#like i said on the account there maybe a 1 or 2 missing but that’ll be out shortly

[zombvibes]

so umm……send asks maybe before i lose my mind maybe????? (by lose my mind i mean my brain will leak out of my ears)

[grumpygreenwitch]

The Fairy and the Prince #11 + #12 + #13 + #14 + #15 + #16

Part 1 - Part 2 - Parts 3 & 4 - Part 5 - Part 6, 7 & 8 - Part 9 & 10 - Part 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 & 16 - Part 17, 18, & 19 - Part 20, 21 & 22 - Part 23, 24, 25 & 26 - Part 27, 28, 29 & 30 - Part 31, 32, 33 & 34 - Part 35, 36 & 37 - Part 38, 39, 40 & 41 - Part 42 & 43 - Part 44 & 45 - Part 46 & 47 - Part 48, 49, 50 & 51 - Part, 52, 53 & 54 - Part 55 & 56 - Part 57, 58, 59 & 60 - Part 61, 62, 63, 64 & 65 - Part 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71 & 72

Originally posted 11/2/2022

It was a close thing. Adam hardly had time to strip off his filthy clothing and put on a robe before Leminy began pounding on the door. Beli rubbed his face and hair with a damp cloth, but at least that only helped make it look like he was sleep-tousled, and the fact that Dane stumbled out behind him looking barely awake helped as well. They lined up like obedient soldiers before the Master of Scions and four unsmiling guards. Leminy could, of course, ask where Arditty was, but Culli was the lady’s to command, and she could only admit that she’d been commanded to stay with the boys.

Leminy couldn’t even be displeased that Adam was where he was supposed to be, though the young prince got himself a blistering earful about eschewing his studies for the sake of a nap, of all things. He did his best to look properly chastised. But in the end, Lemony-Leminy actually looked relieved. None of his charges were missing, a victory he counted well won when he’d already begun to realize his job might not end up with the choosing of a king, but with far too many funerals.

Culli said nothing. Adam tried to speak to her, but she merely lifted up a hand, her basket of mending tucked under an arm. “Do you know what you’re doing, highness?”

“I know Linden’s my friend,” Adam admitted slowly. “And I know I’m never going to be king, Culli. There’s too many others here that’ll beat me to it, even if I wanted to be.”

She caught his chin and gave him a deep, unreadable look. “‘Never’ is a very dangerous word, highness. Don’t use it unless you mean it, unless you know for sure all that 'never’ is and can be and will be. Particularly not with them involved.”

“Linden’s not like them.”

“Maybe so. I don’t know, I can’t tell. I know you wouldn’t call just anyone a friend, so I’m willing to believe, a little. But you can’t blame me for telling you to be so, so careful.”

“I am. I will be. Thank you, Culli.”

She smiled wryly, shook her head at him, and left. Arditty was found playing ball-toss with her friends in an inner courtyard, and of course they all accounted for one another, so nothing came of that, either. The source of the screaming in the woods was not found.

***

It took three days until Boul found Adam.

Disheartened at Linden’s absence from the woods, Adam spent his time trying his best to apply himself to the things he ought to be learning. It was no secret that the youngest prince had no ambition for the crown, and none of the others considered him competition so much as they thought of him as a convenient weathervane: as long as Adam were there, they knew they still had a fighting chance for the crown. He was left out of the dueling, the poisonings, and the general and vicious backstabbing that was beginning to escalate under the Queen Dowager’s watchful and ruthless eye.

Prince Ather went into the woods at sunset on the second day, and he didn’t come back.

Adam was helping Culli spin wool when the maid dropped her spindle. He snatched it out of midair instinctively, broken out of his dour haze by the unlikeliest of mishaps, and looked up at her from where he sat, bare feet kicking idly into a stone-lined pond while she sat on a graceful bench next to the water.

“Highness, your friends are here,” she managed to inform him, her voice a little croaky.

Adam whipped around. Boul was hiding behind the plinth of a statue, a dancing lady wrapped in veils of gossamer granite.

“Boul!” he cried out gladly, rushing over. He slammed himself chest-first into the young troll, what he’d been taught was a proper troll greeting, and staggered back. “Boul, what are you wearing?” he asked after a moment, caught by surprise.

Boul rumbled. He didn’t have the finesse of Linden, and he didn’t belong, as Adam did. Knowing he was unlikely to make it far into the palace grounds without being discovered, he’d managed to wrangle himself into a pair of pants that barely fit his legs in width, but which he’d had to roll up nearly to the knee so he wouldn’t trip on them. He’d snagged from somewhere a coat that dragged behind him but hardly covered his arms to just above the elbow, and he’d found a muddy, forgotten scarf that he’d bundled up around his face and head. “No good at hiding,” he admitted at last, as usual the soft croak of his voice a startling contrast to the rough look of him. Then he looked up, and shrank warily behind the statue.

Adam turned. Culli clapped her hands to her mouth, her eyes going very wide.

“It’s fine, Boul. This is Culli-maid, she’s good. Culli, this is Boul. It’s short for Boulders.”

“F'r brains,” Boul completed, rapping lightly on his skull with his knuckles and provoking a stone-on-stone sound.

Culli pressed her lips closed very, very tightly, because despite her shock and fear some part of her wanted to laugh at the name. And it was a startlingly large part. “How do you do,” she greeted, curtsying.

Boul went very red behind his scarf, and retreated even further behind the plinth, and Culli found herself perhaps a little charmed.

“Boul, what’s wrong? Is Linden in trouble?”

Boul shook his head and stretched out a long arm to point at the water mill in the Royal Gardens.

Adam looked that way, frowning. If that was all, why hadn’t Linden come? Boul, however, spoke as slowly as water grinds stone down, and he still had his baby habit of falling asleep mid-sentence. That, again, was nothing against the troll; he was a troll, and that was his nature. But it did make it hard to get an abundance of news out of him. The prince turned, his steps growing hurried.

“Highness, your shoes!” Culli cried.

“It’s fine, I won’t need them!” Adam turned to look at her, running backwards briefly for a moment before turning and sprinting at full speed. Boul ran with him, but quickly fell behind, hampered by the clothing. Adam waited for him under the cover of the Garden hedge, and then helped him get out of every garment. “This was very clever, Boul.”

“Itchy,” the troll admitted, but he’d puffed up with pride. He carefully took the coat from Adam and set it aside. “Giving it back,” he explained.

“Oh,” Adam felt a little sheepish. “I didn’t even think of that. You put me to shame sometimes, Boul.” He bumped a fist to the young troll’s shoulder, who rumbled low and bumped him back, very carefully. It still staggered the prince a step.

They ran through the gardens, where it was far easier to avoid being seen and heard, going around bushes and trees and statues, until they reached the shady corner where the water mill stood. It was actually a fully working mill, but it had been locked until such a time as a miller for it could be found. The wheel still moved outside, and there were benches and flowers all around it. The door was meant to be barred so wild animals could not come in from the woods, but the window shutters were easy enough to pry open. Inside, the floor was covered in wood shavings and it still smelled as if the whole thing had been newly finished the day before. Sunlight arrowed in through the gaps, both decorative and accidental, in the shutters.

“Linden?” Adam called out into the dappled dark, scrabbling not to fall as he climbed down from the window.

“Adam!” Linden crashed into him in a glad hug. “Where’s Boul?”

“Outside. Help me unbar the door for him, he won’t make the window.” They moved to do just that, and Adam jerked in surprise when a third pair of hands joined them, but he didn’t have the breath to spare for questions at the moment. With the door unbarred the young troll scuttled in… and immediately as far away from the newcomer as the airy space allowed.

“Maybe we should leave it unbarred. This would be a nice place for Boul,” Linden mused, looking about them after they closed the door and rested the bar off to one side.

Adam examined the stranger. He was guessing the stranger was examining him, too, but he couldn’t tell: they had such a wild mass of bright, curly red hair that the rough woolen cap on their head smushed it partially over their face, hiding most of their features under it. There were no eyes to see, there was only the curl over the lip that said there had to be a nose under there. Like Linden and Boul, they wore what looked like castoffs, clothes chance-found and stolen from a clothesline. Unlike his friends, the newcomer had made an effort to make them fit. The shirt sat comfortably on bony shoulders and fit the long, spindly arms. It wasn’t tied or buttoned, though. Gray wrappings secured it around long, pointed fingers armed with blackened claws. The pants were bound around their -her, Adam realized, they were a her- her waist with a broad leather belt randomly studded with brass and copper bits, silver and even a single gold button. No iron, of course. It was impossible to tell if the ears were pointed or rounded, only that one of them had a wooden hoop threaded through with a single human knucklebone.

“Linden, won’t ye introduce me to yuir friend?” Teeth, so many teeth, flashed in the dark when the stranger spoke, her mouth seeming to open nearly to her ears.

Adam spoke before Linden could. “Is that really your mouth?”

Linden gasped. The stranger’s mouth widened in a smile, it widened and grew and curled at the corners, wider beyond what should have fit on her face. Teeth like glassy, broken needles, stuck too close together, filled that smile an gleamed at the young prince. “'Tis,” she said with just a hint of malevolent glee. “Pretty, aye?”

“It’s absolutely awesome!” Adam replied in naked awe.

She faltered. Visibly.

“Adam, this is Needlemaw.” Linden chewed on their lip, a nervous habit they’d picked up from Adam.

Needlemaw didn’t know what to say or do. Her life was short by her people’s counting, it was one of the main reasons she was there: she was old enough to be a warrior, but young enough to relate to Linden and their friends; that, at least, was the hope of those who’d sent her. But in all her living she’d only ever dealt with the adults of Adam’s world. When they faced her, they were of an age to have their beliefs set in stone - their beliefs, their mistakes, and their fears.

Adam had none of those. Teetering on the edge of his first brush with adulthood, and certainly saddled with grown-up concerns as he was, the prince was still only twelve years old. More, the foundations on which his response to Needlemaw were grounded were, though he didn’t know it, half-truth and half-lie. On the one hand he believed Linden would keep him safe, always, no matter what.

In Needlemaw’s case, that was absolutely a lie; she was the oldest of all the fairies present, powerful enough within her nature that she could have beaten them all, Boul included, without a second thought. Or even a first.

But Adam’s admiration was utterly true, completely honest. He was twelve. The sight of Needlemaw’s primary attribute was, to him, something to be admired, like the fine craftmanship of a sword. A wise person doesn’t blame the sword for being sharp and lethal.

In all her life, Needlemaw had never been admired for what she was. Feared, yes. Shunned, often. Dismissed, disdained, distrusted, more times than even one of her kind will rightly tolerate. Called 'awesome’? Adam was the first. A frisson of an unknown emotion kindled and flowed through her. It would be a while before she’d be able to put the name of 'pride’ to it. “Aye, all mine.”

“I bet you could bite a sword in half!”

Needlemaw, who’d done exactly that in at least two separate occasions, chortled. “I can too!” she agreed gleefully. “But I prefer some nice crispy fish.”

“Oh, the skin all charred and crackly,” Adam agreed, immediately distracted. “And stuffed with mushrooms -”

“Drizzled with oil and some fresh wild herby-herbs -”

“With nice roasty taters on the side -”

Boul whined, made hungry by this talk, and it seemed only reasonably to go fishing after that.

***

Needlemaw, Linden told Adam, was to come with them at all times.

“This is because of the kelpie, isn’t it,” Adam said after a while. Across their small fire, they both watched as Needlemaw put a whole trout in her mouth, tail-first, and pulled out only the head and the skeleton without ever moving her jaws. Boul 'ooooh’d in awe. “She’s your bodyguard, like.”

Linden, sitting next to him, arms wrapped around their legs and fingers tangled around their muddy toes, nodded without looking at Adam.

“They don’t seem terribly strict or anything,” Adam suggested. “Are they the sort to forbid you to do things?”

“Needle? Never.” Linden rested their head on their knees. “But she’s, you know. People don’t like her, they don’t like her kind. They snarl and she snarls back. It’s going to make everything complicated.”

“My people or your people or them?” Adam asked pointedly. He had a guess as to what Linden’s bodyguard was, but as with all things Linden, he didn’t want to ask. For one thing, it felt as if it would be terribly rude and for another, to name things was to give them power.

“Nobody. Well, we don’t care either way, but that’s because we don’t ever really come together with her people. But your people and the Court. The Court least of all.”

“The Court only likes the Court,” Needlemaw suddenly said from across the fire.

“Do you mean harm to Linden?” Adam asked bluntly.

The mass of wild curls shifted minutely, and a moment later Needlemaw laughed. “I’m here to protect the wee sapling, highness. Are ye going to ask after my intentions next? Who’s taught ye to ask questions, Boulders-for-Brains here?”

“Don’t call me that, please,” Adam said stiffly. “I’m Adam, like Linden and I said. I’m not a prince.”

Needlemaw went still and silent. “I beg yuir pardon, Adam.”

“Thank you,” the prince replied.

“Don’t ye like being a prince?”

“No. I don’t want to be king. It’s just a reminder that I didn’t even choose for it to happen to me.”

“True enough,” Needlemaw said evenly. “'Twill come for ye someday, though. Oblivion or not.”

“Yes, but that’s not today, and it’s not tomorrow, and that’s fine for now.” Adam stretched his feet toward the fire. “So you’re important,” he turned to look at Linden.

“Ynoes,” Linden hid their mouth behind their knees, arms curled tight, spine rigid.

Adam blew out an exasperated sigh at an uniquely Linden word. “Linden.”

“I’m me,” they snapped at him tartly. “I don’t want to be important, I didn’t ask to be important.”

Adam closed his mouth and looked at Needlemaw, who shrugged lightly. “Well, I don’t mind Needlemaw. And it could be worse,” he pointed out.

“Worse than having a nanny?!” Linden exclaimed.

“Yes!” Adam flung an arm towards Needlemaw. “You can’t make friends with a nanny, Linden! You could’ve got a nanny, you got a bodyguard instead!” He eyed Needlemaw. “Can you climb?”

“Uh, why?” The fairy was suddenly feeling very cautious.

Adam scoffed. “Well, you’re not going to do your job very well if you can’t climb.”

***

Needlemaw, as it turned out, could climb. She was also dead afraid of heights.

“You must have climbed some before!” Adam shot at her when she stalled them yet again, pressed tight against a cornice, her limbs locked and trembling.

“Aye, when there was a point, a reason, a goal!” she snarled back at the prince. She had scrabbled over fortress walls with her kin on many occasions, to overrun the defenders and feast on the defeated. She had clambered over and through many sorts of structures and almost every type of home, both fairy and mortal, chasing whoever fled before the tide of her people. But she’d never had time to look down before.

On the roof above them Linden peeked down, expression as unreadable as the language of trees was to Adam.

Adam sighed. They couldn’t keep doing this; it wasn’t just that they weren’t getting anything fun done, it was also dangerous. He wasn’t sure if a fall from a good height would kill Needlemaw, but he would have wagered his desserts for the entire week that it wouldn’t be harmless, and if she kept getting distracted and panicked she was absolutely going to fall at some point.

And, Adam suspected, Linden would make no effort to catch her. He didn’t want to fault his friend, but it seemed mean all the same. Linden had not asked for a bodyguard, sure, but the prince didn’t think Needlemaw had asked for the job, either. He had no idea what power could compel either of them to put up with an obligation they both hated; possibly they had a Queen Dowager to answer to, as well.

He stretched out from his own perch and offered a hand. First things first. “Alright, well, let’s get you up here first, I guess. Give me your hand.”

Needlemaw’s head twitched around, and Adam almost thought for a moment that he could see eyes through the mass of her curls. She said nothing, and he twitched his fingers. “Come on, then! I have to leave when they call for supper and I’d like to get some fun in!”

“Oh, very important that is, supper,” she muttered with utmost scorn, staring (or so he thought) between him and his hand.

“Hasn’t anyone ever helped you climb?” Adam asked in exasperation.

Needlemaw didn’t reply.

“Adam, no one likes her kind,” Linden said very quietly from the roof. “No one ever helps them.”

“I’m not helping her kind, I’m helping her!” Adam shot back at Linden before turning back to the girl. “Well?”

“There’s sommat wrong with ye, I’m sure of it,” she muttered. “I just can’t tell what it would be, out of the muchness of ye.” She uncoiled slowly, straightening up somewhat, which only made the spindly length of her limbs that much more obvious. There was a menacing grace in the way she moved, Adam thought, like watching a spider react to the fly struggling in her web. But then she froze again “I can’t, I can’t. Erry time I look down I -”

“Stop looking down,” Adam commanded her. “Look at Linden. Look at me.” He shifted. He was half in and half out of a narrow, decorative balcony, his arm outstretched, his hand open.

Needlemaw shook and cocked her head, and for a moment bright yellow eyes, as alien and predatory as the kelpie’s, stared at Adam. She looked up at Linden, then back at him. “And yui’re sure I’m to call ye Adam? Adam and nothing else?”

“What’s that got to do with anything right now?”

“As much as the weight of yuir last fingerbone to ye, I guess,” Needlemaw muttered, stretching out, gripping the offered hand at last.

***

She fit herself around the edges of their group; it helped that Adam welcomed her, though he and Linden had some spectacular fights over it, the sort they hadn’t had since he’d mentioned the iron bits that went into each horse’s mouth when the princes were learning jousting, or when he’d tried to carve his name into the linden tree. Needlemaw ended up yanking them apart on one of those occassions, dragging them off one another by the scruff of their shirts and lifting them in the air, shaking them roughly. “Oi!”

Adam heard his teeth rattle and hung limp, sullen and sore. Linden tried to scrabble free of Needlemaw’s grip and got rattled some more. “Do ye really want what’ll come to pass if we don’t make this work?”

“Let go of me!” Needlemaw dropped them, and Linden stomped away.

Adam immediately felt shame at his outburst, never mind they’d both escalated things. “Linden, wait -”

“Wait ye should.” The fairy maid’s hand rested lightly on his shoulder. “Does crowding ever help yuir temper?”

Adam chewed restlessly on his lip, but he didn’t follow, not until Needlemaw tipped her head. They walked side by side into the woods and the silence. “Ye do know, Linden’s people wouldnae be the ones to be teaching 'em to kick and pinch and poke eyes.” When she saw Adam flush, she blew out a slow, fluting breath. “That’s what comes of ye mortals. Even when ye dinnae mean to, ye change everything ye touch.”

“I really didn’t mean to!” Adam rallied against an accusation he couldn’t even fully understand. “Linden’s fine the way they are, they’re still Linden.”

“I didnae mean it against Linden.” At the prince’s puzzled look, she smiled, teeth just barely glinting for a brief moment. “I mean me.”

“What, I haven’t changed anything in you! You’re the same as you were when we met in the water-mill.”

“Am I?” Needlemaw mused. “I’ll have to make notes, to make sure and stay that way.” She already knew something had radically changed from the very moment she’d met the prince and he’d not been afraid; even more so when he’d lent her a hand, when he’d risked his friendship for her sake. She just didn’t know how vast those changes might come to be. Yet. “Adam, do ye know why I’m here? Do ye understand how special Linden is?”

“Of course! They’re my best friend, my first friend. I had none back home and I wasn’t going to make any here. There’s always been just us.”

She had to hold back a grin. “No, I mean to their people.”

“Oh.” In one single sound the prince made it absolutely clear how little he thought of Linden’s people and their opinion compared to the weight of friendship between the two of them. “No. I’ve always thought it’d be rude to ask, you know, anything. And in the end it makes no difference anyway.”

Needlemaw didn’t even know what to say for a long time. Such utter acceptance was something she’d never experienced, something she was sure very few across all the Courts of her people had known, particularly from a mortal. She wondered if that was what she’d seen shine in Adam’s eyes, the force of his heart, the immensity of the friendship and the loyalty he offered. “There’s not been any like Linden in longer than most of the trees in these woods have memory, Adam. They’re rare, rare as ye, I wager.”

“I’m not rare. The palace is full of princes.”

“And how many of them trying to get away from being king, rather than running neckybreaky to it?” When Adam didn’t answer, Needlemaw went on. “Linden’s drawn attention, they have. Worse when they started mucking about like wild things with ye.”

Adam was quiet a long, long time. “They said… They said the Court called them silly for being my friend,” he said at last, and the weary, lonely sadness in his voice startled her. “I suppose because they knew when I come of age I’ll die. The Prince in the Woods will kill me like he’s killing everyone else.”

“He’s not exactly killing 'em, he cannae. He’s testing 'em. They’re just tests he knows they’re gauny fail.”

Adam had learned enough about Linden and Needlemaw’s people not to protest that it was no difference at all, because to the Folk in the Woods there absolutely was a difference. “He’s still going to see me dead. All because a girl told him no.”

She scoffed. “Is that what yui’re taught? Some tripe of love and heartbreak?”

“It’s not true?”

She laughed, mean and coarse. “The Court don’t love! The Court don’t hardly like. They’re empty, gone brittle with age, stuck together with power. They’ve done all that can be done, played all the games, fought all the wars. They’re bored, Adam, and 'tis the bad kind of bored.” She shook her head. “'Twas a game. And like most games of the Court, 'twent bad. Very very badly bad.”

“Everyone thinks a fairy prince fell in love with the Queen.”

“Love? No, I don’t think a one of 'em knows what love is anymore. They lost it and forgot it. They play at it, Conemara and Canemore,” she hawked and spat disdainfully to one side, as if the names were foul in her mouth, “they’re siblings. They made a bet. They made a game of it, when the High Queen sent them here, where their chaos couldnae do harm in Her Court. If he could make the princess fall in love with him, and leave everything behind, put his ring on her finger, then he’d get to rule. If he couldn’t, then the ruling fell to her.”

“She said no.”

“Aye, that’s the problem, Adam, she did say no.” Needlemaw smiled her terrible smile. “And she meant it. Canemore was sure she loved him, was sure she’d do anything for him. He’d not reckoned that a mortal could love until her heart bled and still have sense, have wits. She did, yuir princesss then, yuir Queen now.”

“She loved him?”

“Oh, the Court sings songs of her love. He hates them, so his sister has them sung aaaall the time.”

“But then -”

Needlemaw stopped walking and leaned down. Where Adam was only beginning to hit the growth spurt of his youth, the fairy maid was what a mortal would call a teen, taller than the prince by a good foot or more. “He thinks she tricked him, yuir princess, because that’s all they do in the Court, trick each other, and the crueler the trick the better. He, do ye see, Adam, he did everything right to make her fall in love with him, and she did. There was naught she loved more than him. But she were also smart enough to know, to really know that he didnae love her back. That he would destroy her if she let him.” She straightened up.

“So she said no,” Adam licked his lips. “And he lost.”

“He lost. His sister rules. And 'tis her law that he is never to be allowed to forget why she rules, and not him.”

“Oh, he’s going to kill us all,” Adam closed his eyes, feeling his heart hammering against his ribs as if it were a rabbit just become aware of the snare around its foot. “He’ll never not be angry.”

“No,” Needlemaw agreed, waiting to see if the young prince could see the fathomless depth of the trap.

“Because… because it’s entertaining. Because it’s funny to the Court to see him murder us all without actually touching us.”

Needlemaw touched her long, pale fingertips to her mouth, then pressed the kiss to Adam’s forehead, acknowledging his wit and his intelligence. “This is him without a throne and crown, Adam. Can ye imagine what he’d do if he had both?”

“Can he?” Adam felt chilled to his marrow. “When he lost to his sister -”

“No. That bet was laid. 'Twas won and done. The Court is her Court, until she dies, or fades, or passes it on, and she’d as soon give it to the likes of me before she lets him have it. No, he had no way out, Adam. Until Linden came about.”

Adam froze. He stopped walking, because if he took another step he feared his legs, gone nerveless, would dump him on his face. “No.”

“I told ye, ye dinnae know how special yuir friend is.” Needlemaw threw her arms out. “Out here 'tis all wild and passing, will'o'wisps and pixies, trundling things, fading as quick as they come.” She snapped her fingers for good measure. “Kin to fireflies and butterflies and all the things that come up full of beauty and die the next day and no one there to mourn them, to remember them, or even miss them. Even the trees don’t remember well, unless 'tis biggish to them. But Linden -”

“Linden’s like them,” Adam’s voice was strangled with fear. He hadn’t been afraid of his fate, he hadn’t been afraid to die. He’d known he could only do the one thing to escape the fairy prince’s fury, and if that didn’t work, well, what else could he do? But he’d never thought of Linden being in danger, and the idea, the very hint of it roused in him things that were far too great for his twelve-year old heart.

“Aye,” Needlemaw said quietly. “And with Linden comes all the power of the Wild Green. A court on its own, if only there were someone to name it that.”

“Is that why you’re here?” Adam’s hands curled into fists and looked up to where he knew those fey, alien yellow eyes rested. “To take Linden away? To bring them to this monster?”

Needlemaw felt, for the third time since she’d met the young prince, as if something were turning on its axis, as if somewhere a page with 'Needlemaw’ writ large at the top were being turned, made into something new, because once again there was no fear as the young mortal faced her. Her! So few things were more nightmarish than her and her kin, and yet here he was, this slender bone splinter of a mortal boy, with his eyes full of destiny and his heart already crowned, threatening to take her on with nothing but his dirty, tiny fists for the sake of his friend. “No, and no, and no again,” she replied, and she was glad it was the truth. “He cannae force Linden to choose him, and thank be the blood on me cap for that. No. I’m here to make sure Linden’s here to court, when the time comes for him to come courting.”

Adam relaxed visibly, and snorted. “They’ll never.”

“I’m hoping yui’re right, Adam. And I think ye might be. And I cannae imagine what his anger will be like, when he’s balked twice because yuir bloodline went mucking with his affairs.” She let him mull on that. “Come on. Let’s go find yuir friend and see if there’s any talking some sense into 'em. And I cannae believe ye two have me saying such things.”

***

It still wasn’t perfect, but they made it work. Linden tried to escape once or twice, outright lying to Needlemaw about their whereabouts. Adam wouldn’t have it, and they both had the welts and scrapes and bruises to show for those disagreements.

“I hate this, I hate them! I hate them!” Linden had screamed from the rooftops, a shrill bird’s cry of fury and outrage and impotence when it returns home and finds its nestlings stolen by a predator. They were both battered, filthy and bloody, clothes and skin scraped. Adam was going to be nursing a black eye for weeks; it was that, Linden’s punch sending him crashing down to the slate and stone and clay, that had broken Linden’s fury and turned it to grief and shame. “My woods were fine, my woods were wild and green and kind and they’ve turned them ugly, they’ve turned them hungry, and I hate them!”

“No. No, Linden.” The young prince scrabbled back to his feet and rushed over to where his friend perched against the light, heaving with sobs they refused to cry, quickening all the emotions pent up in their sapling body into one. They tried to shake Adam off, but he persisted, until at last they were hugging, and Linden wept against his shoulder. “Don’t,” Adam pleaded quietly. “Don’t hate, Linden, don’t hate them. Hate’s what made a muck-all of this to begin with. Don’t hate.”

They clung to each other in the bright morning sun, the young prince lean and sturdy and deeply human, the fairy child slender and brown and crowned in white hair that smelled of flowers, with their shattered many-colored eyes, both of them bearing burdens they had never wanted. In the end Linden pulled away a little, the storm of their emotions spent, and rubbed roughly at their face. “Well, can I be mad at them at least?”

“Oh, gods, yes,” Adam agreed stoutly. “I don’t even know them and I’m mad at them all the time.”

That made his friend smile, if only a little bit. But it was enough.

“Besides, even if I could I wouldn’t change anything.”

“What!” Linden sounded aghast.

“Why would I?” Adam shrugged. “Without them I’d never have met you.”

Linden had no answer to that for a long, long moment. “I guess they’ve done two good things, I suppose,” they admitted, toeing angrily at a roof slate. “I wouldn’t ever not want to be your friend, Adam.”

Adam grinned, and rubbed at his face, leaving blood smeared all over his sleeve.

“Tch!” Linden turned and led the way. “I guess we best find Needlemaw. Maybe she’ll know what to do about that eye.”

Needlemaw’s cure was to lick the wounds, which made them sting fiercely and briefly and then got rid of them before the day was over - all but Adam’s black eye and Linden’s split lip. It marked a change, that day and that fight, and by the time autumn’s last leaves were blown out of the trees, the redcap was as much a part of their group as Boul.

[musclesandhammering]

Every Single Issue I Have With S*lki (It’s Not Just The Selfcest)

Here goes. I threatened to post this a few days ago and never did, but I just saw a s*lki stan Twitter account claim that Loki caring about Sylvie more than the whole multiverse was a Good And Romantic thing and it pushed me over the fucking edge, so now you all have to read this. I’ve divided it into categories cause there’s just THAT much.

OOC Bullshit

• First and foremost, no amount of mental gymnastics you do will ever make me believe that this specific Loki- the one that just invaded New York, that just came off a year of Thanos Torture, that just got done being influenced by the sceptre, that was literally in the middle of a crisis already, and then on top of that went through all the trauma of Ep 1- would even be worried about a romantic relationship. That would be the furthest thing from his mind. Go back and watch how he acted in Avengers- you think that guy would abandon his previous mission to become a snivelling simp for a girl he’d just met 3 days prior? Yeah, there’s no universe in which that makes sense.

• “It’s very in character for Loki to fall in love with himself lololol-“ NO, it’s literally not. Out of all the characters in the mcu, I don’t think I can think of anyone that genuinely hates themselves more than Loki. He even referred to all his other male variants as “monsters” and said meeting them was “a nightmare” in this series. He’s got so much self-loathing, plus the fact that he genuinely thinks himself to be an evil backstabbing scourge- so there’s no evidence at all suggesting that he would ever develop a fondness for, or even be inclined to trust, another version of himself, after only knowing them for 3 days.

• Building on that, the whole concept of Loki falling in love with a version of himself just feeds into the annoying ass misconception that he’s a narcissist. No matter which way you stack it, he’s not. If you’re referring to NPD, he doesn’t fit the criteria, and if you’re saying “narcissist” just as a slang term meaning “selfish and arrogant”, that still doesn’t accurately describe him. But when creators like Waldron and Herron do things like having him fall in love with himself, it makes it so much easier for casual viewers to think that he is.

Shitty LGBT Rep

• It’s kinda sus that Loki’s are allegedly genderfluid and yet the only female-presenting variant we see (and apparently the only female-presenting variant there is, cause the male Loki’s all seemed unfamiliar with the concept) is treated as some kind of mind-bogglingly special paradox. Also very sus that, out of all the Loki variants, the one our Loki falls in love with just so happens to be the only female one. What a coincidence.

• The fact that the creators of the show went around bragging about Loki’s bisexuality and Marvel purposefully (lbr) allowed stories about Loki possibly having a male love interest to circulate, specifically enticing queer viewers to watch the show (you know, the definition of queerbaiting), and then instead of having a male love interest (Loki was the first queer main character, so it was the perfect opportunity) they gave us *gestures to this dumpster fire* this… it’s just a middle finger to LGBT fans. The fact that they would rather have this relationship with all its myriad of problems than have a gay relationship is just……. Very telling.

• While him being with a woman obviously doesn’t refute his bisexuality, the fact that they showed/talked about him being interested in 3 different women (flight attendant, Sylvie, Sif) and never even hinted at him being attracted to a man, definitely makes it seem like they were trying to cover up his bisexuality to smooth things over with the more homophobic viewers. You know? It’s like “I know you’re pissed that we sorta confirmed Loki as bi, so we promise we’ll never mention it again! Or even hint at it! As a matter of fact, we’ll give him lots of female lovies and make him seem as straight as possible! That’ll take your mind off of that horrible crumb of queer rep, right? Please please please keep giving us your money!!!”

• Aside from all the other issues, at its core, the biggest reason why I think I’m so irritated with s*lki is that it took one of the most interesting, complex, and diverse characters in cinema atm and squished him into a tired ass unnecessary heteronormative subplot…. Like literally every. single. other. protagonist. ever. Loki is such a unique character, and it’s so so so incredibly disappointing that they stuck him into that same boring cookie cutter romance that happens to every other character in every other movie I’ve ever seen. It’s a disservice, and it’s honestly just not compelling or entertaining at all.

Thematic Issues Galore

• His arc didn’t need a romance. With anyone. It was unnecessary and it didn’t make sense plot-wise. In fact, one of the reasons he was my fav prior to this was because he was the only big-name mcu character whose story wasn’t muddied-up by a romance that didn’t need to be there. So much for that.

• He wasn’t emotionally ready for a romantic relationship with anyone. Hell, just a genuine friendship would’ve been pushing it for him at this point. He was in such a bad state that any relationship he got into would’ve been toxic and unhealthy for both him and the other person, and it doesn’t make sense why the writers would want to put him in one when there were so many cons and essentially no pros (other than “Uwu aren’t they cute together”).

• Sylvie’s character in general was unnecessary and Loki’s character was robbed just by her being there. The whole show became about her post-Ep 2. They spent most of the time giving her backstory, building her up, telling us how awesome she is, trying to convince us to like her, etc when what they really needed to be doing was building Loki up- cause I gotta say, if I had to describe TVA!Loki in a few words, they would be Flat, Boring, and Weak.

• The romance overtakes the plot. They spend time portraying their supposed connection that could’ve been spent adding depth and complexity to literally any of the characters. They make the big Nexus Event them giving each other googly eyes on Lamentis when it could’ve been so many other way more profound things that speak to the fundamental nature of Loki’s. They have the climax of the finale be “oh no she betrayed him to kill He Who Remains” when it could’ve been something way more compelling (Loki having a moral crisis over whether or not to kill HWR, Loki contemplating the state of the multiverse and weighing the pros and cons of freedom vs order, Loki looking into some What If situations and getting emotional about what could’ve been regarding his family, Loki realising the gravity of HWR’s offer and finally coming to terms with how important he is to the universal cycle, etc etc). The entire plot suffered in favour of a romance that half of us didn’t even want.

• It essentially reduced all of Loki’s potential character growth down to “He did it for his crush.” He seemed to at least have some motivations of his own in Ep 1-2 (feeble as they were) but after Sylvie showed up in Ep 3, literally every action he took was just him being a simp for her. Why did he lie in the interrogation? To try to protect Sylvie. Why did he fight the minutemen and Timekeepers? To survive kinda, but mostly cause it was important to Sylvie. Why did he get pruned? Cause he got distracted trying to confess his crush to Sylvie. Why did he try to get out of The Void? Cause he thought Sylvie needed him. Why did he stay in The Void? Cause Sylvie was staying. Why did he try to enchant Alioth? Cause Sylvie told him to. Why did the multiverse get cracked open, leading to an infinite number of Kangs waging war on all of existence? Cause Loki didn’t wanna hurt Sylvie in their fight at the Citadel and then get distracted by her kissing him. It’s uninteresting and honestly pretty embarrassing.

• Throughout their “relationship arc” the writers do their absolute damndest to convince us that we should like Sylvie more than Loki. And you know what? It’s the most hypocritical shit I’ve ever seen. They preach and preach about how Sylvie’s life has been so difficult/we should feel bad for her/she had it so bad/poor poor sylvie/she had it SO much worse than pampered prince Loki…. But then they never even touch on any of Loki’s trauma of hardships (the ones that have been ignored for literally 3 movies now). They frame Sylvie as a good person and a Freedom Fighter after she spent literal decades/centuries mass-murdering brainwashed TVA agents and showing exactly zero remorse for it….. but then they make it their mission to constantly remind us that Loki is a terrible person and constantly put him in situations where he’s forced to acknowledge his wrongdoings/show remorse/admit to how “evil” he is for being a mass murderer for like 2 years. They show him on-screen having a wider range of powers than her, and perpetuate his whole shtick of being a “master manipulator” or whatever….. But then they make Sylvie “the brawn” more competent, intelligent, and physically capable than him. Tell me how it’s a good thing for a ship to be so narratively biased toward one character.

Missed Opportunities

• If they absolutely had to have a romance subplot, then they could’ve paired Loki with one of the characters that have already been established OR one of the characters that were a big part of the whole TVA storyline anyway. It would’ve been so interesting if they’d revealed that Loki had a history with some of the players from previous films (Sif and Fandral both come to mind). It also would’ve been really interesting if they’d given Loki a love interest that actually had some allegiance to the TVA as a whole (Mobius maybe, but not necessarily. It also could’ve been Renslayer or B-15). Hell, imo it would’ve been cool if they’d followed through with that “See you again someday” line that he said to the flight attendant in Ep 1. ALL of these characters have way more chemistry with him than Sylvie, and they were also already relevant to the plot without wasting half the show to give background info on them.

• If they absolutely had to have a hetero-presenting love story involving an enchantress-type figure, then there’s a whole Enchantress (Amora) that was actually Loki’s love interest in the comics. Plus, fans have been screaming for Amora to appear in the mcu for years. Plus, Tom literally pitched an Amora/Loki storyline way back in 2012-13. Also, Lorelei (another enchantress) is also one of Loki’s love interests in the comics, and she already exists in the mcu (she was on Agents of SHIELD). There were several different established characters for them to choose from. Creating a whole knew amalgamation of a character and going with the “she’s a Loki variant” storyline was just completely unnecessary and made no sense.

• They completely robbed us of a Chaos Twins dynamic. Had they handled Sylvie better and not forced her and Loki to smooch, the two of them could’ve had a really really complex and interesting sibling relationship. Loki could’ve stepped into Thor’s shoes and sort of used that new role to gain some self importance, and Sylvie could’ve finally had somebody to look out for her/teach her magic/be there for her. It would’ve been very aesthetically pleasing, the vibes would’ve been out of this world, it would’ve been way more profound than this bs, and frankly it would’ve been much more entertaining to watch.

• Loki’s relationship (read: obsession) with Sylvie completely overshadows all Loki’s other relationships in the show. Loki and Mobius were literally the focal point of the series in Ep 1-2, but after Sylvie showed up in Ep 3, they barely had any interactions with each other, and Mobius pretty much faded to the background entirely. Loki had the beginnings of a pretty interesting antagonistic relationship with Renslayer (with her wanting him pruned, then arguing with Mobius that he couldn’t be trusted), but after Sylvie showed up the dynamic shifted to focus on the history between her and Ravonna. Loki and B-15 started off very badly and openly disliked each other throughout Ep 1-2, and then in the end of Ep 2, Loki showed a little bit of concern for her when she was possessed, hinting that they might be inching toward a reconciliation- especially considering how obvious it was that Loki was gonna uncover the TVA’s sins eventually. There was so much potential for him to be the one to give her her memories back and convince her to change sides, but no, of course that honor went to Sylvie. In fact, after Sylvie showed up, Loki and B-15 never even spoke to each other again.

Various S*lki Fails

• If they were trying to convince us that this affection was mutual, they completely failed. There’s nothing I’ve seen that even hints at Sylvie feeling the same way about Loki that he does about her. At most, I’d say she has a slight endearment to him. She finds him likeable and she’s grudgingly fond of him, but she definitely isn’t in love with the guy. Maybe she thinks he’s cute and hopes that he gets out of this mess alright, but her mission obviously comes before him- whereas, it’s been confirmed multiple times that Loki cares about her above anything else. She doesn’t trust him, she looks at him like he’s an incompetent fool half the time, she shows little to no reaction during most of his confession moments, and she kissed him as a means to distract him so that she could get him out of her way. Look, all I’m saying is, when you get into a relationship where one of you is way more invested than the other, it never ends well.

• This goes without saying for a lot of us, but the selfcest is just straight up odd and cringey. If you’re cool with that sort of thing, fine! People can ship what they want! But don’t pretend it’s not at least a little bit uncomfortable. Yes, I know they’re not technically siblings so it’s not technically incest, and they’re also not technically the exact same person, but they’re similar enough that it makes things weird. And yes I know selfcest can’t happen in real life, so there’s no way to judge it morally, but neither can most of the other stuff that happens in these shows/movies (the Snap, Loki destroying jotunheim, superhero with powers being held accountable, mind control) and yet we still find ways to judge their morality, because they all mirror real-world events. (The snap= genocide; Loki destroying Jotunheim= bombing other countries; superhero accountability= weapons accountability; mind control= grooming and coercion). And lbr the closest real-world mirror to two versions of the same person (who may or may not share DNA, family, backgrounds, physical and emotion characteristics) being romantically involved with one another is incest. And you can be ok with that if you want- that’s your prerogative- but don’t get pissy just cause a lot of us are squicked out by it.

• The whole mirror metaphor (learning self love via each other) thing just fell completely flat. First of all, having Loki learn to love himself by looking at someone who mirrors him did not, in any way shape or form, require them to be romantically involved. But they were. Of course. Secondly, the creators have contradicted themselves so many times on whether Loki and Sylvie are the same or not, that it doesn’t even really register to the viewer that the mirroring thing was what they were going for. Finally, Loki and Sylvie are shown to have so little in common- and to have only the most bare minimum of similarities personality-wise- that it doesn’t even make sense that Loki would “learn to love himself through loving her”. Like? They’re nothing alike. So how would he make the connection that he himself is actually pretty cool, based on her alone? There’s virtually nothing in her that reflects him.

• I know the objective of the entire show was to convince us of how awesome and unique Sylvie is, but honestly her relationship with Loki just did the opposite. A hallmark of a Mary Sue is having her constantly upstage the male lead, and then having him instantly fall madly in love with her anyway. And that’s.. exactly what happened here. Everything they’re doing to try to force her character to be more stan-able is really just forcing her to look more like their self-insert OC. Which is exactly what she is. It would’ve been so much more satisfying if she didn’t have to try so hard to look cool, if they didn’t have to try so hard to make her backstory tear-inducing, if they didn’t have to turn our protagonist into a snivelling simp just to prove how incredible she supposedly is. Very much #GirlBoss energy and we all know how performative and cheap that is.

• The entire thing was too rushed, there was too little build-up, and it was nowhere near believable. As stated above, it’s ridiculously unlikely that Loki would canonically even be interested in Sylvie, and this show did nothing to explain why he was. He just suddenly was. There was nothing they showed us as viewers that would justify a guy as closed-off and preoccupied as Loki falling head-over-heels for a girl he just met. Their was no explanation, no big revelation, no reasoning, it just… kinda happened. And I’m also severely skeptical of any love story that has the characters go in this deep after only 3 45-minute episodes of exposition.

I’m sure there’s other stuff, so if anyone thinks of anything, let me know and I’ll be more than happy to add it. Tagging @janetsnakehole02 @raifenlf @natures-marvel and @brightredsunset800 for expressing interest. This is all your faults.

[peterprkrsbtch]

sapphire - part 2

Peter Parker x reader

A/n: Part 1 is up on my page! There’s a couple flashbacks in this one so I put the dates before so it doesn’t get confusing. If you enjoy this one, like or reblog to share! I already wrote part 3 and it’s my favorite one yet so that’ll def be up soon :)

tag- @juliannaamonroe​

Warnings: swearing, make out, violence

(September 1)

We’re one minute away. Come out hoe!

You smile as you read the text, glancing at yourself in the mirror again, nerves and excitement ablaze in your stomach. You’d been planning for this day since last winter, and now it was finally here. You adjust your carefully styled hair and double check that the natural makeup you applied was sitting on your skin correctly.

Of course it was. That goddamn injection sometimes made you feel like a vampire out of twilight and sometimes you still got surprised when you saw your own face while passing a mirror or a particularly reflective window. You smooth down the ruffles of your short black skirt and tug the top of your tank top down so a bit more of your curves show.

You put on your white sneakers and tug your shirt back up to cover your chest again. We’ll have to work up to that, I guess. A long honk sounds from outside your apartment building and you curse as you scramble to grab your backpack and phone before running down and out the front steps.

“Awwww,” You say sweetly at the sight of the two girls who had become your best friends. “That’s the shirt you were wearing when we met, Ally.” You jokingly brush away a tear, pretending to be ultra touched.

“Best damn day of my life.” Ally says from her spot in the drivers seat, laughing at your dramatics. She may be joking around, but her sentiment makes your heart clench. This year really was going to be different.

***

(July 3)

You quickly realized you needed to find some Midtown friends if your plan for senior year was going to work. If you dared to show up looking, well, like you do, completely alone and friendless, you might become even more of an outcast than you were before. The first month of summer had been the least lonely time of your year so far, thanks to a certain Spiderman.

The two of you spent most of your nights together, flying through the city, fighting crime together, and talking. The “slow” nights that used to fill you with boredom quickly became your favorite when he was involved. The sound of his laugh and the jokes he makes during fights quickly became the highlight of your days.

But you couldn’t let yourself get too distracted by him. After all, neither of you knew what the other looked like. The only other boy you’d ever found remotely cute (other than celebrities) was nerdy Peter Parker from your high school. He wasn’t your usual type and he seemed to be just as shy as you were, so you had little (zero) hope that it would ever lead to anything more than a smile during the hallway if you accidentally made eye contact.

Sorry Spiderman, but no way in hell are you gonna make me lose my focus. The loneliness you had felt through the last three years of high school was too much. Your plan had to work. So that night as the two of you patrolled together, you softly mentioned that you were going to a pool party tomorrow and wouldn’t be able to meet.

He seemed a bit disappointed, but you brushed it off, trying to remember the names of the girls at your school who seemed nice. Peter, however, couldn’t focus on anything other than the fact that you had told him where you would be tomorrow. There was only so many pool parties in a city like New York.

You tried not to think about who was under the Spiderman mask out of respect and, to be honest, it seemed like a pointless endeavor. Peter was not the same. No matter how tired he was from patrol, he always had time to lay awake before he fell asleep and picture what you would look like under the mask.

There wasn’t very many people who understood Peter’s secret life. None, actually, until you. Maybe that was why he was so intrigued by you, because you were so similar, but in his heart he knew that wasn’t it. He liked you. And he hated himself for it. But once you mentioned the pool party, he made sure to take one long last glance at the color of your hair before you two said goodbye. Just in case he happened to see that same hair tomorrow.

(July 4)

You were so, so nervous. Your closet of exclusively sweats and hoodies was trashed as Part 1 of your plan, much to your mother’s happiness. She had always been honest about her hatred of your junior year clothes and was extremely excited to purchase everything you needed. As distant as she was, you had to give her a little credit.

Although you’d been wearing the new clothes for the past month, this was the first time you were doing it so publicly. Your denim shorts exposed miles of smooth leg, and you’d decided to wear a red tube top in honor of the holiday-not to mention it really showed off your curves. You’d meticulously done your hair and makeup like you’d been practicing the past month and prayed that somebody would talk to you today.

You’d seen the flyer for the Fourth of July party on Instagram, which had been step 2. Unfortunately, you had two followers. Your mom and her boyfriend. Step 2 is a work in progress.

One long walk later, and you’re in front of the address. You swear you could explode of nerves right there, but instead you take a deep breath and force your legs to carry you inside the house and towards the people out by the pool.

Your eyes are so focused on your destination, the glass sliding door, that you barely notice when you bump shoulders with someone, causing you to drop your phone.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t looking where I was going.” You say, reaching down to grab your phone.

“Oh my god, stop. That was totally my fault.” You stand back up to see the girl who was speaking, and you recognize her immediately. Her name is Ally, and she’s a part of the most popular group at school. Despite her long black hair and sweet smile, you haven’t heard many good things about her. Not the type of person you were looking for.

“Do you go to Midtown? I don’t think I’ve seen you around.” Ally says, making no move to walk away from the conversation.

“Yeah, actually. My name is Y/n?” You don’t miss the way her eyebrows raise and her eyes widen with confusion and shock. You’re embarrassed now, realizing maybe you weren’t as invisible as you’d thought. In an effort to explain away the last few years, “My dad left a couple years ago and it was pretty hard on me, but I’m all better now.” You flash the most dazzling smile you can manage and hope she accepts it.

“No way, mine did too!” She gasps as she grabs your hands. You feel a small pang of guilt at that. It was a lie, you had no idea who your dad was and frankly, you didn’t think your mom knew either.

The conversation starts to flow between you and Ally easily as you make your way out to the pool. “This is my best friend Betty.” Ally introduces you to the sweet-as-pie girl and the three of you quickly fall into a conversation like you’d known each other forever. A few of their guy friends tried to come up and talk to you, but she just waved them away. “Leave us alone, we just met our new best friend.”

You felt bad for judging Ally so harshly earlier, blindly trusting the stupid rumors you’d heard about her. Popular or not, the three of you got along better than any of the other friends you’d tried to make throughout your life. They do briefly make fun of your instagram before forcing you to take and post pictures with the two of them by the pool. They both tag your account.

Peter didn’t seem to share the good luck you did. He’d dragged Ned to 6 different pool parties across the city and saw no one who looked like Sapphire. Disappointed, he spent the night patrolling alone and dodging fireworks.

***

(September 1)

Since that day, you’d become a trio with Ally and Betty. The day after the pool party you’d woken up to nearly 1,000 followers on your instagram. Everyone from Midtown who never gave you a second look when you had your hood shoved over your head now wanted to be your friend.

The three of you spent the rest of your summer days together, and you fit into the popular friend group better than you could have imagined. Maybe you watched too many teen movies, but you expected them to be mean. The only mean one was Flash, and even he was basically harmless. You’d given up Saturday night patrols with Spiderman for a weekly girls night with your new best friends. You thought having new friends and a bustling social life would’ve made it easier to forget about Spiderman, but somehow he seeped into every area of your life.

That damn laugh. As Ally and Betty sing along to the radio loudly, you bite your lip to stop a dumb smile from rising to your lips. God, just thinking about him made you flustered. As Ally drives into the school parking lot, nerves bubble in your stomach.

As if you aren’t stressed enough, your brain decides this is the perfect moment to remind you of the one night this summer you and Spiderman haven’t talked about since.

*** (August 14)

The two of you were sprawled out on a gravel rooftop next to each other. Not the most comfortable of relaxing spots, but you’d both grown tired of flying around under the summer heat with no hint of trouble for miles.

“This sucks.” Spiderman huffs out.

“Rude.” You reply quickly, even though you know he isn’t talking about you.

“Oh, no,” He immediately sits up. “I didn’t mean you suck, I just meant, you know, because there’s not much going on right now and it’s hot and-” He sees your cheeky smile and stops himself with a laugh. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s cute.” You bite your lip. The fuck did I just say? Before you can begin to explain, he jumps to his feet.

“Spidey sense, let’s go!” You jump up too and follow after him as he jumps off the building. Thank god. I’ve never been so grateful that someone’s in trouble. The fight was tough, even with the both of you. These men had strange guns that keep firing at you and Spiderman even though you’d tried multiple times to crush them with your powers.

“The guns are magic-proof! I can’t destroy them!” You yell over to Spiderman as you take down one of the men in between punches.

Somehow, two men get ahold of their guns and corner you. Just as you start levitating to fly over them, a web shoots from somewhere behind them and the men and their guns are yanked away. Spiderman wastes no time and you swear he seems angry with the two men as he webs them to the wall next to their friends before picking up the guns and violently smashing them on the ground.

You’re still frozen in shock, watching him. When he seems to be satisfied with the broken pile of guns on the floor, he runs back over to you. “I’m so sorry, I know we promised-” You finally break out of whatever trance you were in to place a finger over his lips, casting a disgusted glance towards the men staring at you from their webbed cocoons.

“Not here.” You say quietly, and fly the two of you quickly up to the roof. He blinks for a second, his head spinning from the speed. You rarely use your full speed, especially with him, but you had to get out of there. “Okay, go ahead.” You say after a second of silence.

“I’m so sorry, I know we agreed not to get in each other’s way, and I know you can handle yourself, probably better than I can. Hold on, I didn’t mean I handle you. That sounded weird. Anyways, I just got so angry when I saw those men pointing their guns at you I had to-” He’s talking about the agreement you two had made when you first started working together. You both obviously were skilled, so you agreed that you wouldn’t interrupt each other’s fights unless asked.

“Spidey, I really don’t care you interrupted. It was hot.” JESUS CHRIST NOT AGAIN. You immediately winced and slap a hand over your mouth. “Oh my god I did NOT mean to say that I’m so sorry.”

Your rambling is cut off as Spiderman’s hand travels up to the bottom of his mask and you think your eyes might fall out of your head with how wide they become as he begins to pull it up, revealing the soft pale skin of his neck.

His jaw, chin, and then lips become visible as he lets the mask rest on his nose. The 0.5 seconds that have passed since you stopped talking feel like an eternity until he suddenly leans forward, crashing his lips into yours. Spiderman is an amazing kisser, you decide, as you gently kiss him back.

WHAT AM I DOING? Your mind is going haywire but instead of stopping, you deepen the kiss and nearly smile when he lets out a low moan. Everything you’ve told yourself about focus and distractions flies out the window when his gloved hands clutch your waist and pull you closer to him than you thought possible.

It feels like it’s only been a second when he pulls away, but your eyes flicker to his swollen lips and you know it must have been longer. You smile as you stare at his lips, only inches from yours, but as your gaze moves to the rest of his exposed skin the smile drops slowly.

Your rational mind comes back. It’s easy to forget when you’re with him that you’ve only known each other a couple months. How could you do this? Your first time making out with a boy, and he doesn’t even know your name.

“We shouldn’t be doing this.” You whisper as he starts to say something.  “Sorry, what were you going to say?” He blinks slowly and takes a deep breath before stepping away from you.

“Nevermind. See you tomorrow.” And he swings away from you. You silently curse yourself for being such a big mouth, wanting to know what he would have said. You can’t help the small voice in the back of your head, telling you that you made the wrong decision.

You raise your hand to run your fingers along your tingling lips before flying home as fast as you can.

***

(September 1)

You wince at the painful memory before reminding yourself everything was back to normal the next day and neither of you mentioned it again. You still weren’t sure if that was good or bad. You force all thoughts of Spiderman out of your brain and even give Ally an encouraging cheer when she successfully parks on her first try.

You don’t remember Midtown having so many fucking students last year, but maybe it was because they were all staring at you. Any confidence you’d had as you opened Ally’s car door had disappeared as everyone around you turned to gawk. The bright smile you’d pasted on a second ago quickly fell and you glanced at Ally nervously.

“Come on, girls!” She says enthusiastically, grabbing an arm from you and Betty as she breaks the brief moment of awkward silence. God bless you Ally. As the three of you hoist your bags over your shoulders and make your way into the school, you mouth a quick thank you her way, hoping she can see your genuine appreciation. She smiles at you. “I’m happy we’re going into this year as three instead of two.”

Betty leans forward to smile at you. “Me too, y/n. I’m really happy you’re here.”  You smile back brightly. There really was no one as sweet as Betty.

“You won’t be so happy I’m here when I talk your ear off during class.” The three of you continue laughing and joking your way down the hall to stop at your lockers.

“Oh my god, is that Y/n?” Ned interrupts Peter’s latest ramble about his night with Sapphire. Usually, he really did listen. Ned was fully invested in the superhero love story, as he called it, unfolding. But the sight of a girl notorious for hiding in her own baggy clothes across the hall in a miniskirt and tank top was more important.

“Y/n?” Peter asks, confused why Ned wasn’t paying attention. But when he turned around to see what Ned was staring at, he understood. He’d seen you around school the past three years, but never like this.

You looked like a fucking model. And everyone in the hall couldn’t help but stare. “Holy shit.”

“Right, dude?” Ned breathes out, the two of them shamelessly staring. “Why didn’t that happen to me over summer? Oh my god, of course she’s friends with Betty.”

Peter laughs as his best friend goes on about “two pretty best friends” but he can’t take his eyes off of you. The light in your eyes as you joke with your friends, making them double over in laughter, feels strangely familiar. Or maybe that’s wishful thinking on his part because you’re extremely pretty.

He watches in surprise as you and Ally walk up to the AP Chem classroom, waving goodbye to Betty sadly as she heads off to English. You turn to walk into the classroom after Ally, but you pause and look back down the hallway-right at him. Instead of yelling at him for being a creep like he expected, you smile at him widely before heading into the class. He exhales deeply and glances down at his schedule quickly, a smile appearing. AP Chem.

Of course his thoughts are still consumed by Sapphire, but it was hard to ignore you especially after seeing his name on the seating chart next to yours in the back row. Plus, Sapphire was the one who’d shot him down after he finally tried to make a move after catching onto the hints he thought she’d been dropping.

He felt bad for thinking that about her, he didn’t blame her at all. He knew there was a million reasons they shouldn’t be together-and he didn’t want to know specifics on why he wasn’t good enough. Sapphire hadn’t brought up that night since, and he was fine to pretend it never happened.

You were already in your seat at the lab table, but Ally was still standing next to you waving her hands wildly as you two spoke. He doesn’t want to interrupt so he freezes in place, unsure of whether or not to go sit down. He’d thought you were cute, and a little shy like him in freshman and sophomore year and he remembered the many times he would look at you from across the room like he is now.

His eyes had been quick to find you whenever you two were in the same room ever since the first day of school freshman year when you smiled at him in the hall. Even last year, when all he saw of you was a curled up lump at your desk or a sliver of hair peeking out from behind your hood he still noticed you.

Luckily for him, the bell rings and he slides into his seat just as the teacher begins speaking. “Hi, Peter.” You lean over to him, your shoulders nearly touching, and whisper so the teacher doesn’t hear. “I’m y/n.” You smile warmly as his cheeks and ears turn light pink.

“You don’t have to introduce yourself. We’ve gone to school together since we were 6?” Now it’s your turn to be embarrassed and you purse your lips together.

“No, I know, just-” Peter notices you seem a bit frustrated as you glance around the room and then lean even closer to him. “Everybody thinks I’m new.” You nervously mess with your bracelet.

“You do look a bit different.” He points out and you raise your eyebrows before sighing slowly and shrugging.

“I was just sick of feeling invisible, you know. Not because I care what anyone here thinks. Last year was just, really, really lonely.” Peter watches you intently as you speak, hanging onto your every word.

Your confession made him sad. If only he’d been brave enough to ask if you were okay. You pause for a second and meet his eyes. Any other guy in this school would’ve laughed at you by now. You gesture to your outfit and nervously adjust your skirt. “I’m also not a superficial person. It wasn’t about changing how I looked, I just needed the confidence to put myself out there.” You pause and nod towards Ally with a smile. Peter glances over to Ally and sees her blow you a kiss, which you catch across the room with a giggle.

I miss you! She mouths with a dramatic frown and this time Peter laughs quietly with you. “I thought she was a bitch before I met her.” He looks at you with surprise to find you smiling at him. “But,” you hold up a finger for dramatic effect, “because I put myself out there, I met my best friends. A lot of people around here judge on appearances. I’m not like that anymore.” You say with confidence.

“That’s really cool of you.” Peter whispers back, and the sound sends an involuntary shiver down your spine. He’s so close to you and the feelings you thought you left behind two years ago don’t seem so left behind as you stare into his warm eyes. “For the record, I’d be your friend no matter what you look like.”

Peter has only been this nervous a couple times before in his life, and he can’t help but feel like he’s betraying Sapphire with the way he’s thinking about you. He watches as you smile warmly at his words and extend your hand towards his.

“Friends? Even though I'm so much uglier now?” You pout your bottom lip out, a smile tugging at the corners of your mouth. He nearly laughs out loud and has to remind himself you’re still in class. “I know guys go wild for the homeless man sweatpants look.” You’re both trying to hold back your laughter, shaking silently in the back of the class as he raises his hand and grabs yours.

“Friends.” Peter isn’t sure why he keeps going, but he does. “And just so you know, you were never ugly. I don’t know why you tried so hard to hide yourself last year, but even then,” the words leaving his mouth sound confident but Peter takes a deep breath before looking up from his lap to meet your eyes. Your wide eyes and surprised smile give him just the confidence he needs to finish. “You could never be ugly.” Peter can hear his heart beating.

You blink at him. This boy could not be real. Here he was, basically implying that the one thing you had wanted all along, for somebody to notice you, was true. Not only was it true, but it was Peter fucking Parker telling you this. Despite everything that had changed you in the past year, the giddy feeling in your bones brought you back to sophomore year and pining over Peter.

“Really?” Your smile spreads and he seems to let out a deep breath of relief.

“Yeah.” He smiles back at you until your sweet moment is interrupted by a fat ass syllabus dropping onto the lab table in front of you.

“Fuck,” you whisper. “This class is gonna be so much homework.” You turn the page so Peter can briefly see the list of projects alone, and it’s enough to make him cringe.

Something about the way the whispers travel back and forth between you all class makes you realize you hadn’t fallen into a friendship this easily, even with Ally. Even with Spiderman, your brain points out.

A red and blue suit swings into your mind and you are hit with a wave of guilt. Not two hours ago I was thinking about my make out with Spiderman, and now I’m comparing him to Peter? 

You have all but one class together, and you can’t help but glance in Peter’s direction any chance you get. The only time you don’t see him is at lunch, even though you look all around the lunch room for him or the boy he’d been standing with this morning. You thought it would be too creepy to ask him where he’d been.

Finally, the last bell of the day rang, and you were sure if you didn’t have superpowers you would’ve been exhausted. School is kinda draining when you actually acknowledge people. Ally and Betty share your complaints about being tired on your drive home, all three of you agreeing you need naps. You kiss them both on the cheek and wave goodbye before heading up to your room.

Forget what I said about having superpowers. I’m fucking tired. You lay down on your bed, groaning into the pillow at the thought of having to patrol tonight. You sat up abruptly. You’d never dreaded patrol, it was always the thing you looked forward to. You glance towards the suit in your closet and sigh.

It’s not patrol I’m nervous about. It’s him. You feel incredibly guilty about today. I’m not a two timer. If I want to like Peter, I have to talk to Spiderman about that kiss first. You start to make your way over to the closet before another wave of exhaustion hits, sending you straight back to your bed.

After a nap. Then we’ll talk.

[radramblog]

Midnight Hunt Commanders (and Midnight Hunt Commander)

Another month, another new set release. This time: Innistrad 3 Part 1, Midsommar edition. I’m sure you’ve read all the jokes at this point.

Still, though, I like running through cards like this. I’ve heard some podcasters and other content creators lament the accelerating release pace because it means you only get to do so much “normal” content between set review stuff. But I like set review stuff! One of the handful of upsides of the hypercapitalist nightmare that is WoTC under Hasbro.

Anyway here’s some spooky things you can put in charge of a scary deck.

Adeline, Resplendent Cathar

While being strictly inferior to Adeline from Kirby, this card is a surprisingly aggressive beater. She’s going to be attacking for 4 commander damage on turn 4, and that’s assuming no ramp or other creatures on the board. Sure, those tokens are probably going to bite it, but that’s something you can take advantage of! Also, curving her into Cathar’s Crusade is both flavourful and also terrifying. White Token Aggro is far from a new concept, but Adeline is quite the efficient example of the trope.

 Lier, Disciple of the Drowned

I cannot imagine that many people playing this as the commander. The number one thing you’re going to want to flashback in mono-blue is counterspells, which this card turns off. Sure, there’s some funky things you can do with slow blink effects, but that’s a lot of work for an extra Cancel. With that said, this is going to be in the 99 of so many decks, so I wouldn’t feel bad for Lier.

 Gisa, Glorious Ressurector

I guess we’re seeing Geralf in the next set? Gisa is super cool- I’m not huge on just having a hate piece in the command zone, but Gisa justifies it by giving you a bunch of value. I’m not sure how I feel about Decayed as a mechanic, but flavour-wise it works really well, and considering how much you can get out of an ETB or just one attack in this format, she’s probably not complaining. I think you really need a haste effect to get the most out of her, though. But she’s cool as heck, another sick card for everybody’s favourite small zombie goth GF.

 Gorex, the Tombshell

Gorex is interesting, as a pseudo-delve threat that slowly regains the value you put into it, and it is also a giant zombie turtle. On the other hand, it’s not especially interesting. I feel like a lot of these “lieutenant” creatures are really hit or miss, and I’m afraid to say I think this one’s the latter. You can’t even play it with Meandering Towershell!

 Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia

This just kinda feels like a waste of a legendary slot. It’s somewhere between Ophiomancer and Dreadhorde Invasion, but significantly worse than both, and you want to put this in the zone? It’s kind of disappointing, especially considering this dude has been on flavour text since the original Innistrad block. Which was 10 years ago.

 Jerren, Corrupted Bishop / Ormendahl, the Corrupter

As much as I love Westvale Abbey, the condition to flip Jerren is so utterly specific that I’m not going to bother considering it, so we kind of just have to ignore Ormendahl, powerful as he is. And Jerren isn’t much to write home about either. He wants to be in charge of a Humans deck, clearly, but there’s not really much to support that at all. Like, Xathrid Necromancer and Village Cannibals I guess? Probably taking the pass on this one.

Man there were 4 whole Mono-Black commanders in this one and like one of them is interesting. Gisa’s carrying the colour on her back this time around.

 Kurbis, Harvest Celebrant

Kurbis is…eh. The thing with your big +1/+1 counter threats is that damage isn’t usually the thing taking them out, so they’d work better in a deck that tries to distribute the counters more evenly. But then, in order to get much from Kurbis, you’re going to need to shrink them a lot…I honestly can’t see playing this in either maindeck or command zone. It just doesn’t do enough. I do like the “counters equal to mana spent” text on cards like this, at least.

 Saryth, the Viper’s Fang

Another 99er. Lot of those this time. Saryth is a great if somewhat awkward way to both abuse and protect things like Circle of Dreams Druid or Faeburrow Elder, or just as another Thousand-Year Elixir for commanders that like tap abilities. But I cannot imagine building this as a commander.

By the way, we’re done with all of the monocoloured commanders. And only 1/3rd of the way through all the cards. I know multicolour is more popular, but this set is kind of dire for those types of decks.

 Dennick, Pious Apprentice / Dennick, Pious Apparition

This feels a lot like a fixed Temmet (since the back half gets to deal commander damage) but with a different flavour. He is a card you can get a lot of value from for fairly cheap, seeing as you only pay the tax half the times you’re casting him, and the abilities on both sides are solid enough. I’m not inspired by this commander in basically any way, but he’s pretty much decent on either side and with how cheap he is you could kinda just build the deck however. Sure?

 Eloise, Nephalia Sleuth

Finally, a commander for the 6 Surveil Matters cards that were in GRN, which admittedly is more than I was expecting. Eloise is both a solid value engine for sacrifice-y decks that only really have had one Dimir commander in the past (that being Kels), and the trigger on the second ability is surprisingly flexible- it’s clearly meant to work with the Clue tokens she makes and the Decayed tokens from the precon, but it works great with Eldrazi Spawn, Treasures, and any other token creatures you’re deciding to churn through for value. The consistency and efficiency this adds to these kinds of decks is super sweet, and I’ve just checked EDHREC and literally nobody has built her. That is shocking to me, frankly, but I’m sure that’ll change.

 Ludevic, Necrogenius / Olag, Ludevic’s Hubris

I heard y’all wanted a new Ludevic since the old one’s terrible? Fuck you he’s dead now. Ludevic’s front face is extremely uninspired, but the real commander is on the back side- he does at least enable the strategy. Olag is, unfortunately, kind of just a worse Mimeoplasm, something I have a lot of experience with seeing as I have a Mimeoplasm deck. It’s actually not cheaper, seeing as Ludevic is minimum 2+5 versus Mimeo’s 5, and you don’t get to play Green so that’s also worse for you. It does start as a 4/4 base, but you’re not getting smaller than that very often with Mimeoplasm, and unlike that card Olag can’t be used as graveyard hate. Exiling cards from your own graveyard in a graveyard deck feels terrible. The long and short of this is just…play Mimeoplasm. They’re underrated these days.

 Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver

The first line of text on this dude is super flavourful, I really like the idea of this legion that just keeps getting back up. The second line of text is also really good, seeing as it works with either part of the first half and it generates value in what will be a board-based deck. And while it’s not exactly wrath protection, it does at least give you a pile of bodies for when you do get wrathed, ready to dogpile the guy that dared wipe your board. I’m always hesitant about precon face commanders, because they’re always a little too pushed for my liking, but I really don’t think Wilhelt is fuckbusted- just a very solid commander to helm a solid archetype.

 Florian, Voldaren Scion

Excuse me, what the fuck is this Vampire doing in my Werewolf set? Get this shit out of here. Florian is an aberration, and also a frustratingly boring one. He takes significant deckbuilding effort to be good, and even then best case scenario it’s an exile-draw impulse once per turn cycle. Rakdos was doing real well for a while, and probably will keep doing well in future considering the next set coming up, so this is a bit of a disappointment.

 Tovolar, Dire Overlord / Tovolar, the Midnight Scourge

I’ve already spent a bunch of time discussing Werewolves in EDH, so I’ll try to keep this brief. Tovolar is the epitome of “fine, here you go”. He’s a powerful Werewolf commander that compensates for the tribe’s weaknesses, gives you card advantage, and echoes an iconic card from the past. He is unquestionably the best Werewolf to helm your deck of the three total real options. I still kinda think you want Naya for this tribe, but if you don’t want to compromise on synergy or lose this effect (and to be fair it’s a lot) then here he is. It’s hard not to be cynical, seeing as I was one of the people fucking pissed at how nothing Ulrich was, but at least he exists now.

Maybe give us another one in Crimson Vow, WoTC?

 Katilda, Dawnhart Prime

This is kind of interesting, a proper Human tribal commander for GW. Now, unlike previous, where your options were Sigarda 2 in GW (which isn’t very good) and some other stuff like the Kudros for other colour combinations, Midnight Hunt has a couple new options for this exact deck, but at the very least they all do it a little differently. Katilda is effectively a second Cryptolith Rite, but one that gives you something to do with all that excess mana, which is pretty cool and good- decks that need to commit to the board often run out of cards (on account of having things get broken) and this makes sure you always have something to do with that mana. So sure! If you have a haste outlet it makes Increasing Devotion insanely free and that’s super spicy.

 Kyler, Sigardian Emissary

I find this substantially less interesting. Kyler is Thalia’s Lieutenant, but it works a bit better, but also its way more expensive. Anthem commanders are always underwhelming, because the effect is usually mediocre and also you can just…play anthems. But also, it doesn’t take much for this guy to make your team quite big. My biggest issue here is that I just think 5 mana is a lot for an aggressive commander like this, and in order to make him work you need to still be playing things afterwards- so the curve is going to be have to be super wonky.

 Leinore, Autumn Sovereign

Our other face commander for this set, Leinore is here to support the Coven mechanic, both making it easier to get three creatures with different powers (especially since she has 0 power herself, which is fairly uncommon) and rewarding you for doing so. She’s another card on this list that basically says “meet condition, draw a card every turn”, but at the very least she’s pumping the squad a little at the same time and she’s not super expensive. I think she’s a lot less interesting than the other face commander, Wilhelt, but she’s inoffensive.

 Sigarda, Champion of Light

Aside from immediately slamming into my cube, Sigarda part 3 looks a lot like Leinore in just drawing a card if you have Coven once per turn. The upside, Sigarda does a bunch of damage while doing it, and could feasibly finish someone off if necessary. The downside, she needs to get Humans, and she sure as -hell isn’t a Human herself. This off-tribe-ness is supremely awkward for what is effectively a tribal commander, and as a result I would be surprised if she saw much play in the zone. But seriously she’s so much better than the last one holy crap that card was mid.

 Liesa, Forgotten Archangel

I still don’t know why Liesa is…alive… but here she is again. I wasn’t a huge fan of the first card, and unfortunately the second one doesn’t change that. She takes a classic Orzhov commander in Athreos, removes the fun politics and play angle from it, gets more expensive, gets graveyard hate, and loses indestructible. I imagine some Athreos players will switch over since she guarantees a return, but she’s surprisingly boring for such a potentially interesting character. Liesa was one of the defenders of Innistrad along with her sisters, but one that was willing to actually interact with the darker creatures of her world and try to understand them rather than murdering them on sight. When Avacyn got created, she killed the fuck out of Liesa since that shit’s heresy, apparently, and had her name effectively wiped from the records- that she’s apparently been alive secretly the whole time begs a lot of questions and has a lot of potential flavour that this card does not represent. The card certainly can’t bring itself back from the dead.

 Vadrik, Astral Archmage

I wasn’t sure about this one, but LoadingReadyRun’s recent deck tech video on it did sell me on it a bit. Vadrik obviously invites comparisons to Mizzix, which is a well-known, kill-on-sight Commander at this point- while I don’t think he’s nearly as powerful as she is, he’s a different flavour of interesting and he is a whole mana cheaper. As well, I do like a lot that he grows himself in the process, giving the deck a board presence that Mizzix’s 2/2 stats don’t really contribute to. I’m still not sure how well day/night will play in the format, but with a deck full of instants you can probably get 2 counters per turn cycle without sacrificing your own tempo, which is decent enough.

 Old Stickfingers

I’m not sure where to be on Stickfingers. I love the flavour of this card, just being a scary forest monster that’s just a new but established in-universe part of the world, much like The Gitrog Monster. The card is kind of medium, though, and its text does really confuse me.

Okay, no, turns out I just misread it completely. You know when your brain just fills in the gaps with what it thinks is right? That’s what I did. I thought Stickfingers looked at the top X and just milled the creatures, but it reveals cards until it hits X creatures, which is muuuuuch better. The X cost effectively does act like it does on many a Hydra, but with added value for the graveyard decks it’s sure to lead. That and it can serve as an effective combo commander- just grab Necrotic Ooze and its combo pieces and some Regrowths and you’re good to go. I don’t think the card is going to be particularly interesting for more casual play, but I can at least admit that it’s much better than I’d assumed.

 Rem Karolus, Stalwart Slayer

He doesn’t explicitly say as much, but Rem is secretly a spellslinger commander, and one that gives other red decks a lot of trouble with you. Dealing one point of extra damage is rarely going to be game-changing, but it makes many a spell that little bit more efficient, and that prevention ability is the real deal. It’s never that hard to protect a single creature from damage, and if you find a way to do that with Rem, you’re basically immune to damage-based boardwipes, and in a great position to abuse the fuck out of them yourself. The card doesn’t really solve any of Boros’s shortcomings, but it is at least Doing A Thing, which is more than I can say for a lot of the combination’s commanders.

 Slogurk, the Overslime

Because Simic didn’t have enough of a lion’s share of the colour pie, here’s Simic doing what is really more of a Golgari or Gruul thing. I don’t hate getting to play with land stuff in blue (beyond Tatyova/Aesi style landfall), but this does feel like an overstepping. Besides the meta angle, the card…I dunno. It’s got a lot going on, but maybe I’m just burned out on playing around lands decks at this point. Slogurk bores me. I do kind of like the idea of hitting yourself with a Traumatize and just killing someone with this, though.

 Lynde, Cheerful Tormentor

Our closing act is one that is undeniably extremely cool. Not only is Lynde mechanically interesting, she’s also a new character that is tied to the surprisingly popular “unluckiest planeswalker” guy- I guess it might not have been luck this whole time. Curses are a really interesting build-around idea, and considering there are 29 (30 if you include Accursed Witch) of them in Grixis for Lynde to play with at this point, you do actually get to pick and choose a bit. She does somewhat suffer from being in the colours that basically don’t get to really play around with Enchantment synergy, but between her 3 colours I reckon there’s enough to keep her going- you can run some of Theros’s Constellation things. And she’s just….really cool. Putting the curse on you before you get to move it off to someone else feel so playful, the two cards a cackling compensation from this cruel master of cursecraft.

 And that’s the lot of them. Unfortunately, much of the Legendary offerings from Innistrad: Midnight Hunt are seriously mediocre. Many of the cards feel more fit for the deck itself than the commanding seat, and a fair few of them don’t even have much going on for that. There are a few real highlights- perhaps me being so into Lynde, Eloise and Gisa says something but I’m refusing to analyse that- but there’s just so many misses that I can’t help but feel underwhelmed. I think it’s somewhat telling of modern Magic design that there are more commanders in this release than were in the previous two Innistrad blocks combined, and yet despite predating the era when legendary creatures were designed for Commander, most of those cards will be better remembered for the format than this new batch.

[morwensteelsheen]

I’m starting grad school this autumn and honestly I’m getting nervous. Like yes I am v excited about the whole prospect overall and I do miss being a student but am intimidated by 3 hr long seminars and thesis writing and massive amounts of reading… everyone keeps saying it’s gonna be very different from undergrad so okay, but how specifically? Is it the large amounts of reading? I already had insane amounts of reading (humanities degree hurrah) especially in my last two years but could you expound on your own experience and how you take notes/read quickly/summarize or just how to deal with first time grad students?

Oh, yeah for sure! A necessary disclaimer here is that I'm at a certain poncy English institution that is noted for being very bad at communicating with its students and very bad at treating its postgrad students like human beings, so a lot of these strategies I've picked up will be overkill for anyone who has the good sense to go somewhere not profoundly evil lol.

So I'll just preface this by saying that I am a very poor student in terms of doing what you're supposed to. I'm very bad at taking notes, I never learned how to do it properly, and I really, really struggle with reading dense literature. That said, I'm probably (hopefully?) going to get through this dumb degree just fine. Also — my programme is a research MPhil, not taught, so it's a teensy bit more airy-fairy in terms of structure. I had two classes in Michaelmas term, both were once a week for two hours each; two in Lent, one was two hours weekly, the other two hours biweekly; and no classes at all in Easter. I also have no exam component, I was/am assessed entirely on three essays (accounting for 30% of my overall mark) and my dissertation (the remaining 70%), which is, I think, a little different to how some other programmes are. I think even some of the other MPhils here are more strenuous than that, like Econ and Soc Hist is like 100% dissertation? Anyways, not super important, but knowing what you're getting marked on is important. I dedicated considerably less time than I did in undergrad to perfecting my coursework essays because they just don't hold as much weight now. The difference between a 68 and a 70 just wasn't worth the fuss for me, which helped keep me sane-ish.

The best advice anyone ever gave me was that, whereas an undergrad degree can kind of take over your life without it becoming a problem, you need to treat grad school like a job. That's not because it's more 'serious' or whatever, but because if you don't set a really strict schedule and keep to it, you'll burn yourself out and generally make your life miserable. Before I went back on my ADD meds at the end of Michaelmas term, I sat myself down at my desk and worked from 11sh to 1800ish every day. Now that I'm medicated, I do like 9:30-10ish to 1800-1900 (except for now that I'm crunching on my diss, where, because of my piss-poor time management skills I'm stuck doing, like, 9:30-22:30-23:00). If you do M-F 9-5, you'll be getting through an enormous amount of work and leaving yourself loads of time to still be a human being on the edges. That'll be the difference between becoming a postgrad zombie and a person who did postgrad. I am a postgrad zombie. You do not want to be like me.

The 'work' element of your days can really vary. It's not like I was actually consistently reading for all that time — my brain would have literally melted right out of my ears — but it was about setting the routine and the expectation of dedicating a certain, consistent and routinized period of time for focusing on the degree work every day. My attention span, even when I'm medicated, is garbage, so I would usually read for two or three hours, then either work on the more practical elements of essay planning, answer emails, or plot out the early stages of my research.

In the first term/semester/whatever, lots of people who are planning on going right into a PhD take the time to set up their applications and proposals. I fully intended on doing a PhD right after the MPhil, but the funding as an international student trying to deal with the pandemic proved super problematic, and I realised that the toll it was taking on my mental health was just so not worth it, so I've chosen to postpone a few years. You'll feel a big ol' amount of pressure to go into a PhD during your first time. Unless you're super committed to doing it, just try and tune it out as much as you can. There's absolutely nothing wrong with taking a year (or two, or three, or ten) out, especially given the insane conditions we're all operating under right now.

I'll be honest with you, I was a phenomenally lazy undergrad. It was only by the grace of god and being a hard-headed Marxist that I managed to pull out a first at the eleventh hour. So the difference between UG and PG has been quite stark for me. I've actually had to do the reading this year, not just because they're more specialised and relevant to my research or whatever, but because, unlike in UG, the people in the programme are here because they're genuinely interested (and not because it's an economic necessity) and they don't want to waste their time listening to people who haven't done the reading.

I am also a really bad reader. Maybe it's partially the ADD + dyslexia, but mostly it's because I just haven't practiced it and never put in the requisite effort to learn how to do it properly. My two big pointers here are learning how to skim, and learning how to prioritise your reading.

This OpenU primer on skimming is a bit condescending in its simplicity, but it gets the point across well. You're going to want to skim oh, say, 90% of the reading you're assigned. This is not me encouraging you to be lazy, it's me being honest. Not every word of every published article or book is worth reading. The vast majority of them aren't. That doesn't mean the things that those texts are arguing for aren't worth reading, it just means that every stupid rhetorical flourish included by bored academics hoping for job security and/or funding and/or awards isn't worth your precious and scarce time. Make sure you get the main thrust of each text, make sure you pull out and note down one or two case studies and move right the hell on. There will be some authors whose writing will be excellent, and who you will want to read all of. Everything else gets skimmed.

Prioritisation is the other big thing. You're going to have shitty weeks, you're probably going to have lots of them. First off, you're going to need to forgive yourself for those now — everybody has them, yes, even the people who graduated with distinctions and go on to get lovely £100,000 AHRC scholarships. Acknowledge that there will be horrible weeks, accept it now, and then strategise for how to get ahead of them. My personal strategy is to plan out what I'm trying to get out of each course I take, and then focus only on the readings that relate to that topic.

I took a course in Lent term that dealt with race and empire in Britain between 1607 and 1900; I'm a researcher of the Scottish far left from 1968-present, so the overlap wasn't significant. But I decided from the very first day of the course that I was there to get a better grasp about the racial theories of capitalism and the role of racial othering in Britain's subjugation of Ireland. Those things are helpful to me because white supremacist capitalism comes up hourly in my work on the far left, and because the relationship of the Scottish far left to Ireland is extremely important to its self definition. On weeks when I couldn't handle anything else, I just read the texts related to that. And it was fine, I did fine, I got my stupid 2:1 on the final essay, and I came out of it not too burnt out to work on my dissertation.

Here is where I encourage you to learn from my mistakes: get yourself a decent group of people who you can have in depth conversations about the material with. I was an asshole who decided I didn't need to do that with any posh C*mbr*dge twats, and I have now condemned myself to babbling incomprehensible nonsense at my partner because I don't have anyone on my course to work through my ideas with. These degrees are best experienced when they're experienced socially. In recent years (accelerated by the pandemic, ofc), universities have de-emphasised the social component of postgrad work, largely to do with stupid, long-winded stuff related to postgrad union organising etc. It's a real shame because postgrads end up feeling quite socially isolated, and because they're not having these fun and challenging conversations, their work actually suffers in the long term. This is, and I cannot stress this enough, the biggest departure from undergrad. Even the 'weak links' or whatever judgemental nonsense are there because they want to be. That is going to be your biggest asset. Talk, talk, talk. Listen, listen, listen. Offer to proofread people's papers so you get a sense of how people are thinking about things, what sort of style they're writing in, what sources they're referring to. Be a sponge and a copycat (but don't get done for plagiarism, copy like this.) Also: ask questions that seem dumb. For each of your classes, ask your tutors/lecturers who they think the most important names in their discipline are. It sounds silly, but it's really helpful to know the intellectual landscape you're dealing with, and it means you know whose work you can go running to if you get lost or tangled up during essay or dissertation writing!

You should also be really honest about everything — another piece of advice that I didn't follow and am now suffering for. The people on your courses and in your cohort are there for the same reasons as you, have more or less the same qualifications as you, and are probably going to have a lot of the same questions and insecurities as you. If you hear an unfamiliar term being used in a seminar, just speak up and ask about it, because there're going to be loads of other people wondering too. But you should also cultivate quite a transparent relationship with your supervisor. I was really cagey and guarded with mine because my hella imposter syndrome told me she was gonna throw my ass out of the programme if I admitted to my problems. Turns out no, she wouldn't, and that actually she's been a super good advocate for me. If you feel your motivation slipping or if you feel like you're facing challenges you could do with a little extra support on, go right to your supervisor. Not only is that what they're there to do, they've also done this exact experience before and are going to be way more sympathetic and aware of the realities of it than, say, the uni counselling service or whatever.

Yeah so I gotta circle back to the notes thing... I really do not take notes. It's my worst habit. Here's an example of the notes I took for my most recent meeting with my supervisor (revising a chapter draft).

No sane person would ever look at these and think this is a system worth replicating lol. But the reason they work for me is because I also record (with permission) absolutely everything. My mobile is like 90% audio recordings of meetings and seminars lol. So these notes aren't 'good' notes, but they're effective for recalling major points in the audio recording so I can listen to what was said when I need to.

Sorry none of this is remotely organised because it's like 2330 here and my brain is so soft and mushy. I'm literally just writing things as I remember them.

Right, so: theory is a big thing. Lots of people cheap out on this and it's to their own detriment. You say you're doing humanities, and tbh, most of the theory involved on the humanities side of the bridge is interdisciplinary anyways, so I'm just gonna give you some recommendations. The big thing is to read these things and try to apply them to what you're writing about. This sounds so fucking condescending but getting, like, one or two good theoretical frameworks in your papers will actually put you leaps and bounds beyond the students around you and really improve your research when the time comes. Also: don't read any of these recommendations without first watching, like an intro youtube video or listening to a podcast. The purists will tell you that's the wrong way to do it, but I am a lazy person and lazy people always find the efficient ways to do things, so I will tell the purists to go right to hell.

Check out these impenetrable motherfuckers (just one or two will take your work from great to excellent, so don't feel obliged to dig into them all):

Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels (I'm not just pushing my politics, but also, I totally am) — don't fucking read Capital unless you're committed to it. Oh my god don't put yourself through that unless you really have to. Try, like, the 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon for the fun quotes, and Engels on the family.

Frantz Fanon — Wretched of the Earth. Black Skin White Masks also good, slightly more impossible to read

Benedict Anderson — Imagined Communities. It's about nationalism, but you will be surprised at how applicable it is to... so many other topics

Judith Butler — she really sucks to read. I love her. But she sucks to read. If you do manage to read her though, your profs will love you because like 90% of the people who say they've read her are lying

Bourdieu — Distinction is good for a lot of things, but especially for introducing the idea of social and cultural capital. There's basically no humanities sub-discipline that can't run for miles on that alone.

Crenshaw — the genesis of intersectionality. But, like, actually read her, not the ingrates who came after her and defanged intersectionality into, like, rainbow bombs dropped over Gaza.

The other thing is that you should read for fun. My programme director was absolutely insistent that we all continue to read for pleasure while we did this degree, not just because it's good for destressing, but because keeping your cultural horizons open actually makes your writing better and more interesting. I literally read LOTR for the first time in, like February, and the difference in my writing and thinking from before and after is tangible, because not only did it give me something fun to think about when I was getting stressy, but it also opened up lots of fun avenues for thought that weren't there before. I read LOTR and wanted to find out more about English Catholics in WWI, and lo and behold something I read about it totally changed how I did my dissertation work. Or, like, a girl on my course who read the Odyssey over Christmas Break and then started asking loads of questions about the role of narrative creation in the archival material she was using. It was seriously such a good edict from our director.

Also, oh my god, if you do nothing else, please take this bit seriously: forgive yourself for the bad days. The pressure in postgrad is fucking unreal. Nobody, nobody is operating at 100% 100% of the time. If you aim for 60% for 80% of the time and only actually achieve 40% for 60% of the time, you will still be doing really fucking well. Don't beat yourself up unnecessarily. Don't make yourself feel bad because you're not churning out publishable material every single day. Some days you just need to lie on the couch, order takeout, and watch 12 hours of Jeopardy or whatever, and I promise you that that is a good and worthwhile thing to do. You don't learn and grow without rest, so forgive yourself for the moments and days of unplanned rest, and forgive yourself for when you don't score as highly as you want to, and forgive yourself when you say stupid things in class or don't do all of (or any of) the class reading.

Uhhhh I think I'm starting to lose the plot a bit now. Honestly, just ping me whatever questions you have and I'm happy to answer them. There's a chance I'll be slower to respond over the next few days because my dissertation is due in a week (holy fuck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) but I will definitely respond. And honestly, no question is too dumb lol. I wish I'd been able to ask someone about things like what citation management software is best or how to set up a desk for maximum efficiency or whatever, but I was a scaredy-cat about it and didn't. So yeah, ask away and I will totally answer.

[cassyapper]

ohhh so i started playing yakuza kiwami (1) and boy

so i finished the first chapter and a liiil of chapter 2 for context and these are my mainline thoughts rn, they might be kinda messy

once again kiryu is pulling out his self-sacrificial specials and he ends up in PRISON FOR IT im so done with this man (i want to hold his hand and k*ss him)

nishiki is making me very very concerned. why is he acting like that. sera saved his kazama’s and kiryu’s ASSES in yakuza 0 and this mf calls an entire meeting just to twitter callout him??? listen i know it’s concerning sera seemingly lost TEN BILLION YEN but holy shit he’s been running this joint for over ten years now i would trust him to have some sort of plan or assume he just moved it from the original savings account jesus CHRIST nishiki 😭 also seriously he’s in kahoots with omi alliance too? don’t trust that. don’t like that. also his slick-backed hair style after the ten years is so BAD 😭

hm but i am concerned on why sera supposedly called that hit on kiryu in prison...why did he do that (if he did that idk if i trust the inmate who said it was sera)

anyway still speaking of nishiki he did not cope well with the thought that he might be useless at all huh. which i get, dont get me wrong, i completely understand why he’d be upset and why it would dig under his skin but holy shit he really just destructed the fuck out of himself. reina didnt deserve that

alas though i dont blame nishiki for killing dojima tho i wouldve killed him too. and i cant even blame him for kiryu’s self-sacrificial bullshit either cause nishiki was in shock over a) killing someone for the first time b) that someone being his fucking BOSS

speaking of reina that small lil implication that she had a crush on nishiki before everything went down kinda hrut. nishiki u stupid fucking idiot

ALSO yumi was cute but within like a minute of her screentime i was lke “haha yeah she’s gonna die” and well she’s not DEAD...but she is missing so :/ kiryu’s crush on her was/is so cute though i really hope she’s okay,,the ring ): i wonder if maybe that’ll help spark her memories of the night if she gets it again

majima u insane man he has it BAD bad for kiryu yall were not joking. mf really took flirting lessons from NISHITANI 😭😭😭 also i could not beat him when u fight him for the first time after getting out of prison like holy shit. and i assume that’s normal considering the dialogue/gameplay explanation afterward but jesus christ he is so SLIPPERY he is an eel

also i remember shinji from one of 0′s sidequests!!! what a fun little guy. i hope he’s okay he really looked up to kiryu i hope nothing bad happened to him in the past ten years ):

also one last thing idk anything about haruka other than she calls kiryu “uncle kaz” and kiryu adopts her (emotionally if not legally) so i am thinking she’s either nishiki’s kid or yumi’s but i have no idea how she ends up in his care or why nd i cant rlly think of a situation that would prompt it either. but i am excited 2 meet her

anyway sorry for this ramble post i am just thinking. this is gonna be a bonebreaker i think

[watch-grok-brainrot]

OMG @mika--82 and @needtherapy tagged me in this. XD I’m so happy. 

Top 3 Ships: (wangxian in modern AU, wangxian in canon, wangxian in some other AU) Ok, we all know i’m here for wangxian. it’s in my freaking account name... so, wangxian ASIDE…   

1.SongXiao: Yeah. I love them so much. That moment in CQL when XXC smiled and said Zichen, I was sold. And I was head over heels for them. I love them so much. I want them to be reincarnated and just happy forever. Adopt A-qing. Live a happy life. Xue Yang can suffer the lack of candy forever. 

2.XiYao: Here’s the thing. This is a painful ship. More painful than SongXiao because there isn’t really love there. There is so much betrayal and hurt. But I love the what ifs. Because if you watch CQL, LXC was so gentle and soft with MY at the beginning. That first moment of contact they were both smitten, IMO. And I can’t give up on that potential. I want it to work and I want them happy. So I love the IDEA of a GOOD HEALTHY XiYao. Where LXC can help Meng Yao’s insecurities and Meng Yao learns to like himself and be honest. It would be so sweet. I think it’s a great dynamic to explore in canonverse too. Painful but great. 

3. JinLing/Lan Jingyi:  This is the fluffy happy ship of mine. They bicker. They argue. LSZ is their match maker. They care about each other. LJY is a cat. JL is a pupper. I dunno, i’m just soft for this ship. I think Lan Jingyi is fairly sure of who he is and it makes him stable. But he’s also so sweet and fun and kind and funny and snarky. I stan LJY, ok?  And Jin Ling needs that in his life. 

Last Song: I am OBSESSED with Mao Buyi’s 水乡 right now.  The imagery is just stunning. And it makes me think of the prettiest places in China I’ve been to. So soft and sweet. It does the classic chinese poetry thing of painting a picture and then interweaves feelings into a picture. And the picture painted is a quaint chinese town with… oh. Let me just pull up some lyrics and translate it. Because I can’t really explain the feelings until i start translate it. This is a ROUGH TRANSLATION. Oh god. But it gives you the idea…

水绿天蓝蓝 白鹭一行路辗转

Green water and blue skies, i see a row of egrets as i pass through on the road

飞过芦苇滩 停在相思畔

They fly over the reedy shoal, and stop on the banks of missing you

听船歌声声慢

Listen to the song emanating slowly from the boats

长忆相见欢 多少柔情落江南

Strong memories of happiness when we meet, so many soft feelings settle over Jiangnan 

一曲唱不完 此去几时还

A song cannot encompass them all. After leaving, when will we return?

It hurts so good! I am OBSESSED. And his song 胡同does the same thing but with the aesthetics of old beijing and i’m just melting all over due to feels. So so so good. I love Mao Buyi. Also, his song 消愁 is such a wwx mood. I can’t even begin! 

Last Movie: Fatal Journey. Hahahaha. I don’t watch many movies. 

Current Reading: Uh.. Wow. I am the most ADHD reader. Tea: A Nerd’s Eye View by Viginia Uttermohlen Lovelace (got it at a tea festival, ok? I think i’m one of the top 5 most tea obsessed people I know); The Opposite of Loneliness by Marina Keegan (uh… it’s been on my list?); The Hidden Girl by Ken Liu (I’m 2 pages in but i’m in the middle of it and KEN LIU IS AMAZING. His Paper Menagerie short story collection made me hurt so much and i couldn’t put it down as tears ran down my face); Oolong (a tea book in chinese that i’ve been SLOWLY hauling my way through); TGCF (because yeah); Persuasion by Jane Austen (Because @baoshan-sanren proposed an AU and i decided i wanted to write it but I haven’t read much jane austen, so i’m listening to it on audiobook… I’m not a Jane Austen fan… sorry just so aggravatingly misogynistic in so many ways. >.< when i tried to read pride in prejudice a decade ago i got so angry i literally threw the book across the room). I think that’s it. I don’t know. I have so many books that i’m like 10% into… like 3 body problem… but it has been on hiatus for 4 years… so i don’t count it.

Food I’m Craving: I’m actually not craving anything. I love good food. But i also love to cook… so I’ve been dealing with my cravings by cooking many of them. I made a chinese style flatbread thing filled with pork over the weekend. It was SO GOOD. I took photos and spammed people with it. hahahaha. maybe i’m just craving dinner... whatever that’ll be. 

People I’d Like To Get To Know Better: Oh man. YOU! Dear reader! If you’ve gotten this far, I think i wanna know YOU! SO please @ me in your post!  I’m so socially awkward. Uh.. who do I talk to that I haven’t seen do this? (and if you have, so sorry!) Uh… @merinnan @somanyjacks-writes @phoenixrisesoncemore @seaweedredandbrown @bi-the-wei @mylastbraincql

[dungeondicedivaarchieve]

🍋 - Does your muse complain about things to you? If so, what? 🥔 - What’s the dumbest mistake you’ve made in rp?

1. These two don’t very often. Otogi might pipe up about all the shit I put him through on occasion but Aigami’s very quiet (probably because I haven’t thought of ways to put him through as much shit yet.

2. It took me a while to answer this because I needed to be in the right headspace to type this out. I’m gonna stick it under a readmore because it’s loaded with negativity. 

I feel like this question is actually referring to something silly like “I accidentally wrote the name of my character’s ex-boyfriend when answering an ask from her current boyfriend and made a really cute love declaration make it look like she was really hung up on her ex,” but I’m gonna go a little deeper. (That did happen though. In my defense, both characters’ names started with S. PS, if your rp partner makes a mistake like that and tells you that’s not the way they meant, let them change it, or take it the way it was intended. Don’t make them rp out the scene with the mistake included. That’s just really freaking mean.)

Now for the going deeper: 

My biggest mistake in rp is actually pretty recent, and it’s the reason for my three-ish month hiatus from this blog and Tumblr in general. 

It was getting involved with the Fire Emblem: Three Houses fandom. 

Now, I love Fire Emblem. It’s been my favorite video game series since Fire Emblem: Blazing Blade came out in the US in 2003. This has nothing to do with the game itself. It’s a great game. I wish I could still enjoy it.

But there are members of that fandom who are so incredibly toxic that I can no longer play the game or even discuss the game without feeling physically ill. Sadly, this is pretty common, because a lot of my friends know I’ve been known to breathe Fire Emblem and want to talk about it with me. I don’t feel like I can tell them what happened because it’s a pretty big damn can of worms. 

I feel so stupid that I let the emotional abuse I got from certain people in that fandom go on for as long as I did. I guess I was blind because I love the series so much. Well, that, and, like all good abusers, when I would catch on and ask if they wanted me to leave them alone, they would say that any negative transgressions I was feeling were in my head. No, we don’t dislike you, we want everyone to feel welcomed and have fun.

Well, that gets harder to believe when more and more people start treating you like hot garbage because the people I managed to make enemies out of were very influential. One of their friends started rping a character I played (I’m not going to name names because that might make it easier for people reading this to find out who these people are), and despite my rules saying I don’t rp with dupes because of a bad experience, they continued to interact with me on the dupe blog, saying it was all crack and it’s just for fun.

I got numerous messages from people telling me that (x) character was a copy of my version of that character made to make me feel inferior and make me abandon the character altogether. I don’t know if that was an assumption or something this mun said aloud, though based on the number of people who told me about it, I’m assuming it was the latter. 

When that didn’t make me leave, they got ahold of another friend who I was involved in a ship with. The influential mun’s character and my ship-partner’s character cheated on my character explicitly in our verse. I think I’ve said before on this blog that cheating on a muse without discussing it with the mun first is one of the worst things you can do? Well, everyone probably already knows that, unless you’re trying to make someone feel so bad that they abandon a blog. 

Surprise, surprise, each time I tried to talk to ship-mun about it, they would ignore me. They would talk to me about other things, but any message I sent about wanting to plot out how our characters could either resolve this or if they should break up was missed. Yeah, that’ll be believable maybe two times. After that, it’s blatantly dodging and you’re being a douche. 

During this time, while I was still trying to get some closure for that muse, I was on a different 3 Houses account and sent a message to another one of the influencer’s friends. They started griping about how certain muns use their muses to start shit, like the person who writes (my cheated on muse.) I hope they felt like a real fucking idiot when I sent a message saying “Well, actually, that muse is also run by me, and nothing you’re saying ever happened.”

I realized very quickly after that this particular mun wanted to run me off the site because they wanted to ship with the muse cheated on muse was in a ship with. Because multi-verse isn’t a commonly accepted thing I guess. 

About a week ago, I logged onto that account just to prove to myself that I could without throwing up, and those two are together now. Even though I told ship-mun how horrible they were and how they were spreading false rumors to make me look like a horrid person. 

Congrats, you two deserve each other. 

I know it’s on me for letting it go on as long as it did. I know it’s on me for not realizing what was going on for months. I know it’s on me for making excuses for their behavior and continuing to go on because I wanted to stay in the fandom and have fun, because the world was pretty much shut down and there wasn’t much to do to escape the world ending besides try to lose yourself in the internet, but what they did was absolutely the scummiest stuff I’ve seen in my seventeen years of rping. 

PS, I lost 23 pounds over the last two months of being involved in that fandom because I was constantly making myself sick trying to fix whatever I had done wrong that made them treat me this way. 

When I finally gave up I completely shut down, and that’s why I wasn’t here for a few months. 

I left everything as vague as possible so that no one is called out, but if, by some miracle, the people involved see this and figure out I’m talking about them:

Fuck you. Fuck you for ruining my favorite video game series. Fuck you for hurting so many people. I know two other muns who said they can’t enjoy Fire Emblem anymore either because of the shit you pulled. Fuck you for being so entitled you think you have the right to destroy someone’s reputation and chase them away from something they love because you don’t like something about them. Fuck you for being so manipulative that you can turn friends against one another. Fuck you for manipulating people with Autism (not me, another person they were shit to.) 

Fuck you. Fuck you and the people that enable you. 

Go to hell. 

[not-poignant]

As series go on, they always tend to get a fewer amount of readers, with the rare exceptions of like,, game of thrones and stuff. Like you said, tip requires a LOT of background reading. You’re on entirely new characters than where you started and for a lot of people looking to get into the series by seeing TIP (which is what they will see, because that’s what you’re updating) the sheer amount of work they’ll have to read through to then get to TIP will be overwhelming, especially because (1/2)

they’ll see there’s an entire change in main characters and think ‘that’s too much’, and even more so because Game Theory has a very very different tone to TIP. I’m sure these are things you already know but this is just my take on it - this decreases in interaction is (heartbreakingly) natural, and if it’s not sustainable for you then it’s not sustainable, and the fans that ARE here and have read everything will be upset, but you have to do what’s best for you. Stay strong, Pia 💕      

           It’s a lot of effort and a relatively daunting task I know, but if you really want to increase the Fae Tales readers then maybe you could promo it? Make a photo advertising either Game Theory or TIP, send it to writing accounts asking them to share it, maybe even pay promo it on Instagram etc etc. People will tend to jump on an adult dark fantasy series because there just aren’t enough of them, especially one with such amazing representation. Just some ideas (:                 

Another idea (I’m so sorry if I’m overstepping my hounds here by the way, I’d just really love to help): a lot of people that read your work really, really care about it. If you ask, they will promo for you - posting on their own various accounts about Fae Tales etc Because a good portion of your users want to see this series survive because they love FT and have invested so much into it emotionally. I know a lot of people think it’s tacky to ask fans for support, but u gotta do what u gotta do            

*

I mean yes, I literally said this myself in my post about it:

(and tbh, The Ice Plague requiring so much early reading re: GT and COFT means it’s almost completely inaccessible to new readers anyway)

So I am aware. That being said, the drop in engagement is across all of my fics, including things like The Spoils of the Spoiled which requires literally zero background reading to leap straight into, and even Eversion (it may be my highest performer right now, but engagement is still dropping). It’s also been across oneshots / smaller offerings too etc.

Like, trust me, if it was only The Ice Plague, it’d be understandable. It’s been my lowest performing serial that I’ve ever written and that’s been true from the beginning. Some people have made it clear to me that they’re not really rooting for Mosk and Eran, and they miss Gwyn and Augus, and so even though Eran and Mosk have fans, it’s like...I know where I’m at. It’s also a place I’ve been before, when I left RotG to write Augus/Gwyn in the first place. A lot of those people vanished/disappeared ages ago, when I started TIP, or even before, since it took me so long to start writing it after finishing COFT.

But it’s not only The Ice Plague. I am considering this across multiple points, believe me, and when I say engagement is dropping, I don’t just mean ‘engagement is dropping on the one thing that is actually really hard for a lot of people to read.’

Unfortunately Game Theory is too dark to promo on many sites, because most of its content is against the TOS of many sites. While I’m sure lots of people ‘get away’ with doing that anyway, I’ve never been one to knowingly flaunt TOS, and Game Theory literally starts with ‘rape as titillation’ and doesn’t get much better from there.

Re: the last part, I just don’t think you can reasonably say ‘a good portion of your users want to see this series survive.’ Imho, I don’t think that’s true. I think there is a proportion of readers who enjoy the series and do want it to survive but I don’t think it’s the majority, who probably just read it and move onto the next thing, and I think the engaged people are already doing the best that they can. Those are the people who are commenting, sending asks, already engaging etc. For the people who literally can’t muster the energy to engage more, they’re not in a position to promo. (To say nothing of the fact that promotion on Tumblr right now, given Tumblr has lost at least 30% of its userbase, is kind of a wash.)

On top of that, people who do think it’s worth reading do encourage others to read it, but as I’ve heard time and time again over the years, the story goes a lot like this: ‘I would love to rec this but unfortunately it’s just too dark for a lot of the people I know / but I’ve asked several of my friends to read it!’ which is the most generous thing, but also is realistic.

It IS too dark for a lot of people to read, and one of the luxuries of the anonymity of Tumblr (and one of the reasons I’m not on Facebook or even Twitter with this stuff) is precisely because a lot of people don’t want to associate their ‘real’ work or family identities with Fae Tales and the content I write specifically. I’m really sensitive to that, I’m the first to say that FT is hard to rec. As a result of that, very few people actually post broad-scale recommendations. It’s completely understandable. It’s not like I’m marketing a regular romance here. (Which would be easy to do, but is not what I want to write, lol).

Even with all of that in mind, it still doesn’t explain the sudden 8 month downswing. Nor, even, does me writing The Ice Plague, since I’ve been writing that for a decent amount of time, enough to see an upward swing in the first year and a decent plateau of engagement during the first Ice Plague installment.

Like, a lot of your suggestions seem to imply that it should be the readers who should work harder, or that there’s this huge invisible userbase who want FT to survive and could do more, and I just...don’t think that’s true. I generally know the people invested in FT pretty well, as usernames on Tumblr, as commenters, as people who have diligently left kudos on nearly everything I’ve written over the years. I wouldn’t say that a single one of them hasn’t done their best to love the writing and show their appreciation for it.

And then outside of that, the vast bulk of the readers, objectively, will be people who aren’t that invested, and aren’t here on Tumblr, will never see this post (or any preceding it), and just leave a like (if I’m lucky) and move on. Which is normal.

It may be that things plateau. It may be that antis have really changed the way people are reading now. It may be that things continue on this downswing for years. It may be that things look up (though I expect after being honest about it, there will be a bump in activity for about a week or two before it crashes again). I’m not making any firm decisions now, but over the past 8 months I have looked at (and brainstormed) a ton of different options and even actioned some of them. I’ve also done a lot of pros/cons lists for different writing patterns (i.e. do I go book only, do I stay hybrid, do I keep going like this for another year, do I add in art, do I write less / more etc.)

It is possible that new projects may bring some new energy, but I’m in two minds about whether that’s true. And I certainly can’t privilege writing fanfiction over original fiction anyway (because...income). I’m just going to wait and see for a while. I really appreciate the thoughts/suggestions, and I wish I could say I think that’ll be the thing that makes the difference, but I see people reccing my stuff on Twitter - and they have been over the past few months. I see it happening on Tumblr sometimes. People do try their absolute hardest because they care about the writing. This isn’t on them.

There’s something else going on, something systemic that’s external, and something about my writing, regardless of the project, and that’s just...how I see it.

[grumpygreenwitch]

The Fairy and the Prince #11 + #12 + #13 + #14 + #15 + #16

Part 1 - Part 2 - Parts 3 & 4 - Part 5 - Part 6, 7 & 8 - Part 9 & 10 - Part 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 & 16 - Part 17, 18, & 19 - Part 20, 21 & 22 - Part 23, 24, 25 & 26 - Part 27, 28, 29 & 30 - Part 31, 32, 33 & 34 - Part 35, 36 & 37 - Part 38, 39, 40 & 41 - Part 42 & 43 - Part 44 & 45 - Part 46 & 47 - Part 48, 49, 50 & 51 - Part, 52, 53 & 54 - Part 55 & 56 - Part 57, 58, 59 & 60 - Part 61, 62, 63, 64 & 65 - Part 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71 & 72

This is a far larger update than usual, not out of author’s generosity (I’m a horrible goblin and I have a reputation to uphold!) but because as I was doing the speed-editing two of the chapters ended up as four.

It was a close thing. Adam hardly had time to strip off his filthy clothing and put on a robe before Leminy began pounding on the door. Beli rubbed his face and hair with a damp cloth, but at least that only helped make it look like he was sleep-tousled, and the fact that Dane stumbled out behind him looking barely awake helped as well. They lined up like obedient soldiers before the Master of Scions and four unsmiling guards. Leminy could, of course, ask where Arditty was, but Culli was the lady's to command, and she could only admit that she'd been commanded to stay with the boys.

Leminy couldn't even be displeased that Adam was where he was supposed to be, though the young prince got himself a blistering earful about eschewing his studies for the sake of a nap, of all things. He did his best to look properly chastised. But in the end, Lemony-Leminy actually looked relieved. None of his charges were missing, a victory he counted well won when he'd already begun to realize his job might not end up with the choosing of a king, but with far too many funerals.

Culli said nothing. Adam tried to speak to her, but she merely lifted up a hand, her basket of mending tucked under an arm. "Do you know what you're doing, highness?"

"I know Linden's my friend," Adam admitted slowly. "And I know I'm never going to be king, Culli. There's too many others here that'll beat me to it, even if I wanted to be."

She caught his chin and gave him a deep, unreadable look. "'Never' is a very dangerous word, highness. Don't use it unless you mean it, unless you know for sure all that 'never' is and can be and will be. Particularly not with them involved."

"Linden's not like them."

"Maybe so. I don't know, I can't tell. I know you wouldn't call just anyone a friend, so I'm willing to believe, a little. But you can't blame me for telling you to be so, so careful."

"I am. I will be. Thank you, Culli."

She smiled wryly, shook her head at him, and left. Arditty was found playing ball-toss with her friends in an inner courtyard, and of course they all accounted for one another, so nothing came of that, either. The source of the screaming in the woods was not found.

***

It took three days until Boul found Adam.

Disheartened at Linden's absence from the woods, Adam spent his time trying his best to apply himself to the things he ought to be learning. It was no secret that the youngest prince had no ambition for the crown, and none of the others considered him competition so much as they thought of him as a convenient weathervane: as long as Adam were there, they knew they still had a fighting chance for the crown. He was left out of the dueling, the poisonings, and the general and vicious backstabbing that was beginning to escalate under the Queen Dowager's watchful and ruthless eye.

Prince Ather went into the woods at sunset on the second day, and he didn't come back.

Adam was helping Culli spin wool when the maid dropped her spindle. He snatched it out of midair instinctively, broken out of his dour haze by the unlikeliest of mishaps, and looked up at her from where he sat, bare feet kicking idly into a stone-lined pond while she sat on a graceful bench next to the water.

"Highness, your friends are here," she managed to inform him, her voice a little croaky.

Adam whipped around. Boul was hiding behind the plinth of a statue, a dancing lady wrapped in veils of gossamer granite.

"Boul!" he cried out gladly, rushing over. He slammed himself chest-first into the young troll, what he'd been taught was a proper troll greeting, and staggered back. "Boul, what are you wearing?" he asked after a moment, caught by surprise.

Boul rumbled. He didn't have the finesse of Linden, and he didn't belong, as Adam did. Knowing he was unlikely to make it far into the palace grounds without being discovered, he'd managed to wrangle himself into a pair of pants that barely fit his legs in width, but which he'd had to roll up nearly to the knee so he wouldn't trip on them. He'd snagged from somewhere a coat that dragged behind him but hardly covered his arms to just above the elbow, and he'd found a muddy, forgotten scarf that he'd bundled up around his face and head. "No good at hiding," he admitted at last, as usual the soft croak of his voice a startling contrast to the rough look of him. Then he looked up, and shrank warily behind the statue.

Adam turned. Culli clapped her hands to her mouth, her eyes going very wide.

"It's fine, Boul. This is Culli-maid, she's good. Culli, this is Boul. It's short for Boulders."

"F'r brains," Boul completed, rapping lightly on his skull with his knuckles and provoking a stone-on-stone sound.

Culli pressed her lips closed very, very tightly, because despite her shock and fear some part of her wanted to laugh at the name. And it was a startlingly large part. "How do you do," she greeted, curtsying.

Boul went very red behind his scarf, and retreated even further behind the plinth, and Culli found herself perhaps a little charmed.

"Boul, what's wrong? Is Linden in trouble?"

Boul shook his head and stretched out a long arm to point at the water mill in the Royal Gardens.

Adam looked that way, frowning. If that was all, why hadn't Linden come? Boul, however, spoke as slowly as water grinds stone down, and he still had his baby habit of falling asleep mid-sentence. That, again, was nothing against the troll; he was a troll, and that was his nature. But it did make it hard to get an abundance of news out of him. The prince turned, his steps growing hurried.

"Highness, your shoes!" Culli cried.

"It's fine, I won't need them!" Adam turned to look at her, running backwards briefly for a moment before turning and sprinting at full speed. Boul ran with him, but quickly fell behind, hampered by the clothing. Adam waited for him under the cover of the Garden hedge, and then helped him get out of every garment. "This was very clever, Boul."

"Itchy," the troll admitted, but he'd puffed up with pride. He carefully took the coat from Adam and set it aside. "Giving it back," he explained.

"Oh," Adam felt a little sheepish. "I didn't even think of that. You put me to shame sometimes, Boul." He bumped a fist to the young troll's shoulder, who rumbled low and bumped him back, very carefully. It still staggered the prince a step.

They ran through the gardens, where it was far easier to avoid being seen and heard, going around bushes and trees and statues, until they reached the shady corner where the water mill stood. It was actually a fully working mill, but it had been locked until such a time as a miller for it could be found. The wheel still moved outside, and there were benches and flowers all around it. The door was meant to be barred so wild animals could not come in from the woods, but the window shutters were easy enough to pry open. Inside, the floor was covered in wood shavings and it still smelled as if the whole thing had been newly finished the day before. Sunlight arrowed in through the gaps, both decorative and accidental, in the shutters.

"Linden?" Adam called out into the dappled dark, scrabbling not to fall as he climbed down from the window.

"Adam!" Linden crashed into him in a glad hug. "Where's Boul?"

"Outside. Help me unbar the door for him, he won't make the window." They moved to do just that, and Adam jerked in surprise when a third pair of hands joined them, but he didn't have the breath to spare for questions at the moment. With the door unbarred the young troll scuttled in... and immediately as far away from the newcomer as the airy space allowed.

"Maybe we should leave it unbarred. This would be a nice place for Boul," Linden mused, looking about them after they closed the door and rested the bar off to one side.

Adam examined the stranger. He was guessing the stranger was examining him, too, but he couldn't tell: they had such a wild mass of bright, curly red hair that the rough woolen cap on their head smushed it partially over their face, hiding most of their features under it. There were no eyes to see, there was only the curl over the lip that said there had to be a nose under there. Like Linden and Boul, they wore what looked like castoffs, clothes chance-found and stolen from a clothesline. Unlike his friends, the newcomer had made an effort to make them fit. The shirt sat comfortably on bony shoulders and fit the long, spindly arms. It wasn't tied or buttoned, though. Gray wrappings secured it around long, pointed fingers armed with blackened claws. The pants were bound around their -her, Adam realized, they were a her- her waist with a broad leather belt randomly studded with brass and copper bits, silver and even a single gold button. No iron, of course. It was impossible to tell if the ears were pointed or rounded, only that one of them had a wooden hoop threaded through with a single human knucklebone.

"Linden, won't ye introduce me to yuir friend?" Teeth, so many teeth, flashed in the dark when the stranger spoke, her mouth seeming to open nearly to her ears.

Adam spoke before Linden could. "Is that really your mouth?"

Linden gasped. The stranger's mouth widened in a smile, it widened and grew and curled at the corners, wider beyond what should have fit on her face. Teeth like glassy, broken needles, stuck too close together, filled that smile an gleamed at the young prince. "'Tis," she said with just a hint of malevolent glee. "Pretty, aye?"

"It's absolutely awesome!" Adam replied in naked awe.

She faltered. Visibly.

"Adam, this is Needlemaw." Linden chewed on their lip, a nervous habit they'd picked up from Adam.

Needlemaw didn't know what to say or do. Her life was short by her people's counting, it was one of the main reasons she was there: she was old enough to be a warrior, but young enough to relate to Linden and their friends; that, at least, was the hope of those who'd sent her. But in all her living she'd only ever dealt with the adults of Adam's world. When they faced her, they were of an age to have their beliefs set in stone - their beliefs, their mistakes, and their fears.

Adam had none of those. Teetering on the edge of his first brush with adulthood, and certainly saddled with grown-up concerns as he was, the prince was still only twelve years old. More, the foundations on which his response to Needlemaw were grounded were, though he didn't know it, half-truth and half-lie. On the one hand he believed Linden would keep him safe, always, no matter what.

In Needlemaw's case, that was absolutely a lie; she was the oldest of all the fairies present, powerful enough within her nature that she could have beaten them all, Boul included, without a second thought. Or even a first.

But Adam's admiration was utterly true, completely honest. He was twelve. The sight of Needlemaw's primary attribute was, to him, something to be admired, like the fine craftmanship of a sword. A wise person doesn't blame the sword for being sharp and lethal.

In all her life, Needlemaw had never been admired for what she was. Feared, yes. Shunned, often. Dismissed, disdained, distrusted, more times than even one of her kind will rightly tolerate. Called 'awesome'? Adam was the first. A frisson of an unknown emotion kindled and flowed through her. It would be a while before she'd be able to put the name of 'pride' to it. "Aye, all mine."

"I bet you could bite a sword in half!"

Needlemaw, who'd done exactly that in at least two separate occasions, chortled. "I can too!" she agreed gleefully. "But I prefer some nice crispy fish."

"Oh, the skin all charred and crackly," Adam agreed, immediately distracted. "And stuffed with mushrooms -"

"Drizzled with oil and some fresh wild herby-herbs -"

"With nice roasty taters on the side -"

Boul whined, made hungry by this talk, and it seemed only reasonably to go fishing after that.

***

Needlemaw, Linden told Adam, was to come with them at all times.

"This is because of the kelpie, isn't it," Adam said after a while. Across their small fire, they both watched as Needlemaw put a whole trout in her mouth, tail-first, and pulled out only the head and the skeleton without ever moving her jaws. Boul 'ooooh'd in awe. "She's your bodyguard, like."

Linden, sitting next to him, arms wrapped around their legs and fingers tangled around their muddy toes, nodded without looking at Adam.

"They don't seem terribly strict or anything," Adam suggested. "Are they the sort to forbid you to do things?"

"Needle? Never." Linden rested their head on their knees. "But she's, you know. People don't like her, they don't like her kind. They snarl and she snarls back. It's going to make everything complicated."

"My people or your people or them?" Adam asked pointedly. He had a guess as to what Linden's bodyguard was, but as with all things Linden, he didn't want to ask. For one thing, it felt as if it would be terribly rude and for another, to name things was to give them power.

"Nobody. Well, we don't care either way, but that's because we don't ever really come together with her people. But your people and the Court. The Court least of all."

"The Court only likes the Court," Needlemaw suddenly said from across the fire.

"Do you mean harm to Linden?" Adam asked bluntly.

The mass of wild curls shifted minutely, and a moment later Needlemaw laughed. "I'm here to protect the wee sapling, highness. Are ye going to ask after my intentions next? Who's taught ye to ask questions, Boulders-for-Brains here?"

"Don't call me that, please," Adam said stiffly. "I'm Adam, like Linden and I said. I'm not a prince."

Needlemaw went still and silent. "I beg yuir pardon, Adam."

"Thank you," the prince replied.

"Don't ye like being a prince?"

"No. I don't want to be king. It's just a reminder that I didn't even choose for it to happen to me."

"True enough," Needlemaw said evenly. "'Twill come for ye someday, though. Oblivion or not."

"Yes, but that's not today, and it's not tomorrow, and that's fine for now." Adam stretched his feet toward the fire. "So you're important," he turned to look at Linden.

"Ynoes," Linden hid their mouth behind their knees, arms curled tight, spine rigid.

Adam blew out an exasperated sigh at an uniquely Linden word. "Linden."

"I'm me," they snapped at him tartly. "I don't want to be important, I didn't ask to be important."

Adam closed his mouth and looked at Needlemaw, who shrugged lightly. "Well, I don't mind Needlemaw. And it could be worse," he pointed out.

"Worse than having a nanny?!" Linden exclaimed.

"Yes!" Adam flung an arm towards Needlemaw. "You can't make friends with a nanny, Linden! You could've got a nanny, you got a bodyguard instead!" He eyed Needlemaw. "Can you climb?"

"Uh, why?" The fairy was suddenly feeling very cautious.

Adam scoffed. "Well, you're not going to do your job very well if you can't climb."

***

Needlemaw, as it turned out, could climb. She was also dead afraid of heights.

"You must have climbed some before!" Adam shot at her when she stalled them yet again, pressed tight against a cornice, her limbs locked and trembling.

"Aye, when there was a point, a reason, a goal!" she snarled back at the prince. She had scrabbled over fortress walls with her kin on many occasions, to overrun the defenders and feast on the defeated. She had clambered over and through many sorts of structures and almost every type of home, both fairy and mortal, chasing whoever fled before the tide of her people. But she'd never had time to look down before.

On the roof above them Linden peeked down, expression as unreadable as the language of trees was to Adam.

Adam sighed. They couldn't keep doing this; it wasn't just that they weren't getting anything fun done, it was also dangerous. He wasn't sure if a fall from a good height would kill Needlemaw, but he would have wagered his desserts for the entire week that it wouldn't be harmless, and if she kept getting distracted and panicked she was absolutely going to fall at some point.

And, Adam suspected, Linden would make no effort to catch her. He didn't want to fault his friend, but it seemed mean all the same. Linden had not asked for a bodyguard, sure, but the prince didn't think Needlemaw had asked for the job, either. He had no idea what power could compel either of them to put up with an obligation they both hated; possibly they had a Queen Dowager to answer to, as well.

He stretched out from his own perch and offered a hand. First things first. "Alright, well, let's get you up here first, I guess. Give me your hand."

Needlemaw's head twitched around, and Adam almost thought for a moment that he could see eyes through the mass of her curls. She said nothing, and he twitched his fingers. "Come on, then! I have to leave when they call for supper and I'd like to get some fun in!"

"Oh, very important that is, supper," she muttered with utmost scorn, staring (or so he thought) between him and his hand.

"Hasn't anyone ever helped you climb?" Adam asked in exasperation.

Needlemaw didn't reply.

"Adam, no one likes her kind," Linden said very quietly from the roof. "No one ever helps them."

"I'm not helping her kind, I'm helping her!" Adam shot back at Linden before turning back to the girl. "Well?"

"There's sommat wrong with ye, I'm sure of it," she muttered. "I just can't tell what it would be, out of the muchness of ye." She uncoiled slowly, straightening up somewhat, which only made the spindly length of her limbs that much more obvious. There was a menacing grace in the way she moved, Adam thought, like watching a spider react to the fly struggling in her web. But then she froze again "I can't, I can't. Erry time I look down I -"

"Stop looking down," Adam commanded her. "Look at Linden. Look at me." He shifted. He was half in and half out of a narrow, decorative balcony, his arm outstretched, his hand open.

Needlemaw shook and cocked her head, and for a moment bright yellow eyes, as alien and predatory as the kelpie's, stared at Adam. She looked up at Linden, then back at him. "And yui're sure I'm to call ye Adam? Adam and nothing else?"

"What's that got to do with anything right now?"

"As much as the weight of yuir last fingerbone to ye, I guess," Needlemaw muttered, stretching out, gripping the offered hand at last.

***

She fit herself around the edges of their group; it helped that Adam welcomed her, though he and Linden had some spectacular fights over it, the sort they hadn't had since he'd mentioned the iron bits that went into each horse's mouth when the princes were learning jousting, or when he'd tried to carve his name into the linden tree. Needlemaw ended up yanking them apart on one of those occassions, dragging them off one another by the scruff of their shirts and lifting them in the air, shaking them roughly. "Oi!"

Adam heard his teeth rattle and hung limp, sullen and sore. Linden tried to scrabble free of Needlemaw's grip and got rattled some more. "Do ye really want what'll come to pass if we don't make this work?"

"Let go of me!" Needlemaw dropped them, and Linden stomped away.

Adam immediately felt shame at his outburst, never mind they'd both escalated things. "Linden, wait -"

"Wait ye should." The fairy maid's hand rested lightly on his shoulder. "Does crowding ever help yuir temper?"

Adam chewed restlessly on his lip, but he didn't follow, not until Needlemaw tipped her head. They walked side by side into the woods and the silence. "Ye do know, Linden's people wouldnae be the ones to be teaching 'em to kick and pinch and poke eyes." When she saw Adam flush, she blew out a slow, fluting breath. "That's what comes of ye mortals. Even when ye dinnae mean to, ye change everything ye touch."

"I really didn't mean to!" Adam rallied against an accusation he couldn't even fully understand. "Linden's fine the way they are, they're still Linden."

"I didnae mean it against Linden." At the prince's puzzled look, she smiled, teeth just barely glinting for a brief moment. "I mean me."

"What, I haven't changed anything in you! You're the same as you were when we met in the water-mill."

"Am I?" Needlemaw mused. "I'll have to make notes, to make sure and stay that way." She already knew something had radically changed from the very moment she'd met the prince and he'd not been afraid; even more so when he'd lent her a hand, when he'd risked his friendship for her sake. She just didn't know how vast those changes might come to be. Yet. "Adam, do ye know why I'm here? Do ye understand how special Linden is?"

"Of course! They're my best friend, my first friend. I had none back home and I wasn't going to make any here. There's always been just us."

She had to hold back a grin. "No, I mean to their people."

"Oh." In one single sound the prince made it absolutely clear how little he thought of Linden's people and their opinion compared to the weight of friendship between the two of them. "No. I've always thought it'd be rude to ask, you know, anything. And in the end it makes no difference anyway."

Needlemaw didn't even know what to say for a long time. Such utter acceptance was something she'd never experienced, something she was sure very few across all the Courts of her people had known, particularly from a mortal. She wondered if that was what she'd seen shine in Adam's eyes, the force of his heart, the immensity of the friendship and the loyalty he offered. "There's not been any like Linden in longer than most of the trees in these woods have memory, Adam. They're rare, rare as ye, I wager."

"I'm not rare. The palace is full of princes."

"And how many of them trying to get away from being king, rather than running neckybreaky to it?" When Adam didn't answer, Needlemaw went on. "Linden's drawn attention, they have. Worse when they started mucking about like wild things with ye."

Adam was quiet a long, long time. "They said... They said the Court called them silly for being my friend," he said at last, and the weary, lonely sadness in his voice startled her. "I suppose because they knew when I come of age I'll die. The Prince in the Woods will kill me like he's killing everyone else."

"He's not exactly killing 'em, he cannae. He's testing 'em. They're just tests he knows they're gauny fail."

Adam had learned enough about Linden and Needlemaw's people not to protest that it was no difference at all, because to the Folk in the Woods there absolutely was a difference. "He's still going to see me dead. All because a girl told him no."

She scoffed. "Is that what yui're taught? Some tripe of love and heartbreak?"

"It's not true?"

She laughed, mean and coarse. "The Court don't love! The Court don't hardly like. They're empty, gone brittle with age, stuck together with power. They've done all that can be done, played all the games, fought all the wars. They're bored, Adam, and 'tis the bad kind of bored." She shook her head. "'Twas a game. And like most games of the Court, 'twent bad. Very very badly bad."

"Everyone thinks a fairy prince fell in love with the Queen."

"Love? No, I don't think a one of 'em knows what love is anymore. They lost it and forgot it. They play at it, Conemara and Canemore," she hawked and spat disdainfully to one side, as if the names were foul in her mouth, "they're siblings. They made a bet. They made a game of it, when the High Queen sent them here, where their chaos couldnae do harm in Her Court. If he could make the princess fall in love with him, and leave everything behind, put his ring on her finger, then he'd get to rule. If he couldn't, then the ruling fell to her."

"She said no."

"Aye, that's the problem, Adam, she did say no." Needlemaw smiled her terrible smile. "And she meant it. Canemore was sure she loved him, was sure she'd do anything for him. He'd not reckoned that a mortal could love until her heart bled and still have sense, have wits. She did, yuir princesss then, yuir Queen now."

"She loved him?"

"Oh, the Court sings songs of her love. He hates them, so his sister has them sung aaaall the time."

"But then -"

Needlemaw stopped walking and leaned down. Where Adam was only beginning to hit the growth spurt of his youth, the fairy maid was what a mortal would call a teen, taller than the prince by a good foot or more. "He thinks she tricked him, yuir princess, because that's all they do in the Court, trick each other, and the crueler the trick the better. He, do ye see, Adam, he did everything right to make her fall in love with him, and she did. There was naught she loved more than him. But she were also smart enough to know, to really know that he didnae love her back. That he would destroy her if she let him." She straightened up.

"So she said no," Adam licked his lips. "And he lost."

"He lost. His sister rules. And 'tis her law that he is never to be allowed to forget why she rules, and not him."

"Oh, he's going to kill us all," Adam closed his eyes, feeling his heart hammering against his ribs as if it were a rabbit just become aware of the snare around its foot. "He'll never not be angry."

"No," Needlemaw agreed, waiting to see if the young prince could see the fathomless depth of the trap.

"Because... because it's entertaining. Because it's funny to the Court to see him murder us all without actually touching us."

Needlemaw touched her long, pale fingertips to her mouth, then pressed the kiss to Adam's forehead, acknowledging his wit and his intelligence. "This is him without a throne and crown, Adam. Can ye imagine what he'd do if he had both?"

"Can he?" Adam felt chilled to his marrow. "When he lost to his sister -"

"No. That bet was laid. 'Twas won and done. The Court is her Court, until she dies, or fades, or passes it on, and she'd as soon give it to the likes of me before she lets him have it. No, he had no way out, Adam. Until Linden came about."

Adam froze. He stopped walking, because if he took another step he feared his legs, gone nerveless, would dump him on his face. "No."

"I told ye, ye dinnae know how special yuir friend is." Needlemaw threw her arms out. "Out here 'tis all wild and passing, will'o'wisps and pixies, trundling things, fading as quick as they come." She snapped her fingers for good measure. "Kin to fireflies and butterflies and all the things that come up full of beauty and die the next day and no one there to mourn them, to remember them, or even miss them. Even the trees don't remember well, unless 'tis biggish to them. But Linden -"

"Linden's like them," Adam's voice was strangled with fear. He hadn't been afraid of his fate, he hadn't been afraid to die. He'd known he could only do the one thing to escape the fairy prince's fury, and if that didn't work, well, what else could he do? But he'd never thought of Linden being in danger, and the idea, the very hint of it roused in him things that were far too great for his twelve-year old heart.

"Aye," Needlemaw said quietly. "And with Linden comes all the power of the Wild Green. A court on its own, if only there were someone to name it that."

"Is that why you're here?" Adam's hands curled into fists and looked up to where he knew those fey, alien yellow eyes rested. "To take Linden away? To bring them to this monster?"

Needlemaw felt, for the third time since she'd met the young prince, as if something were turning on its axis, as if somewhere a page with 'Needlemaw' writ large at the top were being turned, made into something new, because once again there was no fear as the young mortal faced her. Her! So few things were more nightmarish than her and her kin, and yet here he was, this slender bone splinter of a mortal boy, with his eyes full of destiny and his heart already crowned, threatening to take her on with nothing but his dirty, tiny fists for the sake of his friend. "No, and no, and no again," she replied, and she was glad it was the truth. "He cannae force Linden to choose him, and thank be the blood on me cap for that. No. I'm here to make sure Linden's here to court, when the time comes for him to come courting."

Adam relaxed visibly, and snorted. "They'll never."

"I'm hoping yui're right, Adam. And I think ye might be. And I cannae imagine what his anger will be like, when he's balked twice because yuir bloodline went mucking with his affairs." She let him mull on that. "Come on. Let's go find yuir friend and see if there's any talking some sense into 'em. And I cannae believe ye two have me saying such things."

***

It still wasn't perfect, but they made it work. Linden tried to escape once or twice, outright lying to Needlemaw about their whereabouts. Adam wouldn't have it, and they both had the welts and scrapes and bruises to show for those disagreements.

"I hate this, I hate them! I hate them!" Linden had screamed from the rooftops, a shrill bird's cry of fury and outrage and impotence when it returns home and finds its nestlings stolen by a predator. They were both battered, filthy and bloody, clothes and skin scraped. Adam was going to be nursing a black eye for weeks; it was that, Linden's punch sending him crashing down to the slate and stone and clay, that had broken Linden's fury and turned it to grief and shame. "My woods were fine, my woods were wild and green and kind and they've turned them ugly, they've turned them hungry, and I hate them!"

"No. No, Linden." The young prince scrabbled back to his feet and rushed over to where his friend perched against the light, heaving with sobs they refused to cry, quickening all the emotions pent up in their sapling body into one. They tried to shake Adam off, but he persisted, until at last they were hugging, and Linden wept against his shoulder. "Don't," Adam pleaded quietly. "Don't hate, Linden, don't hate them. Hate's what made a muck-all of this to begin with. Don't hate."

They clung to each other in the bright morning sun, the young prince lean and sturdy and deeply human, the fairy child slender and brown and crowned in white hair that smelled of flowers, with their shattered many-colored eyes, both of them bearing burdens they had never wanted. In the end Linden pulled away a little, the storm of their emotions spent, and rubbed roughly at their face. "Well, can I be mad at them at least?"

"Oh, gods, yes," Adam agreed stoutly. "I don't even know them and I'm mad at them all the time."

That made his friend smile, if only a little bit. But it was enough.

"Besides, even if I could I wouldn't change anything."

"What!" Linden sounded aghast.

"Why would I?" Adam shrugged. "Without them I'd never have met you."

Linden had no answer to that for a long, long moment. "I guess they've done two good things, I suppose," they admitted, toeing angrily at a roof slate. "I wouldn't ever not want to be your friend, Adam."

Adam grinned, and rubbed at his face, leaving blood smeared all over his sleeve.

"Tch!" Linden turned and led the way. "I guess we best find Needlemaw. Maybe she'll know what to do about that eye."

Needlemaw's cure was to lick the wounds, which made them sting fiercely and briefly and then got rid of them before the day was over - all but Adam's black eye and Linden's split lip. It marked a change, that day and that fight, and by the time autumn's last leaves were blown out of the trees, the redcap was as much a part of their group as Boul.

[shadowsong26fic]

Coming Attractions!

First Monday of the month, woohoo!

(And also kind of a NaNo roundup post because that was last month, after all…)

NaNo:

Sooooo I didn’t finish, lol. Not that I was…super expecting to, exactly, but I was hopeful! I think I just missed too many days in a row and lost all my momentum.

In terms of my goals, I was hoping to write:

1. 20-25k on Precipice 2. 20-25k on our faces like a mirror 3. 10-20k on Other Projects. 4. 50-70k total

In terms of what I actually accomplished:

1. 9,241 on Precipice (Sooooooo....about half of what I’d hoped, a little less. But I still got a fair amount done/prepped for upcoming chapters, plus a couple chapters actually posted, even while doing other stuff, so...go me!) 2. 9,043 on our faces like a mirror (Again, a bit less than half of what I’d hoped for, but I got enough done for the story/etc. to take a real Shape in my head. ...ish. See the specific OFLAM stuff later on in the post...) 3. 10,601 on Other Projects (Hey, I actually met this goal! ...barely, but still! Mostly thanks to the Nikita/Rebels crossover, lol...) 4. 28,885 total

Original Fiction:

I got a decent chunk of a big backstory piece for Lux done (in the form of a “then” and “now” set of scenes/vignettes for the five Archangels)--that being said, I’m not sure I actually like what I have there, lol. I know more or less what I need to cover, but the details are fiddly. Also not sure whether I should refer to Lux by her current name, for consistency’s sake, or use a different name (either Lightbringer or just Lucifer) since she does technically reshape her name after being released when the main Apocalypse storyline kicks off…also debating whether Lux should be/present as female way back when--angels don’t really do gender the way humans do in this ‘verse, but the closest human term for Lux would be genderfluid, sooooo IDK. Also also, for the ‘Now’ part…ehhh, I’m not sure I should have this be the first thing I post involving Trixie…but I’ll keep poking at it and see what comes out.

(I’d also planned to work on the big Kesshare character study saturation for The Farglass Cycle this month, and maybe go back to my untitled first-contact story, but neither of those happened, lol.)

Precipice:

We’re in the home stretch! Kinda. So to speak. Probably three to four more chapters in Arc Seven, which I’m hoping-fingers-crossed I’ll finish by the end of the calendar year??? (But given how much other stuff I hope to work on (see Other Fanfic Projects for more details…)

At that point--and I know I’ve said this before, and I’ll probably put it in an A/N in the next chapter or so, but following the end of Milestones, I’m planning to break off into a second/sequel fic, working title Protectors. This is at least in part because length (over 200k wtf I was anticipating 50-75k, maybe 100k, for these seven arcs @.@), but also was sort of planned even without the Length issue, due to some thematic/structure shifts following a six-year timeskip. Which, if you do the math, you can probably figure out where that’ll land us and why I might be structuring it this way…

Anyway, I’ve increasingly realized that there’s some stuff I should probably set up that I’ll need for later arcs in Part 2 involving some Rebels characters, more with the Last Batch, plus a Sith Apprentice who needs to turn up and die (although the gap between Infernalis and the next apprentice I actually care about/have a name and some kind of Plot for is only about four years in my mental timeline, so maybe there isn’t an active Apprentice in that period*…hmmmmm…), some background about the Hands, etc. But I feel like it’s all a little too disjointed for an entire additional arc. So, Arc 7.5, tentatively titled Preludes, is also going to be a thing XD I don’t think I’ll have a fixed schedule for that vs. the main storyline--and, honestly, it’ll probably work more like a collection of one-shots taking place during the timeskip than a proper Arc, but a little more Relevant than stuff that goes in Bonus Content, if that makes sense? It’ll probably be posted alongside at least arcs 8 and 9. Which, incidentally, take place more or less back-to-back and cover a fairly short period of time, but there is A Lot of plot/setup that goes into them. Like. If I tried to do it all as one arc, it’d be at least twice as long as any of the other arcs I’ve done, possibly including Arc Four--certainly over twenty chapters, I think--plus there’s a good (and by good I mean Horrible) place where I can split the arcs, so…we’ll see how that goes.

(…still not sure what to do with Maul, lol. He may just be Sir Darth Not-Appearing-In-This-Fic, or he might turn up in arc 10/11/13, which are the sort of vaguest of the next seven arcs which make up Protectors, in terms of how much I have planned out…)

(*On a semi-related note, I’ve been asked about Inquisitors a couple times in comments lately, and…well, I’ll probably mention this when I reply to the commenter in question, but I figured I’d set it out here as well, in case anyone else was wondering the same thing but doesn’t read other peoples’ comments. Like I’m pretty sure I mentioned at the start, when I plotted out** the bulk of this fic, I hadn’t seen Rebels yet. I’ve since decided to integrate a few characters/plot points (Kallus and Zeb will feature prominently in a subplot in arcs 13 and 14, for example), but, as a rule, characters and plot points from Rebels haven’t been taken into account unless I Really Like Them and/or they’re a good way to fill in a plot hole in a later arc, as with Kallus and Zeb. So, for example, when I include Thrawn, I’m writing more towards Legends!Thrawn in terms of personality, though the two have blended a bit in my head and I do reference specific events in Disney!Thrawn’s personal timeline; and b) more relevantly, I hadn’t made any plans to include Inquisitors, and that…hasn’t really changed. So, I might have them in Preludes, but they almost certainly won’t show up on-page/be super-relevant in the main arcs of the fic, sorry :/ )

(**Loooool I say “Plotted Out” like I’m the kind of author with a Master Plan or at least an outline. But I did have a general idea of the Major Plot Points going in, such as when Rex and Ahsoka would turn up, Luke’s storyline with Lavinia, how many Apprentices I would need to make them work, etc., and I’ve had parts of Arcs 8, 9, and 14 written for like at least two years now, so I know more or less where I’m going--though they’ll be edited once I have more of the connective tissue in place, in case I’ve accidentally Jossed myself…or I change my mind, which is becoming A Possibility with a major event set to happen in Arc 14, so…we’ll see.)

Aaaaaanyway. Exciting times ahead, I hope!

Other Fanfic:

This month, I finally posted another AU outline, woohoo! …I mean, it was a super-niche Nikita/Rebels crossover with a handful of OCs thrown in but who’s counting XD (I do actually intend to finish Let’s Go Steal a Crossover and update the Ventress one at some point but…yeah).

I also put out a Kallus one-shot that I think turned out really well. May do more of those at some point, who knows…

I made some significant progress on our faces like a mirror, as mentioned above! But now I’m waffling a little bit over structure. Basically, the fic covers Bo-Katan’s backstory from the time Satine becomes Duchess, through the Civil War, and eventually leads to Bo’s eventual break with her sister to join Death Watch. It comes in two pretty distinct halves--what I call the Fugitive arc in my notes, which covers the Civil War, and the Breakdown arc, which is everything after her return to Sundari.

So, my original plan was--prologue covering at least part of the final Epic Screaming Match that leads to Bo’s departure; jump back to the Fugitive Arc; and then follow through until we catch up to the prologue, with a coda/epilogue with her and Pre Viszla. The problem is, there’s…really not a lot to connect the two halves??

I’ve got a couple options on what to do about this, but I’m not sure which would be best.

Option One: Keep the structure as-is and just let it be episodic.

Option Two: Keep the structure as-is and find some way to connect the two halves (i.e., a recurring antagonist; I do have an idea of who this could be, but the problem is, it takes away a good chunk of the focus from Bo and Satine’s relationship for the Breakdown Arc…which I don’t really want to do.)

Option Three: Remove the framing device and focus on the Breakdown Arc, and include the Fugitive Arc as flashbacks, since the Breakdown Arc can’t really stand on its own. (The main issue I have with this one is that, if I want to actually write out future chunks of Bo’s life later--meaning, her time with Death Watch, and getting her from TCW to Rebels--I won’t have these flashbacks and I don’t want to change the structure too radically for any eventual sequels? Also, I’m not sure how I feel about a flashback structure for this fic in general…)

Option Four: Remove the framing device and focus on the Fugitive Arc, ending the story with Bo’s return to Sundari. (Two issues with this one--I really do want to go into the Breakdown Arc; that’s where my interest in this story started. Also, due to the constraints of setting and so on, Bo interacts with…like…two canon characters over the course of the Fugitive Arc? And while I don’t really have a problem writing a story that’s essentially a Backstory Epic for a tertiary character, populated by about 90% OCs, I’m not sure anyone actually wants to read that, except as the lead-in to the Breakdown Arc??? But maybe I’m overthinking…)

…so, yeah. Any thoughts/opinions on which option would be Best? (I may make a separate post asking the same question later, but figured I’d lay it all out here, too!)

Also, I’m working on a Secret Santa project, and probably not going to use OFLAM for SWBB, which means I need to come up with and write a different plotline of some kind, so back to the drawing board on that one…

Also also, I do genuinely plan to get Distaff off hiatus At Some Point, especially since I’ve gotten some new comments/responses lately…but given how much else I have on my plate, writing-wise, that probably won’t happen until next year, alas.

Anyway, the long and short of it is--lots of writing planned for this month! Now let’s see how much I actually get done XD

What about the rest of you? What’ve y’all been up to/what do you have planned for next month?

[iris-writes-things]

Two Guys and a Baby: Day 8

Read on AO3, FF.net or under the cut, or read up to 2 chapters ahead as a $1 Patreon patron!

“Actually, it’s more about something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Anthony said as he scratched behind his ear. A realization dawned on Ezra. His breath caught in his throat. This was it.

Or, Crowley pops a question.

Chapter 11 of 20 Ongoing 2073 words Romance/Humor

It was dark in the bookshop. Ezra’s best guess was that it was past midnight. The only light in the shop came from a flickering lamp post outside, even the lights behind the signs of the other shops in the street were out.

But nevertheless, he was down in his shop, alone, with Anthony, backed against the counter by the other man. He wasn’t sure how they got here, but couldn’t bring himself to care when he found one of Anthony’s hands on his hip, the fingers of his other hand digging into the back of his vest, clinging on for dear life, and Anthony’s lips firmly planted on his own. 

They started slowly and gently, he was sure he remembered, but they were well past that now. Anthony pulled back and gasped, his face red from breathlessness and other things, but soon those lips were back at his jaw, his neck, his collarbone, and ventured vaguely downwards. The other hand, withdrawn from the back of Ezra’s vest, found purchase at his other hip, jerked him forward and—

*

He woke up.

A groan of frustration and disgust escaped him as he sat up. This hadn’t happened to him in, what, twenty-five years? He hated it now just as much as he hated it back then.

Light filtered through his drawn curtains and a quick glance at his alarm clock told him it was almost half past six in the morning. He sighed and decided it was probably for the best to just get up and start his day. With a cold shower.

*

The memory of his dream wouldn’t let him go. 

Ezra rubbed through his eyes as he wrote his dream down in his journal, sitting at his desk in the small apartment over the shop. Onto the page and out of his mind, he always said. Really, he should probably be revising the first draft of his book, but on the other hand, perhaps if he wrote this first, he wouldn’t be haunted by Anthony’s lips anymore. 

He wondered vaguely what it would feel like if, when it really happened. Would he be sure of himself? Experienced? Or would he perhaps be just as much of a nervous mess as Ezra? The idea was mildly reassuring, but with the way he looked, the way he moved, Ezra found this extremely unlikely.

*

The fact of the matter was that Crowley was a nervous mess. It was eleven in the morning by the time Crowley found himself pacing around on the pavement in front of the door to Ezra’s shop. Five past eleven… Ten past eleven...

It was ridiculous to the point that even Adam looked at Crowley weird. Crowley frowned. “Geez, no need to be judgy. You ask him out if you’re so good at it,” he murmured to the baby. “No, wait, never mind. If you asked out Ezra, of course he would say yes. Just look at you, you’re irresistible.”

An old lady looked at him in a way that oozed suspicion and Crowley snapped.

“What?! Never seen a nervous wreck before?! Oh, fuck it,” he said with a sigh, raised his hand to the door. A quick glance through the window had already told him that Ezra wasn’t downstairs, but a quick glance next to the door suggested to him that the man had never gotten a doorbell installed. And so, he resorted to knocking.

*

Ezra’s gaze snapped up from his journal when he heard shouting through the paper-thin walls of his building.

“What?! Never seen a nervous wreck before?!”

Anthony.

He looked back down at the notebook and found that he’d filled pages upon pages with his thoughts. Oh dear. Maybe this was worse than he thought. What time was it, even? He glanced at the clock. A quarter past eleven?! He was supposed to have opened the shop over an hour ago! Knocking sounded at the door as rushing feet stumbled down the creaking steps of the stairs. He was out of breath by the time he made it to the door and unlocked it, giving Anthony a nervous smile through the window.

“Sorry I took so long,” he stammered. “Lost track of time.”

Anthony took off his sunglasses and raised an eyebrow. “That’s unlike you… Are you alright? You look like you’re burning up.” Anthony raised a hand to lay on Ezra’s forehead, but Ezra ducked out of the way.

“N-no, I’m fine, thank you. Oh! Please, do come in,” he said as he moved aside for Anthony and Adam. He came so close. Almost as close as in his dream. Except he could smell him now. His shampoo, his cologne, the distinct lack of tobacco was new, so Ezra committed it to memory. It was different. A good different.

He smiled nervously as he stepped into the shop. All pearly white and dazzling bright, but what was he nervous for? Ezra heard him shouting so just now, but he’d missed the context. Perhaps, if he wasn’t so focused on his writing, he would have known.

“Speaking of which, are you alright?” Ezra asked. “I heard you shouting just now. What are you nervous about?” ‘I hope you weren’t nervous about coming here,’ Ezra added mentally.

“What? Pfsh, of course not. Why would I be nervous? No, no, it’s… something else.” Anthony’s eyes guiltily darted around in that way he always did when he thought of an excuse. Ezra had forgotten all about it, but he’d gotten well reacquainted with his eccentricities over the last week. 

The last week, Ezra realized.

In seven days, Anthony’s boss would come back from her vacation and life would go back to normal. There would be no more Adam and no more excuses to ‘hang out’ with Anthony. Save for perhaps that one dinner at the Ritz, but they spoke of that many times in the past, and then it never came to fruition. 

“Actually, it’s more about something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Anthony said as he scratched behind his ear.

A realization dawned on Ezra. His breath caught in his throat.

This was it.

*

This was it. 

All he had to do was ask this god damned question. All he had to do was speak, find out whether Ezra loved him back or not and start a new chapter of his life, with or without him. It was just a stupid question, but Crowley felt like he was having a heart attack instead. 

He tried to keep his cool outwardly, at least, but the look in Ezra’s eyes and the reflection in his glasses told Crowley that his body was betraying him.

“I… Would you… I mean, if you’d be so inclined…” Crowley stammered.

Ezra stared up at him with a bright-eyed intensity that he’d rarely felt before. If anything, it made him more nervous. By now, he wasn't even sure he was breathing anymore. Every fibre in his body was screaming at him to abort.

"Help me write a letter of resignation?"

So he did. 

*

Ezra tried not to scream in frustration. He really did, but he couldn't stop a small sound of dejection from escaping. Anthony was trying, he could tell, but his self-sabotaging ways were beginning to wear on Ezra's patience. Nevertheless, he took a deep breath and decided to work with what he was given.

“You’re quitting your job? Why? How come?” Ezra asked as he took Anthony by his upper arms and sat him down in his usual seat. “Wait, hold that thought. I’ll make us each a hot cup of cocoa. That’ll calm you right down.” And with that, he hurried off to the kitchenette.

*

Crowley was grateful by the time Ezra returned with their cocoa. He took the steaming mug into his cold hands and took a careful sip. Adam, from his perch on the floor, looked up at the sweet concoction, stood up and pulled on Crowley’s jacket. “Adam, no, it’s too hot for you. I’ll save the last bit for you when it cools down, okay?” And as if he somehow understood, Adam waddled off into the shop. “Thank you. It’s great.”

“It’s no problem at all,” Ezra smiled, leaning on the display table opposite the window seat. “So, what’s this about resigning?”

Crowley looked down, eyes fixed firmly on the floor. His fingernails tapped nervously against the still hot ceramic mug — it had a quirky book quote on it that Crowley didn’t recognize, as most of Ezra’s mugs did — and he sighed in exasperation. “It’s just…” He paused, trying to arrange the words in his head in a way that would make sense when he spoke them aloud. He sighed again for good measure. “They were right, angel, everyone said I would regret getting that job and I did. And it’s not so much that I’m bored out of my mind half the time. No, it’s because I’m dealing with the most insufferable people on the planet on a daily basis. It’s that every time I set foot in the studio, Hastings and Liggett have new insults to throw at my head, not to mention Dygon in accounting. It’s demeaning and I hate it.” He bit on his lip, eyes darting around the shop, but always careful to avoid Ezra. “It’s just, being out of the office and hanging out with you, it reminded me how good life was when I didn’t dedicate it to people I hated, but to people I loved instead.”

*

Ezra took a slow, shuddering breath. The look with which Anthony gazed up at him did things to his heart even he couldn’t begin to describe, much less the Useless Lesbian™ narrator of this story. Nevertheless, words left his mouth.

“Well... I think that’s a very healthy decision of you to make,” he said softly. A nervous chuckle escaped him. “Though I rather hope I belong to the latter category.”

He looked down, fidgeting with his fingers. He didn’t dare look at Anthony, so he didn’t notice how his face settled into a deep frown.

*

“Are you kidding me?” Crowley very nearly snapped. “Ezra…”

Ezra’s gaze nervously wandered back to Crowley.

‘You’re the love of my life,’ he really wanted to say.

“You’re my best friend. Of course you do,” he said instead, taking Ezra’s free hand in his and squeezing reassuringly.

“Well, that’s alright then,” Ezra said, visibly relaxing. “So, this letter of resignation, what do you want it to say?”

“Something like, ‘everyone in this office can go fuck themselves, except for you Lucy, you were the only tolerable part of this job.’ Except still sounding somewhat professional.”

A mischievous glint appeared in Ezra’s eyes that Crowley hadn’t seen in years. “I think that can be arranged.”

*

XX March, 20XX

Dear Sir,

Hereby I submit my resignation from my position as assistant to miss Lucy Ferguson.

I sincerely thank you for employing me over the last few years, but due to circumstances in the office I can no longer fulfill my tasks with the same optimism with which I used to, and have decided to focus on my craft instead.

My final day of employment will be two weeks from now.

Unfortunately, due to pre-established activities by miss Ferguson herself, I will not be available to assist during this time of transition.

In case of an absolute emergency, miss Ferguson will know where to find me.

Sincerely,

Anthony James Crowley

*

“Hmmm…” Ezra hummed as he peered at his beige computer screen. It was eight PM. The two of them had settled in the dark back room of Ezra’s shop where Adam slept on the worn velvet sofa. “It’s not quite where I want it to be, but could you take a look anyway?”

The office chair creaked under the weight of Anthony’s hands on the backrest as the man leaned over Ezra and peered over his shoulder. He smiled like a snake.

“Ezra, you beautiful bastard, I could kiss you right now!” he said in his enthusiasm. He blushed and looked away.

‘Then why don’t you?’ Ezra wanted to ask.

“Well then, let’s print it out, then you can deliver it on Monday,” he said instead. Perforated paper was fed through a beige printer.

“Could you come with me?” Anthony asked. Eyes pleading. “I don’t trust myself not to chicken out halfway through.”

Ezra saw more truth in his eyes than the man would ever admit.

“Of course,” he smiled.

[toasttz]

From the Tabletop #7

For all my one (1) reader(s), I apologize for the delay on this instance of From the Tabletop. Everything I said at the end of the last post was clickbait, too, as this time, we're actually going to ping-pong back to Exalted with a brand new circle! FUNTIME! This go-around, our circle composition was markedly different to start, as two of our players from last time dropped out - one couldn't make the first session of the new campaign due to work and the other decided to become a total bitch-baby and pussed out entirely. However, at the same time I recruited two close friends to take their seats. And, due to other meatspace shenanigans, our usual GM had to be gone for the session as well, so Valentinian's player once more took on the mantle of GM for the campaigns kick-off. To begin, let's introduce the first batch of characters we'll be following. First is Rakis. Rakis, according to his player, was inspired by Desert Punk, if you're familiar with that at all. He's a short, wild-child, driven from his desert town into the desert wastes as a child by a mob who murdered his family in cold blood, leaving just him and his brother. His brother then got eaten by a massive sandworm (mechanically, for those who care, a reskinned River Dragon, just replacing the words "water" for "earth"). The worm then seemed to take on a totally different demeanor toward Rakis, and the boy began to believe the worm was his brother reborn. Rakis is a Solar, a survivalist who battles with tricky melee tactics, in tandem with his worm, but struggles in social settings. Then there's Doran, a metalsmith of some repute, whose family was held hostage by some mafia-esque organization until he followed very specific instructions to forge a fairy weapon to their specifications. However, due to not fully knowing the origin of the materials at play and the true nature of what he was making, the weapon took on a ghastly and dangerous set of properties, making it extremely lethal but draining to use. When he went to make the exchange, it was already too late, and his wife and children were already brutally slaughtered. Doran thus swore a quest for revenge. Also a Solar, Doran is a skilled melee fighter, who tries his best to not use the dark artifact in his bag, knowing full well what it can do. And lastly (for now), was my character, Albin. Albin was a design I've had in the wings for a long time, as a scholarly sort who ended up being really heavy into craft, loving both first-age tech and woodworking, from whence he created his main weapon - a wooden longbow. For emergencies, I also have a Prayer Piece firewand, a sort-of rifle but one powered by prayers to Sol Invictus and very, very expensive ammo to make. I play Albin as incredibly deadpan and flat, as some of his flaws include that he doesn't understand metaphor or people very well. And despite that, this character ended up as the face of the party (due to Rakis being socially inept, and Doran being socially hostile) for the first session, at least. Anyway, we agreed the three already knew each other, as Albin worked as a field scholar for Great Forks University (Slogan: Go Fork Yourself!), and the three had reasoned that the MO of both groups that hounded Rakis and Doran made it sound like they might very well be one and the same, so the three agreed to pursue this lead best as they could. Rolling into a random town in the 100 Kingdoms, we asked around about local legends at the guild building, which got us sent to... a crazy hobo who began spouting UFO and "evil shadowy government cabal" conspiracy theories at us. Rakis, quickly tiring of the man's ranting, used his knife to intimidate the man, ultimately causing him to pass out from the shock of the threat. However, we did gleam some useful information - something about the castle outside of town, full of murderers and thieves. Which sounded just like the men we had been tracking. So, off we went. We ventured toward the castle as the sun sank (to mask our approach, this decision was made consciously) and we were accosted by zombies. Which Albin has a distinct advantage over, since Prayer Pieces deal Aggravated damage to undead and creatures of darkness. I also seem to roll freakishly well when I have a firewand on my character. I can't begin to account for that. But we mopped them up and in short order, were making plans on how we were going to enter into this dreaded castle, guarded by spirits and clearly a not-good place to be. Rakis leaped up over the castle wall and stealth'd his way inside, narrowly evading patroling spirits with really wicked-looking knives. Eventually ninja'ing his way around to open the door from the inside for Doran and Albin to enter. The three snuck past a sort of enclosed dungeon area, with a blond(e?) person inside, being beaten by a huge brick house of an aggressor wailing on them. The following exchange actually happened: Rakis: Yeah, this isn't for us. This is probably their fetish. Blond: No, it isn't! Albin: They might have consented to this. Blond: No, I assure you I didn't! Doran: We should ignore them. Blond: No, you shouldn't! Albin: My goodness, that prisoner has opinions on this. We actually started to walk away at this point, and then the captive began singing "All by Myself". So, eventually, we relent (somewhat for meta reasons and also because the GM made us laugh pretty hard on this), and provoke the prison guard to open the door, whereupon Albin lit them up with his Prayer Piece. It took some doing, but we eventually killed the guard and liberated the ma... wo... uh... Lunar within. For the sake of this session, a GMPC, but a welcomed member of the team, Kharas the Blade. Kharas also has a tragic backstory, but it involved markedly less familial homocide. He was betrayed by his old team, who left him to die, hence his Lunar exaltation. Anyways, as the four of us moved up the stairs, we got chased by one of the guards and backed into a room, whereupon I had the idea to invoke the gods for help. This roll was... passable but not amazing, as the god I summoned was a Mouse of the Sun. However, its presence was still antithetical to our pursuer, forcing him into a bottle-neck in the doorway, where Kharas attacked from one side and Albin, Doran, and Rakis held him from the other, eventually leading to our victory. Heading up the stairs, we eventually overhear a discussion between two of the "Six Guns of Black Heaven", which ultimately results in us having a shootout, and capping at least one of them (I actually had to step away from the table for a brief moment, and I missed part of this), and the other came back with us as a hostage. As we escaped the castle, just in time to learn that the castle's original intent was to be a portal between worlds... and it sank into a dark void abyss, just in time for us to learn its name: Castle. Vania. Hahaha... For context, this transitioned into session 2, our GM was back and Kharas was in full player-character role now. Returning to town, hostage in tow, we awkwardly make small-talk to get past the innkeep (barely worked), and then began interrogating her (didn't work), then she launched a surprise attack with a dark-enchanted weapon, which attempted to strangle Doran. She bolted for it, with Albin and Rakis in pursuit of the hostage while Kharas and Doran attempted to disarm the wire-weapon that was in hot pursuit of Doran's neck. Kharas: Wait, it's going for me now?! Wait! I'll turn into a snake! Snake's don't have necks! GM: But, Kharas, snakes are nothing BUT neck! Kharas: ... OH CRAP! Meanwhile, Rakis and Albin are tearing down the hall in hot pursuit. This exchange happens, nigh-verbatim. Me (OOC): I have an ability that can translate sentences into languages I don't know. You speak Flametongue, right? Rakis (OOC): Yeah. What's your idea? Me (OOC): I'll shout out our strategy in Flametongue using my charm. Thus, she won't know what we're up to. Rakis (OOC): I'll hit her high. Can you shoot low? Me (OOC): Yeah. That'll be our plan. I'll use a burning arrow on the floor to prevent her from evading your attack. GM: *Makes a noise that I can't tell is a sob or a laugh* Kharas (OOC): What's up? GM: We have a circle that DOESN'T SUCK!! Ultimately, we managed to plug an arrow into her head, ending her futile struggle. And we probably could've done something about the mess and gotten away largely undistracted, but Rakis then began bragging about what we had done to the barkeep, and we had to skip town. Kharas was even kind enough to transform into a dinosaur and gave Albin a lift, as Doran and Rakis piled onto Mr. Wormsworth and rode out of town. Ultimately, we planned to go to A'Barr up in the north, a large city where we could lay low and maybe find information on our group of serial murderers. En route, Kharas requested Albin make a hurdy-gurdy. Yes, that's a real instrument, look it up on Youtube. Albin, being very hard into craft, easily cobbled one together, and accompanied Kharas in a rendition of Maiden by the River. This means nothing to you, but let me explain about this song. Every time - and I mean every time - this song was performed, someone botched SOMETHING and it usually resulted in a town burning down or something. It was reportedly the song that played before the terrible plague wiped out Scarlet's hometown of the better part of its population, giving the pirate an extreme phobia of the piece. However, we both... rolled 5 successes each! We broke the curse of this damned song! Doran and Rakis didn't fully understand why this was such a milestone for us, but it was an amazing moment for us all. In fact, Doran's player was kind enough to WRITE AND PERFORM THE DAMN SONG. I include the link for your enjoyment: https://www.mediafire.com/file/adyf20gdd3cp5jd/MaidenByTheRiverDraft.mp3/file Not long after, we arrived in A'Barr and began setting to work. But this has gone on quite long enough for today. Join us next time in Exalted where: Rakis tries to burn down half of Great Forks! We battle an Indominus Rex! A fifth Exalt joins the circle! We meet one of Albin's siblings! Doran dies in boiling magma! See you there!

[blueeyedbesson]

Taking You Chapter 1

1: Nobody Gotta Know

Series Masterlist

Masterlist

"So we're going to walk up to random girls on the street & sing them the new song. Does everyone understand?" Jonah smiled as he explained the plan for the music video. The boys all nodded and finished getting ready.

"I think I'm gonna give a girl my number today." Zach smirked.

"Good luck buddy." Jonah joked.

"Thanks. I'll probably need it."

"You're up Zach." The director informed before walking out the door.

"Sweet. See you in a bit." He chuckled and walked out. The rest of the boys followed when it was their cue.

"I found the girl I'm gonna sing my verse to." Corbyn smiled as his eyes landed on a brunette girl sitting at a table at a cafe. "What a babe."

"Oh my god. No Corbyn." Jack shook his head.

"What? Why?"

"Because that's no babe. That's my sister."

"Oh. Too late." He smiled before running off.

~~~

I was minding my own business sitting at a table st my favorite cafe, when a guy came up to me and asked if he could sing me a song.

"Sure." I smiled as he handed me a rose and started singing.

"I've been missing,  I've been crushing on you all night. I should take you to the moon, that's a long flight. We can chill, me and you, if its alright. You should be my, you should be mine."

"Corbyn, dude. What the hell?" A few other boys said as they tried to catch their breath.

"Jack!" I smiled and hugged my brother when I saw him."When did you come back from your tour?"

"Few days ago." He smiled and looked at the guys. "This is my SISTER Abby. She is off limits to all of you."

"You're no fun Jack." The blonde pouted.

"Hi." I smiled.

"Are you gonna introduce us?" The taller boy questioned.

"Oh right. Abby, this tall kid is Jonah." He smiled and pointed to the taller boy.

"Hi." He chuckled.

"That's Zach. He's too young for you."

"Dude." Zach chuckled.

"This adorable one is Daniel."

"Nice to finally meet you Abby. Jack talks about you a lot." He smiled.

"Awe Jack. You're my favorite." I smiled and hugged him.

"And the kid who sang to you is Corbyn."

"Corbyn. I like that name." I smiled and shook his hand.

"Thanks. Abby is a good name too." He smirked.

"Corbyn!" Jack warned again.

And that is how I met my best friends. After that meeting 2 years ago, I met Jonah's sister Angel and Corbyn's sister Aubrielle & shortly after, we all became best friends.

Living with them has been the biggest blessing in my life. Jack, as always, is my best friend. Corbyn is like the wise old man with so much knowledge to share.  Jonah is like the dad. Zach is the little brother and Daniel is basically my best friend. Life is great right now.

"Hey Abby. Can I come in?" Corbyn asked as he stood in my bedroom doorway.

"Yeah of course. What's up?" I turned to look at him.

"I was just wondering if you wanted to go see that new movie you've been talking about."

"Yeah sure. Just let me finish this video I was filming." I turned my attention back to my laptop screen.

"Can I be in it?"

"Sure." I smiled and scooted over while he brought over my other computer chair. "Hey guys. Corbyn decided to join me."

"So what is this video about?"

"Its a q&a video. It's amazing how many of your fans love me. I got so many questions sent in."

"Really? That's amazing." He smiled and looked at the tweets from my phone. "That one looks interesting."

(I'll be using an app for tweets like this so they'll all be 'real' accounts but random questions)

"Of course you'd want me to answer that." I giggled. "Too bad that I already did."

"Who did you say?"

"You'll have to wait for the video to find out." I smirked and answered a few more questions before doing my signature sign off.

"Ready to go?" He asked while I grabbed my hoodie and phone.

"Yeah. Is everyone else coming?"

"No. They're all gone to dinner so it's just gonna be us. I-if that's okay with you."

"Like a date?"

"Yeah I guess."

"Corbyn, you know Jack will kill you."

"Nobody gotta know we went together."

"I dont know Corbyn."

"Oh okay. I guess we can forget it then." He sighed and walked over to the door. I looked over at him and sighed.

"Let's go Corbyn."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Like you said, nobody gotta know." I giggled and ran outside with Corbyn right behind me.

On the way to the theater, he kept looking at me weirdly. But honestly, it felt weird to be out with Corbyn. Not in a bad way, of course. I like Corbyn. He's a sweetheart and if it weren't for Jack being my brother, Corbyn would definitely be my favorite boy.

As we walked out of the movie, i turned to Corbyn.

"Corbyn, can I ask you something?"

"Yeah sure."

"You said that everyone else was out at dinner, right?"

"Yeah why?"

"How come Jonah was in his room and Aubrielle was in the living room with Angel and Daniel?"

"They must've come back early."

"Corbyn Matthew Besson, don't lie to me. Why didn't you ask everyone else to come?"

"Because I wanted some alone time with you. We don't get to hang out anymore and I miss my best friend."

"I miss you too but you know you can always come hang out with me whenever you want."

"Yeah I know." He sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

"Then why don't you ever come to my room to chill?"

"I dont know."

"Corbyn, are you afraid of Jack because he warned you that if you were to get too close to me, he'd find someway to make you regret it?" I giggled at the thought of my brother being tough.

"No. I'm not afraid of that. Jack is a softie. He would never be able to make someone regret something." He chuckled then looked down. "I am afraid that if I hang out with you too much, I might fall in love & I'm not sure that'll be good for either of us."

"Why do you say that?"

"You've seen all those movies where the guy, or sometimes the girl, falls for the best friend and the other person doesn't reciprocate those feelings. And then when the first person moves on, the best friend that didn't have the same feelings, finally realizes they were wrong & suddenly wants to be with them. And you know, sometimes those movies have happy endings & they sometimes end up together but what if we didn't have a happy ending? What if we had the worst ending to our relationship ever? Would we still be best friends? No. That's highly unlikely and it sucks because you have no idea how hard it is to stay away from you."

"Corbyn, what are you trying to say?"

"I'm saying that I fell in love & I figured you wouldn't return those feelings so I tried to stay away but it hurt. I couldn't tell Jack because he'd kill me. So I told Daniel & he told me to ask you to the movies to see what happened. But nothing happened. I didn't kiss you, you didn't kiss me. I didn't grab your hand & I probably should've because maybe you wouldn't pull it away and that would be a sign that I needed to kiss you. And now I'm just being the world's biggest idiot because youre staring at me like 'what the fuck is he talking about' and I think we should just go." He looked down again.

"Corbyn, can you look at me for a second?" I asked, he shook his head. "You never asked how I felt about you though. You just assumed I didn't have the same feelings." That made his head shoot up & I looked into his eyes. "You're not an idiot Corbyn. You're the most thoughtful guy I've ever met. You always put everyone before yourself and you're so smart. Corbyn Matthew Besson, I love you too."

"You do?"

"Yes, you moron." I giggled when his arms wrapped around me. "Now what?"

"Wanna try another date tomorrow night?"

"Yes please." I smiled and looked at him. "Just as long as we hide it from Jack."

"I'm sure we can do it. We're both super smart and also SUPER good looking."

"Damn straight." I giggled.

Liked by seaveydaniel, corbynbesson, jackaverymusic and 4,738 others

abbyavery: ive been missin, ive been crushin on you all night 😘😍🌎😊

jackaverymusic: since when? what? imzachherron: dude, this is 100%  about @jonahmarais abbyavery: @imzachherron okay and what makes you think that? imzachherron: because  he sings this verse in the song abbyavery: you suck @imzachherron 😂 imzachherron: so i was right? 😱 abbyavery: @imzachherron no comment

Tags:  @ijustreallylovethem @samithepixie @averysgarl @jackaverybabe@trustfundshawn @lovableherron @beautybesson @jackaverx@scenteddanielseavey @beccagraceseavey@dolantwinmagconwhydontwestan-de @lilah-or-lily @dailydoseofherron @hales-a-bells @obsessedlittleangel-deactivated @zaddydaniel @brizzebesson @ramenavery @splendidseavey @smilingseavey @ilovejackavery @polaroidseavey @poutyavery

[zephiesjournal]

monday, september 19th, 2022

don’t really know how to start this one. i noted down a lot today and wanted to start dedicating more time to journaling so now the pressure’s on. a lot of the sparseness before was probably just from me not remembering but now i’m making a conscious effort to keep more notes throughout the day. i started off the day by eating a leftover burger and getting distracted by mario run. i had a very long list of things i wanted to do today and was worried i wouldn’t be able to get all of it done considering i’m still off meds.

i got distracted a lot while cleaning and it took me a few hours. tried using the derma roller for the first time and have no idea if i did any part of the process right. it didn’t hurt as much to use as i thought which is probably why. my face was pretty sore for a while afterwards though which is maybe a good sign i don’t know. i don’t know how often i should use it or if i cleaned it right i guess we’ll just see if my face breaks out into a million pieces and go from there.

i set out to have all srs reviews done but i have hundreds leftover and i only managed to do about 150 which is fine i think, as long as i do them considerably faster than they come so i can make my way through them fairly quickly. i got pretty irritable doing bunpro and said i’d get back to it later on but never did. then i tried reading which i set out to do for at least an hour a day but very quickly got very tired and had to take a nap. probably should have set an alarm because i think i slept like 2 hours and there was no way i was getting everything done today at that point.

i was eating pretty well up until that point, i had to keep consciously reminding myself i had to eat but after waking up i had zero appetite for the rest of the day for some reason. i could still knock some smaller stuff off my to-do, i made an instagram account that i planned to post on every day. hoping that’ll give me motivation to do something mildly interesting every day so it’s not just nothing but boring selfies, but if so at least it’ll be motivation to take care of myself physically. also joined hellotalk again for the ???th time to post on every day. lot of people immediately messaged me which was overwhelming. got a lot of people to respond to now across different apps. i’ll get to that tomorrow.

i only managed to read 1% of headache in the pelvis because i was real tired and nothing was going in, and the way i track things at the moment had me wondering if i should even count that. still deciding if i should update goodreads every day or every 10%. i missed a lot today but i still felt i did good considering i’m off meds still, and i’m feeling good about this new way of laying out what to do every day. just having a big checklist that i add a new section to every day and leave the other days untouched while being able to adjust things each day and not have to worry about “streaks” is a lot better. i can also give myself little notes under each task to explain if i kind of almost was able to do it or why i didn’t do it. thank god when i started keeping a media log i didn’t do it exclusively on some app because i’m realizing now i would have definitely reset it a bunch over time like i always did with daily tasks. but i still feel slightly like inotes isn’t “baseline” enough and i should take it to a physical journal at some point. but typing is so eeeasyyyy