#idk if that meant like…separate coins

[greyeyedmonster-18]

(anyway, today i fake interviewed a four year old and asked him for his thoughts on the bermuda triangle and the economy)

[ebitenpura]

saw that ETL post about needing to have respect for your enemy to both loathe and love them, and sat there for awhile thinking about it in Eight's terms because when do I not have thoughts about him, lol.

Eight gives as much respect as he can to whoever he kills, but he can never despise them, unless they truly are someone who has fallen into depravity and cowardice (i.e. Valkorion). Even for someone like Arcann who effectively stole 5 years of his life away and hurt countless lives in pursuit of a rather close-minded goal, he could only judge him on what he saw of him on the battlefield in their private duels-- and that was Senya's son who fought every single time to destroy Valkorion. A conviction that he was unafraid to die for. Even "judging" is a loose term when it comes to his enemies because he cannot actually judge based on any morality: he can only see the full extent of their devotion to their own cause no matter how small and their lives in the few minutes before it is cut away.

People tend to show their true selves to him when they know these are their final moments, so he understands the full weight of taking that life. There is nothing glorious nor honorable about it. In fact, it only reaffirms that war is truly hell- where even the most fulfilling of lives can be struck down the same as the most insignificant ones. To that end, he believes true warriors should understand this: taking anything more from your enemy after taking their life is abominable; no killer should find peace or satisfaction from murder. An odd statement from one who does nothing but kill, but he despises the thought that killing is anything other than the act itself no matter how you dress it up. It can be for a worthy cause, but it should be seen for what it truly is at the end of the day.

That's also why he seems to bide his time waiting for the penultimate battle that barely lasts 10 minutes the entirety of a war. Everything else is just steps leading up to that. He conceals and holds back everything until he can meet his enemy face to face, which is why he essentially got...bored waiting to strike at Ardun Kothe, since it took forever to get to him with a bunch of menial tasks. He's a guy who does everything 0 to 100. It was the same with Hunter.

The real tragedy of Hunter was that they both knew they were very nearly the exact same-- only that Hunter could not stand up to him martially and once caught, was as good as dead. Eight just barely came out on top because of his doggedness and the fact that Watcher 2 and Keeper acted as his tactical minds. I think he wished Hunter could've met him on the same level in battle, but the way both of them fought was too different, despite the way they lived being extremely similar.

I guess the end point of this analysis is that Eight devotes his entire being to the fine point of a blade because it carries all the meaning in the world and none at all when it comes to those he meets and inevitably kills. You can attribute it partially to being Echani as yet another culture that thrives off war, but killing itself means nothing. It has no honor. It is yet another duty only he can carry out because of his detachment and dedication to it that surpasses everything. To his dear enemy that he meets for the first time on the battlefield, he'll give them his entire life- a meaningless thing designed to cut theirs.

[orbleglorb]

tumblr in the blaseball universe, part 10

part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9

image descriptions: the first image is a thick black bar meant to separate posts. the second image is a thin gray bar meant to separate reblogs. they are used continuously throughout the post when appropriate. like right now

☎️ official-jessica-telephone 🔁

☎️ official-jessica-telephone

what happens if the real JT wants this URL. it's a part of me now. who do i become if i have to give it up

🐟 offishal-jessica-telephone Follow

she'll have to krill you for it

☎️ official-jessica-telephone

WHO ARE YOU

102 notes

☕ eyesinthedark11

every day with salmon weather for the past few months, my dad has miraculously "found" fresh salmon for us to have for dinner. should i ask him where he's getting it from

#personal #i know the answer. i just need the verbal confirmation

0 notes

Whoops, looks like this post doesn't exist!

🐍 gamer--gorgon

shoutout to the guy (who i think might be in our shadows?) that goes fishing during every salmon game. you should see if you can get anything from the floods

#if he's a shadows guy it's extra funny because he's gotta come up from new jersey #all the shadows share an apartment there #charla said she thought she knew him but every time she tries to get into the stands to talk to him he just disappears lmfao #i get it king. i really do

41 notes

☎️ official-jessica-telephone

what do you MEAN they're rebooting supernatural???

35 notes

☕️ eyesinthedark11 🔁

☕️ eyesinthedark11

i understand that this is ostensibly a terrible thing to say but i truly do not think parker macmillan did anything wrong. if my mom was the coin i woulda done worse. i wouldn't have only been passively killing

🦆 peripheral-duck

everyone wants to act all gifted kid burn out fleabag mommy issues #coquette #girlblogger but the minute mommy decides murder is okay if it gets her some money it's all "well why didn't PARKER do anything :/" you fake fucking bitches. bro got cursed to bring destruction in his wake and THEN cursed to wander everywhere. we're not going to question that??

☕️ eyesinthedark11

if the coin was my mom i would have burned the whole earth years ago. not even because of firewalker or anything i woulda just done that

#like you are looking at mommy issues supreme. you show some fucking respect #<- PREV #on one hand it feels really weird to say these things about a Real Guy who is possibly still alive #on the other hand. you fake bitches #if you've reblogged a fleabag quote i don't wanna hear shit from you #'maybe the fireballs didn't know what instability was' valid point! #but that does not mean they're not at fault. you know #idk why everyone expects parker to just. fix everything. #if he's in the vault then he's been 19 for like 50+ years. he suffers more than jesus

5 notes

🐶 catgirlfirefighter

it's somehow the league's best kept secret that mike townsend is deaf. people keep coming to me like, "idk how you're friends with the guy, he just ignored me, he's such a dick" bro he can't hear you. and also yeah he is a huge bitch

#right judgement wrong reason #mike if you're reading this. ily <3

112 notes

🦞 marketplace-shellfish

Hey has anyone heard from that guy who was making the "meatcute is not real and can't hurt me" affirmations recently? I can't tell if it's a bit or not but they haven't posted since.

#blaseball #san francisco #san francisco lovers #hopefully it's nothing and i'm just anxious lol

11 notes

[linktotheheart]

I've been thinking of two of my biggest fandom loves, Legend of Zelda and The Locked Tomb.

I've seen so many takes that paint Hylia as evil, cruel, an oppressor who rejects the personhood of her chosen champion and steals away Zelda's chance at a life like a parasite creeping in to fill the shell of the girl who was always meant to be a vessel.

I've seen plenty of takes exactly counter to that, which insist that Hylia is kind, that Hylia is a person too and doing her best to love and be loved and save the world and the people she cares so much about and preserve their personhood.

I've also seen a few (though to my taste, not enough) takes on Hylia's ambitions, desires, and reasoning simply being alien to that of Hylians due to her goddesshood. On a human scale, she is amoral, because she operates on the scale of wars and worlds.

But one thing I haven't seen is: what if it's multiple of those? What if she loves her champion and princess so deeply she hurts them in the cruelest of ways? What if she is imperfect? What if she is abusive but not evil and a victim but not good? What if she's all of the above, and is simply so powerful that the way her actions translate to the tiny lives of people are tidal waves that are tiny in her wide ocean but devastation to the tiny island chains scattered throughout?

What if her actions are necessary and inexcusable? What if she destroys Link and Zelda every time she is trying to save them, her hands too big for the tiny fragile pieces of their heart? What if she is the most flexible narrative force, meant to represent courage, wisdom, power, and love?

What if The Legend of Zelda is just as much a story about the horrors of love as The Locked Tomb is? What if the horrors and wonders are just two sides of the same coin that is love? What if Hylia is kind and cruel and all the messy human things and an unfathomable deity? What if she is more than one thing? What if she is many things?

I dunno. Maybe it's just my adoration for the many different, often contradictory lenses through which the fandom views her. Maybe it's the way each iteration of LoZ paints her in a different light. In Skyward Sword, practically a main character, driving the narrative and being herself swept up in it. In Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, nearly absent beyond her fingerprints left on the hearts of Link and Zelda and her faint voice granting her hero back his strength. In still other games, fainter but still present like a slowly beating heart beneath the skin of Hyrule and realms beyond.

I love every interpretation of her. I love takes that pull from classical mythology to make her flawed and as petty and cruel as humans can be. I love takes that pull from the idea of a perfectly good deity that is a paragon of virtue. I love takes that stem from religious trauma that find her more cruel than Demise and more culpable for the destruction of their war.

I love takes in which she destroys Link and Zelda. I love takes in which she saves them. I love takes in which she and Zelda are one and the same, in ways that either maintain their separate personhood or synthesize it into an entirely new being (plurality, hello!). I love takes in which she and her champions control the strings of fate, and ones where they are helplessly entangled and imprisoned by them. I love takes in which she devours and takes in which she is subsumed.

Why should it only ever be one or the other? Why can't it be both? What's mutual exclusivity to an omnipotent goddess? Alternatively, how could she not be many things when she is a deity too helpless to save anyone herself?

Idk. Just, the horrors of love and how they don't erase or negate the wonders of it. How the two build on one another to make each greater. How pain and pleasure are just two kinds of ecstasy, and it's all just stimulation of nerve fibers. How Legend of Zelda is, above all, a mythos being retold throughout the ages in different worlds, and how therefore, it necessitates it's characters being many things.

Y'know?

[mogaimagic]

i have a genuine question about your stag coining post that i'll be respectful and willing to learn about, so please don't. like. idk. dismiss me easily or treat me as dumb?

but anyway, assuming it comes from the set of "doe/stag", can i ask why it's not exclusive to mspecs? the only reason i was always in favor of it being so is because those terms were coined directly in response to bisexuals being told we can't identify as butch or femme, and of course i'm in favor of bi+ people identifying as such due to the terms and history having always belonged to us too (i, myself, have claimed one of them) so this may well come across as hypocritical at first. i just feel like people who gatekept terms from us and told us to make our own instead would be wrong in also identifying with exactly the said terms that we came up with; not as a means of "giving them a taste of their own medicine" or being a petty exclusionist the way they are/were, but simply because it defeats the whole purpose. otherwise i would have absolutely no problem with, say, lesbians "stealing our terms" as many of them like to call it. so i'm curious as to why you designed stag flags for lesbians & gays as well, and am willing to read your perspective, but that's just my understood opinion as of now.

of course, i could also be wrong and maybe you meant it as something completely separate from the terms i know, but that's what i got from as similar of a definition as "a nonbinary/queer person who subverts or reclaims masculinity" so... correct me if that's not the case, i guess?

I’m sorry I think you’ve misunderstood, I didn’t create these flags and these flags weren’t for mspecs specifically, @nonbinary-culture created these flags back in 2018, I just redesigned them for fun, since I wanted to try making my own versions, and they’re not for like, any particular sexuality, the only requirement is that you’re nonbinary! Sorry for the confusion

[thevoidremembers]

Chibnall really just said ‘fuck the master :/’ with his whole timeless child arc, huh.

The master: entire character was created to be Doctor’s equal and act as a foil to them, two sides of the same coin to demonstrate the importance of choice and highlight how the differing morality was all that separated them

Chibnall: bUt sHe’S sO MuCh mOre tHaN thEm

Also the master: entire dynamic with the Doctor was that of two people who cared deeply for each other (platonically or romantically or however you chose to interpret that connection) and had a long, complicated, intertwined history together but could not reconcile their actions, choices, and views whose relationship was full of love, hate, betrayal, and hope that the other would one day join them (whether for good or evil) and literally just had an entire arc about the master/missy spending 70 years in a vault and trying to become a better person because “she wanted her friend back” and DIED saying it was “time to stand with the Doctor”

Chibnall: ignores said entire arc that culminated in Missy’s death 12 EPISODES before he decided to bring them back as a villain again with the only explanation being that he didn’t like having a bit of the Doctor’s dna in him (which I doubt would be a deal breaker considering how many times the master tried to steal the Doctor’s body/regenerations but idk). Also does nothing to make the Doctor or Master have ANY history besides a few throw away lines now and then and not even mentioning the 70 YEARS the two of them spent together to idk, have the Doctor try to relate to the master to try and talk him out of anything? Have the doctor be angry explicitly because she spent so much time on Missy (literally agreed to guard her for 1000 years) and genuinely believed they were becoming better/ could become better and the doctor didn’t know she died going back to stand with them? No? She’s just doesn’t like bad people and he’s bad so she interacts with him the same way she does with every single other villain she faces, including the likes of Tim Shaw???? Ok then. And that’s without getting into 13 LITERALLY LEAVING THE MASTER TO BE PUT IN A NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMP??????????? Guess ‘never be cruel and never be cowardly’ meant nothing then :/

[tobi-smp]

Sorry for sending this to you specifically but the thought of making my own post and being perceived terrifies me, and I also think you might have some interesting input on the matter?

How much do you think c!phil being the way he is, is a result of ""bad writing"" (I'd more call it inexperienced), and how much of it is him just being morally gray/not a good person/whatever you would call him at this point idk.

Because one one hand a lot of C!Phil to me feels like he's a prime example to some of the downsides of (mostly) improv role play. He only exists when he is being played and all the knowledge on him kept by the one playing him is only in his head. None of him is written down anywhere so he acts inconsistent and details are easily forgotten/reconnected. Its hard to figure out what c!Phil wants to say because it comes off as not even he knows what he wants — and not because of him, but what the writers want to do. There's no thought behind his actions, just an outside force dictating what he should do for plot or what would be funny in the moment.

I often wonder how different c!phil would be if he were kept track of like a dnd character, but tbh you could say that about anyone.

(personally I don't think this is a bad thing and the DSMP should be given leeway due to its nature as an unscripted roleplay, but I think it can lead to a lot of characters like c!phil)

But I feel all these things could also just be who c!Phil is. Is he an inconsistent person because he only parrots his ideals and doesn't truly believe them? Maybe he's so old and jaded he's forgotten where he's been and can't empathize with people suffering in ways he was able to overcome long ago. Maybe C!Phil is meant to be one side of the coin of attachment. He values people while C!Tommy (in his mind) over values things, seeing his views separate from C!Tommy's when in reality, they're two sides of the same coin, the thing C!Dream has been trying to distance himself from.

I There's so many cool and interesting angles you can infer from Phil's character depending who he interacts with and how — but none of it feels intentional. Is that just me? Is c!phil simply a product of how he's been handled by the story? Or is he just. Like That.

honestly, it's difficult to say what about a character is intentional or not.

I will say, phil's character has suffered the most over inconsistencies in the writing that aren't necessarily His Fault. the sbi dynamic was Fully Canon once, and then he was in character limbo for a long while after it wasn't.

someone like foolish was able to come in completely disconnected from anyone else on the server and then Built those connections thoughtfully, while phil was left scrambling trying to figure out What his connections to other characters were to try to build on shaky foundations that might move again.

we can say for Sure phil went through an awkward period where he was trying to figure out where his stance was supposed to be with other characters and where he had to be careful about what he said about his past while trying to establish his character, which was limiting considering just how interpersonal his central story arc is.

but at the same time, there are aspects to improv roleplay where the separation between the two doesn't matter as long as it's recognized as having happened. watching his scene between him and wilbur on the 16th its easy to see that phil was out of his depth. it was his first moments on the server and he was immediately dumped into the deep end of the pool. he was laughing, he was starting and stopping sentences without knowing where to go with them, and wilbur was so much Surer and Stronger in his delivery. which ultimately funneled phil's actions into giving wilbur what he wanted, in killing his son.

obviously we understand from an out of world perspective that this was due in no small part to phil's inexperience with roleplay, but this translates directly into phil's In Character Reaction as well. c!phil hasn't seen his son in years, he doesn't know what's going on, he didn't know how to help his son. stumbling, not knowing what to do in the face of wilbur's Absolute Certainty. it makes sense even if his choice was a Terrible one.

think about how dream's fixation on tommy in the early days was down to them both being active content creators that bounced well off of each other and how those interactions have permanently been tinted by current lore. the intentions behind what a character does and says matters less than what it tells us about that character, you know?

that said, while I Do think phil's character has suffered the most from retcons and shuffling behind the scenes, I Do genuinely think that things like his hypocrisy, stubbornness, and ignorance are written to be there Intentionally. whether that was his intent the entire time or he connected the dots himself later matters Less than what he does with it now.

either way, I think people are angry at c!phil right now because cc!phil wanted them to be. and I'm optimistic about his character moving forward.

[kitmoas]

Okay, okay. I've screeched at you a bit about how much I loved this, but I have a list of chaotic thoughts on my favorite moments for you! Firstly, this was freaking amazing. You've officially written on of my favorite things on here! Onto my list:

1. DID WANDANAT SET THE WHOLE THING UP TO PUNISH TOY??? Because if they did, where do I sign up?

2. Maria, my love. 😍

3. First Toy calls Wanda old. Then Kate calls Natasha old. Coincidence? Me thinks probably but also no.

4. I wanna steal Toy away and just love on them... all the time. (Even with that attitude)

5. Three words: Communication. Support. Group. (For everyone pls)

6. (Yes, I'm going to word for word screech this thought at you again. I want my answer please and thank you, hon) IDK IF YOU MEANT FOR THIS TO COME ACROSS LIKE THIS OR IF I'M JUST ASSUMING BUT THE SPELL THAT WANDA DOES???? CONNECTS TOY AND KATE ON A LEVEL THAT WANDA AND NAT ARE NOT CONNECTED TO THEM ON??? And that connection seems to be a direct reflection of their relationship with each other and as a quad. Because there are just ways that Toy and Kate are connected that WandaNat just won't be privy to. And vice versa with each pairing. Which directly hits on the complexities of a poly relationship. And And And it's also intriguing because Wanda and Natasha set this entire moment (the spell) up, right down to Toy being able to see what Nat and Kate are doing. AND that is almost a direct mirror of the fact that WandaNat's long mission inadvertently set up the circumstances for Toy and Kate's relationship and connection to begin in the first place!!!!

Yeah, that last one really got away from me a bit buuuut it's okay! I'm done presenting my thoughts to the class now!

-🌼

1. I wouldn’t say the original intent was a punishment. The separate days were more supposed to be a fun lil day for WandaToy while KateNat were at work but Toy just HAD to be bratty. So the ending turned into a punishment when it was originally was gonna be fun

2. Had to throw a little BlackHill in there 🥺

3. Oh gosh no 😂 I put a good bit of mirrored moments in there for a specific reason 😌

4. Bratty toy do be the best toy

5. Pshhhh they’re totally fine 🙂

6. The spell DOES connect Toy and Kate in a way that WandaNat can’t feel. Wanda is connected a bit because it’s her magic but she can’t truly feel what the two are feeling. Nat is just controlling the actual feeling—since she’s controlling what Kate is experiencing. I think it definitely points out a lot of complexity to their dynamic and poly relationships in general. Focused on physical feeling to show their connection and understanding of what they are emotionally feeling. I would say the more magic that gets involved with the dynamic the more it rocks the boat and makes all four of them think. Not really a bad thing, they need it but I would say that Wanda’s magic is unintentionally pushing things to move faster and more intense.

That last point where you bring up WandaNat inadvertently setting up KateToy’s relationship is..interesting and 👀 that is all I can say about it right now 😌

Read Two Sides//Same Coin—the 4th TGU installation

[miladysatsuki]

ok my post about talking about 3.0+1.0 kawoshin & kaworus development got a few likes so I’m going to ramble under the cut about mostly kawoshin & kaworu but actually about all of the pilots & the whole movie.

SPOILER WARNING FOR EVANGELION 3.0+1.0 also out of context spoilers for pmmm in the second to last paragraph I’m just comparing the two

So, first of all I’m going to say some general movie thoughts: I liked the movie, I know there are some polarizing opinions. I agree that Asuka and Mari both deserved more development and attention. However Asukas “confession” at the EoE mirrored scene really did not feel romantic to me like it felt very much just accepting that like no I do actually care about you Shinji despite always pushing you away I do want well for you and always have, but I didn’t know how to deal with that truth and my own pain at the same time. Asuka is not tsundere, she does not have romantic feelings for Shinji and never has. I will die on this hill. She may have wanted him to want her to validate herself but, thats a different can of worms.

Mari and Shinji running off together at the end, OBVIOUSLY the implication is they’re together but I feel like they intentionally left it a bit ambiguous for people who didn’t need/want to see Shinji in a romantic relationship. Like they easily could have shown her pregnant or kissing him or something and that would have been very blatant. I think the fact that she is the one who came up to him at the end instead of Asuka Rei or Kaworu is mostly fan service with a dash of letting the other three have room to be their own people separate of Shinji. Rei and Kaworu have never been their own person without their entire worlds revolving around Shinji and I think the visual of the two of them talking together at the end but still on the other side of the train station was a good way of showing like they are still relevant to Shinjis life but they get to explore their own worlds too. Obviously same goes for Asuka because she is the other side of the same coin with Shinji, she deserves to be her own person too. I also like to pretend after running off the train platform together they go to the other side & meet up with the others :)

ANYWAYS MORE ABOUT KAWORU SPECIFICALLY

I think its really interesting that almost every popular fan theory about him got confirmed in this new movie, even ones that had barely any basis in previous movies, and that they also dismissed the main popular homophobic opinion of “he was just using Shinji”. He truly wanted Shinji to be happy, because he wanted that to be enough to make himself happy. & I genuinely think he was aware and fully willing to keep living the loop for Shinji infinitely but Shinji recognizing the loop existing and acknowledging all that Kaworu had done for him already was also extremely releasing. Probably freed him from something he didn’t even know was trapping him at all. Kaji and Kaworus father/son moment was really sweet as well considering Kaworu is his own parents and has never known any kind of family.

I also have read some online takes that Rei and Kaworu are meant to be “together” at the end? but I really dont think standing next to one another constitutes a romantic relationship LOL. They’re definitely still/always siblings in my book. I also would like to think all the pilots kept their memories from the rebuild timeline, Kaworu keeping them from every timeline & Shinji having a blurry understanding of the existence of multiple timelines but not every detail.

I wonder if this implies Kaworu and Rei are fully human, I’m not sure how that works. Maybe he still is Tabris but angels pose no threat without evas anymore so he can just live amongst them like anyone else.

I also wanted to say like PMMM is another one of my dearest animes and something about Shinji pulling the Goddoka card to rewrite the universe without evas (without witches) but Yui facing the burden for him is so sweet. I can’t see it going any better way. Unit 01 obviously was taking as much damage for Shinji all along and her being able to be his final release from that pain is just, I don’t know how it could do any other way. I also don’t think I could handle it if it was exactly the same as PMMM and no one remembered Shinji. Shinji my beautiful baby boy who represents hope for humanity?? Completely forgotten?? thats too much even for me 😩 also this is a side note: I am absolutely in no way a Gendo apologist but I really appreciated him getting his loose ends tied off too, for Shinjis sake mostly. I don’t think Evangelion could have ended without Shinji gaining understanding for his father. Shinji understanding his father is another important aspect of Shinji representing humanity. It probably also allowed him to heal a little from Kaworu being “just like my father” like yeah, we all are, a little bit he’s also just a guy just like you. Gendo is the absolute tail-end of the spectrum of losing your hope and your humanity. The visual of Shinji using the lance of hope and Gendo using despair is obvi a very classic anime trope but I still liked it. Gendo losing Yui and letting it destroy him and Shinji losing Kaworu but using that to move forward and grow and keep Kaworu alive in spirit (also in real life but he didn’t know that at that point obvi). Chefs kiss.

anyways Shinji and Kaworu get a house together and live happily ever after :) idk I haven’t thought much about how they would live on post movie but I feel like the whole group would all be good friends + Toji and fam + Kensuke too of course. I could do a whole nother post about Toji and Kensuke 😫 I have so many feelings for evangelion lmk if u wanna hear LOL

[guqin-and-flute]

Ok but. What is JGY’s reaction to hearing. that. Apparently. A-Fu... doesn’t? Have a knife/lock pick on him at all times???

LXC: Why Would Our Child Have A KNIFE (the lock picks a LITTE more reasonable)

NMJ: Hmmmmm (idk What he’d say)

JGY:.....(trying to figure out how to answer ‘perverts and theifs’ without revealing more of his messed up childhood)

[WOW, I apparently wrote this months ago, put it in my drafts and completely forgot about it?? This happens when A-Fu is about 3, so before And A-Fu Makes Four. TW: Vague allusions to hypothetical and past child abuse/predatory adults]

[3zun Raise Jingyi AU] [Main Fic][Ao3 Link]

“When were we thinking he was going to get one?” Jin Guangyao idly pressed his index finger around the rim of a tiny sauce dish. The force he exerted fell into sync with the steady, confident rhythm of Nie Mingjue’s knife cuts, echoing throughout the kitchen, his eyes watching the dip and flash of the gradient of blue, like the waves of the ocean. Dark to light to dark to light.

Lan Xichen hummed in thought as he sorted the vegetables A-Fu had helped grow in the little practice garden with Huaisang near the late Second Madam Nie’s flowers. His long fingers lightly turned them this way and that against the heavily marked counter. “Their progress dictates when they receive their first spiritual tool, but they received practice swords to build their strength when--” he obligingly cut himself off when Jin Guangyao gave a light, correcting shake of his head without looking up.

“Not a spiritual tool; his first knife for defense. I was taught the precautions of it when I was much younger than him, so I wondered if you had spoken to him about it already and decided to wait.”  Dark to light to dark to--the knife strokes had stopped and there was silence. He raised his eyes and found both of them looking at him with varying degrees of confusion and concern.

“What are you talking about? We’ve barely just taught him that knives are not to be touched,” Nie Mingjue demanded with a frown. “The ‘little Baxia incident’ only happened last month. Have you forgotten already?”

Jin Guangyao bit the inside of his cheek to quell the rush of irritation at the accusation in his voice, and responded with a cool smile. “No, I haven’t.”

“Usually they begin with wooden swords to build their strength and to teach them proper etiquette. I’m confused. Have we talked about a knife before?” Lan Xichen was studying his face as if he were trying to draw the answer from him through his gaze, searching and puzzled.

A strangeness that sometimes rose in Jin Guangyao all at once widened the gulf between their lives impossibly under their gaze, yawned to show the canyon of space that separated their experiences and his own. Gentry. Safety. Comfort. The outlines of his own wickedly sharp blades, tucked into sash, sleeve, and boot seemed to warm at his awareness. As soon as he had been able to understand speech and balance on his own feet, there had been a blade in his possession and it was not until this exact moment that he realized this might not be universal.

It shouldn’t surprise him--and in a way, it didn’t. It made sense that they would feel safe within their own lands, their own homes, tucked away in neat little boxes of what was ‘yours’ and ‘mine’. They had not had to live in a place that was ‘theirs’ where you were unwelcome and unsafe. Where anyone could come and go as they pleased. Could use whatever they chose. He had just never considered that anyone would be so...arrogantly confident. Naïve. He had simply thought that perhaps they waited a little longer before teaching their children--though 3 had seemed almost egregiously old.

This was a different world that he was raising his son in. This had been an alienating mistake, once again reminding them that he did not belong, that he was not the same as them. He smiled. “My mistake, I must have misheard.”

The other two traded a look that immediately told him that this was not something they would allow him to brush past. Nie Mingjue’s frown deepened. Purposefully, Jin Guangyao relaxed his shoulders and went back to spinning the dish, as if the tension of an uncomfortable conversation was not already creeping through the room. 

“A-Yao,” Xichen said in that gentle way that felt like his hair was being stroked, but in the wrong way, prickles that were not wholly pleasant nor wholly uncomfortable. He wanted to swat away the sensation. This tone was the precursor of being Seen when he had not meant for it. “A-Fu doesn’t need to protect himself here the same way that you did. The sort people he is with are different from the ones that you grew up with.”

His press on the bowl rim was a little too hard this time, spinning it out from under his hand as it wobbled around noisily against the wood. His smile tugged up lopsided, the edge of it sharpening. Because they were alone, together, and they knew him. Because so often he was completely sheathed away. Because it was such a sweet and thoughtless thing to say. 

“Er-ge,” he said in the same patient, understanding tone he had used. “I think maybe you’ve forgotten the sort of people who visited where I grew up in the first place.” 

The silent consideration that deepened in Lan Xichen’s face was exactly the point; not pity, not shock. But the allowance of a redirection and the reminder of exactly how Jin Guangyao had come to be in this position. Who his mother was. His father. The gentry are not more civilized. Their coin makes their weight and words heavier and their rules and learning help to veil their nature. But at their core, they are just as despicable. The only true difference between them is power. 

Watching this disturbance cloud the eyes of the man he loved, he felt the bite of his bitterness melt into a dull ache, a yearning. Except you. Except the most principled and gentle of men. Beyond him, Nie Mingjue was frowning with narrowed eyes and that yearning grew barbs, the sharpness of it a million tiny pinpricks. And you, you....

“Have you seen anyone....” Nie Mingjue’s voice was a dark growl, grating to a stop before he could voice the unspeakable.

When he would have bowed his head or deepened his smile in the presence of others, Jin Guangyao instead let the mask drop away entirely and stared at him. Voice tight and low, he asked, “If I had, would I stay silent?” Would they still be breathing? hung heavy between them all, unspoken because it was unneeded, because he, of all people, knew. 

Nie Mingjue blew out a breath and considered the knife in his hands, the bits of greenery clinging to its blade before he shook his head and met his gaze again. “No.”

Well. At least they had that understanding. “No,” he agreed, bringing his voice back to mild, settling his expression. He picked up the dish and set it delicately on its side and spun it, the blurred blue whirl making a little orb slowly traversing its way over the table. “It’s simply something to consider, I suppose.”

He felt the weight of Xichen’s gaze move off of him and knew he was trading a look with Nie Mingjue that he didn’t want to unravel. So he kept his eyes on the liquid shine of that sphere. It was clear to him now that speaking to the both of them together had been a mistake. He had thought it efficient, since they so rarely could bear to inhabit the same room all together. Stupid.

“I’ll start teaching him some more hand to hand combat. Would that suffice?” The rhythmic, solid ‘thunk’ of the knife was back under the shortness in Nie Mingjue’s tone. 

A warmth pressed to his side as Xichen slid onto the bench next to him and Jin Guangyao’s hand was engulfed in his gentle grip. He did not look up, but instead used his other hand to flick the now wobbling sauce dish, tilting it off its axis so it rolled out of its spin and clattered noisily to a stop, upside down. No. “Whatever you both think is best. I suppose was being paranoid.” 

Xichen’s hand squeezed and Jin Guangyao knew there was enough strength in him to crush every slender bone in his hand. And that Xichen would never use it. “You’re being a good father,” Xichen murmured. “But, remember, A-Yao, he has us. He will never be alone.” Not like you were, he seemed to mean. Oh, Er-ge.

Did your mother mean to die when she did? He wanted to ask, oh so gently. Mingjue’s parents, Huaisang’s? Our son's birth parents? Of all people, would my mother leave me in that place willingly? His palm rested over the back of the little bowl, let the coolness of it combat the spiced and rising wet heat of the kitchen.

“A-Yao?” A murmur as, across the room, Nie Mingjue began loading the wok and loud hissing flooded over them, blurring Xichen’s quiet voice.

Jin Guangyao looked up at him; the sweet sympathy in his dark eyes, the tug of sorrow at his lips. He pulled out a smile and laid his head on Xichen’s firm shoulder. Turning the dish over, he set his finger again on the rim, tipping it rhythmically, now soundless in the boiling noise around them. Dark to light to dark to light.

“Of course.”

[barry-j-blupjeans]

Ok, you don't have to answer all of these because there were too many good ones and I still ended up with 6 after trying to shave it down lmao:

3, 12, 18, 34 (there is a right answer btw lmao), 38, 40? :O

(weird writer questions - send some in if u want!)

now you've made it a challenge and i HAVE to answer all of them!!! I am gonna put it under a read more, tho, bc it's gonna be kinda long sdlkfs

3. What is your writing ritual and why is it cursed?

My writing ritual is "oh fuck that's a Good Idea, I need to write it down!" and then instead of writing it down, I do the entire thing in one sitting. And if I don't get to it in one sitting, the chances of me finishing it are maybe 30% out of a hundred. I am getting better at breaks tho, so maybe my ritual still has a chance to change and actually work more than five percent of the time sdfsdf

12. If a genie offered you three writing wishes, what would they be? Btw if you wish for more wishes the genie turns all your current WIPs into Lorem Ipsum, I don’t make the rules

Hmm! First one would probably just like... "I wish to have the patience and understanding to do all the research I need to do to make this good". Bc too often I shy away from things bc I don't exactly know what's happening and I don't wanna get it wrong. So I'd like to be able to learn better, please!

Second one would probably be "I wish to be able to write consistently" bc Wowza nothing kills the man (me) more than writer's block sldfsdf

Third, and final, I wish for Support. I crave validation consistently. Nothing makes me want to write more than validation /hj (and getting ideas when I should be sleeping sldfksd).

18. Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end. Spicy addition: Questioner provides the passage.

From Tedious Familiarity “Your name is Barry Bluejeans,” the coin said. “But unless you find ### somehow, your name is Sildar Hallwinter. Stupid name, I know. You probably get the refs, though, right? Sildar, like Silly’s Rockets? I think mom hated that awful toy as much as I did, we could never get it to shut up. And Hallwinter, ugh. You remember Mr. Hallwinter, right? Sorry, Doctor Hallwinter. Hate that guy, hate his class, hate his teaching. But lucky for you, Barry, hate is exactly what you’re gonna need for this mission. So until we’ve got all our shit sorted out, we’re gonna be Sildar Hallwinter.

This whole fic, but this paragraph especially, was based off an idea I had in like,,, December? That I never fully got to. The original work went a lil further into that name choice and also just built up a lot of resentment, not only towards the persona of "Sildar Hallwinter" but for what Barry's doing in the first place. Like he doesn't wanna spend all his time looking for Lup. But he's gotta and he's never gonna give up. Discord screenshots of those two bits are below:

34. Thoughts on the Oxford comma, Go:

I mean, I use it when I can? Like, if I'm listing things, the only reason I wouldn't put the comma is if things were obviously connected, like two people arriving together. So if Lup and Taako showed up as a pair, I'd put "Magnus, Merle, Lup and Taako". But if they showed up separately, or if they weren't meant to be connected in that scene I'd put "Magnus Merle, Lup, and Taako". Idk if that makes any sense sldfsdf

38. What is something about your writing process YOU think is Really Weird? If you are comfortable, please share. If you’re not comfortable, what do you think cats say about us?

I mean, my whole process is wild lsdfsdf. As stated above, I usually try to finish everything in one sitting. Like, I will set at my desk for hours and crank out a 6k fic. I did once stay up for 24(ish) hours just to finish a 13k fic, post it without ANY editing, and then pass the fuck out. I barely ate or drank anything, which wasn't great sdlfsdf

Also just the fact that I can't write if I'm listening to something? Even just rain or anything besides my Room Noises, I will get too overwhelmed. I also tend to write too fast for my hands to keep up with, and end up skipping half a sentence and not noticing until I go back (if I go back at all).

Also also, I don't edit that much?? Or rewrite? With fanfiction at least. I feel like I should, because everyone else seems to, but if I'm writing a fic, I usually say what I want to say and there's maybe some rare moments where I'll rewrite a scene. Maybe I'll add/take away some bits but??? Idk! I don't edit or revise that much!

40. Please share a poem with me, I need it.

Struggled to find a poem small enough to not make this ask longer than it already is, but here's one I wrote earlier in spring:

the sun is a little bit brighter today than it was before i think just the idea of spring is enough to open my curtains every day we're deep into it now, the sun setting later with each passing night i wanna make flower crowns with the weeds growing back up in my garden i wanna plunk up a wishing flower and let it tear away before i've had the chance to think of a wish i think if i got the time, if i prepared ahead, i'd just ask for spring to last a little bit longer this year i was hibernating before, but now im awake and the sun feels so nice on my face

[dangerdangerhighvoltage]

Finish the Job (Sasuke/MC)

sasuke is dead last in the last lover standing rankings, and i will not tolerate this slander. (masa is my other main so it’s a very confusing time for me emotionally and vote-wise, thank you for your thoughts and prayers.) 

anyway some of my favorite smut is burly sasuke smut so here’s some 3000ish words of smutsuke to idk rally the troops? pay tribute? enact vengeance?

summary: sasuke and mc are carrying out a mission and something something alley sex! 

nsfw! 

“Alright, here’s the plan,” Sasuke said, reaching up to tie his hair.

“Oho, he’s putting the hair up,” Kyoichiro warned teasingly from the counter.

“That’s how you know he’s serious,” you joined in. The two of you laughed at the brawny man seated beside you as he bunched his tousled hair together.

“Don’t you have some gold to steal?” Sasuke shot at Kyoichiro, who held his hands up as he retreated to the front of his store, still chuckling. Sasuke then set his sights on you, trying to smother your smile. “And is that how you treat your doting husband?”

You and Sasuke had traveled to Kyoto to gather intel for the Takeda under the guise of being a married couple. As per usual, Kyoichiro’s shop was your base of operations during your stay. While the acerbic-tongued merchant gave you a hard time about being overbearing guests who couldn’t cook, you knew he was genuinely happy for the company, particularly Sasuke’s. You were just as pleased to be in the city, thrilled by the bustle and commotion and relieved at the anonymity the dense place allowed for.

Historically you and Sasuke had worked quite well together. You had developed an innocent, teasing flirtation that never crossed a certain line, but lately it felt like something had changed.

This time you had been tasked with intercepting a message meant for the Uesugi, and were waiting for it to come to the possession of a man in Kyoto you only knew as Taka. The two of you spent the morning tailing the man dressed in blue who was suspiciously nimble for his appearance as a fisherman.

You had followed Taka into a shop, and in feigning to peruse the goods, you had found yourself actually and unexpectedly taken by a hair pin. Sasuke, noticing the very real glimmer in your eye and the opportunity to justify your presence in the shop, bought it for you.

His back to Taka to give you the clear line of sight on him, Sasuke gently placed the pin in your hair. The two of you locked eyes and you felt something in you stir. Sasuke studied you, captivated, his hand still in your hair. There was a surge of energy between you, and you opened your mouth to say something, when you noticed a flash of blue in the corner of your eye. You watched as the shopkeeper slid a small parcel across the counter to Taka, who took it and promptly left the shop, all while you felt the heat of Sasuke’s unwavering gaze on you. You looked back up at him, that enamored look replaced with his usual self-satisfied mug.

You nodded at him and he pet your hair softly before the two of you thanked the shopkeeper and walked out, going your separate ways. Sasuke followed the man and you headed back to Kyoichiro’s, desperately trying to focus on the image of the parcel, and not on that look Sasuke had given you.

That evening, you strolled the busy streets of Kyoto, packed with people shopping, drinking, eating, and milling about. You tried to move as gracefully as possible in the uncomfortable and rather outlandish kimono Kyoichiro had lent you, apparently intent on turning you into a walking promotion for his shop. You found Sasuke leaning outside a tavern where you presumed Taka was, waiting for you.

His face lit up with surprise when he saw you. “You sure are drawing a lot of attention for a woman of the shadows,” he teased.

“Whose attention?” you tossed back. “Yours?” You sauntered past him into the tavern. He lingered for a moment rubbing the back of his neck before following you inside. You casually sat down at a table next to Taka and an associate, who you took to be some Uesugi lackey picking up the message. Neither seemed to notice you, but you noticed the parcel was on the table with Taka’s hand resting protectively on it. All you needed was to get his eyes off the parcel for an instant. All you needed was one brief moment. A gentle bump or the luminous smile of a beautiful woman or—

The sudden violent crashing of two drunkenly brawling men bursting through the thin shoji wall right by you.

The scene was bewildering. The bloodied men rolled on the ground with one another and then froze, the ruptured wall behind them revealing a clandestine gambling den on the other side. The room briefly fell to silence as those on both sides of the tattered shoji gaped at the scene on the other side in astonishment.

Sasuke had pulled you out of the way of the scuffle in the nick of time, and you suddenly found yourself lying on top of him, your face a breath away from his. You were suddenly aware of your bodies, yours on his, your palm on his broad, rippling chest, his hands grasping your hips. You wondered how they would feel if they grasped just a little harder...

“Why don’t we finish the job before we celebrate,” Sasuke taunted with a grin. You chided him with an arch of an eyebrow, but the scream of a woman pierced through your musing as chaos erupted.

More illicit gamblers were pouring into the restaurant to make their escape only to find a few of the tavern patrons were samurai looking for any excuse to prove some valor. In a matter of seconds a throng of fists, swords, and coins consumed the room, swelling like a tide. 

You looked up to find Taka was trying to make his escape out the front while his Uesugi companion went toward the back. You sprang to your feet and walked as briskly as Kyoichiro’s kimono would allow, through the fray and toward the back. Sasuke called your name out as you vanished in the crowd. He got to his feet and ran after you, dodging some punches and throwing a few of his own on his way to you. He watched as the man you were pursuing hit a dead end at the back of the tavern and whipped back around, colliding directly into you. The Uesugi man grabbed you by the shoulders, only to shove you hard to the ground and run past you without even a thought. An alarmed Sasuke bolted over to you, but the worry in his deep brown eyes melted away when you gave him a mischievous smile, proudly holding up the parcel you had managed to swipe from the Uesugi man when he shoved you.

“Hells, you know how to make a guy sweat,” Sasuke said, lifting you to your feet as you tucked the parcel into your kimono. 

The two of you looked to the front of the restaurant where the scene had turned into a total free-for-all, some of which was spilling out towards you. You turned towards the dead end again and Sasuke sized the wall up. With a single deep breath and one swift motion he had barreled his shoulder through the solid wall with a grunt, knocking through it. The two of you escaped hand in hand through the hole he created. Kyoichiro’s kimono proved impossible to run full-speed in, forcing you to gather the hem in your hands to escape. You didn’t miss Sasuke’s eyes trail down to your exposed legs.

News of the brawl spread fast, and within minutes, the streets were frenzied, electrified by the mayhem at the tavern. Sasuke guided you from behind through backstreets and alleys with his hand lingering on the small of your back until you were far enough from the pandemonium to take a break. You found yourselves on opposite sides of a narrow alley behind some empty shops. You were bent over, trying to catch your breath, and though you could hear clamoring in the distance, the alley was silent.

“You were marvelous, you know that?” Sasuke said. You looked up at him to find a fire in his eyes you hadn’t seen before. 

“But next time, you wanna try not giving me a heart attack and running directly into a mob?” he teased as he stepped towards you. “I thought I taught you better than that.” 

“Like you could have pulled that off and stolen the message,” you boasted. The adrenaline of your escape made you cocky.

“I guess that’s the difference between you and me,” he said, stepping even closer. Before you knew it, Sasuke had you cornered against the wall behind you, planting his hand on it right beside your head.

“I don’t steal,” Sasuke said, leaning down to you. His lips hovered just above yours and you looked down at them as his large hand found his way into your kimono grazing just below your collarbone. “I take." He'd removed the parcel from its hiding spot and held it up. When you realized what he did, you decided you’d had enough. You looked back up at him with impatient, stormy eyes, and closed the gap between you once and for all. He pulled you in as you kissed.

Your tongues met almost instantly, tussling as if making up for lost time. Your head pounded from the taste of him. You bit his lip with a hum and could feel him smile as he pressed himself against you more. His lips traced down to your throat as he roughly loosened your collar. You sighed and you responded in kind, tucking your hands into his collar, down the rugged plane of his abs, and back up his perfectly crafted shoulders. 

“Shall we find an inn?” he suggested into the crook of your neck.

“No,” you whispered. You didn’t dare interrupt the momentum. “We can celebrate here.” He held you at arms length, looking at you questioningly. You began to untie his obi, your eyes never leaving his. He grinned devilishly. 

“You just might be the death of me, woman,” he said as he picked you up and sat you down on a ledge in the alley. He kissed you deeply, yanking your obi loose. As your kimono slackened, you pulled it up enough to wrap your legs around him and felt his unmistakeable hardness rub up against you. You closed your eyes, reached down, and grasped it over his hakama. You felt his breath hitch on your lips.

You felt the weight of him leave your body and opened your eyes. He was down on his knees, lifting your slackened kimono up higher. His hands gently massaged your legs as he placed a kiss on your calf, your knee, your inner thighs. You looked around the alley to make sure nobody was there before leaning back to open your legs and tuck your foot up on the ledge. His mouth hovered over your sex. You quivered at the sensation of his breath, waiting for him to do something, anything.

Finally his tongue testingly grazed your clit just barely, sending a shock up your spine as you inhaled sharply. Satisfied with your response, he languidly ran his broad tongue from your opening up, swirling and flicking it against your throbbing bud, and back down. You let out a reflexive whine. 

“Keep it down up there,” he joked, looking up at you. “Don’t want to wake the neighbors.” 

You bit your lip and clutched onto that brown mop of hair for dear life as Sasuke tongued you relentlessly. You tried your best to be quiet, but the sound of your own gasps hanging crisp in the alley seemed deafening. He slid a couple fingers into you as he licked you, dipping into you and stroking you until your legs started to buckle. You tightened your grip on his hair even harder as you trembled in pleasure with a small cry. You finally let go of him, panting, and pulled him back up to you. 

“I’ve always wondered how you tasted,” he said, wiping your glaze from his chin. He kissed you again almost drunkenly, as if intoxicated by you, and you licked yourself off him, his lips, his tongue, his chin. “Sweeter than I imagined.”

“Sasuke,” you whispered urgently. You’d finally untied all your robes and they hung open, exposing you to the moonlight. He looked at you with that same captivated look he gave you in the shop earlier that day, taking you in. He pushed you to lean on your elbows and ran his palms from your stomach up, kissing and caressing your breasts and stroking your neck in reverence. 

He abruptly stood back up and brought his hands up to his head, feverishly gathering his hair to tie it up. ‘That’s how you know he’s serious,’ you recalled yourself saying earlier in the day, thrilled by how the circumstances had changed.

“I won’t go easy on you,” he warned as he finished.

“You never do.”

His hair now out of the way, he parted his own robes reaching down to his stiff, considerable length, the tip glistening. You reached for it hungrily and grasped it, stroking him gently.

“You want it?” he asked. You looked at him. “Say it,” he growled, smug but affectionate. “Tell me.”

“I want it,” you stammered desperately. “I want you.” You would say whatever he wanted at this point.

He brusquely grabbed your ass and pulled you to the edge of the ledge closer to him, holding himself at your entrance. “And what do you want me to do?” He whispered your name in your ear and swept your opening with himself, eliciting another whimper. You wrapped your legs around him again and grasped his muscular arms. The same arms that carried your pack when you excitedly ran into the forest to collect a rare herb. The arms that you watched shimmer from sunlight and sweat after hours of training. The arms that saved you countless times; the very ones you'd anchored yourself with as you found a very different salvation in him now. 

“I want you to fuck me, Sasuke. Please.”

Finally, he sank himself in, studying the look in your eyes, the shape of your mouth, and the sound of your breath as he filled you. You cursed as he finally filled you to the hilt and started thrusting measuredly to let you adjust to him. His stroke was controlled, stretching you in a way you’d never felt before. With every return of him you felt yourself unravel a little more, and he began to suck at your breasts, testing your nipples between his teeth. 

“You were fucking good tonight,” he whispered in your ear. “I should have taken you earlier when I had the chance, right there on the tavern floor.”

You licked and panted in his ear, digging your nails into his back as his thrusts became more and more frenzied.

He paused just long enough to unwrap your legs and hook your ankles over his shoulders, forcing you to lean back as he slammed into you at a new angle, making your toes curl. You cried out again, and suppressed your voice to a whimper. Sasuke chuckled at your struggle to keep quiet, his calloused hands digging into your hips affectionately and possessively and feeling just as good as you imagined. 

Every time he plunged into you, your mind became a little more blank but something in you became a lot more desperate to chase down your release and draw it out from him. You took a couple deep breaths, and propped yourself up on your hands and started thrusting back on him, as if trying to wrest what was left of his control from him. If you were going down, you were taking him with you. He yielded and slowed down to watch, entranced, as you fucked yourself on him. You slid yourself up and down his length, astonished you were able to accommodate him and yet absolutely ravenous for him. 

He brought a hand and tenderly held it to your cheek, sliding his thumb in your open mouth. The desire between you was taught, and you closed your mouth on his thumb whirling your tongue around it. He abruptly removed it, reached down, and positioned it on your clit, making you cry out as he ramped up his thrusting to a breakneck pace. Your arms began to give out, the pleasure searing through your body, and you began to tighten around Sasuke with a moan. He cursed as he wrapped his other arm around you and lifted you up off the ledge, crushing you to him with your legs still on his shoulders. He’d completely lost his composure and drove into you wildly. He’d started grunting, unable to heed his own warning about staying quiet, his other hand steadfast on your clit as if devoted, and you erupted. You wailed as your climax surged from your core to the very ends of your fingers and toes and you crumbled, trembling and clenching down on him. He cried out as he pulled himself out just in time to spill his seed between the two of you. 

He set you back on the ledge carefully and pressed his forehead to yours, as the both of you caught your breath for the second time since entering the alley. The thought briefly crossed your mind that someone must have heard and maybe even witnessed your dalliance but you couldn’t be bothered, not when you were glowing and delirious as you were. 

“I guess you really do know how to make me sweat,” Sasuke joked as he wiped his forehead. You could only manage a panting smile, rendered speechless. He handed you a handkerchief and you began put yourselves back in order. You briefly wondered how exactly you were going to explain to Kyoichiro the state of his prized kimono as you tried to smooth it out. 

Sasuke pulled you to him again, and adoringly finished tying your obi for you with practiced hands. “My doting husband,” you quipped sweetly, to which he licked his lips. He slipped the parcel back into your kimono and held your chin for a moment before leaning down to give you a soft, electrifying kiss.

The din of the evening was still ringing out in the streets around you. You both chuckled as he draped his arm around your shoulder and the two of you walked back to Kyoichiro’s.

[plasticpartslove]

Zibits Documentation? (2010′s toy)

I recently remembered a toy from a while ago that I have fond memories of. However, upon searching for them online, I found that little information exists on them other than a bunch of long defunct shop pages and obscure YouTube videos. So, without further ado...

Zibits! - “Control your world”.

I retrieved a few of these adorable dust-bitten bots from what they probably assumed was their permanent resting place to get documented.

Here’s the little bean! This is what I assume is the basic, or rather ‘bog-standard’ Zibit. According to an older review from ‘toysaretools.com’ (You can read that article here) Its name is ‘Flux’. The first thing I noticed about all of my new-old robot crew was that all their batteries were still working, which isn’t bad for a 10 year old toy! (At least, this was the case for ones that did have batteries in them.) On the topic of batteries, the Zibit itself runs on 3 LR44 (coin) batteries, while the remote requires 2 AAA batteries. A hassle to get your hands on, but considering these things haven’t given up for 10 years (admittedly, not of constant use) I don’t think its a bad investment!

Now, the second thing I noticed was that Flux has none of this screws, only being held together by friction. For for the disassembly, I will be using a robot with the same mould, also known as the copper chap from the first photo.

This process should be an absolute walk in the park. Regardless, I am somewhat trying to make a documentation. The Zibit pictured stands around 5.7 cm tall. The battery compartment’s screw is held into the cover piece, so I won’t worry about treating it as a screw and instead I’ll just think of is as a single part, along with the plastic its attached to. Now, shift your attention to those two little screws at the bottom. The heads of these screws are 4 mm wide and so is the head of the screwdriver I'm using to remove them. This same screwdriver will be perfectly sufficient to undo the battery cover. Go ahead and remove the battery compartment cover to reveal all the holding screws.

You can now see all 3 screws that will need removing. The most difficult part of this entire process will be putting that central screw underneath the spring back in place, so I recommend having some way to magnetise your screwdriver. Although, for me, the mere act of removing the screw magnetises the screwdriver. Anyway, go ahead and get them out.

All 3 screws are the same length, your only worry is losing these tiny things.

Now, carefully pull apart the front and back half of the Zibit. The little robot splits in half directly down its side!

Presto!

You can now see all of the core components of a Zibit. 

This is what I’ve taken to calling the ‘drive shaft’ of the Zibit. Of course, it is not a drive shaft, and doesn’t even resemble one. Anyway, that is what makes the Zibit move. It is universal to all Zibits.

The visor can also be removed.

Alas, this is as far as we can really go into our exploration of the Zibit. I do however have a bunch of trivia both from memory and from research that I also want to put on this post.

Zibits of the same mould all operate on the same infrared frequency. This means they can respond to each others remotes. Though, this isn’t very useful if you want to operate them at the same time.

Zibits arms are somewhat pliable.

Some don’t have a screw inside their battery compartment, instead they have it in the back of their head.

The one with the transparent head splits down the middle, however the dome is a separate piece.

Now, I do need to reveal my ulterior motive. Before any of this, I wanted to try and find a list showing each Zibit so I could see what ones existed. However, I don’t think such a list exists. All website links I’ve scavenged are defunct, and the only image I did find lists the names of ‘series 1.5′.

(In case you cant read this:

Sion/Bendix/Rev/Bash/Termanis/Shift/Dinc/Spex/Epsilon/Tank/Go-B/Shox)

Not only does each one have a name, but they also have a description of their personality. Here’s a much nicer image:

I bring this up not only because I like the aesthetic of 2000′s graphic design, but because its sort-of* makes this lost media, and I think that's kinda cool.

(*in fairness, I’ve only searched around for the best part of like 5 minutes.)

However, while looking around, I think I’m starting to piece together why Zibits only lasted around 2 years. Most articles I’ve read seem to talk about how cute these little guys are. However, in the future...

??? Idk, I just don't like these other designs. I think this guy specifically feels kinda cheep to me because of their fake tracks. 

This lump’s almost complete lack of printing feels a bit lazy.

Woah... Ok fine, this ones a cutie.

This demon is singlehandedly responsible for the death of the brand and I will not forgive them.

Hang on, but seriously. What caused the demise of the Zibits? What other, popular scamp runs around on a series of roads and hubs you construct? What's more, this opponent brand must have come into existence sometime around 2010...

Ah.

Perhaps some things are just meant to be.

[wordsablaze]

3. it steals all my reason

your beauty hides the pain  Lost on the mountain, Jaskier accidentally angers a mage who decides to curse Yennefer with his company and for once, it might actually be a blessing in disguise…

A/N: idk who canon is anymore but yen and jas are fun ^.^ @random-nerd-3 x

previous chapter

-

Jaskier wakes to someone pulling him upright. 

He blindly reaches for and pulls his lute case to his chest, letting himself be none too gently guided until the walls of what he hadn’t noticed is a tent are replaced by trees.

“What…?” he starts, only to trail off as said tent bursts into flames.

“You just cost me a room, bard,” Yennefer mutters, irritation dripping from her words. 

Jaskier blinks, staring at her in confusion. “How exactly am I in any way responsible for your tent room thing deciding to set itself on fire?” 

Yennefer shakes her head impatiently as she brushes practically non-existent dust from her dress. “You were covered in unnatural ash when you got here, it was a delayed spell.” 

“Not my fault you didn’t sense it,” he scoffs, slinging his lute over a shoulder. 

She glares at him. “I was a little distracted by your idiot self getting us cursed and bound together.” 

Shifting awkwardly under her pointed gaze, Jaskier shrugs and offers her his best sheepish smile. “I did try telling her you and Geralt were better suited but she pretty much ignored everything I-”

“You did what?” Yennefer interrupts, her glare turning into some of the most deadly glowering Jaskier has ever had the misfortune of experiencing as she steps towards him.

He steps back automatically.

“You saw my memories, didn’t you? She said she could smell you or something and I tried to tell her that it was impossible because I’d been wandering around a mountain all day and the only person who could even possibly smell like you is Geralt because the two of you shared a tent before the whole- woah!”

The ground disappears beneath his feet as he’s thrown back into the air and all he can think to do is twist so that he lands on his side rather than his lute case.

Which he does.

Only to gasp as pain spikes up in his very bones again, every inch of his skin feeling as though it’s been set ablaze much like Yennefer’s tent. 

Cursing internally, he picks himself up and stumbles back to Yennefer, who somehow looks elegant even as she sits slumped on the slightly dead grass with a pained grimace on her face.

“Maybe don’t do that again,” Jaskier suggests breathlessly. 

Yennefer rolls her eyes but nods. “It seems we can’t be very far apart, bard.” 

“How romantic,” he mutters, tightening his grips on the strap across his shoulder as he exhales softly, the pain melting away again. 

They don’t move for a while, not until the tent is nothing but ashes. 

Once the smoke clears as if there’d never been a fire in the first place, Jaskier turns to Yennefer. “So, where are you headed?”

She rises to her feet and frowns down at him. “Aren’t you meant to be trailing your precious white wolf like a lost puppy?” 

Jaskier flinches. “He’s not mine. He never was and he never will be.”

And he’d been stupid to think otherwise because look where it had gotten him: stuck with the mage who’d stolen Geralt’s heart within the blink of an eye. He wants to pretend he’s not bitter about it but…

“I take it you had an argument then?” Yennefer asks, having the audacity to sound bored as he struggles with his recent heartbreak. 

But he couldn’t care less about being mocked. “Not so much an argument as a swift farewell,” he ends up saying, almost wincing at himself for sounding so forlorn. 

Yennefer gives him a strange look that he can’t quite decipher, something like disbelief and pity and anger rolled into one. But she says nothing so he doesn’t think much of it, pushing himself to his feet again and replacing his frown with a grin. 

“So, once again, where does the merciless Yennefer plan to target next?”

He only grins wider when sparks crackle at her fingertips before she sighs loudly. “I should probably go and explain that moron’s death.”

They both know which moron she’s referring to and although Jaskier doesn’t find him particularly worthy of being honoured or anything, he can’t really argue with her. In fact, he doesn’t think to question anything about their plan until they arrive in a town he only dimly recognises as one he was kicked out of for sleeping with both of the blacksmith’s children. 

(Not that he knew they were both his but that probably wouldn't have changed his mind anyway.)

 “Uh, Yennefer? You should probably know that-”

“If you’re about to tell me there’s someone here who wants to kill you, I don’t care,” she interjects, starting to walk faster.

Jaskier just sighs and ducks his head, wishing for one that he wasn’t wearing something so beautifully made. 

But they make it to the Lord’s house with no vengeful interruptions, where the central guard at the door raises a judgemental eye at them. “Lady Yennefer, and…?”

Yennefer sighs. “He’s with me, unfortunately. Won’t you let us in?”

Against every one of his urges, Jaskier stays silent and only smiles brightly at the guards once they’re let inside, starting to follow Yennefer only to be roughly yanked backwards.

“I know who you are and if you weren’t with her, I’d have gutted you on the spot,” one of the guards hisses under his breath, and Jaskier isn’t sure if he should be more concerned about that or the prickling sensation of starting to be too far from Yennefer. 

“I’m terribly sorry if I remind you of anyone but I really haven’t had the pleasure of visiting your lovely town before. And I’m sure this is just a misunderstanding so-”

“Unhand him or lose the hand,” Yennefer says coolly from where she’s now glaring back at them, her voice somehow crystal clear despite the distance.

The guard spits at him before reluctantly letting go, turning back his post. 

Jaskier suppresses his flinch as he wipes it away and exhales softly, speeding up so he can fall into stride with Yennefer again. “I thought you said you didn’t care?” he teases.

She hums. “I don’t. I just don’t care for you getting me into any more trouble, it’s bad enough that you’re here at all.” 

Ouch.

He wants to think she only means to match his teasing but he can’t help that her comments always know how to sting in the worst way and all he can do is try his best not to let it show lest she use it against him in future. 

“It’s not like I chose to accompany an arrogant coward from a terrible town up a mountain,” he snaps back. 

They don’t get to say anything else because a Lord greets them at the door, welcoming Yennefer and sighing at the sight of Jaskier instead of his son. “I take it the quest wasn’t successful?”

“No, it wasn’t. I will, however, be taking payment regardless.”

The Lord nods quickly. “Of course, as promised. It’s just that the payment you requested has yet to be delivered. If you could stay just one night…?”

Jaskier tenses but Yennefer nods slowly. “One night, and then I take your blood instead. Noble blood does so well in potions.”

Never has anyone so quickly offered up their best spare rooms.

Said rooms happen to be across an opulently wide hallway.

“Yenn-”

“Not a word. Endure for two minutes, bard,” Yennefer mutters, letting the servants guide them to the two separate rooms. 

Jaskier digs his nails into his palms as he thanks the girl whose curiosity regarding his lute he’d otherwise have loved to feed, waiting until she’s retreated fully before sliding down the door with a quiet gasp. 

True to her word, Yennefer yanks him through a portal after just under two minutes. 

Gagging at the wave of nausea that hits him, he waits until the room isn’t spinning before offering up a weak smile of gratitude.

“I’ll portal you back when we’re invited for dinner,” she tells him, settling on the bed.

“Sure. What kind of payment did you demand?”

She smiles mysteriously. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

Jaskier shrugs off his lute and leans on the wall, stretching his feet out and trying not to laugh at the absurdity of his life. “Not really, darling, but I’m sure your malicious tale will distract from the after-effects of a portal.” 

“I am not here to be a distraction for the likes of you,” Yennefer all but snarls. 

After that, the two of them lapse into silence until the tension in the room builds to a palpable level at which point Jaskier pulls out his lute and starts idly strumming. 

To his mild surprise, Yennefer doesn’t even bat an eye. But then again, she might be magically tuning him out because if she doesn’t care for him, she certainly won’t care for his music, no matter how beautiful it is.

Jaskier sighs at the thought, wondering how he’s meant to play for a receptive audience if he can’t convince Yennefer to enter a tavern. There’s also the small issue of finding an audience that can be receptive without him having to play Toss a Coin and suffer through the memories it brings back.

But those are inevitable concerns for another time, he decides, closing his eyes and absently letting his fingers dance across the strings as they please.

He just hopes they’re both invited to eat.

-

i’d say i promise to increase the pace next time so it’s more interesting but i can’t seem to rush these two...

-

thanks for reading! | masterlist | witcher blog: @itsjaskier | next chapter

[avatarsarny]

Ben and Rey are 2 sides of the same protagonist!! Same coin!!! They're married in the Force!! They can't be separated!! I have spoken!!!!!!!!!

Nonnie, I couldn’t have said it better myself :)

So idk what happened, I was going to respond to this like a normal person with some gifs but uhh this nonsense came forth instead. Oh well ;)

It wasn’t long after his return to the physical realm on that fateful journey from Exogol back to the Resistance base on Ajan Kloss when Finn and Poe cornered him.

The last week had been a blur, with constant meetings among former leaders of the New Republic, the remaining leaders of the Resistance, the last Jedi, and Ben Solo, heroes of the war against the Final Order. A new dawn was here. A new way of life. For the first time in his life, there were no voices in Ben’s head. No dark shadows lurking in the depths of his tortured mind. It was just him, his own thoughts, and all was blissfully clear. There was just light, and there was Rey.

He’ll never forget the way she’d launched herself at him when he materialized on the Falcon, which had come to rescue Rey from Exogol, after he’d given his life to save hers.

She had been everywhere, all at once. Her lips had pressed frantic kisses all over his face, her arms wrapped around his neck, her sweet, earthy scent had been in his nose, her end of the bond once again present in his mind, in his very soul. He had felt her anguish turn into absolute joy, and her tears mingled with his own as he feverishly kissed her back with all the strength he had.

It felt like years had passed before they broke apart, breathless and far from sated. But it would have to do for now, as Chewie, Finn, Poe, Rose, and Lando had all looked on, their jaws long dropped to the floor.

Finn spoke first. “So.”

Ben raised a brow but didn’t comment, looking between him and Poe, their Force signatures radiating concern.

“You’ve requested shared quarters. With Rey.” Finn continued, in an accusatory tone.

Ah. He’d been wondering when this would be brought up.

Poe cleared his throat, trying to look every bit the stern General that Leia had been. It almost worked. But Ben still had to resist the urge to laugh. “What are your intentions towards Rey?” the Pilot demanded.

Now Ben really couldn’t stop the chuckle that escaped his lips. Rey must have told her friends what they were to each other. But did they really understand how deeply they were intertwined? Evidently not, Ben thought, his lip curling. Finn and Poe’s frowns deepened.

“Look, we know she cares about you. We…can see you care about her. But we need you to promise us you’ll never hurt her the way you did that day on Starkiller base,” Finn finished, with a razor-sharp edge in his voice.

Ben measured his breathing. Like I ever could. The monster Rey had fought and had thrown her against a tree on Starkiller base was dead. He looked them both in the eye. He had to come clean, so that they didn’t go around asking ridiculous questions like this ever again. “I gave my life for her,” he said quietly. “And I would do it again, and again,” he leveled them both with a glare. “if it means she’ll live again. But I could not stay gone, for we are the Dyad.”

Poe whipped his head around at Finn, who’d gasped and gone very still. “What does that mean?” Poe pressed his friend. “What’s a Die - ad?”

Finn looked at Ben with an expression he’d never seen him make - something akin to awe. “Dyads come only once in a millennium. They’re rare, powerful bonds between two Force users, forged by the Universe itself to establish a balance. It’s the One Force, split into two. A…a kind of spiritual marriage, you could say.” It was evident to Poe that Leia had not only spent time teaching Rey the ways of the Force, but had trained Finn as well.

“And now you know what we are to each other. What she is to me,” Ben said hotly. “I can no more hurt her than I can hurt myself. She is the holder of my soul; without her bonded to me I barely exist, I’m just a ghost with no tether to existence.” And just then, he registered a warm presence, just beyond the space they occupied, but he didn’t pay it mind. He lowered his voice. “And she is my better half. I…I love her. I refuse to be apart from her.” And then he growled. “And if the two of you have a grievance, you can take it up with her. I’ve said only the truth.” He couldn’t quite stand this anymore, having to explain his very existence, his very heart, to these dolts, and moved to the door.

It slid open just then to reveal Rey standing there, staring up at him, her eyes wide with so soft an expression that he’d like nothing more than to burn the image of her like that in his memory forever. “Ben…” she whispered, and in that moment, oh, she looked exactly the way she had on Exogol, when she sensed that he’d come for her, to fight with her against Palpatine, she’d looked at him with such hope and affection that what was left of his heart seemed to burst in his chest.

Of course, Rey knew Ben loved her. He’d told her so himself, both in words and the way he’d happily laid down his life so that she could live hers. She felt it every time he looked at her, in the way he smiled only for her, the way his lips and hands moved so reverently over her skin as of late. But it awakened something deep and primal in her chest, to hear him declare it so passionately to her friends.

Finn, in all his newfound wisdom in the Force, didn’t need any more proof. Neither did he need the Force to tell him that if they didn’t leave now, they were about to see something he’d very, very much rather not see. He grabbed Poe’s arm and all but dragged him past Rey. “I’ll see you guys at dinner!” He called at the two behind him. Poe had to laugh then, and whipped his head back towards the open door. “We love you Rey! Ben, be gentle with our girl. And for the love of the Maker, shut that door behind you!”

Rey blushed a deep scarlet, and Ben growled, and the door slammed shut by the Force with a flick of his fingers. He could still hear the idiots’ laughter as they retreated.

Rey stepped closer to him, her cheeks still flushed prettily. “I’ll deal with those two later,” she said softly, her hazel eyes bright in the setting sun of the room. She peered up at him. “Were they very hard on you? Where they threatening you?” 

Ben blinked down at her. “How long were you standing there?”

Rey gave him a soft smile, and he immediately had the urge to kiss her breathless. She moved so that she was pressed right up against him. “Long enough,” she whispered, and her fingers came up to tangle in his lush, midnight hair, and she pulled his mouth down to capture hers in a fierce kiss. 

He groaned in pleasure, pulling her impossibly close, and she sighed into his mouth, her lips parting against his. He deepened their kiss, lifting her so that her thighs cradled him, and she instinctively ground her hips against his, her softness nestling on his hardness, and he could feel all of her urgency and her pleasure. He trailed his lips away from her mouth to press hot kisses down her throat, gently catching the lobe of her ear between his teeth, and she made the sweetest sounds at his touch. “I meant what I said. Every word.” Ben whispered in her ear, and his hands traced a slow trail of fire all over her. 

“I know,” She panted against his skin, “I felt it.” She moaned into his mouth as his fingers slipped beneath her tunic to stroke at her bare skin. “And I want it, too. To be with you. Always.” 

Ben leaned away to meet her gaze, setting her back down but still keeping her flush against him. “You have me.” He said simply, and pressed his forehead to hers. 

Rey’s eyes glowed almost green as her tears sprang up. “And you have me,” she whispered. “I’ll always be here.” She brought her hands up to press them against his chest, and Ben gathered her in his arms, and together they made their way to their quarters.

She was once a thorn in his side. Now she’s the warmth in his chest, the light that thrums in his veins. And damn any creature - Sith overlord or otherwise, that tries to take her from him. 

[umbralogia]

Hello friend!! I saw you ask for fic requests and if you want to I'd love to see you write something fluffy! For example one of them comes to the loft absolutely drenched and shivering (why? idk) and the other person makes it their mission to warm them up. How do they do that? (totally not inspired by the fact that i'm freezing.) I hope you're having a good day!!

I want to thank you again for this request. I’m sorry it took me so long to get to it ^^’ I figured I should get back at you for all of the angst I felt reading your fic One Missed Call (which I very strongly recommend to everyone who sees this), so I’m sorry if this is too angsty. 

(read on ao3)

He watches the waves as they walk down the path through the park. They brush against the rocky shoreline, the water sinks into holes in between stones. The sound should be soothing, it should be relaxing like the sounds that Clary plays when she meditates in the sun.

Instead, it brings a touch of anxiety and a small awful feeling that Magnus can’t place.

He feels as though he’s missing something, like a pain that was once so fundamental to his being that’s now numbed. It’s under the surface, something he wants to feel again, like pressing on a bruise, though he can’t find the bruise.

Cat continues ahead of him, her fingers trace over the handrailing which transitions from metal poles into wooden stakes tied with loose ropes. It’s meant to make the park look oceanic, like the view of Manhattan from Roosevelt Island is beautiful, but Magnus only sees the tall steel towers on the other side of the East River, the millions of glass windows that look out to them. He supposes they would be gorgeous in the sunlight, but the sun is hidden behind thick clouds of overcast.

“You doing okay?” Cat asks, she turns back from the path to look at him. She looks concerned, as concerned as she has been for the past two weeks.

She’s been continually pressing him to talk. Life has been a whirlwind and Cat knows him too well. She knows more than he’s told her-- that he reunited with Clary, had magic, lost magic, lost Alec, found his magic again, reunited with his father, sentenced his father to imprisonment in eternal limbo, ruled Edom, faced Lilith, nearly killed himself and Alexander, escaped a crumbling realm in the nick of time, gotten married, lost Clary again…

It’s dizzying.

The feeling takes over the pang of absence he feels.

Magnus focuses his thoughts on the river. He’s always hated the East River, the rampant pollution and stink. It’s only beautiful from afar.

“I’m fine,” he says, and he rolls the doomed feeling from his shoulders and ignores it when it remains.

They’re there to talk to a siren.

A lock of her hair is all they need, Magnus reminds himself as Cat ducks underneath one of the ropes. Magnus follows behind her and casts a cursory glamor to protect them from wayward eyes. He carefully steps down the unstable rocks, shifting his balance a few times to catch himself until they’re only a few steps from the water’s edge.

Just a lock of her hair and they can return to the loft.

Cat reaches into her purse and pulls out a small green velvet bag. She opens it and dumps out a single silver coin that fits perfectly in her palm.

“Would you like to do the honors?” She asks, looking up at him, offering the coin.

It’s dirtied with time, the words and designs on the sides of it worn away. Magnus takes the coin and feels the weight of it in his hand for a moment or two. He knows what he has to do with it to summon the siren, but he still feels guilty for chucking the coin into the river. It’s an antique, one that Maryse had given him. He wonders if she was aware of its use.

The coin flies so far that they don’t see it when it reaches the water. It doesn’t make a sound.

The river bubbles. The swarming of bubbles moves closer towards them, anchored to the signature of Magnus’s touch. Sirens are overly sensitive to magic, addicted to it like a child to sugar. The bubbles lighten the dark water and before Magnus can pull Cat to take a step backward, a girl bursts through the water.

She flips her light blue hair back, spraying them with filthy water.

“Magnus Bane,” her coal dark eyes lock with him instantly. “Enchanted seaweed? Or something more valuable this time?”

“I need a lock of your hair,” he steadies himself on the rocks and tries not to think about just how deep the water is near his feet.

“Are you conjuring someone’s wish?” Her black eyes widen, she doesn’t blink. Sirens never do.

“Yes.”

The siren turns to Cat and looks at her with the same piercing gaze. They both know that sirens have the ability to see desires, that this visit will make both of them targets to her game.

“You can’t wish a baby to conception,” the siren tells Cat.

Cat doesn’t flinch, her words are a little more tender than she means to be. “It’s not my wish.”

The siren turns to Magnus. She squints at him, looking him up and down as though she’s trying to find a weakness in his armor. He knows he has many, that she’s looking for what will hurt him at the core. She skips past his fear of loneliness, his fears of not being good enough for himself or for those around him.

“I can grant yours,” she says with a smile, her sharp teeth glisten against her sea-tinted lips.

Magnus frowns a little and opens his mouth to ask just what desire she has decided to prey upon. Before he can speak, her slimy hand grabs him by the ankle and yanks.

He hits the rocks hard before he can grab for Cat.

Water. Dark, salty, awful water. His eyes burn. His lungs freeze in his chest, his heart is in his ears.

“Abomination!”

“There is no fixing this.”

Black. Everything is black.

“Mama!”  

He feels the pull to the surface and let’s Cat drag him onto the rocks. He coughs the water from his lungs, panting for air, the spots in his vision slowly disappear as she pulls him further out of the water.

Steel skyscrapers blend into the gray sky above them. An awful nauseating smell twists at his insides before he realizes its the East River, that they’re on Roosevelt Island. He takes a deep breath, shaking and exhales.

He climbs up a few feet before he stretches out on his back, exhausted and weighed heavy with wet fabric.

“Did you get it?” He asks.

Cat dangles a large clump of light blue hair, damp with filthy river water. “I yanked it out of her head.”

He nods in silent approval, still waiting for his lungs and heart to catch up with one another. Magnus rubs his sandy hands over his face, not caring about the grains that stick to his skin and find their way into his hair.

He snaps his fingers to dry himself off, but the magic doesn’t rise to the surface. He feels like a snuffed candle as he reclines on the awful, shifting rocks, still breathing heavily. Magnus realizes that the siren must’ve dragged his magic from his body when she pulled him down, his hands shaking, still ready to snap.

Cat dries him off the best she can, a quick brush of her hand leaves him feeling only slightly damp instead of waterlogged. “Should I call Alec?”

Magnus shakes his head. “He’s on patrol with Jace.”

She looks at him like that doesn’t mean anything, but they both know that Alec has become Jace’s rock with Clary’s latest disappearance. Neither one of them can find it in them to separate the parabatai without any guilt.

He accepts Cat’s hand up and slips through the glamor he had placed as they walk back onto the path. The park is empty aside from a few dog walkers and tourists. It doesn’t stop Cat from summoning a portal, spinning and swirling through the air, pulling him with the sweet sandalwood promise of home.

They step through. Magnus’s feet touch the hardwood floor of the hall just inside the door, his boots squeak, he can feel the water of the East River puddled near his toes. It’s a disgusting feeling he never wants to feel again.

“What did the siren mean when she said she was going to grant your wish?” Cat asks, already on the move. Magnus doesn’t move from where he stands.

“I don’t know,” he says, pulling at the laces of his boots.

Cat’s tone changes, but her words are too fast and complicated. She’s in the other room and Magnus lets her words slip past his tired mind. The laces are slick against his fingers as he pulls at them again and frees his foot. The water trapped inside puddles on the floor. Magnus can’t find it in him to magic the water away.

“Why are you soaking wet?”

Magnus looks up, the words cut through the numbness of his head.

Cat must’ve woken Alec up from a nap, his hair is a fluffy mess and he’s squinting a little, though it might be because he’s confused. Magnus opens his mouth to say something, but Alec is already kneeling in front of him, untying his other boot.

“I was pulled into the East River,” he says, and Alec doesn’t even question it. “You don’t have to--” he starts, but Alec’s fingers take the boot off of his foot and start to pull off his waterlogged socks.

Cat comes around the corner with some towels and Alec turns to take them from her. Magnus is sure Alec thanks her, but time blurs as his husband dries off his feet and his best friend slips out the door, a small pat on his back tells him that she’ll call later.

Alec stands and drapes a towel over his shoulders. “You okay?”

Magnus nods, he can’t help but smile when Alec looks at him, worried. “I’m fine, Alexander.”

It’s obvious that Alec doesn’t believe him, that Magnus doesn’t believe himself. Alec takes his hands and leads him into their bedroom and into the ensuite bathroom. He helps peel off his damp clothes, the jacket, his vest and shirt, Alec gets his pants off before he can think of a stray comment or joke.

Alec pulls off his own clothes. He’s graceless and Magnus wants to tease him, but Alec leads him into the shower and turns on the water.

“You don’t have to do this,” Magnus murmurs before Alec turns the shower spray on.

“I want to,” Alec says softly. His fingers sweep Magnus’s dark hair back and off of his forehead before he lathers it with shampoo. It’s too easy to get lost in Alec’s touch, to feel his gentle, nimble archer fingers playing in his hair. He’s almost surprised that Alec doesn’t play with his hair, doesn’t brush it straight up or curl the longer locks around his finger.

Alec moves his head back to rub his fingers against his temples and Magnus has to stop himself from falling into a near blissful sleep.

“Cat said the siren tried to grant you a wish,” Alec says as he rinses the shampoo out of his hair.

“She tried to drown me,” Magnus mumbles.

“Would you tell me if you wanted to drown?”

The question brings him out of the stupor that Alec has caressed him into.

If he thinks hard enough, he can still feel where his stepfather’s fingers were when they held him down in the water, trying to drown him. Magnus blinks the sensation away, his heart still pounds in his chest on the verge of panic.

“Do you remember why I said no bathtubs when we were looking at apartments?” Magnus doesn’t mean for his words to be so terse, but it feels like Alec has found the ache he had longed to feel again. He doesn’t understand why he feels so attacked like Alec has done something more than asking a necessary question.

Alec’s hands trace down from the back of his head to the center of his back and rest there. “Yes, but--”

“Why would I want to drown, Alec?” Magnus took a step out of the spray of the water and turned around.

Alec’s hair dripped in his face, his hazel eyes looking for answers.

His fingers find Alec’s. He brings their hands up to look at their rings, the simple twin silver bands that rest on their fingers.

The feeling of fingers on his skin, holding him down disappears. He’s standing in the shower, Alec is in front of him, watching him like he’s waiting for Magnus to break or move on.

He moves on.

“I have you,” Magnus thinks, and it’s not until Alec’s fingers tighten against his that he realizes he’s said it. “I don’t know why she tried to drown me. I don’t know what my deepest desire is.”

Alec puts too much soap onto the washcloth and starts to rub away at the river mud stubbornly caked somewhere on his face. Magnus tries not to pull away when Alec starts to wipe away at the makeup running down his face.

“What do you want more than anything?” Alec asks.

“Cheesecake,” Magnus mumbles.

“Yeah?” There’s a smile in Alec’s voice. “From the place down the street?”

“Don’t leave me to go get cheesecake,” Magnus says with a soft laugh. “I want to go to bed,” he says softly and realizes part of what’s missing, “with you.”

“It’s like six,” Alec is still smiling.

Magnus opens his eyes and stares at his husband. “You were asleep when I got home, don’t tell me what time it is.”

“I wasn’t asleep,”

“Is bedhead a new hairstyle?”

Alec is quiet. “Naps don’t count.”

“Naps count,” Magnus says with a small smile. “I thought you were going to be on patrol tonight with Jace.”

Alec’s shoulders drop a little, “Izzy wanted to take over, she wants to know how he’s doing.”

Magnus knows not to press. He knows that Jace is a disaster, that he’s been ruined by everything that’s happened in the past few weeks. He’s made an effort to avoid Jace as much as possible since he was possessed by the Owl. Jace still feels guilty, it wafts off of him like smoke and suffocates their every attempt to talk about something other than Alec.

The water turns off and Magnus hasn’t blinked before Alec is drying him off.

“I can do it,” Magnus takes the towel and Alec lets him. He dries himself off and watches Alec as he dries himself as well.

He thinks about trying to push him, how he could place his fingers along his husband’s jaw and direct his gaze, kiss him until their hands start to grasp at one another, touch over touch, clumsily finding their way to the bed. It feels dishonest. Considering it feels startling.

Magnus walks past Alec and enters the bedroom. He grabs whatever old shirt Alec has in the first drawer and pulls it on, fingers snagging in the holes. Then the silky leopard print boxers that Simon had given him as a joke.

“I love you,” Alec whispers against the back of his neck, once he’s found his place on the other side of the bed. His fingers gently press against Magnus’s back, raking up and down his spine. “I know you’ll talk to me when you feel ready, but just know that I love you no matter what. You can’t scare me away.”

He leans against the touch and Alec lets Magnus collapse against him. They lay down beside one another, curled up in soft touches. Magnus turns at some point to rest against Alec’s chest, draped over him carefully.

Alec’s fingers are in his hair, brushing it straight back, then trailing down his neck to his shoulders. He relaxes into each stroke, each touch. All he wants to feel is Alec, the way he breathes like he’s afraid that if he breathes normally, it’ll wake Magnus up from his near sleep. His touch is featherlight, delicate because he’s afraid of breaking whatever he touches.

It reminds him of what it felt like to sleep beside Alec when he didn’t have his magic.

He had felt more naked than he ever could physically. Magnus had never realized that magic burned underneath his skin, that it was the prickling against his body when the atmosphere shifted. He hadn’t been aware of the sensation until it had left him. He had longed for that feeling, for an ounce of the control it granted him, for the feeling of burning from the inside out.

Now that it had returned, he almost wanted it to disappear.

“I miss being mortal with you.”

Alec’s fingers slow, but continue to move across his skin. “what?”

Magnus frowns, he opens his eyes to look at the dark runes on Alec’s skin. They’re so stark against his skin that they seem to burn through the thin white fabric of his t-shirt. It’s easier than looking into his husband’s eyes. “I miss being moral with you.”

“Why?”

He shakes his head, “I don’t know.”

Alec’s fingers stay on his shoulders. Magnus can feel that Alec’s thinking, or maybe he’s waiting for Magnus to stop thinking and start explaining. He curls his own fingers into the fabric of Alec’s shirt, his fingernails brush against Alec’s skin and it makes him almost shiver.

“It felt simple, just… life and death, and now it’s just life and more life.”

“Magnus,”

“I’m not suicidal,” he says quickly.

Alec exhales underneath him. Magnus doesn’t know if it’s out of relief.

“It’s just… I have you and I want to have you forever, and not for your forever, but my forever.” He feels lighter but sinks more against Alec. “I felt like, with Clary, there was always the possibility of some rune to solve everything. An Alliance rune bleed over, or the Resurrection rune, something, and now that she’s gone,” Magnus’s thought disappears into a feeling before he can find the words for it. It feels like something inside of him has fizzled into nothing like an ember in a dying fire.

Alec’s fingers are a little heavier against his back. Magnus feels Alec breathe in and out deeply before he speaks. “We’ll find a way.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I just know,” Alec whispers before resting his head against Magnus’s. He curls in a little more and Magnus has to move to get comfortable again.

Magnus tries to let Alec’s intuition settle his thoughts. “I’m glad one of us knows.” He can’t help but smile, turning to rest his head against Alec’s. He isn’t even aware of his own magic until the bedside light goes off.

“Tomorrow we’ll get cheesecake and everything’ll be better,” Alec murmurs, and before Magnus can settle into him, Alec tenses. “Wait,” Alec squirms a little and Magnus detaches himself to allow for it. “Why is it whenever I try to comfort you, you always make me the little spoon?”

“Because you’re an octopus and if you aren’t the little spoon, I can’t move.” Magnus rests his lips against the top of Alec’s head, his damp hair already beginning to curl. “We figured this out months ago, please keep up.”