#oh that's. that's a lot of words. well anyway tldr love the idea hate the execution

[mauvecardigans]

i just >:[ -ed so hard i think i pulled something

listen. listen. i enjoy the show. i will watch s6, and it's not even a hate watch. but god do i disagree with some of the choices, writing and stylistic, especially as the seasons go on. god.

i just -- i dunno. i guess it's just disappointment? but also why am i letting a show disappoint me lmao

like i said, i enjoy the show and i'll watch it through to see where it goes. but, man. it just feels like it got away from them somehow? and i am perfectly happy to blame exec meddling (because i trust netflix less than i trust youtube, somehow) and let tb3 get off scott-free, and i know we'll never know for sure because of contracts and non-disclosure and not wanting to bad talk your own work.

but -- fuck a duck, you know?

like, they laid interesting groundwork and then decided they only needed the basement and quit building, and i need to stop before i ruin more metaphors, but [screams]

[gay-snom]

contextualizing lwj’s coming to terms with his feelings subplot!

i wanna talk about the role of confucianism in this subplot because i think it’s something some western fans might not pick up on. basically, the sociopolitical climate of confucianism in his character arc, and a little bit about his interaction with the public image theme.

disclaimer: i’m not chinese but i do have a double minor in chinese and asian studies and have written a few papers on confucianism.

we’re gonna be talking about the novel bc i feel its a little more in-depth and nuanced than lwj’s “what is black, what is white” monologue in cql. namely the tension and misunderstanding in wwx’s first life and how lwj got his scars. i feel like it’s pretty well accepted that wwx made lwj reconsider his world view, so i’m just gonna expand on it. also i want to point out it's pretty unspoken in most of the text, but lwj is also affected by/used to explore the public image themes, as his image the is ideal confucian scholar.

confucianism is centered around the ideas of how to behave “good” in sociopolitical contexts. basically it boils down to a belief system on how society should be run. if everyone follows confucian beliefs, you will have an ideal society. the main text is the Analects, which you can read here. it’s been around for a few thousand years (like around 200 BCE ish), had a huge revival in the tang dynasty (618-907 CE). it was put on imperial exams, the emperor’s cabinet had confucian scholars, etc. this is just to say confucian values are important to historic society, especially upper-class scholars, which seems to be a role cultivators commonly fill in xianxia. here are some basic tenants:

being a gentleman/scholar/superior man (君子 jūn zǐ) : partly being learned in the arts, literature, music, poetry, etc., mostly behaving righteously and dutifully.

filial piety: usually described as obedience. it's not simply obeying everything elders tell you, it includes doing it with reverence and thankfulness for their sacrifices for you.

leading by example: if leaders/the government is righteous, the people will follow. lwj has his flock of juniors that are all strong cultivators and the lan sect is just generally known for being moral and good.

rites/rituals: a focus on politeness and holding proper ceremonies, sacrifices, and funerals

speech: there’s some great meta about the register he speaks in here, i just want to touch on think carefully before you speak, only speak sincerely, etc.

tldr; lwj is THE perfect gentleman (even his title contains the character suffix 君 -jūn, like lxc. which, while this character is not uncommon for cultivator titles, it wasn’t chosen carelessly either. also not to be confused with 尊 -zūn). seriously, look at almost all of book 10 and you'll see don't do/consume in excess, don't talk during meals, sit only when your mat is straight, etc.

okay, so Why is understanding his feelings for wwx so troublesome?

1.2 "They are few who, being filial and fraternal, are fond of offending against their superiors. There have been none, who, not liking to offend against their superiors, have been fond of stirring up confusion... Filial piety and fraternal submission! - are they not the root of all benevolent actions?"

in other words, people who are filial will never create political tension. so like, morally, wwx should be considered horrible person! he’s not only snubbed the jiang sect. he was a head disciple who undoubtedly had younger students looking up to him. and then he goes and stirs up some huge political issues! he is now a bad role model for the people below him and disrespected the people above him. lwj has an entire image to uphold, he has poured his entire life into following these rules and beliefs, and then wwx comes along. would continuing to be in wwx's life taint lwj? there are some contradicting teachings in regards to interacting with wwx:

15.4: "Do not take counsel with those who follow a different Way"

15.28: "When the multitude hates a person, you must examine them and judge for yourself. The same holds true for someone whom the multitude love."

15.36 "When it comes to being Good, defer to no one, not even your teacher."

this is part of the reason lwj had so much trouble accepting his feelings. he didn’t know how to handle this situation, making him appear distant during/directly after sunshot. if he judges wwx's intentions to be pure, it's then not wrong to be friendly with him. but wwx still is morally wrong by society's standards. now, lwj has to not only figure out his feelings, but also reconcile this with how he still thinks wwx is Not a bad person, despite everything. what if he does get "tainted" by wwx? will it hurt the reputation of his sect? that would be un-filial, right? he spent his whole life memorizing rules that are probably extremely similar to sections in the Analects, and now these mixed messages (coupled with the relatable gay panic) are overwhelming.

onto the next! there’s something unspoken in the scene where wwx discovers why lwj has the whip scars. as other posts have mentioned, lwj taking wwx back to the burial mounds and nursing him is high treason. however, this action is also extremely un-filial. also his entire image is built around being a perfect gentleman, if this were to get out to the public he would lose absolutely everything. he would be just as irreparable as wwx.

“I was worried if those from another sect found you first, WangJi would be considered your accomplice. The best scenario was his name being forever tainted, and the worst was his life being taken away right then. Thus, along with Uncle, we chose thirty three seniors who had always thought highly of WangJi... ”

there’s no way lwj didn’t know what would happen if he did this. obviously as lxc says, if this got out, he would lose basically his entire face. and even though lxc didn’t mention this, it would definitely lose a lot of face for the lan sect as well since lwj is so prominent. the decision about what elders to bring is also notable.

“...As if he knew all along he would be discovered by us, he said that there was nothing to explain, that this was it. Growing up, he had never talked back to Uncle, not even once. But for you, not only did WangJi talk back to him, he even met with his sword the cultivators from the Gusu Lan sect...”

so yeah, he obviously knew they would come for him and what the consequences would be. and he still talked back! that’s already not a good look for the lan sect. but attacking them? totally unforgivable! lwj gives up how he was raised and the importance of filial piety, what he has held on to until this major plot event. since it's basically the biggest "fuck you" to his uncle and his clan, this was not a decision he made lightly. lwj shows them he cares more about wwx and His Own ideas of right and wrong than the sect’s or society’s.

Wei WuXian dug his hands into his hair, “...I-I didn’t know... I really...”

when was the last time wwx was at a loss for words? wwx spends a few paragraphs after this lamenting how he hurt lwj, but he's not unaware of the gravity of what lwj did. it's an underlying assumption from being raised in the culture. i would argue his first instinct is "oh god he gave up what for me?" since those lamenting paragraphs are after lxc finishes speaking.

"But he said... that he could not say with certainty whether what you did was right or wrong..."

this is something thrown around a lot in the Analects, that not even confucius can say for sure what is right or wrong. what better way to show lwj is still a perfect confucian than have him paraphrase confucius himself?

“...WangJi was a model for the disciples when he was young, and a prominent cultivator when he grew up. In his whole life he had been honest and righteous and immaculate--you were the only mistake he made!”

here’s the confirmation that the world and even his family thinks of him as a perfect gentleman, the top tier of society, and it was all thrown away for wwx. this is just so heavy. the mistake thing? thats not only because lwj is fraternizing with an enemy. lxc and the rest of the sect who knew are terrified this will forever corrupt lwj personally, not just publicly. lwj was so devoted to believing this was the right thing to do he offered up everything he had. the gravity of this decision is insane. it’s very obvious that he loves wwx, it’s just that he struggles a lot internally to accept everything that is happening.

as for helping wwx leave after the massacre, is this gentleman-ly of lwj? was it actually in-line with his image? is it more honorable to save someone who is dying, at the cost of your own health, than to look away? isn't looking away a form of resentment? i wasn't able to find a specific passage about bystander-ness, but personally i think it qualifies as "bad intentions." there is also this passage for what it's worth, originally it was about government suppression:

12.19: "...What do you say to killing the unprincipled for the good of the principled?" Confucius replied, "...why should you use killing at all?..."

lwj is always more actions than words, and he was not fucking around. his core beliefs really haven't changed, and remain very strong throughout his life. he is still righteous enough to accept his punishment, graceful enough to search for wwx's body since there was no one else to do the funeral rites (10.22/10.15), caring enough to take in a-yuan, upright enough to still spend his years going where the chaos is.

just with this one action, the audience knows he has come to terms with realizing that authority isn't always just, and neither is the public opinion/opinion of other gentlemen. he has reconciled. this is him standing for what he believes is right. this is his devotion. this is his own choice. just. poetic cinema...

anyway that's it for my first meta post! i would love to hear your thoughts, feelings, opinions, discussions, other meta ideas, whatever! thank u for reading! <3

[kinnoth]

What's your take on Thor Ragnarok? What's your take on Thor's development within the MCU so far?I'm a fan of your posts and tags!

GREAT QUESTIONS THANK YOU FOR ASKING, THANKS FOR BEING A FAN

tldr I """"like"""" Thor's canon development now bc I've done some fucking Olympic grade backfilling and contortion to recontextualize the canon to make it meaningful, but this results in me living in my own pocket universe of an interpretation where I can't really interact with other people bc they don't subscribe to my exact reading of canon

But bro I LOVE Ragnarok. I know that can be a controversial take (I've read the meta of people who think it "slaughtered" Thor and Loki's characterisations), but I just thought it was so much fun! Like on a movie watching experience level and on a lore/meta level, it's FUN. That's not something I can say for 95% of marvel movies, which are nigh universally too dimly lit and too reliant on hateful sarcasm between characters as a substitute for a relationship.

On a meta level, I 1000% subscribe to the idea that the entire movie is a retelling that Thor is preforming for his refugees, so it's a heavily edited, exaggerated, and sillier version of events meant to keep everyone's spirits up. On the point of lore continuity, I really appreciate that thor3 makes CANON and EXPLICIT Odin's campaign of imperialist violence behind his "peaceful" reign over the nine realms, I FUCKIN LOVE IT. I LOVE the context Hela gives to their family, because she makes canon and explicit Odin's disappointments in Thor. I LOVE that Mjolnir was Hela's weapon before it was Thor's because Mjolnir was never meant to be a metric for moral goodness or readiness for rule, but a metric for a colonialist's commitment to imperialist violence on behalf of an empire WHICH IS WHY IT FINDS CAPTAIN AMERICA WORTHY BUT NOT LOKI

(btw if anyone else can draw a line between Hela and Steve Rogers that is a. representative of Odin's priorities and b. includes Thor but excludes Loki, hmu, bc this is the best I got.)

(Mjolnir rejects Thor in thor1 bc Thor was trying to conquer Jotunheim for personal glory and doesn't accept him again until he starts thinking about the good of the empire again by protecting Midgard, an imperial asset. Mjolnir rejects Loki bc Loki is a not an imperialist in service of an empire)

Off topic but I know a lot of people get hung up on Thor leaving Loki paralyzed in the parking garage, potentially to be found by the grandmasters dudes? Like people say that was unaccountably cruel and ooc for Thor. But like, ok, they killed everyone on the way up, and Thor knows his armed gladiator rebellion is on his heels also headed for the parking garage, so I dunno, I never read it as Loki was in any particular danger? But I'm a notorious Thor apologist as well as a Loki apologist so 🤷‍♂️

Things I also love: loki defunding the military to spend that money on art and infrastructure, Loki's live action thorki fanfic that Asgard unaccountably loved, Loki stonewalling Odin's attempt to reconcile bc fuck Odin, Thor's lightning powers, Bruce banner is now a Jewish grandma, Hela have I mentioned Hela love that girlboss, Jeff goldblum love that wiggly man, the Valkyrie love that angry girl, "piss off ghost", inglorious deaths for all the warriors 3, "I'm here" (screaming, crying, shaking), the story about how Loki bit Thor as a snake as well as the confirmation that they are in fact the same age

I have complicated feelings about Thor's canon development tbh. On a very ground floor sort of reaction, I despise what they did to My Boy in infinity war and endgame. I think it's a disgusting character assassination and I don't think the russos understand humour and specifically how to use humour to expand on tragedy like what thor3 did.

On the other hand, if you've read my fic and meta, you'll know that I've accepted the canon development, bc at this point, I've done a LOT of very deliberate and concerted labour to MAKE the canon development we see between thor1 and endgame WORK. But, like, there was a LOT of labour that I, specifically, put into it. It fully relies on me specifically doing a lot of digging and reaching and mining these movies for every possible frame of content to the point where I am pretty sure I've put more effort into making all the development make continuous sense than any of the screenwriters put into the actual development.

And I think I've probably just drank too much of my own Kool aid but like, I am in a position now where I do think my interpretation of Thor's character development is THE most complete and accurate reading of his character development. Key to these points are: a) I think he is an ex-imperialist who is currently and actively trying to deprogram himself from the colonialists' mindset that Odin instilled within him b) he is trying to deprogram himself from Asgard's culture of extreme toxic masculinity wherein he was not taught to have any sort of emotional processing that did not involve physical violence c) Loki is/was/always will be the person he loves best

So like, as I try to show in my thorki canonverse fics (shameless plug for myself), I can make most of the bad decisions made about Thor's character in infinity war and endgame work if I recontextualize all of his canon actions with my own (well supported, well documented) headcanon'd baggage. Of course he goes on a death wish mission to get revenge on Thanos -- he has a literal deathwish bc he was already supposed to die with Loki. Of course he sinks into an unshakeable depression afterwards -- he has no identity now that he has no family bc he was never taught to live by himself or for himself. Of course he leaves new Asgard and abdicates his rule -- he hasn't wanted a hand in the dirty business of Empire ever since Odin's ambition got his mom and brother killed in thor2, and that hasn't changed. I try to make him go through all the canon-implied feelings and anxieties and doubts in front of the reader. My entire goal of this is that people read my shit, then look at canon and think "oohh that context DOES make it better!" I will be gratified if that is the case.

(The only thing I cannot fix is the bit in endgame where Thor walks past Loki's Tupperware cell and the narrative doesn't come to a screeching fucking halt as Thor has so many feelings that he has some sort of paralytic breakdown where he simultaneously wants to commit Time Crime (tm) so he can just stay here forever and also wishes he could just die here, next to loki, like he was always supposed to. Like, that needed to happen to really lynchpin all of my work together into one smooth, problem free reading, but I'm not allowed to have nice things so)

(oh also I didn't like Thor calling frigga "mom". Shouldn't it at least be "mum"? I think "mother" is best tbh, bc I don't really read them as having that sort of relationship, see "toxic masculinity", see also "homosocial socialisation")

(and ok I get that it was a nice moment for Thor to call the hammer back to his hand, and I get that it even still works with my headcanon that mjolnir finds Thor worthy still bc Thor is defending the imperial asset that is Midgard, but like God damnit. The uncritical and unquestioning use of that word "worthy" when he catches the hammer again. Like worthy of what you guys? Do you ever ask yourself that question bc I very much do. I kinda wish they didnt bring it up at all, or if they did, it didn't come back to Thor's hand and he is just like, wistfully, "that's all right, I suspected as much. I'm such a different man now, mjolnir doesn't recognize me. I don't think I'd be alive right now if I had been the same man I was")

Wow that got long, anyway, thanks for chatting with me! Again, always a pleasure to field asks!

[lassieposting]

skulduggery/alt!serpine for the getting together ask game?

I’m bored, so. Send me two (or more) characters for a headcanon on how I’d have them get together

OHOHOHOHO SEE THIS IS A GOOD ONE BC

ive already been thinking about this and im. Lowkey really glad im not the only one

See I always hated skug with any serpine, like I was a passionate anti from 2007 - about three months ago but. I enjoyed their dynamic in phase one and then i read like three of their interactions from sow and got converted or some shit apparently idfk, anyway u know i love an angsty ship

this got really long so tldr; enemies to vitriolic hate-sex buddies to lovers, painfully slow burn, but they'll both die claiming they still hate each other

It begins with China.

She orders him to kill Serpine, and he refuses. He's not even 100% sure why when he does. It's not like they're friends. He's killed people he liked a good deal more than Nefarian Serpine under orders.

But she says, "kill him" and he says, "no", and then things spiral so quickly that it's actually a few days before he even has time to think about her parting shot, flung at him as he walked out on her: "if you want to keep him, you'll be the one looking after him. He's your responsibility, not mine. And if he hurts someone, you -"

He'd shut the door on her at that point, but he knows what she was going to say. You look after him yourself, you train him yourself, and if he hurts someone, you kill him yourself. A wonderfully old-world way of looking at things. He's fairly sure he remembers getting the same speech from the housekeeper when he tried to bring home the ugliest feral tomcat he'd ever seen as a small boy.

(This will come back to bite him. He's not sure how or when, but it will. That's the way of things, whenever he turns his back on China Sorrows. Her last parting shot - a classic "you'll regret this" - ended up getting him killed.)

But then there's Mevolent, and cleaning up a city in the aftermath of its latest Traumatic Event, and putting a size 10 to the backsides of the City Guard, so his priorities get reshuffled somewhat, and it's almost a week later that he thinks to ask, "Heard from Serpine lately? He's being oddly quiet."

Valkyrie blinks at him from the passenger seat. Her fingertips tap tap tap at the touchscreen. She's messaging someone. He doesn't know who. "He's...around."

"Why the pause?"

"Hm?"

"You paused," he points out, switching lanes to get around a hatchback dawdling along at 60. "He's...around. You're trying to hide something from me. I'm aware you still talk to him, you know."

She doesn't deny it. He's gotten used to that, in the last few years. She doesn't tell him things anymore. It's that distance, the distance he can try to banter over but never truly remove. She's a lot further away than his passenger seat. "He's been looking for somewhere to live, like. Now that he's here for good. So, you know. That's probably keeping him busy."

Nefarian Serpine is living out of a stuffy first-floor rented room above, of all things, Vaurien Scapegrace's pub.

He knows this not because China was having Serpine followed (although she was) or because plenty of old faces from the Sanctuary still owe him favours (although they do), but because he receives a text from Scapegrace at a quarter to midnight, in the middle of a grisly murder scene.

have u beaten anyone up lately? do u want to? think thrasher just rented one of our rooms to a war criminal

He taps out a response, half-focused on the screen and half on Valkyrie examining the photos on the dead man's mantelpiece. She looks like she's just figured something out.

Which one? Thrasher, or the other guy?

By the time he's dropped her home, said hello to the furball and returned to the city, morning is bleeding into the sky. He knocks sharply on Nefarian Serpine's peeling rented door, and then again when there's no response.

From inside, a thud.

Then another, followed by some deeply impolite language, and then the door jerks open. Serpine, wearing an impressive bedhead, a scraggly attempt at a beard and a pair of patterned socks with a hole in the toe, squints out into the hall and snaps, "D'you have ANY IDEA what time it is? This place is supposed to - ah, shite. It's you."

"It is," he agrees.

Serpine gives him a sulky jerk of the head - an invitation - and vanishes back inside. He follows, closing the door gently behind him. Inside the room is dark and depressing and smells faintly of mildew and sweat. There are clothes on the floor.

He pulls the curtains open and looks out the window, giving Serpine some privacy to get dressed.

"Found me at last, have you?" Serpine asks from over by the bed. There's a rustle of fabric and the sound of a belt being done up. "What do you want? Come to take my other hand?"

That's it. That's what's different. "Other? You don't seem to be missing any at present, Nefarian. Valkyrie's work, I take it."

Serpine sits down on the bed with a squeak of springs, and when Skulduggery turns to face him, he's smirking and, thankfully, wearing trousers. "Ever so nice of her, wasn't it? Doesn't work like the old one, though. You know. The one I used on you."

He sighs. "And here I thought this last week would've given you time to come up with some new material."

Serpine shrugs and spends a moment picking out a pair of shirts from the wardrobe beside the bed. If it's a test, it's a painfully obvious one. Almost an invitation. Go ahead, shoot me.

No, this is something Skulduggery knows far more intimately. A display of brittle confidence in the face of a threat. I'm not afraid of you. Do your worst.

Serpine is afraid of him. Afraid of being arrested, maybe, or killed, or worse. He'd have relished that fear, once. Delighted in flipping the tables.

He leans back against the desk, ankles crossed and arms folded. After a moment, Serpine turns around with a shirt on a hanger in each hand. He holds them up for an opinion.

Skulduggery points wordlessly at the green one, and the blue goes back in the closet. "If you're not here to kill me, what do you want?"

While Serpine is doing up his buttons, Skulduggery retrieves the folded sheaf of paper from the inside pocket of his long coat, and holds it up. "I came to drop these off."

Serpine's vibrant eyes narrow. "What is that? An arrest warrant?"

"A list of landlords in Roarhaven willing to rent to refugees. Valkyrie mentioned you were looking."

Serpine blinks at him. Skulduggery doesn't often bother with the facade in Roarhaven, but if he had a face right now, he'd be blinking back. It's a weirdly awkward moment.

"...thanks," Serpine says after a moment, tentatively reaching for the papers; Skulduggery leans forward to pass them over. "That'd be...helpful."

He sounds very uncomfortable saying those words. When Skulduggery responds, "You're welcome," he feels much the same.

Serpine unfolds the papers and skims them. Three pages of property listings. Tipstaff had printed them off for him with only a raised eyebrow and a, "Never thought you'd move out of Dublin, Detective."

"What brought this on?"

He looks up. "Hm?"

"You show up here at an ungodly hour of the morning, nobody to rein you in, and you're being helpful? I don't buy it. I know China as well as you do. She told you to kill me, didn't she?"

"She did," Skulduggery acknowledges, and a very old, very spiky part of him gets a kick out of watching the blood drain from Serpine's face. "I told her no."

"Bollocks."

"Hard to believe, isn't it? But it's true. Ah, don't look at me like that, Nefarian. It's got nothing to do with you. I was just feeling argumentative that day. And, if nothing else, I can always rely on China to argue with me if I tell her no."

"So -"

"For my sins, she made you my responsibility, see. I'm supposed to keep an eye on you, make sure you don't get up to any of your old tricks. And if you do, then I'll kill you. I'll be checking in on you to make sure you're behaving yourself. Think of me as a...probation officer, of sorts. With benefits."

More blinking. This version of Serpine is not a morning person. He bets his alternate self got to sleep in far later in this Serpine's dungeon. "I'm not seeing any benefits."

"The benefit is I get to kill you if you step out of line. I never said the benefits were for you."

"Are there any benefits in this for me?"

He considers this for a moment. "You get to live. Because of me. I saved your life. "

Serpine's face is emotionless and his voice is flat.

"Oh," he says. "Yippee."

He's interviewing a witness when his phone rings.

He politely excuses himself, and steps out into the hallway to answer it. "Pleasant."

"Hello!" Serpine says brightly, and launches immediately into, "I want a car."

Skulduggery's fake face blinks at the sigil-embossed wallpaper. It takes a second to even register the voice, and another to pick up on -

"How the -? Who gave you this number?"

"Valkyrie." Serpine sounds completely unapologetic. "And you're supposed to be teaching me to drive."

Serpine can't see his head tilt. He does it anyway. "Am I now? And what gave you that idea?"

"I'm your problem now, remember? Besides, you agreed to it," is the smug answer. "Before our little holiday back to my dimension, I said I wanted a better house and a latte and a car. And driving lessons."

"I never agreed to that."

"Well, you didn't say no. That's agreement by default. Sorry."

"Plenty of people can teach you to drive, Nefarian. You could teach yourself, even. Watch a video on Youtube."

"Detective Pleasant, I am shocked," Serpine teases, suddenly dripping with insincere concern. "Think of all those poor defenceless mortals I could run into. There's an advert on the television about how you're specifically not supposed to hit them with cars. It kills them, apparently. How will I cope without you there to make sure I resist temptation?"

Skulduggery grinds his teeth. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Immensely. I'd completely forgotten how much fun it is to have you at my mercy. And you did say you're supposed to keep an eye on me."

Skulduggery goes quiet for a moment, focusing on reining in the urge to hit something. Serpine's face. He wants to hit Serpine's face. With a chair. Trust him to figure out that being Skulduggery's responsibility meant he could go to him for help.

"Fine."

"Excellent! And now you have my number, so you can let me know when you're free."

"Since when do you have a mobile?"

"Since today," Serpine says airily. "Tanith helped me pick one out. I can talk to anyone, anywhere, whenever I like now. Isn't that great? I mean, I only have two numbers, three now that Valkyrie's given me yours, but still. Now I'll always have someone to talk to."

"This is a work line. It is not for social calls."

A passing sorcerer startles a little at his tone, and he gives her an apologetic smile. As an afterthought, he rolls his eyes in a you know how it is gesture. But she's already walking away, so really he just rolls his eyes at her back, which is probably rude of him.

Serpine is still talking. "- can send little moving pictures, and I've downloaded all these little applications, so now I do all sorts of fun things. Do you use...whatsit...Snapchat? I have Snapchat now. And I've got Angry Birds and Candy Crush and Grindr."

And that? That right there? That is more than he ever needed to know about Serpine.

"Goodbye, Nefarian," he says firmly, and hangs up.

He checks in on Serpine once a week, officially. Unofficially, he clocks more hours than he'd like to admit parked in an alley outside Scapegrace's pub, waiting for someone to scream bloody murder. Serpine spots him a couple of times, gives him a jaunty wave with his newly-regrown hand on his way to the off-licence, mocking and unconcerned.

But nobody gets murdered. Serpine seems to be...behaving. For now.

"I've volunteered you for move-in duty," Valkyrie says, apropos of nothing. When he blinks at her, she shrugs and takes a sip of her coffee. "Serpine's found a flat. He needs some furniture shifting."

He's not going to throw anything at his partner in this busy mortal cafe. He's not.

"I see. And you thought that has anything to do with me because..."

She polishes off the last dregs of her drink with a slurp. "I can't float stuff up stairs."

The apartment Serpine is moving into is a decent two-bedroom on the fourth floor of a six-floor block in a quiet area with a history of minimal unexpected-demolitions-by-overpowered-supervillain. Skulduggery idly wonders, as he pulls up in the parking area behind the building, whether a mass murderer moving in - and the frequent visits by the other mass murderer charged with keeping an eye on him - will bring down housing prices. China will hate that, when she wakes up.

Serpine is waiting for him out front, surrounded by boxes and furniture, already looking a bit frazzled. His outfit is stylish and his slicked-back hair is sticking up in places where he's been running his hands though it. He startles and looks up at the sound of footsteps, and seems to breathe a sigh of relief. "Ah! You came. Valkyrie said you'd know how to go about getting all this, you know. Up there."

"You can hire people for this, you know," Skulduggery tells him. "Removal men."

"With what money?" Serpine asks, a little helplessly. "Valkyrie gave me some of her old things, but I got most of this from - what's the word? - second hand shops, and the refugee aid centre. I've been looking for work, but...you know." He gestures at his face. "This is my criminal record."

Which...is a fair point, so Skulduggery rolls up his sleeves and moves to one end of a squashed two-seater couch. "Fair enough. Grab the other end."

Serpine's mouth almost drops open. "You want to carry it? Like peasants? I thought you were here to float the damn thing!"

Well, he could. But the world isn't actively ending right now, so he can afford to be petty. "I don't use magic unless I have to, these days. We'll be doing this the old-fashioned way."

"But." The last time he saw someone look this aghast was when Valkyrie realised how the citizens of Roarhaven saw her. "But that's manual labour!"

"A little manual labour will do you good."

"Gods, I hate you," Serpine tells him as he moves to grab the other end of the couch.

Skulduggery turns the facade on specifically to give him a smug smirk. "I know."

By the time they're finishing up the boxes, Serpine's new neighbours have come out into the hall to see what all the banging is about. They seem young, mostly - too young to recognise him from the war. Skulduggery is starting to suspect that Serpine has accidentally moved into student housing, but he keeps his mouth shut. Serpine is being chatty and charming, holding court in the corridor, and Skulduggery mostly lets him get on with it in between trips to the bottom of the stairs to pick up more boxes, until a young woman who holds Serpine's front door open for him and chuckles, "Left you doing all the work, has he? He's a talker, your boyfriend. I bet you don't get a word in edgewise."

It's not often that Skulduggery Pleasant is lost for words. "I. I'm sorry. What?"

Fortunately, Serpine chooses that moment to interrupt the conversation he's having and interject, "Oh, no, darling. We're not together. He's just here to make sure I stay out of trouble."

There's something off about how he says it, though. There must be, because the woman taps her nose like he's just confided a secret, and Skulduggery can't help but feel like he's just been made the butt of a joke he doesn't fully understand.

He checks on Serpine once a week. Occasionally Serpine texts him. A blurry photo, usually paired with a caption like, "what the hell is this?"; a set of traffic lights, or a lollipop man, or a chihuahua in a little jumper. Sometimes he responds, but sometimes he doesn't bother.

It's not like they're friends.

The sun is shining, the birds are singing, Roarhaven's shopping district is bustling, and Nefarian Serpine is late.

Skulduggery's been people-watching, drumming his fingers on the tabletop, for fifteen minutes when he finally shows up with a to-go coffee cup in one hand and a stack of books under the other arm. He's frowning.

"You're late," says Skulduggery, by way of greeting.

Serpine shrugs, taking the seat opposite. He dumps his books on the round table and gives the menu a cursory glance. "Sorry. I was at the library. Almost missed the bus."

A waitress approaches wearing a shirt stamped with the logo of the little bistro they're sat outside, and while Serpine orders lunch, Skulduggery idly examines the titles stamped along the spines of his book mountain. Some of them look old, leather bound tomes with fancy gold lettering, and the rest seem to be...textbooks, of all things.

"A little light reading, Nefarian?"

"Huh?" Serpine - busy watching the waitress walk back inside - swivels round to face him, and shrugs. "Oh. Yeah. I want to see if they match up with the slanderous shite they're teaching at the university."

"Excuse me?"

Serpine shrugs. "Vapid and Ty - you know Ty, weird hair, lives next door - thought it might help me adapt if I learn more about how your world is different to mine, so. I've been sitting in on some classes. Unofficially. History. Mortal Relations. That kind of thing. You have battles here that never happened back home, you know."

Skulduggery folds his arms across his chest and leans back in his chair, amused despite himself. "Mortal Relations? You're going to Mortal Relations lectures. You."

"Shut up," says Serpine, pointing a finger at him. "You don't get to laugh. You're not the one nobody wants to hire. - because that's still a problem, by the way. Aren't you supposed to be helping me with that?"

"I'm supposed to be making sure you don't kill anyone or make a nuisance of yourself. Sorry to disappoint."

"Would it kill you to write me a character reference?"

Skulduggery coughs conspicuously into his gloved hand with the throat he doesn't have. He picks up the top book from Serpine's stack and flips idly through Religion & Warfare: The Rise Of The Church Of The Faceless In The 15th Century . "Think about that one for a minute, Nefarian, and you'll remember why it's not happening."

"Fine. Be like that." Serpine's shoe nudges his leg under the table. "Here, were you at the Battle of Black Rock?"

He has to think about that one for a second, then hums in the negative. "Hm. No. I missed that one. I think that was when I was holed up in Cork with a broken leg. Why?"

"History 201," Serpine muses. "I tagged along this morning. It was mostly about that fight, but it never happened in my dimension. It was borderline slanderous, honestly. The professor is an imbecile."

"You're dying to vent, aren't you?"

"Would you mind terribly?"

Skulduggery pulls his ornate pocket watch from his waistcoat pocket and checks the time. "You've got fifteen minutes. Better talk fast."

Time goes by.

He checks on Nefarian once a week. They have coffee, sometimes. Valkyrie knows not to cross the line of bringing Serpine to Skulduggery's home, but she adds them both to a group chat and neither one leaves.

Nefarian wrecks his first car, and Skulduggery makes the drive out from Dublin at 5.45am to rescue him. He calls the tow truck while Serpine sits, pale and shaken, in the Bentley's front seat, drenched from the rain and squelching miserably every time he moves.

He apologises for calling so early, and for once he sounds like he means it.

Skulduggery takes him through the McDonalds drive thru to cheer him up, and as Nefarian tucks into a box of fries with gusto, he thinks, oh no.

They're not friends. They're not.

"Is this a date?"

Skulduggery tilts his head, hand stilling over the car keys. "I'm sorry?"

Valkyrie tosses another piece of popcorn into her mouth. She's already in her pyjamas, fluffy ones with dogs on them, and she's flicking through the Netflix queue. "You're all dressed up. Is this a date? Have you two finally gotten over yourselves? God knows it's been long enough."

He snatches up the car keys and sniffs, disdainful. "After all these decades, Valkyrie, if that's what your expert detective skills are telling you, I have failed as a mentor."

"And now you're getting defensive."

"I'm doing no such thing. Where's Tanith, by the way?"

She laughs and does double fingerguns at him. "And that's deflection!"

He sighs - dramatically, for her benefit - and as he checks his pocket watch, she continues, "And, she's on her way. Get out, already. You have a date to keep and we have movies to watch."

"It's not a bloody date," he complains, patting his pockets to make sure he's got everything. "And I originally asked you."

"Yeah, but opera's boring. Here, is he meeting you there or are you picking him up?"

"Goodbye, Valkyrie."

"See?!" She shouts after him as he shuts the front door. "Date!"

[flovey-dovey]

I want to say something about Klaus

I’ve been waiting a very long time to see this movie, and when I finally could I loved it to pieces. But the ending broke my heart- in more ways than one.

There will be no “tldr” here because my feelings about this film are too strong to let me minimalize what I have to say about it (but I might have to make a part 2 since this is pretty big). If you don’t agree with me, that’s fine, it’s okay, I don’t blame you. I won’t tell you you’re wrong, because in your own life you’re as obligated as ever to have an opinion of your own, correct or not. One other thing I want to say before I start rambling is that this will be messy. Also I do not- nor have ever- claimed to be a critic, and this is not a review. This is just a single person on the internet expressing their opinion, and for the love of all that is holy let’s keep it at that.

Foreword over, on to my pure thoughts. Oh, and spoiler alert for those who haven’t seen the movie yet. No matter what I think about it it’s definitely worth a watch, and going into this without seeing it will probably confuse some folks. Maybe.

Okay, since my main qualm is with the characters, let’s start with Alva. I like her. She’s not the generic “tough girl who don’t need no man” I was fully prepared to have shoved down my throat. She has some genuinely good moments on her own as well as funny and pleasant interactions with both Jesper and the children of the town and is a fine character. She is jaded and determined, though not to the point of that being her entire personality, and I loved watching her find happiness as the teacher she wanted to be. She is a victim of circumstance that eventually has her environment changed and finds herself changed with it for the better. Her design and personality were very pleasing (to me) to see as well.

However...

Why did she have to be the love interest? Just- why? What warranted her eventually desiring a relationship of any description when she was shown to be more devoted to her position as a teacher- and as a single woman- throughout 90% of the film? This is especially frustrating since it turns almost every scene with her into one that involves Jesper in some way rather than build her as a character outside of this perspective. It takes away from Alva “the character” and instead focuses more on her as Alva “the love interest”. In media stuffed to the rafters in heteronormative relationships, and from those that I’ve seen, as afraid as I was to see it happen I was also prepared to have this aspect of the movie gracelessly thrown into my face. So, as might be expected, I actually groaned out loud when I saw it come to pass. I’m not mad, just... actually that’s a lie I am rather irritated by it, but also just... sad. Very, very sad. Disappointed, you might say. She and Jesper don’t have a lot of interactions showing that this was the obvious outcome. The best I can think that people would draw this conclusion would be a) she’s a woman and he’s a guy and they looked at each other that one time, and b) when he was trying to be charming to wriggle out of her wrath. Also, same scene, I don’t buy that it’s further implied by the boat-guy (I forget his name and can’t find it on IMDB) teasing Jesper over “young love” after she leaves in a huff. He’s not a reliable look into any feelings Jesper might feel towards her since all he’s done up to that point is tease him. It’s not enough, it just isn’t. Not to me.

In regards to her feelings for Jesper, the most I see from her is gratitude. The scene when she’s showing Jesper what he unintentionally did for the town is just that, and as she’s looking at the townsfolk Jesper looks... distressed. This is because he is conflicted about what to do at this point in the story, not necessarily because of any feelings for Alva, but it doesn’t even look like he’s thinking of her- romantically- at all. They don’t share any additional conversation, either; not a single flirtatious joke or anything that would lead me to believe they were bonding. I feel horribly conditioned to see her as the love interest and nothing more because that’s all I’ve ever seen done with a man and woman who only share a single line of dialogue before some narrator is telling me “of course” they got together in the end. Oftentimes, that line of dialogue is in an unpleasant or downright aggressive scenario, and that’s not romance. Seeing it happen over and over and over and over in almost every piece of media I subject myself to makes me want to take a blowtorch to my brain. I’m literally at my wit’s end. If it was more built-up and actually there, then fine, I take it back, but the thing is I hardly saw anything at all in terms of either Jesper or Alva or both of them thinking about each other, wanting to be together as more than just friends, throughout the entire hour and a half of the movie. The most scenes I can say they shared (not counting the ending because I’ll get to that in a bit) are four, with each one being little more than a minute long, two of them being more on the aggressive side, the third being when Alva shows Jesper the new Smeerenburg. Pleasant and humorous, yes, but not inherently romantic (neither of them share more than a glance and Jesper looks pretty preoccupied internally). The fourth is of Alva helping Margu translate what she wants from Klaus for Jesper. When Margu hugs Jesper and he and Alva exchange silent looks, the expression on Alva’s face, to me, says something like “you’re not half bad” and a note of good humor for how he handles children. Just so we’re clear I’m not against her finding happiness with Jesper. I just want it to be warranted. Not narrated.

Oh, but their love for each other is obvious and clearly meant to be from the start, is it? Okay then, show me when Alva says or does something and makes Jesper laugh, or vice-versa. Show me when she thought of him OUTSIDE of simply showing him what he did for everyone and how their hands touched, their gazes met and shy or flirtatious smiles spread across their faces as they drew slightly closer, and how she felt something more than gratitude and impressment for him. Show me when Jesper wanted to do something for her OUTSIDE being the means to a letter-related end. Show me the parts when they pined for each other and how happy seeing the other’s smile made them and how they were happy for each other’s progress and encouraged each other. Show me the parts of the movie where Jesper visited as often as he could manage to squeeze into his busy schedule just to chat. Show me kisses, hand-holding, lingering looks and happy little half-smiles cast from across a crowded courtyard. Maybe they do share something more than friendship, but no matter what I can’t get over how little there was between them to give me the impression it was going to lead to romance. It’s not even subtext, in my opinion.

Do you remember when Jesper’s father came back and it all came out in a part known as “the liar revealed” (a trope I quite hate for the oftentimes needless forced drama it creates, but whatever, for now I’ll let it slide) that he had ulterior motives which, at that point, he no longer had? Alva was the FIRST to turn her back on him in spite of their “lovey-dovey” merry-go-round painting MOMENTS earlier. She didn’t even want to hear out Jesper, who was clearly upset, and jumped straight to accusing him without showing that she was just as upset by the revelation that he could’ve been using her and playing with her feelings. How romantic. Meanwhile, the last one to return inside was Klaus, who was far more saddened and disappointed, leaving slower and leaving Jesper looking the worst, like he was heartbroken by his words- an echo of his own- most of all.

In fact...

Speaking of Klaus, I’d say Jesper is far more attracted to him than to Alva. This movie, while nearly devoid of interactions serving to build romantic chemistry between Jesper and Alva (which it absolutely should’ve if they had the ending be what it was), is littered with moments, wordless and otherwise, between Klaus and Jesper. So let’s go over them. I mean, if you’ve left by now then like I said at the start, I don’t mind. But if it’s alright I’d like to talk about them anyway, because holy holly I love them.

The scenes in question are clearly shown to develop their friendship and only get more romantic from there, and I could run out of breath trying to ramble them off all at once and what it meant to me to see them portrayed in such a beautiful way- artistically as well as in terms of the story.

Fairly early on, we learn that the wind is kind of its own “character”, guiding both Jesper and Klaus to ultimately meet each other as well as bringing them together more than once afterwards, and later on with what we learn about him it’s heavily implied to be the spirit of Klaus’ dearly departed wife. I’d like to think she was trying to tell Klaus to move on and find new love in Jesper and for Jesper to find purpose by Klaus’ side. The instances involving the wind are scattered throughout the film, so this is going to be a bit out of order.

To start, Jesper, while trying to get Klaus to donate his toys to the children of Smeerenburg, doesn’t notice the wind swirling around behind him like it was telling Klaus to follow him even if at the time Jesper’s intentions were selfish. Because he changes. They change each other, and their dynamic progresses so much more naturally, directly and clearly than Jesper and Alva’s.

There’s another scene when it leads Klaus to his workshop, where he opens the door to see a silhouette distinctly meant to parallel his wife- the one he loved- and revealed when he pulls back the cloth to be Jesper- his potential new love.

It’s one of the most explicit scenes enforcing my idea that Klaus’ wife was trying to get him to love again. Anyway, Jesper then excitedly starts going on about his gift and trying to get his mojo back before making an unintentionally big mistake by revealing a painful reminder of Klaus’ wife. A mistake he deeply regrets, mind. Not too long later, Jesper tries working on his own to make Margu’s wish for a boat/sleigh come true. While he works, the shot fades to see Klaus back at his workshop. He sees the picture Jesper drew of them and sighs, giving in and going to see him at the post office [also not to mention the drawing fades with the family shelf thing Klaus made so that’s pretty neat; took me a year to edit this in but hey better late than never]. My favorite scene is Klaus showing up to work on Margu’s present, giving Jesper a tool as well and interrupting Jesper to wordlessly point at the task at hand as if to say “If we work, we work together”. And that spoke to me. More than anything else in the movie and more than I’ve heard from any movie I’ve seen that I can remember. Also, Jesper’s soft, shy, willing smile put the biggest grin on my face. It was the last nail in the sled that made me convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were forming a romantic bond from this moment forward.

Part 2 because this is long:

https://flovey-dovey.tumblr.com/post/189133807093/part-2-of-my-thoughts-on-klaus

[yibuo]

UMMM I would love to know what exactly happened with xnine too if you know??

i didn’t know how to answer this without hating on long danni but... that’s not possible when you’re talking about xnine

CORRECT ME IF I’M WRONG IN ANY WAY @ DIMPLES AND CFANS

tldr ceo addicted to producing survival shows realizes boy group is incapable of feeding her fat rabbit because of her OWN mismanagement and throws them away (literally? probably not, maybe, idk)

HOLY SHIT THIS BECAME RLY LONG IM BEGGING KEEP READING TO WORK LO LOL LOL

long danni= wjjw company ceo

wjjw=company that xnine, xz, r1se, etc are under

huo mala: fat company rabbit that WILL give u nightmares goodness gracious thinking about him sends chills down my spine

alright so long danni (ldn i will refer to her) & ee media along w/ tencent and sm made the survival show x-fire... the premise of xfire was that 16 contestants split into two different teams (white and red) and then at the end it would boil down to each team having 4 members and the winning team would debut as a group called xfire...but wait...the group’s name is xnine? so out of red team (peng chuyue, baishu, xiao zhan, xia zhiguang) and white team(wu jiacheng, gu jiacheng, zhao lei, and guo zifan) white team won...and they unofficially debuted as xfire..went abroad to train yadda yadda yadda and then a few months later, TELL ME WHY LONG DANNI DECIDES TO RELEASE POLLS TO LET FANS VOTE IN 5 MEMBERS INTO XFIRE TO CREATE XNINE! ldn PLEASE if u wanted to rig the show you should’ve decided in the beginning what was the point of making the teams and the fans fight against each other...

so yeah xz and crew weren’t actually supposed to debut according to show rules...i mean i’m glad they debuted obviously bc x9 is x9 but ee media and frickin ldn couldve handled this better...like every member except chen molerat is amazing and great but....WHY DIDNT MaNAGEMENT NOT BLATANTLY RIG THEM INTO THE GROUP

but also thank u ldn for also letting us get to know the 4 guys who were added n not chen molerat <3 but like DO UR JOB PROPERLY

anyway the polls were RIGGED obviously thanks ldn what did u expect out of making POLLS, and xiao zhan, peng chuyue, xia zhiguang, yan xujia, and chen z*** were added to the group to create xnine...talk about rigged when chen z*** the molerat lookin turdface misogynist was added... anyway at the time he wasnt known to be problematic but ya the whole rigging thing caused a whole rift esp when x9 debuted bc there were fanwars and death threats initially but xfire did well because it was one of the (if not only) survival shows at that time and x9 debuted w/ a good response etc

then they got moved to wjjw (still owned by ldn thanks ldn) and wjjw is known for hoarding artists and not promoting them (THEY HAVE LIKE 45 ARTISTS BUT WERE FORMED 3 YEARS AGO MAKE IT MAKE SENSE) and not being promoted properly was EXACTLY what happened to xnine. as idols what they needed was music promotions, variety shows, etc stuff to get them as people out there but this genius ldn decided to promote them through stupid zodiac dramas like super star academy (to promote xfire finalists) and oh my emperor (which was an xnine drama). now i haven’t watched OME, but SSA gave me enough brain rot and gunk for me to not watch OME. (the only person who could act was baishu), and the story was SO BAD. nevermind the acting, because the boys weren’t initially slated to be actors, but the story was horrible, girl without superpowers suddenly becomes white cult goddess at the end??? WHAT???????? why didn’t ldn just promote them normally !!!!!! are they an actor group or an idol group???? I LOVE XNINE, THEY ARE TALENTED ARTISTS !!!! and eventually some went into acting (xz, guo zifan, gu jiacheng) BUT WAS THAT THE TIME DLFNJNF and then they just kept getting sent into random dramas and movies as random side characters instead of being able to make music and promote????? i’m sorry i’ve been stuck on using dramas to promote x9 for a while because that’s such a SILLY IDEA *vigorously shakes head* 

ldn knows how to do survival shows but she doesn’t know how to promote her artists thanks ldn. xnine has so much talented, we know xiao zhan is a great singer, but other main vocalists like wu jiacheng, zhao lei, and peng chuyue are amazing as welll, here’s me plugging this video of zl and pcy performing their self-written song on produce camp because it’s the most beautiful thing ever

-oh yeah somewhere in here insert chen molerat getting outed as a pedo misogynist cheater by his gf who still has the audacity to have xnine in his weibo name because xnine starting to get popular gtfo rat lookin ass i WILL barf, when we say ot8 xnine we mean xnine w/o chen toadratass but sometimes ppl think it’s xnine minus xz which is untrue-

they also have talented rappers (gu jiacheng yan xujia) and dancers (xia zhiguang guo zifan) like xia zhiguang can end me with his spinning flying kick thing and i WILL let him 

so YEAH !! TALENT that went to waste because wjjw gave them weird random hiatuses and kept pushing them as actors??? seriously what is with this actor stuff...so that’s why they debuted in 2016 and have very little discography to their name because wjjw just gave up...trying to promote them GOD thank u so much ldn for ur incomptency <3333 xnine had members in diff stages of life (ranging from xz who was born in 91, to yan xujia born in 2001, they were all close tho soo cute) and wjjw really was like nope we’re not gonna try to promote yall’s dreams of becoming singers on the stage because they couldn’t add 34783473 pounds to fat huo mala’s weight

so ya a lot of people are like omg wjjw hates xiao zhan!!! ya no they hate all of xnine but now xz is bringing enough money to make huo mala even fatter so good for huo mala i guess /s

also rumors and any bad media? lol wjjw doesn’t care they do a shit job at handling bad things too WHAT A WELLROUNDED COMPANY

OH ALSO TALK ABOUT HOW THYE HAD 3 DAYS TO PREPARE FOR A CONCERT???????????? WHAT????????? wjjw u mfs

anyway to summarize my rants above wjjw did  a SHIT job of promoting xnine as idols when the boys worked so hard and wjjw kept tryna push them to acting bye (some of them can’t act and literally don’t WANT TO ACT HHHSFLNF), wjjw is also horrible at letting all of the xnine members shine when as i mentioned before, they’re ALL TALENTED!!!! and then they just gave up on xnine somewhere in 2017-2018... ok anyway so is xnine disbanded? no although some may say their last concert in dec 2018 was their last concert ever they’re not disbanded

xiao zhan , gu jiacheng, and guo zifan went into acting

wu jiachang is focusing on his music etc (he was actually the first member of xnine i came across when i watched the collaboration/cyzj in 2018...yes carats this is That wu jiacheng!!!) MAN CAN SING

peng chuyue, zhao lei, xia zhiguang, yan xujia all went on produce camp 2019 (aNOTHER SURVIVAL SHOW BC THEY WANTED TO BE ON THE MF STAGE BC THATS WHY THEYRE HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE WJJW) along w/ fellow labelmates zhou zhennan and zhai xiao wen ... and everyone but peng chuyue made it to the final 11 spots and got to debut in the group r1se...UNFORTUNATELY ALSO UNDER WJJW HELP SEND HELP

if they’re in r1se does that mean they quit xnine? no! they’re in both that’s just how survival shows work it’s kind of weird

peng chuyue recently released a song and it’s really good and you can’t not tell me that it’s gay here it is

anyway xnine hasn’t disbanded!! the X玖少年团 (xnine) in the non-r1se members’ weibo names say that loud n clear!!! and when the r1se members from xnine won produce camp 2019, they all made xnine signs SO XNINE IS ALIVE and they do keep in contact!!

why haven’t we seen blatant public interactions btwen xiao zhan and the xnine members? because some frickin annoying xz solo stans/xfx claim that the other members use xz for popularity (HELLO??????? IN WHAT WORLD DOES THAT MAKE SENSE HALF OF THEM R LITERALLY HIS KIDS BUT OK) 

anyway in conclusion wjjw doesn’t know how to promote any of their artists, thus screwing over xnine members and making them go on a group hiatus where they focus on acting/singing/r1se for r1se members but they are very much xnine as of now !!!

here’s some REALLY GOOD RESOURCES to follow xnine bc as an ifan it’s mf hard

-xnine slideshow

-xnine faq

-xnine eng sub channel by yuer

-all of that content i listed above was made/subbed by one person and she is the queen of uhh...xnine international fandom outreach (????) how do i word it but she’s been subbing and spreading xnine long before xiao zhan’s popularity skyrocketed so go follow her for updates and memes here

-xnine intl fanbase twt and tumblr

-and here’s this twt account with dumb pics of xnine because why not

also i’m pretty sure there’s a wip video explaining x9′s history being created (by yuer because queen) so when that’s posted i’ll rb this and post it here

also here’s this video dragging wjjw

[jednozycie]

I'M DONE MY DUDES!!!! BUT ALSO NEW BEGINNINGS!!!

Long rant ahead about personal things (keeping it kind of vague but then not vague, you'll see what that means). This is also an update as to where the fuck I've been since I've been super absent on the wonder that is the internet and social media; aka I suck at keeping contact in general. Like so bad. Astronomically bad. This is also an experience to type on mobile but I'm doing it anyway!!!! Also I go into ableism. SO MUCH. MOSTLY MY OWN WITH MYSELF. BUT STILL.

ALSO LONG.

WELL. A few months back (or two??) I had a very bad(TM) episode involving mental health things, which I am keeping vague but those that know, know and if not there's always private messages I guess. But that started spiraling last year, BUT THAT'S GETTING SORTED SO NO WORRIES (I feel caps really gets the point across so sorry in advance)!!!

Now we get to the other things that therapy has dug up. Internalized ableism. Which is as prevalent as externalized ableism, honestly. It also applies to phsyical disabilites as much a mental or invisible disabilites but to avoid writing a goddamned 100 page post, I'm going to stick with the more physical or external because that's what I've been coming to terms with these last few weeks; aka that's what has been more salient so here we go!!! (This is honestly the first time I'm putting any of this into actual words and sentences, so if it's seems kind of like paragraphs are random. Yeah.)

I'm also more of an advocate for the affirmation model of disability so if that's not your jam, maybe you're better off not reading this? Or you can see the point I'm trying to make; there is a point to this, not just rambling!

The condensed version of the affirmation model is essentially not viewing diabaility as this TRAGIC, TERRIBLE CIRCUMSTANCE. It's understanding and being able to understand it as an identity or as a part of an identity; aka I really fucking hate the medical model and it can go suck a fuck because most of it is archaic and it deserves to be trampled. BUT AGAIN, THAT'S A DIFFERENT POST IN ITSELF SO I DIGRESS.

I'm done with dealing with shit as a """medical condition""" and """bad luck""" because no, it really isn't and it doesn't have to be just because the rest of the able-bodied world is the "gold standard" (FUCK THE GOLD STANDARD ALSO, BUT AGAIN I DIGRESS). I also do want acknowledge that I am white and college educated so I definitely have a lot of fucking privlege in other areas of my life.

So let's go back in time to where my crippling internalized ableism started. Ah yes, back in February on a shitty, stormy Sunday in 1994. But how could it start when I was just born? Well, because of ~ableist culture~ that was already there the day I arrived. I don't even know if I want to state that I ""appreciate"" that they tried to surgically fix my hand, although it did give me the use of my thumb so I'm conflicted. Still. Super medical model.

Queue doctors trying to convince my parents for the next five years of my life and random years in between during my childhood that they could "fix" my hand via hand transplant or by removing my fingers and transplanting my toes and making them more "finger-like" so they could become fingers on my hand. I'm still creeped out about that to this day, but I'm not going to judge anyone who may have had a similar procedure because I do still understand and in the end, you do you.

This essentially lead my parents into the mode of "you need to compensate for that disability so no one can judge you on it". Like what the actual fuck. Who puts that idea into their child's head???? ~Ableist culture~

And oh man, I still got fucking bullied as a kid. Like I'm talking about being called terrible things I didn't even understand at 5, and even getting spit on!!! The best part is that happened at a PRIVATE, CATHOLIC instituition. : )

That did get better because I involved the principal to the degree of having the guys almost expelled (and they were like 11-13 when they did that kind of shit and I was 5-6 so. HM. NICE LADS. TRULY).

This led to a life long habit of hiding my hand and freaking the fuck out anytime there were activites that involved holding hands or having hands visible.

But for every fuckwad that made me feel like an abomination there were good people that quite literally did not give a single fuck and thought it looked cool. So kids are alright sometimes. It's actually children who still are super accepting of it and just roll with it even if they don't understand. Teenagers... on the otherhand. Well, I love getting candid (but so fucking obvious) shots of my hand followed by laughter. Alright.

Even worse is the pity. Like bruh, I did not ask for your pity. Nor do I need to hear about it as "it happened for a reason; all in god's plan". Bruh. BRUH. NO.

"Wow you're dealing so well with it" "Wow you really don't let it affect you" "it could have been much worse you know, (insert story about another person with a disbaility that they know)"

Gotta say, more than my actual hand, it's those comments now that make me go fucking berserk. Those comments do come from our ableist society, but also from misunderstanding, or a society that is hyper-focused on appearance. Or all of that simulateneously.

Even my own relatives get angry with me when I try to discuss my hand or anything related to ableism because it's something I should be ashamed of!!!! NO. no. N. O. NO!!!!!!!!!!!! As if we're supposed to just sit back, hide it from plain sight and "manage" it.

It's only after therapy that I've realized how much I've internalized everything and how it does connect to other problems with myself and the self-hate I used to struggle with and I am going to get over it. Self compassion goes a long way. And if that doesn't work I will live out of spite for all the shit that I've gotten over the years.

This is the hand I was born with; the hand I will have for the rest of my life; the hand that has chronic pain; the hand that has made some tasks difficult; BUT IT'S MY HAND!

TLDR; I don't ""suffer"" with ABS (Amniotic Band Syndrome), it's just another part of who I am and I'm done with trying to obscure it. I may only have a full thumb on my left hand but I have enough of my middle finger to throw it up when the situation calls for it. I've found peace with that. From now on I will absolutely wave my hand around like it's the shit. Because I'm done trying to fucking conform. DONE.

This is also a big FUCK YOU to a French doctor that tried to convince me that "beauty is pain" and that I should have gotten a cosmetic hand prosthetic. Like if wanting cosmetic prostheses (and cosmetic surgeries) comes from a place within the individual, aka outside of pressure to conform or pressure from peers and this fucking pervasive culture then I'm all for it. But personally, none of it was ever about my needs. I'm now old enough to discern that I never needed it and I never will.

[sorrymomandcat]

Wed. November 6 2019

12:21AM I need a new lighters 

8:09AM 

I woke up with that feeling. 

Surprisingly not tired. 

I might be after I cry. 

Goodbye past.

4:33PM I'm starting this in my car on my anxious pressured 'break' at the ever busy Budapest. I'm gonna not. Brb.

4:55PM Okkkk, I’m going to be real with you.

I had a lot of clever ways to open this conversation but I have forgotten them since sitting in my Ferrari having not 1, but 2 smokes. You ever feel like you’re chewing on your own teeth? No? Good, that means you haven’t smoked meth for the past 255 days. To be clear- Cobain, Lampwick & The Joke are all synonyms for a former co-worker. Although the same person, they’re sort of not #mentalhealthawareness. TLDR; the more evolved part of me really hopes this guy is just a mean, jaded fucking asshole because the alternative is that they’re deeply psychotic and likely the permanent kind. Both leave little hope for improvement but the former at least KNOWS that. KNOWS I know. I could do a whole bullet-point slideshow fucking presentation on the red flags I had been seductively blindfolded to through exploitation of deepest nature and a stubborn unwillingness to accept pain and anger & I just might. I might. I might need to! I processed most of it as it was happening, denial was a bitch though. If you come from a place of; neglect, abuse and chaos but decided to assess your damages rather than project them on to innocent and typically pretty wonderful people.. then you need to equip yourself. Even if you took the more outward approach, leaving everyone in your path as empty useless collateral damage.. you could benefit as well. Tell yourself 'I’m only self-improving to gain further access and a tighter hold of my victims’ It doesn’t matter. Educate yourself on the impact of trauma/abuse/upbringing. See what happens to you. @ me. 

5:53PM There’s a lot of Construction Boyz here tonight. They hit on me and I’m all like ‘omg I smoke crystal meth and I’m in an over-sized hoodie at work with obviously contrasting roots growing in.. you have no idea how much I needed this’ hahah. Still, it’s nothing quite like the validation I get from making humble jokes to myself in my neurotic head! Where was I? Oh yeah. The Joke; Lampdick. This motherfucker fucking pulls out a REAL LIFE meth pipe, Chief Leaf right there. Of course CL is through-n-through up to date and real time a best friend without judgement, so it doesn’t reflect on me, but I’ve been fighting tooth (lol) and nail against obvious (but not blatant) disapproval toward this endeavor with Joke.. (of course gaslit with remarks like ‘fuck the haters’ ‘you’re really going to care what they say’ ‘it isn’t their relationship’ .. you’re the hater.. they treat me with consistent respect so duh.. you’re absolutely fucking right-it’s ours-and it fucking sucks because you’re an abusive psychopath.. shove that isolation groundwork technique up your) ? No respect. To pull out a fucking meth pipe after:

Day 1 appreciating we had a different DOC (drug of choice) and agreeing that use needs to be controlled in the best harm reduction sense possible & I firmly disclosed that I am 100% in no fucking way ever going to be okay with anyone-ever smoking meth near/with me. I still barely forgive the fuckers that ever let me do it - and I know full God damn well it was my choice/fault/willing action. I barely forgave myself! For letting them let me! Or that I even let me let them do it! So. No. It was immediately made clear. Day 1.  

Throughout this treachery The Joke made here-and-there comments about like “pass it this way” and “why don’t you save me any” and other repulsively ignorant and juvenile comments and my stance toward the matter remained firm. Which he always met with “yeah I know! I’m obviously joking! I agree! I would never do that to you��� Like I was crazy for hardening my responses. Fucker, fucking fucker.

Seeing/hearing what I have vulnerably shared and experienced since the first day I made this choice (and I know not everyone who has/will make that choice is going to have MY experience. I’m not claiming that. I’m claiming ‘I don’t give a fuck what another person’s experience may be - I am not fucking here for it’ - ‘it’s a no from me dawg’ 

Knowing how desperately I am trying AND want AND try to want (some days it really do be like that) to stop smoking crystal. To end-all repair the damage it has done to myself, my relationships and my life. To prevent the inevitable damage that waits if I don’t. 

Not to mention all the attempts at ‘crazy making’ by exploiting my guilt and fear of potential harm: caused by crystal meth. ie; “you’re definitely sleep-stealing my keys and/or moving things because YOU’RE smoking crystal meth, and that shit is BAD bad + your traumatic childhood,’ (that he doesn’t give a fuck about unless using it against me in similar scenarios) ‘so come on. You can’t deny engaging in these behaviors, that I refuse tell you about. You meth-trauma black events out.. you’re not conscious of it because of YOUR big bad drug.” (which it is and I don’t intend to downplay it)

Seriously. These are real events & that’s just scratching the fucking surface. Note: this blog intentionally has NO followers and is ran anonymously. My intention is only to self-vindicate the man made madness I've enabled. Yet STILL it manages to drag into a month and a half of my God damn precious and OBVIOUSLY seriously fucking sensitive time. I feel NO shame for that; for struggling right now. For falling the fuck on my ass/face/faceassfuckhands onto a SERIOUSLY cemented floor! that manages to also be falling upwards into my fucking face! So instead of ceasing upon impact; continuously bashing my fucking FACE in. It fucking happens man. I fucking know that and I fucking own it as shamelessly as is safe to. Not as a way to justify where I am right now - but to foster a belief that I am worth the insidiously meticulous effort that's required to be better. In a better position to improve the quality of how I serve myself and thus actually beginning to serve those around me. Jesus shit what a Joke. I can’t believe I let myself: be treated this way, be ignorant to it, be willing to entertain the idea that maybe it was OK (even warranted).. but between you and me: I find it even harder to believe that another human being - one who has clearly been deeply wounded as well - can see the genuine sincerity of another human being’s soul and heart.. compulsively bleeding from a profundity raw enough to captivate a nihilist.. and humbly exposes it.. with nothing but purity in the regard of inherit human good.. and could intentionally stick their dirty fucking arms vigorously inside and tear at the exposed gauge made faithfully available. I’m not innocent here. But there’s no blood on my hands. I won’t point my fingers but my eyes are staring right at you. I know what you did to me. I did not agree to it. I agreed to taking the risk. Do you know what you did to me? Educate yourself. Wash your fucking hands. 

I didn’t bring any crystal to Budapest today. I didn’t know I was going to begin opening this, or I would have.

= I’ve got to go for a smokes. 

That’s enough for now. 

7:55PM I don’t know wtf but Doug offered me to get stoned and so I did outside but the guys who needed to switch rooms came back and then outside too because they insisted on my break.. Golf was looking for tape and offered me a Tim Horton’s, I said hot chocolate. Then Striped Vest guy also forever chatted and offered me a Tim Horton’s; I said hot chocolate. Still no tape and I tell him about Striped Vest and hot chocolate. He says ok. Meanwhile, Doug and his friend Chevy Lover are shooting the shit too and Doug asked for my number. Well first he asked if I was single. He asked if I was dating anybody LOL first of all I’m stoned and second of all the literal words out of my mouth were ‘everybody’ sincerely believing it as a reflection of my innocent love for life and immediately realizing that was a stupid answer so on reflex I said “no, myself. ha ha no. nobody. nope. that’s a. this guy who was my boyfriend died once. like a long time ago. no. weird. yeah it was wicked. wait what? why? but no. I don’t. not.” and I’ll never forget that or this hot chocolate. 

8:03PM Golf asked me to put his poppy on (dude you’re 51, you’ve definitely done this more than me and I HATE war) so I asked him like, when the war was and what it was called - “Oh no, I don’t know a lot about history” meanwhile a second ago he was like “I guess I should put one on because my Grandpa fought in the war” no that was you. anyways so I’m learning about WW1. You say you remember so much, name 5 of our veterans? #therealneverforget 

Disclaimer: I still haven’t read anything about it, I’m sorry to all relatives of dead soldiers I deeply condolence and RIP. No disrespect. We out here.

8:07PM Damn I really wish I had another hot chocolate.

8:39PM How is it not midnight?

[followingfallout4]

Companions reacting to a pregnant Sole going into labor in the middle of no where.

AN: Oh I’ve got a thing for romanced companions ones :D Thank you for the request! Because of this I now know what to do if a woman (or me for that matter) is about to gonna give birth in the middle of nowhere or in a car or sth. I’m learning some life skills here! ;) PS: the first ones got a bit long I tried to kinda restrain myself after those to avoid tldr but man this ask is technically fanfic/oneshot material. Prologue: Sole’s eyes widened. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” She figured she could make it back to Diamond city in time to give birth to this kid and settle down there for a while... take it easy. Clearly she had been mistaken. This baby was coming and nothing was going to stop it. She looked over at her companion, who was still oblivious to what was happening, and pointed at a very, very shabby looking hut-like thing in the distance. “Let’s check that out.”  She figured that was exactly how far she was still going to get. As soon as they closed the door behind them she hunched over, stumbled over to the remnants of a bed and grabbed on to the upper arm of her companion. She looked him straight in the eye. “ Looks like this baby isn’t waiting around for the due date. I’m having this baby. Now. “ 

Codsworth “ Oh dear! Okay, it’s happening! Let’s... let’s get you comfortable, Mum!” Codsworth put on a brave face and tried his best to keep his cool but could not for the life of him hide his panic (or excitement, Sole wasn’t entirely sure) in the slightest. Sure, he wasn’t exactly programmed to help bringing children into the world but he was sure that they would manage, after all "it is a beautiful and natural part of life, mum". His peptalk, including those exact words, served more to soothe himself than to soothe Sole, “Codsworth I appreciate you wanting to make me feel better but let’s focus on this tiny human getting out safely rather than on peptalking me, please?” “ Certainly! Oh, it will be such a beautiful child! I bet it’ll have your eyes,Mum.”  “ Codsworth... I’m in a lot of pain.” “ Err... right. What should I do?”  “ Get out water, some clean cloth or clothing to wrap this kid in, anything helpful.” Another contraction hit her. “ Right. Now.”   Codsworth tried to hide that he felt at a loss considering he had no clue on how to proceed next. In between contractions, Sole just told him what to do next as he meticulously followed her every instruction. He hated that he couldn’t help her with the pain but it’d have to do. 

Danse: Danse stayed remarkably calm and got out of his power armor. Sole kept his eyes on him. Sure, she hadn’t expected him to be the kind to go  frantic but he was far too calm... did he think she was kidding or something? “ I’m not joking.” “ I am aware of that. There is no need for concern. Breathe in, breathe out and relax.I won’t let anything happen to you or this baby.”  “Danse, I know for a fact that ‘how to be a midwife’ is not part of the Brotherhood’s training process.”  Danse smiled, she didn’t think she’d ever seen him more in love with her than in that moment. “  Ensuring that you are prepared for the mission you will embark on is part of the training. I made sure I was well-informed  and therefore know precisely what to do. Our only concern is potential complications.” Sole’s stomach turned at the idea of that being a possibility and regretted not listening when he had urged her to just lay low and stop travelling around sooner.  He took some clean cloth, water, a stim pack, a pipet... out of his backpack and took his top off. Sole’s tried to smile but the pain made it difficult.  “Danse... I appreciate the distraction but ...” “ We need to keep this child warm, body heat is ideal. I presumed you are in enough discomfort already however you can certainly opt to use your own body heat.” Sole grimaced. Yeah, she was in enough discomfort already indeed. “ No thanks. “ He got a blanked out and put it over her after helping her out of her pants, presumeably to keep her warm.  “  You might have to breastfeed the child as it will lessen the bleeding due to the hormones.” She smiled at Danse. “Thanks for having my back.”  Danse gave her a reassuring smile and brushed some hair out of her face as gently as possible. “ Thank you for being the love of my life and giving me a family. Hang in there Sole, you're going to be allright. Both of you. I will protect you, no matter what. Both you and our child. "

MacCready:  MacCready seemed to be lost in thought. “ Don’t just stand there, now what do we do?”  He sat down beside her. “ We don’t have time to get you to a doctor so we’re gonna have to make do with whatever we’ve got here. But hey, how hard can it be right?” “ You have no idea.” “ Right, sorry. Lucy made it very clear to me that it wasn’t easy when she had Duncan. The things she yelled at me, I thought I’d pull back a bloody stump considering how hard she squeezed my hand. I’ve only seen it and even I felt traumatised. I mean, damn what you women do is way more badass than anything that I...“ “ Yeah, real comforting there, MacCready.” “ *ahum* Anyway I think I’ve got this.” He grabbed a somewhat clean shirt from his duffel bag and started ripping it up after putting his coat underneath Sole. The house may have come with a bed but clean sheets were something else entirely.“ You’ve still got some purified water, right?” He looked through her stuff and lifted the bottle. ‘Found it!’ “ I appreciate you trying to stay calm but I doubt having watched it once makes you any more of a midwife than me.”  “ Someone once told me the second kid is easier though?” Sole groaned and shot him a vicious look. “Sure as hell doesn’t feel like it.” “ Okay, you’ve got this. I’ve got you. This baby is gonna be come out you’ll forget about all the bad stuff. Start with those puffy breathy things.” “ Puffy breathy things?” “ ‘C mon you know what I mean. "   MacCready focussed on her, showing to be much calmer than she was. However she noticed some tears welling up in his eyes.  “ You’re gonna be fine. “ He grabbed her hand while she was still puffing.  “ It’s always nice to see you this emotional, MacCready. “ She was expecting an excuse, from the dusty place to a full-blown twig in his eye. Perhaps onion-cutting ninja’s for the occasion. “  I’m about to see my second child. This ...  This is a big deal all right? You’ve done so much for me. You’ve given my son his life back, you’ve given me my life back and now you’re bringing another one into this world. And I get to raise them with you. Damnit Sole, I love you.” “ No cursing.” She squeezed his hand at another contraction.  “ Yeah you’re gonna have to let go cause I gotta get there now though.”

Deacon:

“ Ohkay... well I used to be a nurse once upon a time, all the doctor’s fancied me... probably because of the blonde wig and my long legs. “ “ Deacon, this is really not the time.” “ I could be telling you the same thing.” She shot him the kind of look that made him count his lucky stars for her currently not being capable of fighting him because she would’ve handed him his ass. She hissed at him; “Look I know humor is your way of dealing with stressful situations and usually I am all for it. But not. Now.” Deacon couldn’t supress a wide grin. “Well I helped get it in there I suppose I can help gettin’ it out.” “ I swear if you’re gonna keep blurting out ‘funny’ shit you’re gonna make me a single mother.” Deacon was still smiling. “ That would be a crying shame, especially because you would be dealing with the crying. Actually, maybe that’s preferable, then I get some peace and quiet.’ “ Really, Deacon? That’s your reaction? Don’t you think it’s a bit early for bad dad jokes?”  “ No. Panic. I would say panic is my reaction. This is the scariest thing I’ve ever had to deal with. Feel better knowing that? What do you suggest we do?”  “ Get some things ready and please, please don’t do the fake being hurt thing when I yell insults at you because my sense of self-control is at an all-time low.” “ Gotcha, By the way, you’re doing great, keep up the pushing.”  Sole groaned. “Less peptalk more getting your kid out because just like their dad it loves to get me stressed out.”  “ Aww, they take after me already.” “ Deacon, shut the hell up and get my pants off.” He opened his mouth again when Sole yelled ‘NO innuendoes.”

Gage: Gage’s eyes widened... “ Come again? This is some sort of bad joke right? Here?”  Sole shook their head. “ Not the kind of thing I joke about.” Sole doubled over, hand on her belly, at another contraction. “Some help’d be nice” He sighed and picked her up. “ Well shit boss, I’m not prepared for this.” “ Should’ve thought about that before you got me knocked up Gage.” He smiled a little." That’s what you get for always taking what you want I guess.”  “ Oh please, if you had taken anything without my say-so you wouldn’t be breathin’ anymore. For now you’re gonna have to take off that armour and make sure you get this kid out safely.” Gage sighed. “I didn’t sign up for the getting it out part.”  “ And I didn’t sign up for defeating your Overseer with a squirt gun, shit happens. We need to get this child out safely.” The look on Gage’s face shifted as he got out some clean water. Shit, what else did he need for this. Sole noticed. “ Wait... is that concern Gage?” “ I... No.” “ It actually easy, that I’d live the day to see this.” “ This is my kid too ya know. I don’t want it to have the kind of fucked up life I’ve had, but it’d be a good start if it comes out kicking and screaming. But cause someone refused to stay put I’ve gotta help you get my kid out." “  Say whatever you want, I’ve found a soft spot in that cold cold heart anyway.“ Sole winked before another contraction plastered a look of pain on her face again. “ I’ll guide ya through it Gage. But I can’t hold your hand through this cause  you’re gonna need them. So get something to put this baby on.” She decided that the last thing she had to do now is get insecure, wouldn’t help either of ‘em. “Damn boss, you’re somethin’ else. Fuck it, let’s do this.”

Hancock:

" Looks like this kid takes after their dad, life’s to the fast and the rebellious. “ “ Yeah, high five it when it gets out but help me first.” Hancock looked rather happy until he noticed just how much pain Sole was in. “ You alright?" Sole looked at them. If looks could kill... “ And people say there are no stupid questions.” She folded double, grabbing at her abdomen. “ This hurts like hell.” He guided her to the bed and let her lay down on it.  “ I’d give ya some chems but that’d be bad for the baby.” “ No kidding, I’m not having any of that filth now regardless Hancock.” “ Guess we can’t make it to Diamond City anymore? I was looking forward to finding out whether they’d really let me in with you by my side, me being the father and all that.” “ Hancock, focus. No small talk. I could use some help getting my pants off.”  “ Ah, just what you said when we conceived the little one. Good times.” Hancock winked. Sole would laugh if the contractions weren’t hurting quite as much as they were. “ “ Alright... let’s fuck this shit up.” Sole slit her eyes. “Let’s fuck this shit up? Seriously? Look I know you’re a man and all but I speak from experience when I say this is not that easy.” “ You’ve been dating a me for a while now darling, in comparison this is gonna be a freakin’ breeze. You’re a fucking superhero and I love you. Now, lay back, push and let’s hope this baby gets their looks from mommy.” 

Maxson: Maxson didn’t waste any time and picked her up. He put her down on the bed gently and seemed extremely calm.  “ Maxson, are you even processing what I just said?”  “ I know precisely what I am doing and  yes I have. We have this under control.” Sole groaned in pain. “ Speak for yourself ... the pain is getting worse.” Maxson got out a wide array of things he needed to deliver the baby . “ You do what I tell you what I tell you and there ought to be no issues.” Sole scoffed. “Sure, cause you know all about babies. Maxson, with all do respect, this is not exactly the same as commanding an army.”    Sole clenched her teeth and dug her nails into what was left of the matress on the bed before screaming out. Maxson rushed over and for a moment his facade cracked, he was worried about her, brushing some hair out of her face.  “ Are you alright?”  Sole grimaced. “ Hardly. What happened to having everything under control?”  “ Our child will be safe, it’s you I am concerned about.” “ What makes you so sure Maxson?”  “ I asked Cade what I would need to help you deliver this child if he wasn’t nearby. I have prepared for this potentially happening and have all the required equipment at the ready.” Sole screamed again, he grabbed her hand.  “ I swear I will protect you and this child. I will send a message to the Brotherhood after this and they will come pick us up in a ventibird. And then you will rest.” Sole grinned. “Never listened before.” “ I’ll lock you up if I have to, I care more about your safety than about some missions.” “ You mean you love me more than the Brotherhood? That’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.” She screamed again and grabbed his hand, he didn’t even flinch as she squeezed as hard as she could. “ I love you and this child more than anything. Now focus on doing this. You are my goddamn Sentinel for a damn good reason, you can do anything. That includes this. Just... whatever you do stay with me.” 

Kent:  “I really don’t think this is the time. I mean...” Sole grimaced. “ I don’t think this kid cares about whether it’s the time for it.” Kent supported Sole and put her on the bed.  “ Are you sure we can’t make it to Diamond City?” “ On the list of things not even the Silver Shroud can do: delaying childbirth.”  Kent looked around nervously. “Okay... okay. What should I do.” “ Stop looking so panicked for starters? Just do as I say and this will be fine.”

Preston: “ We’re having this baby now? Really?” Preston could hardly hide the happiness and excitement on his face when it dawned on him that the circumstances were hardly ideal for someone to give birth. He looked around. They were in a small shack in the middle of nowhere... panic crept up on him. He looked at Sole who seemed very busy with putting on a brave face but he knew when someone was scared. He picked her up, knowing he had to be the strong one. She had enough on her mind now. “ I got you. This baby is going to be fine.” He gently put her down on the bed in the hut.  “ I was hoping for better circumstances but at least it isn’t raining, right?”  He held her hand.  “ This is not the first time I’ve helped someone getting a baby out in the world by the way.” Sole laughed a little, very faintly because of the pain.  “ You mean you’ve got a bunch of kids running around?”  He laughed and brushed some hair out of her face and helped her take off her pants and get a little more comfortable. “ No, but we do a lot in the Commonwealth. There was once a pregnant lady among the people we saved. The stress made her go into labour sooner than expected. But the baby pulled through.” Knowing that he had done this kind of thing before soothed her  a little. “ I’m going to look for things we can use. Some clean cloth, water,... You’re going to have to take your top off too I’m afraid. Saved the mother. The child’s grandmother was with us and she told us it could stop the bleeding faster. I’ll get you a blanked though.” Sole nodded.  “ You’re going to be okay. I promise.”

Nick: Nick immediately focused on getting Sole calm and comfortable on the cot in the hut. “ Listen to me, kid. You can do this. We’re going to get this baby out safely do you hear me?” Sole nodded, still biting down on her lower teeth. “ I guess it’s gonna have to come out somehow.” She smiled a little but still looked panicked. What if something went wrong? They first thought there were complications with Shaun’s birth as well but it quickly turned out to be a false alarm, she might not be as lucky this time. “ The first thing you need to do is slow your breathing, relax.” “ Easy for you to say.” The pain of the contractions wasn’t getting much better. He took off his coat and put it underneath Sole. “ That’s gonna be messed up if this kid when the baby comes out Nick. Blood doesn’t wash out easily.” “ Do you honestly think I give a damn? This is our child. I’m going to try to get you comfortable.” He did as much as he could to make Sole lay down in a comfortable position. “ It’s not my comfort I’m worried about.” Nick sat down next to her and grabbed her by the back of her neck until his forehead touched hers. “ First of all; I love you. Second; when I say push you’ll have to push. I will support the baby’s head and make sure they’re breathing, okay?” Sole nodded. Nick planted a kiss on her lips. “ Everything is going to be alright. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, I will not lose you or this baby”

Sturges; Sturges’ eyes widened. “Oh... okay, no need to panic we can do this.” Sole grimaced. “ I’m not so sure about that.”  “ Hey this is nature, you’ll be fine. I’m right here, I won’t let anything happen to you or to our baby.” He smiled at her in such a proud way that her heart melted a little.  “ This is not exactly how I wanted things to go down sturges.” “ Hey, look at me alright? You’ve got this. You’re a badass, I’ve seen you save so many people and survive against all odds, even if you can’t properly install a tap. This baby is going to conquer the world with a mom like you. Everything’s gonna be okay. I’m gonna get something to wrap the baby into, okay? Lay down and try that breathing thing.” He walked to his backpack but immediately walked back over to her and brushed some hair out of her face. “ I forgot to say one more thing... I love you.”

X6-88: “ The nearest point we can transport to the Institute is 5 minutes away. I suggest we start moving.” “ I’m not gonna make it there.” “ You are.” He lifted Sole up and carried her to the place they were supposed to be. X6 seemed to be convinced he had it all under control although he looked more stressed than Sole had ever seen him. He barely managed to get Sole to a point where she could be transported to the Institute and once there started yelling orders at each and every doctor. As they frowned at him for presuming he, as a synth, had the audacity to doing so Sole yelled that he was officially her second and would be obeyed. Especially in these circumstances. He continued his orders and Sole noticed a hint of a smile. Someone stood beside her and urged her to calm her breathing to delay the birth a little. X6 soon sat beside her, holding her hand. “ I’d hardly considered you the sentimental type.”  “ I am aware of the fact that squeezing someone’s hand aids them in getting the focus off the pain to some extent.” With her next contraction she squeezed again, hard. Part of her didn’t give a damn but she looked at X6 regardless, trying to figure out if she hadn’t hurt him. “ I can take it. Do whatever you need to do.”