#its real loving bastion hours

[howaboutalittlehelpneos]

Thinking about him

[sparkbugs]

My liveblog reaction post for JRWI Riptide 114! :3 SPOILERS AHEAD if that wasn’t obvious.

I completely forgot. About the bastion/stronghold. IF THEY LEAVE THE SHIP THEY LOSE THE TELEPORTER.

Haha! Ha. Wowie this is extremely stressful to start a session Jesus Christ. Pls get good perception AGGG. The laughter but it’s so stress LMAOOO AAAA

If anyone dies this episode! Haha.

How is this all 10 mins into the episode it’s just a terrible chase scene I am so. Aughhh

THANK GOD TBEY GOT TO THE DOCKS. BUT IS THE SHIP OKAY. if the ship fucking denigrates they lose their teleporter man they need that to get home if anything haha! Aggghghsh

The fucking. Fish shoes. Also PORTABLE HOLE LMAOOO

Gryffon :( my boy protect the ship my guy ily

Godddd because of the title I’m so fucking sure there’s stuff about Jay’s family here. I’m so sure there’s lots of things here but it’s so not safe.

Darkness lets gooo… oh.. that audio… ohhhhggg ahhdnjs oh goddddd

“Hello..?” *unimaginable horror response in a roar*

HOW HAS IT ONLY BEEN 25 MINS THERE ARE UNIMAGINABLE HORRORS THIS IS TERRIFYING

Portable holeeeee that’s a smart play, but that’s terrifying to think bout the helmet

“GUYS YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS” “what is it gill?” “Stairs!” “… that’s a ladder gill-“ I love them so much

More unimaginable horror sounds! Oh boy! This is. It’s been 30 fucking minutes.

Oh yucky.. skin… Jesus.. oh noooogghdjhdns

ITS GONE?!?!? WHERE THE FUCK DID IT GO.

THIS IS NOT THE FUCKING TIME TO BE ARGUINGGGG AAAAGGGG

I hate this so fucking much actually

The bit shoes.. Charlie please

We have made it 40 mins in let’s goooo haha. Ha!

A GLHYPHHJDHHSHS JAY NO WHAT HEY. FIREEE????? 37 POINTS HOLYYYY FUCKKKKK

HAHSJFHSJAIDJSUHWKS CREATURES THEYRE HERE AND THEYRE ANGRY

Haha it’s all fine now. Also the fucking bones aren’t real??? What. HAHAHAHAJGSIW UH OH BIZLY PLEASSEE

LMAOOO HAHAGGGSHDA THE PARANOIA IS SO FUCKING REAL

HAHSHSHSHA THE FUCKING MICROCHIPS IN THE WATER NOO STOP FUCKIN WITH GILL LMAO

Almost an hour in!! Woooooo! No ones dead thank fucking god

Thank god Chip please make sure no one dies thank u skelly man <3

Floor threeeee baybeee surely nothing happens here. :)

There’s someone waiting for themmmmm hahaha

“Jay can you do me a flavor right now?”

AHAHSHSHSHA WHATTTT WDYMMMM EVERYTHING GULLIOKFNXUSHSO GILLION NOOOOOO WHAT THE FUCKSHAIABA also the last quote being Gillion’s last words man. Yikes

Where is my boy where is my boy where is my boy. IS THAT HIS FUCKING SKIN

ITS HIS FUCKING SKINH IM SO MOT OKAY WHWRE IS MY BOY WHEFE IS HE. GIVE HIM BACK THEY JUST GOT HIM VACK

Haha. I’m fine :) I’m gonna ignore that for now haha cause why. Would that be an issue :)

I’m so worried about him actually. Bring him back

THEY WERE FUCKING EXPERIMENTING ON THE ICHOR. I KNEW IT BUT GOD THE CONFIRMATION IS. UGHHHGHDJSK yea this is such a navy thing to do. Yuck

Oh my god they didn’t see what skin the trition in the ground was. What if that was Edyn. Oh I’m so unwell.

GODDD THEYRE USING THE LEVIATHAN AND THE FUCKING ICHOR AS A SUPER WEAPON. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THE NAVY.

NOT EVEN HALFWAY THROUGH THE EPISODE YET WHAT THE FUCKKKKKK

Chip is so me I would totally. Grab bone pieces. EWWWW WHY MORE SKIN GROSS HOW MANY PEOPLE DID THEY FUCKING KILL

DEATHWARD SAVED THIS MAN PLEASE STAY MY GUY I LOVE YOU. this man is being crucified.. oh my god,,

Holy shit.. Kuba kenta :o is that u bitch

ITS HIMMMM HOLYYYY SHITTYTTT HAHSHSHSHAHA he’s such a bastard but also such a good villain… godddddd he’s just a fluffy guy :3

Mmmmmm machineeeeee

Giving me The Core from Amphibia vibes. This is fucking TERRIFYING. I MEAN I WAS RIGHT HERE CAUSE GILLION WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU. PLEASE. GILLION WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT. WHY DID YOU SIT IN THE CHAIR

WHWIDUDISHWJDJEIEJAIWHDIRJE GILLION. WHAT THE FUCK. Oh

Oh my god. 0 initiative. Oh my god Gillion please

“I would like to touch myself… and say- there’s more wait” PLEASEEE CHARLIEEE LMAOOOO

AWAAA RUN GILLION RUNNNNNN

“Oh my god, Gillion’s not fast.” HES RUNNING FOR HIS LIFE RIGHT NOW SO MAYBE HE IS??

It’s totally him right. YEA it’s Gilly :) why hasn’t he told them about Kuba Kenta.

Aughhhhghhfjskb CONDI?!??? LMAOOOO

Why. Are you. I. I despise them so much.

FIREWALL AUGHHGH NOT AGAIN

“CHEEBO” the rest of chips skin is fucking burnt off Jesus Christ

.. oh fuck. There’s more people going in????? It better not be the rest of the crew. INVISIBLITY WENT DOWN IGHDHDHSJS

Bones… gill I’m so sorry man :(

CHIP STOP BEING LIKE THAT YOU LOVE THEM. You love them. They you’re besties.

NATURAL 1 BUT IGS A FUCKING 23 WHAT THE HELLLLLL

Aughhhhhhhh paijnnnm pleaseeee surely nothing goes wrong mannnn what the hell

… conch shell time haha uh oh surelyyyy this will be fine

Jay my beloved <3 you got this girl

AAAA Grandma Ferin… SHES FUCKING CRAZY HOLY SHIT. Vault… time.. oh no. Woahhhh wonder. If that’s the true prophecy in there

CONDI DEAFENED AUGSJHSJGA WHATTT NO BRING HIM BACK OH FUCK

Haha they’re trapping themselves in this room. Uh oh.

OH. GILLION. OH NO. OH NOOO WHAT. HELLO. HEY. Uh oh. Hey. WHAT THE FUCKKKKKKK WHAT IS GOING ON

WHERE IS MY FISH MAN WHERE IS HE WHERE IS HE

THE HORRORS ARE THERE THE HORRORS. THATS WBY HE DIDNT TELL ABLUT KUBA KENTA OH MY GOD

…

The sword. Thank god.

PELASEEEE DONT LET ANY OF TJEM DIE OM GONIFNIBSJA GILLIONS GOING GO SAVE HIS FRIEND HES FOINF AS FAST AS HE VAN

JAY PLEASE GO HELP PLEASE FUCKKKK ING HELL

Ichor creature. Godddddd

I don’t even have words this is just combat that’s terrible and I hate it

Aughhdhxhsishdjsn man. People have been so right about how this episode is Bad bad. Like. Wow.

2 and half hours in. Pain and suffering. Please don’t let Chip die again. Charlie did really fucking good playing his doppelgänger without breaking that’s insane.

Gillion’s yelling at each other would be so much funnier if it wasn’t. A life or death situation

CHARLIE SALUTING IM SO UPSET PLEASSESS LET THEM LIVE

YEAHAHAHAHDHDHS GET HIS ASS JAY

HAHA HEY.

HOW ARE THEY TYING IM GONNA CRYYYY

HE WCJDJDSHS HE DID IT HE FUCKING DID IT OM GONAN THROW UP OHHHHGG MU GOD

GILLIONS STUFF FUCKKKKING WAITAAGGG

HAHAHDHSGWGE KUBA KENTA MENTION.

Oh. He’s. Opening. Kubas cage. Gillion. Hey.

Haha they have to go back UP?!? Well. Riptide pirates, it was nice knowing you.

Chip. Can’t be healed I am so upset. Also I feel like the creatures are just going to escape. And Kuba Kenta is going to be Right There.

Dopplegilly you bitch ass mother fucker give my boy back his stuff

WHDIXHSIDHS THEY PUT HIM IN THE HOLE??? Well. I mean. Go off

I hope they don’t fucking fall into the lava. Like seriously after all that.

Well. Gillion. Please let this man get his stuff. WALL OF WATER THANK GODDDD

How is there a half hour left.

HE HAS MISTY STEP. CHARLIE WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU

I am so. AUEGUESHS THE LIFE DEBT OF DOPPELGILLY GOINF BACK INTK THE HOLE PLEASE LMAOOOO WHAT IS THIS

Please get out of here please just get the ship off the island oh my god

So much murderrr please go n get them and get out im so ahdichdiebz

oh . The fucking. Turrets. LMFAO COUNTER SPELL THE FUCKING ASS TURRETS JDDIDBKS

THE FUCKCONF DECK IM GONNA LOSE IT PLEASE. DONT LET HIM DO THAT PLEASE

WHY NOT JUST FUCKING THROW THE DECK OF CARDS UP. WHY. I’m gonna.

THE IDIOT CARD. OH MY GODDD HAHAHDJDHAUA 3 INTELLIGENCE IM SOGONGNDHSBA

THE VOID. LMAOOOO HES FUCKING GONE THANK GOD. Anyways the TURRETS.

THEY FUCKING DID IT LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOOO

Well. That was. An episode. Well. I can see why everyone was freaking out about it LMAO THEYRE ALIVE THOUGH LETS GOOOO RIPTIDE PIRATES

[dreamsy990]

ok so i finished bbs so time for thoughts!!!!

god this game has. issues. its my least favorite so far and im not saying its BAD im just saying it could be. better

i realize i was supposed to play terra > ven > aqua but i went in order of who i was least excited about to most so i did terra > aqua > ven. also i was super underlevel as terra and aqua so when i got to ven i grinded to level 10 the moment i was able to and then breezed through the whole game

i dont wanna say that i think the game should be shorter but i do think that its not very enjoyable for like 80% of the runtime. like i think most the worlds are boring idk. im not a very big disney person but usually the worlds are pretty interesting but this time around it simply Did not hit and i think it couldve been better? idk man. a few worlds were really good like all of hollow bastion as ven is super fun like i love seeing the org cast theyre just endlessly fun. seeing ansem tw in the ending did make me very angry though i hate that guy

this whole game is a downer and i knew that going in but still like. holy shit its depressing.

i love the main trio they are such a fucked up family i love their dynamic its honestly the best part of the game. also vanitas is a joy but also he is a total fucking wimp i could beat him up in real life. also fuck terranort! that about sums up my thoughts

hate the command system id honestly rather be doing coms card game at least that required some level of thought. i hate how the game can just rip the command i just made right out of my hands that is SO rude. also ima be real i still dont know how to play command board i never read the rules

honestly the game isnt that fun i didnt really enjoy it it kinda felt like a chore to play a lot of the time. i tend to be chronically underlevel in games and tgis is the game where i felt it the hardest so every once and a while i had to just set aside a couple hours to grind and like. i enjoy a challenge so i dont mind being underlevel but this was just painful i simple Could Not. also FUCK terra if i ever have to play as him again ill throw up and die.

the opening is my second favorite so far and the story is pretty good when i know whats going on

decent game. 6.9/10 if they axed the whole command system id give it a 7.5. i think it works better in concept than in execution and replaying the exact same worlds 3 times over gets stale pretty quickly. i wish they cut out some worlds as other characters like you cannot tell me deep space ventus was necessary. solid game though

[penroseparticle]

Penrose Song of the Day Day 24: We Might Even Be Falling In Love (Interlude) by Victoria Monet

Boy did I unexpectedly have a shitton to say about this one.

Have you ever heard a song and then just. Wished for more. I feel that way so often these days- in the age of the tiktok sample and the optimized 2 minute song for streams, there's something to be said for a song you can sink into and lose yourself to for 5, 6, 7 minutes at a time. Where is the Bohemian Rhapsody length song these days.

That's not to say that I hate 2 minute songs- I listen to enough Connor Price to admit it's ultimately fine for a song to be thrown off the pottery wheel after 2 minutes, fully formed. And tiktok samples are great honestly- usually the most interesting or expressive part of the song is the part that gets me to listen to the whole track. And I'll take my strikes of inspiriation anywhere thanks, even if occasionally it throws me a Fancy Like (And to be clear I, regrettably, fucking love Fancy Like. The mans has no taste, sorry guys).

But there's a special exquisite pain when you fall in love with a song that is not, strictly speaking, a song.

Victoria Monet is one of my favorite current artists and I've made absolutely NO secret of that. Jaguar II is a NO SKIPS album for me, she just kills it. Even lines I should NOT find charming (Titties bouncing and everything, anyone?) are just so excellent to me. She just has a way with a track that makes me buy in, right away.

We Might Even Be Falling In Love is my favorite track from Jaguar, and it's not even particularly close- there's about half an album of green hearts on this album too (She's consistent too. Dare I say GOAT status), but this 50 second NONSONG IS MY FAVORITE SONG FROM THE ALBUM.

The sultry, smooth fucking beat, that funk from the bassline that's so simple and then cuts out at the end. The melody is so catch, the brass warm and bright and like. I feel like I just hit a blunt in the best way possible and I am not a weed person (I did other drugs).

I knew that V. Monet was a top 5 artist of mine very early on, but I didn't admit it to myself until I took a long hard look at her other music and artist credits and realized she just had her hand on a vast swathe of my liked songs.

There's just something so smooth. So sexy. Very 70's in that way that I can see myself grinding with someone in an afro and bellbottoms. This song is going to be in my Spotify top 100 this year and it is NOT A REAL SONG.

Interludes and Intros are an almost lost art at this point on the album- I think that rap and r&b are the last bastions of both (Metal too but you're not ready for that convo) and the conventional album structure in general- which is fine! Not every album is a meticulously curated hour long tour, sometimes an album is "This is my setlist for coachella" or "look at my new singles". That's ok I think, there's no good way to release music and the entrenched hegemony of the album was due for a shakeup for a while (We saw that change heralded a billion times before the streaming era more or less killed the conventional album release for anyone not named Beyonce).

The point of an intro is to. Introduce the album. Novel I know. And unless your intro is DaBaby good, it's not a track that you're expecting to pop off as the best track on the album. Its job is to introduce. You learn some of the sound profile. A little of the flavor of the album. Themes, motifs, favorite samples. The artist's persona, that kinda thing.

Interludes? Palette cleansers. The change from one thing to another. Rather than some harsh cut from concept to concept you can ease through it with a sultry BOP THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN IT'S OWN SONG OK PLEASE VICTORIA I'M BEGGING.

Sometimes Interludes don't even get that title- I'd argue Smoke (Reprise) is also an interlude in Jaguar II despite missing the designation. But it serves much the same function. Smoke is a much more mid tempo, fat, low synth, vibe of a song and Smoke Reprise acts as good connective tissue to Buju Banton getting full Reggae on Party Girls.

And part of what makes We Might Even Be Falling In Love such a good interlude is that it works as good connective tissue too. I will be honest I HATE Dive. I love Victoria Monet, and I think the song has something to it, but I am not into the whole fuckin Squeaky Toy production this song has going on. I get it's bed squeaking or whatever. I know that it's supposed to be suggestive. It sounds awful. The thing is. The parts with the squeak absent are actually good. I like the melody. And like the idea we go from "Fuckin, the song" to "Maybe we're falling in love" as an interlude? And then into "I'm a Jaguar... in BED" is chefs kiss. That momentary "Wait am I catching feelings?" moment in musical form.

Anyways, We Might Even Be Falling In Love is SO good it makes me wish the song was 5 minutes long. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. And honestly I'm glad I feel so passionate about Victoria's music. You should find something to listen to that you're passionate about too. You could be dead right now, go listen to something you love.

[cutiecorner]

Evil

Ficlet• agere • Regressor! Bruce Wayne, Caregiver! Alfred Pennyworth

Woah two fics in two days! I guess the inspiration fairy is just blessing me at ungodly hours as a hobby. Anyway I finally finished up this cute concept inspired by @paper--moons from a while ago! I love how it turned out, I hope y'all enjoy!!

The manor smelled heavenly when Alfred was baking. He had a supernatural power to make the smell so tantalizing that anyone on (or beneath) the manor's grounds could sense it, and no one could resist its magnetic pull. Not even Batman. So, on one particular night that the Batman had been particularly stuck in his cave, Alfred just happened to start baking.

Evil.

This was a tactic, and it was evil.

Bruce sat at the bat-computer (which he was too tired to deny the name of) and stared blankly into the LEDS until his eyes stung. Well, they were already stinging. 27 hours without sleep will do that to you. But he had to resist the temptation beckoning at his senses somehow and staring at the already-solved-but-is-it-REALLY-solved case in front of him was his last line of defense. Bruce knew very well that if he closed his eyes the full force of their heaviness would weigh him down like the heavy batsuit he forgot to take off. He knew very well the cold ache of exhaustion would creep up his spine, and the warm, comforting scent of cookies would become too much to bear. He did not know very well why Alfred was doing this to him. The world's greatest detective had yet to connect those dots.

Yet still, he read lines of text over and over until he knew he was going on memory alone. He shifted forward in his chair, nose as close to the screen as he could get it. He wondered how long he could hold his breath. He was wondering so hard he didn't notice his eyes drift shut and his chin grow heavy in his hands. Hold yourself together, he thought, you're strong, you're Batman, you can resist this.

He could resist. Until he heard the humming.

Alfred was standing next to one of the vents, and through the vast silence of the manor, all sound carried. Especially the notably loud humming. Am I Blue. A childhood favorite of Bruce's.

And thus the last bastion of the Batman was gone. It was wrung dry, not a drop of vigilante verve left in the battered body wearing the suit. Just Bruce. Sad, tired, lonely Bruce.

Pushing himself up from his chair felt like the most exhausting exercise of the night. Nevermind carrying 3 grown adults to safety, his own bodyweight was the real knockout. He felt the consequences of the past 48 hours in every step, especially those up the obscene flight of stairs he was just now realizing were a bad idea. At the very top, taped neatly to the door, was a note:

No batsuit in the manor.

Bruce slumped, using what little energy he had to repeat the message in his best nagging-alfred impression. Mercifully, the source of the note had also left a robe and set of pajamas hung dutifully on the doorknob. Bruce shucked off the suit layer by layer, leaving an ever growing pile of kevlar to deal with later. Once he slipped into his night clothes, he felt a deep sigh escape him, a breath he didn't know he was holding.

The light of the manor hallway felt actively warm compared to the cold damp cave, like stepping outside on a spring morning. The smell that drew the bat out of the belfry hit him like a wave once the heavy metal obstruction was cleared. Bruce felt his feet move on their own volition, injected with an increased furver which deposited him in the kitchen in no time. The kitchen was only home to an empty cooling rack, but the accompanying den had a more smug inhabitant - plus a plate of cookies on the table.

Bruce crept up to the entryway, hiding behind one of its pillars as if the keenly trained spy he was avoiding could be fooled by a wooden beam. Said spy simply took another sip of his tea, not looking up from his book but failing to contain his smile. Bruce's eyes wandered to the plate of cookies once again, and upon the realization that they were his favorite, he begrudgingly toed out from his hiding spot.

"Master Bruce, so you've finally decided to join me."

Bruce could only articulate a hmf in response as he planted himself on the couch, having no energy to humor Alfred's teasing. He silently reached over for a cookie and returned with the whole plate, settling them beside him as he curled up into the couch. His toe found a soft blanket (one of his favorites), and he quickly cozied himself into it. His muscles finally relaxed. He listened to the sound of the crackling fire, the soft crunch of cookies, and a page turning.

Bruce opened his eyes to peek over at Alfred, who held an old copy of Romeo and Juliet. His face twisted into a pout. Absolutely evil. Alfred, of all people, knows very well that it's Bruce's favorite. He may be the only one who knows. If asked (in his adult frame of mind) he'd prattle off some high minded comment about the tapestry of tragedy in Hamlet, but Alfred knew better. Alfred was there when Bruce fell in love with Shakespeare, and it was listening to Romeo's Soliloquy.

"You're reading that on purpose." Even Bruce would describe his own admonishment as grumpy. He hated that word, especially when it applied. Alfred was undeterred.

"Whatever do you mean, sir?" The satisfied smile hadn't left Alfred's lips. Bruce's voice was small and quiet now.

"That one's my favorite…"

Bruce was curled up, knees to his chest, blanket covering everything but his eyes. The fibers of the blanket tickled his nose as he tried to hide his pout.

"Oh dear, how rude of me. I suppose I'll just have to read for the both of us now won't I?"

Bruce didn't respond to Alfred's goad. He knew whatever he retorted, Alfred was gonna do it anyway. He munched on a cookie and resigned himself to his fate.

Alfred began Act II. Bruce knew the scene very well, recounted his favorite theatric iterations in his head as his eyes grew more heavy. He remembered each set of the Capulet's garden, the beautiful roses, the fateful trellis. Though the sight was beautiful, no performance held a candle to Alfred's. In Bruce's heart, Romeo's soliloquy was always to be delivered by a young butler just before bed. As the scene approached he found it's setup incomplete.

"But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

Arise, fair sun, and -"

"Wait, Alfie."

Bruce used the last of his strength to push himself off the couch, draped in his blanket, and slot himself in beside Alfred on the recliner. A voice small and cold in the back of his mind chided, you're too big to cuddle, but it was recanted by the warmth of Alfred's arm wrapping around him, tucking him into the crook of his neck.

"Better now?"

Bruce sleepily nodded.

"Okay bubby …"

His eyes drifted shut. The steady thrum of his father's heartbeat, the crackling fire, and the sound of a soliloquy finally easing him down to sleep.

"But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun…"

[phoenix-flamed]

Hi! :D Not sure if you're happy to take on unscripted asks re. lore and headcanons, but since I absolutely adore the type of political backdrop to FFXVI and you mentioned the Rosarian government - would you mind expanding on how you envisage the High Houses to work in terms of representation / the council and what else you have established for Rosaria while an independent nation?

Unfortunately it does not appear to be explored in the same level of detail as the main bodies of other nations (probably because it all went to hell very early on) but I'd love to hear your thoughts and whether it mirrors any irl source of inspiration (such as, idek, Luxembourg which is also a grand-duchy)?

HELLO FRIEND!!! I AM ABSOLUTELY HAPPY TO TAKE THESE SORTS OF ASKS! aaaaaaaaaaaa I can try to answer this without droning on nonsensically for like five hours, and I apologize so, so, so profusely if I fail spectacularly at that! (And also apologize profusely if my thoughts don't actually make much sense.)

Yeah, I was hoping we'd get more information about Rosaria and how it works politically before things went to shit, but alas... we are not that lucky. I'll admit wholeheartedly that I can't speak on it mirroring any RL places, past or present -- I'd have to read up on them in more detail first, which would be fun to do, but as you and I have found out in the past, the game seems to take creative liberties with what terms, statuses, etc. pertaining to a duchy mean, rather than having it be a 1:1 comparison with a real-world duchy. I want to believe it's creative liberties... rather than them doing a half-assed job of researching, themselves.

Okay. Okay. I'm going to curb my overwhelming puppydog excitement over this Ask and actually write now, I swear.

I am also so sorry for reiterating information that's already known, but. Before Rosaria became a duchy, it was a series of smaller, independent nations, all of which were of course ruled by different noble families. These nations united together to form the Grand Duchy of Rosaria as we know it. The rulers of the independent nations became what are known as the Seven High Houses, with House Rosfield as the central one.

A Rosfield is always the one who sits on the throne, and the Phoenix is always born into the Rosfield line. But while House Rosfield always holds the seat of power, the other High Houses do hold heavy political influence within the duchy.

The way I headcanon it is that the High Houses are each represented in the royal council by the head of the main branch of each house's ruling family, much the same way that the head of the main branch of the Rosfield line serves as the ruling family of House Rosfield. What determines who is the head of these main families? Birth order, for the most part. Gender isn't necessarily important; this is, I admit, largely inspired both by the fact that it was Elwin's mother who was on the throne before Elwin, as well as my unending dislike for the idea that women have no power. So taking what the Ultimania book revealed about Elwin and Anabella's familial ties, I go with the idea that the former Archduchess was the head of the main branch family of the Rosfield line, while her husband, the former Archduke, was married into the main branch from a lesser branch because he was the current Dominant of Phoenix. I like to believe that the other High Houses operate similarly, with the firstborn child of the main branch family serving as the head of that particular High House.

Oh God I hope this is making sense so far. alkgjds

I also like to take a lot of inspiration from the fact that Rosaria's title is, "The Bastion of Tradition," as well as the information we're given in the Ultimania. (For as many parts of the Ultimania, mostly pertaining to ages, that make me want to chuck the book out a window.) Rosaria is driven largely by tradition, and its government and politics aren't any different. No matter how much time passes, I headcanon that the duchy honors its roots by maintaining this balance of power between the Seven High Houses. House Rosfield may be the ruling family, but as said previously, every High House has a seat on the council, and every High House has a say in political matters. The couple on the throne can't act or make decisions without a majority agreement from the council, and the council likewise can't make a decision or act without approval of those currently on the throne.

This, for the Rosfields, is a double-edged sword. There are members of the other High Houses who are less than fond of House Rosfield due to their position, and as a result use their own power to undermine their authority. This is something that Elwin's mother in particular had warned him about, but given Elwin's ambitions of breaking apart the status quo and stepping away from heavy reliance upon tradition and societal standards/norms, it's exponentially more apparent during his time as Archduke -- because as anyone can guess, he isn't a very popular ruler when it comes to the nobility. Whereas the other Rosfields up 'til that point had been content with preserving Rosaria's ways of life because it's "just how things are and have always been," Elwin goes against the grain, and in doing so breaks out of the mold and disregards the precedent set before him by the rulers who reigned before him.

Through the Ultimania, we find out that the Dominant of Phoenix isn't actually supposed to take the throne -- they aren't even supposed to have a say in political matters whatsoever. But exceptions are pretty commonly made, and I'll be damned if I'm not going to take this information and run with it headcanon/speculation-wise regarding Clive and Joshua's dynamic of how their relationship was in relation to Rosaria's governing body, how it was intended to have been by their parents, as well as how that relationship changed once certain key events were revealed(like Joshua awakening as the next Dominant instead of Clive). For example, my headcanon is that it was indeed Clive who had been intended to take the throne -- not because he was the firstborn child, but because Anabella and Elwin had decided on it because it was assumed he was the next Dominant, and the favor that the nobility expressed towards little Clive became support for this decision. But when Joshua awakened as the next Dominant instead, that favor and support was not only revoked from Clive, but was replaced with scorn and nasty rumors, ones that were not only about Clive and why he was rejected, but also about his parents as well. I'll get into the significance of that in a moment, though. Clive was replaced as the High Houses's golden child by Joshua. They threw all of their support and favor behind Joshua, and it was ultimately their influence that caused Anabella and Elwin to make Joshua heir to the throne instead, and Elwin to remove Clive from the line of succession entirely to try and spare him from the nobility's bullshittery.

Now, the big takeaway from that is the fact that Elwin, Anabella, Clive, Joshua, and even Jill are all caught up in this political game, whether they like it or not. It's a game that the parents to some extent try to protect the kids from, as seen in Elwin's decision regarding Clive -- but it's just not possible given the circumstances and positions of their births.

My headcanons have always been that a huge dividing factor between Elwin and Anabella was the subject of Clive, yes, but it was by design of the other High Houses, rather than brought upon initially by their emotions. The other High Houses knew exactly what they were doing by starting up with the rumors and jeers about Clive's supposed bastard lineage; they had always been looking for opportunities and ways, no matter how tiny, to split Elwin and Anabella apart -- just as they did with my Elwin's parents, although it didn't work with his parents. But Anabella and Elwin were much younger, much less experienced/prepared for the personal aspect of the political schemes, had little to no support or guidance from older parties, and were faced straight out of the gate with a slew of political matters pertaining to war and conflict while also having to navigate their new marriage and begin working towards bearing the next Dominant of the Phoenix as quickly as possible because in short, Rosaria was not in a good position in Storm. The duchy was vulnerable, without a Dominant to protect them; and because they didn't have a Dominant, House Rosfield couldn't seek guidance in matters of war from their ancestors.

Anabella and Elwin were, again, pretty much on their own.

The other councilmembers of the High Houses saw all of this and used it to their advantage. They chipped away little by little at the stability of the Archduke and Duchess's relationship, weaponized their differences in opinions against them, and when Joshua was revealed to be the next Dominant instead of Clive, they struck the big nail into the coffin by slandering the royal couple, disgracing Clive and Anabella, and creating that massive rift between the parents over Clive's future and their differing feelings towards the child. The shame inflicted by them upon Anabella was manipulated into anger and resentment, while Elwin's love for Clive was forced into being in direct opposition to his love for his wife, and both of these matters were only worsened by the fact that Joshua was beloved by the nobility and poised by them to take the throne -- despite how sickly and frail the child was. All of these things were aimed at pitting the couple against each-other, and it worked.

These things were also geared towards eventually pitting Joshua and Clive against each-other by means of sowing seeds of resentment and mistrust, but this one failed thanks to the strong bond shared between the two boys.

... I don't remember where I was going with any of this. I don't even think any of this answers your Ask, but I figure it's fun background information that might give some equally as fun context towards my Elwin! I guess the big takeaway from the latter half of this post is that I headcanon that there's A Lot of political unrest and power struggles between the High Houses, it's just kept carefully hidden from the public. If there's anything specific you'd like elaborated on, please feel free to let me know!

[marshvlovestv]

I’m in a bad place right now so I thought I’d bring myself some positivity by talking about my top ten favorite video games I’ve ever played! They’ll be in alphabetical order rather than being ranked because I love them all for different reasons and don’t want to compare them against each other. I wholeheartedly recommend every game on this list, honorable mentions included.

1.Celeste - I’ve gone on at length before about why this game is so important to me, so I won’t repeat that all here. I really, truly believe that Celeste is a perfect video game.

2.Cuphead - Cuphead is a treat for the senses and an absolute blast from start to finish.Even when I was losing, I was so delighted by the music and animation that I still had fun (except when I was trying to beat that stupid robot, I hated every second of that). Cuphead is an exciting challenge, and finally beating it is one of my proudest accomplishments because my life is really sad.

3.Elsinore - I feel like more people have probably heard of The Sexy Brutale, which is, similarly to Elsinore, a puzzle adventure game with a time loop mechanic. But I’ve never played The Sexy Brutale, and Elsinore is better anyway because it’s based on Hamlet, of all things. It’s a video game for a different kind of nerd, you might say. I love what they did with all the characters, and the story is gorgeous, with all its different endings both tragic and bittersweet.

4.Hades - You can probably tell from the other games on this list that I’m not one to gravitate towards action games. Even in a game like Cuphead, combat for me is something to get past, rather than something to be enjoyed for its own sake. But Supergiant Games did something incredible with Hades: it made action combat something so deep and varied and downright fun that I wanted to return and return and return, to master every nuance of the weapons and boons and challenge myself with the customizable difficulty. The story is worth every ounce of praise it has received and I adore all the characters, but the story is not why I have over 400 hours of Hades logged on Steam (maybe it accounts for the first 50 or so).

(Honorable mentions: Bastion and Transistor. Haven’t played Pyre yet but I’m sure I’ll love that one too.)

5.Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass - Undertale was my very first experience with video games, but I only watched other people play it. Furthermore, it’s not the most traditional JRPG out there. My real first impression of Earthbound-like JRPGs was JatPM, and it made me fall in love with the genre. I delighted in the cuteness and was utterly shaken by the horror of it - and yes, you could absolutely make the argument that OMORI belongs in this spot instead, but honestly, I found the psychological horror of that game too familiar to be fazed by it. But I don’t have personal experience with the existential horrors of being a small child with a terminal illness, and Jimmy’s portrayal of that made me legitimately queasy.

(Honorable mention: OMORI)

6.Life is Strange 2 - It’s frankly amazing to me that a French studio was able to tackle American social issues like police brutality and the discrimination faced by Latines with more honesty than an American studio would ever be willing. I am a white woman - playing as Sean in LIS2 is the closest I will ever get to being a Latino man, and the experience is heartbreaking. But that’s not to mention gorgeous environments, the beautiful story about brothers, great characters, and some real mechanical improvements over the first game, from a more comprehensive way to choose dialogue to the increased subtlety of the choice-consequence system.

(Honorable mentions: LIS 1, Captain Spirit, and Tell Me Why. I’m hype for True Colors but I’m scared that it’s going to be ruined by having a bigger studio behind it; The Sims 4 notwithstanding, I am strictly an indie girl.)

7.Paradise Killer - I love detective games. In theory. When I made this list I was surprised that I couldn’t think of more detective games to include, and I think the reason for that is that while a lot of games have a lot of great detective stories, very few actually make you feel like a detective in the way that Paradise Killer does. The onus is entirely on you in this game to scour for clues, ask people the right questions, and ultimately come to your own conclusion. If there’s an important clue you didn’t find on your own, too bad, the game won’t lead you to it, and if you’re misled by red herrings, oh well, the game won’t correct you and ultimately you’ll get a less satisfying ending.

(Honorable mention: The Painscreek Killings - similarly an open world detective game that puts the investigation entirely on you, just without the quirky characters and fun worldbuilding of Paradise Killer)

8.Rising Dusk - Truly the definition of a hidden gem. I found Rising Dusk buried deep in the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality and it turned out to be really fantastic. Cute, clever, totally committed to its theme of Japanese folklore. The main mechanic of “limit how many coins you carry” makes for unique and varied puzzles. I almost excluded this one because it didn’t quite “stick with me” like some of these other games have, but thinking back to just how high-quality it was, I think it absolutely deserves a mention.

9.The Sims 4 - Okay, okay, I’ve kind of gotten bored of The Sims 4. I haven’t played it in ages and I don’t know if I’m even going to download it on my new computer. But that doesn’t change the fact that this game was the first one I really got into playing as an adult, or that my Tumblr avatar is, always has been, and always will be my Simself.

10. Unavowed - I discovered this game through a Let’s Play which made me fall in love with it. I wouldn’t have bought it for myself, except for the fact that this is a replayable point-and-click adventure game. Can you imagine? I’m not really a completionist but I was obsessed with getting every achievement, which was just an excuse for me to experience the game again and again, playing every backstory and trying every possible combination of characters for every case just to see what dialogue I’d get. I kept coming back for more of those characters I loved. (And hey, to all the Supergiant fans seeing this post because of Hades, Logan Cunningham is in this game. So, that’s pretty cool.)

(Honorable mentions: Any other point-and-clicks with this aesthetic: Kathy Rain, Lamplight City, Whispers of the Machine, the Shivah)

Honorable mention: Heaven’s Vault - This game was made for me. A story-rich mystery adventure game with a major mechanic centered around translation, of all things? Perfection. Unfortunately Heaven’s Vault was disqualified because of those godawful flying segments. I get that we’re in space and have to travel to different moons, but I signed up for translation and mystery, not an outer space racing game that handles like garbage.

Honorable mentions: Ori and the Blind Forest/Will of the Wisps - A rule I went for at first was that any game I had liked enough to buy its soundtrack automatically goes on the top ten list. Yeah, I do have the soundtrack to Blind Forest, and I do really like both games, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that other games were just edging Ori out. Not to mention, these are metroidvanias, a genre I like in concept but not so much in practice - the huge worlds are overwhelming and the backtracking is tedious, and while Ori is beautifully made enough that I still like it, those elements I dislike are still there.

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | The Sand Pebbles (Wise, 1966)

This review contains spoilers.

I watched this as part of the Hollywood Chinese series on the Criterion Channel, so naturally my attention turned to the portrayal of the Chinese characters in the movie. The last movie I watched from the series, Daughter of the Dragon, was not free from negative stereotypes. But it surprised me with the way they were navigated, getting some mileage out of the tension between the magnetism of the stars and the roles they either embraced or repelled, depending on the situation. The first hour into The Sand Pebbles, Robert Wise’s epic about a US Navy gunboat on Yangtze River Patrol in 1920s China, I did not think it was finding such ways to subvert the material. The portrayal of the Chinese here is at best condescending and at worst outright xenophobic, with the positive characters infantilized and the negative characters outright treacherous.

One of the positive characters is a coolie played by Mako, who the gruff but upright hero played by Steve McQueen (effortlessly cool and stoic as always) teaches ship maintenance and courage. The character is portrayed sympathetically, cooperating with McQueen even when his coolie boss discourages it, but also as childlike, absorbing lessons from McQueen only in simplistic forms. Mako is likable in the role, but there’s only so much he can do in the face of such blatant stereotyping. The movie does try to bestow upon him a certain dignity, having us root for him in a boxing match against a thuggish racist aboard the same ship, but cuts his arc short in a startlingly violent (by mid-‘60s standards) scene in which he is brutally tortured by locals in full view of McQueen’s ship and eventually put out of his misery by McQueen himself.

The other positive Chinese character is a woman played by Marayat Andriane forced to work as a hostess in a bar where she’s pressured to be a prostitute, but falls in love with McQueen’s shipmate Richard Attenborough. The sexually charged nature of her indenture to a slimy creditor (James Hong in a minor role), and the unimaginably horrible fate she suffers (promptly blamed on McQueen by the real perpetrators) highlights the treachery and cruelty of the Chinese. Yet I think Andriane is able (or at least given the screentime) to humanize her character more than Mako, and I did find her arc quite affecting. On a side note, what might really throw viewers for a loop is that Andriane, whose character is a bastion of purity in a seedy, sinister milieu, is also known as Emmanuelle Arsan, who wrote the Emmanuelle books supposedly inspired by her real life sexual adventures. Needless to say her character here does not partake in similar activities.

That being said, similar to Zulu, which set up a bunch of cliches in its first half only to blast through them one by one in the second half, this movie substantially complicates matters. As tensions rise between the Communists and Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists, with both sides itching to bait the American presence into combat, the heroes retreat onto the ship, and the surrounding events become filtered through an increasingly narrow perspective as they hold fast on this aquatic stronghold. Adding to the tension is that the ship is essentially stranded due to low water levels, and under orders not to fire at the hostile locals. This was released as the Vietnam War was starting to ramp up, and it definitely invites parallels to the situation, although depending on your political views, your sympathy may be limited for the imperialist dilemma of maintaining an image of strength while being unable to use force and futility of humanitarian aims when you’re an unwanted presence. I don’t know how much I agreed with the film’s conclusions, but I found the way it grappled with this subject pretty fascinating.

These ideas come to a head in the film’s most thrilling sequence, where the gunboat fights its way through a blockade set up by Chinese boats. It’s exhilarating not just because it’s a well directed action sequence, which it certainly is, but also because of the way it shows war as a unifying force, diffusing tensions among the crew as they direct their aggression towards a common enemy. And the switch from relatively distanced naval combat to swashbuckler style action plays like a commentary on how these characters view the locals (“pirates”, to use one character’s words). And a late reveal involving a previously minor character gives us a sense of how badly the heroes had misread the locals’ motivations. Again, the Vietnam metaphor can’t be ignored. I do think the performance of Richard Crenna as the ship’s commanding officer is pretty key to all of this as well. Crenna can have a certain stodginess  and that quality is well deployed here, his control of the situation proving increasingly tenuous in the face of the mounting tensions among the locals and on his own ship.

And on the whole, this is just a gripping piece of capital-C Cinema. I’m a sucker for any movie from this era with a sizable budget, and I certainly found the substantial production values, used to meticulously recreate 1920s China, appropriately dazzling. But this is directed by Robert Wise, who as in West Side Story, uses that scale in the service of several bracingly directed sequences. There’s of course the aforementioned naval battle, but even a smaller sequence like a brawl between McQueen and some unfriendly locals turns into a thrilling shadowplay. And there’s the final sequence, a suicidal shootout lent an immense poignancy and futility by the cavernous, shadowy soundstage it’s set on. It’s hard not to be swept up by this, and it’s hard not to feel implicated either.

[pixiedoodlein]

10 days until school and I’m no more decided than I was a week ago. I flip flop ten times day about what might be best. A is sick of hearing me talk about it. He doesn’t disagree with my risk assessment but he is sick of talking about it.

It caused an issue with his friend, a friend who is his best friend and is unvaccinated and works in a jail. Months ago we told friend he could only visit (this place is their boyhood dream) once he’s vaccinated. Friend typically believes in science and is very health conscious but his gf is a moron Trump lover and her family the same and that’s who he’s been spending all his time with since this all started. When I asked friend why he’s not vaccinated he said he’s young & healthy, didn’t trust the vaccines, would do it when they got full fda approval. Plenty of young healthy people are dead of this. Anyway then I asked ok so what if you give it to someone who isn’t and dies, people incarcerated in the jail he works in and don’t have the luxury of social distancing, and he was like eh whatever. So yes friend is an asshole, but his best friend for decades, friend has always been kind of an asshole but has many redeeming qualities too. So we said no visit. But then in July when there was no covid here and no covid where he lives and we were blissfully living our covid free lives we loosened up and said he could visit with two negative tests. But then covid got bad again and when asshole friend contacted A the other day to say he took time off in late Sept to visit, A said sorry, it’s fully fda approved now you have no excuses not to vaccinate, we’re worried about our unvaccinated kids, and as of now you can’t visit but hey maybe if you get vaccinated and the numbers look better we can reassess in a month and you can come. Friend was a total dick about it, didn’t understand our point of view at all, stressed A about it, who was in a bad mood about it for days afterward.

Then there’s the neighbors. I had a chat with the kids and a chat with the mom. I framed it as we love them so much and I know they’re careful but I think we should all be more careful while the numbers are so rising (aka only outdoor hangouts) and we are careful but I’ve heard terrifying stories from doctor friends about kids and babies getting very sick, and they have a baby who I don’t want us to make sick, and she said she agreed. The kids have been pretty good about making the adjustment from constant sleepovers to playing outside but M keeps asking me “the kids need to pee are they allowed to use the bathroom, the kids are hungry are they allowed to come inside even for one minute for a snack,” and I feel like the villain (I’ve been saying yes to pee, snacks I’ll bring out). Everyone’s been understanding but nobody is getting what I mean when I say only outdoor socializing. All the kids keep asking me when I’ll take them to town again for ice cream, “but it’s outside” (um yeah but the car’s not), asking their mom to ask me for sleepovers even though they know what the answer will be. The other day they were playing in our yard then it started raining and they were like “we can’t walk home in the rain”- I don’t want them to walk home in the rain, but again the car is indoors!- so I drove them home (but made M stay at our house). They’re not my kids so I can’t make them wear masks and it feels like now I am in the position of being the mean parent who’s psycho about covid, which in a way I am, but it would help me to stick to my guns and feel okay about sticking to them if the government policies matched the severity of the situation, ie mask mandates in public places (instead of stores posting polite recommendations), vaccine mandates, virtual learning options, etc.

Which brings me to school. After selling M hard on real school, then I sold her hard on home school. She already “did” 3rd grade last year (as much as me teaching her in my pajamas counts as doing), but this district has an earlier cut off than the city, so she’s in 3rd grade again here. Which is fine by me- her birthday is the same day as the very late nyc cut off (12/31) and I hated that she was the absolute youngest. I used to beg the school to hold her back and they’d say “but why she’s doing so well!” not understanding that I was thinking ahead to the teen years. But anyway, despite her haphazard pj’d professor, she seemed to learn a lot last year so homeschool this year could basically be unschool. She’d traipse around the forest identifying birds and trees with A and her brother, reading for pleasure, and I’d spend an hour here and there reviewing some worksheets with her so she’d be on track when she starts real school after she gets vaccinated. She was into the idea, until she found out she and one of the neighbor kids are in the same class. Now she absolutely wants to go to real school, AND ride the school bus. The school bus part makes me very nervous. While there is now a school mask mandate (but will it be enforced? what are their lunch procedures, what % of teachers are vaccinated, what % of the older kids in the same building as the little kids are vaccinated, did they actually really update their ventilation system?) and a bus mask rule, it’s a long rural route (15 min drive or 45 min bus) and I have no faith that bus windows will be open and all riders will be masked the whole time.

So just tell her she can go to school but has to be driven by a parent, right? Not so simple. I was offered a job at a (somewhat, commuting distance) nearby nonprofit- an easy low stress job in a bastion of liberalism with very very nice smart coworkers, excellent work life balance, a writing job that sounds made for me, like the job description is exactly what I would put together if I were putting together my dream job (except the pay, which is half what I was making at a fancy DC nonprofit, but high for this area, and our housing cost is half so it should be fine if A can get away from little guy long enough to bring in some money too). It’s mostly remote but approx one day a week in the office and some days there will be things I need to attend out in the community (not necessarily our community, they serve the whole region). It won’t always be the same day in the office and the office is an hour away- so on those days A would have no car to get her to and from school, since I’d need to leave before school starts and get home after it’s done. So I guess we need to buy a new car? Aside from this issue we really don’t need a second car now, were planning to get one eventually, but not until A’s business has enough projects to justify the cost.

Despite its many demands/challenges/ stressors, home school is sounding easier to me at this point (especially because she already did this grade), except she WANTS to go to school. Someone talk me out of putting some lipstick and a pantsuit on her and taking her to get vaccinated. I know, I know: the 5-11 dosage is 1/3 of the 12-adult dosage. The doctors I’ve spoken to are split on this hypothetical kamikaze mission. The doctors I’ve spoken to are also split on me and A going to a pharmacy now for booster. It’s been almost 6 months since our 2nd dose. We do not have compromised immune systems. This county has way more doses than demand and I would feel better sending M to school (bus or not) if we had our boosters and she had a first dose- moral and scientific quandaries aside- because there is A LOT of covid here now, a lot of covid everywhere now, and I feel like we are returning to regular life at the time when we should be most hunkered down.

Which brings me to the data. Per capita there are as many known cases here as in nyc, except nyc has a 50% higher vax rate, much more mask usage, better medical system. People are not getting enough tests here, there is a higher positivity rate, and so I think the actual number of cases is much higher than the reported number of cases. It seems like, friends here and in the city and in the suburbs (I just broke up with a friend in the suburbs because she professes to be a good democrat but is hosting a bonafide super spreader event and vacationing in a place with 39% positivity and a collapsed health care system), are thinking of covid as something you catch from strangers- they wear masks in stores- but aren’t careful at all around close friends and family (so many extended family gatherings, so many, cousins and grandparents and half-siblings and aunts and uncles and whoever), when this is a disease that kills via the people you love most, the ones who’d never intentionally hurt you.

[hauntedmilkshake1]

Not really a "christmas" fic but eh wanted to get something out lmao, happy holidays yall!

!IBUKIS SUPER MEGA AWESOME EAT GUIDE TO BECOME AS POWERFUL AS THE AMAZING BYAKUYA...Hah I'm so good with names!

Log 1: HELLO! Diary writing is hard, Ibuki hasn't had to do this since grade school and even then nothing happened at all! Just a lousy book report- ANYWAY we're getting off topic...so Ibuki was pondering on how to become cooler than she already was, until the starlight showrunner charged into the bastion of the cafeteria...Byakuya Togami the ultimate SUSSY BA-

*take 2*

The ultimate """prodigy""" his muscular physical build makes Ibuki think he was built by Greek gods! Everywhere you go the whole island can hear him! So I thought: If Ibuki shall evolve...Ibuki shall evolve to become like BYAKUYA! It's full proof! Now where was that little chef dude when ya need him.

Log2: Oof...Ibuki evolving is harder than one thought. I challenged to see if I could keep up the pace with the legend himself but all it got to was Ibuki bloated after 2 plates and not leaving the kitchen wonderland for another hour! Byakuya appreciated the gesture but waved off my fleeting performance! But Ibuki never backs down! I shall become like Byakuya!

Log10: 6 plates! Ibukis new record! I can already feel the powers of the prodigy blood in my veins! My stomach is curved, no longer the flat surface it had always been. Now taking the brunt of Ibukis food endeavors it can now sustain more sustenance, but truly this is where the real fun begins

Log22: The effects of evolution have truly started to come into full force, Ibuki can throw back plates like no tomorrow and can keep up with Byakuya for at least half a course meal now! Ibukis tummy is now round and plyable. My leggings now have my thighs bulging from the pockets, and it seems my face is a little more full, Ibuki loves these new evolutions! The group seems somewhat concerned but Ibuki doesn't care! Evolving takes time and skill! And even Byakuya is starting to notice the changes!!

I gotta write a song about this! Thinking.....OH IBUKI KNOWS "I summoned cuthulu for Thanksgiving and all I got was this Tshirt"

Instant Ibuki classic B)

Log41: The evolution has truly taken its toll, IN THE BEST WAY POSSIBLE! Ibukis tummy now droops and hangs, New holes in my leggings! Even Ibukis arms are flabby and sport wings of a god! My power is increasing with the loss of stamina...How does he get around so fast?! Ibukis tummy sways on the wind so easily it's like carrying cement! The others seemed to have gotten used to Ibukis increased power although many drew their eyes to Ibuki when my tummy snapped the belt on the confines of my skirt and it flew across the room like a missile! Ibuki has never felt such power! Helps that I almost outpaced Byakuya at breakfast today B)

Log60: Well diary, Ibuki has finally reached the apex of evolution, Ibuki waddles with the grace of a siren, The fabric I once called clothing tore off seam by seam. Now all that confines Ibuki is super-awesome-crazy-fatfetish-stretchy-underwear-thatstretchesforinfinity! Ibukis tummy almost reaches My knees and the rest of Ibukis body is caked in flabby goodness, Double chins are an odd inclusion but Ibuki welcomes change!

Getting down at titty typhoon is both exhilarating and exhausting, My poor legs get so tired and sweaty so quickly and my tummy knocks into everything! But Ibuki gets a rush when my fat slaps against itself.

AND TODAY BYAKUYA GRABBED IBUKIS BELLY AND SAID MY PERFORMANCE WAS "RESPECTABLE" I HAVE REACHED THE APEX OF EVOLUTION AND IBUKI IS THRIVING

Thank you for coming to my live diary performance! Tshirts are to your left, Toodles B)

[oreoambitions]

Part 8 of 12

Parts 1-3 // Part 4 // Part 5 // Part 5.5 // Part 6 // Part 7 // Ao3

Lena sits in the passenger seat of her own car with the window rolled down, listening to some old tune from the 60's tumbling so softly out of the speakers she almost can't quite catch it. The forest passes by at a pace that would feel unbearably slow if she were the one behind the wheel. Which, of course, is precisely why she isn't.

Alex has gone after Kara. That much was inevitable the moment Kara left the wedding ceremony, the moment Sam's arms closed around Lena to hold her up, the moment Clark cocked his head to one side and announced quietly that Kara was in the air. Not just storming off then; good and properly leaving. Alex was grim faced and apologetic and lingered just long enough to be sure that Lena was going to be okay.

"I'm fine," Lena said what felt like a hundred thousand times.

"You're not," Sam replied, faithfully, tirelessly.

And Lena wasn't. But it didn't feel like there was any reason to talk about it.

Nia stayed behind to make sure everything was in order at the cabin before checkout in the morning. Sam went with Alex, and that felt inevitable too. She claimed it was for Alex's comfort, but Lena recognized the telltale signs of upset in the set of Sam's shoulders, in the crease of her brow, and she knew that in truth it was the other way around. Sam and Kara have grown close these past few months; the sudden rift between the two of them is painful for Sam and Lena knows it.

But Sam wouldn't have gone if it'd meant leaving Lena alone, which is how Lena has come to be seated beside a pensive Clark, traveling at precisely the speed limit down a winding mountain road, headed for home.

Clark drums his fingers on the steering wheel, not quite in time with the music, his gaze lingering on Lena for long enough that she'd be snapping at him to keep his eyes on the road if he were anyone else. Lena turns her face into the wind and fidgets in silence.

"Kara..." Clark begins. He drums his fingers over the steering wheel again. It's been half an hour of empty, tense quiet between the two of them, and Lena can't fathom why they're deviating from that uncomfortable but predictable norm now. "She's a very religious person," Clark says.

The single, soft note of laughter that comes out of Lena surprises them both. "I know," she replies. How could she not know something like that? Something as inherent to Kara as blonde hair and blue eyes and a kindness deeper than the sea.

"On Krypton we believed that speech itself was a gift from Rao, that the language itself was sacred."

Lena knows this too, wonders idly whether Krpyton always had one language or if there's an unspoken history of conquest there, says nothing as they trundle across an old single lane bridge over a ravine that might once have been a river, might be a river again when the drought passes.

Clark is still speaking. "There's no hard and fast rule about sharing the Book of Rao with the uninitiated - all of Krypton was initiated, you understand, so there was no need for a rule - but there was always a certain guardedness about it around alien visitors, even back then. And now that Argo is the last bastion of our civilization, folks are feeling more guarded than before. The sacred texts were Rao's gift to us. There was a big debate among the council about whether even Sam and Ruby should be taught, as outsiders."

"Was there a big debate about you?" The words are out of Lena's mouth before she can really think about them. Clark glances at her sideways and she looks away.

"The House of El is an important noble family," he says at last. His voice sounds tired.

"I remember. That's why they want Kara to marry that boy from Argo."

"Wanted. She belongs to you now; nothing they can do about that."

Lena shivers in spite of herself. She runs her thumb thoughtfully over her wedding bracelet, rolls the broken thread between her fingers. Mixed in with the guilt and the sadness is a streak of satisfaction: no one on Argo can force Kara to leave Earth behind now, and no one can force her to marry a stranger. She tries not to wonder whether Kara considers being bound to her just as distasteful.

"She doesn't think I understood what I said to her at the ceremony. What I was doing," Lena says. It isn't a question but she still hopes Clark will answer her, will tell her that she's wrong, will provide some other explanation. She's disappointed when he remains silent. "She thinks I copied her traditions out of a book as a silly... as an aesthetic. She thinks I played dress-up with something sacred, and she blames Sam."

Clark glances at her again. "But you didn't. I would have put a stop to this days ago if I'd thought you were taking this any less seriously than Kara."

"But Kara doesn't know that."

"She doesn't," Clark agrees. And then, "I'm sorry. I know how Kara feels about the Book, and maybe I should have warned you off. But I thought... I thought she would see how you felt about her, and it would ease things."

Lena's stomach flips. She runs her thumb over the wedding band again, her eyes far away. The woods are fading now. Soon it will be the hills, and then the suburbs, and then the city. The everyday bustle of the corporate world will assert itself and Lena will have to be able to set this all aside, to sweep it into the corners of her life where it isn't in the way. As if Kara could ever be in the way. As if Lena could ever move a feeling as heavy as this out of center stage. She has a feeling she's going to do a lot of drinking tonight.

"I'm going to prove to her that I meant those vows," she says. It's her turn to glance at Clark then, gauging his reaction. To her surprise, there's the ghost of a smile across his lips.

"Of course," he replies. "I wouldn't expect anything less. If you- Kara describes you as a very thorough person; you've never given me reason to believe otherwise."

Lena inclines her head. You have to be thorough to survive Lilian and Lex; loose strings tend to become weapons in their hands. She fiddles with the all too real loose string on her wrist. "Do I do something with this?"

"What? No. That- You can just throw that away. Any thorough understanding of a topic must be grounded in context. To take something out of its context is to risk subverting its meaning." He drums his fingers across the steering wheel again, and Lena tries not to squirm, tries not to anticipate where this is going. "We're not an evangelical people; you can't convert someone to our religion; you were either born in the light of Rao or you weren't."

Lena raises her eyebrows. "No one is born in the light of Rao anymore. What does that mean for your religion?"

Clark opens his mouth as if to answer, frowns, closes it again. "That's a terrifying thought and a conversation for another time. What I'm trying to say is there's no rule against giving you the Book of Rao just as there's no precedent for it. So if you'd like a copy... Sam would have to help you read it, or I could, if you'd be comfortable. But-"

"It should be Kara," Lena interrupts.

"Sorry?"

"If I ever read the Book of Rao, it should be with Kara. To do otherwise feels... It feels like going behind her back." There's a long silence between them, and then Lena adds, "But I would love to have a copy. For when she's ready. Thank you."

"Of course. You're family; the Book belongs to you as much as it does to me, if you want it."

Lena turns the word 'family' over in her mind. She tugs the thread from her wedding band, balls it up between her fingers, tucks it into the handle pocket of the passenger's side door. Loose ends. "We've never talked about the history between your family and mine."

Clark doesn't glance at her this time. He keeps his eyes firmly on the road, his jaw set, and Lena wonders which of a thousand awful encounters with Lex he's recalling now. And then he takes a deep breath and the tension bleeds from his expression. "We don't have to talk about it," he says. "Kara made it clear a long time ago that you weren't like the others. And I know we still have a long road ahead of us getting to know one another, but Lena, I don't see Lex when I look at you."

"Thank you," Lena whispers.

Clark reaches over to squeeze her shoulder. "And there is no 'your family and mine' anymore. I mean it. Kara and I are the same blood. You and Kara are the same blood. By the transitive property..."

"A = C," Lena says, chuckling to cover the lump that has suddenly risen in her throat. "Thank you for the refresher on elementary algebra."

"Just doing my part," Clark says with a chuckle of his own. The forest has become shrubbery, the hills rising deep and gold around them, dotted here and there with wildflowers. "She loves you, you know," Clark says. As though it were a simple thing. As though he were commenting on the weather.

Lena reaches for the stereo to turn up a song she doesn't recognize. "This one is one of my favorites," she tells him, her voice breaking just a little, and she turns her face again into the wind. That ghost of a smile flickers across Clark's features, and he clicks the volume up a few ticks higher.

[watusichris]

Sex Pistols, SF, 1/14/78

This very bad piece of writing, which I wrote as the whey-faced “Los Angeles correspondent” for a Wisconsin music rag, is posted in the interest of music history. When last seen, the group’s lead vocalist was featured on “The Masked Singer.” **********

The Sex Pistols “Notes From New Babylon,” Emerald City Chronicle, Feb. 7-21. 1978

Los Angeles, January 17, 1978

In San Francisco on Saturday, the Sex Pistols proved that they don’t fire blanks. And the crowd shot back.

The last date on the Pistols’ eight-day American tour was held before 5,000 people in that bastion of hippiedom, Winterland. With the hall’s bright red floor and tiered seating conjuring up a high school gym, the concert resembled nothing so much as a junior high dance held on Mars.

The Faithful, the True Believers were out in force. With a couple of busy punk venues and a number of homegrown New Wave phenoms to its credit, San Francisco has learned over the last year to dress and act the punk part.

Although the majority of the audience consisted of curious booboisie ready to gawk at this year’s New Thing, there were large numbers of Real Fans decked out to the teeth. The “haute couture” came courtesy of Gillette, Johnson and Johnson, and Handy Trash Bags. They came in see-through plastic raincoats, t-shirts torn, stapled and safety-pinned, vertigo-inducing patterned shirts and blouses, berets, sunglasses of every configuration and color, and leathers of every persuasion. The hairdos were chopped and channeled and tinted red, pink, green, yellow, orange, spikey like the coiffures of electrocuted felons. Scott Mackenzie go home – flowers and beads have long been consigned to the trash, and Love City’s torn down. A New Wave has hit North Beach.

I grabbed a spot about 25 feet in front of the stage and waited out the opening acts, two local groups, the Nuns and the Avengers, both determined to outlast their welcome. The highlight of the first two hours was drunken rock critic/”musician” R. Meltzer’s attempt to incite the crowd with a string of addled and half-hearted obscenities. The crowd got some early target practice, and Meltzer was led from the scene by an impatient Bill Graham.

The Pistols arrived at 10:15.

Bassist Sid Vicious took the stage first. When Vicious finally doffed his knee-length greatcoat, he displayed a body covered with livid scars; a fresh bandage shielded a recent wound. What Vicious, self-styled “worst bass player in the world,” lacks in musical expertise, he makes up for with his winning personality.

During the set, he showered the audience with ropes of spittle, spat beer on the front row, verbally invited ringsiders to spar with him, and in general displayed manners that Amy Vanderbilt would consider sub-par. The security crew on his side of the stage stayed busy all night. He survived.

Steve Jones, the pudgy guitarist, took a stance of pugnacious cool. Looking the low-life toff in a cherry-red coat, he sneered, strutted, jumped and spat this way through the set, oblivious to the return fire. Spit hung from his face like a veil of Spanish lace. Through it all, his axe barked like a wounded creature.

Drummer Paul Cook bashed his way along, unaware of the barrage that rattled his cymbals and smacked his bass drum.

Last to join the fray was John Rotten.

Oh, Johnny Rotten, most scabrous of rock and rollers. Your heart goes out to this wretched soul with his Day-glo pallor and drawn, acned visage. He lurches out in Gestapo leather, leather pants festooned with chains, two vests, white shirt. But forget the fashion – the first thing you notice as he hunches over the mike are his brilliant blue eyes, freezing with malice, riveting you to the Winterland floor when they shoot your way.

He greets the crowd. “Welcome to London.”

Thus begins an hour-long salvo in which the audience shows their feverish affection by launching every object in their possession at the stage in a true love-hate gesture. You name it, beer cans, fruit both fresh and rotten, stink bombs, a box of Tampax, toilet paper, a dispenser of birth control pills, shoes, skirts, pieces of tattered clothing, loose change, chains, safety pins, a squirt gun, anything throwable, an unrelenting storm for 60 minutes. “The stuff yer throwin’ ain’t good enough,” complains John Rotten, and two umbrellas sail onto the stage. “‘At’s more like it, now throw some cameras, we can use some nice cameras.” Each object is scrupulously examined and sometimes pocketed by the singer.

Ignoring the bombardment of foreign matter and the thunderstorm of hockers from the first rows, the Pistols hammered through thirteen balls-to-the-wall rockers in their formal set – eleven songs from Never Mind the Bollocks, one B-side (“I Wanna Be Me,” the flip of “Anarchy in the U.K.”), and one new tune. Each note vibrated with anger. Rotten communicates it all. He may be the most visceral performer I’ve ever seen; his performance wracks his voice, body and spirit so, you’re afraid he’ll collapse right in front of you.

Each song as performed live was a new epiphany, animated by that paralyzing stare and crook-backed accusation that is uniquely John Rotten. Perhaps the finest hour came in “Pretty Vacant,” as the staccato opening lick, repeated and repeated, insinuated and finally exploded. Jone and Vicious jumping up, the crowd screaming, as the band plunged into the ultimate anthem of the True Lost Generation, the Blank Generation of the Seventies.

The group closed with “Anarchy in the U.K.,” retooled to read “Anarchy in the U.S.A.” After a pause, they returned, in a bow to their greatest American influence, they performed an exhausting workout on Iggy’s “No Fun.” Rock of Ages, let me hide myself in thee

Paul and Steve drag a groupie up from the crowd, Paul latches a hand onto her butt and leers back at the crowd, Sid trades last endearing words with the front row, Rotten pulls himself from the floor and beats an agonized retreat, and the Sex Pistols Tour of the Americas is over.

Verdicts? Delirium from the Acolytes, boredom, confusion and indifference from the Fleetwood Frampton clones. You know where I stand, and if you don’t have a place to stand, you might as well find a place to lie down. They might not be the new Beatles (thank god for that), but the Sex Pistols have revitalized rock and roll for me in the deathly Seventies. P.S. (1/25/78) From where I sit, it looks like the Sex Pistols may be finished. Daily Variety and the L.A. Times said, yes, it’s all over last Thursday. On Sunday, the Pistols’ U.S. rep was denying it all on local radio, but the denial had a kind of uninformed, hollow ring to it.

Mid-last week, John Rotten went before the press and said that the band was splitting, that he was tired of the “big band” hype the group received on its American tour. A couple of local observers here feel that this is just a ploy to remove Sid Vicious, whose behavior suggests that he might be a potentially dangerous psychopath, but I personally doubt it.

So what, you ask. The Pistols haven’t been around long enough to matter to a lot of people, but they have set the trend. With the wheels in motion, there is now a movement to continue without them. My feelings are that it’s too bad, a great band is going down prematurely, but John Rotten will still be around to be a star. A star IN SPITE OF HIMSELF.

Long live the Pistols.

[chatonne-rousse]

Through a Different Lens

This incredible work of art by @lilianmorganart crossed my dash last week and has lived rent-free in my head since then. I made it my phone's wallpaper and found myself getting emotional every time I picked up the phone to use it (If that doesn't confirm my stratospheric level of unrepentant Adrienette trash, I don't know what does).

I told @tsuki-chibi about it and we discussed how Adrien would totally swoon over it, too, if it was the lock screen on his phone. And that's how this fic was born.

I hope you enjoy this little relationship study through Alya's eyes as she and Nino share life and love alongside their best friends.

Read it on Ao3 here.

*****

"Last set of the night, dudes and dudettes. We're about to be upstaged big time." Nino points out the bank of windows toward the already-glittering Eiffel Tower before needle meets vinyl and the music starts, soft and undeniably romantic. "Let's wind it down by slowing it down."

A blue balloon flutters to the floor beside Nino's feet as he hops from the DJ platform and winds through a sea of his classmates to his waiting girlfriend. Alya wastes no time wrapping him in her arms and pressing a kiss to his lips, turning the greeting into dancing with the sway of her hips that he matches after a few beats.

"How many songs did you line up?" she murmurs when they finally part.

He smiles and winks at her. "Four. It's about fifteen minutes till fireworks."

"Mmm. Nice."

The back of his shirt is sweaty under Alya's hands, but she doesn't care. The lovely chignon Marinette had pulled her hair into before the party has come a bit undone and she can feel the damp curls at the back of her neck. That's July in Paris for you; even the air conditioning in Le Grand Paris doesn't make much of a difference. Thank goodness for the ceiling fans that make the white and blue and red streamers rustle above their heads.

She hears Nino snort softly near her ear. "Are they magical or something? How do they still look perfect?"

Alya doesn't need to turn to know he's talking about their best friends, but she twists anyway, pressing the opposite cheek to Nino's shoulder instead.

And of course he's right.

She's spent the evening drinking punch and giggling with Marinette, shimmying and whooping with her in a happy little clump with Nino and Adrien, making the rounds of friends and food and fun over the past few hours. Marinette and Adrien have, too, but somehow the only sign that it's the end of the evening is that Adrien has loosened his tie.

Marinette's hair falls across her shoulders in the same soft cascade Alya styled it into hours ago. Her gauzy white dress drapes better on her figure than it did on the mannequin in her bedroom. Even the corsage Adrien had presented to her when the girls descended the stairs into Marinette's living room, a stunning red rose in full bloom, sits perfectly on her slim wrist, not a petal out of place. Her best friend really does look like she's limned in magic.

But perhaps that's because of the strong hand splayed at Marinette's waist, pressing her ever closer to her dance partner, or Adrien's cheek at her temple, his blond halo a perfect contrast to her deep raven hair. Maybe it's whatever he's just whispered in her ear that makes her smile up at him, a wide grin of exasperated fondness lighting her face before gentling after a moment into an expression of softest serenity.

Alya's first thought is that it's like the bright and beautiful partnership of the full moon reflecting the sun. But that isn't quite right, because her best friend glows from within, providing her own light to meet Adrien's, radiant and returned in equal measure.

Just how they got to this point remains as baffling to Alya now as it was a year ago when her friends finally put themselves and everyone around them out of their misery and started dating. The blushes continued and the occasional shy stammers never quite disappeared, but she'd watched them blossom together like a spring garden before her eyes, though what she'd been sure would be daffodils had bloomed into beautiful irises instead.

Suddenly Mr. Sunshine had gleamed brighter than ever, his giddy joy nearly uncontainable. So many puns. So much laughter. The former would be unbearable were it not for the latter, which always seemed to brighten Nino's eyes as well, a welcome side effect.

And oh, her best friend had come alive. It was more than having someone to love and love her in return. Alya knew from the day they met that love was second nature to Marinette. It practically shone from her pores.

But this was different - a touch more boldness, a blaze of fierce protectiveness in her eyes, an ability to read and respond to Adrien's emotions in just the way he needed, just when he needed it. How did she know to do that? How had this easy familiarity grown between them so quickly, not a tender new sapling but already an unshakeable oak?

She knows the truth is deeper than what she's been able to wrangle from Marinette, but Alya learned long ago that her best friend held those cards too close to ever let her get a peek. But she sure had tried at the beginning.

"You can tell me, girl! I'm so happy for you, but I don't get it! What happened?"

Alya wheedled, needled, begged.

Marinette just smiled and finished watering her roses before leaning against the railing of her terrace.

"I did tell you! Adrien and I talked. We were honest with each other. That's it." She shrugged one shoulder before her smile turned sly and she bumped her hip into her best friend's. "You know, we can't all find love by getting trapped in a panther cage by a superhero. Not every relationship has an epic origin story."

"Damn right! Seriously, though, I can tell there's more to this. There are deets you're not sharing, and your bestie needs those deets!"

"I don't know what to tell you, Als. I just...saw him. All of him."

Alya just barely resisted the urge to make the obvious joke.

"Mari. My love. My best friend in the world. What could you possibly see now that you haven't seen in the past two years of crushing, staring, memorizing, obsessing, and finally just getting over your fears and becoming real, actual friends with him?" She ticked off each point on her fingers, ending with a grip on her pinky and an imploring look she hoped would coax a detail or two from her all-too-cagey best friend. "If you can't throw a bone to your BFF, think of me as the coordinator of Operation Secret Garden and its many, many, many side missions. At least tell me one thing about Sunshine that I don't know, something you didn't know before, either."

Silence fell over them like a blanket. Just when it started to feel stifling and itchy, Marinette spoke.

"He's the bravest person I know," she said quietly, gaze straying across the rooftop horizon.

Alya thought of the myriad times she'd watched Adrien run away in the direction of his house as she herself had run toward danger in the name of journalism and morbid curiosity. He was sweet and exceedingly kind, but she'd never considered him a bastion of courage. Though of course there had to be lots of things she didn't know, details of life at home beyond the isolated loneliness they were all aware of, things that hadn't occurred to her that her best friend now saw through a lens of love and not just friendly compassion. If the reason they were already so close was because Adrien was able to share the difficult parts of his life that he didn't even share with Nino? Well, Alya could understand and respect that.

She reached out and covered Marinette's hand in hers. "His dad is kind of the worst, isn't he?"

"Oh my gosh, you have no idea. The absolute worst. The other day..."

Listening to Marinette that day, Alya had decided that if her friends were happy, she'd be happy right along with them. The details would come in time.

They'd taken silly selfies in Marinette's mirror as they got ready earlier this evening. They'd posed for portraits in the Dupain-Chengs' doorway as though this was a gala event and not a Quatorze Juillet party that Chloé insisted was fancy dress, and snapped shots of their BFF squad together all evening. So without thinking, Alya reaches for her phone - her dress is a Marinette original, of course it has pockets - to document exactly how besotted their preternaturally beautiful best friends are. She grabs three photos in quick succession, thankful for her state-of-the-art camera as she smiles at how it captures the play of light and shadow across their matching white.

"Paparazzi," Nino fake coughs in her hair.

Alya grabs his butt with her free hand in retaliation, and they both laugh.

Marinette and Adrien sway together in a loose approximation of a dance, eyes closed, just barely turning in place, lost in each other. When Adrien reaches for Marinette's hand on his shoulder, Alya has to let go of her boyfriend completely to set her camera to burst mode, but laid-back, ever-patient Nino just huffs a laugh and holds her waist tighter. It's all worth it when she's able to capture the moment Adrien brings Marinette's hand to his lips and presses a series of slow, reverent kisses to her knuckles. She snaps one more photo after he's tucked their clasped hands beneath his chin and settled her against his shoulder.

Alya turns in the circle of Nino's arms and gleefully scrolls through the vast number of pictures she's just taken, pausing near the center of the burst shots and cooing with delight at the treasure she finds. "Oh my god, Nino, look." She shoves the phone under his nose and his eyes cross trying to focus on it.

"Damn. They're too pretty to be real."

She snorts. "Truth. Seriously, though. Have you ever seen two people more in love? I'd say it's gross, but I could also cry just looking at them."

Still smiling, Nino pulls their hips together again and sets them in a slow spin, punctuating the beat with his fingers at the small of her back. Alya pockets her phone and cuddles up to him, grinning into his chest when he speaks quietly for her ears only.

"You know I love you just as much, right? I'm not a model, and um, I'm not as...gooey. But—"

He's cut off when Alya presses her lips to his to stop him.

"You're just the right amount of gooey, mister, and I don't need a model when I've already snagged the hottest guy I've ever met." She delights in his blushing cheeks as she kisses him again. "And yes, I know you do...I love you, too. Thank god it's not a competition, or we'd be losing."

"Naaah," Nino drawls softly, hugging her close. "I've already won."

Alya just closes her eyes and hides her grin in his shoulder, letting him spin them again as the music swells.

*****

Packed on the balcony and ready for the fireworks to start, she and Marinette are giggling over the photos on her camera roll from the course of the evening.

"I don't want to think about how much you pay for cloud storage, Als. You know you have a problem, right?"

Nino can't help his surprised laugh, but has the good sense to bite his lip and look away. Alya nudges him in the side and rolls her eyes good-naturedly. Scrolling through toward the latest photos, she stops on one in particular and flips the screen toward her best friend.

"Bet you're glad I got this one, eh, Mademoiselle Judgy Pants?"

Alya knows she's scored a direct hit when Marinette's eyes widen and her cheeks pinken visibly even in the ambient light of the city. In the same moment, Adrien breathes an "ooooh" in reverent awe from over her shoulder as he stares at the glowing phone screen. Impossibly, the look on his face as he takes in the image is even more tender than it is in the photo itself.

Marinette turns to press her burning cheeks to his chest and he wraps her in his arms, props his chin on her head and mouths, "Send me that, please," to Alya, gesturing vaguely from her phone to his pocket.

Request received loud and clear, she grins and gives him a quick salute.

When fireworks finally fill the Parisian sky, Alya attempts a few action shots, though she's well aware that fireworks photos rarely turn out. Next, she grabs a great picture of Nino with the lights reflected in his glasses that immediately gets posted on Instagram.

And when Marinette stands on her tiptoes, wraps her arms around Adrien's shoulders, and kisses him breathless, well, Alya can't resist snapping one last photo of her friends. Adrien's hair positively gleams in the ephemeral glow of the bright red firework that bathes flushed cheeks and white fabric in a dreamy, perfect pink. This one is sent straight to her best friend; she looks forward to the keysmash text of embarrassed delight she'll receive from Marinette later.

Nino's hand slides around her waist to pull her close and she snuggles into his side, stowing her phone in her pocket and simply enjoying the moment.

*****

"Babe," Nino whispers under his breath, accompanied by a nudge of his knee against Alya's under the cafe table, "he's doing it again."

Sure enough, Adrien is gazing down at his phone. It's not even unlocked yet - he's just looking at his lock screen, waking it up each time it fades back to sleep.

"I know. That's why I'm looking up the movie time. We'd miss it completely if we left it to Sunshine."

"This is technically your fault. You do know that, right?"

Alya shrugs. "No regrets."

Marinette returns to the table, picking her purse off the back of her chair and lifting the strap over her head to settle in its perennial position across her torso. Instead of sitting down, she wraps her arms around Adrien's chest from behind and leans down to kiss his cheek. "Did you figure out if we can make it to the movie?"

The question is clearly directed at Adrien, who was supposed to be looking up the cinema schedule, but he's already pocketed his phone and turned his head to nuzzle into her hair.

Okay, Alya may have some regrets.

It's been months since she took the now-famous photo and sent it to him. To no one's surprise, it became his lock screen wallpaper immediately. It also became a distraction.

Because Adrien melts every time he looks at his phone.

No one can truly decide if it's exasperating or endearing, but there are classmates and friends in both camps.

Nino begged him to change it back to the picture of the two of them together, if only to shorten the time between sending his best friend a text and receiving one in return. Alya is nearly at her limit for heart eyes, but she's still the captain of Team Endearing. She did take the picture, after all.

Max programmed Markov to recognize each time Adrien reached for his phone and the time it took for him to unlock it and use it. Markov has perfected the algorithm over time and now has a saved log of each occurrence down to the millisecond. There's no real reason to track this data besides curiosity, but it does help Markov refine his processes, so Max has kept it up. It is vaguely fascinating, though he does feel that it's a terrible use of Adrien's limited free time.

Nathaniel illustrated a cartoon rendition of Adrien, phone in his hand and literal hearts in his eyes. Alya offered him €10 for it, but Adrien himself came in at €20 and now it sits on his desk at home.

Once, Adrien spent so much time gazing at the lock screen that he never did answer his ringing phone. Of course it was Nathalie calling, and of course his father grounded him when he got home.

(Neither Marinette nor Adrien seemed as bothered by those two weeks as everyone had anticipated. That mystery remains unsolved.)

When she thinks about it, Alya decides there are worse things than Adrien loving Marinette so much that he has an emotional reaction to seeing the evidence through a different lens.

Alya just slips her phone in her purse and corrals her boyfriend and their best friends. They have a movie to get to and they only have twenty-five minutes.

*****

In time, the picture has found a place on the wall in Marinette and Adrien's apartment - printed on premium photo paper, lovingly matted and framed. No one would have expected any less.

And it has always made Adrien smile, sometimes when nearly nothing else could.

*****

Several years, several revelations, and enough trauma to last a lifetime have led them all to this moment, on this day that shines with as much joy and light and love as they can muster. It's what a day like this deserves, after all.

With too much behind them to call it a beginning and too much hope for the future ahead to call it an ending, Alya decides she's just watched her best friends walk through a door they'd unlocked years ago and finally found the right time to step through together. The path hasn't changed, paved in hurt and heartache and the kind of helpless hope a person chooses when an abyss yawns below and there are no other ropes to grab. But it has always been lit by the glow of an almost unfathomable love, and that's where healing begins, grows, and flourishes.

So here they sit, surrounded by friends and family, in the same room where the four of them had danced all those years ago on a hot July evening. A towering croquembouche waits in the corner and a table full of photos and memories is on display along one wall; that heart-melting photo of the happy couple as lovestruck teenagers has pride of place in the center.

Clad again in radiant white, Marinette is the perfect picture of a blushing bride, and her groom has been unsurprisingly entranced all day. Alya isn't sure Adrien has stopped smiling since they first saw him this morning, and she and Nino are enjoying every moment of it.

Part of the brilliance shining in his grin is natural, springing from a heart so innately kind that it has countered evil and wielded destruction, yet still beats with compassion. But she and Nino know, better than anyone else, that the Adrien in front of them is a previously-shattered vase mended in gold, stronger and more beautiful in the broken places, and some of his gleam is reflected from those gilded seams.

When it's Alya's turn to toast, Nino helps her to her feet with a smile and hands her the mic before sitting back down beside her. She starts with a story only a best friend could get away with telling, bolstered by the laughter of the guests around her and the grins of the bride and groom. She has a toast carefully planned and memorized, but for all her preparedness, Alya also knows how to improvise. When her gaze sweeps across the picture gallery on the table and the faces of two of the people she loves most, she veers off course but finds her words with confidence.

"I've taken a lot of photos in my life - silly, scary, funny, serious, everything in between. Many of those photos have featured many of you here today. I know I caused my saint of a best friend here a lot of undeserved stress by taking a vast majority of my life's photos in places where I shouldn't have been."

She pauses when a laugh ripples through the room and Marinette shakes her head even as her watery eyes beam back at her. "But I was in just the right place when I took that one." She gestures toward the framed picture on the table, sparkling cider sloshing gently in her champagne flute. "Because the right place for both of us—" she reaches a hand back toward Nino blindly, finding and squeezing his shoulder, "has always been next to you, the most ludicrously attractive, kindest, bravest, best people we know."

Alya takes a deep breath that only shakes a little bit on the exhale. "I'm so—" she blinks and swallows around the lump in her throat. Damn hormones! "I'm so lucky to know you, to love you, and to have been part of your lives and your love story all these years. That's why I wish you nothing less than a lifetime of that kind of love," she inclines her head toward the photo on the table again, "that kind of tenderness and devotion. No one deserves it more than you two, and no one will be happier than Nino and I will to be right there beside you on the journey. So...cheers to the prettiest lovebirds I know, Marinette and Adrien!"

Champagne flutes clink amidst applause and hugs and sniffles.

Her best friends grin at her before turning the same soft gaze toward each other again, just like the picture she took all those years ago that turned Adrien to goo each time he looked at it.

Alya knows now, of course, what she didn't understand back then - that in the same way their wedding today was more than just a beginning, so were those early days of soft looks and fierce devotion that seemed to transcend the blush of new romance. Unbeknownst to their friends, they'd had an ironclad partnership and years of trust in place already. Open eyes and honesty allowed the confluence of several different kinds of love, and it only made sense that the resulting alloy stood stalwart and shone dazzling-bright.

Well, it didn't make sense then, but it certainly does now, even if the luster sparkles through a patina of nicks and dents. After all, even the strongest steel and the brightest gold are refined by fire.

Nino hands her a tissue and presses his palm to her back as she settles in her seat again.

When ever-romantic Adrien reaches for his bride's hand to press gentle kisses across the back of her fingers, Alya can't resist grabbing her phone from the table beside her bread plate. They're a little older but just as beautiful and even more in love, and the photo she snaps captures that perfectly. She smiles down at her phone, pleased, before locking the screen and twisting a little in her seat to place it back on the table, face down.

Alya gets comfortable, rests her head on her husband's shoulder, and simply enjoys the moment.

[vodkassassin]

Hellooooo I heard that you are taking prompts!! May I propose crossdressing SQH? For the sect's mission or sth like that =))) and he pulls a very convincing disguise, with his knowledge as an author. Bonus if he can dance/sing/play instruments cuz I know he has it in him, being an overachiever he is (sorry for the rambling I just. Rly love him)

Don’t apologize! I love SQH too, so feel free to ramble away. My inbox is always open, even if you just want to gush about Shang Qinghua!

—

“Everything is set up correctly?” Yue Qingyuan frets.

And it really is fretting, the way that the man hovers over the group of peak lords that have gathered around the meeting table, almost like a hungry hummingbird scoping out its next meal. The man is normally much more composed than this, a bastion of calm amidst any crisis, and it’s making everyone else high strung as well, now that he’s slipped.

“For the last time, Sect Leader,” Shen Qingqiu grouses tiredly from where he sits, as slouched as he’ll ever get, fan open and so close to his face that it’s pressed against his cheek and causing his words to slur slightly. “We have gone over every possible contingency. Shang-shidi will be as safe as if he is still within our very own sect.”

“Yes, I know,” Yue Qingyuan murmurs, still gazing concernedly down at the multiple shafts of papers that they’ve got spread out across the entirety of the table. There’s a crease in between his brows, and Shen Qingqiu doesn’t really blame the man for being so worried, not really.

It’s a big operation, what they’ve got going on here. Complex, precarious, and it’s so incredibly important that they get every minute detail correct in their handling of the situation, or all of Shang Qinghua’s hard work, years worth of it, will go down the drain faster than someone can snap their fingers.

Despite carrying himself with the calm distance of an immortal master, leader of one of the greatest sects in all of China, Yue Qingyuan is the most ardent Big Brother Type that Shen Yuan has ever met in either of his lives. The man obviously cares about each and every one of his martial siblings, and it’s very apparent in the way that he gets anxious like this whenever one of them is put into a dangerous situation.

Given what the situation entails — and what exactly they’re dealing with here — Shen Qingqiu definitely doesn’t blame him for his hovering.

But, by the heavens, he’s ready to grab him by the shoulders and force him into a chair. He is fully prepared to sit on the man himself just to get Yue Qingyuan to be still for five seconds.

“Shang Qinghua is not new to work like this,” Mu Qingfang says soothingly. His calming demeanor is only broken by the way the doctor reaches out a second later to redundantly adjust the placement of one of the papers that litter the table. A nervous tick. “Out of us all, it’s him who has the highest chance of success. That’s why we chose him.”

“I know,” Yue Qingyuan says again, more firmly this time. He folds his hands behind his back and stands straight, gazing down at the table between them all. “However, given the matter at hand, your shixiong believes it prudent to ensure that every possible avenue of failure be closely examined.”

“More than we already have?” Ju Qingsong complains. He’s slumped entirely over the table, and has been for the last two hours. “Zhangmen-shixiong, this lord thinks that you’re really being a mother hen, here. Shang-shixiong’s done this sort of thing before. He’ll be fine!”

“It’s Shang-shijie now, Qingsong,” Qi Qingqi slyly announces, pulling the door to the meeting room open with a flourish. “And look, our martial sister! She’s so pretty, isn’t she?”

“I still don’t see why it couldn’t have been you doing this,” Shang Qinghua grouches as he troops into the room behind her. “You’ve done stuff like this before, as much as I have, and you’re actually a girl.”

Shen Qingqiu turns away from the table, a word of good-nature’s ribbing ready at the top of his tongue, but he finds that he can’t deploy it. Not when his bro is standing right there and looking like a real, dainty and dignified young maiden of a noble, xianxia family.

The robes are what’s most shocking, at first, like a full frontal assault to what Shen Qingqiu has become used to in regards to his friend. Shang Qinghua prefers dark blues, indigos, and blacks, all in a durable and solid weave — so, to see him decked out in flowing silks of soft pastels and light trims and embroidery, is certainly a shock to the senses.

His hair is next on the list of differences, usually pinned up entirely in braids and a bun held together with sharp silver needles. Today, half of it falls down his back in a gentle wave, while the top half of it is carefully twisted up into a delicate looking hair ornament that sparkles subtly in the light of the night pearls that decorate the meeting hall’s ceiling.

All of this, paired with the tasteful arrangement of jewelry — earrings that accentuate his jaw in a way that makes it appear a softer line than it actually is, artful golden clasps around the crown of his head, with gemmed beads that hang on carefully positioned wires to frame the fall of his hair and make it look like a tumbling waterfall of golden waters — Shang Qinghua makes for a beautiful young mistress.

“Damn, bro,” he says, unable to stop himself.

Shang Qinghua turns and raises an eyebrow at him, and all Shen Qingqiu finds himself able to do is shoot his friend a thumbs up.

“Damn is right,” Ju Qingsong gives a low whistle, pushing himself up from the table. Both of his eyebrows have risen up to meet his hairline, and a large grin adorns his face. “Shang-shijie! You’re breathtaking! Isn’t she gorgeous, Qingsheng?”

Rong Qingsheng doesn’t answer the man. He’s too busy staring at Shang Qinghua with silent and intense eyes. Knowing what he does of the lord of the agricultural peak, Shen Qingqiu figures he’s busy cataloguing every minute detail of their martial brother’s — er, sister’s — new look.

Honestly, he doesn’t blame him at all. Shang Qinghua makes for a show-stopping beauty.

Seriously, what the hell?

“Didn’t I do such a good job?” Qi Qingqi preens. She reaches over and, with careful fingers, tucks a stray strand of hair behind Shang Qinghua’s ear.

The man ducks his head, slowly in mindfulness of his intricate up-do, but Shen Qingqiu is too busy having heart palpitations to make fun of him for it. From the way that his fellow martial brothers’ eyes have all widened imperceptibly, they’re having similar struggles.

Liu Qingge stands up from the table rather abruptly.

“Qi-shijie needs to go instead,” he demands, a scowl curving his brows downward.

Shang Qinghua lets out an exasperated puff of air and tilts his head back, chin rising up almost stubbornly, and it’s likely because he’s still not used to the added weight of the hair ornaments. What it does, though, is expose the curve of his neck, and Shen Qingqiu turns away from the sight of his bro entirely just to shoot their sect leader a look of trepidation. The man himself seems like his earlier anxieties have doubled.

“That’s what I said earlier!” Shang Qinghua complains, crossing his arms over his chest. He’s pouting, and oh god it makes the picture of him look all the more delicate. Has Airplane even seen himself in a mirror yet?! He needs to stop with the cute actions!

“I said ‘Qi-shimei is actually a girl! Like, we have an actual female peak lord, who doesn’t have to crossdress in order to sneak into the human trafficking ring to find their financial books!’” Shang Qinghua re-enacts, pout becoming even more pronounced. Shen Qingqiu is pretty sure that Liu Qingge’s grip on the table has just cracked the wood. “And you all were like, ‘But Shang Qinghua! You have more undercover experience!’ And I was like, ‘That’s bullshit!’ because you all know that Qi Qingqi’s peak actually specializes in espionage! Like, why is it always me that has to go undercover?! I’m An Ding! I deal with information networks, not field work!”

“Except, you do deal in fieldwork,” Mu Qingfang points out, gently. He sounds like someone has punched him in the gut. “Very often, in fact…. Zhangmen-shixiong, I-I don’t think—”

“That’s because you guys always make me go!” Shang Qinghua interrupts him, clearly needing to complain a bit more. “I mean, there are plenty of times I do it myself, sure, but that’s just because I know the job will be done right that way! But all the other times! Like now! Seriously, you guys, Qi Qingi is right there!”

“And we definitely should have listened to you, you’re right,” Shen Qingqiu says weakly, waving his fam in front of his face in the hopes that it’ll help with the faint flush he can feel assaulting his cheeks.

“It’s too late for second guessing,” Qi Qingqi says flippantly, shaking her loose hair behind her shoulders. “If we change things up now, the entire operation will have to be reworked from the ground up, and that’s just not possible with the time frame we have. If we want to take advantage of the opening we’ve been given to take down this trafficking ring, then we must proceed as planned.”

“I hate that I have to agree with you,” Shang Qinghua grumbles.

He takes a step forward, toward the table, and then stops, staring at his own chair with a complicated expression on his face. After a few moments, he sighs and looks up.

“All these layers are even more complicated than my peak lord formal attire,” he says, forlorn. “I… I have no idea how to sit down in them…. Shijie, help.”

Qi Qingqi cackles, loudly, before going forward and pulling the man’s chair out for him. She waves her hand at the seat and instructs Shang Qinghua on how to adjust his robes as he sits, and then goes on to comment that they will have to practice so that Shang Qinghua will be able to make the motions look flawless and befitting of the young noble lady that he will be impersonating.

None of the other peak lords move. They’re too busy looking anywhere but at the two shijie currently chatting away on the other side of the table. Well, Rong Qingsheng is studying them rather carefully, but that’s a given. Ju Qingsong is watching his friend with an amused (if wistful) expression, himself.

Shen Qingqiu shuts his fan with a flick of his wrist and lays his head down on the table, pillowing his eyes into his crossed forearms.

He supposes that he will have to resign himself to the unfortunate fate of actually worrying about his best friend while the other is gone, for the entirety of the mission. Airplane is just too pretty for his own good! It’s Shen Yuan’s job, as his bro, to be absolutely and wholeheartedly concerned about what might happen to him out there, especially in the situation he will be descending into.

Man, he really relates to Yue Qingyuan, now. Had the sect leader known just how pretty Shang Qinghua would be? Is that why he’d been so visibly apprehensive even from the beginning?

Shen Qingqiu thinks he might need a drink. He glances across the table, at Shui Qingyu, and finds that the brewery peak lord appears to be thinking the same. Their eyes meet, their expressions of dread nearly identical, and they share a nod.

Later tonight, they’re going to get drunk.

[themanicmagician]

Shipwrecked [2/4]

[AO3]

Summary: When Redd’s boat crashes upon the shore of Bastion Island, Tom reluctantly takes him in while he recovers. Tom despises Redd for his past deceit, but when he has no choice but to spend time with him, Tom is reminded why he fell in love with the wily fox in the first place.

Tom felt a knot loosen in his chest. Relief washed over him. Redd was awake and lucid, and feeling well enough to quip.

But then Redd kept talking.

“This is your bedroom?” Redd shifted, leaning his back against the mattress. He scanned the Spartan room, and his nose scrunched up in distaste. “It’s so....basic. Not your style at all.”

Tom hated the small speck of him that still yearned for Redd’s approval. He crossed his arms. “You’re hardly the expert on what I like.”

Tom’s words landed—he saw Redd wince—but the fox brushed it off, and changed tack.

“Where’d you sleep, then? Futon?”

“Couch.”

Redd patted the bed, and leered. “Could’ve shared with me. It’s plenty big enough. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Enough, Redd. You’re only here in my home because I possess common decency. Nothing more. As soon as your arm is healed, you’re gone.”

Redd clutched at his chest with his good arm, in mock agony.

“Oh babe, you can be so cold!”

Tom ignored him. “What possessed you to attempt to sail a ship, of all things? You don’t have any experience.”

“Don’t worry about it. It was simple enough to figure out.”

“Obviously it wasn’t.”

“Hey, the storm wasn’t my fault.”

“You could have died—and for what? Another stupid scheme of yours, no doubt.”

“I resent that remark. Scheme! Scheme, he says. I’m out here because I’ve developed a new business venture. The art on my boat is real.” Brief alarm skirted across his face. “Wait, what happened to my things?”

“They’re in Blathers’ custody.”

“That featherbrain can’t keep them. They’re real, you know. I had this whole plan. I was going to go island to island. Animals are so suspicious these days. They actually want to inspect the merchandise before they buy, can you believe it?”

“I don’t want to hear about this.”

Redd plowed on, as if Tom hadn’t spoken. “—and once they placed an order, I’d say oh, you can’t take it right away. I have to ship it to you.”

“And you’d mail them a fake.”

“I’d mail them a replica. The copies that I paint myself are flawless,” Redd bragged. Greed and delight glinted in his eyes. “You’d never be able to tell the difference. I’ll wager you 5,000 bells your pal Blathers wouldn’t, either.”

“I can’t believe you,” Tom snapped. “You haven’t changed one bit.”

“Why tamper with perfection?”

“You—ugh!”

Tom stomped out of the room.

Timmy and Tommy were right outside, evidently listening in. They jumped guiltily as Tom caught sight of them, and tried to look busy; Tommy folded a blanket and draped it over the back of the couch, as Timmy collected up used cups to put in the kitchen sink.

“I’m going out for a bit.” Tom told them, as he pulled on a jacket. “Stay here, and make sure he does too.”

The Nooklings chirped an affirmative.

May was cold and rainy this year, and today proved no different. Tom zipped up his jacket to ward off the worst of the chill. It was misting out, but not badly enough to justify an umbrella.

Tom didn’t have a destination in mind, exactly. He wasn’t going to Resident Services today. Isabelle was certainly capable of taking the reins for a day or two. Tom just needed fresh air, just needed to clear his head.

Redd hadn’t changed at all. He hadn’t grown, he hadn’t learned anything. He was still the same as he ever was—greedy, selfish, conniving. And utterly, absolutely, insufferable.

There had been moments, before, when he had lived on the mainland, when Redd frequented his town. He’d considered reaching out. But he’d never scraped up the nerve to do so. It wasn’t his responsibility either, he’d reasoned at the time. Tom was the wronged party. Redd should have been the one to approach, not him.

And now the decade-long silence between them was shattered at last, and Redd acted as if there had never been a massive fracture in their relationship, as if nothing at all had changed. No apologies, no remorse, not even a thank you for the rescue.  

“Mr. Nook!” Flurry trotted up to him. “I’ve heard the news. How is your friend doing today?”

He supposed there was no hope of keeping it quiet. Any speck of news spread through Bastion like wildfire. Isabelle, bless her heart, was an incorrigible gossip.

“Redd is doing much better today, thank you.”

“I wanted you to give him something from me. Just to borrow, powderpuff!” She took out a book from her pockets and handed it over. It was an old leather-bound book, a collection of fairy tales. It was worn with age, but evidently well cared for. “I don’t know if it’s to his taste or not, but I always read it when I’m sick and it cheers me right up!”

“Thank you, Flurry. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.” Redd wouldn’t, but Tom would never let the sweet hamster know that.

He continued his walk, and soon found himself on the beach. He followed the shoreline around the island until he reached the outcropping of rocks by Del’s and Lucha’s houses.

Tom knew what to expect, but the sight was still jarring. The hull of the boat was gouged on the rocks. Half of the vessel gaped open. The mast was snapped off at its base, and the sail, long lost to the tides. Tom stepped on the rocks to get a closer look. The remains of the boat had been secured to the rock by rope; Alex and the others, presumably, had been the ones to anchor it.

Tom peered inside the exposed hull. The boat was tilted at an angle. Barrels had rolled to one end of the ship. Several had smashed apart in the impact. Tom winced. How badly had Redd been thrown in the crash? Had he been above deck, or below?

There didn’t appear to be anything of value left inside the ship. The villagers had done well removing all the fragile artwork.

Enough of the boat remained that they wouldn’t have to build Redd a new boat from scratch, at least. The boat would have to be patched up for Redd to travel. The seaplanes weren’t built to transport someone from Bastion all the way out to the mainland.

Tom swept a critical eye over to the wreckage. Yes, they could rebuild it in several weeks, once the necessary supplies were gathered. He resolved to speak with Alex about it. If she could gather the needed materials, he’d reduce the price for her attic expansion as compensation.

He returned home with the intention to cook breakfast for the Nooklings and their guest. But as he removed his shoes in the entryway, he overheard Redd’s drawling voice. And the twins were conspicuously absent from the living room. He padded quietly over to the threshold of his bedroom.

The first thing Tom noticed was that Redd was now wearing one of his spare shirts. The floral patterned green and white flattered the fox’s fur. It was a size or two too large on him, and not his usual type of outfit. Something warm and possessive tightened in his stomach at the sight of Redd wearing his clothes.

Redd was back in bed, propped upright with the support of pillows. Timmy and Tommy were sitting on the bed as well, listening raptly to their guest. Redd was in his element as entertainer, gesturing enthusiastically with his unbroken arm as he spoke.

“...it was our third pitch of the day. Tom had persuaded me to paint wallpapers for high-end clientele, so the meeting was at this real swanky place. Very stylized lobby we waited in, minimalistic in style but in an expensive way, you know? Your Uncle Nook was sweating so much his fur looked a shade darker than normal. We were sitting there, waiting for half an hour after our appointed meeting time. And finally, finally, someone shows up. It wasn’t even the investor! It was some scrub, some assistant of an assistant. Tom was so nervous, he promptly bent over and spewed his lunch all over her expensive shoes.” Redd laughed.

Tom flushed. It hadn’t been his finest moment.

“But then, do you know what your uncle did?” Redd whispered, conspiratorially.

“What, Mr. Redd?”

“...Redd?”

The boys leaned in closer, eager not to miss a single syllable.

“Tom still managed to salvage the situation. He went right from wiping off her shoes to pitching her a new concept—scented wallpaper. Smells like lemon, pine. So if something like this happened again, at least no one would smell it!”

“Wow! Did they invest?”

“...vest?”

“Even better—they bought the concept and patent from us. All the reward, with none of the work!”

“Boys, wash up for breakfast.” Tom broke in.

The twins broke into beaming smiles at the sight of him. They sprang off the bed to crowd Tom, both talking a mile a minute.

“Uncle Nook, is it true that you won a manufacturing contract by arm wrestling the CEO of Cozy Couches?”

“—did you really start a new city fashion trend wearing your scarf as a belt?”

“—have three drinks named after you?”

“Redd likes to embellish.” Tom explained, exasperated. “Don’t believe a word he says.”

Redd pouted.

Once the boys reluctantly filed out of the room, Tom shut the door. He crossed over to Redd and offered him the book of fairytales.

“For me? You shouldn’t have.” Redd inspected the book. He grimaced at the faint mug stain on one of the pages. “Not a first edition. Far from excellent condition. You  really  shouldn’t have.”

Tom grit his teeth. “It’s not from me. A villager has loaned it to you. If it goes back to her with so much as a dog-eared page…”

“Alright, sheesh. Just messing around.” Redd set the book on the bedside table, evidently uninterested.

“Listen to me, Redd.” Redd looked up in surprise at Tom’s low, serious tone. “You cheated me. You deceived Lyle. But if you think—”

“Hey, Lyle wasn’t—”

“If you think,” Tom spoke over him. “For one second, that I’ll allow you to manipulate Timmy and Tommy, you’ve got another thing coming. I have resources now. More bells in the bank than you’ll ever see. If you ever hurt them, I’ll make you regret it. Are we clear?”

The boys were guileless, innocent. He would not stand for Redd swindling them.

Redd deflated, his previous energy visibly dimmed. His ears flattened back on his head. He looked away from Tom, and nodded.

~*~

“Where are we going?”

“Like I told you the last twelve times you asked, it’s a surprise.”

“I’m going to trip on the sidewalk and break my nose.” Tom grumbled.

“You won’t.” Redd promised, with a rumbling laugh. “I’m here. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

It had been six months since their first meeting, in that sketchy motel. Ever since, they’d hardly left each others’ company. Tom’s ambition was to build a furniture and home goods store. It would be unique in its approach, in that stock would be limited, and rotate daily, so animals would feel compelled to go to the store every day, just in case there was something they needed. Redd, an entrepreneur himself, was on board. But before they could begin such an enterprise, they needed bells, and loads of them. They’d taken the past half a year to build up their finances together. They’d done so not through conventional jobs, but through countless pitch meetings, patent sales, and even art commissions. They’d amassed enough now that their dream was looking more achievable by the day.

Tonight Redd had tied a black bandana around Tom’s eyes and led him from their apartment. Tom’s heart was doing somersaults in his chest throughout their entire walk. Redd had been furtive, secretive the entire past week. He’d been planning something, and Tom had a big hunch on what it could be.

“We’re here.” Redd announced, at long last. He unknotted the bandana. The cloth fell away from Tom’s eyes, and he gasped.

It was an older two-story building, wedged in between a pair of larger, newer ones. It was built of ruddy red brick, with floor to ceiling windows for display purposes. Tom glanced around. They were in a nicer part of town. Not the wealthiest neighborhood by any means, but one fairly busy, that had animals with bells burning holes in their pockets.

“It’s ours.” Redd withdrew a keyring from his pocket. “If you like it.”

“You—how?”

Redd winked. “I have my ways.” He held out the keys and gave them a shake. “Why don’t you do the honors?”

Tom took the keys with reverence. He felt as if he were drifting through the clouds as he glided to the door. The front door key was newly cut, firm in his palm. Tom unlocked the door, and stepped inside.

“The register could go here.” Tom circled around the corner of the back wall, nearest the door. He paced around the cavernous empty room, imagining as he went. “Heavier furniture in the back as well. Some eye-catching, lighter things near the front that can be rotated daily. Things like wreaths, tapestries—oh, and what if we hang strings of lights from the ceiling? It’d create a real welcoming, homey look.”

He turned back to Redd for his input. His face was flushed with enthusiasm.

Redd had been watching him from the doorway with a complicated, unreadable expression.

Tom’s grin faltered. “Redd?”

The strange look fell away from Redd’s face, replaced by his customary smirk. He sauntered closer.

“Your instincts are excellent as always, Tom. I was thinking of a mural, too, for the back wall.”

“Oh, that’d be great! What are you thinking? A city skyline? Or something more nature-inspired?”

Redd’s arm slid around Tom’s waist with easy familiarity. His paw squeezed Tom’s side. Tom barely muffled his squeak. They’d been together for five months of the six, and Redd’s casual displays of affection still flustered him. Back home, no one had ever looked twice at the plain, chubby raccoon.

Redd’s muzzle brushed his ear. “We can hash out the details later. This calls for a celebration, don’t you think?”

~*~

The doorbell jingled overhead as Tom stepped inside the Able Sisters’ store. Sable took a single look at Tom before she was bustling him into the back room of the shop.

“Keep an eye out for customers, Mabes.” She called over her shoulder.

Mabel mock-saluted her eldest sister.

“Sit.” Sable all but pushed him into a rocking chair. He remembered this old thing from the sisters’ first home. The quilt draped over the back of the chair was familiar too, if a bit more threadbare than he remembered. Tom was struck by a wave of gratefulness that all of his dearest friends had been so amenable to picking up their lives and moving to Bastion with him.

Sable placed a gray kettle on the stove, and retrieved two mugs from a cabinet. The mugs were lumpy things, rather sloppily painted. Mabel had made them by hand when she was young. Tom had his own original Mabel creation stored in a cabinet back at his home.

“I wanted to speak with you as soon as I heard, but I had too many shirts to sew, I couldn’t get away. I know that’s not much of an excuse, though.”

“You don’t need to worry about me. I’m handling everything just fine.”

Sable raised one eyebrow.

“I am.” He insisted. Redd had been subdued after Tom had warned him off about the twins. He ate the food Tom cooked without complaint, allowed Tom to check his injured arm without any protest, save the quiet hisses of pain he couldn’t quiet. They’d lived together in uneasy harmony for a week, now. Redd spent most of the day in front of the TV, or idly flipping through the book Flurry had lent him.

“How have you been?”

“Fine. Redd hasn’t been putting up too much of a fuss.” She was staring at him, too keenly. “What?”

She took a moment to muster up the words, paws twisting in her lap. “Tom...I don’t want to see you like that again.”

Tom waved his hand, as if to banish the ghost of that awful moment. “You won’t. He can never hurt me again.”

Sable’s doubt was palpable.

“I don’t care about him anymore. I don’t. And I...I used to hate him, I admit it. I used to loathe him. But I’ve moved on. I don’t trust him, and I pity him, but I don’t feel anything strong for him, hate or love, anymore.”

“You don’t sound as convincing as you’d like to be.” Sable said.

He was saved from having to respond as the kettle whistled. Sable rose to fetch their tea. She added the sachets, a drizzle of honey to her cup, three lumps of sugar to Tom’s—after all this time, she hadn’t forgotten how he liked it—and carried the mugs over.

Tom held his mug between his paws, waiting for it to cool enough to be drinkable. The pleasant scent of Earl Grey wafted up to his nose. He inhaled.

“If Redd tries anything, I’ll punch him in the nose.”

Sable, gentle, demure Sable, spoke with such a steely assuredness that Tom started. She smiled shyly at him.

“I mean it.”

“You’ll have to get in line. I have first dibs.”

Sable giggled.

~*~

Tom headed back home, feeling lighter than he had since this entire thing started. He and Sable swiftly left the topic of Redd behind them, and spent the better part of an hour catching up.

The boys saw him through the front window of the Cranny, and waved enthusiastically. He returned the gesture, albeit with less energy.

Tom then climbed the stairs and let himself into his home. Redd was no longer where Tom had left him that morning, slouched on the couch. The TV was shut off, the house almost eerily silent.

“Redd?” Tom eased open the door to his bedroom. The fox was absent, but the bed was neatly made. He checked the twins’ room, the bathroom—both empty.

Redd was gone.

[the-kaedageist]

“I can’t keep kissing strangers and pretending that they’re you.” [what else could this be but widomauk?] xoxo

God, what a beast you spawned with this prompt. I haven’t even written Widomauk before!

Widomauk, #31: “I can’t keep kissing strangers and pretending that they’re you.” (1,928 words because WHAT)

The tavern was in a secluded part of Rosohna two blocks away from the Xhorhaus, sheltered in between a blacksmith’s shop and a large building that looked like it fulfilled some sort of need for municipal bureaucracy. Mollymauk located it at the end of his first two weeks of returning to the loving arms of the Nein, noting its presence on some sort of errand he was running with Beau, and within three days he found himself sitting at the counter, halfway to the bottom of a bottle of wine and trying not to think about red hair and blue eyes.

The first thing Molly had noticed was that Caleb was different. The whole group was, of course; they fit together like a puzzle, the sharp edges sanded down. The Nein felt like a family, and Molly wasn’t sure that there was still a place for him among their ranks, not anymore. Caleb’s changes weren’t even the most profound – that award obviously went to Veth, with her mischievous halfling smile and her avoidance of alcohol – but it was the change that went straight to Molly’s gut. Caleb smiled more. He was clean and had grown his hair long. He was as handsome as Molly had suspected, so long ago. However, past Caleb had been too much of a mess to be worth pining after.

This time, Molly was drinking his weight in wine, glancing around the bar looking for someone to take him home and distract him.

It wasn’t just Caleb, of course. It was resurrection – the last thing he’d wanted – and the avalanche of memories that had returned with the reawakening of his body. It was being whisked halfway across the continent by Caleb’s magic to a city shrouded in darkness, the Nein’s new home, brought to a house filled with memories of him and a hot tub named with his initials.

It was realizing the person they remembered wasn’t quite the person he was, and worrying what they would do about that once they figured it out.

Thankfully, before Mollymauk could get too maudlin, a handsome drow entered the tavern. He was a tall man with the muscles of a soldier, distracting Molly away from his existential angst with a coy look. He took his wine and his low spirits and joined the man at his table, and banished all thought of existential despair – and attractive redheads – from his mind for the rest of the evening.

A week later, he was back. He didn’t drink as much, that time – Jester had teased him a bit about having to cure his hangover, and Molly didn’t want to risk the group thinking he hadn’t grown along with them. Another drow caught his eye this time, with an androgynous haircut and elegantly bejeweled ears, and Molly distracted himself quite heartily with them, not stumbling back home to the Xhorhaus until the early hours of the morning.

Caleb was waiting up, sitting out in the front of the house, his profile lit gently by the string of lights from Caduceus’s tree.

“Beau was worried,” Caleb said, his face unreadable.

“I’m fine.” Molly brushed past him and into the house, which was quiet and dark. Soft footfalls signaled that Caleb was following, and a moment later, three globes of light swirled in the air around him, lighting the downstairs interior.

“You keep leaving,” Caleb said stubbornly. “You didn’t even tell us where you were going.”

“I can take care of myself,” Molly told him, not appreciating the reminder that the rest of the team was now double his strength. He quickly climbed the stairs to the “guest room” which had become his own before Caleb could continue his scolding and was unconscious only a few seconds before his head hit the pillow.

The third time, he didn’t have the opportunity to pick up anyone.

“So this is where you go,” said a familiar accented voice as Molly glanced forlornly into his stein of ale. A moment later, Caleb seated himself heavily beside him, his hair gleaming almost too-bright in the candlelight. Molly looked away, catching the eye of the bugbear who was bartending. The bugbear, who had heard a bit too much about Caleb to make Molly completely comfortable, raised his eyebrows and brought Caleb some of the same ale without being asked.

“This is where I go,” Molly said awkwardly as Caleb took a sip of ale.

They drank comfortably in silence for a few moments, giving Molly time to study Caleb out of the corner of his eye. Caleb was comfortable, now, clever and confident and far more alive. He still wore trauma like a second skin, but it was also clear that being with the Nein had started him along the path of slowly healing. Molly wanted to watch him constantly, cataloguing all the ways he was different – and he wished he’d been present to watch the transformation in real time. Instead, he was still the same shitty charlatan, low-level and up to his ears in lies and bullshit memories.

It wasn’t until he’d finished his first ale and started on a second that Caleb turned to speak. “What is wrong, Mollymauk?”

“I’m surprised you didn’t send Caduceus out to fetch me,” Molly said, staring into his stein. “Isn’t that his role in the group? He sorts the rest of you out?”

“We are all capable of sorting the others out,” Caleb said, a hint of a grin at the corner of his mouth. “We just, most of the time, choose not to.”

Molly didn’t want to think about the fact that he’d died and been replaced by a competent cleric who was clutch in battle. He drained his ale to the bottom of his stein and held it up. The bugbear bartender, by now a dear friend, gladly filled it back up and took the proffered coin.

“Are you going to tell me?” Caleb asked. The strangeness of it – Caleb trying to help, Caleb here next to him, dressed in Xhorhasian fine clothing with his hair drawn back into a soft ponytail, Caleb’s body thrumming with power even beneath the surface – struck Molly all at once, and he took in a deep breath for courage.

It would be so easy, to turn around and look Caleb deep in the eyes and be honest. To tell him he was feeling out of place, broken into tiny pieces, empty once more. To flat-out admit that he didn’t know if he was really the person the Nein had remembered for all this time.

Instead, he chose the easy way out, because it was what Mollymauk Tealeaf did. Oh, he put on a good show, putting on a saucy pout and trying to slur his words more than necessary, but he still made a choice not to confront the real elephant in the room.

Instead, he steeled himself and said, “I can’t keep kissing strangers and pretending that they’re you.”

He watched the gears turn behind Caleb’s gaze. This was it. Caleb would give him a look of disgust or sadness and leave him to his own pity party. Caleb, whose boundaries were practically an armored bastion, would never let this sort of comment pass.

Caleb was staring at him, mouth agape. He shook himself slightly. “You’ve been…kissing strangers, pretending that they’re me?”

It wasn’t a lie, but the dumbfoundedness seemed a bit over the top. Caleb was stupidly hot. Was it that hard to believe? “It’s been difficult. You don’t really look like a drow.”

Caleb wheezed a bit beside him, and it took Molly a minute to realize he was laughing.

He didn’t even think he’d seen Caleb laugh, before.

“I’m sorry,” Caleb said, waving a hand in his direction. “I’m not laughing at you. I just…yes, I can imagine I do not look like a drow.” He met Molly’s gaze with some intensity, surprising him. “I’m also sorry you have felt the need to…play make-believe.”

Something bitter twisted inside Molly, his expression growing sour. “You don’t have to patronize me,” he muttered, dragging his gaze away. He took one last gulp from his ale and set it down. “I’m sorry you drew the short straw and came to fetch me. I’ll let you finish your drink in peace.” He started towards the door, fully intending to stumble out into the night and go find another tavern to drink in. Maybe he’d go dancing.

A hand caught his around the wrist, stopping him in his tracks. He turned to find Caleb watching him. “I did not draw the short straw,” Caleb said, his voice quiet but intense. “You mean a lot to all of us, Mollymauk. I have been worried about you. I have been through much, but I have never been dead and brought back to a world changed.”

Molly didn’t meet his eyes. “It sucks,” he said.

“I dreamed of you,” Caleb said conversationally. “For months, afterwards. You haunted all of us, but me, especially.” He gently tugged Molly back in to sit on the barstool on his other side, facing him. “I never—I was not in a place, where I could have—but I think I knew.” Despite the incoherence of his words, there was a confidence in his shoulders as he leaned over and pressed his hand to Mollymauk’s heart. It was beating so intensely that Molly was sure that Caleb could feel it through all the layers of clothing. “There was a connection, between us.”

“There was,” Molly said faintly. Gods, how the tables had turned.

Caleb gave him a wry smile. “I spent months thinking how to give back the gift you gave me,” he said. “Now, we have gifted it back ten times over. We have all grown and changed, surpassed the people we were originally and become something more. And you are one of us, as you always have been. You will have your chance to grow into us too.”

Caleb grasped Molly’s face between his own and Molly’s mouth went dry. For a moment, he thought Caleb was going to kiss him, and those blue eyes did stray momentarily to Molly’s mouth as though he was thinking about it. Instead, Caleb leaned over and pressed his lips to the center of Molly’s forehead, a parody of a moment long ago, in a mineshaft in the Marrow Valley with flames all around them.

“You’re one of us,” Caleb said, “And I don’t know the person you’ll become, but I am interested to find out.”

Molly felt his eyes fill with tears, unbidden and unwanted. He quickly blinked them away.

Caleb released his face, leaning back on his stool and studying him. “If you are still looking for people to kiss,” he continued slowly, as though he couldn’t quite believe the words were leaving his mouth, “I do not think you will need to pretend, any longer.”

Mollymauk stared at him, barely able to hear the sounds of the other patrons of the tavern over the hammering of his heartbeat.

He swallowed hard. “Well then, Mr. Caleb,” he said, the old playful nickname tasting almost foreign on his tongue. He leaned forward on the barstool, knocking their knees together and slowly leaning his forehead against Caleb’s to give him time to move away if he chose. Caleb watched him with wide eyes, but didn’t flinch. Instead, he glanced back down at Molly’s mouth, licking his lips.

“Yes, Mr. Mollymauk?” he asked, a bit of a waver in his voice.

“You talk too much,” Mollymauk said right before he kissed him firmly.

Give me a dialogue prompt!