#ok also i have very few arguments to back my claim of 'everyone seems to say hegel is cool'

[sleepsucks]

[outivv]

Sorry it's me again, again idk if u have ur requests open but if u do can I request zhongli, childe, albedo and kaeya having a huge argument with reader and reader says something like "maybe you'll understand when something happens to me and I don't ever come back" and runs off to a commission but the thing is reader doesn't return for like days and the boys feel very guilty and become worried sick, frantically searching for them their last words ringing until they find reader who was badly hurt from the commission and someone else took care of them. And then they're like I'm sorry and get super protective. Angst to fluff. U don't have to do it if u don't wanna. Ty :)

Synopsis: angst to fluff with Childe, zhongli, albedo, and kaeya

Warnings: huge argument, minor gore, yelling, mentions of death/ near death experience, and cursing

Game/ fandom: genshin impact

Pronouns for reader: gender neutral/ not mentioned

A/n: don’t be sorry! You have nothing to be sorry about, I love taking requests! I was in a bit of a angsty mood so I was really excited when I got this request! Also to anyone that may be wondering, part 2 of my ‘toxic traits of genshin characters’ will be later this week and quite possibly tomorrow. Anyway hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: for kaeya’s I wanted him to say something based on a insecurity the reader has but everyone’s different so... just imagine he says the worst thing you can possibly imagine to you. Ok? Ok.

— Childe —

Childe is one to hide the fact that he’s part of the fatui a secret from his loved ones, for as long as he can. Now you never had a huge problem with the fatui, their motives and how exactly they get what they want maybe. But you didn’t know too much about them to form a full opinion on them.

Childe typically flew under the radar though. But after a few too many dates missed and nights you spent mostly alone in your shared bed, you started getting upset. Reasonably so too.

Now It was the 11th date he’s missed in the past two months. Claiming that he was working at the bank. So you waited at home for his delayed arrival. Only to be met with a bloody and bruised Childe. He seemed out of breath, and looked as though he would collapse any second. But you didn’t care, you were pissed.

“Where were you.” You said. It was more a statement than a question though. Child looked at you as though he knows he’s been caught. “Ah haha... uh... work” Childe said clutching his side. He winced when he collapsed into the chair closet to him, and the farthest from you.

“That’s the same excuse you’ve used for the past two months” you said through gritted teeth. “Now, I’ll ask again. Where. Were. You.” You’ve lost your patience at this point. Childe looks as though he’s lost his too. “I said, work.” He responds with a fake smile, clearly trying to keep this “I was totally at work” act.

You slam your palm on the table next to you, and Childe doesn’t even flinch. You stand up and scream, “cut the bull shit! I know you weren’t working at the bank this late at night! Or two weeks ago when we had a date! You said it was your day off!”

Childe stands up too, though not as abruptly as you did. “Listen I’m sorry! But I genuinely had work to do! It’s not that big a deal that I missed some plans we can just reschedule!” Childe yelled trying to match your volume, but failing.

“Wow... are you fucking kidding me? Not that big of a deal huh?” you said standing there shocked by his words. Childe realizes what he had said and wanted to take them back as quickly as possible. “Hey, no... I... I didn’t mean it like that. You know I wouldn’t mean it like that...” he said walking over to you and placing his hands on your shoulders.

“No. You did mean it like that. And you know what? It isn’t that big of a deal. So it surely wouldn’t be a big deal if I just left. Now would it?” You said. Childe’s face contorted into one of shock and fear. You’ve had enough and you need a break. And what he said crossed the line.

“Y/n... wait no no, you can’t just leave? Please.” Childe desperately said as he walked over to where you were currently putting your shoes on. “Well maybe you’ll understand the fear of wondering where your s/o is if they don’t show up for a while if I finally just leave.” You say slamming the door behind you and right in childe’s face.

Those were the last words you said before you walked out the door three days ago. Childe feels so guilty as he lays in bed unable to sleep. He can’t shake the thought that something may have happened to you or that you just flat out dumped him.

Those thoughts clouded his mind until he said “fuck it” and climbed out of bed to go look for you. He searched all of liyue harbor except for bubu pharmacy. He doubted that you’d be there but he tried it anyways.

As he walked up the steps to the pharmacy he heard a familiar voice, your voice. He ran up the steps and rushed inside. “Y/n?!” He shouted. Qiqi jumped at the sudden appearance of the ginger, and said “do you have a prescription”

You laughed and looked at qiqi “no qiqi but it’s alright he’s not here for medicine, just me” you said. Qiqi almost looked disappointed at that but compiled and went back behind the counter.

“Y/n? Are you alright why are you here?” Childe said frantically. You sighed and said, “yes, yes I’m fine. I went to do commissions while I was gone and got hurt but I’m fine now.” Childe’s face turned pale at your words.

He hugged you close and said “I’m sorry... I’m so, so sorry, but please don’t leave like that ever again.” You hugged him back and said “I won’t... but please, let’s talk when we get home.” To which he later complied to.

— zhongli —

Zhongli was always a gentleman to you. He was the sweetest boyfriend you could ever ask for. Except for when he would treat you as a child. He’d explain simple things to you or correct you for a minor mistake and then proceed to explain it thoroughly to you about how what you did was incorrect.

This rightfully got on your nerves, so you decided that the next time he would do it, that you’d call him out on it. He was in the middle of explaining to you how you were wrong when you suddenly called him out.

“Zhongli I’m not a child. You don’t need to explain this to me like I’m one.” You said calmly. He looked at you as though you were crazy. “I know... I’m just saying you’re supposed to do—“ he was saying until he was cut off by your frustration.

“I get that but you don’t have to explain it to me in such explicit detail. I appreciate it but you’re speaking to me as if I’m a child.” You said shortly. You were losing your patience. If he tried to explain how he was just helping you one more time— “yes but you did it wrong so I’m just explaining it” zhongli said.

Now you’ve lost any and all patience you’ve had since the beginning of this conversation. “Alright, you know what? I’ll just figure this out myself you don’t have to teach me.” You said moving him out of the way of your work station. Zhongli looked almost as if he were offended. And quite frankly, he kinda was.

“Y/n. You could hurt yourself if you do it like that.” Zhongli said shortly. “Yeah well better than being talked to like a baby.” You slightly mumbled. But it was still loud enough so he could hear it. “Excuse me? I was just trying to help.” Zhongli said now on the other side of your work station looking you dead in the eyes.

“Well then you were doing a shit job.” You said looking back down at your sword which you were trying to sharpen. “No I said it calmly and in a way you can understand.” Zhongli responded. Maybe not the best words of choice though. “So I can understand?! I understand more than a 5 year old, so don’t talk to me like I’m one!” You shouted.

“Well you’re certainly acting like one.” Zhongli said, but as soon as he did he knew what was gonna happen next. You stood up straight and picked up your sword from off the table, sheathing it and walking towards the door. You were about to leave but before you did you said, “well then I guess you won’t have to babysit me for a while” and then stormed out the door.

Days went by without word from you. Zhongli couldn’t sleep, to be honest he can’t without you next to him. You’ve never gotten into a fight like that before. Actually you’ve never gotten into a real fight. You’d always talk about your problem with the other person.

Zhongli got so worried by the 4th day that he searched all of liyue for you. He was even considering looking in mondstadt but first he decided to look for you at the wangshu inn. And thank god he did (ok a break from the angst wouldn’t thank god just be another saying for thank myself if zhongli or venti were to say it)

He found you talking with verr at the front desk. Bandages apparent on your arms and a few on your face. “Love...? What... oh my god” he said walking up to you and hugging you tightly. He never showed a lot of affection in public so this took you off guard at first. That and the fact that he found you.

“Zhongli... hey...” you said hugging him back. You felt guilty now that you’ve seen him again. You may have over reacted. “I’m so sorry.” He says into your shoulder. “Hey it’s ok, I’m sorry too.” You said removing his face from your shoulder, and brushing back the hair in his face.

He doesn’t care what happened over those four days. He only cares about the fact that now your safe and happy in his arms.

— Albedo —

Albedo was typically busy with his work, which you understood and respected that. But when he started pushing his work into later in the night and refusing to take breaks, you became worried.

“Albedo? You should really sleep, or eat, or just take a break. Even for five minutes.” You pleaded to your lover. He almost disregarded everything you said to busy with his work. Until you said in a quite and worried voice, “please?”

He felt guilty but wanted to finish his work. “I will later y/n.” He said not taking his eyes off of the paper he was writing on. “Albedo—“ you began but were cut off with a palm hitting a desk. “Y/n! What did I say! Stop bothering me!” Albedo shouted. He has never raised his voice at you, actually just in general he never raised his voice.

This all came to you as a surprise but you also weren’t going to take rate him yelling at you like that. “Albedo. Don’t yell at me, I’m only saying that you should take a break.” You said shortly. “Well you’re being annoying about it. Now go, leave me alone so I can finally work in peace.”

His words cut through you like a knife to the heart. Were you really that annoying? No, surely not, and he surely doesn’t mean any of that. Does he? “Fine. If I’m that much of an inconvenience to you.” You said as you headed out.

“Where are you going y/n?” Sucrose asked as you gathered some of your things. “I’m going to mondstadt. If albedo asks just tell him I left. Don’t tell him where though.” You said walking away despite sucroses protests behind you.

The next morning albedo left his work station to crawl into bed with you and cuddle for a couple of minutes. Only to realize that you were gone. Not sure where though he looked around the house, expecting you to be there.

He saw no one though. So he thought that he might as well ask sucrose the next day if she knew your whereabouts. “Sucrose, do you happen to know where Y/n is?” He asked. Sucrose turned pale and tried to make up and excuse. It clearly wasn’t working. Through her rambling albedo managed to slip in a few words “sucrose. Where is y/n. I need to know.” He said shortly.

Spoiler alert sucrose told him where you were. He rushed down dragonspine and into mondstadt. He found you at the adventures guild talking with Kathryn (I think that’s her name). You clearly had bandages on you due to some wounds. “Y/n? Why... why’d you leave without saying anything?” Albedo said hesitantly. You shot him a glare which turned to worry as you saw that he had bags under his now glossy eyes.

You sighed saying goodbye to Kathryn and walked to albedo. “You told me to.” You said. Albedo tried to recall what he said last night and when he did he turned pale and his former glossy eyes were now filled with tears. Albedo was never an emotional person, but when he’s both tired, stressed, and you were in danger unbeknownst to him, he does get a bit emotional.

“I... I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I love you and I didn’t mean to say that.” He said hugging you, and burying his face in the crook of your neck. You brushed through his now messy hair and hugged him back saying, “hey, I know, it’s ok...” you both stood there for a solid three minutes before heading back to dragonspine.

— Kaeya —

Kaeya is a man who doesn’t always watch his tongue. He says things with almost no filter. Actually no I take that back he does have a filter, but most times he doesn’t use it due to the fact that he wants to be a sarcastic asshole.

Now this time he stepped to far, you can barely remember what he said but one thing led to another and now you’re in the middle of an argument. Or a you-yell-at-kaeya-while-he-just-watches-you-with-a-smile-on-his-face argument. Which surprisingly doesn’t happen that often.

“Kaeya you can’t just say things like that! That was an absolute ass thing to do you—“ you were shouting at him until he stood up and spoke up. 

The absolute filth of words that spewed out from his mouth made you sick. “Why... why would you say something like that...” you said “what the fuck is wrong with you!” Tears were streaming down your face and you ran to the door. Kaeya realized the impact of his words and ran after you.

“Y/n, wait! I didn’t mean it like that!” He said trying to grab into your arm. “Then what we’re you trying to say hm? You could’ve said anything else but you chose that” you said. He knows you’re insecure about it. And in the moment he was so mad that he thought that he should say it.

He couldn’t stop you from leaving, so he went to your shared bedroom to internally beat himself up about what he said. He wanted to take it all back and start the whole argument over, but he knew he couldn’t. He took the next day off from work.

And instead he went looking for you. He looked everywhere but eventually found you coming back to mondstadt. Though you were bruised and had bandages all over your body. “Y/n...?” He said from across the street. You looked up from the ground and glared at him.

“What do you want? Here to insult me more.” You said. You knew it was petty but you didn’t care. “No I’m here to apologize.” He said calmly. You walked up to the adventures guild to cash in your commissions. And Kaeya hugged you from behind burying his face in your shoulder.

This wasn’t anything new but still took you a bit by surprise. “I’m sorry for what I said. And I’m sorry I let you leave and get hurt.” He said though it was muffled by the fact that his face was in your shoulder. You sighed and patted his head “just... please don’t say something like that again... I’m still mad but... I just want to make sure you won’t do that again.” You said.

He lifted his head up and agreed to your conditions. He wasn’t surprised by the fact that you are still mad, but he promised not to say something like that again.

[ducavalentinos]

What is your personal Top Ten of Borgia nonfiction books, and why would you choose them?

Ohh, ok, I don’t think I have a top ten??? but let’s see how this goes! lol I'll separate it in two sections: non-fiction books about the Borgia family as a whole and non-fiction books about individual members of the family (tbh just Rodrigo and Cesare), I’ll focus on secondary sources, but let me know if you also meant/want primary sources :))

Non-Fiction Books about the Borgia Family:

The Borgias: The Hidden History, G.J Meyer

His book has some flaws, which I’ve talked about here in the past so I won’t get into it again haha, but overall I do think it is a decent bio about the Borgia family. He did made an effort to present something new, and he does have at least a little bit of critical thinking about the sources which created the history of the Borgias as we know today, and also like I said before, I adore the structure of his book, how he intertwined the chapters about the Borgias with chapters about papal history/other noble families, it’s an engaging and interesting read.

The Borgias, Ivan Cloulas

Ok so, although his book reads like a gossip magazine with many unsubstantial claims, I feel I have to include him on this list only because his book begins with the Borgias from València and it goes back to Spain, with Juan’s son, arriving at Francisco de Borja, most commonly known as St. Francis Borgia. It’s one of the few books about the Borgia family where you have a more detailed account about these family members, and I like some of his thoughts about the descendants of Rodrigo Borgia and their shared similarities, being employed in different ways. It also has a cool chapter analysing the history of the Borgias through the centuries, I don’t agree with some of his conclusions, but I really enjoyed reading that chapter, so yeah.

The Borgia Chronicles: 1414-1572, Mary Hollingsworth

The reason I like her book is maybe precisely why some people don’t, I suppose, it is dry and it mainly sticks to presenting the information available about the family, instead of sensationalistic writing with a high dose of personal judgments and claims/narratives which don’t have enough (or any) evidence to back it up. That within the Borgia historical literature is a rare thing to find, overall Borgia authors seems more interested/concerned about showing the reader what they think about the family, and the many mysteries surrounding them, than actually laying out in an objective manner the historical material available, andletting the reader reach their own judgments and conclusions about it, you know. Hollingsworth, for the most part, tends to do the former in her book and refrains from doing the latter, so yeah there might be some mistakes iirc, and it’s not a book for everyone, but I do like it, and I find it a decent source to check/compare info about the Borgia family in the english language.

Non-Fiction books about Rodrigo Borgia, (Pope Alexander VI)

Material for a History of Pope Alexander VI, his relatives and his times, Peter de Roo.

The reason this one is on my list is because no matter how much we may agree or disagree with his presentation of Rodrigo, his life and his papacy, there is no denying he gathered an extensive, if not the most extensive, historical material about Rodrigo/his family and it’s amazing to read it. I also think he lays out his arguments in a very coherent way, attaching his evidence alongside it. His thought process is not all over the place, which is something I appreciate a lot when reading historical bios. He also does not throw Cesare under the bus in order to defend Rodrigo or explain his actions, De Roo is as just with Rodrigo as he is with Cesare, which it’s another rare thing to find with Borgia authors, especially Rodrigo’s authors.

Non-fiction books about Cesare Borgia

Cesare Borgia: Duca di Romagna, notizie e documenti raccolti e pubblicati, Edoard Alvisi.

I don’t even know what else to say about this biography without fangirling all over again lol, I’ll leave some of my thoughts while reading his bio that I posted here and here :)) and I will complement by saying it is my one and only favorite Borgia biography as well as the best one made about Cesare imo. Every time I remember Cesare has such a high quality historical work about his life, it warms my heart and I feel so grateful to il signore Alvisi, God bless his soul for the necessary, honest, historical work he did there.

Cesare Borgia: La Sua Vita, La Sua Famiglia, I Suoi Tempi, Gustavo Sacerdote.

The reason I include him is mostly because of his research, like it happens with de Roo, it is impossible to deny his excellent research about Cesare. Combined with Alvisi’s, you really do have all the available historical material about Cesare’s life, and it was great to be able to absorb so much information in an in-deepth way. I don’t have a good opinion about him as an historian, or as Cesare’s biographer, but as a researcher he is one of the best I’ve read, and the way in which he exposes his research should be the standard for any historical work imo. He was incredibly meticulous and made it a point to present as much of the official documents in their integrity as possible, instead of just selective bits. His bibliography is also a thing of beauty, super organized and thorough.

The Life of Cesare Borgia, Rafael Sabatini

The reason is, really, that I love his writing and his sense of humour. He is dramatic, but my kind of dramatic perhaps lol, and he rightly addresses the big double standards when it comes to the Borgia family (while they lived and even more so after their deaths, until Sabatini’s own day), as well as points out the flaws within the main primary sources about them, most of all: Cappello, Guicciardini and Sanuto, with a justified wave of indignation + amazing sarcasm which for me is satisfying to read. His examination of Gregorovius’ view and claims about Cesare, for example, it’s truly one of his best moments, so yeah, I have a fondness for his bio, even though I am aware of its flaws, and I mostly disagree with his personal view about Cesare as a man and his politics.

El Princípe del Renacimiento: Vida y Leyenda de César Borgia, José Catalán Deus

So, putting aside that I love reading in spanish and I find the spanish section of the Borgia historical literature quite interesting, actually, the reason I included this one is because, as far as I know, I think it is the best one in the spanish language about Cesare, it carries much of the flaws and vices of his historical literature, yes, but I do think it a decent bio. Also it was an important book for me when I read it at the time, because it made me re-think much of the claims and presentations made about the Borgia family by the previous authors I had read, and go deeper into the historical material to see if there was any evidence for it. I think much like Meyer, Catalán Deus also attempted to deliver something new, and advance in a way the way Cesare’s historical figure has been studied and presented, and I appreciate that effort, it’s one of the books I check info from time to time, too. Ps: it’s not on my top 10, I don’t like the book as a whole, but I can’t help but to add on this list Marion Johnson’s The Borgias, for one simple and superficial reason: the artwork is soooo pretty 💖 it’s hardcover with quality pages and beautiful coloured images, and to this day it is the most beautiful bio I own about the Borgias, so I had to say something djsdjsdjs, excuse me here. Andd I think those are it, anon?? it’s possible I might be forgetting some, I spent such a long time reading about them, it’s hard for me to remember all of the books, especially with my bad memory lol, but if I remember other ones later, I’ll reblog this and add to this list! Thank you for sending this ask, and I’m so sorry for the time I took to answer it! :( I hope you still see this <33

[thoughts-on-bangtan]

Five Hall of Shame Asks

Since these few amused me, but also made me go ??? I thought I’d share (a trigger warning though applies for the last ask but I’ll detail it beforehand again). But especially with the first and third one, like, in how many different ways do I have to reiterate that regardless of argument, unless it’s something completely new and an angle that has never been argued/made before, besides vmin I do not see any other maknae ship as romantic, past, present, future. I’ve been ARMY long enough that I know enough to have a solid opinion and these types of asks? They are not helping your case, at all. Which I’ve also already said a bunch of times. And I’m only giving you an “answer” because I thought I was funny (in the first half of the answer to anon number 1), so I’ll post it.

From anon: It always baffles me how so many blogs entirely miss and ignore the possibility of j*k*ok being real despite all the evidence and proof to their relationship but people would hold onto a thin thread called Vmin or t*ek*ok, especially the former being a pair of soulmates that have never try to romanticize their bond.

It baffles me how so many people/shippers entirely miss and ignore the possibility of staying on their side of the shipper universe, celebrate the bond you ship, and leave people who ship something else be. But people would hold on to a thin thread called "I must convince everyone of my thing because otherwise my thing isn't real (enough)" which they do because they crave validation that they don't see “minding their own business” as viable option especially when the former would mean others will continue to not see their thing as romantic.

Oh, and, 95z is Love. 

No, but, seriously, anon, what did you think you’ll achieve with an ask like this? I don’t know, and I don’t actually want to know. This is a OT7 as well as vmin and namjin blog, and since that isn’t what you’re after, I would advise you to seek out any of the j*k*ok blogs on this platform who hold the same opinion as you do, and there are plenty to choose from.

Lastly, their bonds are not a competition, not a game of compare and contrast. We (as in people participating in the shipper universe) aren’t a court, judge and jury, we’re just fans with (more or less informed) opinions.

From anon: Vmin are the best brothers. Jimin was born to be worshipped and owned by jungkook.

...I’m sorry, is Jimin some kind of deity to be worshipped or an object you can own? I know this is like the bad boy language that gets people all fuzzy in really bad “romance” movies about your typical alpha male, but in real life? Unless that’s the sort of relation you’re after, you do not own your partner. Or your friends. Or anyone. Owning someone is a sign of possessive behavior and that, in most if not all, cases does not lead to long or healthy, in any kind of way, relationships.

From anon: JMs sabotaged his own relationship with V because of JK. Its so clear. There's only so much a person can give & take & seems like V has slowly been pulling back from JM even tho he still very much loves JM. I feel like crying. I've been watching this unfold for a year now. Where there's Vmin there's JK. Yes they're family/friends, but JK interjected himself in the middle of Vmin. Whether it was on purpose cause he felt left out and wanted attention or if its because JK developed feelings for JM.

If you claim the issue is JK, how is it then that it’s Jimin who supposedly sabotaged his own relationship with Tae? The logic doesn’t quite make sense to me. Also, based on everything we’ve seen during PERMISSION TO DANCE on Stage last weekend, I really don’t know how you can interpret any of it as Tae pulling away from Jimin, or vmin not being close anymore, or their relationship having been sabotaged.

Furthermore, since this is a Hall of Shame post I can admit that these kinds of Teen Drama 101 “plots” are annoying me more and more because they keep on coming and it just feels like people purposefully don’t consider anything but their own need and craving for drama. As I’ve said many times before, despite how much shippers want to portray JK as some kind of possessive, overly jealous, intrusive and obsessive asshole, that isn’t who he is. At all. Which I’ve written about many times before (here and here). And also, despite how much shippers want to present JKs “choice” as being strictly limited to he either has to be with Jimin or he has to be with Tae, because apparently he can’t just be friends with both, but that’s not how life works, how relationships and friendships work, and it’s also completely nonsensical.

JK is their dongsaeng, and he’s Bangtan’s maknae. He is two years younger than Tae and Jimin, and despite Tae offering (years ago) for JK to drop the honorifics and thus becoming his equal, JK rejected the idea both in Tae’s and Jimin’s case for the sake of their dynamic and friendship (here’s a whole post by the marvelous romanticdrift about JK and honorifics). 

In Korea, and I say this cautiously since this is based on research so if any Korean ARMY are reading our blog please do send in an ask if this is right, the younger person in a friendship is the one who will always be “unequal” to the older half to a certain degree. Actions that have been interpreted as romantic by shippers, like JK carrying Jimin’s shopping bags in Malta (BV3), they are simply something dictated by culture/age hierarchy (and him wanting to be a good friend). JK, as the younger, is, in a way, obliged to help his hyungs. We’ve even seen that in the most recent ITS episode where, after breakfast, Hobi says he’ll clean up since he was the only one who didn’t cook, but JK says he feels weird with that since he is the youngest, as in, due to his age he should be the one to clean up despite having cooked. Or when Yoongi “asked” him to took dinner with him, JK first apologized that he’s too exhausted to do so, and yet ultimately he still joined him and cooked.

Just like Jimin and Tae are chingu, as well as Namjoon and Hobi, JK also has his chingu in form of his 97z squad. People with whom he has matching tattoos to honor/celebrate their bond, and his friends even sometimes post pictures wearing the same clothes as JK.

Whatever vmin have or don’t have, it has nothing to do with JK. They both love him as their maknae, their youngest friend, and they are close to him in different ways because people have different dynamics with different people. As I said earlier, their bonds are not a competition, not a game of compare and contrast, and JK loves his hyungs, all of them, in different ways and also shows it in different ways, ones which are adjusted to each hyung (a post about his bonds with Hobi, Yoongi, and Seokjin). As much as he can hug Jimin or Tae, because they like hugs, he won’t hug Yoongi or Namjoon in the same way because that isn’t their preferred “love language”. Or as “rough” as he plays with Seokjin, because that’s part of their dynamic, he won’t do the same with Hobi. Or while JK will jokingly pretend he’ll pull down Jimin’s pants (ITS season 1, one of the earlier episodes), Tae will do the same with JK (ITS season 1, one of the later episodes), but Tae won’t do something like that with Jimin, because it isn’t part of their dynamic, and JK wouldn’t do it with Namjoon or Yoongi for the same reason.

You also have to keep in mind that we have a very limited view on their interactions and dynamics, the time we see compared to the length of a year is basically nothing. All we have to go by are their own words and the bits and pieces we see, everything else is a guessing game. 

Anon, I have no idea what kind of development you think you’ve been observing for the past year, or what led you to interpret things in such a manner, but as someone who has been here a long time (how many times have I repeated that so far since our first posts?) I truly have no idea where you’re getting any of this from. Yes, JKs bonds with Tae and Jimin have changed and evolved, just like Tae’s and Jimin’s bond has evolved and strengthened, but none of it has anything to do with whatever you think it does. At least that is my opinion. You don’t have to subscribe to it, but since this is our blog, all I can do for you is give you my opinion so there you have it.

From anon: Do you dislike straight people?

I mean this in the most sarcastic way known to human kind: yes.

Trigger warning for the following ask (below the cut) for those who might prefer not to read a statement following the opener “I’m not homophobic but...” since it does sound rather (very) homophobic. Stay safe!

From anon: I’m not homophobic but I always wonder how bts members parents feel watching their sons and pride behave in such way with each other’s. So sexual 24/7. 

Especially Tae and Jin and Jimin with Jk or even sometimes Vmin. 

Everyone calls them the pride of SK but how will these people feel one day when they find out that they loved and supported such gay guys for years. I feel bts should reduce these behaviors. It’s so embarrassing watching their content with family sometimes, they’re literally rubbing on each other’s thighs and what not. I pray they’re guided.

You claim to not be homophobic just to then basically bash the members for behaving in a way you think is “too gay” and thus would prefer for them to be “less gay” which, surprise, is homophobic because what, exactly, is “too gay” about any of what they do? If, instead, it was a girl and a guy, would you still feel like they’re doing too much? Or, even better, if it were two girls, would that still be too much?

And I get it, especially if views/fans are coming from countries where this kind of skinship which we see in K-Pop between male idols is rare, it can be a bit surprising at first, and yet at the same time we as an audience somehow have no issue whatsoever with seeing female friendships that are touchy on screen, or romances (or movies/shows in genres where the romance is secondary, supposedly) with straight couples that kiss and feel each other up every other scene. Perhaps they (as in Bangtan and their way of interacting) are not the problem, but what you deem as sexual behavior? Is hugging a friend sexual? Is Tae lying down next to Jimin in bed to take a selca sexual? Is Hobi sharing a bed with JK in their RUN Staycation sexual? Is a shirtless JK hugging Seokjin in his selcas sexual? Or is that just friends who are extremely close and have been with each other 10 years type of close, and all of it simply shows that even men can (and should be allowed to) show affection without it being seen as weird?

You don’t have to like everything they do, but putting the blame on them being (potentially) queer and thus their behavior (according to you it seems) automatically being sexual, that is an issue. And it isn’t their issue, but yours.

If the behavior showcased by idols, as well as BTS, is “too gay” for you, too “sexual” for you, than perhaps K-Pop and its idols are just not for you. Besides, compared to some other things I’ve seen, what Bangtan do is nothing that would step outside of the frame, so to speak. You have to keep in mind cultural and contextual differences, and if they are something that’s too much for you, as viewer, then the only option isn’t to pray for them, but to reflect on your own views and values in that regard. And change who you stan. Because Bangtan won’t and doesn’t have to change unless they want to.

And the BTS parents? They must be proud beyond anyones imagination seeing everything their sons have achieved. The pride they bring to their country, as well as the joy they bring to ARMY and anyone willing to give their music a chance. Bangtan have taught us how to love ourselves, how to love others and be more open minded, so perhaps it’s time for you learn that, too. Or leave. Which sounds mean, yes, but it’s the truth.

Also, great choice to come to a blog co-written by a queer person with an ask like this, bravo.

[xaibaugrove]

Everyone in the Krew is Problematic

I was inspired to go on this rant by someone who recently brought up a question in a server I’m in, asking why so many people in the fandom seem to hate Mako and Makorra and why. This wouldn’t be the first time I defend Mako and it most likely won’t be the last, but it might be the first time I tear him and everyone else in the Krew down in the process, only to bring them back up. Hear me out though.

I think I’ve totally accepted that a lot of people in this fandom will always hate Mako and that I will have to perpetually defend him, I understand that this is the relationship I’ve chosen with this world. But what I still will never understand are the reasons why people hate/dislike him because compared to how much they love other characters in the Krew who honestly aren’t that much better than him (in some cases, even worse!), it doesn’t make any sense.

Let me also preface this by saying, I love these characters with all my heart and soul, probably more than I should love fictional characters, but this is the life I live and with that being said, I am going to tear them apart just to prove a point. Okay, here we go.

MAKO

Most of his detractors list the usual criticisms, which are valid when isolated. He cheated on Asami, he lied to Korra, he was a terrible boyfriend and essentially he treated the women he claimed to love or care about horribly. Gee, it’s almost like the man was a teenager with no experience in having long-lasting, healthy relationships and was raised in the streets by gangmembers while doing anything to survive and provide for his younger sibling after seeing his parents killed right in front of him and suddenly being orphaned…

I think Mako has been torn down enough, so I won’t get too deep into the tearing down part for him. It really does baffle me how someone can claim to be woke and not comprehend how someone coming from poverty could possibly be a product of their environment. Like, does everyone think that poor people automatically have hearts of gold and turn out like Little Orphan Annie? Why are people surprised that when someone has a shitty life, they might do shitty things?

Also, sooo many people love Zuko, who actively tried to cause harm to Aang, Katara and Sokka numerous times, and sympathize with his troubled past. But like, sure Zuko had an abusive father and his mother peaced out of his life for whatever reasons but at least he had his uncle. Mako had his parents for maybe 8 years before they were murdered in front of him and then had...no one for the next 10 years? Except for Bolin, sure, but no other parental figure in his life. Dude literally had to become him and his brother’s own parent and joined a gang to survive, and after all that, the worst he does is acts as a bad boyfriend toward Korra and Asami and he is instantly thrown to the wolves. Something doesn’t add up. It’s just...I don’t get it.

Yes, the way he treated people was bad, but people can grow? That’s a thing humans can do. And he was a teenager, my god. No, we cannot allow our past to be an excuse for how we treat others, but we have to be aware that there is a growth process to being human. And being human in and of itself, isn’t pretty. You think Mako is problematic? Don’t get me started on your fave.

KORRA

Ok, I love this woman to death but she is ridiculously problematic. She pursued someone in a relationship and essentially forced Mako to cheat on Asami by kissing him against his will, that’s already pretty awful and shows a lack of empathy on her part, also kissing people without their consent is no bueno. But also I just have to say it for the people who might not know this. One of the fundamental reasons why Makorra didn’t work was because KORRA WAS ABUSIVE. Okay? It wasn’t just that Mako was inadequate at relationships and didn’t know how to people, it wasn’t that she was secretly confused and wanting Asami the entire time (biphobia at it’s best) one of the main problems in the pairing was that Korra was crazy abusive towards Mako. Seriously, why don’t I see this more often in those discussions??

If we need examples, I have dozens. Honestly, it’s really easy to see how terrible Korra was to Mako, I’d actually argue that she treated him worse than he treated her. I mean, they were both terrible to one another, but in Korra’s case she went through the motions of being completely infatuated with your first teenage crush, getting with said crush, then crashing and burning once you realize that you have no idea how to treat a romantic partner so after the butterflies wear off you subject them to all the wonderful aspects of your anger issues. Not only did she scream at Mako during every argument they had, she also threatened him with bodily harm if she got really angry. Remember how their relationship crashed and burned in Book 2? Here are the things that Korra did during that time. Let me reiterate, this was not okay.

Mako is visibly shaken by this!

This woman burst into her boyfriend’s place of work and violently kicked his desk out from in front of him with all his coworkers present. That is not normal behavior. That is a red flag. And after she came back, had amnesia or whatever and forgot they broke up after that scene, let’s not forget that Mako was legitimately Afraid to break up with her again. Korra made her partner frightened that they might suffer bodily harm if they upset her. Again, and I can’t stress this enough, this is not okay!

The little scene in Book 3 when Korra is lifting Mako like 100 feet off the ground with airbending while he’s screaming in fear just to make Asami laugh is cute, right? I’ll admit, I loved that little moment too, it’s one of the only instances of Korrasami development that we got, but also, there were sooo many things wrong with that scene lol. Not only does Korra terrify Mako for literally no reason, it’s also sort of just her continuing to exercise some degree of power over him for her own amusement. Almost like a subtle reminder to him saying, “I am stronger than you in every way and I can break your femur like a twig if I wanted to… but I won’t, so look how much fun we’re having!”

Now of course, there are reasons why Korra acts like this. She was isolated for almost her entire life and never learned how to treat people and be around people. The Avatar is human because they must live amongst the people they protect and that helps them develop empathy and cherish life. The White Lotus deprived her of that fundamental aspect of her duty as the Avatar and it showed throughout the beginning of the series. Clearly, she was young, didn’t see how her actions could negatively affect others and hurt the feelings of not just her partner but also friends and family (she was really awful towards a lot of people in her life!). But as the series went on, we see her having less outbursts and learning to control her temper more.

One can only assume that she does not have the same behavior with Asami because for one, I don’t think Asami would play that shit, she seems like she would electrocute a bitch in a heartbeat and not hesitate if needed, but also Korra is not the same shitty partner she used to be as a teenager. Again, kids do stupid things. Adults do stupid things. And we learn and we grow. Korra will probably make some more mistakes in her relationship with Asami. I don't think anyone can have one bad relationship and suddenly learn all the lessons they can from it and have a perfect one the next go around. I can totally picture Korra losing her temper and raising her voice at Asami if she gets frustrated and forgets who she’s dealing with. Managing anger issues is hard, I know this from experience, and it doesn’t magically get easier. Of course, if Korra does pop off, Asami would definitely put her in her place because she’s a bad bitch who doesn’t take anyone’s shit, next character.

ASAMI

You know her, you love her, you fantasize about her and you probably have her on your list of fictional characters you would totally bang if you had the chance (I know I do), yes, even your best girl is problematic. It’s interesting to me that a lot of people sympathize with Asami and very few openly criticize her (so few that I’ve never seen anyone say a bad thing about her). What’s there to criticize though? The poor girl was cheated on by Mako, had her feelings disregarded by Korra, who claimed to be her friend but pursued her then-boyfriend behind her back and then made up for it by simping for her for the rest of her life? Also her mom was murdered when she was just 6 years old, her father threatened to kill her once and physically abused her, then died right after they started repairing their relationship, essentially making her an orphan at the ripe age of 22. Suffice it to say, Asami has been through it.

So, how could she be problematic, you ask? Why, of course, through the classic Bryke technique of romance progression in storylines called Kissing People Without Their Consent

To be honest, I did gloss over this with Korra, simply because there were sooo many other issues with that woman and I just couldn’t go through every single one in as much detail but that doesn’t negate how serious this whole sneak attack kissing thing is. Sure, Asami is very emotional and lonely and sort of desperate too, (it's a little sad, really) but Mako is clearly uncomfortable and completely caught off guard by the kiss. This is also the second time this happens to him in the series! There are a couple factors that might contribute to why Asami does this and acts this way, maybe Korra’s general awfulness rubbed off on her (don’t make a dirty joke) but this is still wrong.

AND that’s...pretty much it. Kissing people without their permission is a big no no, though. Not wanting to gloss over that, but Asami really is a good person who just did a not-so-great thing. Getting burned by Mako twice probably made her a little less inclined to be as forward with anyone though, and it looks like she now takes her time and is patient in her relationship with Korra. It even seems like Asami is the only person Korra is afraid to upset, as Korra does seem more gentle and calm when around her. And who knows? Maybe Asami living a life where a majority of the time she got whatever she wanted when she wanted it might have also influenced her to be more assertive or even imposing within her relationships.

If anything, those three fools getting into relationships with each other just showed how not ready they were to be in relationships in the first place and also how not okay they were.

BOLIN

Originally I titled this as “Everyone in the Krew is problematic (except Bolin)” but then I remembered that Bolin totally kissed a woman without her consent so I deleted the shit out of that!

This asshole looks genuinely pleased with himself after essentially assaulting Ginger. Not a good look.

Sure, Bolin is baby. He will always be baby to me. But that does not erase the fact that he also actively supported a fascist dictator. Not only was the kissing without consent thing bad, but there’s also that. No matter how many times people around him warned him about the fact that he was on the wrong side of things, that he was helping someone who was putting people into concentration camps...Bolin wanted to believe the best of Kuvira. He ignored obvious signs that the woman was a dictator committing human rights violations like crazy and you know, there’s gotta be a reason for that too.

Maybe Bolin wanted to feel like he was doing something good for once. When you think about it, with his role as the comic relief in the Krew, and sort of constantly being infantilized by his older brother, I wouldn’t be surprised if the man developed some insecurity in his ability to do anything good or useful for anyone without screwing it up in some way. In Kuvira’s army, it seemed like he was actually taken seriously, he felt like he was doing something that mattered. Korra had being the Avatar, Asami had her business and mindblowing philanthropy (honestly, her ability to be as charitable as she is profitable is insane) and Mako had his police work (ACAB, tho). Bolin had...the role of being a joke. A superficial actor. A former pro-bending meathead.

Bolin lived his entire life following after his brother that once they were adults and Mako finally decided to live his own life for once, it left Bolin completely lost. And lost young men are perfect recruits for fascists.

So, in conclusion, my whole reasoning behind destroying the integrity of my favorite characters is to prove a huge point. All of these characters are problematic. They have flaws, some bigger than others (looking at you, Korra. Just...wow), but ultimately, even if your fave is problematic... that’s okay. A lot of people, mostly younger people it seems, are really obsessed with being right about everything that they do and stan. And that’s a wonderful thing, so much change has come about by the younger generations calling out people who do fucked up shit, don’t want or try to improve, and get away with it. But it’s also caused a lot of people to be unforgiving and completely unwilling to acknowledge when people do improve and try to be better.

Personally, I love my problematic Krew because having issues that you’re constantly working on internally is human. It’s human to make mistakes, it’s human to grow from those mistakes. And it’s inspiring to me, who is wholly imperfect, to see myself reflected in fictional characters who aren’t perpetuating unrealistic ideals of human nature, characters who are messy, crazy and ultimately human.

As one of my favorite manga artists and queen of impeccable character creation Rumiko Takahashi once said:

“I think that perfect people are not very interesting.”

And I will always wholeheartedly agree.

[lesbiansforboromir]

I absolutely love your borodred thoughts, they are just *chefs kiss* so I have to ask how do you think Boromir and Theodred, who come off (to me at least) as very "expressing my true feeling??? In this economy???", get together? How do they start dating and get psuedo-married???

OH MAN ok so so- kajds FFF HANG ON hang on I’m actually... kinda writing this fic but I will never finish it so lemme try and summarise for you SO. 

Important things to keep in mind:  - Boromir and Theodred were friends as children, or rather they became friends after initially disliking each other because Theodred was foul mouthed and sharp tongued and Boromir was withdrawn and noble. Being so close in age, everyone agreed it would be a good thing for them to get to know each other as boys, since they would be interacting so much later on. This SEEMED to go badly initially, they quarrelled and tussled. But they both also... didn’t seem to want to NOT do those things. And eventually it became clear that Boromir really enjoyed having a friend he could be looser and more competitive around, whilst Theodred was quite eager for Boromir’s more quiet confidence that made him a calming presence. Everyone ALSO realised their arguments had turned to playing and they were thoroughly enjoying having a friend who was their absolute equal in social standing. Bullet points seem redundant now but I’m gonna continue with them.

- The pair actually found more than just a friend in this relationship, they got more confident and settled in their own positions too. Theodred’s manner allowed Boromir to feel more comfortable admitting when he was unsure or didn’t know things, where previously he’d considered that a weakness he couldn’t afford (due to his father’s image of never being wrong). Theodred on the other hand also felt more comfortable with the concept that Some Battles Aren’t Worth Fighting. He didn’t need to dignify every taunt with the validation of noticing it. Sometimes ignoring something is just as good as defying it. And much more! This all naturally turned into them discussing and comparing their experiences as princes and captains, which also naturally turned into them acknowledging struggles and frustrations surrounding those titles that they really never talked to anyone else about. (This isn’t entirely true, Grimbold and Theodred were very close and Boromir’s few tight friends he made and kept all know somewhat of these things, but they can’t quite understand it in the same way) The pertinent point to all this is they grew close and understood each other really well, you know those people it’s just SO easy to be around? Like you always thought you were speaking the same language as everyone else but then you find someone who ACTUALLY speaks your language and you feel perfectly understood suddenly? Yeah!

- God there’s so much to explain, this is gonna need a cut

- This development is also perfectly mirrored in their feelings about each other’s cultures. Boromir was initially fond but ignorant of Rohir ways, influenced by the Gondorian idea that they were all somewhat rugged and unsubtle. Theodred had the impression that Gondor was a very monodimensional country of just self-aggrandising scholars and dull melancholy. And then, just through sharing their interests with each other, spending time together as friends do, they’re really very much shown their misinterpretations. Theodred goes to see Boromir’s wrestling matches at times when he’s in Gondor. Boromir has a WAIL of a time watching Theodred flyting, they get into each other’s interests! Which is something that starts off unconscious, but eventually Boromir feels at home amongst the rohirrim because they are Theodred’s people. And Theodred reconnects with his Grandmother’s family still in Gondor because that’s his connection to Boromir- WE’RE GOING OFF MESSAGE BUT THIS IS IMPORTANT BACKGROUND.

- The basic point is they are both very very familiar with the other’s ‘no emotions in this ecomony’ manner and know all the ways the other avoids just such emotions whilst also being very privvy to the rare evidence that they do both, indeed, have emotions. They also RESPECT that need in the other, to be careful, it’s not pushy. Non-verbally they reach a point where emotions will be safe between them, they don’t get made too heavy, they don’t pry, Theodred just accepts that Boromir is exhausted from appearing like every victory was easy when they’re barely hanging on. Boromir just accepts that Theodred is furious and frustrated with all the scrutiny his character is under from every Thane when they have far more dire things to worry about. They both understand that they’re very very tired of grief, of losing people, of accepting that it was likely their fault, and then moving on immediately afterwards. And also OH OH ALSO!! Very important, they came to their understanding of this war they’re in together too. This sense of impending doom. I think, different from everything else, they admitted the fact that they did not believe they would live to see a new age only to each other. They always knew it, but they had the space to voice it all. Yes, it’s up to us, yes, we will likely fail, yes, we’re going to fight this fight anyway. OK SO THAT- SO JUST- KEEP ALL THAT IN MIND, that’s the foundation of where this all starts SO.

(WAIT ALSO- sorry fuck- also important.... pining. Boromir’s relationship to romantic thoughts is VERY different to Theodred’s, he has a much more like... positive idea of romantic love than Theodred does. Even if that’s not saying much. But the point is that means Boromir realised he was full on deeply ‘I hate when he walks out of a room because everything is more enjoyable when he’s around’ in love with him much earlier than Theodred did. Around 20. HOWEVER, Boromir also has a very ingrained cultural sense of ‘oh but the comradery of friendship is beautiful! I shall be content with this, Theodred deserves my respect so I won’t think of him sexually’ and he’s saying this after having had sexual relationships with men in the past AND THEN GOES ON to have romantic/sexual relationships with men during his pining which is kinda messing with him a little, especially because he ISN’T content- Boromir’s yearning and creating some cultural hurdles for himself later.

Theodred takes a while longer, in all things, he’s not content to accept that he’s exclusively attracted to men for a good long while. He gives relationships with women a go but he’s just having to try so hard for not much and it’s never sustainable. Not helped by my hc of Rohan having a kinda like... half ancient grecian concept of male homosexuality? Which is VERY muddled in with Gondorian sensibilities and creating a wild atmosphere of ‘men with men is just about sex and that’s ok, normal for soldiers sort of, something to tease about, but also don’t bottom and also don’t fall in love with a man, we all have a complex relationship to love in general as men, good luck navigating our impenetrable toxic masculine thicket’. SO Theodred accepts he’s pretty inescapably attracted to Boromir quite young. But when Theodred begins suspecting he has real serious feelings for Boromir it’s a much more frustrating discovery, he hasn’t DECIDED this is ok yet. But he still hates to see him go and prefers arguing with Boromir than drinking with anyone else and he can’t stop his mind drifting to him or missing him when he’s away. PINING, SEE? This ship has everything, anyway moving on)

((NO WAIT PPS, the fact of Boromir’s sexuality is a kind of unspoken thing between him and Theodred, everyone else chalks up his disinterest in women to Boromir being a good Gondorian but Theodred (quietly) knows better. The extent of their talking about it is in private moments when Theodred says something like ‘of course you won’t be doing that I suppose’ and it’s just a quiet chuckle and then moved on, neither of them want to tALK about it. But eventually Theodred can’t be bothered with the effort of pretence any longer. It’s not until later that Boromir notices changes in Theodred where he’s given up on trying for lovers, stopped pretending to laugh at all the jokes he hates and is acting differently around some riders that Boromir’s thoughts turn that way and he wonders. OH KAY. THERE.))

A lot… happens… between Boromir and Theodred before during and after Eomund’s death (so through their 23-24 yo years). What’s important to understand is that the ‘realising feelings’ part was not that difficult. They were very important friends for each other long before anything else. Boromir knew he was in love with Theodred early on, but Theodred realised he was loved back first. And there was about a year of time where they both silently, quietly, and with some sardonic bitterness, knew the other knew.

Because the issue they actually- ahsd damn fuck there is SO MUCH in this that you need to know, it’s tied to this sense they have of not being made for joy, they weren’t made to succeed, they were here to try, they are made to defy the undefiable and lose because no matter the end, their people and these living homes of theirs deserve to be fought for, it’s an understanding that silently connects them, that they both do accept and they find it deeply aggravating and exhausting for people to claim it is otherwise- it’s still all about love for them, it’s all true, they’re happy to do it, they would have chosen these roles if they could have but!! But that drives them into these personas and mindsets of self sacrifice and somewhat mmm young concepts of hopelessness and effort-

The point is that the difficult part was getting to the point of agreeing that this thing between them, that would be just for them, was worth pursuing, was possible and that such a thing was meant for them. Over the year and during Eomund’s death so much happens and there’s this undercurrent that specifically for Theodred is… a kind of slow angry grief, that he wants this but it would just be adding to their obstacles, that BOROMIR wants this- it’s hard for him.

BUT GETTING TO THE POINT, in midsummer of the following year Theodred comes to the festival at Minas Tirith at the Steward’s invitation (and Theoden’s encouragement, Eomer and Eowyn had to have his full attention and Theodred’s presence was as yet not a fully comfortable one for the two children) AND… Boromir had done this before, but Midsummer requires much more elaborate dress and Boromir had an outfit made for Theodred, in his colours, fitting him and his comfort, and he met him at Minas Tirith’s gates and they hadn’t seen each other a great deal since Eomund’s death and there’s a PAUSE to see each other that neither of them acknowledge and Boromir takes him up to Merethond and they get talking and Boromir shows him the garments he had made and Theodred tries them on and Boromir pulls on the waistband and collar to make sure it sits on him properly and Theodred has a look to him of withheld gutting frustration and-

And in that moment Boromir thinks to himself ‘I’m going to fix that’. Good decisions are easier to make when it’s for the both of them and there’s a right kind of defiance that he feels when he nears this decision, a galvanising excitement, and when Theodred asks him what he thinks to break the silence, Boromir tells him he is handsome in a tone he’s never used before.

Theodred turns to look at him and he can’t look at Boromir without being IN THEIR WORLD with him, in their language and the flow they have together and Boromir’s smiling at him, confident, so even if his smile’s still a little painful, he looks at Boromir in his own celebratory garb that he wears so confidently and tells him he’s handsome too. Which gives Boromir an expression that Theodred likes too much and that neither of them are turning away from, but Theodred’s still got a scowl in the silence before he breaks it.

“No longer ‘unspoken’ then.”

“It still is, in technicality.”

“I don’t see the difference.”

“Was it so different before?”

And Theodred can’t help the quirk of his lip and the hand he brings down onto Boromir’s chest that he doesn’t take back. “Glibness doesn’t suit you, be serious, we won’t walk away from this unscathed.”

“I am not intending too.”

And Theodred is caught by that, a small “Oh.” escapes him. Boromir waits but Theodred can’t get the words out he’s just… looking at him, trying to puzzle through Boromir’s mind. So Boromir takes in a breath and;

“I wanted to kiss you at the gates.”

He says with an ease born of relief, just to say it out loud, Theodred’s hand is still on his chest and his own covers it and holds it there.

“Am I allowed now?”

Theodred doesn’t quite reply before Boromir’s leans in. He’s not cautious, he tilts his head and pushes into Theodred’s space and his hand strokes up and over Theodred’s stubble like a man who’s been thinking about doing nothing else for a long long time. Theodred is still, partly on instinct and partly because he is too focused on seeking intent in Boromir’s eyes. But when Boromir pauses, their lips an inch apart, those instincts are gone. And all he can do is relax, mindless and focused, shaking his head in incremental disbelief as his hand on Boromir’s chest fists tighter into his coat.

“You- brave, reckless fool.” He barks in a release of nerves and laughter.

“Yes, finally,” Boromir says in an answering breathless laugh.

They meet in the middle. It is brief, awkward, they orientate, hands stuttering before finding strong, comfortable grips on one another, Theodred’s fingers find Boromir’s curls at long last, he’s been pining after them for too long to let go once they pull away for the first time.

The first rasped question that comes to mind is, “… Did you know… I would-?”

“No, not really.” Boromir answers.

“… Fuck.” Is really the only appropriate response.

“What do you think?” Is asked next.

And there is a great deal he should be thinking about, but all that’s filling his mind is Boromir’s voice saying ‘I wanted to kiss you at the gates’. And it might not be new and he might have thought it himself before, but it’s so meaningful for them both to admit a want. It’s so vulnerable. Theodred hears it with such love, he feels suddenly like he’s holding something precious and fragile, secret knowledge of a moment when Boromir wanted. He’s heard Boromir want before but those were different, this is just for them. And- god that really activates him in a vital and ferocious way, he wants to hear more, wants to want and admit it. It makes him feel positively ravenous for it, for more moments of Boromir wanting. So he says;

“That I’ve never wanted to think less. Not yet, come on-.”

This kiss is longer, exploratory, and something to easily get lost in. A relief. Eventually Boromir’s back is against a wall and both princes are dishevelled with wanting grasping hands. Theodred has to laugh, more confident, invigorated. This has tapped into his bitten, fierce determination, this dogged manner he has where if he’s grasped something then he’ll get it done. He suddenly has living, breathing energy.

“I feel so bloody young.” He grumbles, because he does. And he can’t remember the last time he felt this kind of nervous fluttering discovery.

“… We are young.” Boromir breathes eventually, between his near panting breaths.

That isn’t so funny, just too true, despite how false it feels. How it almost rankles them both to acknowledge, considering all they had seen and done and been. All the dead boys and men they’d shucked to become men that were needed. What on earth was young reckless action doing appearing to them now? And yet it’s also right because… their youth has always belonged to each other.

As a thought it sobers them enough to give everything space to breathe. BUT THAT’S ENOUGH!! Oh my god!! This isn’t even finished- fuck

[deltas-writing-corner]

Courtship: Invitation

Fandom: Twisted Wonderland (Malleus x GN!reader)

Warnings: mentions of blood | depictions of firearms/firearm handling | mentions of hunting

Previous chapter | Next Chapter

AO3 version

Slight revisions and full version posted on: 5/4/2021

“Here,” Sam hands you a thick envelope. “Your pay, as usual.”

 You trust Sam not to go behind your back and the mutual agreement set between you two, but you make sure to grab and stop him from walking away with all your produce just yet. You need to count the money he's handed over and ensure every last madol is where it should be. Thankfully, it is, but there are a few extra bills you know aren’t supposed to be in there.

 You remove the extra money and hand it back to him. “You gave me too much.”

 He pushes your hand back and shakes his head. “Consider this my holiday gift for you.”

 You give him an incredulous look. “You sure? Because if you come back here next week telling me I owe you money I’m going to sick the wolves on you.”

 Your threat is met with a hearty laugh from the shopkeeper. “Have I ever done you wrong, my friend?”

 “Yes, you have actually.”

 “Haha, good times indeed!” He casually waves at you as he hauls away your vegetables on a large wooden cart. “Happy holidays!”

 You have half a mind to remind him that the holiday season is over. Instead, you decide that it’s best to just turn around and walk away. The money is in your hands and your produce is in his care and that's all there is to it. This season's harvest is now officially concluded and you can start prepping for the spring. After a long-deserved rest, of course. The few extra madols give you just a little more than what was needed to put down for a brand new generator for the dorm. You have a model already picked out ahead of time. All that's left is to order and wait for it to come in.

 "Well?" Benji floats up to you as soon as you enter the front door. "Do we have enough?"

 You proudly wave the envelope in the air. "We have enough and then some!"

 Your housemates cheer and pull you into a group hug. Frankie takes the envelope from you and heads out, most likely heading to the safe you’ve hidden from Grim so he can put all the money together and deposit it at the nearest bank. Once the ghosts come down from their brief celebratory high, you excuse yourself and head to the backyard where Malleus is waiting for you.

 "I'm back!" you happily announce your arrival.

 "Welcome back," he smiles up at you. "Did you get your payment?"

 "I did!" you nod. "Frankie's taking it to the bank, so I should be able to get that new generator before sunset."

 "That's good. It'll be one less problem for you to worry about."

 "You can say that again," you sigh. "Thanks for your help today. I'm surprised we managed to pick and clean everything up before noon!"

 You situate yourself next to Malleus, who's sitting down on the low porch. Gunter's pups have been following him since breakfast and you don't think they'll be off his heels for some time. It's been like this since they were born. One might even be able to say that they like him more than they do you. Malleus doesn't show it or verbally express it, but you can tell he enjoys their attachment to him. He allows them to jump all over him and drench him in wet kisses without much of a fuss. Who knows, when they grow older they just might start following and taking orders from him rather than you. Maybe he won't need Sebek and Silver to follow him anymore if they stick around?

 You can imagine Sebek being incredibly offended that a bunch of wild wolves took his job.

 Malleus looks at you. "Have you given them names yet?"

 "The pups?" you ask for clarification. "I've been meaning to, but my head can’t think of any. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them."

 Malleus mulls over your offer. He picks up one pup at a time, trying to think of an appropriate name to give them. After about 10 minutes his shoulders go slack and he looks back over to you with disappointment. "I'm afraid I'm drawing a blank as well."

 "Well, you gave it a shot," you clap your hand on his shoulder. "Tell you what. Once we get that new generator, we can sit down and do a bit of name-brainstorming over some tea."

 "Yes, that sounds lovely," he smiles again, and you start to realize that he has a damn good smile. "When do you want to get together?"

 "Sometime next week. With the extra money Sam gave me I can get the generator in faster!"

 Malleus seems momentarily excited, but it quickly dies as he suddenly realizes something. "Can we meet the week after next? I have something important coming up."

 "Sure," you say. "What's happening next week?"

 "It's…" he hesitates. "It's my birthday next week."

 Your eyes pop wide open. "Oh shit, for real?"

 "Indeed."

 One of the pups desperately tries to jump up onto the porch, but his stubby legs and meager strength aren't enough to push him over the edge. As you reach down and help him up, you ask, "How come I'm only hearing about your birthday now?"

 Malleus carefully lifts the other pups onto the porch as well. "You never asked me."

 "No kidding", you snort. "To be honest, I thought that maybe you didn't celebrate it anymore since you're hundreds of years old. Don't birthdays lose their novelty after a few centuries?"

 "They do,” he agrees  “I haven't had a grandiose party since I was about your age."

 "Wow," your eyebrows lift in shock. "That's just rude."

 He suddenly looks so terrified. "I didn't mean it-"

 "I'm kidding!" you quickly reassure him. "Lighten up Tsunotarou! I'm not going to shoot you for poking a bit of fun at me."

 "So you say," he grumbles.

 "I'm not!" you defensively shrill. "If you're talking about the time I shot at those sea worms, I had every right to! No way in hell was I gonna be intimidated into giving my dorm up. Not now. Not ever."

 Those "sea worms" you're referring to are Jade and Floyd Leech from Octavinelle. During exams week, Ace Deuce and Grim as well as many other students who made a deal with Azul for his infamous study guides practically kissed the very ground you walked on in order to convince you to rescue them from their dubious contracts. Initially, you refused their request no matter how much they pleaded or bothered you. It wasn't until Jade and Floyd caught onto this bit of information (it’s hard to ignore a dozen students following you around like a bunch of chicks) that they began to set their sights on you. The two tried to squeeze you into a deal that would release everyone who signed a contract with Azul for his infamous cheat sheet, so long as you could keep up your end of the bargain. 

 It was clearly too good to be true or fair. Nevertheless, you decided to at least listen and attempt to negotiate some sort of proposal that would make both sides happy, if only to have your intruded space restored to normal. Unfortunately, Azul wouldn't settle for anything less than your dorm, which you refused to hand over despite Grim's OK to put it up for grabs. Jade and Floyd insisted you agree to the terms for the sake of your friends and fellow schoolmates, but you bluntly told them something that, to this day, never fails to make Malleus giggle even when he's in a foul mood.

  "You're not getting my fucking dorm! Not now! Not ever!"

 Unfortunately, Jade and Floyd began to follow you around too and even went as far as to visit your dorm during unconventional hours, on a regular basis. Their insistent arguments began to turn into veiled threats, and you aren't the type of person to take them all too well. Malleus remembers visiting you one day only to find you out on the roof, your hunting rifle in hand, keeping a vigilant eye out towards the gates for the Leech twins to make their expected visit. Malleus knew that your weapon is a dangerous one when used correctly, but he did not expect as much power behind it as it had until you shot a couple of live rounds near the merfolk's feet.

 His ears still ring thinking about that powerful discharge.

 "Where is your rifle?" he asks. "Also, where is your falcon?"

 "Twilight? She's still upstairs in her cage." You make a vague gesture towards the second floor.

 Twilight is a falcon that you found during one of your hunting trips, having suffered a nasty injury to her wing. You have some experience with falconry so you immediately recognized her mannerism as that of a hunting falcon as well as her breed, an Aplomado. You tried to find her original handler while you nursed her back to health, but unfortunately, no one came forward to claim her and you decided to keep her. You and her bonded very easily, so rehabilitating and training her to take commands from you was a breeze. While you expected her to maybe leave your side once she was able to properly fly again, she remains determined to stick with you.

 You stand up and turn towards the back door. "I should probably wake her up before she gets mad at me.”

 "I'll watch over these while you do that," Malleus grabs one of the pups who topples over another and refuses to get off of them.

 "Thanks!" You bend down and give him a quick one-armed hug from behind. "You're the best!"

 As you're about to head back into your home, you stop at the door and turn back around. "Are you sure you want me to bring my rifle?"

 "Do you not want to bring it out?"

 "I don't mind bringing it. It's just, not everyone likes to be around guns."

 Malleus nods in understanding. "Well, I'm not like everyone," he playfully remarks.

 "No, you're not," you smile. "I'll be right back then."

 "Take your time," he assures you.

"Rise and shine pretty bird!"

 You lift the dark sheet off of her cage so she can bask in the morning light. Twilight was busy preening herself, but now that you're in her sight she begins to happily screech and shuffles closer to the door, eagerly awaiting for you to open it so she can jump on you.

 You quickly slip on your handling gloves and help her transfer from her perch to your hand. Her sharp talons tightly grip around the sides of your fingers, but the thick leather prevents them from piercing your raw flesh. You snap your fingers a couple of times to get her attention focused solely on you. When she maintains steady eye contact with you, you reach into your pocket and present your other gloved palm to her. In it are some bacon bits you managed to snag from the leftovers of this morning's breakfast. She eagerly pecks and munches down the small meal.

 "It still isn't the best time to go hunting, but how's about I let you out anyways and you can stretch your wings for a bit?"

 She expands her wings and flaps them a few times, a sign that she's eager to take you up on your offer. You haven't taken her out to hunt for about a month, mainly because you were gone half of the time. The winters here are especially harsh, even with a bunch of fire faeries keeping the campus somewhat warmer. The pickings are also dry since most of the wildlife on the island are sticking close to their burrows to stay warm and wait out the season.

 You've been itching to head out into the forest recently, but winter is usually a bad hunting season for you. Luckily, you've met and befriended a few of the locals on the island who live off the bounty of the land as you do. They tend to look out for one another and offer help during difficult times, and the barren winter is no exception. You make a mental reminder to reach out and ask where some of the best hunting spots on the island are once this generator fiasco is all taken care of.

 "Now, you wouldn't happen to know where my rifle is, do you?" you ask her. When she goes to nibble a piece of your hair, you know that she has no clue.

 As you're about to head down to the foyer (you often leave it there), a sudden squeaking noise catches both Twilight and your attention. There, at the other end of the hall, a beady-eyed Jerboa bounces up and down in a steady rhythm in an attempt to grab your attention.

 Scarabia wasn't entirely traumatizing. You met Gizmo, the Jerboa before you, during one of the exhausting desert marches, nearly dead from severe dehydration. The little guy brought you a bit of comfort throughout the entire ordeal. He also was able to bring you the enchanted envelope Malleus gave you before he went back home for the winter break. It immediately sends any letter you place inside it to him once you set it on fire. How else could you have contacted him after your phone was conveniently confiscated after your first escape attempt?

 "Good morning, little guy," you smile down at him. "You wouldn't happen to know where my gun is, do you?"

 It seems he does, as he turns and begins to race down the adjacent hall. He stops every so often to look back at you, making sure you're still keeping up with him. Eventually, he stops in front of a door to one of several lounging areas. This one, in particular, is more the ghosts' lounge than anyone else's. It's filled with all sorts of memorabilia and photos from the dorm's heyday. The ghosts have shared a few stories about the shenanigans they got in when they were both alive and students at NRC. Interestingly enough, the dorm was a sort of "halfway home" for students undergoing the difficult process that is switching to another dorm. The idea was to separate the student from those of their originally assigned dorm so they can better learn and adopt the characteristics of the dorm they wish to transfer into.

 Soon enough, the dorm began to house more and more people. A common feeling amongst the residents of the past was a feeling of displacement or disconnection towards the other formal dorms and the ideals they upheld. While not approved by the headmaster, the residents began to form a sort of pseudo dorm with its own set of principles as well as assigning a dorm leader and vice leader just as the others did. Nothing was ever written in stone, but the ghosts vouched that the main “characteristics” amongst Ramshackle’s past residents was a desire to establish camaraderie with those around them, no matter their background or origins.

 Listening and learning what the Ramshackle once meant to them and so many others hit home for you. You lived near a small rural town, surrounded by people who were willing to share their resources with their neighbors and even the occasional stranger simply because it was a kind thing to do for one another. The students of NRC are willing to put their heads together, sure, but there almost always has to be some sort of catch that benefits the individual.

 Living with students like that is stressful as hell. Somedays you just skip school entirely, having already gone through the many woes and few wonders of high school back in your world. You have zero patience to deal with people who only view each other (and subsequently you) as inferior or a mere stepping stone to trample over. Ace and Deuce are your friends and have proven that they are "exceptions" so to speak. However, they're still just a couple of kids. No matter how well you three communicate and work well with each other, there's just a natural disconnection you feel with them that not even magic can fix. 

 It makes your close connection with Malleus, someone who's centuries older than you, incredibly ironic. You've essentially had your life figured out back home, and in some strange serendipitous way, so does Malleus. He's going to become king of his home country immediately after or sometime after he graduates, while you were going to continue living that nice rural lifestyle you lived back home, alongside your 3 aunts and many cousins. At least, once Crowley finds a way to send you back.

 Maybe that's why his confession felt so much more confusing and intensely when it happened. Everything seemed so linear before he uttered those three words to you. Now, it feels like the clear and concise timeline you've had pictured in your head for months is just one big blob of scribbles and nonsense.

  "Am I doing something wrong?" you desperately ask Frankie. "Because it feels like I made some huge mistake and now it's coming back to bite me in the ass right now."

  "Of course you haven't done anything wrong," he rubs your shoulder reassuringly.

  "Then why does it feel like everything around me is slowly falling apart?" You're sobbing at this point. The cigar you took from him earlier is now abandoned, snuffed out in the ashtray. "Why does it feel like  I'm  falling apart?"

  "Nu-uh," he shakes his head and gives you a stern look. "We're not gonna do none of that. Do you hear me? None."

  "Then what the hell do I need to do?!" you shriek. "Frankie, I'm fucking losing it here. I'm one more backhanded dismissal away from kicking Crowley's teeth in. I swear, if one more overblot happens, so help me. I can't deal with someone else's problems when I can't even get a full night of rest anymore!"

  "You've done nothing wrong, you hear me?" he reaffirms. "I get it, I do. Right now, life is handing you a bad hand and you don't have the people you usually rely on for support. I've been there kiddo. We all have. We may not be like your aunts or your loud-ass cousins,"

  A smile finally cracks on your face. He's using your own words you've used to describe your younger family members. You love the little tykes, but they can be a handful sometimes. 

  Damn, you miss them, your aunts too. They're all that you have left after a messy custody battle with your parents. This garden. Your rifle. Hell, even your insistence at taking over many of the household chores have all been your desperate attempts of finding some sort of familiarity in this new and strange world. 

  "But remember, those in Ramshackle stick together and help each other out when they're in a pinch. We'll handle all the little stuff, the cooking, the cleaning, the occasional clogged pipe," he scoffs, annoyed just thinking about the pipes clogging up again. They've been doing it a lot lately and everyone in the house is incredibly over it. "Right now, your only priority is yourself. Okay?"

  It takes you a moment to really take in his words, but eventually, you nod in understanding. "Alright," you affirm out loud.

  He squeezes your shoulder. "Good."

  A sharp and muffled whistle pulls your attention away. Johnny's voice is a little hard to make out, but you're able to make out "generator working" and "warm coffee".

  "C'mon," Frankie holds open the glass door and ushers you outside. "I don't know about you, but I could use a cup of coffee."

  "I could use two," you sigh.

  He gives one last squeeze around your shoulder. For a moment, it feels like you're back home. You feel a little better too. A little bit more secure.

 As you enter the room, you see that Benji, and Johnny are gathered for the usual late morning/early afternoon poker matches. 

 "Hey, prefect," Benji, the first one to notice your entrance, greets. "Need something?"

 "Have you seen my rifle?" you look around the room for any immediate sign of it. "It's been a while since I used it and I've completely lost track of it."

 "Should be under one of the floorboards here," Johnny, who is playing busy rearranging his cards, says. "If not, try the floorboards in the living room."

 You thank him and begin carefully stepping and tapping your foot against the wooden floorboards, trying to find and search one of many secret spaces made back in Ramshackle's glory days. Nothing dangerous (you hope) was ever hidden. It was mainly used by the students who lived here during its heyday to hide bottles of alcohol and cigarettes. You know, the typical items a bunch of teenage outcasts would keep around.

 There was actually a bottle of some rare and expensive wine that was left behind as the number of residents began to dwindle. You and the ghosts are waiting for the right occasion to crack it open and enjoy the vintage-like a bunch of fiends. Grim won't be having any. Hell no.

 Twilight has temporarily detached herself from your side and perches comfortably on Benji's shoulder. Her talons dig into his white spectral body, but he doesn't wince or show any sign that he's in any pain. She nibbles on his worn scarf to pass the time until you call her. Gizmo busies himself by helping you find all the secret spaces. He finds one and begins jumping over it more enthusiastically. When you pry the wooden slat up, you perk up as the familiar scent of old gunpowder fills your nose.

 "There you are!" you practically sing when you lift the board and see your trusty gun. "And here I was thinking Benji lost you."

 "I heard that!" he shouts, deeply offended.

 "I know," you reply. "Glad to know that your hearing hasn't gone out yet. Had me worried for a while, gramps."

 Johnny erupts in a symphony of loud laughter. While community and mutual respect were a value shared between Ramshackle residents, a bit of teasing and the occasional prank is always welcomed. It's a great way to keep morale up. It's also satisfying to say a remark that makes everyone laugh or have a prank go as planned. So long as no one got hurt, it's all fair game between you all.

 You lift the heavy rifle out of the space and do a routine check. The internal magazine is empty and when you probe the back of the chamber with your pinky you don't feel a loaded round inside. You flip the safety on and off and pull the trigger a few times to make sure the mechanisms are working correctly. You also do a quick count of your ammunition. While guns do exist in this world, coming across bullets is much harder than it is in your world. This is mainly due to the reliance on magically sourced bullets that help reduce the use of resources. Their rarity makes them expensive, and the few blacksmiths who do make them usually don't sell to anyone unless they feel the buyer is a genuine enthusiast of their craft. The buyer also needs to have a license to own them, which you thankfully earned after a few safety lessons and a short exam.

 Lucky for you, the one and only smith on the island who makes bullets was more than happy to provide you with some bullets at an affordable price after you allowed him to ogle your rifle for a few hours. It's an old model, supposedly used by your great grandfather after he was enlisted into the army. When the war ended and he was sent back home, he customized it so it can be used for hunting deers instead of people. Your first aunt Gia was always handling it. Whether she was taking it apart and putting it back together or out in the backyard doing some recreational target practice. 

 She always looked strong yet elegant carrying it around, not that she isn’t without it. During your first year living with her, you tried to imitate her, slinging some large stick you found out in the woods to try to exude the same energy she did. When your second aunt Lucia moved in with your cousins after her divorce, she was quick to reprimand you and confiscate any of the newly found branches you brought back home and waved around as an imaginary rifle. Your aunt Gia eventually began to teach you how to properly and safely handle her firearm. By the time your third aunt Marisol moved in after graduating from university, you were one hell of a sharpshooter and a damn good hunter.

 With the rifle now deemed safe to take to Malleus, you sling it over your shoulder and make your way out of the room. You whistle the signal for Twilight to return to your side and she immediately heeds your command. Her obedience earns her a few more bits of bacon. Gizmo also wishes for some compensation for helping you locate your rifle. You make a quick trip to the kitchen and give him a few raisins to snack on. He's the only one who eats raisins in the dorm, so you don't skimp out on him.

 Blossom does try to snag a few for himself, but a threatening screech from Twilight scares the gluttonous fawn away. That deer sure loves to eat.

"I'm back, again!" you announce as you reclose the back door behind you.

 "Welcome back, again," Malleus regreets you. "And a good morning to you, Twilight."

 Twilight also loves Malleus. She eagerly shifts her feet, desperately wanting to fly onto his arm and properly say hello. You let her transfer onto him once he slips on the safety glove you provide. After a few minutes of giving her loving neck scratches and trying to stop her from nipping at Malleus's ears (she likes them a lot and, now that you’re thinking about it, you do too), you take her back and help send her off into the air for some much needed soaring time. 

 "I see you brought your weapon," Malleus looks at your rifle with an examining eye.

 "I did," you bring it around and into your arms. "Now, why did you want me to bring it again?"

 "No reason in particular," he admits. "I just...I'm quite used to seeing you with it. You're never without it unless you're attending classes."

 A proud smirk finds its way onto your face no matter how hard you try to hide it. "I'll take that as a compliment."

 A potentially stupid idea pops up in your head. "Do you want me to teach you how it works?"

 "Truly?" Malleus looks extremely shocked at your offer. "You dislike it greatly when another person touches it."

 "I dislike it when people who don't know the first thing about gun safety touch my gun," you correct. "But count yourself lucky, because I know everything there is to know about this one right here!"

 "Very well,” he gives a conceding nod. “Have at it."

 This is the most excited you've ever been since waking up in the floating coffin all those months ago. While you aren't the biggest gun enthusiast out there (you only ever use it for hunting), you do like it when people show interest to learn about your hobbies. Ace and Deuce are teenagers, so it's no surprise that they don't exactly find the long and grueling labor that goes into gardening all that exciting. Your firearm is nothing more than a toy in their minds, though Deuce is a bit more serious than Ace is when it comes to safety.

 Speaking of gun safety. "Now, I don't mean to nag but it's important to remember that, under no circumstances, are you to ever point a gun at anyone. Loaded or unloaded."

 Malleus makes a face of confusion. "Then how come you pointed and shot at the Leech twins?"

 "Hey," you put your hands up in defense. "I wasn't shooting at them. I shot at the ground and it just so happens that their feet were near my line of shot."

 "Ah, I see," he chuckles at your convenient excuse. "So shooting near an individual is ok, so long as the bullet doesn't hit them."

 "Exactly," you wink at him. "But seriously, don't point it at or near anyone. And don't look down the barrel. Lilia nearly gave me a heart attack when I caught him doing just that."

 He closes his eyes and gives a deep nod like you just bestowed upon him a great piece of wisdom. "Duly noted."

 "Next is the magazine," you turn and pull back the bolt handle to show him the empty magazine hidden underneath the bolt itself. "This is where you put the bullets. The magazine holds up to 4 bullets, 5 if you keep one loaded in the chamber. Since my gun is an older model, you can’t pop in an external magazine. Unless you're in a desperate situation, it's best to"

 You look up to make sure Malleus is following along with your explanation. Maybe he is, but it's hard to tell when his eyes completely ignore the rifle you have set between the two of you and instead keeps his eyes focused solely on you. Your throat immediately dries up and you feel your heart begin to beat just a bit faster after it skips a beat. The look he's giving you is the same one he gave you at Scarabia, a content, and dazed smile. There's a hint of melancholy in his expression, evident by how the inner corners of his eyebrows turn upward. 

 He looks so at peace, yet so sad.

 "What's wrong?" you ask, though you know full well what's making him feel that way he does.

 He shakes his head in denial. The visual sadness goes away once he settles. "Nevermind me. Keep talking, please."

 "R-Right," you stutter. "Where was I again?"

 "You said your gun is an older model."

 "Right," you remember. "Since the model is old, it's best not to reload too quickly, otherwise you risk jamming the gun and in some cases, you might break a mechanism."

 You feel a faint vibration underneath your leg. Thinking it's your phone (now set back to vibration mode) you start to pat down your clothes to try and find the device. Surprisingly, it actually came from Malleus's phone. It keeps pulsing in fixed intervals, likely from someone calling him. He quickly pulls it out and clicks on the red reticle, sending the caller to voicemail without batting an eyelash. You couldn't see who was calling, but you swear their name started with an 'S'. Could it be Silver or Sebek calling? You hope it's not Sebek because once Malleus starts to manually decline his calls, the next person he usually rings up is-

 You feel another vibration, this time it's coming from your phone that you apparently left in your back pocket. Lo and behold, it's Sebek that's calling you. You show your screen to Malleus, who makes a dramatically loud sigh of exhaustion. Sebek...While he's well-intentioned and has his charming points, he can be a bit of a handful...

 Ok, that's too nice a way of putting it. Really, as passionate as he is, he can be a bit annoying to deal with sometimes. You're trying to be polite as you can be with him because you've been told that Faes offended easily and you're not going to be that asshole. Though, you’ll be the first to admit that he’s such an easy and fun target to joke around with. Blame the ghosts, their behavior is gradually rubbing off on you.

 His protectiveness and the deep admiration he has towards Malleus is a little quirky, even cute at times. It reminded you of a child vehemently protecting their parent from their lover, not that you and Malleus are dating or anything. 

 Why did that last part feel weird to say in your head?

 "Go ahead and answer," Malleus concedes. "I’m not entirely in the mood to listen to his shouting in the middle of the day."

 "Oh, his heart would break if he heard you," you place a hand over your fake-pained heart. "You are such a cruel man, Great and Benevolent Malleus!"

 The two of you erupt into a brief fit of laughter. After calming yourself down, you answer the phone. "Hello, you've reached the Ramshackle dormitory." 

 You have to turn away and cup your free hand around your mouth so the phone doesn't pick up Malleus's uncontrollable giggles.

  "Human!”  he shouts into the phone and you have to pull it back to alleviate your overwhelmed eardrum. “  If you would kindly put Lord Malleus on the phone, I would greatly appreciate it."

 You look over to Malleus, but Sebek was loud enough that you don’t have to mouth anything to him. He gestures for you to hand the phone over to him, but you put your hand up to tell him to give you a moment.

 "If you want to talk to Malleus, press two,” you blankly say. “Those are the rules."

  "Human! I don’t have time for your terrible jokes!"

 Malleus then gestures for you to hand over your phone. "Do as they say, Sebek," he calmly commands.

 Your hands slap against your mouth to cover the loud and ugly screech you make when you hear the loud dial noise come right after. 

 The two talk for a while. It’s mainly Malleus listening to whatever Sebek is passionately rambling about while giving the occasional hum and idle acknowledgments. At one point during the call, he looks over to you and frowns. You mouth “what’s wrong?” but he shakes his head and looks away. Once he hangs up, he lets out a very stressful sigh and slumps a bit. He’s upset.

 “Hey,” you move your rifle and scoot closer to him, giving him a gentle shoulder bump once you’re near. “Talk to me. What did Sebek say?”

 “It’s nothing important,” he continues to dismiss. “Just a trivial matter.”

 “ Malleus,” your voice becomes stern. “C’mon, talk to me.”

 He tends to downplay his troubles since he thinks they pale in comparison to the many other aspects going on in his life (being royalty can’t be easy). When it was clear that you were more than just an acquaintance, Lilia gave you a bit of advice about Fae behavior so you can better communicate with Malleus and get him to open up to you. Faes cannot lie, but they can give half-truths, and, depending on how powerful one is, they can tell white lies. It took a bit of work, but eventually, you gained enough of Malleus' trust as well as reassured him that you won't up and abandon him for simply voicing his opinions or feelings, even if you might disagree with him.

 “You first,” he says insistently.

 Also by the advice\of Lilia, you have a bit of an ongoing exchange with Malleus. For every instance he bears his inner thoughts and feelings to you, you have to tell him something about yourself that others don’t know about. 

 Have all your facts been embarrassing admittances? Yes, they have.

  “No offense, but aren’t Fae notorious for being a bit...y’know?”

  “Mischievous?” Lilia snickers.

  “Right,” you cross your arms in an attempt to provide yourself with a bit of comfort. Lilia’s casual demeanor surely isn’t helping you. “Telling Malleus all my innermost secrets is surely going to come back and bite me in the future.”

  “Well, in most circumstances you wouldn’t be wrong.” Suddenly his playful voice becomes firm and actually assuring for once. “However, there is no need for concern. I can say with certainty that whatever you tell Malleus, no matter how embarrassing or incriminating it is, will forever remain with him and him alone.”

  The old Fae pats you on the head, despite being taller than him. “He cares deeply about, truly.”

 That fuzzy feeling in your chest returns. Your hands have an itch to fidget with something to try and distract yourself. It ends up being a strand of your hair that gets blown in your face after an especially chilly gust of wind dishevels it. That’s when a small bulb lights up in your head.

 “I hate the winter,” you admit. “The long nights throw me off and I have terrible luck running into wild game when I head out into the field. Really, it's cold weather that I hate in general.”

 “Interesting,” Malleus clearly takes in and files away this new fact he’s learned in his head. “This likely isn’t a surprise, but I enjoy this time of the year.”

 “What's winter in the Valley of Thorns like?”

 Malleus, shocked at hearing your sudden interest in his home, begins to paint as detailed a picture as he can about the kingdom during the colder seasons. Greenery is a bit sparse given the Valley’s more mountainous terrain, but he insists that the thorn bushes you can find in nearly every corner of the land are beautiful in their own right. No matter the season, there’s always some amount of fog that dilutes the rays of the sun, so a day without one is often seen as a sign of good fortune by the people. Modern machinery is all but nonexistent as well, so there are no buildings, pollution, or lights to obscure the starry sky at night.

 “Now it just sounds like I’m back home,” you let out a sad reminiscent sigh.

 “What about your home? What is it like?”

 “About the same as yours, except we got plenty of sunlight and we had lush forests instead of rocky cliffs. There was a small town about half an hour out, but most of the businesses there have been around since the ’50s.” You notice his confusion as your terminology, but a brief explanation of your world’s calendar clears it up.

 “It sounds charming,” he says. “I’d love to visit it one day, should the opportunity present itself.”

 “There’s an ice cream shop down the main avenue,” you mention, knowing how much he enjoys the cold treat. “The owners even change their selections every other day, but the rainbow sherbet is the best one they have!”

 “Is that so?” he chuckles at your enthusiasm. 

 A sharp screech cuts your conversation into an abrupt close. That was without a doubt a signal from Twilight, letting you know that someone is walking up the pathway to the dorm. You aren’t expecting anyone, and Frankie is likely just arriving in town by now. You remember how Malleus seemed dejected after his call with Sebek.

 Just as you connect the dots, Malleus stands up, brushing off any dirt and debris from his clothes. “I apologize, but I must head out now.”

 “Already?” you ask with playful sadness. The fuzz in your chest dissipates into a dull ache. Weird.

 “I need to go over my guest list for my birthday once more. Lilia insisted I send out handwritten invitations to immerse myself into the festivities.”

 “That sounds about right.” After standing up yourself and insisting you’ll walk him out, you ask, “So when can I expect my invitation to come in?”

 “You want to come? Even after,” he immediately stops himself from speaking.

 Does he really think he messed up that badly with you?

 “I do want to go,” you firmly tell him. “Even after everything that’s happened.”

 There’s a brief silence between you two before he says, “You don’t have to force yourself.”

 “I’m not,” you reassure him.

 “So you say.”

 “Malleus,” you sigh. “If there’s anyone scared about our friendship dissolving because of what happened, it’s me. I’m the one that’s keeping you in suspense, even now.”

 The truth hurts, but no amount of shared laughs and the occasional antics between the two of you is going to magically dissolve the damage present. You’ve hurt him, and in a way, it’s hurting you as well. Life isn’t as linear as it was, but sulking and bringing the people around you down is a terribly selfish thing to do, especially towards someone you care a great deal about. You weren’t raised like that. You were taught to appreciate the little things and watch out for those around you. Not for personal gain, but because it was simply a kind thing to do.

 This feeling of insecurity came before the winter break. Being around so many people whose ideals and actions clash with yours often succeeds at making you think that you’re the one in wrong, that you’re the helpless and naive one. That’s far from the truth. The community you’ve built with the ghost trio and the natives on Sage’s Island is proof that your values are shared with others. 

 It’s just like Frankie said, life is just serving you a bad hand right now. You can prevail and return to the better days. The better days when you and Malleus were the best of friends. But why does your heart hurt when you think about his confession for the umpteenth time? What’s making you so hesitant? More importantly, why couldn’t you tell him “yes”, yet you also knew you couldn’t tell him “no”?

 As you watch Malleus and Sebek depart from your front door, making their way down the steps towards the front gates, you hastily announce that you’ll be back and begin running towards them.

 You need to make things right. 

Malleus noticed the way your hands sought something out to fidget with when you were feeling...he doesn’t know what that was. You weren’t feeling uncomfortable as far as he could tell. 

 Were you perhaps...flustered? 

 No, that can’t be it. You don’t think of him that way, he’s sure of now. When he quickly reassesses his behavior, he didn’t do anything that would warrant you to become nervous, other than look at you with a far too amorous gaze while you explained the ins and outs of your firearm. He couldn't help himself. Seeing you so passionate and animated, even if it's over something he has no knowledge or a particular interest in, made his heart flutter as well as ache yet again.

 They fidget with the nearest object when they feel uncomfortable. Remember that.

 “What was that, Lord Malleus?” 

 Sebek’s booming voice catches him off guard a bit, but he quickly recovers as if nothing disturbed him at all. “It’s nothing, just thinking aloud.”

 “I see. In any case,” he quickly changes the subject. “The materials needed to write and send the invitation letters are all ready. Sir Lilia insists that you write each one on your own, but I am more than capable and willing to offer my assistance should you need it!”

 “That’s quite alright. There aren’t a great many I need to send anyways,” Malleus gracefully rejects Sebek’s eager offer. 

 There really aren’t that many people who will be attending, just the residents of Diasomnia and that’s it. He initially had plans to invite you, but he’s caught between a rock and a hard place. You’ve expressed your desire to come, but he can’t help but feel that it’s only out of pity.

 He doesn’t want that from you. At this point, he just wants things to return to how they once were before he opened his mouth and began to spew a bunch of one-sided nonsense. He just wants your friendship, pure and untainted like before.

 Perhaps he’s destined to never have a friend after all.

 “Malleus!” your distant voice calls out to him, causing him to stop in his tracks and turn around to search for you.

 He doesn’t understand how you do it, but just hearing you call his name utterly burns away all the muddled thoughts circulating within his head. He is exceptional when it comes to defensive magic, yet whatever spell you manage to cast on him that makes him so taken by you, it exceeds even his own magical prowess.

 But you don’t have any magic. Not even a speck courses through your veins. You’re just an average human. His nearly crippling infatuation is entirely his own doing.

 "Oh, thank goodness you haven't made it past the front gates yet," you heaved out. Did you run all the way here? Did he forget something? He quickly pats his front pocket and feels a hard lump, his phone. It’s the only personal item he brought.

 "Human," Sebek's voice sounds annoyed at your sudden presence. "What do you need from- AH!"

 Sebek's scream hurts Malleus's ear, but the slight and momentary ring means little when you've wrapped your arms over his shoulders and pull him into a tight embrace. He immediately melts into your arms, smothering his face against the crook of your neck and taking in your scent like a desperate man. Despite the sweat you and he worked up from hours of labor, you still smell so nice, like fresh cotton and assorted herbs. It's unique. It's comforting. 

 It's you.

 "One week," you whisper in his ear. "Give me one week. I'll have an answer for you then."

 He pulls back and looks at you like you’ve grown a second head. "Pardon?"

 "I've hurt you, badly." you look down in shame. "I still am, but I'm going to make it up to you. I promise"

 "A promise made with a Fae is a dangerous thing, especially when you don't uphold your end of the deal," he says with a warning tone. "One week. Are you sure that's enough time?"

 "It is," you say with certainty.

 You're not one to lie or bite off more than you can stomach. You know when you've been beaten, that's why you called for his help over the break. His interpretation of trust differs greatly from yours, and it's not given to many, Fae or not. 

 "Very well,” he yields. “I will trust you to keep to your oath.”

 “Thank you,” you squeeze him closer against you. “And I’m so sorry.”

“It’s alright. Just please, don't break my heart any further," he whispers pleadingly into your ear.

Apologies are dangerous words to say to a Fae, even a bit demeaning to some. The same with words of thanks, which you often say to him regularly. Malleus has developed a habit of accepting them out of courtesy. It's an aspect of his culture that you struggle to adjust to since it's interpreted differently in human society. You've also told him something he finds humorous, how your aunts constantly enforced you (in your words “beat it into you”) to say "please", "thank you", and “sorry”, as they didn't want others to think they were living in a crude household. It's incredibly ironic considering you tend to swear every other sentence.

 You explained that "Thank you"s are acknowledgments of the efforts one makes for another, no matter how small or grandiose the gesture is. Apologies are acknowledgments that one has wronged another and wishes to make amends.

 It sounds like common sense, but he understands now what you mean when you tell him "It's the little things that matter most". His heart was hurt when you couldn’t tell him “yes” or even a simple “no”. He's still suffering from the aftermath of his confession, even as he signs off on the last of the invitations for his birthday party, his mind failing to commit to the enthusiastically written words. You've acknowledged that you see his pain and that you recognize that you're its source. Despite having other troubles of your own, you've made it clear that he's now been pushed up your long to-do list and that he's now your main priority.

 It brings much-needed relief to his pained heart, though just a bit.

 He waits until Sebek is gone before he rummages around his desk for a beige-colored envelope, the one he enchanted and gave to you so you can speak to him over the break (he preferred this method over text messages). It still has your SOS letter in it, written with your now aged and darkened blood.

  Malleus. I'm sorry for the smell, but it's all I have on hand. I'm in Scarabia's dorm and they're not letting me leave. I've been here for a few days to help the vice dorm leader with some sort of internal affair, but I think he did something to me that's making it impossible to refuse him anymore. I tried to bail, but they caught me and now they're locking me up and keeping a close eye on me.

  If I may be a bit bold, I'm fucking scared out of my mind. I know it's rude of me to make demands without proper compensation, but I think I need some help. I don't want to cause a big fuss, so if you can could you come alone? If you can't that's fine. I'm sure I can pull through until the break ends.

  I hope you're doing well. Again, sorry for the smell.

 He makes a few more creases in the paper due to gripping it so harshly. He remembers opening it the first time and nearly ripping it in half because of how utterly livid he was. Your fresh blood also didn't help at the time. You didn't state what your current condition was when you drafted the letter and his mind immediately thought of you being injured and that was the reason you wrote it in your blood.

 The time between him sneaking past his castle's security once he received your letter to arriving on Sage's Island via his own magic (curse the dark mirror for being inactive during the winter) is a bit of a blur. All he can remember is that he was just so worried for you, a magicless human against an entire dorm of wizards in training. Even someone with subpar control over their magic can do you a great deal of damage.

 If sneaking out of his home without telling a soul, potentially causing one of the largest search hunts to commence had someone noticed and reported to his grandmother, doesn't prove how much you mean to him, he doesn't know what will.

 One week. If it takes you one more week for you to realize this, then he will wait.

 He trusts you, just as you trusted him when you sent him that letter.

 He grabs his quill and dips the tip into a jar of ink, writing something quick and straightforward on a spare piece of parchment.

  "Please come to my party. It would mean the world to me."

 After the ink dries, he folds it and places it in the envelope, sealing it with wax bearing the crest of his family. He needs not utter a single incantation to have it erupt in a blaze of green fire. He waits. One minute. Two. Suddenly, a spark of blue fire erupts on his desk before dissipating, leaving behind the same envelope he burned minus a wax seal.

 He opens it.

  "Of course I will!"

[tepkunset]

@avatarfandompolice​​​ is a blog that likes to misuse progressive language in attempt to make ignorant, racist posts sound more intelligent than they are. While most of their blog consists of arguing about ‘zutara,’ (which I recently learned is a ship name for Zuko and Katara from an anon), there is also a large number of posts and reblogs under the premise of being “hot takes” on how unfair it is to address racism in fandom and in media.

Avatarfandompolice is very sensitive about people pointing out that Avatar: The Last Airbender is not, in fact, flawless. That a show made by two white men featuring Asian and Indigenous characters and influences is fully capable of getting things wrong. That their western colonial views are influences all on their own, and it shows. Rather than listen to fans of colour point out things like these posts for example: [Link] [Link] [Link], avatarfandompolice has decided that such things must simply be fake, and has made multiple posts complaining it. This is not just regular ignorance, this is wilful ignorance. The dismissal of critique simply because they cannot fathom not everyone being able to handle the amount of issues they are freely educating others on, or people holding the ability to like something overall while also pointing out where it could be better.

It is my firm belief that you should never absorb media with an uncritical eye. If this was the case, if people just accepted everything given to them, then we would never see any progress. We need to be able to look back at something and say here’s what we did right, and here’s what we need to do better with.

The argument that A:TLA was made in 2012 and therefore should not be analyzed with a modern understanding of the world is downright hilarious, too. As if we aren’t taught to write literature analysis on books and plays that are centuries old in school. In particular regards to the whole cop thing... if anyone reading this seriously thinks that hate and fear of the police is just a 2020 trend, you can meet me in the pit. I was four years old when I learned how terrifying cops are. If your experiences differ, let me tell you that does not make them universal. And as for all the 20-somethings talking about it today, well, gentle reminder that as said by avatarfandompolice right here, the show aired in 2012. Little 10-year-old kids don’t have social media, (at least I hope they don’t,) and unless they grew up experiencing first-hand police terror, probably were not aware of it at that age. I do not know why avatarfandompolice insults people's ability to grow and learn. I can only guess it’s jealously from their lack of ability to do so.

Now let’s address their defences of whitewashing, which is easily the most backwards reaching I’ve seen on this issue in a while. Primarily their defence relies on four repetitive “points” —

Fake minuscule percentages to downplay the high prevalence and extremity of whitewashing in the fandom

Deflecting the addressing of whitewashing with rapid-fire fake scenarios and claims of “reverse racism” / “blackwashing”

Claiming whitewashing isn’t real because people only care about it with Katara

Claiming that calling out whitewashing in fandom is wrong because it hurts artists

I have only so much as dipped my toes into the A:TLA fandom, and even I have seen a lot of whitewashed fan art. If you do an image search for fan art, I guarantee within the first couple rows of results, there will be in the absolute least, a few examples. The idea of these artworks not substantially lightening skin is also just plain inaccurate. Just from a quick Google search, this is literally the first result for ‘Avatar The Last Airbender Katara fan art’:

Avatarfandompolice is also hyper-focused on the lightening of skin, and seems to be under the impression that this is the only component of whitewashing. I come to this conclusion because when someone pointed out the equal prevalence of depicting these characters of colour with Western European features instead of their actual eyes, noses, etc., they rip a giant turd out of their ass and scrawl the words “but stereotyping” over it. No, not all Asian peoples and Indigenous peoples look the same. The original poster made no such claim of this at all. Avatarfandompolice jumped to this conclusion all on their own... (which really says a lot in itself). It is entirely unrelated to the point. The point being the erasure of how these characters look, in favour of giving them whiter features. And guess what? This does hurt. But I’ll get to that below.

The lack of understanding of whitewashing is on full display when avatarfandompolice talks about “blackwashing”; the idea that colouring characters with darker skin is just like whitewashing. Firstly, there is no such thing as “blackwashing.” “Blackwashing,” “brownwashing,” etc. does not exist because it is a false equivalency to whitewashing. It is a false equivalency to whitewashing because white people are not even in the slightest loosing representation when a white character is re-imagined as a racial minority, whereas when racial minorities are re-imagined as white people, they are taking away from what is already very little representation for us. If we lived in a world where the statistics of representation were not so drastically disproportionate, then there would be something to talk about. But if you are really wanting to support equality, you should focus on equitably supporting those who actually need it, not white people. As for specifically depicting characters like Sokka and Katara with darker skin than what they have in the show, the same applies, (so long as it’s not racebending them as we really shouldn’t be taking representation away from each other, and the artist avatarfandompolice ridicules above has done no such thing,) because colourism also exists within nonwhite communities as well.

As for the fake questions about cosplaying, the answer is really simple: Cosplay however you want, but don’t make pretending to be a different race part of your cosplay. If you want to cosplay Katara, you can do it without painting your skin darker, aka brownface. If you want to cosplay Zuko, you can do it without editing yourself to look East Asian, aka digital yellowface. The racist history behind this is an internet search away, but I suppose that is too difficult for avatarfandompolice to do.

Avatarfandompolice has made multiple claims that people must not really care about whitewashing if they only call it out for Katara. It is laughable at best, and sad at worst, that this is the conclusion they come to, and not the fact that unfortunately Katara just happens to be subjected to more whitewashing than other characters. I assume this is from a mix of her popularity as well as being a WOC and not MOC. This is not to say that whitewashing does not exist with male characters—not in the slightest. Half the images on this “10 fan art pictures of Sokka that are just the best” list from CBR are whitewashed. Only that across fandoms, whitewashing is more prevalent in female characters, by my observations at least.

Finally—and this one pisses me off the most—avatarfandompolice claims that whitewashing is no big deal, but calling out whitewashing is too harmful to justify. How fucking dare you put the feelings of artists who can’t handle critique of their work (that they publicly share) over fans of colour, who are constantly subjected to seeing our identities and looks not being worth respecting. As if it doesn’t imprint on your mind from a very young age how only villains ever have your facial features, because they’re ugly and I guess that means you’re ugly. As if there is something wrong with you. As if respecting you is regarded as extra effort, and not just common courtesy.

Whitewashing is a form of colourism, which is a form of racism. It is the favouritism, unconscious or not, of white features and the erasure of visible characters of colour. It is not fandom drama. It is not being too lazy to focus on “real issues” because it is part of a real issue. It is yet another part of why fandom spaces are so uninviting to POC. We live in a society that favours lighter skin. Corporations make fortunes from selling products to bleach your skin, products to contour your features away or go as far as surgery, all to meet beauty standards set by and influenced by white colonizers. That does not exist in A:TLA, and that’s called refreshing escapism. But it’s hard to escape that when the fandom constantly reminds you otherwise. It is a perfect example of how the classic “just let people enjoy things” complaint is nothing but disguised racism, because it’s only ever said regarding white fans’ enjoyment, at the expense of fans of colour.

None of the characters in A:TLA are white. Redesigning them and recolouring them as if they are, be it out of accident or intent is wrong. If you get called out for it, apologize, learn from the experience and do better going forward. You’ll also improve your art this way.

Beyond excusing whitewashing, avatarfandompolice has overt racist posts as well. A Black fan said they like to headcanon Katara as being partially Black; “I swear Katara was a sister. Im convinced there ain't no way she didn't have some black in her.” Avatarfandompolice jumps in saying “She's literally an Inuit but ok” as if being an Inuk person means Katara can’t possibly also be Black. The OP never claimed Katara was not Indigenous, simply that they also saw her as Black. Black Indigenous peoples exist. Black Inuk peoples exist. It is overtly anti-Black to say otherwise. But what even is the point of talking to avatarfandompolice about that? You know, you would think in trying to put such a front up of caring about the Inuit, they would do the most basic learning of the proper grammatical use of Inuit and Inuk. (As is the case with a great many Indigenous Nations, Inuit is both the Nation and plural. Inuk is singular. “An Inuit” / “Inuits” as avatarfandompolice has used just makes their dressed-up racism all the more pathetic. It’s similar to as if you said “Chinas” instead of “Chinese”.)

But all this is nothing, nothing compared to the worst post I had the displeasure of seeing. In a single post, avatarfandompolice manages to squeeze in insult against low income people, Mexican people, Jewish people, and Black people in a mockery of financial help posts. Absolutely disgusting, childish behaviour from a place of privilege. As someone who has had no option but to make such a post before, more than once, let me fucking tell you that the embarrassment and desperation when in that situation is unparalleled. It is not done lightly. It is done when you are at the last resort of having nothing but hope that the combined generosity of others will be enough to save you and your family. And what adds a whole other level to the odiousness of avatarfandompolice’s post is that they specifically targeting low income minorities to boot. Because we’re all poor beggars, right?

All in all, for someone who prides themselves in calling others ignorant, avatarfandompolice has to be one of the most obtuse fandom blogs I have ever scrolled through. They are as vile as they are pathetic, and my sincere sympathy for anyone who has been unfortunate enough to interact with them. It has been a while since I so strongly recommend blocking someone.

[buckthegrump]

Miscommunications

Summary: Bucky’s not an idiot. In fact, he’s very smart. However there is one person who makes him a little dumb, a himbo if you will.

Warnings: swearing, that’s it

Word Count:1269

A/n: this is for @heli0s-writes​ ‘s writing challenge my prompt is bolded this is the first of a collection of one-shots with our favorite himbo also the gif has nothing to do with this fic i just think it’s hot

Bucky wasn’t sure how romance worked in the 21st century. So he was slightly lost in where to start. Not that any of that mattered, he highly doubted he was able to find someone that he liked enough to try.

But then Y/n joined the team.

She was a hacker and got her place because she hacked into Tony’s system. For the first few months, she was quiet and resourceful. She also had taken over the team’s finances, claiming that she was more trustworthy than some shmuck who went to Harvard and had a bad hair cut. She also wasn’t about to turn down more money.

Bucky wasn’t sure when exactly he began to fall for her but one day he looked at her while she stared at the computer screen as she typed away. She was gnawing away at her bottom lip and drinking a steaming liquid from one of Tony’s mugs.

Her eyelids were heavy and no matter how much she moved around it seemed like she was three seconds away from giving in to sleep and falling off the chair. 

He didn’t know how to talk to her, at least not in the way he wanted to. He could hold a friendly conversation with her but damn was that getting frustrating. Sam wasn’t making it any better by teasing the poor man.

Natasha walked into the kitchen just as Bucky had opened his mouth to make a comment. They began talking about something trivial and Bucky decided to let them have to themselves and walked away.

Something that Y/n said something that caught Bucky off guard. “Yeah, I think I want some goats -”

Bucky didn’t really hear anything after.

* * *

It was a few weeks later when Bucky and Y/n were the only ones in the compound for a few days because everyone else was out on a mission.

Y/n was sitting on the couch playing a video game when Bucky walked into the family room. At first, she didn’t pay much attention to it but then she heard a sound that didn’t make sense. She knew logically what the noise was but it in her mind it didn’t belong in the compound.

She turned to look at Bucky who was holding a rope and at the end of the rope was a goat.

“I have so many questions I’m not even sure where to start,” she muttered, mostly to herself but she knew that Bucky heard her.

“It’s a goat,” he said as he lifted the rope.

“Yes, that I can see I’m just confused as to why. Also, how did you get a goat here? Do you have your driver’s license?”

“You mentioned to Nat a few weeks that you wanted some goats,” he said sheepishly.

Y/n bit back a smile. “Goat’s milk, babe.”

Bucky tried not to let himself get to excited by the nickname, she called everyone that. And then the rest of her sentence clicked in his head.

“Oh,” he said feeling his cheeks heat up. 

She got up from her place on the couch and walked over to him.

“It’s a very sweet gesture but I was talking about trying a recipe with goat’s milk. But since you have the goat here -”

* * *

“What the hell is that?” Sam’s scream could be heard throughout the compound. 

Everyone was seated in the dining room waiting for the pizza to be delivered when Sam had his outburst. Very quickly and subtlely Bucky and Y/n shared a look. 

About a minute later Sam came into the room with the goat in tow.

“Why the fuck was there a goat in my room? How did it even get there?” Sam yelled at the team.

An argument broke out over who put it there and why. Somehow, neither Bucky nor Y/n got blamed for it. Tony however did.

* * *

One would think that the goat incident would be the last time that Bucky brought a farm animal into the compound.

It was not.

Wanda was sitting with Y/n looking at a funny video on the internet when Bucky walked in with a llama or an alpaca Y/n wasn’t quite sure which.

The two women stared at the supersoldier and his new friend silently. No one said anything for a long time, while the poor farm animal made noises and looked like it was waiting for food. Steve walked in and was about to ask the girls what they were staring at until he looked over at Bucky.

“Whatcha got there, Buck?” Steve asked.

Bucky held up a cup that no one had noticed he was holding. “Coffee.”

He then looked to Y/n who was trying to read his expression, but it was completely blank. Bucky began petting the animal as he took a sip of his iced coffee.

“You wanna pet it?” He asked.

“Bucky, why do you -” Steve started but Y/n got up from her spot and brushed by Steve to take Bucky up on his offer. “How did you even get a llama?”

“It’s an alpaca,” Bucky deadpanned.

The alpaca was so soft Y/n wanted to shrink to the size of ant-man and camp out in the animal’s fur for a weekend. 

“I’ve always wanted a sweater made of wool from their fur,” Y/n said and Bucky started choking at the comment. “Who’d you rent it from?”

Bucky waved his hand vaguely. “Oh, ya know -”

Y/n’s hand froze. “Take it back.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he muttered and guided it out of the compound.

Steve and Wanda shared a look before turning back to Y/n, who only shrugged before getting back to her laptop.

* * *

Y/n, being in charge of finances, was used to seeing large sums of money being used. Mainly by Tony and Natasha. But every once in a while Steve or Sam would have something that cost a few thousand dollars, but they always warned her about it.

So when she came across one of Bucky’s bills that was massive she unironically did a spit take and chocked on the leftover water in her mouth.

“You ok?” Speak of the devil. Bucky walked over to where she was at the table and sat next to her.

“Umm yeah, I was just going over some things and I found something odd,” she pulled held out the piece of paper that sent her into her coughing fit, “According to this, you owe them eighty thousand dollars.”

Bucky nodded then looked up at her and continued nodding. She furrowed her brows in a questioning manner.

“Yeah,” was all he said.

“Ok but like, you spent eighty thousand dollars in one place,” she reiterated. “I didn’t even know you had that kind of money.”

“Well, turns out that if you spend more than seventy years as a prisoner of war and it’s your own government’s fault they feel pretty guilty about it and then give you a shit ton of money to try and make up for it,” he explained, “that and Tony may have threatened them or something.”

“That still doesn’t tell me what you bought,” she said.

Bucky smiled, stood up, then gave her a kiss on the forehead. If she hadn’t been so preoccupied with the fact that Bucky apparently had enough money to just blow eighty thousand on one thing, she might have actually reacted to the out of character affection.

“Don’t worry about it,” was all he said as he walked away.

“That makes me worry about it more!” She yelled out after him but she didn’t get a response.

[yahboobeh]

When the Clock Strikes Midnight

Happy New Year everyone! Here’s my NejiTen discord server Secret Santa fic for @giada-luna! FF.net | AO3

There were very few things to do at the hospital, and Neji could count them all on one hand. He thought he would have been used to it by now. He had spent most of the past two months in and out of the hospital between checkups and surgeries as his body slowly recovered from the multiple impalings that should have killed him. 

He mostly slept, breaking apart the cycle of visits from nurses and loved ones with groggy drug-induced naps. However, four days post-op meant his pain medication was replaced with something less addictive, making even napping a difficult way to adequately pass the time. Hinata insisted that Neji packed a book, but he’d made short work of that the first day the nurse had removed his IV (and, by extension, his pain medication). The tv on the wall was only good for the white noise, and even meditating was starting to feel monotonous. 

Luckily, tonight was his last night in the hospital, recovering from what was hopefully his final surgery. It was also New Year’s Eve.

As if on cue, Tenten was there, pushing the door to his room open, sporting a pink and white quiapo and smile on her lips. 

“Oh good, you’re awake!” 

He nodded and watched Tenten close the door and cross the room to the side of his bed. 

“New dress?”

Her face reddened as if she hadn’t expected him to notice, much less comment on it. 

“Yeah, new year, new me?” She chuckled awkwardly. “What do you think?” 

“I like it.” 

Her blush deepened, and she muttered out her thanks before shifting the conversation away from herself.

“Have you done your exercises today?”

Neji sighed before answering, yes. A nurse came by twice a day to ensure he was walking and practicing special breathing techniques to keep his lungs clear. Tenten knew this but continued to worry over his recovery consistently. 

“You did the breathing exercises?”

“Yes.”

“And the coughing?”

“Tenten.”

“Ok, but when did you go for a walk last?”

“Last night when you insisted,” he teased.

Tenten crossed her arms and huffed at him.

“That’s not funny. Sakura said it’s important for you to move.”

“I know,” he said with a bit more exasperation than he’d intended, “I’ve been through this countless times over the last two and a half months, Tenten.”

“I’m sorry,” she huffed, “forgive me for being concerned.” 

Neji sighed. They were both tired and stressed. Tenten came to visit him every day, and it didn’t matter if he was in the hospital or resting at home. She seemed to have made overseeing his recovery her primary job. Neji knew from Lee’s visits that Tenten was also fretting over Gai. He appreciated her concern and even felt guilty for being the source of her anxiety, but the constant worrying and nagging opened the door for more arguments. Neji enjoyed exchanging barbs, but Tenten was the last person he wanted to argue with.

“A walk sounds nice,” he relented. They walked every night, regardless of her questions and his answers. So, Neji began the slow process of sitting up. It didn’t hurt nearly as much as it did during his initial recovery, but his muscles still ached and protested from the exertion. 

The nurses made him keep a walker next to his bed to brace himself on while he got out of bed, but Neji hated it. It reminded him that he was weak, mortal, and very lucky. Tenten knew he hated the walker; Neji didn’t even have to tell her. It was one of his favorite parts of their friendship. They knew each other so well that they communicated silently. Tenten stood in front of him, offering out her hands should he need them. 

In front of anyone else, Neji would wave away assistance but not from Tenten. They gripped each other by the forearms, and Neji stood up. She smiled the whole time, and his heart fluttered. 

“Where should we walk to tonight?” she asked as they stepped out of Neji’s room and started down the hall.

“Have you eaten anything?” 

“Not yet.”

“Then how about the cafeteria?”

“Oh, are you offering to buy me dinner?” Tenten teased.

“Sure, just charge it to my room,” he joked. 

But he’d seen the glint in Tenten’s eyes at the prospect of a meal. He knew she wasn’t eating well. She looked thinner and tired. The war had been particularly unkind to Team Gai, and while Tenten carried herself with a demeanor that said ‘I’m okay,’ Neji could see the truth. He hated it. Hated that she was spreading herself so thin between his and Gai’s recoveries, that she only had Lee to train with, that she had seen so much and cried so little. 

“Let’s eat,” Neji confirmed. 

The walk was slow. All of his walks were slow. 

“How is Gai-sensei doing?” Neji asked. “Lee thought he was almost done in surgery when he was visiting.”

“Yes, he is doing well. He was in recovery when I went to see him today. I left when they moved him back to his regular room. Although I think Sakura gave him some extra medication to make sure he rests.”

“Ah, so I take it we won’t be seeing him tonight?” 

Neji paused to rest, and Tenten leaned against the wall.

“Lee and I talked earlier. Gai-sensei will likely be in and out of consciousness all night. We decided it would be best if we split up this New Year’s celebration. He’s staying with Gai-sensei, and I’m with you.”

“So we finally get a quiet and uneventful new year?” 

Tenten giggled.

“Just this once.”

They started walking again, quiet as they neared their destination. At the entrance to the cafeteria, Tenten continued the conversation.

“You know, this just means that next year Gai-sensei and Lee are going to go over the top to make up for this year.”

Neji rolled his eyes, trying to ignore the images of Gai and Lee’s potential outlandish plans. 

Tenten, at Neji’s quiet insistence, filled a tray with food. He had eaten earlier, so he prepared a cup of tea and purchased Tenten’s meal. 

“You didn’t have to do that,” she muttered while they scanned the room for a table.

“I wanted to,” he ensured. A wave of emotion hit him. He always wanted to do small things for Tenten, to repay her selflessness and kindness with his own. 

He knew she felt the same way he did, and Neji had resolved to tell her as much. It wasn’t a matter of if he should tell her, but when and how. 

Would she want a grand romantic gesture, or would she appreciate something more quiet and comfortable? He could easily imagine either scenario and felt overcome with indecisiveness and nerves. 

Tenten elbowed his arm, and he was back in the cafeteria. 

“Sakura and Sasuke are here!”

Neji gave a nod to indicate that joining them was fine and followed Tenten to the table. 

“Hey, guys!” Sakura, who had been hunched over a cup of coffee, perked up when she saw them. 

“Hey, Sakura! Do you mind if we join you?” Tenten asked. 

“Oh sure, I’m just on a coffee break.” 

Tenten set down her tray and glanced up at Neji. He shook his head, silently declining her offer for help. 

He winced as he sat down and let out a sigh before sipping his tea. 

Sasuke sat across from him, toying with his coffee. 

It was strange to see him without an arm. It made Neji’s stomach turn, and he wondered if it was similar to how Tenten might have felt when she saw him half dead. 

“How are you guys doing?” Tenten asked. 

“We’re good,” Sakura replied, “tired, but good. Things are starting to slow down, and Tsunade-sama is feeling well enough to help out here and there.” 

“That’s good,” said Tenten. 

“And I was just checking up on Sasuke’s… uh… arm… before my break, and here we are.” 

Sasuke polished off his drink and stood up. 

“Gonna grab another coffee, want one?” 

“No, thank you.” 

Sakura then jerked her chin towards them, ever so slightly. 

“How about you two? Need anything?”

“We’re all set, I think,” said Neji, “thanks.” 

Sasuke walked off, and Tenten instantly leaned across the table, her meal half-forgotten. 

“How are things going?”

“He wants to stay and keep me company tonight!” 

“Really?” 

“Yes! My shift runs late. Do you think he’s going to kiss me at midnight?” 

“Maybe! If he does you have to tell me everything!” 

Neji drifted in and out of their rushed conversation giving an appropriate nod or shrug whenever Sakura looked at him for reassurance or he felt Tenten’s expectant glances. 

Sakura excused herself shortly after Sasuke’s return and the pair departed the cafeteria. 

Tenten tried to push her half eaten bowl of fruit onto Neji, claiming she was full and he needed to eat more. 

She cleared their dishes and they slowly made their way back to Neji’s room. 

Neji sighed as he leaned back against the bed, the pillows and mattress taking over for his strained and sore core muscles. The bed was raised so he could sit up comfortably. 

Tenten stretched her arms and yawned before sitting next to him on the bed. 

She reached for the remote and turned on the tv. 

“Only three and a half hours left of this shit year,” she said, flipping through channels. “Do you know which channel is the news?” 

Neji shook his head. 

“There might be a list in the drawer,” he suggested. 

“Oh! I found it!” The local New Year’s Eve celebration show had started. Any other year they would be among the revelers in the center of the village enjoying the festival.

...the crowd is ecstatic tonight...eager to leave behind a year of death and destruction...hearbreak and loss....

“I heard from Hinata that they’re going to interview Naruto and Kakashi-sensei.” 

“Sakura mentioned that earlier today,” said Neji.

“It’ll be weird to see them on TV.”

Neji glanced over to his teammate, catching her eye. 

“I’m sorry you’re stuck here.” 

Tenten giggled and leaned her arm against his. 

“Don’t be silly. This is where I want to be.” 

Neji raised a brow. 

“In a hospital room?” 

“With you.” 

Neji felt his face flush and hoped she didn’t notice. Was this the right moment to speak up? 

“Besides,” she continued, “we can see the fireworks from your window.” 

Neji shrugged. 

“I suppose it’s a fitting end to this year.” 

Tenten smiled. 

“Yes. The year that we never thought would end. It’s been awful from start to finish.” 

“The entire year?” 

“Pretty much. I mean, there were some good things. But it was all just preparation for the war and then…” 

Tenten trailed off, picking idly at a loose thread on the blanket. She shook her head as if she was denying access to the dark place of her mind where those memories were tucked away. Neji knew that place well. He suspected everyone did. 

“It doesn’t matter. The further we move away from this year the better.” 

Neji chuckled. 

“Do you think that once the clock strikes midnight everything will suddenly change?” 

“Maybe, you never know.” She gave him another smile. “It doesn’t hurt to hope though.” 

Their conversation died down for a moment, picking up the familiar pattern of silence between topics. 

The television hummed with the activity of revelers and hosts entertaining the crowd as the last few hours of the year ticked away. 

Twenty minutes before midnight Kakashi appeared on screen to help ring in the new year as Hokage. 

...we’re ushering in the new year with an era of peace...

“I hope Gai-sensei is awake for this,” said Tenten. 

Kakashi was a bit awkward and unprepared, but if Gai was watching, Neji knew that the new Hokage’s performance could be discussed as nothing less than perfect. 

After a few minutes Naruto made his appearance. They listened for a bit before getting out of bed to look out the window. 

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Tenten reached into her kunai pouch and pulled out a small bottle of sparkling sake, “can’t celebrate without a drink.” 

“Don’t let Sakura see that.” 

“It’s a mini bottle and you’re going home in the morning. I think you’ll be alright.” 

She twisted off the cap and took a swig. 

“Although I got a twist-off lid so no one hears a cork pop.” 

She passed Neji the bottle and he took a drink. Fizzy bubbles rippled across his tongue, the sake dry and tart. 

They finished the bottle as the countdown to midnight started. 

...59...58...57...56…

The energy in the room shifted. Neji felt lightheaded with anticipation.

...41...40...39...38...

Neji remembered the question Sakura had eagerly posed to Tenten at dinner.

‘Do you think he’ll kiss me at midnight?’

And he knew that the moment was right. 

....27...26...25...24…

Neji watched Tenten watch the television. She was smiling, and Neji didn’t need his byakugan to see that she had relaxed. If it was the sake or the prospect of a new start, Neji wasn’t sure, but her aura of calm was contagious.

...11...10...9...8…

He looked back up at the television, where Naruto was helping lead the countdown.

...5...4...3...2...1... Happy New Year!

Neji could hear cheering from the nurse’s station as the first few fireworks went off. 

Tenten ignored the view of the fireworks show they had stood by the window for, turning from the tv directly to Neji, her smile wider.

“Happy New Year, Neji.”

His arm moved before he could register it, cupping her jaw. The smile on fell from her lips, and her brows furrowed with the confusion that played across her face. 

That was when he kissed her, soft and gently. He heard the smallest gasp between the burst of fireworks outside their window. Tenten’s lips were soft and tasted sweet like sake. She kissed him back and pressed her hands to his chest. Neji put his hands on her waist and drew her in closer. 

They were slow, sweet and unsure. His mind hummed, and his body buzzed. He wanted to pull her even closer and kiss her harder, but he was too nervous, and this was perfect.

Neji wasn’t sure how long they kissed for, but when they stopped it was nothing more than a brief pause, foreheads pressed together.

“Happy New Year, Tenten.”

[shiny-procrastinates]

(re)Watching Magia Record S1 - part 1

Hello and welcome everyone to the first post on this watch-along commentary of the first season of Magia Record! Whether you are just now watching it for the first time, or are re-watching in preparation for the second season, or have only played the game and are curious about the anime (in which case I'd be surprised you even exist) I hope you can have some fun reading these ramblings as I try to put my thoughts into words  (actually turned more into narrating the show) throughout all 12 13 episodes.

Before we can get to it, though, I have a few warnings to give:

1 - As much as I'd love to be able to memory swipe so I can watch this fresh all over again, such an ability is sadly still beyond my grasp. In other words, this isn't my first time watching (or second, for that matter; more like the sixth… or seventh…). That being the case I can't claim that these are my first impressions and it's very likely this commentary will be somewhat biased by my previous knowledge. However, I can guarantee one thing: I will do my best to keep this spoiler-free, so you don't have to worry if this is your first time watching.

(I will, however, be assuming that you have watched the OG series and Rebellion, so beware of that).

2 - Please don't come into this expecting it to be Madoka 2

Also no, this is not a continuation of the OG, it’s an alternate universe spin-off.

This one's for first-time viewers.

Well, ok, this sounds like vague tweeting and I'm kind of whining here, but I have seen a number of peeps on the internet saying that Magia Record is bad only for their argument to boil down to "because it isn't OG Madoka!"

Yeah it isn't. I'm pretty sure there's "Side Story" written somewhere in the title too.

Leaving aside the matter of nostalgia glasses and whether the original series was that much of a masterpiece or not (it's been over five years since I last watched it, so I can't say anything either way.) it seems kind of weird to me that someone would bash a spinoff on the grounds of how close it is to the original. Because here's the thing: to me, the whole point of spinoffs is taking an already existing scenario and putting a spin on it to make something new. That's exactly what makes them fun!

MagiReco didn't need to be a Madoka clone or to try hard and beat the original. That would probably have made it bad, actually. What it did need to do was to create an interesting story using the world set up by the OG Madoka and the other spinoffs, and that, in my opinion, it did, so I hope people can give it a chance and judge it on its own merits rather than only compared to the original. I'm not saying you can't hate it, either, I myself have my own problems with it, it's just that I want to see more reasonable reasons than "it's not the OG so it's bad".

3 - As you can probably already tell from these warnings, these posts are bound to get looong, so I'd recommend setting aside a fair amount of time and getting real comfy if you're gonna read it all. I also don't mind if you just skip ahead and only read the interesting parts, I'm not the internet police.

3.5 - I don't want to use it as an excuse, but I think I should make it clear that English is not my native language, so I apologize in advance for any mistakes and awkward/stilted text. It's hard to tell by myself, so feel free to correct me if you find something.

SO, with that out of the way let’s get down to what’s really important:

Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story: Magia Record Episode 1

Whew, now that’s a mouthful.

You know, in my mind I always thought a “side story” was something that happened alongside a “main story”, like another POV, so I’m not sure that’s the most appropriate title, but who am I to judge?

So here we go, we’re off with some beautiful futuristic scenery already, that’s the Madoka series I know.

As the classic Sis Puella Magi plays in the background, two unseen narrators tell us the tale of the so called “magical girls” as we are shown the reality of being one, meeting our first witch for this series.

Risking your life to save a cat doesn’t seem like the smartest of things. Rather, witches eat cats? That’s mean.

No, you really, really don’t. This narration definitely seems made to make everyone who saw the original say this, particularly with how silly are the wishes these girls suggest. 

And hey, look, even this girl who supposedly had her wish granted doesn’t seem very happy.

Hang in there, this is only the first episode.

Man, this scenery really is pretty though.

After an exciting fight with a witch in the train, our girl here silently goes home to find

Whatever the heck this is.

So, our girl here seems to be having strange visions whenever she enters her room, that is very very suspiciously cut exactly in half. Protagonist, you sure have an unique sense of interior decoration.

She goes on with her day, makes two lunchboxes and… oh, it seems she’s all alone.

Is this something you should be telling your own daughter?

Long story short, Iroha’s parents are abroad right now (as is suspiciously the case with many a anime protagonist parents). I actually love the parallel this scene draws with OG Madoka: whereas Madoka’s parents seem responsible and Madoka even looks up to her mom and they’re a happy united family, Iroha comes off as being the responsible one in her family and her parents are gone from the get-go. This way, the lonely atmosphere of the previous scene also starts making sense.

So, it seems like there’s something Iroha wants to do here, and that’s why she decided to stay behind.

Perhaps. Did you wish to save a black cat?

Wow, this teacher is speaking fast. Calm down lady, we’re not here to speedrun the content, geez. Though I guess we should be happy she’s at least giving a proper class, unlike a certain other teacher…

Oh great, it's this guy.

Ok, Iroha doesn’t remember what she wished for and Kyuubei doesn’t know either, although he knows she used her wish for the sake of someone. Kyuubei theorizes that the reason she doesn’t remember might be that not remembering was part of her wish, but Iroha doesn’t think she’d wish for that. I don’t think you’d ever think to wish for something like that until you had to wish for something like that though.

She’s got a fair point. After all, wishing in this universe is basica— the heck is going on in the background there?! O-kaaay…

Iroha was having a weird think-spot mental conversation with Kyuubei there, and missed speedrun teacher’s lecture entirely. Being meguca is suffering.

We get some school motto propaganda, and now we’re on the roof. Oh? Where did all the friendship stuff from the propaganda go? Seems like Iroha’s not following the school spirit. Unless she considers the white weasel a friend, so that’s why she gave him her extra… wait, Kyuubei can EAT? I thought he was some alien machine-like being. H-Huh...

Classmate A: Tamaki-san, maji tenshi!

She’s probably just shy. According to her classmates, Iroha used to be busy doing something or the other, but no one can remember what that is.

Cute. 

But maybe don’t do that somewhere someone could easily walk in on you, Iroha.

Iroha gets a call by the girl from the combat scene from before, whose name is Kuroe. I couldn’t tell from their conversation if they’ve known each other for a while or if they just met each other for the first time in the fight before.

On the train, although she’s the one who called her over, Kuroe remains silent. Iroha, clearly uncomfortable, tries her best to make conversation. Poor Iroha, I know the feeling.

We learn from her that the number of witches around has been decreasing. She comments that being unable to get Grief Seeds is troubling, but it’s better than having witches causing trouble. Poor girl has no way to know just how much of a bad news it is running out of Grief Seeds.

What’s with pink-haired girls and lacking self-esteem? Iroha, are you sure you didn’t wish to save a black and forget that you did? You did save a white one just before.

Kuroe finally decides to talk, and she tells us this:

If you go to Kamihama, you’ll be saved. To anyone that saw the OG, the first thought that comes to mind is that they’ll be saved from their destiny of turning into witches, but it seems Kuroe doesn’t know the truth yet. She just doesn’t want to fight witches anymore. I think.

The train lights up, and…

...this is extremely unsettling considering the truth about witches and the conversation they’re having right now. There’s a lot of this, but this just hits different having watched the original.

Iroha’s not inclined to believe what Kuroe’s saying. Of course, despite not remembering her wish, she’s the type that’s happy with fighting witches if she can save someone, and Kuroe’s not being very convincing either. The whole thing is apparently a rumor spread by some girls who saw a dream that told them that.

Except that Kuroe actually had the dream too.

Like most magical girls, Kuroe made a short-sighted wish, and regrets it. She now wants to be saved, so she’s going to Kamihama.

...or she was, but before that, they’ll have to defeat the witch they let escape the other day, ‘cos she’s back for more.

I actually have so many questions about this scene. Weren’t Labyrinths pocket dimensions? How come this one’s moving in physical space? We know witches themselves move and their Labyrinth goes with that, but I thought it was more, like, the entrance to the Labyrinth moves. Then how come witches can escape if magical girls get carried with their Labyrinth when they move…? Just... just... what?

The answer to all of that is probably “magic”.

Like that, Express Witch Labyrinth crashes right into what seems to be a train station. Labyrinths don’t have brakes, confirmed.

Brutal.

Looks like it’s not only magical girls who have territorial disputes going on. Although it’s nice that they won’t have to fight two witches at the same time, this is not exactly a relief when you consider these two were already struggling with the previous one, and this one just ripped it apart like crab.

As expected, Iroha’s arrows do no damage at all. When all seems lost…

A wild singing mini Kyuubei appears! Is this a shiny?

The singing Kyuubei distracts the witch and jumps towards Iroha, who uses her pro white cat catching skills to grab it, and… something happens. Whatever this Kyuubei did, Iroha’s having some flashbacks now. Sadly, the middle of a battle isn’t the best time to be having a BSOD and, despite Kuroe’s attempts to snap her out of it, they’re sitting ducks right now, a black and a white one.

Thankfully for them, though, they’re not alone in this barrier. This mystery blue haired girl spams flying spears and makes short work of the witch Iroha’s arrows didn’t even scratch earlier. She’s clearly at a whole ‘nother level.

Also, chibi Kyuubei’s gone. Totally not suspicious. Nope. Not at all.

So, from this OP miss get-the-heck-out-of-my-territory, who didn’t even bother saying her name, we learn that not only there is no salvation in Kamihama, there are more, stronger witches, and there are currently no Kyuubei. She gives them the Grief Seeds from the two witches before, and passes on a warning to them. Not the friendliest of magical girls. Though if you consider what happens when you run out of Grief Seeds, one could understand why it’d be undesirable having too many magical girls in the same place.

With this, Iroha and Kuroe take the train back to their town and things are totally awkward again.

Welp, seems like Kuroe doesn’t want to chat anymore, so we’ll have a dream sequence instead.

Forgive my lack of words, but this scene doesn’t need them. This is just… you couldn’t ask for a better representation of what being a magical girl wishing for salvation is like. Everyone has their own reasons, but in the end, having known despair, these girls are desperately clinging to this last hope called Kamihama. It’s almost a pilgrimage.

“Let’s go to Kamihama. We’ll be saved there”

And in the midst of all that is the mysterious girl from Iroha’s dreams.

(the track here, Paradero de Memoria, is also great btw)

Now, with various wishes written all over in the background, we get Kyuubei’s spiel about magical girls. I think this is word-by-word the same from the original too.

We now get to finally know what our protagonist’s wish was.

So Iroha wished to cure her younger sister’s illness, but the sister in question is now nowhere to be found. Worse: everything related to her is gone. Even Iroha, who made a wish for her sake, didn’t remember her existence until now. Oh man, that’s no normal disappearance. What happened? Guess that’s what Iroha will have to find out now.

With that, we conclude the first episode of Magia Record(’s s1)!

This is a really strong first episode in my opinion. It decently introduces our protagonist, sets up the mysteries we will be dealing with from here on and also manages to trace connections with the original, while using the viewer’s previous knowledge to give a whole different impression to some scenes. You wouldn’t be like “hell no” at the rumor there at the start if you didn’t know the truth about magical girls, and I doubt that final scene would hit that hard either. It’s just really good at this and it’ll continue doing that from now on. I love it.

Speaking of the final scene, me having watched the original over five years ago might also be part of it but that is really my favorite scene in Madoka overall. I just really really love that scene. (Seriously, I’ve watched this scene so many times I know it by heart now. Help.)

Alas, I lied, the episode’s not over yet, we still have our classic anime first episode ending-opening to watch. So let’s listen, to Gomakashi:

This logo’s real pretty.

So yeah, pretty standard anime opening. If you pay attention, there are some references to Connect too, what with the selfcest and whatnot. Although I managed to mistake this when I first watched, this one’s actually sung by the trio TrySail rather than ClariS. That’s the VAs for Iroha, Asakura Momo; Yachiyo (the get-out-of-my-territory girl), Amamiya Sora and Natsukawa Shiina, whose character we’ve yet to meet. TrySail has a lot of cool songs, so do check them out if you haven’t already. (free ad)

This time, in fact, the episode is over! Whew, I did say this was going to be long, but not even I thought it’d be this long. By the time this is posted I should have a backlog of these, so my plan is to post one everyday until we are done. I hope you had fun reading this here rant and I’ll be looking forward to meeting you guys again tomorrow, same place, maybe same hour, so we can go on and watch episode 2 together!

(P.S.: I am considering doing a series of posts at a later date comparing the anime to the game, but we’ll see. The first few chapters are fine, but the game is stupidly long, so I feel it’d take a lot of motivation and stamina I’m not sure I have at the moment. There’s also the possibility watching the first arc again would bring back my yt copy-apocalipse grief back and that’d suck, definitely don’t wanna go through that again.)

[fxndom-hoe]

Ok I’m about to go on another late night/early morning (cuz it’s 6am and I still haven’t slept) Merlin rant because this thought has been in my head for about an hour.

I’m super tired of reading magic reveal fics where when Arthur banishes Merlin, everyone starts acting poorly towards Arthur. Like gwaine will either straight up leave with Merlin or start acting petty towards Arthur and all the knights will try to avoid Arthur as much as possible and Gwen and gaius will start acting cold towards him all until arthur decided to unbanish merlin and then they all act like his friend again. And I just... need that to stop. And not only bc it’s super ooc for most of them, but also, think about how damaging this would be to Arthur’s mental health.

Like Arthur’s already insecure and lonely, yknow, his father raised him to be king and in uthers mind that means having no friends and that his worth comes from being royal and not really anything else. Like Arthur wasn’t raised to live himself, he was raised to rule a kingdom and that the kingdom matters more than him. And uthers been shown on multiple occasions to not really care about Arthur’s safety when it comes to making Camelot greater or like only cares about his safety bc he’s the only heir to the throne and yknow Arthur can’t die cuz then camelot wouldn’t have a king after uther dies. And so Arthur’s never really felt any self worth. He’s never had friends before merlin and nobody seemed to really care about Arthur the person instead of Arthur the prince until merlin came along. And through Merlin, Arthur finally gains some friends (or for the sake of this post, people he considers friends)

So how must it feel for Arthur, who’s already insecure and lonely, to start having his only friends STOP being his friends after he just had to get rid of his best friend. (And I don’t want anyone to come @ me saying he doesn’t have to banish Merlin and blah blah blah bc I know that! This post is about if he does bc the law is to execute anyone who uses magic and yknow Arthur’s been betrayed by the people he’s cared about with magic so it wouldn’t be easy for to accept Merlin immediately yknow like it would take some time.) Imagine how betrayed arthur would feel. Bc these people are supposed to be his friends too just proving what his fathers always taught him. Kings don’t have friends. Kings can’t trust ANYONE. These were people that he cared about who just showed him that the only reason he has for people to care about him is apparently Merlin.

And yes he can unbanish Merlin to make everything better. And everyone will start treating him better and treating him like a friend and all that, but then he would always know. He would know, not even just think, but KNOW that all his “friends” would just leave him if he ever tried to get rid of Merlin, that his own fucking wife would give him the cold shoulder if he were to banish Merlin, and GOD how devastating for him. To have the evidence shoved in his face that he’s only worth keeping around if he had his manservant with him. That no one actually cares about him, even if they claim to. Imagine being forced to live like that. Cuz we know that Arthur wouldn’t be able to let that go. He would never mention it to anyone, not even Merlin. He would just suffer all alone.

And it would bring a whole new meaning to his “you’re my only friend” quote bc instead of it being like a light feeling of “oh I just kinda feel like the rest of them aren’t as close a friend to me as you are, you know everything about me” to “you’re the only person in my life who would stuck by me no matter what. You stuck by me when I banished your friend (Gwen) and nobody has ever done the same. Nobody else WILL ever do the same.” And that’s even more heartbreaking. But like also! What if he starts feeling resentment towards Merlin. Cuz he has magic and has kept a secret for as king as they’d known each other. Arthur would’ve brought Merlin back before he was actually ready to forgive him bc he was losing everyone dearest to him, so he wouldn’t have time to really accept his magic. But also, now arthur knows that everyone he cares about cares more about Merlin than they do about him. Bc of Merlin, Arthur’s second best and that would clearly never change. Arthur would feel lonelier than ever bc there’s no way he could mention it to Merlin, and he can’t mention it to his fucking wife and he can’t even talk to his friends because THEYRE ALL THE PROBLEM! No one would understand. If he were to tell any of his friends that he feels worthless to them compared to merlin they would be like fucking ✨obviously✨ like they wouldn’t ACTUALLY say it but their actions have proven that that’s how they feel.

(TW FOR SUICIDAL IDEATION IN THIS NEXT PART!! I WILL MARK WHEN IT IS OVER)

Like maybe I’m self projecting bc it’s how I would feel if I were Arthur but I can imagine him becoming suicidal over this. Like he would just feel so worthless after this. Like this is worse than his father prepared him for. Like he can’t even trust his own queen! And he still feels betrayed by Merlin bc he didn’t have enough time to process what happened and forgive him. He was forced to bring Merlin back to stop everyone from treating him so horribly. And the only reason he wouldn’t actually kill himself would be bc Camelot needs a king. He doesn’t have an heir yet, so he couldn’t really leave camelot like that. AND HE WOULDNT BE ABLE TO TALK OUT THESE FEELINGS WITH ANYKNE BC EVERYONE BETRAYED HIM!!!

(TW OVER!!!!!!)

And also! Imagine the trust issues he must have now. Like he’d already had trust issues bc of morgana and agrivaine but now it’s like 10x worse. Like at first he used to think that he could trust very few people, but now he would feel like he couldn’t trust ANYONE, not even Merlin. Not anymore. Like it’s over. He really can’t trust anyone in his life anymore. They’ve all betrayed him. And not as an over exaggerating “hmf I can’t trust people, people are mean” way but like they’ve all actually betrayed him. Merlin has magic, his knights were just about ready to leave camelot bc of his decision, his wife withdrew from him. Like, he’d have no one.

And don’t tell me that the others, at least merlin and Gwen, wouldn’t notice Arthur’s while change in mood. Except now, he would never even CONSIDER opening up to them about how he’s feeling bc HOW CAN HE?? He’d revert back to S1 Arthur but quieter. Like any character development he’d have had at that point, down the drain (but the writers didn’t really need a magic reveal to do this oop—👀🤭)(and yes I needed that joke I’m crying while writing this leave me alone)

But seriously, Arthur would feel like he had no one. And even if he could eventually find it in himself to forgive Merlin having magic/lying about it (bc we know he will) he could NEVER trust the rest of them again. They’ve all proven to him that they DONT CARE ABOUT HIM. They don’t.

And yknow I wanted to get into this earlier BUT!!! It’s all very ooc for them to do that. Even gwaine. Like they all kept quiet when he banished Gwen, and she was going to be queen! And I don’t want to hear anyone say it’s bc Gwen wasn’t as important as Merlin bc a) fuck you and b) shut up yes she is and c))) she was GOING TO BE QUEEN!! OBVIOUSLY SHES MORE IMPORTANT THAN MERLIN (for Camelot and Arthur at least). Merlin is being promoted to anything, Gwen is clearly the more important one in this subject of banishing ppl alr??? And let’s say alr! For the sake of argument Merlin is more important than Gwen in camelot. Elyan was her brother! Do you think he would sit silently back while Gwen got banished but give Arthur the cold shoulder when Merlin gets banished?? No! So fuck off! This behavior is ooc for all of them.

Anyway!!

TL;DR stop writing magic reveal fics where everyone turns against Arthur for banishing Merlin. It’s damaging to his mental health and MY mental health. Goodnight.

[marcilled]

[this is gonna be a big long post about minecraft youtuber drama... press J to scroll past this if you don’t care about that. lol. sorry]

idunno if anybody took my post the other day as me “cancelling dream for cheating in a videogame”, i posted it mostly out of bemusement of the whole situation, and because that video was really well put-together. (context: his 1.16 speedruns were disqualified by the minecraft speedrun.com moderators & there was a video & document explaining why).

I definitely don’t correlate cheating a speedrun w/ ableism, racism, etc etc. I already knew about a lot of nasty shit dream has done, like the video he did with Notch, and how all of his early content was about pewdiepie, just further normalizing those two to his young audience. I’ve always disliked him for those things, which I’ve been aware of pretty much as long as I’ve known of him, and he has never apologized for those things. It’s why whenever I posted about him before (which was... maybe once or twice?), I always say “don’t stan him or anything he sucks”.

I had no idea there was so much more to it honestly. It’s kind of galling seeing the full context now, because whenever I’ve seen any kind of criticism against him, it’s been him presenting it in an apology. I dunno why I wasn’t suspicious of this given what I already knew about him, but the guy seems to be very clever with how he damage controls any sort of possible controversy regarding him. He presents a really heartfelt, honest apology for whatever happened and gives a few cherrypicked examples of things that people said about him and says how wrong he was and how he doesn’t want to alienate his viewers.

The fact that it’s Dream presenting the evidence of his controversies, means that he gets to control how the conversation goes. Instead of a popular “mcyt” stan account getting to control the conversation, pointing out the shit he’s said and done, he addresses it in a livestream, and does not provide the original context. Huh, I wonder why. It’s almost as if he doesn’t want everyone to see that his mistakes are more than just little “oopsies”, it’s him being actively malicious and getting so defensive that he tells off anybody who could possibly disagree with his view of things.

While his actions and words are pretty horrid on their own, I think the thing that has me most concerned about Dream is... He seems pretty fuckin’ good at manipulating peoples’ perception of him.

-----

After the video about his speedruns being cheated came out the other day, he had this to say on twitter (this is his second, “personal” account):

Now, as I said before, cheating in a videogame isn’t at all comparable to racism or ableism. What I’m trying to point out here is his response to any sort of criticism.

The video he’s referring to is this one, published by Geosquare 2 days ago (dec 11th). What’s interesting to note here is how he singles out Geosquare specifically in this tweet. If you click on the video, the first few seconds establishes that it’s a video made by the entire Minecraft java edition speedrunning mod team (which is made up of a team of over a dozen people). The video and document was a true team effort from every single one of them, and it only got posted to Geosquare’s account (& got his narration) because he’s already a youtuber with a pretty comfortable amount of subscribers.

So, instead of pointing his ire (and those of his many, many fans) at the whole speedrun mod team, instead, he points it squarely on Geosquare, so that people have a convenient name to latch onto. He then accuses Geosquare of using his name as “clickbait” in order to get “easy views”, sowing the seed of this idea that Geosquare is doing this in an opportunistic grab for personal gain. If you clicked on the video and saw the description/pinned comment, you’d see that not only did Geosquare disable monetization on the video, he disabled monetization on his entire channel for as long as this drama goes on (and he knew there would be drama, dream made extra sure to threaten the mods with a video of his own in retaliation if they ended up banning him).

Then, in a reply to the first tweet, he says that there are “multiple moderators” messaging him saying the verdict was “biased” and that they may quit the mod team. He provides no evidence for this. However, if you click on the tweet and view any of the thousands of replies from his fans, it doesn’t matter that he gave no evidence, his word is enough. If you’re wondering, Geosquare and a few other mods have stated many times that it was a group decision on their part, and nobody had any question in their mind that Dream must have cheated. So... Dream, who are these “mods” that are messaging you? He won’t say.

Lastly here, I want to point out that in his next tweet on the matter, he makes this very bitter comment about how useless it was for them to investigate a “16th place run”. It’s a minor detail, but I think it’s worth mentioning; this kind of downplays how impressive his run was at the time. At the time he submitted his sub-20 minute speedrun, it was a top 5 run, in a very competitive category of speedrunning the game. In the 2 months since, several people have passed his time using new strats, but that doesn’t diminish the fact it was a pretty amazing “run”... if it weren’t cheated of course. But, I’m just rambling on about how petty I am about him cheating at this point so let me get back to the main point here.

If you see the numbers on these tweets (hundreds of thousands of likes), you’ll understand why this is pretty scary for those speedrun mods. The same day this happened Geosquare joked around “I’ve only gotten one death threat so far!”. Dream’s fanbase is unparalleled in minecraft youtube, and incredibly sizeable for a youtube channel overall. If you’re not familiar with this new wave of “mcyt” minecraft accounts, it’s... it’s pretty much exclusively because of Dream’s fame. He’s the driving force of minecraft youtube content right now. Any youtuber who even breathes near the guy blows up in subscribers & views. His minecraft server, “Dream SMP”, is like... it has a legitimate cultural impact, whether that sentence disgusts you or not. Especially for young gen Z kids.

The point I’m trying to make is, ever since he came onto the scene in early 2019, he’s grown and grown at exponential rates, and I can’t understate the kind of influence he has on not just his own fans, but the fans of like. Pretty much anyone who is plugged in to anything minecraft youtube related right now.

People have discussed this before, but Dream’s sudden rise to fame happened shockingly quick. So quick that it’s almost impossible it were by accident. He’d spent something like a year or two studying how the youtube algorithm works, how famous youtubers grow their popularity, etc. He spent a lot of time studying, and it paid off for him. It makes me wonder if he’s studied how youtubers deal with controversy as well. Because it seems like he’s doing everything right to keep his fans “loyal” to him.

So I think it’s not unreasonable to say that it is pretty goddamn concerning when he reacts to criticism like this. His immense fanbase, who are often worryingly obsessed with him, of mostly impressionable kids... It’s a recipe for disaster, in the hands of someone so entitled and immature.

I think what really has me worried, though, is a video he published to his second channel the other day. Recently, he published a video about his “stans”. The entire video essentially boiled down to him disputing claims that “dream stans” were toxic, or that stanning people or “stan culture” was creepy/unhealthy. He spent a lot of the video comparing stans of content creators to passionate fans of football teams, and expressed repeatedly how he thought it was normal and OK to be totally obsessed with a content creator and engage in “stan culture”, as long as you weren’t being a legitimate stalker. He pretty much only talked about the positives of being a Dream Stan, and how positive the “community” is. The whole video painted this really idealistic image of what it means to be a Stan of a person, and fandom in general.

Now... I don’t know about everyone else reading this, but I found that video to be... incredibly creepy and weird. It completely ignores any actual arguments about how stan culture can be unhealthy, and how engaging so heavily in parasocial relationships can be quite damaging, especially to younger people.

But, mostly? It seemed like the whole video was basically designed just to reinforce the most unhealthy impulses of his stans, and reward them with the positive encouragement that he actually enjoys it when they are obsessed with him so much that they can’t imagine he could ever possibly do anything wrong.

And that? That is fucking dangerous for a person with such a huge fanbase to be peddling to their fans.

Surely, he must know- a great deal of his fans are so obsessed with him, that they think they know him as well as, if not more than, a personal friend. So that when he does something disagreeable and wrong, and he claims “no that’s not how it happened, they’re biased and trying to cancel me because they’re jealous”, they just take that at face value, because why would he lie? He’s so honest and genuine in his videos and livestreams!

This sort of behavior from Dream, along with his tweets I posted earlier, reads to me as if he knows exactly what he’s doing. I think he is purposefully insulating his fans from the truth of his actions, so that he can present this idealistic picture of him in their mind, so that it seems absurd that he would do something wrong.

I think it’s only a matter of time before it comes out he’s done something much worse, honestly. What it is, is hard to say- he’s already done so much that anyone reading this should rescind their support for him, imo. But, I know that none of this matters to his millions of fans. While I worry for them, I also worry for anyone who becomes a target of Dream. I could see this speedrunning drama being the start of a downward spiral for him. Things could get real ugly with all that minecraft clout getting to his head... I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

TL;DR, dream sucks, and not just because he cheats at videogames.

I apologize again for writing a multi paragraph post about a minecraft youtuber. I will not post about this anymore (probably) please do not unfollow me .

[shirophantomvox]

I follow you because I read some of your critical analysis on Lotor and the Galra. I love the Galra but don’t condone what the empire has done. Reading your non-hateful and fair thoughts on them, especially Lotor, was a refreshing take to read from a non-fan of either. Especially because you dragged Lotor with facts, lmao.

Even if you don’t write much for Vld anymore, my impression of you as a pretty cool lady means I’ll stay following. Also, HxH is next on my watch list. K bye, take care!

Hello anon. Thank you for liking my blog and my writing. It means a lot to me ❤️. It’s ironic that you’d say that because when I made a post about why I didn’t like Lotor, someone called me a clown, said I was annoying, and said they were blocking me. Of course they said all of this while being anonymous. I try my best not to be rude or angry but sometimes people on this website work my nerve. Anyway yes , when you explain why you don’t like a character you can’t just make an empty claim especially when you are in an argument.

I’m kind of sad that I don’t write as much Voltron content as I did before. I’m still into Voltron but I pulled back for a few reasons. I do not get nearly as much traction with Voltron as I do with Hunter x Hunter. I usually don’t care about views but getting feedback as an aspiring writer and artist helps you out a lot. Also, Voltron’s fandom was (and is somewhat still ) very toxic when it aired previously and I had enough of it. People were sending threats to voice actors and harassing them. This frightens me as a writer. There is no reason to threaten anyone! I’m surprised no charges were presented against those people. Also, people were making a big deal out of scenes and said they were to graphic. They weren’t. At all. Now, hunter x Hunter? Yeah, some of that was very dark but still, I dealt with it. And if I thought it was to dark, I would have stopped watching it. I thank you for your support and I probably will write more for Voltron but it will “write as the spirit leads me” type thing. Also people these days act like you can’t dislike someone or disagree about something. Like I said I’m not the biggest fan of Lotor and that’s ok. I don’t like Illumi that much either. Everyone thinks they’re woke on here when it’s nothing but performative activism. It’s always “you must agree” or we’ll cancel you. It’s seems like you can’t “like” a certain character without people saying “you need to go to therapy” and so on. Like meaning their character design and so on. I never said that about Lotor lovers. I just wish people would separate fiction from reality. Usually it’s trolls or people with no life that do this. It’s annoying and I’m sure you understand.

Anyway thank you for your support and i suggest you watch Hunter x Hunter on Netflix. It’s a very good show; I finished it in 1 week. I wish Netflix would upload season 5 and the rest but I don’t know when that will happen.

[kryptsune]

Happy Birthday UT...  -_-;

🌼Ok I am going to say a few things that may be off putting to some people... please be aware this is my opinion and just how I feel in general. This is just something I want to get off my chest... this is a very serious topic so please read with that in mind. 

I am sure some people remember the Dear UT Fandom post that I made a while back. This is an extension to that. After stepping away from the fandom I have seen more trends that have left a VERY sour taste in my mouth. This fandom used to be welcoming and passionate but lately I have seen some behaviors that I can only classify as immature, narcissistic, and entitled. Now I am not saying everyone in the fandom is like this, no, far from but as someone that has been in the UT pit for a very long time... It is disheartening to say that the more of this I see the more I begin to question if people actually UNDERSTAND what the game was trying to say to begin with.  I am going to go on record here to say that I am seriously tired. On a level that I did not think was possible. I still love what I have created and I still enjoy the content that my friends put forth that will never change. At the same time with my split from the fandom I have realized that if you are not in then you are out. In other words those connections you once had seem to break down because you are no longer in the fandom 24/7? Is that... ok? Sure people have different interests but you don’t just drop people because they aren’t in the thick of it like they used to be. What... how? I don’t even understand that.  In addition I have been seeing some highly toxic people spouting some shipping war garbage. Now I know what you are thinking... but Kit you have been dealing with that for years! Yes, sadly but this is where I draw the line. Look I know certain ships are not everyones cup of tea. You all know I am personally uncomfortable with Fontcest and Sanscest content. THAT IS MY OPINION. I am and will always be a RISK girl. That said... I have increasingly seen people become extraordinarily hostile when it comes to this.

I am not going to name who I saw this from because honestly I don’t want to give them the platform but... come on guys. It’s easy to filter tags. Does it always work? No.. but it’s a start. It’s what I do. You really have to check yourself when you go on your blog to call out a specific group of people calling them things like “sick fucks”. Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean you can tear down the people that do.  Their argument for this was something along the lines of... again the same beaten to death annoying excuse I get every single damn time, pedophilia. They are even claiming that those that make older adult versions are also in this category. The truth of the matter is they are spouting out mindless generalizations in favor of their own outcome... Yes, I am a Frans shipper. It makes me happy but let me tell you a little story. When I first played the game I had no shipping at all. It was a cute little game that I thought had a very profound message to tell. Then I got into the RP side of things. I have always kind of been a person that is into the dark stuff so I auditioned for Fell Frisk, hence my old username. Do you know why I started shipping Frisk with Red? Because of the interactions between my version of Frisk, which would eventually grow into Underworld Frisk, and my friends version of Red. Let’s be honest here... Red is NOT Sans. At least their version wasn’t. It was their own, an OC in a Sans the skeleton skin. That is where my love came from because I will tell you right now... the Red that existed and one I still see from time to time... I LOATHED. I hated his character so much. 

My point in telling this story is that people automatically assume that I looked at the game and went HECK YEAH they should be a couple. Absolutely not. In fact it was quite the opposite. I fell in love with a characterization under that same same. So before people go pointing fingers maybe they should stop and actually think. Not everything is cut and dry. I am sorry if I am pontificating a little bit but I can’t help myself. I am sick of seeing “you need to see help” posts by people that refuse to actually take the time to get to know people. 

That is one of the main problems of social media. How well do you actually know someone? The answer... you probably don’t. Ok I am going to pull back from my soap box. Look... I love this fandom it has been very good to me but I am glad that I am out of it now. I made the @fallenfellfrisk  blog for you all who have supported me and enjoy that kind of content because as a creator I love interacting with people. I know people want to see more of those designs and I eventually will deliver them but for now... I hope you enjoy and support this massive Hell Lore world build I have been working on. It’s going to be crazy and it’s honestly a lot of fun to play in.  So to end this very long “vent” enjoy what you enjoy and don’t be a jerk about it. Don’t put others down and accuse them of things that are not even remotely true. Instead of being so one way or the other people need to really think about a few things. We are all human beings. We are all individuals. Not everyone is going to agree with what you have to say. THAT IS OK. There are ways to shield yourself from the content you do not like. Do not attack your followers. Do not call them names. Do not treat people like garbage or spread rumors about them effectively separating them from the ones they care about. 

Try to remember that your actions have consequences and that your behaviors even more so. Be the best person you can be and remember the humanity of others. Be a positive influence in life and not a toxic egotistical and narcissistic asshole demanding something of someone else. Be... well... kind. 

Today is the day... Happy birthday... Undertale. 

[harry-hollands]

selcouth // harry holland // 1

chapter 1: sunshine after the storm

story summary: Harry was used to living in his brothers’ shadows. Tom was the actor and Sam was the cook and musician. He was used to being second best and genuinely gave up on finding someone who could love him for him. Someone who could believe that Harry wasn’t second best. His mindset changes however, when he meets you. The sunshine to cast away all of the shadows.

chapter summary: harry finds his life a whole light brighter

pairing: harry holland x reader

warnings: none? maybe a few swears, slightly fluffy, moody harry,

word count: 1.6k

It was a bitter winter day, the brooding clouds seemed to match Harry’s mood. Ready to explode at any given moment in time. Why was Harry annoyed might you ask? Maybe because there was a nauseating reminder in front of him about how painfully single he was.

The heat was on full blast at the Holland-Osterfield-Barret residence, and a fire was blazing in the fireplace, but it wasn’t quite enough to fight off the bitter chills. Almost everyone was coupled up. Even Harrison, Harry’s go-to when he got sick of third-wheeling the long-term couples had someone to hold. 

“Harry? You alright there mate?” Came the concerned voice of Tom, who unknowingly, and unintentionally, made the twenty-three-year-old more agitated than he already was.

Harry scoffed but nodded. “M’fine. I just don’t need to be reminded of how tragically single I am while you all are cuddled up.” The boy reminded sharply, slightly glaring at the pathetic looks Nadia and Elysia held upon their faces, something Harry instantly regretted when he noticed both of his brother’s shared a threatening scowl at him, a silent appeal to conclude his nasty behavior.

Sora Tanaka, Haz’s girlfriend of eight months, and the only one brave enough to test the waters of Harry’s testiness, gave a genuine smile to the aspiring photographer. “Harry, maybe I could introduce you to one of my best friends. She’s probably one of the most genuine people I know, and I truly do think this could be what you might need right now.” 

Harry gently considered Sora’s words. Out of all of his friend’s significant others, Sora was probably his favorite. Maybe it was because she grew up in Hawaii, where everyone was laid back, maybe it was because Sora didn’t give a rat’s ass about what people thought of her, or maybe because she was the youngest in the group besides Paddy. Either way, Sora’s offer was one that caught the boys’ attention.

“Wait, wait, wait. Let me get this straight. You want to introduce Harry to one of your mates? Willingly?” Harrison stated astonished, knowing exactly how protective his girlfriend got when it came to any of her close friends and family.

“Is it honestly that surprising? Your best friend needs change in his life, and all of you aren’t exactly helping with what he needs.”

“And how do you know what he needs? Are you Harry?” Tom piped up, eyebrows raised at Sora’s subtle accusation.

“I don’t know what he needs, but I sure as hell know that you shouldn’t bring someone so painfully single on a double date!” Sora retaliated, her tone becoming sharper and more defensive.

As hilarious as the whole encounter was, watching Sora give Harry’s older brother a verbal beatdown, he knew that he should probably put an end to it before anything could escalate. It seemed Harrison and Nadia shared the same idea, as they all exchanged a look and came to a silent agreement that they had let Tom and Sora go at it for way too long.

The sound of feet pattering down the stairs was heard, and along with it an alluring melody. Sora sharply cut off the argument she was dominating Tom at, as she keened her senses to the voice coming from Paddy’s phone.

“Who are you talking to mate?” Sam questioned curiously, as faint hints of the song were heard through the now awkward silence. 

Paddy had been upstairs talking to Y/N, an American exchange student he had met while exploring LAMDA. Paddy had decided he wanted to follow in Tom and Harrison in the acting department, and after he had graduated from the BRIT School, he immediately applied to Haz’s alma mater. (Harrison still had to thank Paddy for introducing him to Sora at a function that Tom had been unable to attend.)

“Oh...uh...Hamilton’s Instagram page is live right now. I was talking to my friend, but she had to go due to Hamilton rehearsals, so now I’m just watching them. This whole week is ensemble training. The current cast members are going to step down soon so they have to make sure the ensemble is ready to take over.” Paddy explained before exiting the stream and looking over at Sora.

“Oh Y/N says hi, and that you don’t have to pick her up. Aiyana is more than willing to.” Paddy relayed, but immediately narrowed his eyes at Sora’s mischievous smirk on her face. The younger boy sighed exasperatedly before asking the question he didn’t want the answer to. 

“What are you planning?”

“It’s nothing! I’m just thinking that Harry should accompany me! Besides, I should introduce you to Y/N! She’s so fucking talented, that I’m still in shock that she hasn’t been discovered yet!” Sora exclaimed, shooting Harry a suggestive smirk.

At the immediate mention of Y/N, Elysia shot up from her position on Sam’s lap, which in turn, startled the man, and an immediate slur of sorry’s were exchanged. “Wait. Wait. Wait. Are we talking about the same Y/N? Y/N L/N right?”

Sora turned to Elysia and nodded enthusiastically. “The very one!” The American exclaimed before a look of confusion crossed her features. “Wait, how do you know Y/N?” 

Elysia shyly giggled before recalling her first encounter with the unreserved female. “I believe it was Y/N’s first week in London and I met her at a theatre cast party. One of my cousins attends LAMDA, and is friends with her. Anyway, she invited me to the party, and it was so chaotic! I loved it. Y/N was teaching us some American party games, and then we started doing improv. Let me tell you, that girl is hilarious and I love her, and her energy.”

Harry cleared his throat, and finally, the attention was on him. “I mean, I’m down to go with you. What time are you supposed to pick her up?” He asked curiously, glancing at his phone for the time, which read 6:19 pm. 

Sora also glanced at her phone before placing her attention on the youngest Holland. “Is she done now?”

Paddy unlocked his phone and glanced down at Hamilton’s Instagram page before nodding. 

“Yeah. Looks like they just ended the stream. Mind if I tag along? Y/N/N forgot her winter coat in my car today, and the forecast claimed that it should be thirty degrees out.” Paddy responded before shrugging on his winter coat and boots. 

Harry’s face melted into a concerned frown. “Who forgets their winter coat on one of the coldest nights of the year?” The boy stood up from his spot in one of the love seats, and shrugged on his winter coat, Sora following suit. 

Paddy shrugged. “Y/N was in a rush to go. Today was the first day of dress rehearsals, and her hair wasn’t cooperating. When it finally did, she was extremely late, and almost didn’t make it inside the building in time.”

Sora shook her head. “Or maybe because she’s still not used to England weather? I mean Y/N, our other friend Aiyana, and I all grew up in Hawaii. All we know is the sun, sand, and ocean.”

“Ok, I just texted her. Y/N said to hurry because she’s waiting outside, and she swears she’s going to die of hypothermia. Oh! And she’s cool with coming back here if that’s what you were planning Sor.” Paddy piped in after typing something on his phone.

Harry and Paddy clambered into the car, with Sora in the driver’s seat. The car filled with gentle chatter, mainly from Harry asking a little more about Y/N, Paddy denying Harry a picture of what she looked like, and Sora cackling at Harry’s shocked expression of his younger brother denying him the ability to see what Y/N even looked like.

Around twenty minutes later, the trio had arrived outside Victoria Palace Theatre, and a figure came running at the car. Sora laughed as she unlocked the car, and Y/N threw her stuff in the boot/trunk of the car, slammed it shut, before running to open one of the doors, clambering in beside Harry, and slamming the door shut.

As soon as Y/N was buckled in, and Sora took off, back to the Holland-Osterfield-Barret residence, Harry turned to introduce himself before he felt all the air being sucked out of his lungs and body. 

‘Holy shit,’ was all Harry could think when he saw the twenty-one-year-old. The young photographer was stunned into silence. Harry swore that Y/N was the prettiest woman he had ever seen. Nothing had taken his breath away quite like Y/N had. 

In an attempt to recover, Harry flashed a sincere smile before waving shyly. “Uh. Hey. I’m Harry. Sora’s mentioned you a couple times.”

Y/N smiled brightly at Harry and giggled shyly. “I’m Y/N. I’m an exchange student, but looking to stay here full time, instead of immediately leaving right after my senior year.”

Harry’s head was swimming. All he could think was that he had met the literal definition of sunshine. Her smile was as bright as the sun, her giggle was as soft as a warm summer breeze, and her voice was ethereal. Not even five minutes into meeting the girl and he was already whipped. Harry swore that Y/N couldn’t be remotely human. She had to be a goddess. Maybe she was Apollo. A female incarnation of Apollo.

Harry nodded, returning a smile in kind. He could stare into her eyes forever. They exerted such a warmth, and only sitting next to her, Harry felt secure. Like he could tell Y/N anything without being judged. It was decided. She was his sunshine. His sunshine in the dark. God, he was so whipped.

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