#its like its like . sorry everything ive drawn/written up in this point is like not even kidding like maybe 2 years into the timeline

[axellis-archv-2]

a moment abt overhalliday if you dont mind but its in the tags bc im embarrassed sowwy..

[nonclassyparty]

Ive been a silent reader of yours all this time but I have to speak up on this. I'm sorry but I just can't agree with this "San has done bad things but that's okay because so did others" that's like saying this murderer is horrible for killing innocent people but it's not really THAT bad(?) because there are others who committed murder too I don't know if I'm explaining it right because English is not my first language lol. Regardless if others have done bad things, it doesn't justify San's shitty deeds. One's bad deeds should never be downgraded/downplayed just because there are others who do bad things too so I find it pointless to bring up others like y/n seonghwa wooyoung etc when we're talking about San and the things he's done or why people think he's irredeemable. Also maybe because I've dealt with someone irl like starring role San and that's why his character is just irredeemable to me. Like I don't care how bad he feels after for doing what he did, the impact of his actions is still 10x more hurtful than whatever remorse or guilt he felt and the fact that he KEEPS doing it despite being self aware makes it even more worse than it already is actually. I wish we can have a conversation about people's terrible deeds without bringing up others to either make justifications or comparisons.

Like if a person killed somebody then feels guilty about it but then does it again. It just doesn't make sense to me (I know San is not a killer lol but I'm trying to make an analogy and this the best my non English speaking ass can come up with)

For me San is an asshole point blank period and if we're being for real, a person like him who grew up with that mindset can't change in as little as two years. Before anybody come here and say i'm team mingi and thats why I'm saying this, actually I'm team nobody. I'm just here to read this very entertaining and we'll written au 🥰

ouuuuuuu i love this, had to get a drink before i started typing. and don't worry your english is fine everything is great, i get what you're saying. soooo let's talk;

first of all, i need all of us to be on the same page here so let me ask you guys (all of you that actively participate in these little quiz nights 😭), what is it that san did wrong exactly? and i don't mean "he did this wrong so he doesnt deserve to be with yn" we're not talking about that and frankly don't care about, its what did he do wrong that makes him a bad irredeemable character? i'm genuinely curious about this.

while writing this story, i can think of two instances where he actually fucked up but still not to the point where its not redeemable.

you say bad deeds of the other characters shouldn't be brought up when talking about san's? and i disagree! you know why? it's not bc i'm trying to downplay his wrongdoings ( or trying to justify them, if it ever seemed like that then i probably didnt word myself right) or bc it's "Oh san my poor meow meow he can't be the bad guy!!!!!" but because all of the characters that i've compared him to are halfway ( if not the whole way) already forgiven by the readers and why is that? what makes them more redeemable than him and where is the line drawn when it comes to forgiveness? again we are not talking about relationship-with-y/n forgiven but "he's not the villain" forgiven bc apart from y/n's mother i don't think there are any other villains 😭

(and this is not defending san, he is an asshole i'll be the first one to say it bc i literally created him😭 but that's simply not all that there is to him bc as people we are not one dimensional. no one is all good and all bad, there's no such thing unless we're talking about idk psychopaths or something lol and just bc we haven't seen san's good towards y/n doesn't mean there's no good at all. i've already written all his parts for the next chapter so this is just a formal notice that i won't be trying to make him more appealing so he can get sympathy points or something and i can say that he won't be asking for forgiveness either but he will be in a huge chunk of the chapter and for all of you that plan on just blocking out everything he says well...u wont be having a good time😭)

[cappymightwrite]

To think that Tolkien wrote an ending that's hopeful but also extremely sad. And ending that makes me melancholic without having to be grimdark.

And that's why he is the master still.

Hi! Sorry for the late response to this 😅 I've had it in my drafts half-written for a while, but better late than never...

Yes, I completely agree. And as we all know, GRRM has mentioned how he is very much a fan of Tolkein’s ending, in particular the scouring of the Shire (as much as he goes on and on about Aragorn’s tax policy, etc.): 

I’ve said before that the tone of the ending that I’m going for is bittersweet. I mean, it’s no secret that Tolkien has been a huge influence on me, and I love the way he ended Lord of the Rings. It ends with victory, but it’s a bittersweet victory. Frodo is never whole again, and he goes away to the Undying Lands, and the other people live their lives. And the scouring of the Shire—brilliant piece of work, which I didn’t understand when I was 13 years old: “Why is this here? The story’s over?” But every time I read it I understand the brilliance of that segment more and more. All I can say is that’s the kind of tone I will be aiming for. Whether I achieve it or not, that will be up to people like you and my readers to judge. [source]

But what is Tolkein’s ending based on? Where are these themes of "bittersweetness" in Lord of the Rings drawn from? Tolkein's pal and collegue C. S. Lewis once commented that:

If we insist on asking for the moral of the story, that is its moral: a recall from facile optimism and wailing pessimism alike, to that hard, yet not quite desperate, insight into Man's unchanging predicament by which heroic ages have lived. It is here that the Norse affinity is strongest: hammer-strokes but with compassion.*

*As usual, academic citations will be listed at the end.

Elaborating on this statement, Gloriana St. Clair adds that "the concept of fate in Northern works, the need for courage, a conception of evil, the tragedy of mortality, the doom of the immortals, and the paradox of defeat are themes common to Northern literature and The Lord of the Rings." She goes on to note that "heroic ages have lived through courage, and courage is one of the great lessons of The Lord of the Rings." Likewise, one could argue the same of ASOIAF, because, as stated by Wyman Manderly:

"[...] not every man has it in him to be Prince Aemon the Dragonknight or Symeon Star-Eyes, and not every woman can be as brave as my Wylla and her sister Wynafryd [...]" – ADWD, Davos IV

And yet, we do have courageous figures in ASOIAF — case in point, the Manderly sisters — just as in LoTR, because courage is important. Far more important than pain and suffering. In all its bittersweetness, despite everything, it is important and worth upholding... even if things change, even if you can never be what you once were. Because "evil in The Lord of the Rings" and ASOIAF "is just as complex as courage is." That's why we have the bitter with the sweet. Indeed, what Tolkein (a professor of Anglo-Saxon Studies) says of Beowulf could equally apply to Aragorn and others, and in turn could be said of many of GRRM's characters:

He is a man, and that for him and many is sufficient tragedy [...] It is the theme in its deadly seriousness that begets the dignity of tone: lif is læne: eal scæceð leoht and lif somod [Life is transitory: light and life together hasten away].

In Tolkein's view, and in the view of the Old Icelandic saga writer, a person's courage becomes more worthy in spite of apparent hopelessness. E.g. in Njáls saga, the author values Njáll's sons' decision to go into their father's house despite knowing that their attackers will more than likely burn them alive there. Indeed, as noted by Marjorie J. Burns, "an important aspect of Tolkien's borrowing from the North is his attachment to the Nordic world view, to the Nordic emphasis on imminent or threatening destruction, a destruction which, in Norse mythology, appears to be in motion even at the dawn of creation, with Black Surt sitting in the fire realm, Muspell, 'already waiting for the end' and the Frost Giant Ymir, 'evil from the first,' oozing from his armpits a sweat that gives form to humankind." And we can see that kind of sentiment present in the fight against the Others and the Long Night, which I theorise draws a lot from descriptions of the Fimbulvetr and later Ragnarök in Norse mythology. In both Norse mythology, and in LoTR, you get a vivid sense of life cycles, "with an awareness that everything comes to an end, that, though Sauron may go, the elves will fade as well."

So, likewise, in ASOIAF the threats of ice and fire will be defeated but there will be a cost. The Starks will reunite and rebuild their home but there will have been a cost: those they lost along the way and the trauma they had to go through to reach this ending. It is sad, you're right, but just as you noted, that doesn't mean it isn't entirely devoid of hope, or that hope and happiness take a backseat. Because like my earlier comments on the importance of courage, hope arguably becomes more admirable and precious despite all the hurt that has gone before. In the Gylfaginning section of the Prose Edda we have this discussion on the aftermath of Ragnarök:

52: Then Gangleri asked, “What will be after heaven and earth and the whole world are burned? All the gods will be dead, together with the Einherjar and the whole of mankind. Didn’t you say earlier that each person will live in some world throughout all ages?”

And Third replied, “There will be, at that time, many good places to live. So also there will be many evil ones. It is best to be in Gimle in heaven. For those who take pleasure in good drink, plenty will be found in the hall called Brimir. It stands at the place Okolnir [Never Cold]. There is likewise a splendid hall standing on Nidafjoll [Dark Mountains]. It is made of red gold and is called Sindri [Sparkling]. In this hall, good and virtuous men live. [...] 

Like in LoTR, losses have occured, major ones in fact, like the deaths of both Þórr and Óðinn — an ending to the old ways of living. And I think the conclusion to ASOIAF will have a similar reflective tone. The bittersweetness in the above passage is best summed up by the observation that whilst there will be "many good places to live [...] so also there will be many evil ones." The Long Night and the Others might be vanquished, the despots deposed, but inevitably hardships will come again, just like the Long Night happened once before, and is about to happen again, yet still... we find reasons to keep living.

53: Then Gangleri asked, “Will any of the gods be living then? Or will there be anything of the earth or the sky?”

High said, “The earth will shoot up from the sea, and it will be green and beautiful. Self-sown acres of crops will then grow. Vidar and Vali survive, as neither the flood nor Surt’s fire destroyed them, and they will inhabit Idavoll, the place where Asgard was earlier. To there will come Thor’s sons Modi and Magni, and they will have Mjollnir with them. Next Baldr and Hod will arrive from Hel. They will all sit together and talk among themselves, remembering mysteries and speaking of what had been, of the Midgard Serpent and the Fenriswolf. Then they will find in the grass the gold playing pieces which the Æsir had owned. [...]

“In a place called Hoddmimir’s Wood, two people will have hidden themselves from Surt’s fire. Called Lif [Life] and Leifthrasir [Life Yearner], they have the morning dew for their food. From these will come so many descendents that the whole world will be inhabited. [...]

“There is something else that you will find amazing. The sun will have had a daughter no less beautiful than she, and this daughter will follow the path of her mother [...]”

I mean... if the above description isn’t "a dream of spring" after a Fimbulvetr [Extreme Winter], then I don’t know what is! In the Gylafinning account of the aftermath of Ragnarök, like in the ending of LoTR, there is "victory, but it’s a bittersweet victory." This is "the kind of tone [George] will be aiming for." So, in a way... I kind of know how ASOIAF ends, because I know how LoTR ends, and perhaps more crucially, I know how the Gylfaginning ends:

A "green and beautiful" springtime after an extreme winter.

Notable loss, but also survival — Vidar and Vali are notably the sons of Óðinn, so you have this new generation taking over, which has been described as an allegory for the conversion to Christianity... but that's besides the point here.

The new powers will pick up the mantle of rulership ("the gold playing pieces") and will inhabit (and rebuild?) a notable place of previous power — if GRRM is using this Norse material as a big influence... could it be that this translates into forming a Great Council at Harrenhal as @agentrouka-blog has suggested?

"They will all sit together and talk among themselves, remembering mysteries and speaking of what had been, of the Midgard Serpent and the Fenriswolf" — if that doesn't sound like a council...

From Life and Life Yearner will come many descendents — Gee, I wonder who will be tasked with that? I wonder whose foreshadowing matches up with themes of regeneration and restoration, with desires for love and family?

"The sun will have a daughter no less beautiful than she, and this daughter will follow the path of her mother" — Again, themes of new powers taking over, descendents, etc., though perhaps more specifically alluding to the Young and More Beautiful Queen prophecy 👀👀👀 It depends on who we interpret as the sun in this equation... I can think of someone who fits in pretty well...

But in conclusion, to quote the Eddic poem Skírnismál, "fearlessness is better than a faint-heart for any man who puts his nose out of doors. The length of my life and the day of my death were fated long ago." This is the Northern spirit that Tolkien takes for the end of The Lord of the Rings notes Burns. In other words, "endings are inevitable, change will always come, and evil is never fully deposed." But likewise, neither is hope and courage ever fully extinguished. "The best that any of us can do is simply that: our best, and do it against all odds, having left our hearths and our comforts for the sake of ourselves and the world." So, we can learn a huge amount from Tolkein's ending and the Gylfaginning in regards to the probable conclusion of ASOIAF, and it's why I'm never in doubt about what "bittersweet" means. It's all laid out for us to see 😉

Thanks for the ask! I kinda just rambled on, but I hope it made sense what I was getting at 😅 any excuse to talk about Norsey things...

Academic Sources:

Burns, Marjorie J., "J. R. R. Tolkien and the Journey North," Mythlore: A A Journal of J. R. R. Tolkein, C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature, (1989), 4(15).

Lewis, C. S., "The Dethronement of Power" in Tolkein and the Critics, ed. by Neil D. Issacs and Rose A. Zimbardo. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1968.

St. Clair, Gloriana, "An Overview of the Northern Influences on Tolkein's Works", Mythlore: A Journal of J. R. R. Tolkein, C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature, (1996), 2(21).

Tolkein, J. R. R., Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics. London: British Academy, 1937.

[thebomb-thebird-andtheburntbitch]

pt.1: the swapping begins

-> 4-fking-am masterlist <-

b:katsuki / f.reader

genre: neighbor au, pro-hero bakugou

warning(s)!!: bakugou's potty mouth (ofc)

status: on-going!

synopsis: you had just moved into your new apartment and like every other college student under the sun, you had the worst sleep scheudle known to man.  due to this, you find yourself playing music through your speakers at 4 am. your neighbor slides you a note under your door about your ‘shitty’ taste in music, thus the note swaps begin.

a/n: the first part has arrived! hopefully, updates on this particular series won't be so drawn out since i'm planning to keep all written parts on the shorter side along with the smau parts being just easier since it's all just dialog LOL (ive done smau in the past for other things but they weren't so hot but hopefully i'm better now lol rip)

-x-x-x-

w.count: 1.3k

-x-x-x-

Why did you decide to go back to school to pursue further education again? If it wasn’t to stress yourself into early grey hairs or to rip out those grey hairs until you were bald, then why?

Collapsing over your desk- textbook open and notes out in messy piles with doodles across every edge and corner from wandering concentration- you groan. Exams were right around the corner, but you couldn’t for the life of you get your brain to focus on one thing- much less multiple things- for more than a couple hours, so studying quickly turned into a failed attempt to study.

Normally, studying wasn’t so difficult for you and you actually found it therapeutic in its own weird way. You enjoyed learning new things and the pride and wholeness you felt after succeeding to teach yourself something new was well worth whatever the process to get there was to you. But, this current college burnout was making all those end results hard to get to.

You glanced at the clock on one of the elevated shelves of your desk, the dimly glowing orange letters showing the time of 3:54 am. You groaned again, pushing your forehead into your written words and definitely smearing pencil lead on your forehead while you were at it. Maybe you’d soak up the words this way and have the knowledge transferred automatically into your brain if you pushed just hard enough.

Another dull and unrelenting amount of minutes pass you by before you officially call it quits for the night. Giving up, you walked to the other side of the room and plopped down on your bed’s edge next to one of your nightstands, your wrist rubbing your forehead to hopefully clear away the mess of leftover lead on it. On this nightstand was your radio and beneath it along the shelves and below the drawer was a collection of CDs.

In a world where albums were digital and everything was Bluetooth compatible and no one carried around a portable CD player anymore, you felt somewhat awkward sometimes at the seemingly large and ridiculous collection of yours. There were still plenty of people with CDs and even vinyls, but still- the awkwardness of your ‘retro’ thinking at your age did make you feel a bit self-conscious; no matter how idiotic it sounded.

You leaned over the bed and down to the bottom shelf cubby and grabbed a thin, plastic album case. Popping it open, the cheap plastic threatened to break and bend as you pushed open the top of your radio and placed the CD inside, shutting it again and turning it on.

A small little baby blue boombox that resembled a sort of bubble-like structure- a late birthday gift from your friends back in your hometown.

You figured if you didn’t absolutely blast your music, it would be fine to play aloud. Plus, you decided to put your bedroom in the backmost room, and the second room closer to the front room of your apartment was used for storage- since renting a storage unit was way too expensive. In your mind, the room closet to the door for a single living tenant would definitely be their bedroom- so you did the opposite when you moved in.

With your legs still handing off the side of the bed, you threw yourself back onto the mattress with your arms out to your sides. You stared at the ceiling of your room, thinking that at some point you’d need to purchase some cheap glow-in-the-dark stars to tack up there just for nostalgia’s sake.

As you heard the radio read the CD in small hums, you shut your eyes and smiled when the first track started. To be honest, you weren’t really pressed for what music you were going to be listening to, so you just kinda pulled from your cubby and popped the CD in without even looking at what you grabbed. You almost laughed when an older album your mom used to listen to started playing.

You weren’t exactly sure how it happened or when, but the next thing you knew, you were staring blankly and tiredly up to your ceiling again. The sun outside had risen and you heard birds, outside chatter, and basic roadside living outside. Even being up on the fourth floor, you could still hear the world below fairly well since you almost always had your window open with a fan inside of it.

Your body was sore from how you were laying on your back with your arms out, and you felt stiff. Legs partially numb from hanging off the bed all morning when you turned to look at your clock on the desk with squinted eyes.

Almost noon.

“God,” you moaned, forcing yourself up and wobbly making a path out of your room and into the kitchen to solve the problem of your severe cottonmouth. Stepping out of your narrow, short hall, you yawned and stopped before stepping into the kitchen when you saw a note at your doorstep. It had been slid under the front door and was face down, small blotches of black bled through to show that the other side had something written on it in marker.

More intrigued with the mysterious note than ready to deal with your dry mouth and throat that demanded water, you trotted to the paper and flicked it up. Your eyes quickly scanned the note and you gasped, slightly slapping a hand over your mouth.

‘Your taste in music really fuckin’ sucks’

Oh my god, someone heard that? Were you too loud? Was it annoying? Who in their right mind has the further room from the door other than you who did it on purpose so that this situation could be specifically avoided? Would you need to move rooms? No, then you’d have your other neighbors slipping you notes or even knocking on your door.

Maybe this neighbor has a roommate and had no choice but to take the room furthest from the door. Would you need to move out now before you died from overthinking the situation?

Racing back into your room, you tore out a sheet of lined paper and a mark erfrom your jar of pens, pencils, highlightser, what have you, and began to write in large letters a note back.

‘I’m so sorry about the noise! I’ll make sure not to play it that ungodly early again! (also, no it doesn’t, my taste in music is fine).’

You felt a little silly putting the added small text at the bottom of the paper in parentheses, but you felt the need to nip this particular neighbor’s opinion about your music in the butt- you boiled the choice down to comedies sake.

Making your way back to your door, you unlocked the bolt and unlatched the chain as you poked your head out. For it being almost the middle of the day, you made sure no one was in the halls before you jogged out your door and to the left. Your room was the furthest left room and they heard it, so clearly it had to be the left side neighbor... right?

Taking one last left-to-right look down the hall, you knelt at the door, pushed your paper under it, and dashed back into your own apartment before locking it back up. You let out a breath, as you pushed your back into the door, feeling awkward and almost embarrassed at the idea of passing notes with your neighbor. Trying to be secretive about it and acting like if someone saw you push a note under their door you’d be looked at strangely.

In a somewhat awkward way, you felt like some weird criminal.

“Whatever,” you shook your head, slapping your hands on your cheeks and heading to the kitchen. Finally ready to get that glass of water you had been craving to soothe your aching throat with. You had other things to get done today anyway. Now that you were awake, better get your day started.

Even if you may have just completely fucked your sleep schedule.

[wickedpact]

You can't just drop that "I read Forces Multiplied" bomb on us and not give a ten page written reaction.

[cracks knuckles] if u insist

nicky cant drive hc: destroyed. rip. also i loved how andy and nile stole those sports cars and were being badass and driving off the bridge & meanwhile joe and nicky were just absolutely vibing in the van

'heres the thing about power: people who have it think they deserve it' [shot of police car] i see u greg

5 whole panels being dedicated to booker not being able to unlock his door. booker not even seeing noriko sitting RIGHT THERE in the window at first. incredible

noriko being 24/7 horny was surprising. like wow all of the stuff i saw she did out of context was 100% equally horny in context as it was out of context. love that for her

i didnt think the 'andy + slavery' thing was handled as badly as everyone made it out to be when telling me about it. tho from the way it was talked about i had kind of figured the conflict between andy and nile re: slavery would be really racially charged (esp considering nile is a black american and would obvs have Thoughts on the subject in that regard) but like,, done in a cringey 'a-white-guy-obviously-wrote-it' kind of way? but it wasnt that. i mean. it makes sense that andy would be implicit in slavery through the years

i mean, like she says, is that not what people just did to each other in the aftermath of battles for thousands of years? and i really like how its pointed out that it was what she was raised with (in the beginning when you see her put shackles on that guy after the battle) but she also accepts responsibility for it and acknowledges that it was wrong and not just 'what people did'.

i like how from her expressions you can kind of tell baby andy knew it was off but she sets those feelings aside bc she felt angry. it explains how she felt but didnt make her out to be blameless in it. plus i mean. i dont know, the fact that andy was involved in a lot of morally shady stuff for 7000 years is not that wild for me. if you live that long youre just Going to be involved in some shit, and she didnt even have other immortals with her as positive community influences, she literally just did whatever the fuck she wanted for thousands of years

'i was worshipped as a god once' i mean, yeah no shit she wouldve been involved in some seriously fucked up stuff, gods were fucking scary back in the day

tldr it could use some polish but it wasnt that bad

tho everything people said about moose being boring was unfortunately a little true. sorry king i tried to be interested in you

joe and nicky writing verbal fanfiction about nile and moose was iconic. 'you seeing that?' 'i am definitely seeing that'

it was also extremely funny bc that was like 60% of their contribution to the whole comic, besides kidnapping copley. they came, they wrote some fanfic, they left. kings. at least in tog1 they had an excuse to be useless bc they got kidnapped

joe just found out his old friend who he thought was dead is alive (and also probably wants to murder them) and instead of investigating with andy he stopped to help nile up. champ.

nicky shooting noriko through andy was cool. rip to the concept since it wont happen in tog2

wanna see mr ejiofor deliver this line

on that note imo copley was. weirdly enough, more interesting in fm than in tog1. to me at least. the fact that andy let him live and he was so haunted by what had happened that he came back and sought them out despite knowing they would likely kill him for it bc he wanted to not only make up for what hed done but also to tell them what theyd done for the world was admittedly more interesting than andy just kind of drafting him to the cause and him going 'okie'

i like how nicky was drawn in this one. in opening fire he looks like a blob man but in fm he looks more like a very nice grampa with a very good dye job

'theres no pain like a broken heart' andy 🥺

noriko implying andy's never drowned. .. .idk about that one, she musta drowned sometime

joe and nicky came, they waxed poetic about nile's love life, they waxed poetic about grog, and then they left.

sports bras being a reason humanity is good. i mean..... okay, yeah.

i mean. wild but you cant exactly tell her shes wrong

i liked how noriko telling andy that their purpose is to make people suffer coincides with joe and nicky finding out that they actually did good all those years

joenicky in opening fire: jail for booker jail for booker for 100 years

joenicky when copley tells them he knows where booker is: WE'LL KILL YOU WHERE IS HE

joenicky when copley comes back: if your vibes come off as even remotely rancid we Will destroy you

joenicky 2 minutes later when copley helped them find booker: he made up some ground :)))) <3 lov you j cops

theyre forgiving af

moose: how old are you?? a hundred??? a thousand???

nile [vine voice]: I M 2 7 ?

alright andy you got me there

joe texts like my aunt

i dont know why noriko drowning andy in that car tickled me. Bad And Naughty Andromaches Get Put In The Pear Wiggler To Atone For Their Crimes.

the drowning sequence was cool

copley trying to talk to andy while she was like o_o at him was great

ive hit the picture limit but id seen that panel where nicky goes 'forgive me' as he kills a guy out of context and it was HILARIOUSLY anticlimactic for me to discover that there was literally no context to it. nicky just apologizes to random people he kills. i thought that guy was someone he knew or something. nope its just Some Guy that nicky didnt know from adam

nile's complaint that andy was especially brutal to the guys on the boat... i mean. . , how exactly does one kill a man with an axe and not be brutal about it?

it was funny how noriko kissed andy and the only people who seemed surprised by that were nile and also andy

nicky and joe's complete non-reaction to finding out noriko is alive And Evil Now is endlesly funny. they just left her on that boat and neither cared. i get book and nile not caring but joe and nicky knew her, and they just have 0 input on the subject of what to do with her

pinstripe suit guy!

joe and nicky and booker packing up and leaving with nile

andy blowing up at nile was A Moment tho

i dont know, i get why people didnt like the ending but its. .. . it makes more sense in the comicverse. bc the squad doesnt really. .. interact outside of jobs? i mean, think of the moon landing story in ttt. that was booker and joe and nicky doing a job and andy only showed up a for a couple minutes after it was done. or the brunch in the first issue of opening fire. the squad arent as tight in the comic, and andy often seems to do her own thing outside of work, so andy saying 'i dont want to do work anymore' and the squad being like 'alright bye then' makes more sense in this universe than the movie one

also i feel like greg was Trying to set up a thing where nile becomes the Leader of The Squad after andy dies but like. its not very well done since. . . i mean, nile hasnt spoken to booker since opening fire, (and she only knew him A Day). and shes known joe and nicky all that time, but there isnt really anything that indicates that they have any relationship at all, much less one that's grown. in all the comicverse the only time nile and nicky speak is in FM, and in that scene nicky tells nile about noriko. nile goes from someone who needs to be set aside to have background knowledge explained to her to being the Leader of the group with nothing in between. it kind of... comes out of nowhere.

on the other hand tho... i felt really bad for andy thru the whole thing. well, i always felt bad for andy, but in this one she seemed so miserable, especially since it really felt like none of the others actually.... cared about her. when noriko came back no one asked andy how she was doing (big question ik, but it wouldve showed they cared at least), nobody ever expressed any concern for her, no one even really seemed to want to be around her. in opening fire everyone was more distant than in the movie of course, but there were little moments where she would joke with joe, or nicky would try and comfort her, or stuff like that, but in FM it really felt like they just didnt really care about her. & in opening fire it felt a lot like andy's relationship with nile breathed some new life into her, but in FM it felt like all they did was argue. i get theyre not *as* close in the comics but it really felt like the only person who cared about andy at all was noriko (which was probably also how andy felt) but it just seemed to come out of nowhere. honestly i was reading and i was honestly agreeing with andy that she might just be better off if she did just die. opening fire, on the other hand, never make me feel that way

tho everyone made it sound like when the squad split up it was one of those cursed 'the found family leaves each other at the end of the journey' tropes. but guys i mean,,, this is the second installment out of three. that isnt the End. theyll come back in the third one and Dramatically Reunite to fight some baddies (probably those 'others' noriko mentioned). im guessing yitzhak fits into that too somehow.

anyways it wasnt That Bad but it made me kind of sad and the only Sweet Found Family vibes in it were when they saved booker. also they shouldve beefed up that nilemoose romance, it underwhelmed me. 6.5/10

i also ABSOLUTELY understand all of greg's comments about how you couldnt make FM directly into a movie, he always said that it had no plot and. i get it now. it really didnt have a plot sdfghjkl

[blissfulsun]

could you pleasee do 70&76 with Jeff from the angst prompts? 💞

hello my darling!! I’m sorry this took a couple of days, but its lowkey my favourite thing Ive ever written???🥺 Hope u like it just as much, ily💓 I changed both the slightest to fit into the idea I had I hope u don’t mind!!

word count: 1,713

Pretty little fears // Jeff Wittek

Jeff Wittek was a name you knew all too well. Except it used to bring visions of playgrounds and games of hide & seek, later swapped in for nights of sneaking out and stolen liquor from your father's hidden cabinet. Now, the man standing across the living room resembled more of a stranger.

Yet you somehow noticed him, eyes still instantly drawn to his taller figure in any room, this one particularly overcrowded. Your attention shifts when the friends you came with suggest a move to the garden.

He's listening to Toddy's story, or rather trying to make sense of the drunken rambling when a familiar head of hair passes in the corner of his eyes. It can't be, he tries to convince himself, searching past surrouding faces netherless, hopeful of the outcome but you're already gone.

You keep missing each other like that most of the night, you intentionally and Jeff still unsure if longing for you has finally materialised into him imagining you there in person.

The two of you collide when David stumbles across your group of girlfriends and invites you guys to 'rate his hot and less hot friends for a video'. You have no reason to say no, unaware of his connection to your hometown friend, never one to care much about social media and its content.

You make eye contact the moment you pass the threshold into the kitchen where the vs is gathered, Jeff first to speak despite the initial shock. 'y/n/n?' Others quiten down around you, eager to understand the connection between the two of you.

‘Long time Wittek' he's slightly confused and hurt by the careless tone of your greeting, his own mind going a hundred miles an hour at simply having you in such close proximity again.

You're silently seething, body simultaneously hot with rage and cold with faked indifference. You remain that way as he closes the distance between you, stiff in his arms when Jeff pulls you into a tight embrace.

The two of you remain like that for a while, your body melting into his form without permission. When he pulls away eventually, it's only far enough to look down at your face and ask 'wanna head outside? We have some catchin' up to do'. You sigh and nod, all too knowing that he wouldn't really let you have the choice.

Jeff couldn't let you go now that you seemingly fell back into his life, his hands guiding you as if you were to get lost in the house you've been in for the better portion of the night, you let him have at least that.

As soon as the two of you are outside and in a less crowded area you step away, distancing yourself from him in spite of the puppy eyes he directs at you. 'Well?..' You ask, hands wrapping around your waist in an effort to appear stand offish, the effort noted but futile.

Jeff just thinks you look adorable trying to stay mad at him, the attempts always failing in the past: from the time he tripped and accidently fell into your pride and joy of a sandcastle at four to the days when he began to fall into the wrong crowd, showing up at your window past midnight, asking to stay the night in a broken voice you could never say no to.

That's what your relationship with Jeff was, you gave and gave and he took. It wasn't always the case, early formative years of your friendship spent in mutual affection. He would push, punch and kick the bullies and in return you would offer him half of your snacks.

Then it transitioned to fighting just about anyone, and for any reason, not just for you. Still, you would bandage up the cuts and bruises, gentle kisses healing his scars better than any ointment.

You were a team, is what both of you would say whenever questions arose, jealous girlfriends & boyfriends alike or your parents increasingly protective in light of his misbehaviours. Even his own mother, who really just wanted the best for him and you, unsure at one point if you could pull him back and if it was fair to put such pressure on a 17 year old girl. You couldn't, evidently.

Jeff continued to hang out with a crowd you refused to be around and then you left for college. He was upset at first, his fear of abandonment and simply missing you translating into weeks of radio silence until he showed up at your dorm, the two of you falling back into the friendship no one else could understand.

It was fine like that for a while and then he left for Miami, promising to stay safe and in touch, though less often than either of you would like. His seventh arrest was the final blow, you mostly unaware to the extent of his illegal activities and the number of times Jeff found himself behind bars. That last time was the worst, not only because he was sentenced to at least a couple of months but because his own mother finally informed you.

'Jeff? Seriously...' your anger snaps him out of reminiscing. You look far less eager to take a trip down memory lane, but if he's already taken up your time you might as well get some answers, you decide. 'Why?' you grit your teeth, continuing 'why did you abandon me?' It's a loaded question and you're terrified of it's outcome.

‘Darlin' Jeff tries, his hand reaching for your own but you stand your ground despite his softened expression. 'No. Enlighten me. How do you spend every day with someone, write and call for months and just...just lie until you had no choice but admit you were fuckin' dealing drugs Jeffrey.' You want to shout, holding back for the sake of not gathering yourself an audience.

Meanwhile he visibly flinches at the accusing tone of yours. After a couple of calming breaths you look up at his face and begin to feel small again, back to the little girl barely reaching his shoulders & always gripping at the sleeve of his jumper.

'That's not even the worst part...' your words are softer now, Jeff can't decide if that and the tears gathering in your eyes are worse than the angry dialogue. 'The worst part is that you never responded...to any of my letters. I drove hundred of miles as a broke ass student only to find out I was already written off your visitors list' you pause, looking up to the sky to gather yourself and prevent the waterworks begging to start.

He just watches you both in awe and undeniable pain, heart split between letting you go as to not relive the pain and bringing you into his arms, body aching for the familiar comfort no one else has ever been successful in replacing, not really. 'After everything we've been through?' The last question comes out broken.

'I'm sorry...' he scrambles to reword when he catches sight of the perplexed anger adorning your face. 'I...you were goin' places alright? You were always going to be someone great darlin'. I just slowed that down and then...the final arrest happened. And I...you didn't need to see me like that, behind bars. I would rather do it alone a million more times than to put you through that.'

Jeff can only hope his explanation comes across half as elegantly. It doesn't, he realises at your sudden outburst, 'That wasn't your choice to make! Fuck you.' The response draws some unwanted attention to the pair of you, his friends standing in a corner nearby and trying to work out your significance.

'Angel please...' Jeff decides to try an old method of calming you down, hand wrapping around the back of your neck under the cascading hair you let down for the night. Your mind is still focused on the erupting anger, but your body, it surrenders to the familiar hold, shoulders unwittingly losing tension and expression softening while he stares in your eyes.

'You weren't alone.' The softness with which you deliver your next response shocks you both. The thought continues at sight of his confusion, 'You didn't have to do it alone. We were a team, from the time we were barely four...' Jeff nods at that truth. 'I know...' he's not sure whether to continue, unsure if this was the right place or time but already in too deep with a single look into your glassy eyes.

‘I know but I loved you-' 'wha' your attempt at interruption and shocked expression is ignored. '-and I know you loved me too angel. That's why...I could never do that to you' The confession hangs in the air, but at least it's finally out there, Jeff thinks. Years of repressed emotions and regret spilling over in favour of gentle relief inside your childhood best friend.

You clear your throat, 'right..' the eye contact is broken as you force your body away from his hold. He's confused, heart dropping into his stomach in disappointment as you stiffly walk around him and back inside without another word.

Jeff takes the leap and catches up to you outside, short of breath from the chase. '-wait!! That's...that's it? ' he has to ask. You whip around to face him for the second time tonight.

‘Yes! That's fuckin' it you asshole. You single handedly ripped my heart out and disappeared from my life like it was the easiest thing in the world! Of course I have always loved you, you..you selfish arrogant little pri-' the rant was left unfinished, a soft pair of lips shutting you up.

Jeff had to kiss you. It's been all he's thought about since you stepped into the random kitchen a couple minutes ago, the need so intense and eerily reminscent of his teenage years and early adulthood, always left unfulfilled for your own sake.

This time...he's tired of denying himself the pleasure, years older and maybe wiser, unwilling to ever let you go again. 'm still mad at you..' you mumble when he finally has to pull away for some air. The laugh that escapes him both infuriates and enamores you further, 'I know darlin...but I love you too.'

[cosmosrival]

Rico besides Kama what do you think about the other indian servants?????

AHHHHHHHHHH THIS IS GOING TO GET SOOOO LONG!!!! i have a different view of the indo fam as a whole. i call them the indo fam but i mean the found family trope!!!! theyre like a group of college students sharing a dorm if that makes sense, since their servant selves are obviously different from their initial myths/human vessels!!!

OK SO. RECENTLY, i have an oomf that found books about arjuna that summarize his exploits in the mahabharata(I DONT HAVE THE STRENGTH TO READ IT ALL IM SO SORRY) and also talk about him in a more philosphical manner such as his states of mind during each event etc and i’ve been meaning to read said book because im genuinely interested in arjuna now!!! and i’d like to know more about this indo prince because from what i’ve seen, he is portrayed in a rather bad light(?) in FGO which i find extremely !!!!!!!!!!! and incrdibley !!!!!!! strange !!!!!!! the mahabharata’s conflicts can be put in a mostly grey area where there’s no good nor bad, its not black and white. so seeing arjuna get bashed because of the way his conflict with karna was written is... hm. let’s say that im REALLY starting to understand arjuna fans that dislike seeing him get mischaracterized so much. OTHER THAN THAT, his design is adorable, his travel outfit is my favourite because he deserves to relax and have some fun!!! fgo making him a chuuni is cute and his VAs little moans are cute cute cute!!!!!!!!!!! (mash grabs my shoulder and forces me to sit down) i think that arjuna deserves better and im really happy to see him have fun in his travel costume voicelines. i think we should take arjun on a date!!! he’s a great lover, we’d have the best time!! OH ALSO, kama seeing him as the student council president in their interlude makes me SOOOOOOO HAPPY its unreal, i think it fits him very very well, the seitokaichou who was elected because of everyone’s hopes and recommended by teachers because he’s suuuch a good student but because of that, the pressure to be good is constantly towering over his head and everytime he looks out the window he wishes he could ditch class and skip a day just because he felt like going to the arcade and be a bad student.......just this once........i think hes very very cute...... i want him to cook for me. HAVE YO U READ HIS BOND 4 VOICELINE ?mmmmmggg i want him to get embarrassed everytime i praise him for having such a muscular waistline. AUG

ANEWAYS i also have quite the thoughts about karna, his characterization in the game is linked to arjuna’s and thats fine but i think that forgetting how much of a little sassy bastard he can get was a mistake! did you know that in apocrypha’s german dub on netflix, when jeanne calls his name like “You’re Karna, aren’t you ? The son of the Indian Sun God !” HES LIKE “So ?” AND THAT WAS SOOOO BITCHY OF HIM, i think that karna is a good boy in fgo but the fact that he was such a fighty old man in the mahabharata shouldnt be forgotten and is a charm trait. I MEAN ???? HE THREW HANDS WITH AN 18 YEAR OLD(ARJUN) WHILE BEIN LIKE... THIRTY TWO. WHATS WITH THIS ANNOYING OLD MAN !!!!! knowing these little facts about him made me like him so much more actually !! i think karna being so nice is adorable!! but the little bitchy energy u can find in his voicelines is also very charming!! i think karna looking at me emotionless as i ask him to lend me his notes for the nth time that week and then saying “...Mn.” when i thank him is cute!!! his voiceline towards things he dislikes is interesting to me. karna seeming aloof and mean bc he doesnt know how to communicate but is actually nice underneath...... hey... thats a little delinquentcore........ i wouldnt say yankii but hes like... hes like... u know hes the handsome quiet one of the group of yankiis... u know the one...? hey where are you going

ganesha is also a character im deeply interested in but i havent played CCC so i dont know that many details about jinako herself !! my brain goes HMMMMMM it seems lord ganesha is trans in fgo ! (since kama used to be a male god originally as well!!) ganesha uses all pronouns!!! and ganesha is also special to me because they share similar traits with kama when it comes to their characterization AND mischaracterizations. ganesha isnt JUST jinako. theres a part of a god in the servant mix!!! and jinako HERSELF is actually a pretty sad character imo. the whole otaku/neet thing is obviously a facade and her true wish being that she wants to redo her whole life is also proof of how much she hates what shes become, yet at the same time, she doesnt know what else she could do. but anyways, i prefer looking at servants from a lore POV so i think that ganesha should still be considered a god and be adressed as such!! i like seeing people portray ganesha as jinako but i prefer it when a certain lavish more godly side of them is put forward. a side of jinako that managed to move on a little bit if that makes sense ? that got more serious. and became someone else entierly despite sharing similarities. needless to say their bond with karna makes me happy since he shows them respect as you should towards a god!! its a bit different from their bond in CCC... like they matured somewhat!! anyway ganesha is the one who taught everyone else in the indo fam about video games and technology and i will NEVER shut up.

ashwatthama..... MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM %_’(’ç_”’è_ç(è_’”545656455456545453£¨¨µ¨µMµ¨++°=)=)°+ goodness. jesus christ on earth. my love story with him makes me so embarrassed. when he got revealed i instantly fell in love with him despite knowing JACK SHIT ABOUT HIM but since i was the only one in my friend group who was hardcore into fgo at the time, i kept my love for him to myself and just... (looks away)(i drop my wallet full of picturses of him) quietly adored his everything in silence. WELL, ree having an intense crush on yankii type characters isnt new, its been my favourite trope for ages (gyarus go in hand with them!!) and im still very attached to it so thats what made me love him in the first place!!!! BUT THEN. I GOT INTO HIS MAHABHARATAN LORE. And OHHHHHHHHH BABY.......... (im twirling my hair) so theres this 7ft tall war criminal..........<3<33<3(mash leans in and informs me that the convention of geneva didnt exist at the time) SO THERES THIS 7 FTTALL IMMORTALMAN.......<233 gOD he makes me absolutely CRAZY9909840385%£%%£%%µ%µ%µ the love i have for this character is immense and whenever im sad i remember that pako exists and has a tablet and can draw and i suddenly feel so much better. ok im gonna stop horny posting a little bit. but hes my wife. AND WHAT I LOVE ABOUT HIS PORTRAYAL IN FGO IS THAT, they actually made him a good boy despite his initial roughness and misdeeds ???!!! HELLO?? ashwatthama wishing for a redemption ark is my favourite thing and his righteousness that was born because of his regrets is a very interesting drivepoint to me !!! hes a gorgeous character and im buying a ticket plane as we speak right now so i can go find him in northern india. i’ll find him. GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME !!!!!GET OFF ME !!!

miss lakshimi makes me very sad! because every female servant in the indo fam is an already known face. (... would sita count.) and lakshi being a jeanneface is a waste. well, she’s still very pretty and her lore is also quite interesting!! i havent looked into it fully yet but i think she should be kissed on the mouth. her bad luck makes me slip on a banana peel whenevr i get close to her to kiss her and i hit my head on the pavement and pass away- 

parvati is on a tough spot for me atm. i genuinely love thinking of her as the way the indian goddess herself is portrayed because thats where the fun lies for me in her character. especially when shes involved with other indian servants, thats a given!! i would like to see parvati grow, suffer and heal. because branding her as an “all-knowing mom” is easy, but every single parent makes mistakes if you follow that logic. also, since shes the sakura servant “thats closest to her initial personality”, she’s got some of the most Repulsive fans ive Ever witnessed in fandom spaces and lets say that im trying to work my way out of this hellhole and find things to like about parvati without the fandom’s influence. needless to say, im going to keep looking into her mythos and her lore by myself at my own pace and keep doing my own thing in my little corner. 

rama shouldve been a jock. THE RAMAYANA IS OLDER THAN THE MAHABHARATA, WHY IS.....Hrm well him being summoned as his baby version gives me hope for a future rama alt perhaps??? but i think that he shouldve been a total jock and he shouldve been huge with a huge red lion-like mane for his hair and a teethy grin and big biceps and intense love for his wife. SPEAKING OF SITA, her charm point is her purity but i wish.... that their artist still hadnt drawn them like That, im not a fan of lily servants and i think purity = being young is a bit of an annoying excuse!!! rama and sita looking similar is because of their shared history which is fine but... rolls my eyes............. rama shouldve been 6ft tall and sita shouldve been a milf to match...... anyways i doubt ravana would be added as a servant but i’d love to have a ramayana centric event!! where all indo servants have their own lore centric role to play!!! oh thatd be a dream.... but i have learned to not expect much from a fanservice game so im jus gonna draw my own stuff! (strikes a pose!) (mashu claps!)

[booksbookandmorebooks]

Emma in the night Book review.

Hello there my lovelies, I know its been a little while since I last posted and I have honestly missed doing this so much, so thank you to anyone still here and still supporting me, it means the absolute world. 

As everyone is fully aware 2020 was an awful one but hopefully this year we can aim for a little more positivity and happiness, which is why im back today with a review of my first read of this year and bloody hell did I pick a goodun! So this is my first review for my first book of 2021, enjoy! 

The writing style

One of my favourite things about this book was the different points of view you get to experience and how well they mesh together. For example, we are told very early on that the events Cass is recalling aren’t exactly what you would call accurate and that she has spent months planning and creating this false narrative in an order to manipulate the people she's describing them to (which in itself is something I always get drawn into, the mystery and the need to figure out the characters motives and intentions along side the biggest question of all WHY?! Which is a question will find yourself screaming at the pages) This is made very apparent from the use of the choppy and restrictive way that these scenes are written. Wendy also somehow manages to create a feeling of desperation and messiness whilst having the characters maintaining such a mellow and collected exterior, you know the calm before the storm! Which is such a jarring feeling but one that realty captured and immersed me. A feeling I don’t think is easy to convey through a book format. That in itself is a testament to Wendy’s talent as a writer.

When you compare Cass’ chapters and inner dialogue to detective Abby’s they are so different but when they are looked at side by side they create a very interesting contrast that as I said before works so well, while there is a calm chaos to Cass’ words there is in turn a very structured and balanced feel to Abby's, almost a little detached like you were reading sections cut directly from a police case file. Through this constant difference in characters POVS the story flowed flawlessly and at the perfect pace for a thriller book. 

The climax of the book was not just shocking but also depicted so well in how the writing matched the pace of the reveal, the whole book alternates between cass and Abby with each chapter assigned to one of the characters but towards the end you see that the different POVs are whittled down to single sentences or just a few paragraphs that get shorter and shorter as the tension builds, creating this intense feeling of panic, alert and fear. A method that I swear had my heart physically racing at the end! It was like watching a classic cat and mouse scene play out in my hands/

I also have to mention that very last chapter. I'm sorry for waffling on but please bare with me. For a book based around secrets and deception the ending was that of a perfect one because of its ability to make you feel like after reading it you now share a secret with Cass and you are now part of this extremely messed up story and family, you have this understanding of her whole character and her motives which really brings everything full circle.

The character development:

The character development in this book is one of the best ive seen in awhile with each character being incredibly layered and yet undeniably flawed. Its done in such a human way that it doesn’t feel too far fetched like some thrillers ive read in recent years. Ensuring that all of the emotions tied in with said characters hit 10 times harder than that of those very basic 2 dimensional characters, even the worst people in this story have a difficult background or some type of abusive past, just a catalyst for their behaviours and characteristics and by gradually being informed of them you and being given the bigger picture you almost create an individual relationship and opinion on them ranging from hatred to pity. We get amazing development in every single one even the seemingly unimportant ones because even they are given enough backstory to still secure a connection of some kind with them, something I know we can all appreciate as readers.

The relationships.

The main relationship ill focus on is that of the sisters Cass and Emma. I know there are a lot of relationships in this book that over lap and intertwine in really interesting and sometimes awful ways but as these two characters are the basis of our main storyline it makes a little more sense to focus the attention on them

As a huge plot point throughout the story we see that due to the actions of their mother and her lack of genuine maternal instinct and well, love we see the girls in this constant battle of who can earn their mothers love trust and affections first. Which was so heart breaking to read, through their mothers constant manipulation and abuse we see them fighting the resentment and distance that they know is growing between them and sadly a lot of the time losing because of Mrs. Martins influence and involvement. Its very obvious when reading about their mother that her abuse is based around the fear she feels at the idea of any kind of alliance that the girls could potentially form with each other, god forbid they turn against her and out her as a bad mother! So she decides its easier to create a wedge between the two of them by openly favouring one over the other which unfortunately results in a lot of cruel actions from Emma direct at Cass, creating another toxic relationship and situation for the girls to live in. Although we do get the occasional glimpse at these really beautiful and raw moments of sisterhood and love they share deep down. After seeing so much pain in their story it made these moments just that little bit more special and down right beautiful which was a part that i especially adored.

The themes:

In its relatively short amount of pages this book manages to explore a huge variety of themes from love and obsession to betrayal abuse and manipulation, which lets be honest is everything you want in a good thriller book but usually when a writer takes on this many themes I always find some of them are either touched upon very quickly then dismissed and never revisited or thought of again or done so badly with such a lack of care that its obvious they were just included for the author to be able to say they've hit all the key themes a reader would expect a good thriller to hit. Yet Wendy manages to not only explore all of these and more, but manages to do it well and so subtly you don't notice until you sit back and think about them all which to me just shows a writers real talent.

The psychology:

Another huge part of this book and something I adored were the analysis parts of the book, the in-depth look into narcissism and its effects on the children it surrounds.  We are constantly listening to Detective Abby explaining and exploring the characteristics of the people Cass is talking about in her chapters, exploring the connections and the risk factors associated with such a serious disorder as narcissistic personality disorder. I found this to give the story and writing some real merit, it felt like i was reading a psychology book and getting down to the real science of why characters work the way they do and giving the reader a chance to explore it themselves instead of just being told this person has this which is something I cant stand in books. Instead of investing time and effort into helping guide you to a conclusion or even showing you they just tell you this is how it is and expect that to be enough. So frustrating! None the less, this is something I haven't experienced in another book and a technique I hope to see more of!

Similar books:

When reading this I got very strong sharp objects vibes, the fractured relationship between families, focusing on mother and daughter, a highly manipulative mother, an obsession with public facades and the desperate need to keep up appearances and so much more! If you liked sharp objects you will love this, as Emma in the night has all of the important story beats and intrigue that sharp objects has but more intensity and a faster paced story something I felt was missing when I read SO’S.

Over all I adored this book, as you can probably tell and considering it is my first Wendy walker book I can safely say i have fallen in love! I can promise you now this will not be my last read from her collection. I was captivated by her story and her writing which is why i couldn’t recommend this more!

A very very easy 5/5. 

so that's it, thanks for reading my review, i really hope you enjoyed it! sorry if I waffled at all its been awhile since ive written any reviews and am still getting my bearings with it again so please be patient with me. Hope you have a fab week my lovelies, Bye!

[leviathiane]

SHOW US YOUR WROR RAW UNPROCESSED WHOLE GRAIN ORGANIC NOTES

this is going to be a long-ass post i am so sorry to Everyone! i take a lot of notes.

So, as You specifically know (as well as all of my lovely Soggers) I take a LOT of notes. Obsessively. I write fucking everything bc i have very little memory and very much paranoia. This results in literal Piles of notes. Raw planning, on paper, on my phone– doodles of scenes im brainstorming, bulletpoints, entire SCRIPTS– it’s all there but scattered (I’ve got scenes planned in the margins of my goddamn anthropology notes and deciphering it was a NIGHTMARE) 

I won’t even upload all the photos of my writing notebook, because itd be like 50 pages of illegible nonesense. but heres a couple of planning phase pages. (may be hard to read, I dropped this notebook both into some tidepools, into a creek on campus, and accidentally leaked my waterbottle onto it in my backpack :/) 

if you can’t tell already, yes they all look exactly like this. Some are even more illegible, because I wrote them with the notebook half under my actual class notes. Because i wrote most of them in class. During lectures. And pretending very badly that i was not doing exactly that. (pay attention in class please i got away with this bc i was filling up elective units) 

I’m also flat out MISSING a large portion of my notes bc some of it? isnt even in the damn notebook. its on a sheet of binder paper, or on the empty back of an assignment. I’ve now lost most of those notes, but the ones i do still have are just as (even more, actually) indecipherable chicken scratch: 

Wow, how clean and tidy and easy to follow! i am in hell. 

and this doesnt mention the PAGES and PAGES of outlines that are on my laptop, and the pages of outlined scenes that are on the notes app of my phone. if i put them all, you would have entire chapter spoilers up to the very end of the story so i cant post a lot of them– and also theres just a goddamn lot of them. currently i have 16 pages of outlining. There are no spacing breaks. It is a solid 16 page block of text. Looking at it gives me a migraine. 

some assorted notes which i have dredged up from the deleted parts of the main draft google doc go all the way back to when i started Wror in June and they are Barely more readable than my handwriting on sheer account of: articulation is not my strength. These include: 

“Ch 8 plan: sabo gets trained specially, awakens his armament haki, beats ace in a bunch of spars and proves himself to be anything but vulnerable. The boys are like “we fucking recognize that technique ryu taught you before us!!” and goad ryu into finally starting them both on basic haki training, just to awaken it, since sabo already has. Also this is the chapter that ace finally confronts ryu for his devil fruit after ryu confirms that some devil fruit users can’t be hurt without haki and ace immediately catches onto that and tries to slam his pipe through ryus head. It doesn’t work, ryu catches the weapon with a haki covered hand, to avoid turning to flame with hit and ace just gets frustrated and accuses ryu of hiding his devil fruit, because he remembers what he saw in grey terminal and that now that he has seen haki he can distinguish it from what he saw and he’s sure no one could do what ryu did. He calls ryu a hypocrite for coddling them even after telling them to stop coddling sabo and ryu has to sit them down and explain that yes he does have powers and he has been hdiing it and explains his reasoning. However instead of understanding th eboys just get fired up and say they don’t wnt to be scared of fire, especially not when it means ryu isn’t taking them seriously in a spar. Ryu finally agrees to start them on desensitization training for fire trauma. Fire desensitization training happens on the beach, so that they have water nearby in case things get out of hand. At some point ace gives ryu a considering look and is just like “if you have a devil fruit that means you can’t swim either right?” and ryu is basically just like “lmao yeah” and then ace immediately attempts to drown him. Lots of murder attempts in ace’s department toget his older brother to be less of an idiot with little success lol(extra: ace tried to attack ryu earlier both to confirm that ryu has a devil fruit that would force him to use haki to hide it, and because he now knows that he CAN’T hurt ryu without haki and as thus can’t beat him and make him admit he’s awake without being good at haki.)” [chapter 8] 

“Small sabo lost his hat and goggles in the incident and while he doesn’t remember having them future sabo notices he looks uncomfortable and keeps touching his hair and head. Ace yells at him for it thinking he bandaging are bothering him and that he can’t touch them but little sabo just comments that something about it feels wrong. Luffy blurts our that he had a hat, like luffy does, But he doesn’t now ace begrudgingly mentions that they can’t get a new one in town. Future sabo doesn’t even hesitate and just plops his own hat onto his younger selves head. It clearly too big for him, and almost falls over his eyes but he grins up at future sabo and is like “wow!! Thank you! I’ll take care of it till I have one of my own” and creates a paradox like Luffys own hat. The footsteps younger sabo has yet to fill. This HAS to happen AFTER the talk where they explain that future and past sabo are both the same person, to give little sabo that pressure.” [chapter 9]

“(Right after this older sabo takes them down to the ocean so that they can play a little and desensitize themselves and immediately fucks himself over when he goes weak in the water bc he somehow fucking forgot his own devil fruit again and now even younger sabo is on his case about not letting him near the fucking ocean that little goddamn HYPOCRITE—) )” [for chapter 9]

“Ch 9 plan: they finally leave dawn island. Starts with the boys getting a haircut after training and luffy mentions how long it’s been since they’ve last needed a haircut, giving sabo and ace time to point out that it’s been 2 months now since ryu joined them, and that sabo was completely healed by now. The boys are now aware of the basics of haki, and while luffy hasnt awakened either yet ace and sabo both have a little bit of weak armament haki. (sabo won’t awaken observational haki until he gets his memories back) ryu tries to sneak off into the city to steal a boat but his brothers refuse to leave him behind and keep sneaking out after him, not wanting him to go alone and saying that since he’s been training them they’re clearly stronger and he needs to let them do this. Ryu eventually just lets it go because why the fuck not it’s a dream and they make him feel better. They get the boat out on open ocean and finally fucking sail out, cheering loudly, ryu struggling to make them all calm down but also not really trying. He’s happy as shit, and they’re all so excited and happy and sabo dips a hand into the waves and then smiles so fucking wide and tackles ryu so violently they both nearly tip into the water and it’s just very very good. “ [also for ch 9] 

** I flat out dont Have any outlining from before chapter 6, because i only started actually outling chapters after that. i tend to just sit down and Write up until i hit a plot point or writers block and then am forced to actually think it through and plan rather than letting it come naturally. thats also why the quality and editing is better in later chapters despite everything being written within the same time frame. 

besides entire chapter outlines, there are the scene specific phone notes like:

“(ADDED) Right after they leave dawn, when sabo is sure they’ve gotten enough of a head start, he calls Garp. He doesn’t say who he is, but that all of the boys are safe and happy with him and has them all talk into the phone to assure him that they’re fine. Garp is honestly just pissed off he doesn’t know who’s calling and when he asks sabo just laughs and says a disobedient brat before hanging up. “

“(ADDED) TO EXPAND ON CH 3: sabo gets offered the chance to go with dragon, and he hesitates on the offer to go through with his previous life with the family he’s made in the revolutionary again. He almost agrees, because the bought of losing them in this lifetime is near excruciating but reminds himself swiftly that it’s no place for his brothers and not what they’d really want, and he wants selfishly to be with them as long as he Can until he “inevitably” wakes up. The boys are visibly relieved by this, especially ace. (Sabo gets asked who he is by dragon, who wants to know more about the stranger with his son, but dragon has always been quicker to make connections no one guessed and he just smiled knowingly at sabo and tells him he’s sure the other will have no trouble finding them if he’s in need. Sabo in turn warns him to keep Kuma close, and to look for a slave girl named koala.)”

I have…. many of these. I have Many of Everything. 

finally, i have scene doodles. if i hit a bad writers block it usually helps me to sketch scenes or the character designs to regain my grip on what the hell is happening in the plot– Breach of Intention has character design sketches, pakcbond has MANY scene sketches, even some of my nsfw has some sketches. my wror skecthes arent Good of course, I am an art teacher for children and that means i am more often explaining the color wheel and brush techniques over drawing perfect human replicas– and i just dont really make a lot of fanart? ive never drawn sabo before but i sure have a bunch now. i wont include close ups because they genuinely suck but heres an example pic 

So… yeah thats about everything. this is a VERY long post and yet i only included like maybe ¼ or 1/5 of all the notes i have dbskhjgfkjadns lmk if anyone wants more (or notes for my Other stories, which contain NO WHERE the same absurd amount of shit that wror does.)

[dyonoi]

Davekat is one of the ships I'm not as into because it's ruined by the fandoms Biphobic nature. Dave and Karkat are both into girls and it's totally Normal for them to want to eventually date Jade too when they're older and mature, and it doesn't make them less into each other because you think it makes them Less Gay. It just didn't work out this time, in this timeline. Keep hating Jade Harley for getting into your sexy ship.

have you ever considered that a huge chunk of people in the homestuck fandom, especially on twitter/tumblr are...in fact lgbt themselvesdid it ever occur to you that youre sending this shit to actual bi people

im unironically gonna pull out the NO U card here and say the idea that bi people "cant pick" or are naturally drawn to polyamory and/or promiscuity and equating poly to bi is infact biphobic here. not to say real bi poly people dont exist or are doing anything wrong but this concept is often a negative portrayal of bi people in media

let me tell you my own experience here so that MAYBE you can understand someone elses perspectiveback in the midlate 2000s in highschool i dated a bi guy called brennan. i obviously had no problems with this, but in the lead up to this my friends had a whole discussion with me and basically told me not to date him. because he was bi. basically what it boiled down to was "theres double the chances of him cheating on you, you have to look out for him being friends with ANYONE" and "hes probably a manw***e." i dated him anyway for around 4 months before i found out he was cheating on me with 2 other people at the same time. the response i got from everyone was "I TOLD YOU SO" and i internalized this shit for years.

fastforward like 2-3 years and im in a relationship that im still in to this day. im a committed person when it comes to relationships and i am straight up monogamous. so thoughts of being bi were pushed down since i was 16 because i thought admitting to it or even exploring the idea would make it come across like i was less into my bf and an affront to him, that i would potentially wander off or be unloyal because i internalized that all bi people would be secretly unhappy unless "they had both" and that it would come across that way. it took me a ridiculously long time to be able to realize i could admit to finding some girls hot while staying monogamous

so...dave and karkat being bi AND monogamous is important to me. not just because of personal stuff, but also cause ive literally written multiple fucking essays about how its so crucial to karkats character and elevates him from "character i enjoy" to "incredibly well written and compelling character writing that im very invested in, and likely the only vehicle to his actual happiness." as for dave, it just straight up goes against his existing character and sometimes saying "this doesnt add up" is a legit reason not to like something. i find the argument that poly is something that has to happen as a byproduct of them "maturing" and that monogamy is inherently immature in contract is pretentious and condescending as fuck

i dont know how else to explain this multiple fucking times. all this is completely divorced from jade, and this would still stand if it was john, terezi, jane, tavros, obama, or whoever the fuck else in her place. though now the epilogues made it even WORSE in my mind because of the fact that she sexually harassed them for years and people are conveniently ignoring that but thats besides the point

and this idea that i think that bi people in het relationships arent "gay enough" and thats why i hate djk is... incredibly STUPID, considering thats the arrangement ive been in for a large chunk of my life.

im very sorry that i dont fit your neat little one-dimensional narrative that davekat shippers hate jade and are biphobic

anyway if you wanna ignore all of karkat and daves long standing characterization regarding this, and wanna ignore jade (and i wanna make clear here again- i do not hate her, i hate what she did, but it makes me find her WAY more interesting. i LOVE character flaws and think theyre extremely important and honestly jade needed more of them) and everything she did... have fun lol

[slut-for-fandoms]

Paint me yours (kth x reader) PART 1

Pairings: Artist!Taehyung x reader

Genre: smut, fluff, angst (in the following chapters) 

Summary:  You are an art college student who struggles with finances. Until one day, on an exhibition of the arising artist Kim Taehyung, when the same boy offers you a job as his model. Would it be just a simple job or would it complicate your life in ways you have never thought it would?

Warnings: none in this one (perhaps my bad writing and lots of mistakes?) 

A/N: So here is the first chapter. I really don’t know what to think about it as i haven’t written anything in more than a year (so sorry guys but now I am back, yey) I really do hope you like it and please let me know what you think and whether you would like to be tagged in the series ♥ Enjoy 

Euphoria. Excitement. Happiness. Exaltation. A complete symphony of colors and emotions. Blue, purple, violet, azure - blended in such a way that glues you to the masterpiece. At places it seems unfinished, raw, as though the creator has been in a hurry. But at the same time it is so detailed that you wonder how long it took him to create it. It represents a woman, or to be more precise, a young girl. Long hair composed with ochre, amber, honey and a hint of gold, covers half of her pale face. Her lips are the perfect combination of red, cheery, wine and auburn. An orderly chaos of colors.

While everything seems just as raw painting, the most capturing features are the eyes. They are so detailed and express the condition of the girl. The sparks that make her look tangible grabs you on a roller coaster of thoughts and feelings and somehow makes you even experience the same state.  I move to the next painting.

Sadness. Affliction. Pain. Torment. The contrast between the used shades is much deeper. Pale yet dark. The more I look at it, the more it captivates me. All of the creations I saw were beyond amazing, complete masterpieces but this one… This one is different. One look and I got this strange feeling in my guts when we anticipate something bad, something that might hurt us.

The background is composed of dark shades, while the girl is sculpted of the pale range of colors. Again, the most detailed parts are the eyes. You get the feeling as if a soul was trapped inside the drawn girl that shows how much she suffers. The more you contemplate, the more you assume that the darkness around her represents the cruel world, while the bright yet shaded colors shows how fragile and broken she is. Is it from the world? What destroyed her? Who made her look like a shattered vase which parts are no longer going to form its beautiful shape?

Holding my glass of champagne I took some steps back and sat on the settee opposite the painting. Thanks god it wasn’t that low as they use to be in other galleries. I crossed my legs which caused the hem of my black dress to roll up slightly. As an art student, I tend to visit many exhibitions in order to get inspiration, gain knowledge of the new and unorthodox styles and improve mine. I can’t say I am complaining as we are given free access to any kind of such events. This is beyond amazing as now I am contemplating the art of one of the rising artists – Kim Taehyung. Honestly, I have never seen him but the critics consider him the new Van Gogh and now I understand why.

When I came I was so uneven about it, all the people here were rich and classy and I, a broken student with a cheap dress borrowed from her friend, had no place here. Everything was out of my league and I felt like garbage disfiguring this place.

“You seem really immersed into the picture.”, someone chucked, bringing me out of my thoughts. I looked up and saw man in golden suit and two glasses of champagne in his hands. His smile was so bright, genuine, that it made me blush slightly, “May I?”, he titled his head towards the settee as if asking if it was free.

“Ye- yeah, of course”, I stuttered and put a lock of fallen hair behind my ear.

His smile grew bigger and he took the free seat next to me.

“Here.”, he gave me one of the glasses. I looked up at him confused, “I saw that you have already finished yours so…”, I looked at my glass which was empty. I might have stayed there for a way longer time that I have thought. I left the glass on the floor next to the settee.

“Thank you.”, I gave him a smile, although inside I was feeling embarrassed, “Very fond of you.”, I said after taking the offered glass.

“Well, I just wouldn’t have forgiven myself if I have left such a beautiful lady sitting here by her side. The champagne was just an excuse to approach you.”, I bit my lip and tried to hide myself due to the blush that crept on my face.

“You are even more appealing when blushing.”, okay, I have never believed I could become so red but here I am.

“Please, stop.”, I stuttered through the smile that just grew bigger on my face.

“Why?”, he tilted his head and asked me with that sweet smirk still placed on his face, his eyes never leaving my figure, “you don’t like honest people?”, as a response I chuckled and tried to gain my dignity and look at him. Why was I such a blushing mess around this… stranger…a handsome stranger?

“It is just that you are the first one to approach me this evening.”, a slight feeling of sadness made my stomach turn as I recall the events, pardon, the lack of them from this night. I started playing with my hands as something as pity overwhelmed me.

“Well-”, his deep baritone voice made me look at him. This time he was facing the painting in front of us which gave me the opportunity to survey him. Soft pink lips, sweet roundy nose, medium long light eyelashes. Skin in the color of bronze and a golden suit that make him look like a god. Aristocratic hands with long fingers, adorned with rings. The way he is holding the glass gives you the thoughts that a prince is sitting oppose you, “It is their lose.”, he states after locking his eyes with mine. And then I’m completely lost. They are just like the sad girls’ in the paintings – full of emotions. I see the same spark that leads directly to his soul. It captivates you. There is love, care, tenderness that make my heart skips a beat. But also you can spot something wild and intriguing. An abyss of feelings kept locked deep inside.

He took a sip of his champagne which caught my attention and made me break the eye contact. How could such a simple action as drinking makes me wanna grab the brushes and paint this gorgeous creature on the canvas?

“I can’t say I am complaining of that.”, I followed his movements and took a taste of my drink, “They seem like they are here only for talking. All of them are just chit-chatting and just at times spare a glance at the paintings. It – It just looks like a gathering of the rich and bitchy class.”, suddenly he burst into laughing. Oh that sound… It was like a soft melody for my years I could listen to all day. It was so infectious and addicting.

“What?”, I asked confused but with a smile plastered on my face.

“I couldn’t have said it more correctly. I’ve met everybody in the gallery and yet you are the only one contemplating the works.”

“Isn’t that what we are supposed to do on an exhibition? But apart from that, these paintings, these masterpieces…”, I took a breath like looking at the sad girl opposite me, “they are captivating. There is life in them, there is soul. Undoubtedly the artist is one of the best I’ve ever come across. Many have the ability to draw, few have the talent to create a masterpiece, something that makes you stop and think. And these here, they indeed convey more than a hundred words.”

“And where do you think that comes from?”, he asks me in that deep voice of his. I turn my attention back on him to see the man already looking at me with a stern expression showing nothing.

“The ability to make a painting live?”, he nodded his head in agreement, “Pain.”

“Pain?”

“Pain. It is always the pain. Why do you think the greatest artists are those who have suffered the most?  Sadness, sorrow, ache, agony… they are different than the other feelings. When something good happens to you, you are happy for a short moment. Usually those moments tends to be forgotten way easier than the moments that our soul was in pain. It is just that the affliction we bottle inside us ruins us in the end. The knots in our stomach, the suffocating feeling in our chest… they are tormenting us and we all need a way to express them somehow, to try to get them out of us. And the answer is always the art. It doesn’t matter whether it would be with a brush or a pen in our hands, if we are going to compose a poem, song or just draw something.  We just want the pain away. For its tight fist around our hearts to weaken, for its dark thoughts to leave us at peace at night, for the tears to stop rolling down and choke us.”, I paused in order to take a sip of my champagne, feeling his eyes following my movements, “That is one of the reasons why I like this one so much.”, I continued pointing at the work before us, “It look as if not only the model had been sad, but also the artist.”, when I turned around he had a sad smile on his face. For a moment I saw the abyss – full of sorrow and regret, pain and affliction.

“You can’t be more right.”, and once again, as he looked up, the door to his soul closed with that stern expression, “That is why I don’t know whether I like this work or not.”

“It recalls a bad event?”

“It recalls the day I painted her.”

My eyes were so wide that surely they were going to pop out of my head. I opened my mouth, then close it, then opened it again. I was so shocked that I could say nothing.

“I still remember how heartbroken she was.”

“You- you are the artist?”, my voice raised an octave higher and I cursed myself.

“Surprised?”, he asked smiling at my shocked expression.

“You just caught me off guard.”

And then the rest of the night kind of slips my mind. I don’t really know how long we’d been talking through various topics. Whatever felt like hours had only been half an hour once I saw the watch on my hand.

“Unfortunately, as a host, I need to make a speech. It was nice to meet you -”

“(Y/N)!”, answering I took his hand as he helped me get up from the settee.

“(Y/N).”, he said tasting my name and I could not miss the way his tongue rolled and the deep voice that sent shivers down my spine, “A beautiful name for a way more gorgeous girl.”

“Why are you trying to make my blush so hard?”, I asked trying to hide my face.

“I don’t know. I just like it.”, he shrugged with a smile, “Can I ask you something, (Y/N)?”, is it just me or he just lowered his voice on purpose while saying my name.

“O-Of course.”, out of nervousness I started playing with my own hands which only made his smirk grow bigger.

“Would you like to be my model, darling?”

[ottomanladies]

Review: Kösem Sultan (İktidar Hırs ve Entrika) by Özlem Kumrular

my Goodreads rating: ★★☆☆☆ Positive parts: the extensive bibliography which made me discover more books that I now want to read Negative parts: her way of presenting information, the almost total absence of historiography reasoning and if present its weakness, the lack of more information in the notes section.

I am often asked what I think about this book, so I have finally picked it up. I'll admit I have not read it all: I have skipped paragraphs or even whole pages. I did not read chapter 3, “Valide Sultan in the Old Palace: Mustafa I, Osman II and again the reign of Mustafa I”, because I have read in a review that it is not really about Kösem... and I was not interested.

I must say I am very disappointed. I don’t know if I had high standards or what, but it really wasn’t what I expected. I thought it was academia but it may have actually been popular history. I hope it’s popular history at this point, because it doesn’t seem like academia at all. Information is just presented like that, there are no explanations about how the author reached her conclusions-- which is something that I love reading about in historiography books, as someone who wants to do this job.

On the other hand, I deeply appreciated the research she did for this book: she drew from Spanish, Turkish and Italian archives, and books in english are listed in the bibliography as well. I particularly liked that she used Pedani as one of her sources in harem matters, it made me very happy as an Italian. Unfortunately, she did not transcribe the quotes she got from ambassadorial reports; this doesn’t allow you to check her translation, which is something that is very dear to me. 

[very long rambling ahead-- I am so sorry]

As for her more unconventional claims: that Ahmed I had married Kösem and that şehzades Selim and Orhan were two of Kösem’s children, I was not satisfied with her reasoning. Her claims rest on a letter that - apparently - was sent to Venice on Kösem’s orders when Murad IV ascended the throne; it was found in the archives of Venice and it was in Ottoman Turkish. Kumrular included a translation in Latin Alphabet in her book of the important passages. [you can look at it here: x]:

“His generous mother Kösem, for the dead Sultan Ahmed, whom Allah took with him, was a very important person and the Sultan loved her so much that he honoured her by marrying her. In addition to the ruling sultan, she has two younger sons named Sultan Selim and Sultan Orhan.”

Now, Kumrular claims that the prince Selim who was born in 1611 to Ahmed was the son of another concubine, and that this is another Prince Selim. She explains the absence of Kasim and Ibrahim (who were clearly very much alive) saying that Venice probably already knew that they existed... it’s a little weird. Historian Erhan Afyoncu says that Selim and Orhan may have been Kasim and Ibrahim’s other names, but Kumrular answers this by saying that no source mentions that they had more than one name. Which is true but I remembered when I read some Venetian ambassadorial reports back in November, and Giovanni Cappello in 1634 clearly calls Murad IV’s younger brother “Orcan”:

“Tiene Sua Maestà due figliuoli nell'infanzia, d'incerta riuscita. Ha due fratelli, li quali, non ostante l'uso contrario della morte nell'assunzione degli Imperatori, vivono tuttavia; il maggiore di nome Orcan è in età di anni 19 con concetto di buon talento. Il Re sovente seco tratta con umanità, permettendogli la barba, privilegio riserbato alla sola persona del Re in serraglio...”  “His Majesty has two sons in infancy, uncertain in survival. He has two brothers who - contrary to the tradition of putting them to death on the emperors’ ascension - nevertheless live; the eldest named Orcan is 19 years old with a good intellect. The King often treats him with kindness, allowing him to grow a beard, a privilege reserved to the only person of the King in the Serraglio...”

At the time I thought that it was a simple mistake of Cappello’s, who misunderstood “Kasim” (I mean, Mihrimah was called Cameria in Italy so everything is possible at this point), but maybe he did not and he was right? Maybe Kasim was truly called Orhan Kasim or Kasim Orhan? Cappello says that in 1634 he was 19 years old, which means that he was born in 1615-- a date often attributed to Kasim’s birth. 

While he mistakes Orcan for the eldest of Murad IV’s brothers (Bayezid was in fact the eldest, being born only a couple of months after Murad IV), we cannot simply distrust his whole testimony. 

It is sad that Kumrular did not read this relazione (or did not find it useful to her book) because I would have liked to see her conclusions. 

About Kösem’s marriage, her reasoning is... pretty weak, in my opinion: she first says that the letter must have been written on Kösem’s orders, who knew that official wives had a great importance in Europe so she could have said that just to enhance her status.... but then says that it is unlikely that she outright lied in a state document:

“It is obvious that Kösem, in front of a country as important as Venice, wanted to mark the legality of her position. Emphasizing that she is the wife of the deceased ruler and the praises directed at her were aimed at raising her relationship with the Venetian state, gaining respect for her and therefore listening to her words.” 

To be honest, the claim that Venetians would have looked down a non-married consort is out of the world; they had entertained relations with the Ottomans for two centuries at that point and they very much knew that Ottoman sultans did not frequently get married. 

Moreover, there is no proof that this letter was sanctioned by Kösem herself. It was written by one Mustafa çavuş in 1624 (dated by Pedani), who says that it is the second time he is sent to Venice as an Ottoman emissary. It is certainly strange that in it he claims that Murad IV is fifteen years old, which he definitely was not. At the end of the letter he says that the rest will be included in the letters penned by the Sultan and the Grand Vizier. Unfortunately, either these letters did not surive or Kumrular did not read them... she did not explain it in the book. 

In any case, she attributes mistakes to the person who actually wrote the letter (high-ranking women dictated their letters) which is... rather convenient, I guess.

The rest of the book is just a narration of Kösem’s life. There is so much she doesn’t look at in depth and at the end of every section I was not satisfied with the amount of information given. There was always something lacking, I felt like there was more she could have said but for some reason didn’t. 

The book is 336 pages long and at the end you’re left with only the surface of Kösem’s life. It was more like reading an - admittedly long - Wikipedia article than a biography. 

Unfortunately this book was not very reviewed by her peers, which is a shame. I could only find one review, by Hüseyin Çalış (who is apparently a member of the Izmir Katip Celebi University), who says that the book sometimes seems like a novel and that there are deficiencies in it but that all in all is a good contribution to Ottoman historiography, considered that it was written in just one year.

I am not sure I agree with his positive view of this book. I didn’t feel satisfied when each topic was over, it felt like she was just listing events happening - most of them not about Kösem - with no reasoning behind. I am also disappointed that the notes section is very poor of information; she did not add anything in it except the titles of the books she had drawn her info from-- often they were books which contradicted her own claims but she did not explain that. 

The bibliography part was very rich, though, and this is what I most appreciated about this book. I have written down a couple of books I want to read, among them: Murat Kocaaslan - Kösem Sultan. Hayatı, vakıfları, hayır işleri ve Üsküdar’daki külliyesi, which I think may be better than this book altogether. I had the chance of reading a chapter of his book about Mehmed IV and it’s more academia than Kumrular’s: better written, better researched, better noted as well. 

In conclusion (I am so sorry this got way too long, I was supposed to write just a couple of things about this book), maybe it’s my fault but it truly was not what I thought it would be and I am not sure I will buy her book about Nurbanu and Safiye after all. I personally prefer pure academia compared to... whatever this was (half and half? who knows)

If you can’t stand academia, though, and want something... lighter? maybe this book will be for you. It certainly looked like popular history sometimes.

[calligraphist-artemisia]

Star Searching

Kidge Secret Santa 2018 – for @all27g who asked for “Anything Kidge (But I have a special love towards any AUs where Pidge and Keith knew each other before the Kerberos Misson or fall heads over heels in love without realizing it.)”

I hope you enjoy it!

Summary: Pre-Kerberos AU. There were a few things Keith regretting doing in his life, and he was sure that joining Shiro for dinner with Commander Holt’s family would be one of them. That was, until he met the youngest member of the family.

Also posted on AO3 and fanfiction.net, under the username “kishirokitsune”

Star Searching

The last time Keith felt that out of place was during his first day at the Galaxy Garrison. And just like then, he knew the only reason he was there was thanks to Shiro. He hanged back as Commander Holt's wife welcomed Shiro into their home, saying how good it was to finally meet the pilot who would be traveling with her husband and son to a moon of the furthest planet in their solar system.

Matt was at her elbow, teasing her for making such a big fuss about it. “Oh, come on, mom. He's only the best and brightest to have ever graduated the Garrison.”

Shiro turned pink at the attention.

“And you must be Keith,” Mrs. Holt said warmly, turning to him next. “Matt tells me you're in the piloting program as well. It must be wonderful to have a mentor with such experience around to guide you!”

“Um, well, yeah. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Shiro,” Keith answered honestly. He could feel his anxiety rise from her unexpected interest in him. His heartbeat quickened and he found himself having difficulty properly breathing. “Do you have a bathroom I could use?”

Mrs. Holt nodded and gestured to the nearby stairs. “It's just upstairs and across the hall. You can't miss it.”

Keith thanked her before fleeing upstairs, only able to relax once he shut the bathroom door behind him. He just needed a moment to compose himself. Then he would be able to go back and make it through dinner like a normal person.

“Why did I agree to this?” he asked his reflection.

He knew why.

All it had taken was one pleading look from Shiro and the sadness in his voice when he said that Adam had to oversee a detention and couldn't make it like they originally planned. After that, he'd hunted down the nicest clothing he owned (a red button down shirt and a pair of jeans) in order to join him for a celebratory dinner with the Holt family.

Keith took a few more minutes to get his breathing under control and prepare himself for how overwhelmingly nice Mrs. Holt was (just like Matt and Commander Holt, actually), then he left the bathroom. And while he had every intention of going straight downstairs, he found himself drawn to a wall of framed photographs instead.

It was the perfect display of a happy family. Or mostly happy, Keith corrected himself, noting one of the group photo's included a girl with long brown hair who was pouting. He assumed it was Matt's famed little sister, Katie.

Not for the first time, Keith wished he'd had a chance to save the photo albums his dad kept, before he was sent to the Home.

A faint sound drew his attention down the hall. It wasn't anything strange, except he was sure everyone else was downstairs. Weren't they? Keith furrowed his brow as he tried to recall. He was about to go down and find out, when he heard the sound of something falling and a pained groan.

Keith reacted before he could stop to think his actions through, barging through the half-open door to find the girl from the photographs sitting on the floor, rubbing her shin. She looked up at the sound of the door opening, her eyes wide.

At her side, an all-white dog stood up and fiercely wagged its tail before bounding towards him. Keith lifted his arms to protect his face from what he was sure was an attack, but all the dog did was stop in front of him and whine, pawing at his leg for attention.

“Bae Bae!” scolded the girl.

Keith slowly lowered his hands for the dog to sniff and was rewarded with a series of very wet licks from his fingertips to his wrist. He grinned at the overly affectionate dog, relieved that he wouldn't have to explain to Shiro how he got injured. He glanced up at the girl – Katie, he reminded himself – to find her staring at him, her expression unreadable.

He flushed with embarrassment. He could only imagine what it looked like to her. He was some stranger who came into her room without permission and then proceeded to ignore her in favor of her dog, who was only too happy to soak up all of the attention he was willing to give.

“Sorry,” Keith blurted out. “I, uh, thought I heard something fall, so I came to make sure everything's alright.”

She stared at him for a moment longer. “You're Shiro's friend? Kev- no, Keith?”

He relaxed a little. “Yeah. You're Matt's sister, Katie, right? Are you okay?”

Awkward.

It was all so awkward. The stilted conversation. Keith wished he could do something ridiculous like sink through the floor or transport back in time to stop himself from running into her room.

He barely heard her reply as he glanced around, almost immediately narrowing in on the telescope at her window. “Is that the Ouranos III? I didn't know you could get that outside of the Garrison.”

Katie stopped talking mid-sentence, following his gaze. There was a moment of hesitation before she answered. “Technically, I'm not supposed to have it. Dad brought it home as part of his personal research equipment a few years ago, but since he's helping test the new Ouranos IV, he let me use that one. You have a good eye.”

Keith shrugged. “I like looking at the stars. Knowing which telescopes give me the best view just felt like a natural part of that.” He paused, unsure of how much more to say, but with Katie looking up at him with a tiny smile, he pressed on. “Pops bought me an Orion growing up and we'd spend every night we could mapping out the stars. I'll never forget that.”

And that was it.

That was all it took for that awkward atmosphere to evaporate. Katie latched onto the topic and ran with it, happily bringing Keith along with her for the ride. At some point, he sat down on the floor with her and let Bae Bae sprawl across his lap, though he wasn't sure if that was before or after their discussion on whether or not the new line of SuperNova 9000's were really worth the hefty price tag.

Time slipped away from them. Keith only realized an hour had gone by when Shiro walked up behind him.

“So this is where you disappeared to,” he said fondly. “Dinner's ready, if you two are hungry.”

Keith reluctantly urged Bae Bae out of his lap before getting up. He sneaked a glance at Katie, and maybe it was just him imagining things, but he thought she looked disappointed by the interruption as well.

They all went down for dinner and Keith largely stayed quiet unless directly asked a question. Every now and then his eyes would meet Katie's and he couldn't help but wonder: had he made a new friend?

A warm feeling blossomed in his chest.

For so long it had only been Shiro, who was as much his mentor as he was a best friend, and quite a few years older as well. To have found someone near his own age who he got along with and actually enjoyed talking to...

He should say something. Add something to the conversation at the table. Ask her to pass the salt. Anything.

But Keith didn't and before he knew it, it was time to leave. He echoed Shiro's thanks for having them over for dinner and then they were out the door, heading to Shiro's car.

“Wait!”

Keith half-turned in time to catch Katie pushing past her parents to sprint over to him. There was a noticeable hue of pink across her cheeks as she thrust a piece of paper in Keith's direction. He took it, momentarily confused by the string of numbers written there, before his brain caught on. “Your phone number?”

Katie nodded, her eyes bright. “Just in case you want to talk some more. You still haven't convinced me that the Nova line peaked twenty years ago and has only gone down since then.”

“But I don't have a phone.”

Katie's face fell and Keith realized too late how that must have sounded to her. “I just mean, um, I can't text you, but the Garrison has land lines for us so use, so I could call using one of those. I'll...” He swallowed, well aware that Shiro was listening in. “I'll call tomorrow. At noon? And we'll figure out a good day for us to talk?”

She was smiling again, so he counted that as a good sign.

After a quick agreement to the plan, they went their separate ways. It wasn't until he and Shiro were well on their way back to the Garrison, that Keith had an idea.

“Hey, Shiro, do you think I could get a phone?”

[picturetoburnnn]

New Momma? | Michael Clifford x Reader

Pairing - m.c. x reader

Word Count: 2.3k

Warning - mentions of death

A/N - Tbh I love this so much, itts probably my favorite so far that ive written and i just love dadsos so much okay

“Daddy, daddy! I want this one!” The five year old jumped up and down, pointing to the sparkliest doll on the shelf.

“Really, princess? Don’t you have one just like it?” He held the box in his hands, deciding yes, she has one nearly identical to this at home, I just know it.

“She wants a twin,” the little girl squealed, raising her hands in an exaggerated shrug.

“Bells, if this is the one you get, I’m not going to come back and return it when you don’t wanna play with it anymore,” he warned, knowing full well he’d give in to her wishes, if that's what she really wanted.

“Yes, yes, yes, this is the one I want! Thank you daddy!” She hugged Michael’s legs, squishing her cheek against the denim before jumping up and down again.

“You’re welcome baby,” he set the box in the cart, making sure he had everything on his list before heading to the iconic red Target checkout lane. As he placed his items on the conveyor, he heard his daughter speak up.

“Do you think Miss Y/N will play with me when we get home?”

He quirked a smile at her, mussing her hair playfully. “Silly Bella, of course she will. She loves playing with you.”

The girl beamed up at her father, her grin a mirror image of his.

In the parking lot, Bella strayed a few steps away from the cart, causing a small panic to rise in Michael. “Bells, what’s the rule?” He reminded as gently as he could.

“Hand on the cart,” she said almost dejectedly, reaching her hand over to grasp the buggy.

“Thank you, honey. Wanna pop the trunk?”

She perked up immediately. “Yes, please!” Making grabby hands at the key fob in Michael’s she squeaked in delight when it was handed to her. She pressed the button as they got closer, and smiled at the satisfying “thump” of the latch releasing.

After quickly storing the bags in the trunk, replacing the cart, and safely bucking his daughter in the backseat, they finally started back home. The music playing through the car radio was the only sound, which was very unusual. Normally, Bella would be recounting every fairytale and daydream she’s had throughout the day when she’s in the car.

Picking up on the change, Michael asked “What’s on your mind, sweetheart?”

“Daddy, why don't I have a mommy?”

The question stunned him into silence. What could he say? How was he supposed to tell his baby girl, the light of his life, that her mother was gone? That she couldn't come back?

“Your momma got sick baby. The kind of sick that medicine can’t help. But she loved you baby, she loved you so much.”

God, there were tears filling his eyes now. “She… your mother was the sweetest woman I ever knew. She was so loving, and kind.”

“Is she in heaven? I heard Lily down the street saying her nana went to heaven.”

“If there’s a heaven baby, there is not a doubt in my mind, she is there.”

He saw her nod in the rear view mirror.

“Hey,” he called softly. “Don’t let this ruin your mood for the whole day, okay? We can still have a good time, right?”

“Yeah,” she confirmed.

The ride was silent, but a comfortable silence, all the way to the driveway.

“Wanna help daddy carry bags in?”

“Yes,” she nodded, smiling.

From lifting bags from the trunk to setting them down on the kitchen counter, Bella had a slight cloud above her head. Michael nudged her arm slightly.

“Y/N's not here yet,” Bella noted with a frown.

“She will be this evening, though,” Michael told her. Her demeanor shifted immediately.

“Really?” Her eyes lit up. He nodded.

“Is she gonna be my new momma?”

Michael flat out dropped the box of crackers he was holding. “I'm sorry?”

“I wouldn't mind her being my mom. She's nice. Brings me candy.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Michael couldn't help the smile growing on his face. “I wouldn't mind it either, Bells. I kinda want that too.”

Bella faked a gasp. “Daddy has a crush?”

Michael rolled his eyes, playfully nudging the five year old. “Alright there missy, first of all, it's more than a crush, and you know it. If you're a child of mine, you just use proper insults. Secondly, don't pretend for a second that you don't love her too.”

“Well, duh. I never said that.”

The father rolled his eyes, quirking a brow. “You're sassy tonight, what's up with that? I might have to do something to fix that,” he chuckled, holding his fingers out towards her. She knew what this meant.

“No! No tickles!” She giggled as she ran away from her dad on her tiny legs, not near fast enough to outrun him. He swung her up in his arms, running his fingers up and down her sides, reveling in the squeaks and laughter emitting from his daughter.

“What,” came a new voice, “is going on here?”

“Daddy's the tickle monster,” screamed Bella in between bursts of laughter.

“Is that so?” Y/N's hands rested on her hips, lips pursed. “What have I said about tickle fights?”

Michael stopped immediately, feigning innocence.

“Never without me!” The woman shrieked out before starting to tickle the girl as well. Poor Bella now had both the adults in her life tickling her, pinning her down on the couch.

“Stop it, stop it!” she managed out, and slowly the pair withdrew, and turned to look at each other.

“Hello, love, how was your day?” Y/N smiled sweetly, caressing his cheek as she asked.

“Alright. Ran to the store after picking Bella up from Uncle Ash and Aunt Britt's. They said she was good, but might not eat dinner, he fed her so much.”

“No dinner?” Y/N asked, turning her head to the kid on the couch, who had finally caught her breath. “But I was gonna make your favorite!”

Bella gasped, eyes sparking. “Spaghetti and meatballs?”

Y/N nodded. “But if you're too full from Uncle Ash, I guess just Dad and I will eat it.” She shrugged.

“No, no, no, no! I'm so hungry right now, I could eat a whole bowl all by myself!”

Y/N laughed, meeting Michael's eyes once more. “Let me go get change out of my work clothes and I'll start on dinner, ‘kay?”

He nodded. “One condition, though. I didn't get a kiss when you walked in. I feel cheated so I ask for two now.”

She snickered but conceded, pressing her lips to his in a quick kiss. “I gotta change,” she claimed when he tried to steal a third. He fake pouted as she climbed the steps.

Bella gave him a knowing look, but he just told her “Go change into something you don't mind getting pasta sauce on.” She scurried upstairs as well, and he wasn't far behind.

Knocking lightly on their shared bedroom door, Michael entered slowly. His eyes were immediately drawn to Y/N, who was changing in the process of deciding which of Michael's shirts to steal for the evening.

“You didn't let me ask how your day was.”

“Sorry, babe. Go ahead.” She pulled a shirt over her head.

“How was your day?”

“Wasn't great. Eric apparently decided not to tell me the presentation wasn't ready for tomorrow, so I had to add that to my list for today. Garrett called in sick, so my banter buddy was gone. Britt texted me pictures of Bella and Ash together though, so that was sweet.”

Michael smirked. “She asked me the strangest thing today,” he began. “She-”

He was cut off by a yell from down the hall. “Ready for red sauce!”

Y/N giggled. “Tell me after we put her to bed.” He nodded in response.

One delicious dinner, shower, pajama change, and teeth brushing later, it was 7:30, also known as bedtime for a certain little girl in your household.

“Alright sweetie, I'll come tuck you in, just give me one second to finish this up.” A wave of inspiration had struck him, and he wanted to get just a couple lines out as best he could.

“No, it's okay. Can Y/N do it?”

“Sure pumpkin,” she responded before Michael could. “C'mon lets get you to bed.” Ushering the child up the stairs, you winked at Michael over your shoulder, to which he responded with a smirk before turning back to his notebook.

Y/N faced the small shelf of books in the girl's bedroom. “What story tonight, Bells?”

“No story,” she says, quite decisively.

“No?” The woman raised an eyebrow. “You always have a story though.”

“Yeah, but that's daddy's thing. I don't wanna do it without him. Can I ask you something?”

“Sure, baby, anything,” she assured.

“Are you gonna be my mommy?”

Y/N's face turned red. “Uhm, that's something your dad and I haven't talked about.”

“I did! He says he wants it a lot,” she told her, beaming.

“He and I will talk about it, Bell-Boo. You just gotta worry about getting some good sleep in you, okay?” She booped her nose, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

“Goodnight, Lovey. Sweet dreams,” whispered Y/N as she flipped the overhead switch, leaving only the nightlight on.

“Goodnight Y/N,” came the girl’s call back.

Y/N stood at the foot of the stairs, leaning against the wall. Bella's question rang out in her mind like a cry in the darkness.

Michael noticed the shift in her mood “What's wrong, love?”

Y/N hesitated. “You can tell me anything, baby, you know that,” he assured her.

“Bella asked if I would be her mom.”

Silence fell over the couple.

“What did you say?” Michael's voice was so quiet and cracked in the quiet of the evening.

“I told her we'd talk about it. What was I supposed to say? We've never really discussed that and, I don't know, she told me you wanted it too and--”

“She said that?” A smile snuck its way on Michael's face.

A red tint covered Y/N's features. “Yeah, she might've mentioned it.”

A deep, steadying breath, then, “Y/N, you know I love you. I know you love me too. Would it… would it be such an outrageous thought?”

“Michael--”

“I’d just need to get a ring, but ever since I met you, I’ve been happy. I wasn’t happy after… she died but you brought it back, and I knew when I saw you that she wanted me to move on and I did and fell in love again, with you, and you fell too, and you’ve basically helped me raise Bella for the past three years--”

“Michael.”

“--and she loves you too, and you love her like she’s your baby too, I can see it when you look at her, She could call you mom and I’d love it, and nothing would make me happier than if you let me call you mine for the rest of our lives. I love you like I only loved once before, and I want to marry you just as much. Please, honey, tell me I’m not crazy, tell me we can.”

“Michael, okay.”

“Of course you don-- wait what?”

“You want to get married?” He nodded. “Let’s do it. I love it, I love you, I love Bells, and I wouldn’t mind one but to be yours and for you to be mine for the rest of our lives. I know I can’t replace Crystal, I’m not trying to, I’d never dream of it, but I would love to have a chance to make half as much of an impact as she did. I’ll care for and love you both to the best of my ability. Baby, if you’re crazy for wanting to get married, then I must be positively insane because I want it too.”

“I love you, I love you so much.” He wrapped her in his embrace, right there at the foot of the steps.

“I love you too, baby. I love you,” she whispered in his ear.

“I promise I’ll get a ring,” he told her.

“I don’t need a ring.” He pulled away, opening his mouth in opposition. “I don’t. I just need you. You and Bells in my life. No fancy ring and official papers, just the two of you.”

He leaned his forehead against hers, the two of them breathing the same air, touching in such an innocent yet intimate way. “I’m still gonna get a ring for you,” he informed stubbornly.

She giggled, and the sound was like music to his ears. “If you insist,” she conceded. “Just promise me that you’ll let me love you and Bella for as long as possible, and I’ll let you get me a ring.”

“I promise baby, and I swear we’ll love you too.”

The couple sat in silence for a bit, bodies scrunched up to sit on the steps, hearts swollen in love and gratitude. Until Michael said, “So which of us is gonna go tell Bell she was right?”

The young woman groaned playfully. “She’s gonna hold this for years. ‘I knew you’d be my mom, I called it!’ I can hear her voice in my head, right now.”

“The joys of raising a child, I’m afraid.”

“I wouldn’t change a thing,” she mumbled.

“No? Then you can tell her in the morning, and I’ll deal with the relentless ‘I told you so’s.”

“Deal,” Y/N whispered, a soft smile gracing her features as she turned her face to Michael.

Michael’s expression mirrored her own as he sealed it with a quick press of his lips to hers.

“I love my little family,” he mumbled against her. And it was true. He would fight tooth and nail, to protect his girls, and he wouldn’t change it for anything.

[ogwivia]

Want You Back- Youngblood Stories 1

{This is a set of original stories by Olivia Franklin. Each one is inspired by a song off the album Youngblood. I hope you enjoy, and if you have ideas for the other stories please let me know}

Here you sat, an unopened letter in front of you. It had your name written on it in that handwriting you had grown to know and love; he had even drawn a little heart beside it. How ironic that he would put this in a letter, after all, a letter is what started your relationship.  Here you sat, trying to make yourself open it; but you were so afraid of what it might contain. As you sit there contemplating, your mind wanders back through everything that has happened over the past couple weeks.

When you woke to the sound of your alarm blaring on the bedside table, your first thoughts were not happy. You laid there for a few moments trying to gain your bearings and muster up the will to be awake. Then, suddenly, your brain remembered why the alarm was going off and you quickly shot up out of the bed. Your boyfriend Luke had called a couple days earlier to ask if you would go watch the sunrise with him; mornings are something you absolutely despise, but he makes it all worth it.

You quickly get up, throw on some sweatpants and your favorite t-shirt adorned with roses, brush your teeth, wash your face, then head downstairs to await Luke’s arrival. This outfit did not make you look super cute, but this was Luke. You could show up wearing a trash bag and he would say you deserve to be walking the red carpet at the Met Gala.

He pulls up to your house and you quickly jump into the car. You are reminded why you love this man so much when you see that he is also adorning sweatpants and a t-shirt. He gives you a quick kiss on the cheek and you to drive away, bound for the mountains.

When you get up to the top of the mountain, Luke lays out a blanket. He lays down and pulls you into his arms, all is as it should be. You find yourself wishing this moment could never end; everything was perfect.

“Hey, I want to tell you something”, Luke says breaking the silence.

“Okay”, you respond, a little nervous about what is coming next.

“I love you”

As you snap back to the present for one moment, you find this memory has brought a tear to your eye. You wish more than anything in the world you could go back and tell yourself to just say it back to him, but at that moment you couldn’t. You wanted to say it, so badly you did, but because of your past, you couldn’t make the words come out of your mouth. Your brain then painfully continues the memory.

“Luke I-“

“You what”

“You’re so sweet, but I-“

The expression in his eyes changed to one of deep hurt, you could see it in his eyes.

“Don’t you love me too?”

This question pained me so much. He knew you did, he knew the answer to this question.

“Luke, I’m sorry I just can’t. I’m not ready yet, you know why I can’t”

“I can’t believe this”

“Luke I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I’m trying to be over it, I really am. I just need a little bit more time.”

“It’s been three months, when is going to be enough time? Am I just supposed to wait forever for you to be ready?”

He rolled over releasing you from his arms. You tried to hold the tears back, but you couldn’t. His words broke your heart. You laid there silently as the sun slowly began to creep above the mountains, but you found no joy in this scenery.

Snapping back to the present, your eye makeup is now completely smeared on your face. You clutch the letter so tightly that you are not sure how it didn’t disintegrate between your fingers. Why, why couldn’t you have just said it back to him that day; three simple words that could’ve saved you a world of hurt. Your sorrow suddenly turns to anger as you remember why you couldn’t make the words come out of your mouth. Your mind takes you back to another memory, three months before the day of your mountain trip to be exact.

Your parents died when you were very young and none of your family members would take you in, because of this you were sent to a group home. They did their best to care for you, but you never felt very special or loved. You spent most of your childhood trying to prove you were worth something, afraid that no one would ever love or want you. After all, if your own family didn’t want you, why would anyone else? You spent your whole life dreaming of the day you turned 18 and could move out, but for now, you were stuck here; you had no choice but to make the best of it.

You were so desperate to feel loved and wanted that you took the first offer that came along. Darren seemed like a knight in shining armor to you when you first met him during your freshman year of high school. You were so desperate to be loved and wanted that you let him treat you like trash. But you stayed, you stayed because you feared if you ever left that you would be alone forever. Eventually, your mind began to wonder if this was what love was all about. You were only 6 months old when your parents passed away, so you had no idea what real love looked like.  At some point, you began to accept that you were stuck, he was probably right, no one else could ever love someone as broken as you.

This was it, this was why you couldn’t say those three words back to Luke. You loved him with all your heart but growing up your mind had been trained to think love meant something very different. When you finally got away from Darren, you made a vow that you wouldn’t say those words again until they meant something again.

When you were seven, the girl’s home you lived in took a trip to Australia; this was where you met Luke. Being so young, you thought of him as a playmate and nothing more. You and Luke played together on the beach almost every day. At the week’s end, you two exchanged addresses and promised to write each other frequently.

You two did your very best to keep in touch and became great friends through the years. Now the little boy you met on the beach was grown up and touring the world with his three best friends. Around the time you began dating Darren, the two of you lost contact. He was busy touring and you were busy trying to graduate high school. After a while, you gave up any hope of expecting a letter and figured Luke had moved on with his life and left you. Goodbye was all you had ever known, so why would you expect this to be any different.

After breaking up with Darren, you ran all the way back to the group home, not knowing what to do or how to handle your emotions. After composing yourself again, you decided you needed to do something, anything! You were not sure what made you do it, but you decided to sit and write a letter to Luke. He always seemed to know how to cheer you up, but would he even reply? Would he even care? It didn’t matter, you had to try.

Looking back now, you are so glad you wrote that letter that day.

A couple of weeks later you received a reply from Luke with tickets to his concert in your town. You went, saw him, and the rest was history. You guys exchanged numbers and from then on phone calls and facetime were a nightly occurrence. After a few weeks of talking, Luke asked you if you would be interested in starting a relationship. At first, you were hesitant, after everything that happened was it a good idea to do this again? Despite your worries, you agreed. Agreeing to be his girlfriend was the best decision you ever made.

Life was so amazing and simple back then, why did that all have to change. Your mind snaps back to that fateful day in the mountains.

You had never seen Luke so upset before, it hurt you to see him this way. The ride home was silent and torturous. He kept his eyes glued to the road, never looking at you. Once you were dropped off at your house, he sped away. As soon as you got in the door your heart shattered; to make matter even worse, it had just began raining. ‘

Through the tears, you heard your doorbell rang; you pulled yourself together and went to answer it.

“Luke”, you said with a mix of confusion and sorrow, “what are you doing here”

“We need to talk”

“Yea, we do”

“I love you, with all of my heart, but I can’t wait around forever for you to be ready to love me back”

“Luke, you know why I can’t say it, I’ve told you a million times why I can’t say. I thought you understood, I thought you were okay with that.”

“I was okay, I really was, but it’s getting a bit ridiculous at this point. You should be over it, it’s time to move on with your life”

“Luke how could you even say that”

“Wait I- I shouldn’t have said that I-“

“You know, I thought you were different. I opened my heart again, which took a lot out of me, and I thought you would protect it and care for it.  I thought you were different, but you’re not. I get it, I get it that I’m broken and come with a lot of baggage; but why can’t you just help me carry it until I’m ready to let go.”

There is dead silence, and in that silence, made one of the worst decisions of my life.

“Luke, I don’t think this is ever going to work. I’m not ready to move on and you can’t wait any longer.

Maybe we weren’t meant to be together, maybe this a sign. I- I think you should go”

You stood there waiting for him to say something, anything, but no words came out of his mouth. It seemed as if you were going to explode in tears, but you held back. Without another word, a teary-eyed Luke walked back to his car and left.

Now here you were, two torturous months later, staring at this letter in your hand. Over the past two months, you had done nothing but cry. You could muster up the courage to take down the picture of you and Luke, yet every time you stared at them, your heart shattered a little bit more. You missed him so much that it caused you physical pain, but at the same time, you knew you still weren’t ready to say those three fateful words.

The main thought crossing your mind was that Luke deserved to be with some who could say that to him, someone who wasn’t so broken.

He deserved someone who wasn’t you.

You fully expected to never hear from him again, after everything you said why would he ever want you back?

You had finally accepted that you would be alone forever.

Then you checked the mail this morning. In it were bills, a couple magazines, and the letter you now held in your hand. You had just begun to move on, maybe it would be better not to read it.

No, no. This was not how the story was going to end. Gathering up every bit of courage you had left, you opened the letter and began reading.

My love,

I know a letter from me is probably the last thing you were expecting, but I figured maybe the best way to get my message across would be to take you back to something familiar. I need to tell you that I messed up, I messed up and I am so sorry.

Everything that happened that day replays in my mind like an old song with a catchy tune. Except this song is full of lyrics that I don’t want to hear, they remind me of how badly I messed up. I think of you every single day, and with each one that passes, I miss you a little bit more. All the memories flash through my mind at a million miles a minute.

I try to move on, I really do.

But then I remember the freckles on your back and the way that I used to make you laugh. Every morning I wake up I still reach for you. I remember the roses that were on your shirt when you told me this would never work. You know even when I say I’ve moved on, even though I know that you’re gone, all I think about is where I went wrong.

I still dream for you.

No matter where I go, I’m always gonna want you back. No matter how long you’re gone, I’m always gonna want you back. I know, you know I will never get over you. You are my light, my life my all. I had no right to demand you move on faster. I know you love me, I truly do.

So here I sit writing to tell you that I messed up badly, but I’m asking for a second chance. A second chance to be the support system you need, a second chance to love you. If you’re not ready to say you love me that is okay because you are worth every single second I will wait to hear those words come out of your mouth.

Love Always,

Luke

 You stood there in stunned silence for a moment while your brain processed the words you just read. Could it really be true? After all that had happened could he really want you back?

It was the last words, the last words that got to you the most.

“You are worth every single second I will wait”

When you read the words, you could feel every wall your heart had built up shatter into a million pieces. The tears streaming down your face turned from those of sadness to those of joy.

Without even a second thought, you quickly ran to your phone and dialed the number you knew by heart.

Ring, ring

“Hey! I’ve been waiting for you to call.”

“Luke I-“

“Did you get my letter? I’m guessing you got my letter, or you wouldn’t have called me. Anyway, I’m so, so sorry and I-“

“Luke…”

You take a deep breath before uttering the next words, it’s time, you’re ready.

“I love you”

[chaoticneutralwriter]

Monster

Animal…she had called you.

Ironic, but better than a monster you suppose.

Last Of Us AU

Immune!BTS member x ex-Firefly reader

A/N: Still haven’t really decided on a member but that might change later...again lolll But anyways, still written at the last hospital scene of the game.

You can’t believe you just did that.

As if to counteract the shaking in your hands, you grip the steering wheel a little more tightly. You told yourself you were going to do anything to get him back and that meant cutting down whatever…. or whoever stood in your way. In that moment, your greatest fear was to be too late but now that it was over, you realized there something you were even more afraid of.

“What the heck am I wearing…?” His voice rasps from where he laid in the back seat. Your eyes shift briefly to the rear view mirror, watching him groggily rub the sleep from his eyes.

“Take it easy, the drugs are still wearing off.” You answer back gently. Warm brown eyes turn to you and already your heart clenches at the doe-like look he gives. And then, he asks you the very thing you dreaded the most right now.

“What happened?”

Your gaze shifts back to the road ahead of you and nervously, you begin to chew on your bottom lip. You have to answer him, keeping it from him would only make him suspect something and possibly take it even worse than you would want him to. Hesitating any longer now would also draw suspicions; you have no choice. So after a moment of silence in which the very air weighed down on you with guilt, you speak.

“We found the Fireflies….”

-

 You’re panting, having just narrowly escaped being cornered by more soldiers, barring the doors leading to the hospital's stairwell as you went. Preferably, you would’ve stealthily killed your way to the operating room but where you were gifted in combat and survival skills, you were not in terms of finesse. 

Well, it could’ve been avoided had the guy you were trying to kill not turned his head. He would’ve had a quiet and swift death via shiv, not death by fifty bullets via his own assault rifle.

Whatever.

You had no time to waste and immediately started climbing the stairs two at a time, the banging to the double doors ceasing, which could only mean they were going to try to beat you to the top. Well not if you have anything to say about that.

You’re drenched in sweat by the time you reach the top floor. Cautiously, you open the doors but find that the floor has yet to be swarming with the drones. It’s good news for you because at least for the moment, you can search for the operating room in peace. You make your way swiftly through corridors and makeshift quarantined labs set up in the open spaces until you come across another section leading off into another wing with a big sign overhead that reads, “SURGERY”.

Your heart leaps to your throat, you’re coming for him. Just hold on….

A shout echoes along the walls and you duck in time to see that the goonies that were on your tail have arrived. You curse; looks like you can’t avoid another mess, not when you’re so close.

-

“Turns out, there was a lot more like you - people who are immune. Dozens actually.” You try your hardest to keep your voice steady. Even though what you told him wasn’t a complete lie, it still doesn’t change the fact that you’ve single-handedly taken away probably the only hope humanity has left against this virus – all because you were selfish. “Not like it would’ve helped anyways.” You find yourself muttering that part out loud. Call it what you want, whether it was to convince yourself or if it were actually true, you would’ve done it again if you were given a choice.

-

The last of the men drop dead and you rush off towards a pair of double doors. You barricade them with a hefty looking cart full of debris and garbage and after making sure no one would be able to get through, you turn to the hallway you’re in. There were doors leading into empty rooms, none of which you were looking for. You quickly make your way further down, turning a corner before finally spotting a not-so inconspicuous red door with a large firefly crest spray painted on the wall next to it. You bet all the money you had that that was it. The closer you came to the door, the more convinced you were, going by all the AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL and other warning signs plastered on it.

You don’t hesitate to burst through, coming into what looked like a prepping room, sinks lining the walls and cabinets filled with probably antiseptics and sterilization equipment. The curtains drawn over the windows and all you see are the shadows of the surgeons dancing behind it, but you know that beyond the door was the actual surgery room, where he was. The steady beeping of the heart monitor makes your own heart rate excel as you draw closer…

“Doctor?!”

One of the assistant surgeon gasps out startled by your sudden entrance but your attention was elsewhere as you take in the sight in front of you.

“Oh God…” You whispered in horror. He’s on the table dressed in only a hospital gown, hooked up to the heart monitor and an IV, the harsh overhead lights above illuminating him like a frog ready to be dissected. In contrast however, his face was in such an angelic slumber that had it not been for the heart monitor, you would’ve thought he was already dead. To that you can’t help but let out a sigh of relief – overall, he was in one piece and you made it just in time.

“What are you doing here?”

The head surgeon’s voice cuts through your moment of respite. His voice, though valiant in effort to seem stern, wavers slightly. You catch on instantly; he’s afraid of you.

Good.

You don’t bother answering him as he flounders with his hands up, seemingly in a gesture to stop you. You take a step towards him and he quickly scurries back, grabbing a scalpel and pointing it back at you as he hovers by the end of the table.

“I won’t let you take him.” You pause in your tracks, mildly surprised at the bold stance. “This is our future. Think of all the lives we’ll save!”

He’s imploring with you, clearly desperate. Once upon a time ago, you would’ve agreed, would’ve thrown away anything and everything for the greater good; just so this could all end. Perhaps throughout those times of having to pay the heaviest price but get nothing in return, you’ve had enough. This time, you can’t afford it. Not ever again.

“Don’t come any closer. I mean it!” The doctor’s voice halts your resolute steps once again and you find yourself getting irritated. Your grip on your pistol is itching to just shoot him to get it over with so that you can make your escape. It’s an awful thought but these people are no better than those bandits you and him encounter on your journey here. They mean nothing to you, and they certainly don’t deserve any effort of trying to convince them to let you leave peacefully with him.

You wordlessly pocket your pistol, the gesture catching the man in front of you off guard; his expression is that of surprise even if the surgical mask covered half of it. It was a mistake on his part. With cold and calculative steps, you’re upon him and before he could register it, the scalpel he was holding is lodged into his throat. He goes down choking and gurgling his own blood.

“No!” You hear the first assistant cry out. Your gaze whips to her and you meet her harsh glare head one. “You fucking animal!” She spits out the words with venom.

Animal…she had called you.

Ironic, but better than a monster you suppose.

You don’t even register the motion of pulling out your pistol and pulling the trigger at her until the shot rings out and her body slumps down to the ground, lifeless.

And really, from there it was all a blur, like you had blacked out from the adrenaline rushing through you because the next thing you knew, you’re heaving to catch your breath, leaning in an elevator as it made its way down to the garage park, barely keeping him upright on your back. It was a struggle, but you made it…. You wheeze a laugh in spite of it all. Holy shit…. You did it. He’s gonna be okay.

“You can’t save him.”

Your path is stopped yet again by the barrel of a gun being held by none other than the person you once called friend. She’s got that hard gaze on again, a mask that makes it hard to get a read on her even as she approaches into the light from the shadows of the underground parking lot. But you stand your ground; your grip on him only tightens.

“Even if you get him out of here, then what? How long before he’s torn to pieces from a pack of clickers?” She’s testing you, trying to guilt trip you into giving in to your fears and weaknesses at the last second. It makes your own gaze hardened, lips drawn into a thin line as the both of you being to circle each other in slow, calculative steps.

“That’s not for you to decide.” You clipped back through gritted teeth.

“What can you do for him, Y/N? Do you honestly think you can protect him forever? If not death by clickers, then what about being murdered by violent gangs?”

-

“Y/N?”

His voice jolts you back with a gasp and it nearly had you slamming the breaks to the car. You catch yourself in time to only cause a slight jerk in the ride before continuing to make your way out of the city.

“Sorry.” You mumble, glancing back him and giving him a wry smile. He looks more awake now, sitting up on the passenger seat at the centre to be able to reach you between the space. He offers a small, comforting smile though his eyes still shine with worry.

“You sort of spaced out so I kinda got worried….” He trails off, meaning to sound casual but from all the time you’ve spent with each other, you know he’s trying to tread carefully with you. It makes the corners of your mouth twitch upwards a little. It’s so like him to be considerate of your feelings when really it should be about him right now.

“No, no I’m fine.” You reply back. “I just— remembered something….”

She almost had you there. The statement bringing back awful memories that you wanted to keep buried in the deepest parts of you possible. It made you hate her…. but it made you hate yourself more because for a split second, you had the thought that maybe you weren’t fit to protect him after all.

-

“It’s what he would want… And you know it.”

Her voice cuts in through dark thoughts. You don’t know whether to be thankful because you were very close to breaking out into cold sweat at the mere memory of what happened. No… You shouldn’t be thankful because she’s clearly trying to use it against you now; to give him up when you’re so close to just leaving this all behind.

“Look….” She tries again with a softened voice, taking your silence as hesitation when really, your resolve has already been made. In her ignorance, she slowly draws the gun away, making a show to raise her hands in a non-threatening manner. “You can still do the right thing, Y/N….” She gives you a look of empathy. “He won’t feel anything."

Huh…

-

“What did you remember?”

-

A gun shot.

-

“They told me— that they’ve stopped looking for a cure.” You’re disgusted at yourself at how easily that lie left your lips. How easily you lied to, of all people, him. There’s nothing but silence and it makes you even more afraid to look back to see his reaction. So all you do is stare at the road straight ahead as you continue to weave in and out of rusted, broken down cars. You feel his presence linger before hearing him shift back to sit in the seat. When the nagging was too much, you chance a glance in the rear view mirror to catch his profile, watching the scenery pass by through the window with a melancholy stare. It only makes your heart clench, seeing him so unlike his usual carefree self.

Whether he believed in your lie, all you know is that he didn’t deserve any of this. He was dragged through this mess all because he was immune. And there’s no denying you were a part of it too….

“I’m sorry….” You whispered.

-

A sharp exhale leaves your mouth as you watch her drop to the ground, groaning in pain and the barrel of your gun still smoking. The angle in which you held his body gave you enough cover to sneak your hand behind to grip your pistol in your back holster, allowing you to be able to draw out the gun and shoot in her own moment of weakness. The tension leaves your body slowly as you haul yourself to the nearest car, popping open the door of the SUV to gently lay him along the backseat. After making sure he’s all right, you shut the door and make your way back to the writhing woman.

“Wait please…!” She pants, holding out a hand to halt your movements in front of her. You only stare down at her, emotionless to her wildly pleading eyes and the alarming pool of blood that’s growing. “Let me go!”

You stare at this person you used to call friend, who you used to fight alongside with, who tried to kill you…. and now who’s begging for their life. How things have changed….

How you’ve changed.

“You’re just gonna keep coming after him.”

Were your last words before you raised your gun and pulled the trigger.