let’s be so real here. If you told Carmy you wanted a home-birth - his first reaction would be 😦😰 - because with his mommy issues, the only way he feels as if he’s being a ‘good husband’ is if he is giving in to your every single need, and desire as a partner - and even more as the mother of his baby. But Mike, Nat, and Carm were born in a hospital - so the idea of not being around 40 doctors freaks him THE HELL out, but his Queen gets what she asks without a single question -- So of course his answer is ;

“However you think little bear wants to be brought into the world, Angel. I’ll get the best damn doula and midwife Chicago has to offer, hmm?” 

As he’s rubbing lotion into your swollen 5 month belly and giving it sweet gentle kisses. Whispering to your adorable bump and resting his ear to it, whispering “shhh- wait I think I heard them move!!” All excited, even if it was just the grumbles of your hungry pregnant tummy, he probably knew that, but had such high hopes for his little. 

(More BTC ❤️)

I genuinely think that Carmy would hold pregnancy and birth so close to his heart, because he would see it as the one single thing he literally could never provide - so the fact that you so willingly and openly offered your body, no matter the dangers it came with - to bare his child? He can hardly believe it and it makes him teary eyed every time he talks about your pregnancy because of the sacrifice he sees you making each and every second of every single day you’re carrying your little love to delivery. He can’t say

‘thank you’

and ‘I love you’ 

and ‘you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting’ enough throughout those 43 long and a lot of time grueling weeks of pregnancy as a first time mommy, making sure you knew and undertood jut how grateful and amazed he was with your body and mental perserverance. 

When the time came - holy shit. When you woke him up? At around 2:40AM poking his ribs being like “Bear?!!” While wincing at your very much more painful then Braxton hicks contractions. He just gave you a lazy-ass ‘mmmph’ 

But as soon as you said “He’s coming, like- today- like now, Bear, he's really actually coming” he leaps into action.

He grabs his phone off the charger with quickness, rushes into the living room of your 3 bed house- holding his phone to his ear with his shoulder as he sprints through your yard in nothing but boxer briefs, hauling the long ass garden hose he bought exactly for this through the window as the phone continues to ring.

When it goes to voicemail? He’s PANICKING !! He’s whisper shouting into the mic 

“SHES IN LABOR. THIS IS CARMY FUCKIN BEAR. DO YOU HEAR ME??? THIS KID IS ON HIS FUCKIN WAY OUT. GET YOUR ASS HERE DO I PAY YOU TO NOT ANSWER ME? FUCKIN'HELL!!!!”

Hes rapidly hanging up and calling again over and over as he chucks wet washcloths in the freezer and drops to his knees in front of the couch trying to fill the birthing yoga ball with the pump as fast as he can. The midwife answers and is like 

“SHE BETTER BE FUCKING CROWNING ARE YOU STUPID MY RINGTONE WAS SCREAMING THE ENTIRE TIME THIS BABY WAS BEING DEL-“

and Carmy is like

“NOW. NOW. NOW. SHE SAYS SHES 8 MINUTES APART. GET YOUR ASS HERE. NOW. WHAT THE FUCK DO I PAY YOU FOR, LINDA??”  as he’s throwing the electric pump to the side out of frustration and using a fucking bike pump to fill your yoga ball so you could bounce on it like all the labor books said.

Meanwhile you’re in the bedroom, groaning and moaning, just absolutely miserable. Hearing your husband shouting at your doula before calling the midwife and saying 

“What the fuck do I do, Sara?! Sara she’s- she’s nearly fucking crying!! What do I- oh. Ok. Ok. Yup. Heard. Heard. Ok. Mmhmm- ok. Promise? Ok. See you then” and he’s right back in your room, rubbing your back as you contract and groan just whispering as he massages your pressure points to help get the baby down that he learned in birthing class, cooing 

“That’s it- mmhmm- good girl, let it all out beautiful, I know it hurts- but You’re doing such a good job with y’breathing princess. I’m gonna put this cold cloth on your forehead, yeah? It’ll help you feel nice and cool, and relaxed, pretty girl” like he explains every single thing he’s doing, before he does it. 

Whenever you have an extra big contraction, he's grunting with you and easing you through it like they taught him in the classes, adding the pressure to your back to counteract the incredible pain you felt every single time it washed over you whining and sobbing to Carmys chest "I- I can't- oh god- Bear, somethings wrong!!! Hurts so bad, so fucking bad- please!! Please let me I need to go to the hospital!! Somethings wrong B-Bear! This pain c-can't be normal"

He shook his head and rubbed your back soothingly, telling you the whole time to listen to him talk, and how it hurts so bad, and joking 'f'course my son would give his mommy a hard time huh? Sug said the same thing, Berzatto kids are brutal. Shoulda told you before I got you knocked up, huh?" his forehead rested on yours and rubbing your spasming back muscles soothingly.

“That was a big one huh? That means he should be coming soon huh? My strong beautiful angel - you’re almost there princess- a few more pushes and he’s gonna be in our arms. You’re so fucking amazing-“ he encourages, gently rubbing your belly that had dropped lower then you'd ever seen. You were on your knees in the bath, forehead to forehead with Carm. He carefully sat in front of you on his own knees.

"Alright one more- alright? Just one big push, yeah?" he echos your midwife, ever so carefully letting your belly go and resting his hands below to catch his little guy. You look at him nervously, sniffling and whimpering nervously.

"Wh-what if I can't, Carm? What if hes t-too big or- or-" he cuts you off by kissing your lips lovingly.

"You, You? Baby? Shhhh, shush, princess- Listen t'me- you're made f'this, mm? You're the strongest woman i've ever met. So focus, focus, princess. Listen t'my voice. I'll count you out, baby. Only 10 seconds ok? Push as hard as you can, ready?"

He sticks his hands in the water, cradling you close and kissing your cheek and temple and contains for you through the energy sucking push. When you rest back, second 5, sobbing

“I- I can’t do it- he feels stuck- I can’t do it Carm, i'm so sorry. I failed us. I’m sorry I failed our baby” 

And he’s just shushing you into your skin, 

“Shhhhh, shhhhhh- let’s breathe, mm? Together. It’s just you, an’me. Ok? Don’t even think about him, princess. They told us, as long as you breathe he's gonna come out, easy as pie, hmm? So let’s breathe, yeah? Princess? Breathe him out, just in, and out, force all that air out as hard as you can like they taught us, remember baby? see-” he holds your hands, kissing them and demonstrating big grunting strong breaths for you to copy and of course you did. 

When it got to the point your contractions were a minute apart, Thanks to him, in 2 more big grunting pushes your little boy was born. When you were in transition Carmy sat outside the pool, knelt and pressed forehead to forehead, whispering to you through every contraction how your little boy was almost here, and how he could never repay you ever for the gift that was his birth.

By the time you were begging on your knees in the bath to stop pushing because it was "too hard" , Carmy knew from what they explained in birthing class that meant -- it was time.

So he coaxed you through three more huge pushes. Even though you told him each time ‘I can’t do it, please, Bear. He’s not ready- I can’t.” But he rubbed your back and told you how amazing you were and to just try, and assured that if your little man wasn’t ready they’d send you home, and that he was right there ready to catch your son and lift him on to your chest.

And after your third other worldly push, you couldn’t even put in to words, the amount of energy it took out of you. It was harder then you’d ever pushed in your life for anything. - but of course the little guy was scream wailing just like any other Berzatto would. 

You couldn’t stop choke sobbing as the baby wailed and Carmy kept muttering ‘you did it! You fuckin’ did it, princess. He’s so beautiful. Look at him! He’s perfect. 10 fingers 10 toes- hear those lungs, angel? He’s perfect” as he rested the pretty little cub on your chest.

You would just look at him amazed, by instinct guiding him to your breast to pacify him and watching as the nurses usher Carmy out of the way and you would reach out, hooking your hands together so he couldn't get too far away.

“Alright Momma! Congrats, now let’s deliver this placenta in 3 pushes that’s the magic number. So when I say 3 you’ll- oop!” The nurses gasp as they look down “lucky! You’re lucky! Alright mommy never mind. No tears, and your body went ahead and did that work for ya! Alright momma, here we go here’s your placenta” the nurse pulls it out of the water and you nearly gag at the look of it 

“Get that thing away from my baby! Keep it in the bowl!” You demand, holding him to your skin and cradling his head, you had told yourself you would do a delayed cord cutting, but you in no way wanted your baby to be next to that... thing - it just freaked you out.

“that is nasty! Disgusting” you sniffle, looking back at your little angel who was peacefully suckling off your breast. 

“Oh- sweetheart” one of the nurses giggles, putting it in a biohazard bag. “Are you sure- didn’t you say your baby’s father is a chef? Sweetheart, this will boost your milk production - it’s giving you all the vitamins you lost while pregnant. Are you sure?” 

*cut to Carmy actually gagging at the nurses American horror story ass tactics while you're like 'what am i, a CAT?!??!"

And the nurse is like “BABY!! Every other animal does it!! You said holistic is best!!! Alright I guess I'll toss it if it bugs you that much..” 

[skamenglishsubs]

Subtext and Culture, Young Royals, Season 3, Episode 5

Episode 5 starts sometime after August dropped the bombshell about Erik at the end of last episode, and Wilhelm decides for some reason to visit the party palace, in order to make himself feel extra shit? I don't know what's going on here.

Blink and you miss it: Hey, that's one of the clown masks they used for Wilhelm's initiation back in season 1.

Blink and you miss it: Henry and Valter are doing a class presentation on rhetorical analysis, and for some reason they chose former US president George W. Bush as their subject, which is pretty hilarious given that he was a notoriously bad public speaker.

Blink and you miss it: Instead of asking Wilhelm, who is sitting right next to Simon, how he's feeling, he writes the question in his notebook and slides it over.

Subtext: Gotta keep up that facade and bottle all the negative feelings inside!

Lost in translation: Vincent uses the word "nyanländ", "newly arrived", which is the current politically correct way of saying immigrant.

Subtext: ...but in typical bully fashion he asks the target of the racist "joke" if it was funny, and Marwan obviously lies about it as to not upset Vincent.

Subtext: Felice tries to play it off as no big deal, but she actually wants this opportunity to spend time with Sara without her other friends, in order to rebuild the friendship.

Subtext: Sara is right to be suspicious of her dad, because he is a lot more energetic than usual, and excuses his behaviour by him simply being in a good mood. It's probably his new medication that kicked in, though.

Subtext: Speaking of having a hard time showing weakness, that's exactly what Wilhelm's been struggling with by not telling Simon how upset he is about having learned that Erik took part in the gay porn initiation.

Subtext: So the whole subplot of the past four episodes was that the school locked up all the phones, and Wilhelm joined the little strike to get them back, pissing Simon off in the meantime, and now that they have their phones back he's not picking up when Simon is calling him? Not cool.

Culture: The choir is practising "En vänlig grönskas rika dräkt", a Swedish hymnal with text from 1889, but this version of the melody is from the 1930's and composed by Waldemar Åhlén. It's a very well-known summer song that pretty much every Swedish schoolkid has sung at some end-of-schoolyear summer assembly.

Cinematography: We're in the cursed music room, and this time the lighting is harsh and sharp, Wilhelm is in stark contrast to the rest of the room, there's no soft golden light smoothing things out, so we're gonna have an argument!

Subtext: Yeah, no, Wilhelm, sweetie, that's projection, that's what you are thinking about your brother. Simon isn't doing anything wrong here, he's just concerned about you being a moody asshole.

Cinematography: To illustrate how the relationship is going south, the music room which used to be full of instruments, is just getting emptier and emptier, and Simon is left standing alone at the piano.

Subtext: No, he's not feeling ok, and no, he's not interested in making up with Sara right now, because he's still angry at her.

Subtext: There are different kinds of homophobia, for example, there are people who talk loudly about how accepting they are of The Gays, but who react negatively when someone close to them comes out, because they were only fine with it at a distance. And then there are people who are ignorantly homophobic in general, but who turn out to be supportive of anyone close to them who comes out, because they know that that person isn't like The Other Gays. Shitty, but less shitty than the first group, and I think that's how Erik would have reacted had he known about Wilhelm.

Culture: In Sweden, you do the practical driving test in a car provided by the testing centre to make it fair and equal for everyone. These cars all have a red sticker saying they're for driving tests.

Subtext: Micke is failing exactly how he described it in an earlier episode. He's on new medication, it made him feel good and like he was in control, so he thought he could take just one beer with his friends.

Subtext: No, it fits horribly, and you can clearly see that it was on sale and that the price tag is still on it. But this is what Linda can afford.

Lost in translation: Simon actually says "jag vet", "I know", when Sara tells him that their dad let her down and that she is sad and upset about it.

Subtext: Unlike Simon who got a cheap suit on sale, Wilhelm just has his perfectly tailored suit delivered to him by his bodyguards.

Subtext: Last episode Wilhelm picked a sport charity or something that he doesn't actually care about, because he thought it would best fit the narrative the royal court is going for. So now his internal homophobia is screaming at him to remove the nail polish, because it doesn't fit that image.

I don't know what this is: This has got to be an editing goof? This sequence of events doesn't work. Everyone else is up and about, preparing the third year's dinner with the teachers and they're even cooking the food with a chef, but it's early morning and Wilhelm is still sleeping in? Anyway, the whole thing is yet another example of how the school teaches hierarchy. As a younger student you service the older students, and when it's your turn to graduate, someone younger will service you.

Throwback: Aww, Simon made Wilhelm a sandwich, just like Wilhelm made one for Simon a bunch of times in previous seasons.

Culture: Man, early summer in Sweden is beautiful, isn't it? This was shot at Åkeshofs Slott in Stockholm, and if you do a 180 turn on that path, you'll see the subway station Åkeshov, and if you go through the tunnel under the road and then up to your right, you'll end up at a sports centre where I went twice a week as a kid for fencing training!

This tumblr is now about French school fencing! Doublé! Riposte!

Subtext: Time and time again the show has shown us how much August loves this shit, and that he wasn't lying when he said he knew everyone, because clearly he does!

Subtext: And to show how much Wilhelm dislikes this shit, he is so stiff when talking to the invited kids who are actually benefitting from his charity foundation, while August just immediately jokes around with them and is much more comfortable.

Culture: I've seen how a lot of fans think that the flower Wilhelm is wearing is a green carnation, which is a symbol for being gay, popularized by Oscar Wilde. I don't think so, that's not a thing in Sweden as far as I know. Instead, I think it's an alternate version of a Majblomma, which is an actual Swedish charity thing, where you can buy these plastic lapel flowers from schoolkids to show your support around this time of year.

Subtext: Even though Simon is there, he's being shoved to the back, because his presence doesn't fit the narrative. If Wilhelm instead had chosen to start some kind of LGBT charity, Simon would have had a much more prominent role. Oh, and poison or not, that Princess Cake looks delicious!

Subtext: Farima is expertly letting August down, who of course pretends that he's not the least bit disappointed at being excluded from having dinner at the royal palace.

Blink and you miss it: IT'S LISA! HI LISA!

Culture: Kalle Stropp och Grodan Boll are two characters from a radio show for kids from the 1940's, but they've also been featured in books, comic books, a live action movie, and animated cartoons. It's about the two titular characters, a cricket and a frog, and their adventures. The last movie was made in the 1990's though, so I'm not so sure kids these days knows who these characters are. Personally, I can't hear this song without hearing their silly character voices.

Subtext: The Queen is still keeping up appearances and lying through her teeth about how she's actually feeling.

Culture: In real world Sweden, Victoriadagen is celebrated in mid July when Crown Princess Victoria has her birthday, she hands out a sports award, there's a concert, some charity stuff, and you can sort of meet the royals or sing her happy birthday or something.

Subtext: August is repeating the excuse Farima used on him as to why he didn't attend the birthday dinner.

Blink and you miss it: That's a Rolex Oyster Perpetual GMT-Master II. It's only about $10,000 and change.

Subtext: Simon, sweetie, I don't think the royals have any clue as to what "the usual" means when you're describing how regular people celebrate birthdays.

Culture: Simon actually says Laserdome, which is a company in Sweden that has been running laser tag arenas since the 1990's. I had no idea they still existed!

Culture: They're singing Lambo, a drinking song for students. It's a challenge song, so while the rest of the table sings, the target has to finish their glass, correctly sing the response lines, and turn the glass upside down over their head. If you fail, like August does in this scene, you have to do a penalty round and chug another glass.

Subtext: ...before her parents heaped all of their family's expectations on her. But maybe if Felice can break free she could pursue her actual dreams?

Throwback: Remember the scene in S1E3 when Simon is practising the Hillerska song in the music room?

Subtext: Queenie, sweetie, you're not looking Wilhelm in the eyes, you're not engaging in the discussion, and the only thing you do is to talk about Erik every chance you get. No wonder Wilhelm has had enough and explodes at his parents.

Blink and you miss it: Vincent won the "Daddy pays" award. Pappa betalar.

Subtext: In this context the award just means that he's the image of a bad boy, a player. But throughout the season, August has been struggling with whether or not he's actually a bad person, which is why he's not exactly happy with the award.

Cinematography: Fuck me that's a pretty shot of a typical summer sunset. In late May in the Stockholm area, sunset happens at around 9:30 in the evenings.

Subtext: One more explanation for August's body dysmorphia is that he got bullied for being weak and scrawny when he first started at Hillerska, so he decided to start working out more.

Blink and you miss it: The reason Fredrika is outside and happens to see Sara and August kiss, is because she's trying to sneak away the bottle of wine she stole earlier from the kitchen.

Subtext: And the reason Felice looks upset when Fredrika tells her what she saw is because she truly thought Sara was over August, and that's a condition of them reconciling.

Blink and you miss it: Wilhelm plays the first few notes of the original Hillerska song.

Subtext: And to cap off this terrible no-good horrible cliffhanger episode, Simon breaks up with Wilhelm by repeating the words his mom said to him earlier in the episode.

[pitchsidestories]

we'll always have Paris II Élisa de Almeida x GERWNT! Reader

masterlist I word count: 1292

a/n: hi, this oneshot was requested, to the one who sent it in, sorry that it took so long.

It was France versus Germany in the half final of the Women’s Nations League. In this match you were playing against a lot of your teammates but also your girlfriend from Paris Saint-Germany. Each team just had finished singing their national hymns, so it was time for you to shake the hands of your opponents.

“Ohh, your amour is starting to walk to us.”, Laura Freigang who was standing right before you in line, turned her face to comment with a huge smirk on her lips.  Much to your own annoyance Sydney Lohmann made kissing noises to highlight the Eintracht Frankfurt players observation.

“Shut it, Lau and Syd.”, you rolled your eyes at them before turning your attention to your girlfriend who was about to take your hands in hers.

“Salut, Élisa.”

“Salut.”, Élisa greeted you accompanied with a boyish wink.

“I’m going to puke!”, Laura who was bad at staying quiet for too long exclaimed jokingly.

“Don’t forget you play for our side because of that French charmer.”, Sydney reminded you grinning.

“I’ll never forget that.”, you replied sincerely.

“They think you’re that unprofessional?”, your girlfriend rose her eyebrows in surprise.

Clearing your throat, you told her:” Get to your position De Almeida. We’re here to play.”

“Whatever you say, mon amour. I’ll make sure to lift my shirt enough times to distract you with my abs.”, she smiled cheekily at you.

“That won’t work, ma chéri.”, you answered confidently.

“We’ll see about that.”

“Good, luck babe.”, you said before you both turned to your starting position on the pitch waiting for the referee to start the match.

During the game, it was still 0:0 at that time, Sara Doorsoun whispered amused into your ear:” Y/n, the abs of your girlfriend, she’s kind of hot.”

“Stop it, Sara and please stay focused.”, you replied laughing.

“I’m focused.”, the older defender stated.

“Good.”, you nodded satisfied.

“But not bad.”

“Sara!”, you yelled at her.

“Just saying.”, she responded sheepishly smiling.

Secretly, you knew that your teammate was right about your girlfriend, but this was an important game and you always wanted to win even if it was against Élisa. Unfortunately, the football match went in favour of the hosts and Germany lost 2:0.

Exhausted you fell onto your knees after the final whistle of the referee. “We lost.”, you muttered more to yourself than to anyone in particular.

“Shit. You still had a good game.”, Laura tried to cheer you up and padded your shoulder encouragingly.

“And don’t forget we’ve another game to qualify for the Olympics.”, Sydney added.

“Yeah, let’s beat the Netherlands.”, Lena Oberdorf sounded motivated.

“Against Jackies team.”, you remarked, the blonde Dutch was one of yours and your girlfriend closest friends in Paris.

Deep in your own thoughts you didn’t hear Élisa coming, only until she spoke directly to you:” You’ll win the next game.”

“Congrats to your win.”, you mumbled.

The French defender thanked you as she helped to lift you from the ground, so you both could look into each other’s eyes.

You swallowed hard, trying to hide your own disappointment: “You played really great.“

“So did you.“, Élisa replied. Her face was serious. Evidence that she actually meant it and wasn’t just trying to cheer you up.

“That’s what Laura said to.“, you told her.

A small smile appeared on your girlfriends face. With a wink, she reached out and tilted your head upwards with her fingers under your chin: “She didn’t lie to you. Now come on, chin up. You’ll win the next game and qualify for the Olympics.“

“Hopefully.“, you sighed. Your girlfriends optimism was lost on you.

“Also, remember, we’ll always have Paris.“, Élisa grinned, quoting the famous line from the movie Casablanca.

You involuntarily snorted about her dumb joke. “Okay, Humphrey Bogart, I’d like my girlfriend back who gives me a hug and a kiss to make up for this loss.“

Élisa looked at you with a smirk: “A hug and a kiss, huh?“

“Yes. You know, we still have a few days in camp left until we’re back in Paris.“, you said, blinking at her with big innocent eyes.

“And you can’t wait for that long.“, your girlfriend concluded.

“No but if you can, I have to join my team now.“ You pointed over your shoulder where Sydney impatiently bounced on her feet and Laura mimed looking at an invisible watch.

“Okay, come here. One quick kiss.“, Élisa smiled and pulled you close.

You quickly pressed your lips to hers while wrapping your arms around her waist.

“See you in Paris.“, you whispered as you pulled apart.

Lena passed the two of you and grimaced in disgust: “Okay, enough hugs and kisses from the wrong team.“

“Obi, you’re awful!“, you laughed.

Still, you gave your girlfriend one last hug goodbye before following your team mate to the rest of the team.

Sydney determinedly shook her head: “No, she did the right thing.“

You were used to their teasing by now so you only rolled your eyes fondly: “If you girls say so.“

“We do!“, Laura said with emphasis.

You smiled. This team was really something very different than Paris Saint-Germain.

Your second game was against the Netherlands. Whoever won this game would be qualified for the Olympics. The stakes were high and everyone knew it. But your team put on a brilliant performance, beating the Oranje Leeuwinnen with 2:0.

After extensive celebrations the night of the game, you arrived at your apartment in Paris on the next day.

“Hi, I’m home!“, you called, letting your suitcase drop right on the floor. You were still exhilarated from the win.

Élisa appeared from the kitchen: “Hi.“

You crossed the distance to her quickly and jumped right into her arms: “We’re going to the Olympics!“

Laughing, she tried to hold her balance: “I know, I’m so happy for you.“

“Poor Jackie though remind me to invite her to dinner soon.”, you sighed empathetically.

“She’ll be fine, trust me. That’s football. You win some, you lose some. No one should know that better than you.”, the defender reminded you while carrying you to the sofa to place you down on it.

“Yes, it was really a rollercoaster ride.”, you admitted as your girlfriend sat down next to you.

“But with a happy ending.”, Élisa grinned at you.

“Right.”, you nodded enthusiastically.

“Can’t wait to go to Paris with you.”, she muttered.

“Actually, that’s great, we’re already there.”, you joked laughing.

“I meant at the final of the Olympics and you know that.”, the French player corrected you.

Her mentioning the end game made your cheeks turn hot: “I know but I couldn’t resist.”

“The qualification clearly has gotten to your head.”, Élisa teased you.

Swiftly you changed the topic away from football: “So, what should we do now?”

“Oh, I have a few ideas.”, the dark-haired woman answered with a dirty smile on her lips.

“Does this involve the bedroom?”, you asked her cheekily.

“Absolutely.”

“I like that a lot.”, you confessed. The weeks away from each other due to national team duties always made you hungry for your lover’s touch, you could feel the sexual tension rise in air.

“Follow me then.”, Élisa said, holding her hand up for you to grasp it before leading you to your shared bedroom. Seeing the bottle of red wine on the nightstand and the rose petals on the bed send you thrills of excitement through your body.

You might have lost against her in the nations league game, but you knew you won her heart as you followed her to bed, awaiting the kisses and touches you both have missed. Knowing deep inside that Paris and the women you loved were always worth coming back to.

Pictures are from pinterest.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The art of Daniel Danger

[Image ID: Daniel Danger's art print, 'To all who home to this happy place,' depicting a ruined Disneyland castle in a post-apocalyptic landscape with a statue of Walt and Mickey in the rubble.]

There’s this behavioral economics study that completely changed the way i thought about art, teaching, and critique: it’s a 1993 study called “Introspecting about Reasons can Reduce Post-Choice Satisfaction” by Timothy D Wilson, Douglas J Lisle, Jonathan Schooler, Sara Hodges, Kristen Klaaren and Suzanne LaFleur:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240281868_Introspecting_about_Reasons_can_Reduce_Post-Choice_Satisfaction

The experimenters asked subjects to preference-rank some art posters; half the posters were cute cartoony posters, and the other half were fine art posters. One group of subjects assigned a simple numeric rank to the posters, and the other had to rank them and explain their ranking. Once they were done, they got to keep their posters.

There was a stark difference in the two groups’ preferences: the group that had to explain their choices picked the cartoony images, while the group that basically got to point at their favorite and say, “Ooh, I like that!” chose the fine art posters.

Then, months later, the experimenters followed up and asked the subjects what they’d done with the poster they got to take home. The ones who’d had to explain their choices and had brought home cartoony images had thrown those posters away. The ones who didn’t have to explain what they liked about their choice, who’d chosen fine art, had hung them up at home and kept them there.

The implication is that it’s hard to explain what makes art good, and the better art is, the harder it is to put your finger on what makes it so good. More: the obvious, easy-to-articulate virtues of art are the less important virtues. Art’s virtues are easy to spot and hard to explain.

The reason this stuck with me is that I learned to be a writer through writing workshops where we would go around in a circle and explain what we liked and didn’t like about someone’s story, and suggest ways to make it better. I started as a teenager in workshops organized by Judith Merril in Toronto, then through my high-school workshop (which Judy had actually founded a decade-plus earlier through a writer in the schools grant), and then at the Clarion workshop in 1992. I went on to teach many of these workshops: Clarion, Clarion West and Viable Paradise.

So I’ve spent a lot of time trying to explain what was and wasn’t good about other peoples’ art (and my own!), and how to make it better. There’s a kind of checklist to help with this: when a story is falling short in some way, writers roll out these “rules” for what makes for good and bad prose. There are a bunch of these rulesets (think of Strunk & White’s Elements of Style), including some genre-specific ones like the Turkey City Lexicon:

https://www.sfwa.org/2009/06/18/turkey-city-lexicon-a-primer-for-sf-workshops/

A few years ago, I was teaching on the Writing Excuses cruise and a student said something like, “Hey, I know all these rules for writing good stories, but I keep reading these stories I really like and they break the rules. When can I break the rules?”

There’s a stock answer a writing teacher is supposed to give here: “Well, first you have to master the rules, then you can break them. You can’t improvise a jazz solo without first learning your scales.”

But in that moment, I thought back to the study with the posters and I had a revelation. These weren’t “rules” at all — they were just things that are hard and therefore easy to screw up. No one really knows why a story isn’t working, but they absolutely know when it doesn’t, and so, like the experimental subject called upon to explain their preferences, they reach for simple answers: “there’s too much exposition,” or “you don’t foreshadow the ending enough.”

There are lots of amazing stories that are full of exposition (readers of mine will not be shocked to learn I hold this view). There are lots of twist endings that are incredible — and not despite coming out of left field, but because of it.

The thing is, if you can’t say what’s wrong, but you know something is wrong, it’s perfectly reasonable to say, “Well, why don’t you try to replace or polish the things that are hardest to do right. Whatever it is that isn’t working here, chances are it’s the thing that’s hardest to make work”:

https://locusmag.com/2020/05/cory-doctorow-rules-for-writers/

But if I could change one thing about how we talk about writing and its “rules,” it would be to draw this distinction, characterizing certain literary feats as easier to screw up than others, having the humility to admit that we just don’t know what’s wrong with a story, and then helping the writer create probabilistically ranked lists of the things they could tinker with to try and improve their execution.

Which is all a very, very long-winded way to explain why I bought a giant, gorgeous art-print at Comic-Con this weekend, even though I have nowhere to hang it and had sworn I would absolutely not buy any art at the con.

I was walking the floor, peeking into booths, when I happened on Daniel Danger’s booth (#5034, if you’re at the con today), and I was just fuckin’ poleaxed by his work.

http://www.tinymediaempire.com/

[Image ID: Daniel Danger’s ‘It stopped being about the panic,’ depicting a ruined mansion interwoven with the skeletal branches of a tree, with a weeping statue and two human figures]

Now, see above. I can’t tell you why I loved this work so much (and that’s OK!), but boy oh boy did it speak to me. I just kind of stood there with my mouth open, slowly moving from print to print, admiring works like “It stopped being about the panic.”

https://tinymediaempire.myshopify.com/products/2022-sdcc-it-stopped-being-about-the-panic-v4

[Image ID: Daniel Danger’s ‘headlight in the path of,’ depicting a ruined mall with a pair of stags standing at the top of the escalator.]

On the surface, this is moody, post-apocalyptic stuff, heavily influenced by classic monster/haunter tropes, but it’s shot through with hope and renewal and the sense of something beautiful growing out of the ashes of something that has toppled. There’s real “(Nothing But) Flowers” energy in “Headlight in the path of”:

https://tinymediaempire.myshopify.com/products/sdcc2023-headlight-in-the-path-of-v2

[Image ID: Daniel Danger’s ‘We are no longer able to protect you,’ depicting a ruined factory with a coming-apart sign reading ‘We can no longer protect you forever,’ and a statue of a sword-bearing angel.]

Danger isn’t just a

very

talented artist, he’s also an

extremely

talented craftsman. As a recovering pre-press geek, I was (nearly) as impressed by the wild use of spot color and foils as I was by the art, like in “We are no longer able to protect you”:

https://tinymediaempire.myshopify.com/products/sdcc-2022-we-can-no-longer-protect-you-forever-v3

[Image  ID: Daniel Danger’s ‘made of smoke and chains,’ depicting a ruined landscape with a pair of derelict subway trains at the foot of a hill on whose peak is a rotting mansion. A pair of human figures, holding hands, are approaching the mansion.]

Danger himself calls this work “weird sad hyper-detailed artwork of dreamy buildings of ghosts and trees,” which is a very apt description of this work, as you can see in “Made of smoke and chains”:

https://tinymediaempire.myshopify.com/products/made-of-smoke-and-chains-mist-preorder

So I looked at this stuff and sternly reminded myself that there was no way I was going to buy any art at the con. Then I walked away. I got about two aisles over when I realized I had to go back and ask permission to take some pictures so I could put a little link to Danger in my blog’s linkdump, which he graciously permitted:

https://www.flickr.com/search/?sort=interestingness-desc&safe_search=1&tags=danieldanger&min_taken_date=1687478400&max_taken_date=1690156799&view_all=1

[Image ID: Daniel Danger’s art print, ‘To all who home to this happy place,’ depicting a ruined Disneyland castle in a post-apocalyptic landscape with a statue of Walt and Mickey in the rubble.]

But then I got all the way ass over to the other ass end of the convention center and I realized I had to go back and buy one of these prints. Which I did, “To all who come to this happy place,” because fuckin’ wow:

https://tinymediaempire.myshopify.com/products/sdcc2023-this-happy-place-v6-foil

This was unequivocally the best thing I saw at this year’s SDCC, but I also got some very good news while there, namely, that Emil Ferris’s long, long-awaited My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Vol 2 is finally on the schedule from Fantagraphics:

https://www.fantagraphics.com/collections/emil-ferris/products/my-favorite-thing-is-monsters-book-two

It’s coming out in April, which gives you plenty of time to read volume one, which I called, “a haunting diary of a young girl as a dazzling graphic novel”:

https://memex.craphound.com/2017/06/20/my-favorite-thing-is-monsters-a-haunting-diary-of-a-young-girl-as-a-dazzling-graphic-novel/

If you are or were a monster kid or a haunter, this is your goddamned must-read of the summer. It’s a fully queered, stunning memoir for anyone whose erotic imagination intersected with Famous Monsters of Filmland.

(Also, if you’re that kind of person and you’re in the region, you should know about Midsummer Scream, a giant haunter show in Long Beach; I’ll be there on Sunday, July 30, for a panel about the Ghost Post, the legendary Haunted Mansion puzzle-boxes I helped make:

https://midsummerscream.org/

Now Favorite Thing book two was the best news, but the best experience was watching Felicia Day get her Inkpot Award and give a moving speech:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inkpot_Award

And then learning that Raina Telgemeier also got an Inkpot; I love Raina’s work so much:

https://memex.craphound.com/2016/10/04/ghosts-raina-telgemeiers-upbeat-tale-of-death-assimilation-and-cystic-fibrosis/

[Image ID: A photo of me with Chuck Tingle, who wears a pink bag over his head on which he has written ‘Love is Real.’]

To cap yesterday off, I also ran into @ChuckTingle, which is as fine a capstone to a successful con as anyone could ask for:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/53065500076/in/dateposted/

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/23/but-i-know-what-i-like/#daniel-danger