#okay tumblr is fighting me with the tags so bear with me everyone

[nekrosmos]

Price had to shave. Entirely.

It was for a minor surgery; one of his last op had left him with a small piece of shrapnel stuck under the skin of his jaw, which hadn’t been noticed right away, preventing the wound from healing properly. Sure, he could have only shaved the sides and kept a mustache, but he figured now was the time to do a full shave, even if he really, really hated the idea.

He didn’t tell anyone about the surgery, but Nikolai sure noticed his foul mood the few days before it. A few probing questions here and there, but John absolutely refused to elaborate, so Nik let it go.

And then the day came. They were busy getting ready, Price in the bathroom while Nik was getting dressed in their bedroom, hips moving to a song the speaker on his nightstand was blaring. That was why he didn’t hear the beard clipper buzzing, and that was why he almost fell back in surprise when he was greeted by a face he had not seen in well over 10 years when he turned around.

"Нифига себе John, give me a warning next time. What is this for?"

Price avoided eye contact, focused on getting inside his shirt and grumbling an answer Nikolai almost struggled to understand.

"S'nothing, got a small surgery later today, had to shave. Don't make a big deal out of it Nik."

A glance to the side of John's face and Nikolai noticed the wound, raising an eyebrow at this. He didn't like the fact that John had hidden a surgery from him at all, the captain's stubbornness often a point of contention throughout their relationship, but Nikolai had to admit that the sight of his lover's freshly shaved face was quite the distraction.

The initial shock now gone, a wide smile appeared on Nik’s face as he moved towards John, his arms wrapping themselves around his shape while John grumbled some more, trying to escape his partner’s embrace until Nik firmly locked his chin between his hand and lifted John’s face, finally taking in the full sight of a fully shaved John Price. 

“Aaaah, like when we were boys.” Nik said, smile still as wide, eyes tenderly staring at his lover while a thumb ran across John’s cheek.

“I look fucking twelve, Nik. Do you know how long it took me to shut the sergeants up last time Farah told them about my time without a beard? Three. Fucking. Months. They kept asking for pictures, tried to bribe Laswell a few times, too. I am never going to hear the end of it.” 

A hearty laugh escaped Nikolai’s lips, amused and endeared by John’s reaction. 

“You can always threaten them with hand-to-hand combat training with me if they give you any trouble.” 

Whatever complaints came out of John after this, Nikolai didn’t hear, as he was busy kissing the bare skin of John’s jaw and chin, big hands grabbing the side of his face and keeping him in place as he did so. It was like going back in time, flashbacks of their time together as younger men coming back to him, missions in the desert watching John’s face redden because he was too proud to wear a hat, memories of time spent together in bars, Price getting so drunk that Nik had to carry him back to the barracks, all those times Nik had stared at him with longing in his heart that he thought would never be fulfilled, only to now have him all for himself, all these years later. 

“I think we are going to be late, John.” was all Nik said before gently pushing John against their bed, lips immediately meeting his bare skin once more, kissing and teasing while John slowly relaxed under him, each kiss breaking his guard down, bit by bit. 

It would take John a long time to regrow his beard to what it was, and Nikolai was going to enjoy every single second of it.

[burnorgetburned]

okay. OKAY. I JUST WANT TO SAY.

NEW MUSIC STYLE. NEW ART STYLE. NEW MAGIC SYSTEM, NEW GIRLS, MORE CLARA DOLLS, MORE HOMURA OUTFITS, MORE EVERYONE OUTFITS, and AAHAHAHAHSGH.

Homura wins by style points alone.

Anyway. Choice screenshots and my thoughts on them. Plus a few wild theories. Replies, tags, and your own reactions are VERY welcome.

(You're doing great, sweetie!)

First of all, I’ve already said this, but Homura has usurped Kyubey. She is the contractor in this new system. She calls magical girls and asks them if they can bear the responsibility of fighting (LEAGUES better than Kyubey's misleading BE A HERO language), using a magical lizard phone. She knows better than anyone else how heavy this is.

And she looks amazing while doing it. Look at that outfit! Look at her steampunk-esque aesthetic! Her throne. Which, notably, has glowing magenta eyes and her wings as a backrest.

The moon is either actually, physically repurposed, or she’s made something that looks like it. Not only that, but the pins going into the moon are exactly like the pins that went into her soul gem when she was being experimented upon in Rebellion. Those pins, according to the artbook, are for draining her gem of grief to keep her just before the point of witching.

Well, here’s my first wild speculation: Homura has not only taken over Kyubey’s job as a contractor but also its job of disposing of grief. That moon steampunk device is maybe for collecting, concentrating, and distilling grief into energy - hence the strange tesla coils connected to red liquid in the second screenshot above. She's doing what Kyubey says it's doing - turning the grief of people into energy to prolong the universe's lifespan.

I for one support her reality-warping shenanigans.

Here are some voices over a phone, sometimes speaking over each other, sometimes together. They call Homura “Akuma-sama” (!!!) which is a distinct upgrade from calling her Good-For-Nothing. They say “Just bring hope” like a mission statement. Are these her contracted girls? Or her Clara Dolls? They seem to show her a lot of respect.

I’ve also said this, but I strongly feel that this and the girl shown later are some of Homura’s new contractees. Their magic is darker. It warps the world around them, even. Their outfits incorporate black a lot more, too, though that might be the lighting.

Look at the little sigil on the top left-middle! Looks a lot like Homura’s lizard sigil shown when she was consuming the universe, just with a longer lizard.

And, of course, the image of Madoka throwing herself off of a building. “Wraith” and “Legend of Bestie” (lmao) show up here. I’ve actually been really looking forward to seeing what they’ll do with Madoka’s… self-sacrificial tendencies, so this might be part of that. Or, because of “Wraith”, it’s… well, I’ll get to that later.

On the other hand, it might not be Madoka. It might be the girl who the speaker in the phone call calls her "best friend", jumping to her death because of a wraith, and Homura saving her to fulfill a wish.

So glad that the insane architecture from Rebellion is making a comeback. Love what you’ve done with the place, Homura. Look at all those cranes!

The outfit changes are very cool to me. I honestly don’t have speculation for why Sayaka is covered in bandages, but I do have speculation for the changes!: they’re older. Years have passed. Since they’ve changed and grown, their outfits have changed, too. I don't have proof of this - I just like the idea.

Light shines down on Madoka. Petals fall towards her as flowers bloom above. Behold, Homura's extremely subtle and inscrutable feelings. (Sorry for the blurry Madoka, but I am not going through the ordeal of uploading screenshots to my computer again because Tumblr does not like mobile users).

Homura is apparently waiting for Madoka here. She's standing right in the fountain's water and holding a Victorian umbrella like a vampire. Right now we can see that the visuals of this movie will not miss.

Is this a routine thing for them or is Homura just showing up to greet them this one time, for some reason? No clue. Madoka's expression as she notices Homura could indicate either.

Eagle-eyed people on Twitter noticed this, but in these shots, Sayaka already has her bandages.

Aside from the multiple and/or teleporting Homuras, there's also a Clara Doll in a ballerina dress and a cute Clara Doll peering over the side of the tower like a little kid.

The tower is interesting. It appears to be made of books or pages, and there's chains throughout it. More notably, it's in the shape of a helix - infinity symbols on top of each other.

Please appreciate these Clara Dolls. I'm sure they're working hard.

But seriously, those Clara Dolls' details. One has a witch's hat. One has an apple on its head. And the one with a teacup appears to have not only a lizard's tail but a replica of Homura's Devil outfit. Appreciate them!

Here is Homura(?), lounging or trapped on a chair filled with even more of those pins. Look at her closely. She's wearing a strange combination of her magical girl outfit and her Devil outfit - her shoulders are bare, and she has... feathers? She's sitting on a bunch of nails. But she also has two soul gems - one in her hand, and one hanging from her neck.

Is she cleansing them? Eating them? Holding people hostage? I don't know, but I support her completely.

She looks so tired.

So: here's some of what I think might be going on.

Homura is using wraiths to repress her worst memories. We know already that wraiths take memories and emotions from their victims. Well, there's no reason it can't be used as extremely terrible coping! Homura actually does this in the Wraith Arc, too - she lets a wraith take her feelings for Madoka.

If it is Madoka, it explains the shot with Madoka throwing herself off a builing - what if Homura has seen this happen in the loops, and out of pain lets a wraith pull it right out of her? The shot says "WRAITH" and billows with smoke. A wraith could have taken Madoka's form to act out this memory. And it doesn't need to be a memory - it could also represent Madoka's self-sacrifice and almost suicidal tendencies. This, too, would explain the multiple Homuras. All wraiths using her form.

This puts forward powerful enemies for the plot, as well as an interesting point of literally fighting Homura's demons. Most importantly, this lets everyone see Homura's pain.

Other wild dartboard speculations:

Homura will try and present herself as a villain. This is, honestly, kind of guaranteed, but it bears mentioning that her magical girls will be very likely to try to defend her.

Kyubey may appear to try and turn the girls against Homura.

Homura made the new magical girl who is drawing a bow. She has a lot of design choices from the Quintet, and people have already noticed how much she looks like Madoka. This new girl plays a role of the hero to Homura's pretend-villain, eliminating the risk that her friends will get seriously hurt.

The new magical girl is actually Madoka. Or the Law of Cycles. Or Kriemhild Gretchen.

The girl who jumps from the tower is a contractee being asked to take a leap of faith. She does so, and Homura rewards her with magic.

[echoes-lighthouse]

Freakiest Thing Each Of My Selfships Is Into <3

I was just scrolling through the tag and remembered how much I fucking love hearing about other people's niche kinks so I decided to make a post about the weirdest side of my selfships :D

My platonic selfships are of course excluded and my nostalgia selfships are also excluded because they're weird enough without adding extra kinks to them. Also, most of these are focused on my f/os rather than my s/is because I'm like 90% ace but still interested in kink and also fictional sex with my f/os.

Anyways they're under the readmore because I don't tend to post n$fw on this blog so I don't expect everyone to have the tags blocked! Please dni if under 18, etc

Jester- she likes being the centre of group use on occasion so we'll have nice big parties with her on a table and everyone is well-trained on the rules and her safewords and she gets dicked down proper and I tell her she's doing a great job

Tate- absolutely rampant mommy kink, which wouldn't be quite so weird if his mother didn't live next door :I

Himiko- feral kitten play, baby! Especially if we're showing off for the other LoV members, we go full kitty mode and draw lots of blood and tumble around together and have fun

Tomura- age play in all of the most extremes: diapers and bottles and gloves that curl his fingers into a fist so he can't use his quirk or his hands, poor baby

Toshi- we're like 80% vanilla but we have done a couple of me-as-student, him-as-teacher roleplays that get us both going partially because of how absolutely taboo it is for both of us

Zero- uhhhh, it's Rick Sanchez I don't know what the craziest could possibly be? we have a lot of public sex at those kinds of parties, or on planets where that's the norm. I like to control him while he's having sex with someone else, tell him exactly what to do while he pleases them. OH, we do consensual non-consent scenes and somnophilia scenes, that's probably the wildest stuff maybe?

Val- the extremely vore-adjacent experience of having sex in someone else's body: the intimacy of making love in their bloodstream, nestled against a single red blood cell

Grell- blood play that is not safe or sane, but very much consensual: we got a little carried away one time and I almost bled out afterwards but I was okay: she's vicious with a scalpel, what can I say? My beloved half of Jack the Ripper.

Cecil- our relationship is 95% platonic but he's had a few phases where he's worked up enough to use me: it's kind of a sex doll situation where I'm not very active and I keep to a smaller form and let him do whatever he wants

Tumblr- we're still in the experimentation phase! nothing too wild in this relationship: she has a bit of a daddy kink (and a praise kink) but that's about it.

Monokuma- exhibitionism, baby, I'm out here doing a solo show for the cameras until I get some sweet bear loving. Technosexuality, I suppose? I would like to make him overheat ^-^

Death- hmmm, just some body worship: I could eat her out for hours and I think I do, when she lets me. Cock warming if she's got one for the day.

Gertrude- not very exciting: lots of cliche artsy lesbian things like oils and massages, waxplay and foodplay, painting each other nude and overflowing the bath by accident when we're cleaning up

Dirk- plushophilia, dubious consent, and forced orgasms: control over the other person's orgasm is one of the ultimate powers in our relationship and it swings both ways in turn

Jonah- *chanting* desk sex, desk sex, desk sex... cockwarming and powerplay. he takes out his frustration over bad business deals on me and I'm very ready for it, but sometimes I put up a fight just so he can wear himself out a bit more getting me where he wants me

Which do you think is the wildest?? I think I'm too close to really choose. You should do this with your selfships also if you'd like to!! I really do like hearing about characters and people's niche kink preferences and I think selfship/kink crossovers are something I don't see enough of.

[pinkopalina]

how covid unsocialized me.

it's hard for me to even wax poetic about my experiences because I saw how little anything mattered. so many of us died and even more wrote it off like god was thinning the herd or like the most vulnerable of us getting picked off was deserved because of what the most brutal and uncaring of us did. it made me form a stark contrast between who I thought "us" was and who I realized "they" are.

it made it really hard for me to live day to day without ruminating about our systems and how unhappy I am playing pretend doing stupid shit to make money for people who proved to me that they don't care about me. why am I doing this? why do I have to participate ? how are the rest of you happy and complacent this way, but how dare I say that? in what way have I proven myself a pure saint of a paragon? I have sinned with my apathy.

now I'm so completely disillusioned with any attempt to care about anything because I watched in real time as everything shifted. as covid broke us and rebuilt us for THEIR convenience. yes being gay is okay, to sell you stuff. but we'll take your rights away. yes we care about work life balance... but only if our job controls our access to healthcare and we have to be there more than enough to warrant the work we do.

and it's not like it was great before! it's not like something amazing was ruined and I'm just mad at covid for fucking it up. it was bad and it was a matter of time before something sparked change, and I feel like that was supposed to be covid. if it wasn't that, it was gonna be something else. we had this whole opportunity to actually change and heal the earth and ourselves but we FUCKED THAT UP. we're STILL FUCKED UP YEARS LATER. how many more years of this am I going to witness and bear apathy to because I have no better choice???

it feels with so much bad shit compounding on top of each other, like an unhealthy mind, our unhealthy society ruminating on their problems and blaming each other instead of getting up to help has just left me defeated. the fight goes on and I am no soldier. it's every day. it's always feeling stupid for feeling hopeful and then feeling regret for overcorrecting with rage. I feel like my words are so foreign and long winded to people now that expressing myself, like trying to be saved during COVID, was useless. I legitimately have thoughts like "well at least people who are dead now don't have to worry about what a shit world it's becoming lol" but I can't even EXPRESS that I feel that way because Tumblr police in my head from 16 years of being on the only website that hasn't died yet -- but only has a MILLION rules you have to abide by unless you want a callout post and to develop borderline personality disorder -- will remind me that thoughtcrimes are actually that serious like just as bad as the real shit that is happening with the people with guns and money and power and law making abilities and you should be killed for them too. even though the war is bad. like, these rules don't make any fucking sense but I still have to abide by them.

and then I go into these huge metaphors and assumptions about life and it's echo chambering in my own brain and I actually feel like I turned into the joker. except I'm not even allowed to relate to that because everyone in the ship tag you follow to try to alleviate some of the symptoms of the rot on your mental health that is Daily Life has become an expert on how you should think about them too and they will also kill and ostracize you for having a headcanon that maybe onions have layers sometimes and then you're just better off rambling in every text post you ever make and then deleting it because everything you've ever said has gotten a decreasing amount of notes until it's become 0 and every single one of your artist friends has followers in the thousands but still wants your pity because hating ourselves is too addictive to ever trying to be positive about anything.

like man I am BITTER!!!!!! 🤪😂🙂‍↕️🤝🥰🥴🤪☺️

[bambi-kinos]

do you hate it? weird joke to make

Mmm...ramblings ahead.

I don't "hate" it per se. I don't want it bleached off ao3 or anything. If people want to read it then whatever I guess, there's a whole novel about a Canadian woman who fucks a bear so it's not like there isn't precedent. I was on tumblr when it became a thing, I e-dated someone who was on the first wave of omegaverse fanfiction after the initial Supernatural kinkmeme post. Quite literally there when the deep magic was written. I saw it all happen and kick off, I thought it was a hoot at the time.

What annoys me about it is that it's invaded fandom in general. As usual fandom will say one thing "don't push sexual content on people without their consent" and then do another, which is putting omegaverse shit on your dash without asking. Tumblr Savior doesn't work on mobile either so there's no filtering it. It reminds me of how choking has become a pervasive porn thing that has invaded real life, if you don't want to be choked during sex then you get a lot of shitty attitude, and if you don't want to see omega garbage on your dash then you can also get shitty attitude. I was in a persona 5 server where a moderator put a user in a timeout chair for posting it outside the designated channel (there was a special channel for triggering sex stuff) and it resulted in an internet brawl. (Whatever you can imagine insert it here, the details aren't important. Everyone felt oppressed and was arguing over who was more oppressed.) It was very tedious to sit through and it all stemmed from the fact that people just push this stuff on you and get mad when you say "I don't want to see this."

I actually didn't used to have a firm opinion on this stuff UNTIL it started invading fandom spaces. I was once called "queerphobic and a bad feminist ally" for pointing out that omegaverse stuff was very disturbing for many people and should come with tags and warnings attached. They shut up fast when I replied I was bisexual but yeah.... I think it radicalized me in a way lmao. It's an attitude that's been there since the beginning, there have been entire essays written about how getting railed by a dog dick is the most feminist and gender affirming shit ever. But there are internet users who genuinely believe they are fighting for gay rights by writing/reading omegaverse and that's blatantly not the case. It feels like stolen valor, there's real gay oppression happening in the world and then there's first worlders who think it's "queerphobic" to not eroticize anal leakage and dog dicks? Come on. So that's something I dislike intensely these days. 10 years ago when it first popped off I just wrote it off as something I could ignore. And then fandom made it something that is impossible to ignore.

And for the record, yes, I do know most enthusiasts aren't like this. My own partner is into it and we just don't bring it up, been together for almost 4 years now, etc.

What I don't like (not even hate, just dislike) is how pervasive it is and it's just assumed that everyone loves it and that it's okay to push it everywhere into everything. I catalog books for a living and there are romance novels now where omegaverse is the theme and I'm like "jesus christ" lmao, content where the Assigned Bottom at Birth defecates to show his affection for the Assigned Top at Birth is now mainstream, I have to see it irl too. There's no escaping it. That upset me a lot unironically, I found it incredibly threatening that dog dicks is what's associated with "queer activism" in the real world. The authors that write this stuff are often the kind of people who are convinced they're tragic heroes fighting the good fight, it's awful.

Though interestingly when I mentioned it to friends who read it, they unanimously agreed that they wished it hadn't made the jump to irl. The lawsuit thing seems to have really embarrassed everybody. There's a big divide between the authors who have mainstreamed it and users who read it where not-pushy users desperately don't want a spotlight but the self pub authors are convinced that they are activists. It's interesting, I could probably write a whole essay examining the divide.

Overall I wish I could go back to when it was easy to ignore and super missable but that isn't the world we live in anymore, so if people are going to push this content everywhere I'm going to make some jokes at the expense of them. I think everyone can live with that.

[chaosthatsmellsgreen]

Netflix's Avatar The Last Airbender thoughts, part 5/5

And finally, about Aang. The need for a trigger warning is nuts; it's about a certain interpretation of a plot point and the warning is repeated before the paragraph where I talk about it.

Also, if you actually read this whole thing, thanks! I just had so many thoughts about this adaptation and I needed to get them all out. A few months ago I did a Supernatural rewatch and I did a meta on the last episode and the general storytelling of S1-5, and I thought that was long, oh man. I was incorrect. That one actually fit into a single post! If you read this and have comments please feel free to talk to me, I've been scrolling through the #natla tag on tumblr for two days trying to see how everyone else reacted. There is also probably like fifteen other bulletpoints I could make but I've started this at like noon and it's 1 am and this is already a five parter text post which tbh nobody is going to read because I know I wouldn't! ADHD brain be like "hey, write this!" but if I see a even a ling single part meta post it just goes "too many words, bye." Potentially expect further relatrf thoughts and/or a lot of reblogs in the near future.

Aang: idk about Aang. he's got good moments and weak moments, i don't love his arc so far. i think Aang is a bit of a debated character in the original, but i personally liked his 3 season arc. now i've been a little worried about what they're going to do with it when they were talking about making some changes to it? and after seeing season 1, i feel like i was right to be worried. so in general i think Aang's "arc" is really weak in this. he's basically just going back and forth between "well i don't wanna be the avatar" and "well i've got to stand up as the avatar" and he just sort of goes through this in every episode without making any progress. i also really hate that this season went so hard on the whole "The Avatar's burden is a lonely one" thing, because while that's relevant, i think it works much better in the original where Aang (and the audience) gets a lot of time to build up a connection with the rest of the Gaang and the Guru telling him that he needs to let go of earthly attachment and therefore Katara at the end of book 2 is such a sudden cold shower.

Aang (TW: SUICIDE): also his decision at the end of the season is so sad. i mean not for nothing but he's basically suicidal? like... that's so depressing, i really didn't want to be thinking about Aang wanting to literally die because he's so sad and lonely? i'm not saying it's not like realistic or whatever, it just made me feel like shit. it's like Bumi being so cynical and angry. it's not unreasonable of this Aang, who's being told on a weekly basis that whatever he does, he's going to lose everyone he loves, that after all his people have been killed, he's now going to have to bear this enormous burden he's never wanted completely alone, and that if he tries to find help anywhere that's not within himself, his past lives, he's also going to get everyone fucking killed. and i know it's sort of framed like a sacrifice, which it is, but the way he talks right before he does it, like "I should've been lost a 100 years ago, this isn't my world"??? despite what i think was the intended framing it felt so much like he just wants to die, like this is the only use for himself he can see in this world is to fucking. DIE. IT'S JUST SO FUCKING SAD. from this (originally) optimistic and resilient character this is sooo very out of character (the sacrifice wouldn't be. this basically suicide-thinly-veiled-as-sacrifice is.) okay i'll stop harping on about this, you get it.

Aang is out of character overall: anyway. another real bad moment was Aang telling Katara not to fight, all i'll say about that is that this is clearly not the Aang who said "if you don't train Katara, i won't learn from you either" putting his avatar training in jeopardy because someone tried to tell Katara what she can and cannot do. idk what else to say about him, i'm not really vibing with this adaptation of his character. OG Aang shines through here and there but he's lost a lot of his optimism, his inner strength, his charisma and his wisdom. i hope some of these issues get addressed if we get around to more seasons.

PART 5/5

START // PREVIOUS

Thank you for reading!

[midnightswithdearkatytspb]

VelvetCardiganBucky’s Recommendations 2021: Week 12 & 13 | March 14th – March 27th

Welcome to weeks 12 & 13 of my recommendations, if you would like to be featured on a future list, I follow the hashtag #VelvetCardiganBucky, message me, tag me in your future works, or reblog this post and link to your story, one-shot, Masterlist, writing challenge, etc.

Be aware some if not most stories and writers on this list are meant to be consumed by an audience of those 18+. My blog is also an 18+ blog.

✨Page breaks are made @firefly-graphics✨

«Last Week

Week 14»

My Masterlist

My Fic Rec List of Mafia/Mob Bucky/Sebastian & Steve/Chris/Andy

Stuff I Posted This Week:

Steve + Bey = 4Ever » Steve Rogers and Bey carved places in each other’s hearts, that no one else could ever replace.

I Hear A Symphony » Bucky Barnes x Mutant!Reader — Reader plays an important song to her for Bucky.

—Formerly The Winter Soldier » “I’m no longer the winter soldier, my name is James Bucky Barnes & you're part of my effort to make amends.”

Lee Bodecker

(Mini) Series:

*Give In by @not-a-great-writer » soft!dark!Lee Bodecker x shy!Reader — She didn’t think she was anything special. So when the intimidating Sheriff takes an interest in her, she can’t help but feel a little unsettled. Her boring life is about to get a little interesting. | This story has to be one of my all time series I’ve ever read, and I know I will weep when it’s over. The chapters are decently sized, you have angst, fluff and smut. I couldn’t ask for more, it’s simply a masterpiece.

Deadbeat Pt. 9 by @the-witty-pen-name » Lee Bodecker x F!Reader — You work at the bar at the edge of town, the Sheriff is going through a divorce and needs to rent a room. | Cole thank you for feeding my current Lee Bodecker obsession after I watched The Devil All The Time, for the time. This story is good and I love soft!Lee, and one where no one dies. At least I hope no one dies...

SamBucky

One-Shots:

Loving You Is Cherry Pie by @river-soul » Sam Wilson x Reader x Bucky Barnes — When Sam Wilson, one of your regulars at the cafe finally asks you out, you’re ecstatic until he tells you he wants his friend to join. When you meet Bucky, you decide it might be worth your while after all. [Allusions to stalking, exhibitionism and explicit sex, 18+] | There is just not enough SamBuck stories out there and we have @river-soul to thank for feeding our love for the boys and giving us some good smut, especially to tide us over till Friday.

Nothing Good Happens After 2 AM by @callmeluna » Sam Wilson x Reader x Bucky Barnes — You are admittedly a handful when you’ve had a few drinks in you. Luckily, your partners Sam and Bucky are more than up for the challenge… maybe. | If you are looking for something to make you laugh, might I suggest reading this? The whole time as I read this I couldn’t get the huge smile off my face, it was that good.

Bucky Barnes

Drabbles:

Matching by @heli0s-writes » Bucky Barnes x Reader — Reader and Bucky are “matchy matchy,” with their belly button rings. | This is adorable as well as very funny.

One-Shots:

Smooth Criminal by @bestofbucky » Bucky Barnes x Reader — Based on a dream @velvetcardiganbucky had. You’re parents told you to never give rides to strangers, but when you notice Bucky Barnes trying to break into your car, you know some strangers aren’t so bad. | Jenny did my dream justice! I honestly couldn’t have asked for anything better.

Don’t Over Do It by @whisperlullaby » Bucky Barnes x Reader — Your boyfriend is an asshole. Bucky reminds you that you are perfect the way you are. | I can’t describe this anyway other than perfect, that I wish I had a Bucky like this there for me. Trust me you’ll love the ending.

Coming Home to You by @angrythingstarlight » Biker!Bucky Barnes x Reader — Your Biker boyfriend is finally home and he’s going to show you how much he missed you. With every inch he has. And you’re going to remember how much he loves you. | It’s not very often you read something that has an alternate ending and when you do you find yourself loving both endings. Both endings are hot, the smut is great, again who couldn’t love Biker!Bucky?

Won’t Let You Go by @kind-of-crazy-butthatsokay » Mob!Bucky Barnes x OFC!Kori — Kori met Bucky in one of his clubs, out to get shit-faced with a couple of friends to forget about her worries and maybe take home a guy to further rid herself of her numerous frustrations. Little did she know that the one-night stand with Bucky would turn into so much more than that. | Thank you so much for entering my writing challenge, it means so much. This one-shot is so good, it hit me right the feels and left me falling in love with Kori and Bucky.

Show Me How To Ride by @angrythingstarlight » Beefy Biker!Bucky Barnes x Reader — You’ve been keeping a secret from your biker boyfriend. He is going to get the information out of you one way or the other. | It’s hot and it makes you realize just how much you realize just how much you love Biker!Bucky.

Bubble Baths by @floatingpetals » Bucky Barnes x Reader (Modern AU) — Even your boyfriend Bucky, needs to wind down at the end of a stressful with a bubble bath, but he doesn’t want to do it alone. | Okay, so my summary of this sucks but let me just say this is fluffy and smutty all at once. I wish I had Bucky to take a bubbly bath with.

Bad Boy!Bucky Barnes x Shy!Reader by @gagmebucky — in which there’s nowhere to sit and bucky offers his lap—then, subsequently, his cock. (bad boy!bucky x shy!reader, dirty talk, exhibitionism and voyeurism, cockwarming, unprotected sex.) | *chugs water* yeah is it a little hot in here? I probably would have failed class if Bucky had been in my class along with Steve, I wouldn’t have known who to stare at, forget learning the material.

**Greater Good by @fuel-joy » Bucky Barnes x Reader — There is a cure for the zombie outbreak but is it worth the cost. | Grab your tissues, because you are going to need them. Thanks darling for entering my writing challenge and making me feel so many feels with this one.

(Mini) Series:

A Tender Heart ♥️ Pt. 2 by @river-soul » Alpha!Bucky Barnes x Omega!Reader — You’ve been sweet on Bucky since you started working at the compound six months ago. Normally quiet and mild mannered, an unexpired fight with a coworker brings Bucky into your orbit. [A/B/O dynamics, brief mention of bullying and fluff] | If anyone can pull at your heartstrings it’s @river-soul making the beginning of this series look so promising and I can’t wait to see where it goes.

Run To You 🪙 Pt. 10 🪙 Pt. 11 🪙 Pt. 12 by @bestofbucky » Mob!Bucky Barnes x Bodyguard!Reader — Mob boss Bucky Barnes hires you to be his bodyguard. | Jenny left me at the edge of my seat, making this such an amazing story, I always look forward to her updates, and so sad that there is only 1 chapter left.

Better than Working sequel to This by @angrythingstarlight » Beefy Biker!Bucky Barnes x Reader — Beefy Biker Bucky shows you all the benefits of working from home. In fact what he has for you is so much better than work. | Sometimes you just need to read something hot to lift your spirits, let this do that.

Stucky

One-Shots:

*Tell Me What You Want by @angrythingstarlight » Mafia!Steve Rogers x Reader; Mafia!Bucky Barnes x Reader — Your mob boyfriend, is none other than Steve Rogers and he is willing to get you whatever you wanted, all you have to do is ask. And be careful what you ask for because he’s going to give it to you over and over again. | This is so hot that I highly recommend not reading this anywhere out in public. The smut in this is just *chefs kiss*

(Mini) Series:

Miracle Pt. 2 🥀 Pt. 1 by @heavenhatesme » Soft!Dark!Bucky Barnes x Reader; Soft!Dark!Steve Rogers x Reader — When infertility threatens mankind with extinction and there hasn’t been a baby for almost 18 years, what happens when two certain super soldiers fall for the same woman and accidentally impregnate her? | It’s not tagged as dark, sorry to the writer I tagged it that please forgive me? But I just want to tell everyone heed the tags. I do look forward to reading what happens next. The smut in this is great!

Invisible Ink by @navybrat817 » Bucky Barnes x Reader, Steve Rogers x Reader; Bucky Barnes x Reader x Steve Rogers — The owners of the Howling Commandos Tattoo Parlor want to make you their best girl. | I love the idea of tattoo’d Bucky and Steve, but that's because I have a weakness for tattoo’s. So this series is just right up my alley, and the start of it is so good that I know it’s good to be a great one!

Steve Rogers

Drabbles:

Chocolate Milk & Dino Nuggets by @nony-bear » Steve Rogers x Reader — Daddy Steve helps make his little girl feel better after a long week. DDLG THEMES | Had me wishing I had a Steve to make me Dino nuggets after a long day at work. It’s precious folks.

Prompt 4K Drabble Challenge by @sweeterthanthis » Steve Rogers x Reader — “Show me how deep you can take it.” | You’re going to need an ice cold bath after this one.

One-Shots:

A Cruel Tide by @writerwrites » Nomad!Steve Rogers x Reader — A lost hero thinks she needs saving, but this divorcée’s needs were different, fleeting, and then full of attachment. Can they overcome the burdens on their shoulders and keep their word? | Sometimes you want to wrap the reader and Steve in a blanket and protect them while enjoying the smut. This gave me that and more.

Untitled Request by @navybrat817 » Steve Rogers x Reader — Sending Steve a naughty photo while he’s in a meeting leads to punishment that will remind you to never do it again, right? | Hi, I’m just going to drench myself in ice cold water. ✌🏻

(Mini) Series:

*Control Pt. 3 🔐 Pt. 1 🔐 Pt. 2 by @river-soul » dark!Steve Rogers x Reader — When a probationary agent asks you out on a date you learn Steve’s intentions for you have evolved. He doesn’t take kindly to someone touching what’s his. [Noncon, physical violence (biting), grooming behavior and explicit sex, 18+] | Definitely one of my favorite series to read on Tumblr so far, you know it’s dark, and the smut is great. I always look forward to the updates on this one.

*Lipstick and Crayons 🖍 Ch. 4 by @oneoftheprettynerds » Dark Mob!Steve Rogers x Reader — Steve can’t ever repay you for what you did. After meeting you, Steve believes his broken family is the missing piece in the puzzle of your own wrecked one. Indebting the crime lord to you has been the biggest mistake of your life, cause now you can’t get rid of him, no matter what. Loyalty and favours go a long way in the mob. | This story always gets my heart a racing and leaves you with questions as to what is going to happen next. I truly love it and Soft!Dad while being Angry!Mob boss Steve all at the same time, this story just has it all for me.

This Is My Unbecoming by @river-soul » Werewolf!Steve Rogers x Witch!Reader — When the Hydra pack graduates from turning humans to swell their ranks to kidnapping and murdering witches to consolidate power, Steve knows he needs to strike. He makes a deal with a powerful coven leader for a witch of his own in exchange for destroying the rogue pack. [Magical realism, biting, blood, slightly dubious consent and explicit sex, 18+] | Okay this is so good and I would like to thank the teenage mind of @river-soul for creating this! Like seriously thank you. I look forward to reading more!

It’s been a long, long time ☕️ Ch.1 by @mostly-marvel-musings » Steve Rogers x Reader — Steve Rogers – a man who has lost too much finds himself blending into the crowd in attempts to forget his past but revisits familiar places and spends days sketching his heart out. A rainy evening leads him to find shelter in your coffee shop. Is having meaningful conversations over endless cups of coffee with a stranger the key to unlocking a heart that’s lost the will to love? | The prologue tore my heart out, it truly did but the first chapter just puts the pieces back together. I really love this and I’m honestly looking forward to reading what happens next. I can’t thank you enough for entering my writing challenge!

*Not A Team Part: 1 by @shedobewritingalittle » Steve Rogers x Reader — The Reader tries to live a normal life, but her memories won’t leave her alone. Rhodey comes to visit the reader with a proposition. | There aren't a lot of stories out there that have walk on parts with Rhodey in it and I didn’t know how much I missed out on having him in stories till I read this. This was just so well written and the characterization of Rhodey was perfect, how Peyton got the emotions written across, it’s perfect. Read this and have some tissues on hand. I will always love it.

Andy Barber

One-Shots:

Closing Arguments by @river-soul » Andy Barber x Reader — Andy and you are going out for the first time since your daughter’s birth. Anxious about leaving her behind Andy does his best to make you feel better. [Fluff with explicit sex (f recieving), 18+] | So fluffy and sweet!

Keep the Heat by @ozarkthedog » Andy Barber x Reader — Andy fucks you in the coat. | Semi-Short and the smut is oh so good.

(Mini) Series:

Homebound 🏡 Ch. 1 by @fuel-joy » Dark!Andy Barber x Reader — You witness your neighbor kill his wife. You try to gather evidence all from the comfort of your home. | Prepare to be at the edge of your seat with this one, it’s just that good.

One Night by @darkficsyouneveraskedfor » Dark!Andy Barber x Reader — One night changes your entire life. | This is dark and exciting, with tons of angst in it. I love a real good dark!Andy fic and this is it.

Chris Evans

One-Shots:

Mirrors by @cherrychris » Chris Evans x Reader — “wanna know what i see? me owning you and this sweet little pussy” | Sometimes you read things that just blow your mind and this was one of those things.

*Work Party by @harrylovex » Chris Evans x Reader — you get drunk at a work party and chris looks after you… | This is really adorable and probably one of my favorite fluffy Chris Evans one-shots I’ve ever read.

Misc.

One-Shots:

An Act of Kindness by @stargazingfangirl18 » Jake Jensen x Female!Reader — A simple act of kindness seals your fate. | I would like to simply start of by saying that this was my first Jake Jensen fanfiction in years, or maybe my first one, and all I could was where have I been hiding from him? So good and glad I read this and so will you!

*Come Back Safe by @celestialbarnes » Sam Wilson x Reader — based on tfatws, you find out sam’s leaving for a mission, afraid to lose the man you love, you confront him, and he promises you to come back. | So fluffy you’ll want to cuddle it under a blanket fort and wish under a thousand starry night skies for it to come true.

(Mini) Series:

Fiery Friends Pt. 3 🔥 Pt. 4 by @wanderinglunarnights » Johnny Storm x OFC!Sophia Jones — Johnny invites his best friend Sophia to stay with him in his penthouse during quarantine. | I really like this story, because I find myself mentally rooting for Sophia and Johnny, also going you go girl. Looking forward to what is next for this duo.

Ensnared Pt. 2 🔗 Pt. 1 by @stargazingfangirl18 » Ransom Drysdale x Female!Reader; minor Robert Pronge (Mr. Freezy) x Reader — Robert preps you for the handoff to the smooth talking stranger who bought you, but before he lets you go, he wants to have a little fun first. | So good and hot. Honestly I look forward to hopefully finding out what happens between the reader and Ransom.

Made With Love by @ayybtch » Wanda Maximoff x f!Reader + Friends to Lovers — Wanda is an excellent cook but a terrible baker. A rough day leads her to the bakery in the Avengers compound where she meets you, the lead baker. After a dismal attempt at making chocolate chip cookies, you volunteer to help Wanda learn how to bake. Your friendship grows stronger with each successful recipe until the two of you stumble into something even sweeter than baked goods. | This story will constantly have you smiling, sure it’s only 3 chapters so far, but I started off reading it in a bad mood but by the 3rd chapter I was just so sappy and happy. I can’t wait for more!

Without Me by CuttingMyFingersOff » Legolas x OFC!Braigeth — Braigeth was an elf who has nothing but memories of Legolas to help her survive being imprisoned in the walls of Orthanc. That is, until she is able to escape and reunite with him. | I’ve been invested in this since my friend came forward to me with the idea for this story and now that it’s being written, I couldn’t be more excited to read it. I need more Lord of the Rings in my life if I’m being honest.

Forever and Ever More by @syntheticavenger » Dark Alpha!Ransom Drysdale x Omega!Reader — Ransom Drysdale may be Boston’s most eligible Alpha but he has his eyes set on you. With his inheritance hanging in the balance, he won’t take no for an answer, whether you like him or not. | Prepared to go on a Hawaiian EMOTIONAL roller coaster with this story, there are so many times in this story you find yourself picking your jaw up off the floor. I’ve linked you to chapter 9, which has all the previous chapters, listed.

Is A Shout Out To My...

@bluemusickid in celebration of 700 followers is hosting a Holi Celebration Writing Challenge, that is due April 30th, but extension can be given. Any Marvel or MCU characters can be used in addition to Chris Evans and his characters. The theme is Holi and its colors, for better explanation visit the link provided.

@whisperlullaby in celebration of 700 followers is hosting a 700 Followers Challenge, your entries will be due May 5th. The theme is kinks, no RPF, DDLG/MMLG, bathroom related , incest, or under age kinks. This is MCU characters, Sebastian Stan, and Chris Evans characters x OFC or Reader. For more information visit the link provided. Congrats Becca on the 700 followers you deserve it hun!

@stargazingfangirl18 in celebration of 5K followers is hosting a Soft Dark Writing Challenge, which is due May 31st. Don’t let the name fool you, your writing can be soft, dark, or soft!dark, or headcanons about any Chris character. 500 word minimum with no max, but new or be read as a stand alone piece. For more information visit the link provided and be sure to congratulate Siri on her 5K milestone!

@cloudystevie in celebration of 4K followers is hosting a Mob!AU Writing Challenge, that is due on May 30th. You can use Chris Evans and any of his characters he’s played before, as well as make it NSFW or SFW. To learn more about it please visit the link below. Also congratulations Jasmeen on the 4K followers! 💗

[mittensmorgul]

For anyone interested in long-term residence in the supernatural fandom, please have some observations I’ve made over the decade I’ve been here. Take it or leave it as you will, but I’ve found all of this info useful over the years I’ve been here.

I wrote this yesterday, and it achieved its mission of identifying the sort of folks who would react negatively to it (i.e. a lot of block lists have been updated), so now that it’s been edited for content, it’s going under a cut (because that is how we do things on tumblr in general, unless we have a deliberate purpose for annoying readers with excessively long text posts) for the sake of people who actually do care about the fandom and its history. If that’s not you or your reason for being here, then keep on keeping on with your own thing, I guess. For those who are interested, there’s a lot of fandom resources some of us have been building for years that you might enjoy knowing about.

First off, I’ve been informed by a few friends who’ve read through this for coherency’s sake that it sort of reads like a *shakes cane from porch* fandom grandma complaint, but honestly... I earned this rocking chair and goshdangit imma rock now. So apologies for any “back in my day” vibes or faint aroma of tiger balm this post might give off. Then again, it’s loosely based on a similar post from 2012 so like... time is a flat circle anyway I guess.

1. There is no such thing as “tumblr famous,” unless you’re referring to the hilarious and delightful fic of the same name (please go read it, you will cackle). Posting Hot Takes for imaginary Clout™ on this site is kind of pointless in the long run. Sure you can post solely for the sake of stirring shit and getting notes, but the majority of the folks who do aren’t long term residents of the fandom. They’re just tourists moving through our little beach town for spring break. If you’re actually intent on moving to this corner of the fandom for an extended stay, please bother to really feel out the permanent residents and understand the culture and general mood of the neighborhood. It bears no resemblance to whatever’s going on across town where all the bars and beach parities are happening, and those loud, drunken revelers are, again, gonna disappear back to their regular lives or on to the next party eventually. That doesn’t mean the fandom is dying, it’s just evolving.

(funny how I had several comments implying that I’m just trying to keep the fandom from evolving with this post, because I sincerely do want the fandom to continue on for years to come, and that is impossible without evolution. We can evolve without self-immolating, though. mostly i included point 1 for an excuse to push ancient but hilarious fanfic on you.)

2. Once you post something here, it’s been unleashed to the fandom winds. You never know where it will end up, or who will comment on it or add to it. Remember that time Misha tweeted the link to the Epic Cockles Love Story post? No? It was wild. That was 2012. They all know we’re here, and how to find us if they want to. Please don’t take it to their doorsteps.

Obviously if someone is being a dick on your posts, please feel free to block them, but the whole entire point of this site is to engage people with your posts. Being big mad that someone reblogged your post with comments or supporting evidence, or happy headcanons or “HECK THIS IS GREAT BECAUSE (insert personal story about their experience or whatever else made them Feel Things about your post)” is frankly ridiculous. If your goal is to avoid any sort of engagement with your posts, then maybe try instagram instead. From what I understand, there is a SPN fandom presence there, and nobody can tarnish your original posts with unwanted commentary. But the ability to reblog with additional commentary is a FEATURE of tumblr that builds community through conversation. Otherwise we’re all just talking to ourselves in a vacuum, and that’s what actually kills fandoms.

(and for the folks who just want to blog how they want to blog and don’t want people to engage on their posts at all, please feel free to block anyone you want, as well... nobody wants to step on your toes, but most of us also don’t want to walk on eggshells wondering if this post is one of the “do not add comments for any reason” sorts of posts, either. This is a huge fandom and most people can’t even begin to keep track of every creator and their url du jour, and what their personal rules might be regarding interaction with their content. Including a “please don’t add comments” note at the bottom of your posts-- and not in your tags that won’t even show up on reblogs, but in the actual body of the post-- would sincerely help avoid any awkward or unwanted interactions, too. At the end of the day, you are in control of your own fandom experience and the block button exists.

For the record, I block zero fandom blogs (which is why I posted this, I wanted it to reach a wide scope... refer to the opening paragraphs as to why).

3. Since this post was partly inspired by a tag I left on that post going around about how “previous tags” mean fuckall on this site (which you can read here), just a reminder that if you like someone’s tags or feel they add value to the post, part of the Peer Review structure of tumblr encourages you to PASTE THEM INTO A REBLOG. If you do this, then at least credit the person who actually wrote the tags! Don’t just copy someone else’s tags into your tags on your reblog of the post without credit either. They were not YOUR tags. (I have had this happen to tag rambles I wrote and someone else got credited with them on a subsequent reblog and it is FRUSTRATING). Just... don’t even bother to write “previous tags” because WHAT PREVIOUS TAGS?! Nobody is gonna bother to chase back the chain of reblogs trying to find where the mystery tags came from, friendos. That way lies madness.

(for the record, since some folks seemed to focus on this point solely, writing “previous tags” on a post isn’t inherently a BAD thing, but for anyone who actually is here for more than one-off shitposting, then it’s sort of a pointless thing in the long run. This wasn’t intended to suggest people who ARE here for one-off shitposting are bad or “doing it wrong,” but for people who might actually want to preserve that hilarious joke or insightful comment. People delete posts and entire blogs all the time around here. Links break. I get that the upcoming generation just shrugs at that and moves on with their lives, but heck... you don’t have to accept that all entertainment is disposable if you don’t want to. There’s a bizarre sort of nihilism plaguing us all about the impermanence of pretty much everything that feels like something we should be fighting against rather than buying into wholesale, even in our escapist entertainment. I’m just exhausted by the complete loss of joy in community.

*shouts from the peanut gallery* IT AIN’T THAT DEEP, JUST GET SOME FRESH AIR AND LOOK AT A PUPPY OR SOMETHING

Yes... yes it isn’t really that deep, but bigger picture in the state of reality we’re all entirely disillusioned with, are we supposed to just give up on everything, including the things we cling to because they bring us a tiny spark of hope that we’re not all just trapped in this dystopian nightmare and things might actually be worth living for?

*peanut gallery clinging to burnt husks of peanuts in a barren peanut field* but this is how we have chosen to cope

Okay... you do you... I feel bad for you but if that’s the case then this post is NOT FOR YOU. AND THAT’S FINE. I honestly do not care if you don’t care! I mean, I’m sorry anyone has to live in a world that drives them to that mindset, but I understand. This post is for anyone who might look at their lives and their choices and think “no wait, I unironically enjoy this and want more from the experience of that enjoyment than I’m currently feeling.” Everyone else can continue with their lives as usual.)

4. CONTENT THEFT IS NEVER OKAY. PERIOD. Things like “credit to the artist” or tagging gifs or images you found on pinterest as “not mine” isn’t actually credit. If you can’t source an image or gif set, DO NOT POST IT! We don’t REPOST (i.e. save an image and then create a new post with it as if it was our own creation). We REBLOG (click the little square arrows and reblog from the actual creator). That goes for gif sets, fanvids, screencaps, meta, fic... everything.

(hopefully everyone here already understands this one, but I felt compelled to include some “these are stupidly obvious” reminders anyway, since this is ostensibly some sort of advice column. This is the equivalent of the warning label on your toaster reminding you not to use it in the bath. Like... duh...)

5. Close kin of item 4 is SOURCE YOUR SHIT. 

(for 100% disclosure purposes, I specifically discussed this one in this specific way because of an influx of anon ask messages I received in the wake of the finale. Literally the inciting incident for creating this entire post was what I can only assume was a joking ask about a comment Misha made at a con years ago. Someone actually bothered to take the time to type out those sentences to me. I have no idea what they were expecting in reply, or what could possibly motivate them to send this comment about something so entirely random from, again, several years ago. Just a joke? No idea, but whatever... it got me thinking that there might actually be people who are new to the fandom who MIGHT actually care about the fandom history, and maybe they just don’t know where to go for that info, or how to even begin searching through 16 years of history for things they might actually find enjoyment in, rather than just hauling random out of context garbage out on main and pointing and laughing about it now. People are actually allowed to care about things. It’s not cringeworthy to actually care about things, and you are not alone in actually caring, and there’s this whole big room over here full of people who are thrilled to share in that with you. This post is intended FOR THOSE PEOPLE SPECIFICALLY, so if that is not you, please just continue walking by.)

Yes, I know lots of y’all are new around here right now, but dredging up stuff from years ago that fandom has completely debunked and presenting it as TRU FAX again is just exhausting. We’re not trying to be party poopers, but seriously, we have seen it all and are mostly done with extinguishing bags of flaming dog poop on our front porches for the umpteenth year in a row. I’ve seen a lot of posts that have the same tone as “I saw Goody Proctor dancing with the devil” or “I heard kylo ren has an eight pack” and just... the information is there for anyone who cares enough to find it.

This goes double for “why is nobody talking about this thing I just discovered while watching the show for the first time?!” And, oh hon, we have talked it all into the ground over the last fifteen years. We’re happy you’re discovering it again, but I promise we talked about it plenty when the episodes originally aired. We have such a rich meta history that lots of us have worked really hard to preserve. I encourage you to seek it out, if nothing else than as historical artifacts. The way we have discussed the show has been a 16-year evolution. People have written literal doctoral dissertations on this show. Your shitposts are fun! We love reliving our own experience through fresh eyes, and seeing your wonder at experiencing it all again for the first time! But y’all didn’t invent this fandom in the last six months, either.

Meta Sources and Minerals provided by our friendly neighborhood fandom archivist, @lets-steal-an-archive

Academic books and articles about SPN 

A collection of Meta Essays going back to s1 and organized by topic (all of this has happened before, all of it will happen again)

SPN Heavy Meta Archive (s1-3)

Mel’s Dreamwidth archive of meta (s1-12)

Oranges8hands Dreamwidth archive of meta (s1-15, with many similar entries to Mel’s... though ymmv on viewpoint in a lot of these too)

Anyone remember Fandom Wank? Not the concept but the actual LJ... No? Okay have a link to SPN topics that ended up there. Through 2013. We have seen so much... including several fandom containment breaches.

for all your art sourcing needs, please see @theroadsofararchive, the repository for so much fandom art.

need to find a gif of something? canonspngifs is a vast repository of gifsets of the entire series. If the gif you want to use in your post happens to be the first gif in the gifset, in the tumblr gif finder thingy just paste the permalink to that post from canonspngifs (which is easily searchable by episode, character, location, situation, quotes, and sometimes even color and clothing items the actors are wearing... it’s really well organized, especially for tumblr >.>) and the first gif will be automatically linked with credit to the gif creator attached. It makes life easy that way. It’s also convenient when trying to remember something specific but can’t remember what episode it’s from. I’ve used the site to jog my memory before going to the superwiki armed with more specific search results to find episode quotes and references. Or sometimes I just scroll through all the nice gifs for fun, too.

Need a screencap of something and know exactly which episode it’s from? Try Home of the Nutty. You might not find the exact screencap you’re looking for, but they have a complete set of caps of every episode, and it’s an incredibly useful resource for quick reference checks and the like. Just give pages a chance to fully load before clicking on the next one. The site is easily overloaded, but it’s still free to use (and again, with credit... Pretty much every screencap on my entire blog is from HotN unless otherwise credited).

As you can see, this is a fandom built on preserving our history. You absolutely are not required to engage with any of this if that’s not of interest to you, but I can only assume that there are people who would be interested in it if only they knew it existed and how to find it. Well, now they do.

6. A few more notes on tags, and how they work on tumblr. The first 20 tags on your ORIGINAL posts are searchable sitewide, so if you want to be able to find something again, tag that thing first before going on general tag rambles. The only place tags on reblogs are searchable is on your own blog. So you don’t have to put 50 tags trying to get a post seen if it’s a reblog. You’re just spitting into the wind at that point. If you have a filing system for finding things again, then by all means add those tags (again, in the first 20, so they’re searchable), but you don’t need to tag a reblog “destiel” and “deancas” and “dean” and “cas” and “dean x cas” or whatever. Pick one for your personal blog’s filing system, that’s all you need.

(this was only added because tagging and searching on this site is so very broken... I get that a lot of folks don’t care about ever searching their own blogs again for anything, so this one only really applies if you do often find yourself trying to find old posts. If not, then it’s not really relevant.  It took me years to work out a decent tagging system, and at the beginning of my time here I never thought I’d end up camping out here for a decade and falling this deep into the fandom, and I regretted my lack of consistent tags only years later when I realized I actually wanted to be able to go back and find specific old posts again. So... for anyone who wants to err on the side of caution, working out a sensible tagging system really helps if you’re here for the long term. I personally tag content by episode, because some of my other general tags are so large as to be practically useless as a search term. But whatever system you choose to file stuff on your own blog, it really only has to make sense to you. And again, if this is pointless advice for someone who has no intention of settling here for the long term. Please feel free to ignore it. I just wish someone had explained it this way to me ten years ago and saved me the hassle of retroactively tagging something like 30k posts... especially now that using the mass tag replacer is the fastest way to get your entire blog deleted... oops? so yeah, don’t use the mass tag replacer either >.>)

7. Tags on Tumblr DO NOT WORK LIKE TAGS ON TWITTER. If you @ someone in the body of the post, it will show up in their notifications (if they’re the sort of person who even checks their notifications... not all of us do. For the record, I generally don’t...), but putting actor or ship names in the tags on a tumblr post does absolutely nothing. It’s not the same as tagging the actor’s twitter account in a tweet. Nobody’s getting notifications about you tagging a post about Jensen here as “Jensen Ackles.” There is a difference. Please learn it. (and don’t take headcanons and ESPECIALLY RPF or otherwise explicit art or fic from tumblr to twitter and tag the actors in it. That’s just... not okay.)

(I have seen the pearl clutchers getting all in a huff about the mere existence of RPF or even explicit content of fictional characters if it doesn’t meet their purity standards, but tagging those things allows people who don’t want to see it to actively avoid that content here. Nobody has a right to tell people their fictional content shouldn’t exist at all, or that creators of that fictional content somehow deserve harassment or threats for having dared to create such “immoral” content, won’t somebody PLEASE think of the children... and no... you do not do that here. Don’t be the problematic behavior you wish to ban from the world. Learn to use tags to protect yourself from, as i have attempted to emphasize here, fictional content you are personally upset by. That’s a you problem, not a problem for the creators of potentially upsetting content that they tag appropriately for.)

8. General formatting stuff: If you’re writing long text posts, visually break them up so people aren’t faced with one long wall of text. The enter key is your friend. Also, if you put long text posts under a Read More break and send people to your blog to finish reading, please ensure that your blog is actually visually accessible (tiny text, or light grey text on a dark grey background, or a visually busy background might be aesthetically pleasing to you but nobody can actually read it. Loads of folks won’t even try. Which is great if you don’t actually care whether people are able to appreciate your content or not, but something to at least consider if you *do* actively want to encourage engagement with your work. Confirm how your blog looks on both mobile and desktop and make sure it’s actually functional in both, too).

And since I mentioned that most of my experience on fandom tumblr has been in the SPN fandom, here’s a bit of a reminder for folks who are new around here. With the reminder that I have been here more than a decade and still feel like a newbie myself sometimes...

This is an OLD FANDOM. There are many, many people who have been at this longer than some of you have been alive. The average age for creators in this fandom is older than you think (I think of my friends in their 30′s as young’ins okay? okay). With that understood, you are responsible for the content you consume and are exposed to. Curate your experience. Ship and let ship. YKINMKATOK. Don’t deliberately expose yourself to content you find upsetting for whatever reason. Tags and warnings are your friends, not targets for you to attack in some sort of purity war. People will ship things you do not like (or in specific ways you do not like), will say things you do not agree with, and will find their happiness in things you abhor. That is not your concern. Find what you do like, and support and engage with it, and ignore (or block, or unfollow) the rest. Tumblr has a feature that lets you blacklist tags so the content you’re trying to avoid won’t appear on your dash.

Remember the paradox of tolerance.

It is not your job in fandom to police how other people enjoy the fandom. It’s not *my* job to police how *you* enjoy the fandom, UNLESS your enjoyment is in actively harming other real human beings in the fandom. If you don’t like their take on the character or the show or the plotlines or their ships or anything else, you don’t need to engage with their posts at all! The necessary corollary to this is that clarifying misunderstandings or correcting factual misinformation is not “policing.” 

(this is where the peanut gallery reminds me it ain’t that deep, and I plead with them to put down the social media and find just one (1) thing to actually believe in in this godforsaken life, find something other than disdain and cynicism and spite to live for. If those things motivate you to find a larger cause for yourself, then great, use them to your advantage, but use them to find something that makes you a better person or brings you a modicum of joy and connection to your fellow human beings despite living in a dystopian hellscape of a world)

I have seen a lot of posts lately that are founded on the sort of authority that comes with “I watched through tumblr for a few months and then watched the last three episodes of the series” and as such are just... missing the larger context of the entire show, and are unfounded entirely in canon. I 100% appreciate the new enthusiasm for the fandom that we’ve been living in here for years, and it’s wonderful to see new people enjoying the thing we love. Your headcanons are valid, you are valid, but recognize that your headcanons aren’t canon. All of us finale denialists have accepted this in some measure, so we feel you. We truly, truly feel you. But regarding actual canon, we have a resource for that: the Superwiki. Learn it, live it, love it, as Metatron would say.

(which you could discover he said in 10.17 Inside Man, thanks to the superwiki! accept no substitutes!)

(and again, there have been people who have been involved in fandom for years who haven’t engaged with canon in years, either! You can play in this universe however you choose, BUT FOR PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT CANON AT ALL, WHICH I AM AGAIN POINTEDLY SAYING MIGHT NOT BE YOU, READER, AND I’M NOT SUGGESTING YOU ARE WRONG FOR NOT WANTING TO ACTUALLY ENGAGE WITH CANON, but if you DO want to engage with canon, please have some useful resources. Why do people feel personally attacked by being presented a list of helpful resources? Absolutely baffling.)

(also: words have definitions. “Canon” is a specific thing, meaning in this case “the finished media product that aired on television.” Anything beyond those limits is secondary canon (think: john’s journal, which is not canon but canon adjacent at best...), word of god (i.e stuff said by the writers and showrunners), or headcanon (which includes actor commentary-- they may have helped create the show with their acting choices and whatever, but they are not in control of the story overall). If there’s something you dislike about actual canon, you can reject it and supplement it with your own theories or preferred outcomes-- that’s basically what fanfic is-- but that doesn’t make your theories canon (much to all our dismay, that’s just not how any of this works. This is not to invalidate how anyone engages with the show or the fandom, just trying to clarify what seems to have been a source of unintentional misunderstandings. Your theories do not have to be “canon” to be legitimate interpretations.)

***I am setting this section apart, and did make a separate post of just this following information, because this is where we go from being relatively chill about different parts of fandom choosing to interact in different ways and you do you and blog however you want, to “hey can everybody please understand that the way you are interacting with this specific material might be harmful for specific legal reasons, and stating that you do not care about the consequences of your actions does actively make you the asshole here...” Okay, now that we have that understood:

The spnscripthunt collective has been steadily acquiring new scripts (which are posted in full on the superwiki for everyone to enjoy, for free). The language around how some folks are talking about these scripts is... concerning. For very real legal reasons, actually, and not because we’re feeling precious about the collection and don’t wike it when meanies use them in shitposts.

-First off, these scripts are not “leaks.” They are all verified and legally purchased (or gifted, in some cases, but still acquired entirely above board. we didn’t whack anyone over the head in a back alley for these scripts, or swipe them out of someone’s trailer on set).

(in case anyone was unaware, these scripts are the copywritten protected property of Warner Brothers. So yes, how we use them and share them with the fandom could have legal repercussions. We present them as a collected resource of fandom history which SHOULD fall under Fair Use doctrine, but this is untested legal water. Insinuating that the scripts are somehow not entirely legally obtained, or that posting them for public access involved less than 100% transparent and entirely legal transactions is incredibly concerning.

Once again for the peanut gallery, if you don’t care about any of that and are just having a good time with it, at least be mindful of the work and expense a large group of people have gone through to acquire and present the content you’re all too eager to exploit for cheap thrills. Some of us do actually care and are not exactly comfortable with the fact that others don’t seem to care about burning it all to the ground. We can’t force you to listen or behave as we’d hope you might, but at least be aware of the potential consequences of your actions. All we’re asking is for you to not be the douchebag who sets the whole neighborhood on fire with your illegal fireworks display. Is that too much to ask for? more on that in a second, first... a psa)

-If you see a script for sale and are unsure if it’s legit (or believe it might already be freely available in our collection), please feel free to ask us for advice. Our goal is to make as much of our fandom history available to the entire fandom, and we absolutely do not want anyone shelling out money for stuff you can already find for free.

(seriously, we’ve seen a bunch of resellers cropping up selling printed versions of the scripts we bought and uploaded for everyone to enjoy free of charge, or scripts that are otherwise of dubious origin. We’ve been at this for years now and know what’s actually out there. We don’t want anyone to fall for a scam if we can help it)

-Also, the usual reminder that the scripts we acquire ARE NOT NECESSARILY THE FINAL SHOOTING DRAFTS. In fact, the majority of scripts in our collection are NOT. Changes are made daily to scripts, even during filming. Comparing a Production Draft (white pages, effectively the first “final draft” of what usually becomes a series of drafts before filming wraps) to a much later revision (say... green or goldenrod revisions, several of which we DO have in our collection for comparison) and how those earlier drafts often differ wildly from the aired version versus how similar a much later green draft is to the aired version, for example, can teach you a lot about the television writing process. The link above to the superwiki scripts page has a nice little explainer about how this process works.

Differences between our posted scripts (many of which are white drafts, aka FIRST complete drafts, which will likely go through multiple rounds of revisions before filming even begins) and the aired version of the show are not all “acting choices” or a director or editor just cutting whole scenes on a whim. It’s insulting to everyone involved in production to suggest that’s the case.

(and yeah, fine... whatever, make any sort of posts you like regarding how those changes came about, but at the very least understand that it’s not actually the truth about how any of this works. Don’t care that that’s not the truth and want to make the posts anyway because shitposting is fun and that’s the extent of your sense of humor? FINE! You’re entitled to do that! But at least you DO know the truth now, and hopefully so do the people who engage with your posts. Deliberate ignorance isn’t cute, smooth lions notwithstanding)

There’s probably a whole other post to be made on fandom tagging etiquette, but again I don’t really use the tags enough to know what’s going on with that whole situation. I’ve also probably left a lot of stuff out, so please feel free to add things I’ve overlooked.

Thanks also to @trisscar368 and @thayerkerbasy for help compiling this, too. They were kind enough to escort me through the park to feed these pigeons. Now I need to take them out for ice cream. :’D

So I guess welcome to the neighborhood. Make yourself at home, but like... try not to trash the place while you’re here. Some of us live here by choice, lol.

[nineteensixtieschikadee]

Arya Stark & Femininity

This might turn into a mini rant, so bear with me here. A lot of times whenever I watch old GOT clips, (bc I hate myself) and read stuff about Arya on fansites, I realize that there’s been a lot of misconception about her and her character. Particularly about her being a woman. And a lot of times i see this sort of “justification” from her fans that the reason why she’s such a fan-favorite character in the show (and to some extent, the books?) is because Arya is esentially this “bad-ass ninja asassin tomboy who’s out for revenge against those who’ve killed her family.” And some of her fans and especially her anti’s will call her out expressing that “Arya’s only a child who doesn’t like girly things like dresses and boys and doing her hair. She “identifies” herself as a tomboy because she likes “boyish things” like sword play, and playing in the mud, and gore, wrestling, etc. I was scrolling through the Jonrya tag here on Tumblr, this is a comment I found regarding Arya:

The moment I read that I straight up just wanted to rant! Lol! Also, I’m sorry for the formatting, I’m writing this on mobile. :( Anyways, these people who make those claims about Arya, esentially only see her as this small girl who likes fighting and getting dirty. They completely disregard everything else that makes Arya, Arya. Pretty much just limiting her to her sex, understanding that because Arya likes boyish things, she’s NOT ALLOWED to inherit things, like the North, fall in love and get married, have a high position in the hierarchy and in politics. It’s because that these people see her as someone who hates needlework or everything that isn’t Sansa, everyone believes that she hates everything that makes her FEMALE. Everybody here knows that Arya’s my favorite female character in the books, so I just wanna talk about how the general public views her, and how their views tend to go against Arya’s entire character.

People have this view that she is the “exact opposite” of Sansa. And while that’s true in terms of their different characteristics, it doesn’t mean that Arya is against everything that makes Sansa, feminine. Now lemme elaborate here. Sansa is everything that represents “femininity.” Especially in terms of the inspired time period that ASOIAF takes place in. She’s very girly & lady-like, is mannerful, “soft-spoken.” She daydreams about boys and being a princess. She’s graceful and elegant. She knows her place in terms of society, and as a woman. AND YEAH, Arya is the exact opposite of that. Yes, she has this boyish nature. She’s wild and free spirited. Loud also adventerous. But that’s the thing: Arya has a lot of femininity in her. It’s just not the femininity that we’re used to. What society percieves as “normally feminine.”

Arya is not Sansa. And it’s because she doesn’t act like a “lady” that the audience sees her as this girl who “doesn’t want” or most importantly, should not want/get the same treatment as the typical noblewoman in Westeros should recieve. This idea was engraved into people’s heads because of the show, and that’s how we’re supposed to see her. As this cold hearted ninja assasin warrior who happens to be a girl, but doesn’t act like a typical girl. The audience pretty much places her in the “I’m not like other girls” trope. Which is honestly, so wrong to me. Because yeah okay, Arya isn’t like the typical lady. But god, she is far deeper than that, and is a much more complex character.

Here’s the thing, Arya does not reject being a female, and most importantly, she does not reject the typical ideals of what makes a lady feminine. Of course not. In fact, she actively encourages that women be included in all things, especially in things only made for men. She believes that women should not be held back or ignored because of their sex and femininity.

“The Lannister’s are proud,” Jon observed. “You’d think the royal sigil would be sufficient, but no. He makes his mother’s House equal in honor to the king’s.”

“The woman is important too!” Arya protested.

This excerpt is from Arya’s very first chapter in AGOT. It is also my favorite Jonrya moment, lol. And asides from the scene foreshadowing potential plot points for not only Jon & Arya, the scene introduces to us and examines Arya’s perception of society and more specifically, the women in society. In this scene Arya joins Jon in observing Prince Joffrey, talking about the Lannister/Baratheon coat of arms. Jon makes a point that while the Baratheon sigil should be enough to prove that Joffrey is of royalty, the Lannisters (Cersei) are a proud house, married into the royal family. So therefore Joffrey is of house Baratheon AND Lannister. That is why the Lannister sigil stands besides the Baratheons. Because they, specifically Cersei, should be seen as equal to the king.

And while Jon makes this seem like it’s wrong or not needed, Arya disagrees with him. She tells him that the women should not be forgotten, as they should be seen as equal to the men. That the women are just as important as the men, and that it would be of good conduct to not forget that. And with that being said, she never acknowledges that Joffrey���s mother is too lady-like or too feminine to be seen as an equal to the king. Nope. Although she does question later as to why if women cannot fight, why should they have a coat of arms. Though that is hardly the point of her argument.

Another point that makes people believe that Arya is not feminine or does not support femininity, is when she flat out says to Ned that she hates the idea of being a lady.

“Your mother and I have charged her with the impossible task of making you a lady.”

“I don’t want to be a lady,” Arya flared.

Alot of people misinterpret this as Arya not wanting to be a noblewoman, because she only likes to play with swords, and get dirty. Because acting like a lady is stupid and not her. This is simply not true. Arya has no problem with women, or being a lady. She is a lady. A highborn one. What she does have a problem with is that being a lady often means being trapped in the conformities of what society percieves to be the acceptable standard for women in this time period.

All of the acceptable standards is what Sansa is. And she is not like Sansa. She does not believe herself to be a lady like her sister or her mother. When she first reveals her true identity to Gendry in ACOK, he immediately apologizes to her for his behavior and calls her m’lady. :3 Arya unfortunately sees this as a form of mockery and an attack because while Gendry acknowledges that she is a lady, Arya doesn’t act like a typical lady or even look like one. That insecurity of not being a lady like her mother and sister makes her believe that Gendry is using her sex against her. Like a form of irony. But I mean, we all know that’s far from the truth, lol!

And Jon recognizes this too! It’s the reason why they are so close and tightly knit together. Because Jon understands Arya, and sees her insecurity like how she sees his. They are one and the same. Jon sees and understands Arya’s frustrations of sexism viewed in Westeros. He acknowledges that Arya is to become a lady. But he also sees that Arya is not the conventional type of lady wanting to stick to the norms. She is a different type of lady, and to him, that is okay. He may tease her for it once in a while, pointing out all the unfair limitations that women have to go through. But he accepts her for being this unconventional noblewoman, and often encourages her to pursue being different.

“Girls get the arms but not the swords. Bastards get the swords but not the arms. I did not make the rules, little sister.”

Later when Jon and Arya say their goodbyes, Jon gifts Arya with the swords. Needle. This is his way of saying, fuck all them haters, be who you wanna be. Solidifying the idea that he supports her and accepts her for who she is. Kinda like how Tyrion told him to use his identity as armour, Arya should do the same to herself. It’s okay to be different than the rest. Fuck the rules.

It’s not that Arya hates the idea of being a lady. It’s a far cry from that. It’s the sexism that goes along with being the typical lady that infruiates her. Arya loves running around, riding horses, playing with swords, being loud and adventurous. She has a firery temper to her. And just because she likes doing all of that, and is all of that, it doesn’t mean, shouldn’t mean that she isn’t a lady. That she can’t be a lady. All of those things shouldn’t limit her to being viewed as a girl, a highborn lady. She is a woman, and she identifies as one.

“Listen to him, boy.”

“It was the third time he had called her “boy.” “I’m a girl,” Arya objected.

That is why, even though she sees herself as a woman, she often tells herself and other people that she is not a lady. Despite others telling her that she is one. Her insecurity and her frustrations do not allow her to see herself as a lady because she isn’t a “conventional woman.”

But the thing is, even though Arya doesn’t enjoy most of the typical lady-like things, she still has a ton of femininity to her. And people often ignore her more feminine traits in favor of her more “badassery” side, which unfortunately are most often occupied by men. People forget and downright ignore that Arya is really intelligent. She particularly excels in math. It’s one of the few things that she’s better at than Sansa. She loves flowers—like her aunt Lyanna. The very person who she’s said to look and act like the most. And a really important one is that she has motherly instincts. It’s what helps her protect other kids throughout her journey. Her ability to empathize enables her to be more social with outcasts and befriend others without judgement. She is well-mannered and kind to strangers. (An example of this would be when she apologizes to a common woman who lent her a dress to wear, and she accidentally destroys it because she and Gendry were playing by the acorn tree.) She can also cook and clean just like any other woman—or any other person. All of those are feminine traits, and are traits that make her more human. And the show opted to get rid of all that and gave us some cold-hearted, angry, ninja.

The audience perceives that because Arya is this ninja warrior who rejects the common standards of being a lady, it means that she can’t have these other more female traits. Nope. She’s not allowed to have or want more rights and power because that’s not her. She’s a warrior and nothing more. She can’t find love because she has to be this bad-ass independent woman who don’t need no man. That’s not her, that’s her sister. We can’t have Arya be any more female than she already is because she rejects the idea of being female. Leave all that crap to her sister! Sansa’s the princess—and we can’t have Arya being a princess or queen. Arya’s only allowed to carry a sword.

And it’s the audience’s perception of her that goes against everything that Arya is, and everything that she believes in. Because remember, Arya hates the idea that being a lady means being trapped in the societal norms. And it can be said vice versa too. Arya still respects those who want to be more of the conventional type. Arya may not have the more typical feminine traits that make her a lady, but to hell with it! It doesn’t mean that she’s not allowed to have the other things that the more conventional woman would/should have. That goes against all of her views and beliefs. The audience puts Arya at an unfair standard because she doesn’t act like a conventional woman.

It’s the same thing as the audience saying that Jon Snow doesn’t want a title or power, because he’s devoted his life to the Nights Watch and is unselfish. False. Very false. Just like Arya. Arya’s young. She still has time to grow, and no doubt she doesn’t think of all those things now because of other priorities. But she’s slowly getting there. And there is so much foreshadowing of her finding love, becoming a woman gaining power, etc, etc. She’s not there yet, but that’s a part of her growth. Just because she defies the typical female standards, it doesn’t mean she doesn’t want or wont want all those things later.

Like com’on. Everyone knows that Arya is the only legitimate candidate right now to inherit the North. Everyone knows. The Northmen know, the Nights Watch knows, the people in Kings Landing knows. Hell, even the damn wildings know this. And it’s because of this knowledge that formed the majority of the northern plotline in ADWD. People are going to war for her. She is the true key to the North, and that’s why the Boltons lied and said that they have her. It’s why Jon went to war and died for her. I don’t think Arya will truly believe it if/when she finds out that people are fighting for her because she holds the power to the North. Unless Jon’s gonna be the one to tell her himself. The fact that she is being set up to inherit all this power, and yet people deny it and believe that she doesn’t want it because it’s “not her” in regards that she’s not feminine enough, is seriously infuriating.

I mean look at the type of women Arya respects and idolizes. Where do you think she got the name Nymeria from? Nymeria’s name originates from the Princess of Dorne herself, Princess Nymeria of Ny Sar. Princess Nymeria was said be very beautiful, strong-willed, cunning, and full of wisdom. She was a “warrior-queen.” From that alone, her femininity clearly did not matter. She was a woman whose goals were not held back because of her femininity and sex.

Arya does not hate femininity or things that makes women more feminine. She doesn’t truly hate wearing dresses or being a lady. It’s being conformed to the general standards that she hates. It’s her sex being used against her that makes her angry. It’s not being able to be herself that she despises. And thanks to Sansa and her mother’s judgement of her, Arya’s insecurity only heightened. Despite looking exactly like Lyanna, Arya herself believes that she’s not beautiful enough to even be considered a lady. Only Jon and Ned allowed Arya to be Arya. Only they called her beautiful, and only they encouraged her to be who she wanted to be. Arya loves her fellow women. And yeah, she also loves Sansa despite her being such a pain in the ass bitch, lol.

Arya’s character encourages women to just be women. She encourages us the audience to just be ourselves despite all the conformities forced upon us. Her character explores the limitations of sex, gender, and especially the loss of identity. Arya not wanting to be a lady doesn’t actually mean she doesn’t want to be a lady. She doesn’t want to be held back by the standards of being a lady. Her question, her argument is that why should women be limited only to being this or that. Women are far more than meets the typical standard, and if society can’t accept it, then fuck that! Women can be knights and still be a lady. They can be fierce and passionate and emotional and still be a lady. Women can be warriors and still be a lady. Just because there are some women out there who don’t fit the ideal standards of what it means to be lady, it shouldn’t make them feel like less than one.

[asdfghjklwhaaat]

I posted 682 times in 2021

56 posts created (8%)

626 posts reblogged (92%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 11.2 posts.

I added 15 tags in 2021

#charmie fic - 3 posts

#hbd armie 😚 - 2 posts

#the french dispatch - 2 posts

#armie hammer ure so fine - 2 posts

#i love to take my poems literally - 1 posts

#mirroring - 1 posts

#but ur sister is fine fine - 1 posts

#timmy ilysm - 1 posts

#pauline— the superior chalamet - 1 posts

#saoirse ronan - 1 posts

Longest Tag: 33 characters

#i love to take my poems literally

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

we're all so proud and happy of all your successes and achievements, tim. we celebrate you, now and for years to come. but we also value and appreciate you more and more each day because you support our gentle giant, in ways you know is right at the current time. go shine ✨

60 notes • Posted 2021-10-11 15:12:46 GMT

#4

hair goals tbh

92 notes • Posted 2021-08-27 09:40:59 GMT

#3

Timmy: What do you want for your birthday?

Armie: We've talked about this, I'd rather you spend your hard-earned money on yourself babe.

Timmy: Armie.

Armie: Fine. Just lick me out for dinner.

Timmy: Uh? Okay, I guess? If that's what you want.

Armie: *TAKE! Take me out for dinner.

Armie: I hate this phone

Timmy: I can do both. Lick and take you out for dinner. It's your birthday so your wish is my command :)

Armie: You're not letting this die soon, 'no?

Timmy: Nope. Gonna lick you good for your bday baby.

94 notes • Posted 2021-08-29 09:47:47 GMT

#2

heart eyes, motherfucker

109 notes • Posted 2021-08-30 16:01:25 GMT

#1

hi friends and moots,

Maybe 5 people tops will see this post so I'll brave things out and post it. I never got a lot of interaction anyways hehez. So anyways...

I know most of the ppl in the fandom doesn't know my existence but I've been here since the latter part of 2017. You might see my Tumblr handle from time to time on the timeline because of reblogs (I post funny stuff sometimes!) but that ends there.

I am a silent viewer of everything that has happened and is happening in the fandom. I celebrated during good times, I cried over the worst times. I felt like quitting before but my trust towards Armie and Timmy, as partners and as individuals, is bigger than the battle/s they're fighting. Also, who am I to lose hope when they aren't? I am supposed to hold on when it's tough, not let go.

I'm just posting this to tell you all charmies that I love you guys so much. I never talked personally with all of you but you have been a family to me already thru all the posts we shared over the years about the boys. I appreciate every one of you who never fails to trust the process even how hard it is.

What Armie is facing right now is fucking painful and scary. If I could only offer a hug or anything, I totally would. Not to brag or anything but I'm a good judge of character that's why when this shitshow started early last January, I never once doubted him in my life. I may not know him personally, not interacted with him personally, but over the years, I get to learn how his heart works. And that man owns a heart of gold.

We lose a lot of good people in the fandom too. When someone leaves, there's a part of me that's hurting because there is no guarantee if we are gonna be able to celebrate with them once everything is alright. The group number is getting slimmer but the trust and hope never does and at the end of the day, that is what matters.

My line of thought is messed up so bear with this trashy post, I just hope that everyone who reads this up to this point is having a wonderful and safe day. We got this. The boys got this. I hope I can talk and be close friends with all of you but I don't know how to hold a conversation so I'm just here looking :( anyway, Dance party with you all soon xx

272 notes • Posted 2021-02-15 14:19:15 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[plotbunbun]

How the frick do I format this post, I'm- Okay, bear with me, I'm an amoeba, alright LOL (ykw, imma just follow your lead)

rules: tag people you wanna get to know better/catch up with

Tagged by: @yugovostok Thank you for this! I am used to flying under the radar on tumblr, so when I get tagged I have a mini-freakout LOL hence the time it took me to respond! (It's appreciated, though, thank you :> esp. since I talk too much and you already tagged other people I was gonna tag! AMAZING XD)

Favourite colour(s): I have ordered colours in a list going from most to least favourite since I was like, six years old! My all-time favourite is red, like a strong but not-too-bright shade of blood - then there's purple, blue, green, orange, yellow, etc. with varying shades ranking differently. (E.g. carnation pink is fondly placed, but hot pink is at the absolute bottom of the list, I can't stand it XD)

Currently reading: For fun? One Shot by Lee Child, though Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury are right up as soon as I have time. For class? Equiano's travel narratives. (I rather like the selected passages, perhaps because of how Equiano humbly beseeches the reader and suits his prose to poetry.)

Last song: In my head, The Attic from the Rule of Rose OST (a beautiful strings piece, one of the most memorable/representative from the game imo. Though barely anyone knows about RoR asdfj). In my ears? Reciprocity by Moon Rocket ft. Paula (found this through my TA o.o was surprised by how much I liked it, since I don't often listen to this stuff - its genre is Afro House, and I didn't know that existed!)

Last movie: Haven't seen a proper long-length film in more than a year - I watched 1917 in February 2020 (AND ADORED IT, BTW, IT'S AMAZING, PLEASE CHECK IT OUT. THESE CHARACTERS STILL POP UP IN MY HEAD BECAUSE THEY'RE WELL-WRITTEN AND ADMIRABLE). Short film? Adult Swim's Unedited Footage of a Bear. It's not what you think at first. (Psych horror, if you're into that :p).

Last series: DMC has taken up my brain for almost a year now, so I haven't started anything new. (Rewatching Yu Yu Hakusho for the 3rd time doesn't count ajsdfj). I did, however, prior to October 2020, take up watching Tin Tin's animated series in French. Can't say it fits everyone, but it was my delight to see Tintin enter mystery plots with his doggo and entertaining supporting cast XDd

Sweet or spicy or savoury: I have a sweet-tooth, but I also have a desi palate, so I favour richness over sweetness. All of the above, babyyyyy!

Tea or coffee: Both! I love black milk tea, masala chai, verbena tea, etc. (Kashmiri beats all though, fight me-) I love creamy coffee, too, though! (Can't stand acidic bitterness, so coffee ideally has its lovely black strangled via dairy products, pfft.)

Currently working on: Uni assignments, too many story ideas, and realigning my sleep schedule from nocturnal to diurnal again SDAFAASDF

Tagging: @sweatydoggo @princesssakurasylveon @atreyus @matchintowat3r @this-devil-is-already-crying @ladydeath-vergilswife @iamtheshriekingguineapig

[fatal-error-blog]

A Peaceful_Fundraiser has Occurred - An Effort to Fight Against Racial Injustice!

Hey everyone, this is going to be a long (but important) post. Given the title of this post, I’m sure you know what I’m about to mention. So before I get started I just want to say that it’s totally okay to not want to see this on your dash, coming from this blog specifically. While this is a really important issue that shouldn’t be shied away from, I do 1000% recognize that this blog has always been (very purposefully) kept as a fun and safe place for us all to enjoy a good story together. Heck, this blog is a safe place for me, too. I like knowing that I can come here and focus on content that makes me happy, and that makes you all happy, and just escape from how gross the world can be for a little while. But I also realize that I have the power to do some good, and I want to try to do some good, with your help, hopefully. I want you to know that it’s okay if you don’t want to see mention of what’s going on out there, here.

Any post I make on this blog that specifically references the racial injustice movement going on right now will be tagged with ‘FE BLM Fundraiser’. You are more than welcome to block that tag so you don’t have to see it here. It’s truly okay, I promise.

With that being said, let’s get into this!

I’ve never done anything like this before, so please bear with me! But like I said, I want to do some good with your help, hopefully. So I’ve made a charity fundraiser page where the proceeds will be going to the Black Lives Matter Global Network. If you’re not aware, there has been a lot of turbulence regarding racial injustice and police brutality going on all over the world, centered mostly in the United States. There are so many resources out there with information on what’s going on and different ways you can help (even without donating any money!) and I encourage you to do your research if it’s something you feel you need to be more enlightened on. I took a couple of days to think about how I wanted to help, and I thought that a fundraiser with awesome goals could be a really great thing! To be honest I’m not sure if we’ll reach many goals, but I think it’s worth a try, and no matter what, every little bit helps :) So here’s the deal:

A link to the donation page is here: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/fatal-error-blog

This fundraiser will run through the month of June, all the way up until midnight, June 30th EST!

Anyone who donates at least $15 will be able to receive a free commission from me!

Commissions will be a colored character bust (so like, from the top of their head to just below their shoulders) of a character of your choosing (not necessarily just Undertale themed, and can also include original characters or characters in different fandoms). This is a bit cheaper than my normal commission rate, so it’s a great opportunity to get some cool art if you’ve always wanted some!

If you want to claim your free commission, you need to: 1) Contact me via tumblr (@xedramon or @fatal-error-blog) or via email (xedramon@gmail.com) saying you’d like your commission

2) Send me a screenshot of your (at least) $15 donation

3) Tell me the name of the character you want, and a reference picture I can use

*** You MUST contact me to get your commission. Pretty sure I’m not able to see how much people donate so I will have no way to reach out to you, so you have to reach out to me first! Commissions will get done as quickly as possible, and will be sent via however you contacted me (so either tumblr or email)

FUNDRAISER GOALS!

So along with the commissions, there are community goals we can all reach together! I feel like some of the higher goals are a bit daunting to reach, but if we reach them, good for us! Each goal has a fun reward attached to it that I think is worth the goal we’re trying to reach. $50 - Everyone here gets to vote on an Undertale AU to be featured in an upcoming chapter of A Fatal_Error has Occurred! It can be anything, from an AU that hasn’t appeared yet, to one that already has, to one that you think would be hilarious or cool to see, whatever! Only stipulation is that the creator of that AU has to give me permission to include it. If this goal is reached, I’ll make a list of the AUs people want to see in order of what was voted for, just in case the 1st place winner doesn’t give me permission, I’ll check with 2nd place, and so on.

$100 - I’ll host a Game Night Livestream! We’ll pick a date, and play some stream-friendly games (like Jackbox Party Pack!) for several hours! Perhaps we’ll even do two nights so that people can choose which night works better for them :)

$175 - I’ll host a 12 Hour Art Livestream! What’ll happen is that the stream session will be broken down into different segments (so maybe for a couple hours we do a request stream, and then we switch to working on something else, etc). People will have the opportunity to vote on the date we do the stream.

$250 - Everyone here gets to vote on which side comic I work on next! This means I’ll give everyone a couple of choices to pick from with a brief idea of what each side comic would be about. Everyone votes, and I’ll start on the winning side comic immediately. This is a great opportunity to basically demand that you get to see what you’re most excited about sooner rather than later!

$500 - This goal guarantees that Chapter Five of A Fatal_Error has Occurred will be completed by the end of THIS YEAR. Which is some seriously insane pacing, but hey if we reach this goal, a promise is a promise!

$750 - I will create a (hopefully awesome) Fatal_Error animation! I have a couple of ideas in mind, and perhaps I’ll let you all vote on what idea you’d like to see come to life the most. I am the most nervous about this goal, haha!

$1000 - I’ll host a 24 Hour Art Livestream!!! That means exactly what it sounds like! We’ll pick a date, I’ll take the most intense nap the world has ever known before we start, and then we’re gonna stream for 24 hours straight. I’ll set up a schedule so we do different things every few hours to keep it interesting. It’ll be so rad!

$2000 - Everyone here gets to vote on an Undertale themed tattoo (an honest to goodness permanent one) that I will, 100%, absolutely get! How this will work is that everyone will be able to suggest what I should get, I’ll pick a handful of the most popular ideas (that I’m cool with having on my body for the rest of forever) and you all will get to vote on what I get! This would, of course, occur once tattoo shops are allowed to open back up and it’s safe for me to go get one. But I promise you, I’ll do it and it’s gonna be AWESOME.

$3000 - Last but certainly not least, if this goal is reached then I will resume working on Sondertale again, alongside working on A Fatal_Error has Occurred. What’s Sondertale? Well, it’s another UT AU comic I started on before I ever began Fatal_Error’s comic. I ended up setting it aside so that I could focus on Fatal’s comic instead, and over time there has been some...surprisingly popular demand/request that I return to working on it. Originally I was going to consider what to do with it after Fatal’s comic is done, but if this rather large goal is reached then I will pick right back up where we left off and commit to finishing the comic, in it’s originally intended comic format. It’ll be a LOT of work (which is why getting a legitimate permanent tattoo is an easier goal to reach than this) but if we work together to donate this much, then it’ll be absolutely worth it.

And that’s it for the goals! I think that the higher goals will be plenty hard to reach, but if somehow we surpass the highest goal then uhh...I guess we’ll talk about what kind of goals you all might like to see after that, haha.

This fundraiser will run through the rest of June - so if you would like to donate and help contribute to seeing some of these goals realized, please do!

I will reblog this post on the following days: June 7th, June 14th, June 21st, and June 28th as a reminder, and also to update everyone on how the fundraiser is going. As goals are hit, I’ll also mention them on the blog so we can all share in the excitement of what’s to come!

Thank you so, so, so much for your consideration, your help, and your support. Please stay safe, stay hopeful, and stay determined.

Link to fundraiser page: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/fatal-error-blog

[b00t-s]

We're all gossip-y bitches sometimes

this is part two

Janus xey/xem

Roman she/he

Patton he/him

Virgil he/him

See the character intros for more info

TW. Swearing, arguments, alcohol, drunk characters, the word v//mit is used once, characters being characters, past trauma mentioned, tiny tiny tiny sprinkle of angst but just a passing of it at end, and nothing to intense

Again, tell me if I'm being insensitive. Shout at me if I am.

Summary: Patton goes to talk to Janus about Roman. The group opens...'some' bottles. Virgil adds on some...interesting opinions.

Events occur few hours after this.

Janus just finished xeir nightly shift when Patton came bounding up to xem. Janus raised an eyebrow at how ecstatic he looked.

"Yes?" Xey managed out, forcing back the hundreds of snarky comments xey could of said right then.

"Can you hang out at My house later?" Patton practically beamed out.

"why would I want to 'hang out'? It's just a social construct created to give people a higher sense of being." Janus remarked, flipping to closed/open side to closed.

"So you'll be there?"

"hmm. Will doom-and-gloom be there?

"doom and---ohhh, Virge. Yeah, probably," Patton realised now that this was a bad mix of people to invite "probably-probably not for long though!"

"Fine" Janus replied, taking off xeir apron. Xey ignored the obvious lie. "I'll be there in an hour." Xey knew one way or another xey would end up there due to Patton's... effective persuading.

"Great!" Patton exclaimed "oh yeah, and...um...it's raining outside so..take my umbrella, kay?"

His tone more serious all of a sudden, Patton nodded to Janus' heavily made up face, so well done an ignorant bystander wouldn't of noticed the thick layers of foundation on xeir face.

Patton handed xem a translucent umbrella, patterned with cute frogs and flowers, to Janus. Ignoring the distasteful cartoons, Janus nodded and took the umbrella.

"See you soon, Jan!" Patton cheerily waved as he bounced off.

Janus folded xeir apron, opened Patton's umbrella and braved the outdoors.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Janus arrived at Patton's house exactly on time, bone dry, despite the heavily flowing rain. Patton expected nothing less of his friend. He invited xem inside, amazed as always by his friend's everyday fashion.

Jan was wearing a casual yellow shirt over a long sleeved black shirt. Fishnet gloves adorned xeir hands, and xeir ruffled hair was let lose.

Xeir fashionably messy hair was topped with a neatly placed black fedora, which of xey never took off. Xey even scarred persuaded Thomas to let xem wear it to work.

Patton offered xem a smile, and walked xem upstairs. "Hi Jan!" He grinned.

"Hello" xey replied mundanely.

Xey absent-mindedly glanced at Patton's outfit, which contained a violet cashmere sweater, bell bottomed jeans, circular silver glasses and a sunflower clip in his perfect curls.

It was a good look, xey had to admit.

When they both reached Patton's room, Janus stood still, taking in xeir surroundings.

Patton's room was covered with things from the 2000's; Tamagotchi's, stickers pressed up against the pastel wall, stuffed animals, wristbands, old CD's, care bears posters and butterfly clips littering the floor in a deadly trap.

A trans flag was pinned above the single bed with blue tack, right next to some inspirational and motivational quotes.

The whole place looked like it had been puked on by unicorns.

It hurt Janus' eyes.

Xey was a little overwhelmed by all the spiraling colours and nostalgia-inducing objects, so xey sat cross-legged in the middle of the pink carpet. The world slowed down.

Janus wondered, not for the first time, how a 29 year old could be this cheerful.

.

Or appear this cheerful.

"Jan?"

Janus gave a small twitch of xeir head, realising that xey had spaced out. "Hmm?" Xey replied.

"Hey, you were up with the clouds! I was just saying, I think Virge is here" Patton chirped.

"oh"

"he...might be staying for a little longer then i said"

"How wonderful." Janus muttered, knowing this would happen but hating it anyway.

"oh, don't be like that! I'm sure you guys could become friends!" Janus snorted. "Or...at least not kill at each other whenever you're in the same general area" Patton corrected.

"Anyway! I'm going to greet him at the door!" He suddenly proclaimed, skipping downstairs.

Janus was disgusted at how naïve this man was.

But that was a lie.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Patton slowed his happy skip to a casual walk. His grin slipped into a content smile as he reached the end of the stairs. Being so happy takes its toll on people, he thought. Soft tapping of the door interrupted his thoughts as he opened the door to reveal Virgil.

The first thing you notice about this man was his unfair tall-ness. He nearly had to duck to get inside; being too skinny didn't help. Virgil was wearing a plain black hoodie over a mcr top, completing the look with a short, pleated skirt and docs. His face was slathered in white foundation, accompanied with dark eyeshadow under his eyes.

"Virge!! I'm glad you could make it, even if you are late!!Again!" Patton hugged his friend, genuinely glad for his presence. The taller man patted Patton's curls awkwardly.

"Heyyyy Pat-" Virgil did the awkward pats on the back everyone does when they want to get out of a hug but don't want to say it in fear of hurting ones feelings. "Traffic-"

Patton withdrew from the hug and smiled. "okay! at least you're here safe! Can't control the traffic"

"Janus is waiting for us upstairs" Patton continued. He hurriedly carried on speaking before Virgil could spit out an insult about xem "say, you know what I hate about stairs? They're always up to something!" Patton laughed at his own joke, whilst Virgil pretended to face-palm, hiding a snigger.

"Alright, Alright dAd, didn't you say snake face was waiting for us?" Virgil mocked. Patton chuckled uncomfortably at the nickname, but nodded nonetheless.

"Yeah, we shouldn't leave xem waiting"

They both entered his room, having walked the short journey there in a comfortable silence. Patton noted Janus had not moved from were he left xem; xey had just shifted to read a book xey most likely found lying around. Janus looked up upon their arrival, xeir face immediately twisting into a mocking grimace upon seeing Virgil. "ah, you brought the racoon"

"Janus play nice--"

"you're one to talk, you participated in 2012 Tumblr" Virgil threw back

"must you be so wounding" Janus dramatically threw xeir hand against xeir forehead.

"okAY, that's enough guys." Patton firmly said. Janus pulled a face in reply, and Virgil returned the favour. Patton sighed. He just wanted them to get along, which was probably a high expectation by itself.

Perhaps he had booze leftover somewhere.

--------------------------------

Twelve near fist fights, two crying sessions and many, many, many bottles of alcohol later, it was nearing eleven pm and the group was drunker than a litter of catnip high kittens.

They all crowded into a close-knit circle on the bed, nearly falling off but not caring.

"ssso your telling me that flashy asss hhimbo sssssaid I wasss hot but then rude and that I wore too muchh makeup? What a *hic* bitchh" Janus hissed.

Patton giggled. "yeeeeee, be nice though! She was kindaaaa alllllllll over the place!" Patton continued bluntly, "But how would you feel if I set you guys up????~"

"oh pleassssse do, I would just love that" Janus may be trashed but xey still knew sarcasm. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending who you are, Patton did not.

"yayyy! This is gonna be great!!"

Virgil butted in then, waving around the bottle he was holding "hold on, just holllld on a minute there, you're planning to set up that" he vaugly gestured in Janus' direction "with Princy??? Xey've known her for what, 4 minutes? Life isn't a disney movie"

"Dare I detect a hint of jealousy there emo?" Janus purred "am I that lovable?" Xey hiccuped.

"ooooooooh" Patton leaned into the circle, loving the drunk drama.

"wouldn't you like to know weather boy" Virgil droned back, finishing off the bottle.

"Honey, I would dare ssay that was a yesss"

"nO"

"oooooo, you liiiiike meeeEe"

"you disgust me"

"kinky"

Patton shook his hands excitingly at them, nearly hitting Virgil, causing them to shut up. "I can't believe you're finally open to a relationship after what happened! With my best friend no least! Boy did I try to get you to go on more dat--" Patton suddenly clasped his hands over his mouth as if he just said something nasty.

.

.

Everyone went silent. Janus stared at Patron, xeir mouth slightly parted. Virgil laughed nervously to try and break the tension. It sounded strained.

Janus began to speak to stop Patton from starting to spout drunken apologies. "Well thatssss jusst a liee, I've dated pleeenty of people over..well...that...period..of time."

Everyone went silent again, not quite sure on what to say.

Virgil's anxiety was heightening due to the social awkwardness and the influence of the alcohol.

Patton was fidgeting in his lap.

It was Janus yet again who broke the uncomfortable atmosphere.

"Sssso, *hic* you ssaid you wanted me to go out with thisss idiot?"

----------------------------------

first-previous-next

updated masterpost

tag list: @arrowthenon-binaryroyalty, @spellingwillbethedeathofme,

ask if you want to be added or removed from tag list

and we meet our boi virgil

context is for losers

i could of probably cut out unnecessary things in that but y'know I'm new and I like it

these posts will be in chronological order, unless flashback, but it's not following a set-in-stone story line, so asks are, yet again, much appreciated.

I procrastinated too much during the making of this

[sparklingchan]

Dancing with a Stranger || Lee Minho (Stray Kids)

Pairing :  Reader (fem.) x Lee Know

Word count: 6k+

Warnings: Cuss words, mentions of alcohol, mentions of a break up, slight violence and blood (its nothing intense, I swear) ,suggestive towards the end, not proof read.

Genre: Angst , fluff, boyfriend AU , break up - make up AU.

Description : Lee Minho is the best boyfriend you could have ever asked for but when you end up doing the only thing he had begged you not to do, things start going downhill.

Author’s Note: I KNOW I SAID I’LL POST THIS ON MY BIRTHDAY but I am an impatient person and I really wanted everyone to read this asap :( This imagine is one of my personal favorites and like Boyfriend!Minho really hits different, won’t you agree? (Reposting because tumblr decided to be a bitch and not show up my fic in the tags? It’s 2 AM and I’m legit crying?? I was so excited about this) Yeh le @chogiwow​ !

Please do reblog, like and send in your views about this fic. I’m always happy to receive DMs and asks!

Enjoy!

It is really funny how a crowded, happening place like your college corridor turns into a cold ,eerie location of some prospective gruesome crimes by sun down. But then again , if you really think about it , maybe it’s not much of a ‘prospect’ at all.

Your knuckles start stinging first ,spreading then to your palm and the rest of your arm.

And the horrifying yet unavoidable realization finally dawns on you - you shouldn’t have punched your professor’s daughter.

“Y-you! You bitch! How dare you touch me?” She has this annoyingly loud voice that pierces through the tense air like a bullet. The prettiest girl on campus , the nicest of them all, the most desirable , but anyone who sees her right now, would be convinced she is neither of those things. Excluding you , of course , because you always knew how double faced and rude she was behind the mask of a pure princess.

“You should have kept your mouth shut then, Anya.” You say , hoping that the girl in front of you doesn’t notice the sudden fear in your voice that has replaced your authoritative tone from before.

But you can’t back off now.

Anya stumbles back with her mouth wide open , clutching her jaw as she curses under her breath , “My mother will hear about this ! I will get you expelled !”

“Oh yeah? Try me and the only thing your mother will hear about is what you and our lovely class president John do in the basement when she isn’t home.” You shoot back. You mentally want to slap yourself for that sharp tongue of yours that refuses to stop any time sooner. You had always wished that you’d gotten your father’s gentleness but sadly , you were the fateful heir of your mother’s roughness.

Anya doesn’t reply , instead , she throws herself at you , pushing you harshly against the lockers .And it is not long before her balled fists find a way to your nose , punching so hard that you literally feel the blood dripping down your face. You are so glad that all the students and staff have already gone home , you’d have hated for anyone to witness this.

“You will never lay your filthy hands on me again, y/l/n. ” she wraps her left hand around your throat while the other one pulls your hair with the strength of a bull. You scream in pain. Your body goes limp for a second - not from pain but from fear , but you realise it’s too late now. You should have thought about your fears before punching Anya.

Now all you can do is save yourself and escape.

The numbing pain from your scalp spreads through your head , going down your face and then attacking your throat. It gets harder to breathe.

“I’ll tell you what , Anya , you deserved it. You deserved all of it. ” you croak , “I told you to stop spreading filthy rumours about my cousin but you didn’t stop , I told you to stop bothering me but you didn’t listen. And now you’ve gone as far as spreading bullshit about my boyfriend who you’ve never even met ! I hate to break this to you but all of this is not going to make your trash personality any cooler. ”

Anya yelps with anger , increasing the grip on your throat and hair as you kick your legs helplessly, coughing .

“Shut up, y/l/n .” She growls , “ and as a matter of fact, Your boyfriend is just a mere dancer , how funny. An A-grade college student dating a poor street dancer. What happened , y/n, ran out of good guys for yourself?”

You want to yell at her and tell her that Minho is anything but a mere street dancer . He’s an amazingly talented artist who loves expressing himself through dancing , he’s a hardworking and honest person who is part of the country’s biggest dancing crew , and he’s your safe place , your home , your everything and god save anyone who dare hurt him.

But you bite your tongue this time.

“What now? Afraid ?” Anya raises her eyebrow, her lips curving into an ugly, sadistic smile.

You hate that smile.

You use one of your free hands to grab her hair while the other one slams hard against her jaw.

“Shit.” She mutters , falling back into the hallway.

But you’re not done yet.

You walk toward her with furious eyes and balled fists , and it isn’t long before she lands on the floor on her butt with a bloody nose and a black eye.

“Keep your mouth shut or you’ll end up on a hospital bed next time. In a coma. ” you spit out those words while she holds her tears back, face caked with humiliation.

Then you turn on your heels and walk out of the stupid college campus which would yet again be filled with more bullies by tomorrow morning, just like it has for centuries.

The dorm in which Minho lives almost always smells like freshly baked cookies ( courtesy: Lee Felix) and on rare occasions, it smells like burnt pancakes ( also courtesy: Lee Felix). Today , it smells like the former and you sigh in relief.

“Oh , my god ,y/n. What happened?” Changbin opens the door after you knock thrice , “Minho, dude, Come out , y/n is here!”

You shuffle into their big living room , head hanging low and eyes avoiding all sorts of confrontation , afraid of having to explain your stupid behavior.

“Y/n?” Minho sucks in a deep breath at your sorry sight , his eyes glazed with dread and fear as he walks toward you, ”Oh god, what happened?”

He swiftly takes out a handkerchief from his pockets , pressing it against your bleeding nose. His eyes are glossy with fear.

“I-it’s nothing. I fell down the stairs.” You lie. Can he please shut up and hug you already? You hate his questions so much , especially when you just can’t answer him.

“Y/n , that is not what a fall looks like. I’m not stupid. Whom did you beat up this time?” He asks , crossing his arms across his chest. And you really do almost blurt out the truth because it’s that easy for you to open up to him and because he knows you like no one else does. You’ve dated him long enough for him to know you like the back of his own hand. And that sometimes gets you in so much trouble. Lying to him is a near impossible task.

“Y/n, look at me!” He says , slightly annoyed now. He touches your chin gently, coaxing you to look at him but you’re too afraid to face him right now. Too guilty. So you shrug him off and walk into his shared room with Hyunjin, a homely feeling enveloping you almost instantly.

“Y/n, don’t you dare ignore me.”

Ugh. He can be so nosy at times.

“I came here for comfort , not for an interrogation. ” you pout , plopping down on the bed.

Minho scoffs , closing the door behind him. He wears a loose black t-shirt with a pair of shorts , and he smells like the expensive shampoo you had bought for him a few months ago ,which he initially refused to take but now loves it. He looks so good and smells so good and suddenly all you want to do is cuddle him and talk about his day, with his Winnie The Pooh blanket draped around your bodies.

“You aren’t getting any comfort till you tell me what happened.” He says . He stands with his back against the door , and stares at you as if you were a criminal. Maybe you were one ,but that doesn’t mean he’ll hate you or something ,right?

“Did you hit the professor’s daughter?” He asks when you don’t answer even after two whole minutes. Your stomach does a somersault, adrenaline coursing through your veins. You regret telling him about Anya a few weeks ago and you specifically saying that you’d one day ’ punch her brains out ’. You wish you’d shut up sometimes.

You play with your fingers, staring at your feet. You can’t look him in the eye anymore , not when you did the exact (and only) thing he had asked you not to do. You feel horribly guilty.

“Well in my defense, she was being a bitch ,okay? She was calling you a good for nothing dancer and ugly and underqualified and - ” you sigh , “ My point is, I couldn’t bear listening to all that, okay?” You admit , cheeks burning with embarrassment.

Minho doesn’t answer, very unusual of him by the way, and you snap your head to look at him.

The eyes that had once held concern and fear for your well being now are clouded with disappointment . He’s mad at you.

“She’s not wrong though. I am a good for nothing dancer, I go to a stupid cyber college. Nothing worth fighting over. Why the fuck did you put yourself in danger like that!” And he’s yelling now , his relaxed posture from before now replaced with a tensed one. You notice his clenched fists and teeth ,and you shudder with fear. He is furious. But at what? You don’t really know.

“Are you seriously justifying her actions? Minho, she can’t talk shit about you. I will not let her do that! ” You yell back ,getting up from the bed , “She doesn’t even know you!”

“Which is exactly why her opinions on my lifestyle do not matter ! And you don’t have to just go around acting like my bodyguard all the time!” He says.

Your heart drops, brows furrowed in confusion at his words that feel like a dagger is plunged into your heart.

You walk up to him, trying to take his hand in yours but he extracts it right back. “I’m sorry, okay? I wasn’t thinking. You know how crazy I get when I’m angry.”

“A ’ sorry ’ doesn’t suffice it. The damage is already done. And if tomorrow, you are thrown out of the university, who’s fault would it be? ” he presses his hand to his face, trying to calm himself down , “I can’t believe I am dating such an immature woman ,y /n. Grow the fuck up, will you?” He says , his anger filled eyes staring right into your soul . Your heart breaks into millions of small pieces , as your breath hitches in your throat. He had never said something so harsh to you in the many years that you’ve dated him and you really wish he hadn’t done it today either because you realise you’re not very good at handling hurtful words, especially from Minho. At all.

“Minho , I know you’re angry - ”

“Leave.” The world stops spinning for a second , your eyes widening with shock, “Go home. Don’t come back again.”

You want to cry but tears seemed to have given up on you too , his words striking you harder than any of Anya’s punches ever did. All your feelings seem to have converted into a much worse state of numbness when those words leave his mouth.

“Y-you are not breaking up with me, right?” Your usually loud voice comes out as a whisper.

“I am. Go, please. I don’t want to see you right now.” He opens the room door for you to exit, his eyes never meeting yours. His lower lip is caught between his teeth, a sign that he’s about to tear up yet you don’t know if he wants too be comforted by you right now, or ever. So picking up the remaining pieces of your damaged heart , you walk out of the room , stopping only to glance over at him one last time , in hopes that he’d change his mind. But no, his angry demeanor is still there , strong and tough and unbreakable.

And when you finally leave , Minho is grateful that Hyunjin wasn’t home - for he would have hated to cry in front of his roommate.

The bright neon sign with ’ Kim’s Restaurant ’ written on it shines in the distance , blurred only by the tears in your eyes and not by the tiny droplets of water slowly falling from the sky.

You feel a soft blanket of comfort draping over you when you walk toward the familiar building.

Your aunt and uncle have worked hard to build a proper business from a small shop that had once just sold fried chicken and cold drinks ; and it makes you so happy to see their new restaurant still packed with people this late in the evening.

“Oh , y/n. I was just about to call you. Did you not go to your dorm yet? ” your aunt asks from the reception desk , chewing her favorite gum and typing aggressively into the computer.

“I stayed back today. Project work.” You lie. Your aunt lifts up her head , her eyebrows knitted together and a suspicious scowl gracing her face , almost mimicking your mother. Your mom and your aunt are twin sisters , born just three minutes apart , and since then it has become your mom’s life mission to remind your aunt of the whooping three minute gap every chance she gets. It’s hilarious, really.

“Don’t make that face at me. You look exactly like mom.” You mutter , leaning against the wooden desk.

“I do look exactly like your mom , y/n. ” she replies with a chuckle, “Anyway, what’s going on? You look tired.”

Honestly, you’d love to talk about Minho and the impulsive breakup and the aching in your heart with your aunt because there’s no better person to seek advice from, but you don’t feel it right to burden her when she’s working plus a part of you doesn’t really trust your aunt to keep all the secrets to herself.

“No, I’m okay. Just mid college crisis.” you say.

Your aunt hums in response, probably not buying it but you’re happy she doesn’t push it anymore, “ Are you hungry? Want something to eat?”

A bag of fries with a bucket full of chicken wings sounds terribly tempting right now but you’ve lost all your appetite for the day the moment Minho closed the door behind you. Now all you feel is drained, tired, sad. Moreover, that is not what you were here for, “Nah, I’m good. Is Yugyeom home though?”

The door to your aunt’s house opens only after you ring the stupid bell at least three times , as you stand on the porch, judging the loud music that blasts from within the walls. “Wow , you look like shit.” Yugyeom always has some snarky comments up his sleeve but you are in no mood to be playing word games with him right now. You barge into the house , pushing past your cousin who you smells like donuts and Axe.

“Shut up.” You say, plopping down on his bed . You really want to cry right now but Yugyeom has never been big on consoling so you try to hold it in .

“What’s wrong? I’m not joking.” He sits beside you, putting down his gaming console on the table by the bed.

You play with your fingers , breathing in and out to calm your nerves. Yugyeom, out of all the people in the world , is the easiest to talk to but today , you find yourself on the edge , trying to be very careful with your choice of words. Maybe you were afraid of angering him as well.

“I..I kind of beat Anya up.” You confess ,swallowing the lump in your throat.

Yugyeom becomes still for a moment , staring at you with his mouth gaping and then his face breaks into the widest grin in the world.

“You really beat that bitch up? Like for real?” He asks , excitedly bro fisting the air like an athlete after winning an important match.

You nod , “And then I went to see Minho. He obviously didn’t react the way you did. He was very angry and then he broke up with me. ”

Yugyeom’s celebrations are short lived as you continue to tell him the details of what had happened earlier, his smile slowly dissolving into a frown.

“Y/n, first of all you really need to learn how to break news to other people. It’s always the bad one first and then the good one. Noob.” Yugyeom bumps his shoulder softly to yours. You would otherwise have argued with him and told him why the happy news should always be first and why the bad news should be last but you feel too exhausted to speak anymore. Your shoulders slump as you put your hands on either side of your head.

“How could he just break up with me like that? He had no logical reason to! He’s so selfish.” You mutter , tears gathering up in your eyes. You try to blink them away before your cousin notices them.

“I don’t think he did it for himself , y/n. You told him that you hit Anya because she was speaking trash about him. Of course he’d distance himself from you so you wouldn’t want to fight his fights for him.” Yugyeom says.

“I wasn’t fighting his fights! She trash talks about you and me and him and everyone else. It was the last straw for me. I didn’t do anything wrong. ” you explain , your heart hammering against your chest.

“I didn’t say what you did was wrong ,y/n. You have a right to be angry with her. But what we’re talking about is Minho. Think about this from his point of view,” Yugyeom replies, his hands on your shoulders , “You beat Anya up , got hurt and possibly put yourself in trouble with her mother all because of him. He feels guilty.” Yugyeom is speaking to you like he’s speaking in one of those debates that he does at college. You love seeing him speak, mostly because he is so manipulative yet subtle , smart yet observant and he can convince you so easily. He could easily pass as the best debater in your college - too bad you’d already taken that place.

“Or it could be because he doesn’t want more trouble in his account. Maybe he’s ashamed of me. ” you whisper, “ And I told you, I didn’t do it just for him. I did it for me and you too and all those people she bullies and makes fun of. Why is he the only one reacting like this? ”

Yugyeom sighs, “Yes , I appreciate your concern for my well being, y/n. But he might not be thinking the same way as I am. I was happy that you beat Anya up , but he was worried about you. He obviously doesn’t want you to get badly hurt.”

You rub the tears that flow down your face with the heel of your hand then place your head on Yugyeom ’s shoulder.

“He might have fallen out of love with me. Maybe he just needed an excuse to call it off.” You mutter.

“You know Minho’s better than that, y/n.”

He’s right . Minho really is better than that.

Break ups suck. In the truest sense. But what you now realize is that break ups don’t hurt that much immediately, but slowly , as the days go by and the memories start flashing in front of your eyes every waking moment , you feel like nothing more than a sack of meat and bones, drained of all emotions.

“For this unit of organic chemistry, I need all of you to memorise the reaction mechanisms over the weekend.” Your professor’s voice feels distant to you , as if there were a wall in between the two of you , even though he stands just a few steps away.

Your classmates start murmuring among themselves, fixing study dates that almost always are unsuccessful and gathering notes they hadn’t bothered to complete until now. But you remain seated in your chair , staring out the window, not bothering to talk to anyone.

It is a bright sunny afternoon and you see all the happy faces out on the field - couples, friends , classmates. You feel jealous. You clearly remember planning a weekend trip with Minho a few days ago and If you hadn’t decided to mess things up so bad, he’d have already been at your college gate by now , waiting in his father’s old car. You clearly remember how excited he was about the trip.

The dismissal bell rings not long after and as you walk out of the college gate, surrounded by thousands of students, you feel lonelier as ever. And your mind imagines his car below the tall banyan tree , his lean frame leaning against the door with a silly grin. You could almost see him there. Even though its just in your mind.

You miss him so much that it gets hard for you to even breathe properly.

“Okay , how long are we going to stay here? I have better things to do than stalk your girlfriend, Lee.” Changbin’s whiny voice breaks the silence in Minho’s car, much to his annoyance.

“Just a few more minutes. Till she reaches the dorm.” Minho replies , his hand limp on the steering wheel and his lips pressed in a tense line.

His eyes are focused on you , your slump shoulders and your unusually slow walk and the dark circles under your eyes. It is obvious that Minho wasn’t the only one having sleepless nights .

“Dude , why don’t you just talk to her? I’m sure she would listen.” Hyunjin says from the backseat , munching on peanuts, “ Plus I think she saw us.”

Minho watches as you turn around a corner and walk toward your dorm building , away from him. He almost wishes you’d seen him.

“It’s not that easy.” Minho mutters, turning the engine on.

At least he knows you’re okay, and safe. That’s enough reassurance for him to try and move on but he somehow always ends up driving to your college gates during dismissal,  the brief view of your face still making the worst of his days better.

“It’s not that easy.” He repeats to reassure himself .

“Guess what.” Yugyeom chimes in early one morning, leaning against the locker door beside yours.

“What?” You ask , not sparing him a glance. Your hands busy themselves in flipping over the pages of your notebook ; last minute revisions before tests are more important than the actual studying.

“I saw Anya this morning. She was running late , I think, and she bumped into a junior near the gate. I was sure all hell was about to break loose but she just apologized and left!” Yugyeom says , laughing.

You turn to look at him, a look of surprise plastered on your face. Anya actually did that? Instead of being her usual, defensive, violent self she actually chose to apologize? It’s hard to digest but you’re sure Yugyeom wouldn’t be making all that up. He’s not that creative.

“The sun must have risen from West today.” You reply with a chuckle.

The morning bell rings throughout the corridor, indicating the commencement of your classes. Throwing in your notebook ,you close your locker and heave a sigh. Its just a small quiz but you find yourself stressing over every single thing these days.

“Oh and by the way , it’s Jackson Wang’s birthday party tomorrow.” Yugyeom adds as the two of you start making your way towards the chemistry lab , coats hanging by your arms.

“And we’re going?” You question ,cocking your eyebrow.

Yugyeom is not really into parties , especially the over-the-top , spectacular , rich-kid parties that Jackson Wang often finds himself throwing, yet Yugyeom always goes because a) Jackson is his best friend and b) Who doesn’t like to feel like a rich man even if it’s just for one night?

“Yes. Both of us.” He says. You shrug your shoulders. You have always liked going to Jackson ’s parties and fawning over his huge mansion and the various cuisines placed in front of you that you can’t even name properly and watching other rich kids like himself play golf in the living room. It was pretty entertaining . Even with your post break up gloominess, you wouldn’t want to miss all of that.

“Okay.”

“And one more thing,” he starts ,“I saw Lee Minho outside our college gate yesterday. You might want to do something about that.”

No, unlike what was expected of you, you didn’t really do anything about it but Yugyeom’s words stick to you like a piece of gum throughout the whole day ,consuming every thought and pulling out all those thoughts that you’d stacked up and thrown away into the top most drawers of your mind. You were convinced that the day he broke up with you , he was done. He didn’t want to look back or reconsider. He wasn’t coming back to you. And you’ve been trying to move on as best as you could ,keeping your mind occupied and busy all the time. Yet you had to accept that in the wee hours of the night , staring at the ceiling ,you would often find yourself reminiscing him and whatever you two had. The gentle touches , the late night walks, shy smiles and endless talks ; you missed them.

But his presence outside the college changes the whole game, doesn’t it?

Later that day, you kind of regret agreeing to go to Jackson’s party because you soon realised that both Minho and Jackson went to the same dancing school at one point of time , and Minho probably (like a 99.9% probability because Jackson Wang never leaves anyone uninvited) was invited too.

You dread every second in Yugyeom’s stupid car that brings you one more step closer to seeing Lee Minho again. And although you would never dare say it out loud , a part of you was a little excited too.

“Dude , y/n , I have never felt so underdressed in my entire life.” Yugyeom breathes in as the car stops in front of the huge metal gates of Jackson’s mansion.

“Me neither.” You agree, your eyes glued to the people walking in and out of the doors, wearing tuxedos and dresses and sparkly jewelry. You feel horribly out of place all of a sudden, like a fish flying in the sky and a bird swimming deep under the water- you feel like you don’t belong here.

You look down at your black converse , tightly laced and washed for this very party and your loose ,dark green tshirt and ripped jeans .

“Why didn’t you tell me this was a fucking masquerade ball or soemthing?"you hiss at your cousin.

"Shut up, y/n , you’re not the only one feeling odd. ” Yugyeom shoots back

But all of that discomfort is gone the moment you see Jackson Wang sitting on the huge sofa in the living room , wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts and a white tank top , drunk and wasted and blabbering.

“Let’s go before he sees us.” Yugyeom says , pushing you through the crowds of people clad in silks and pure cotton , “Drunk Jackson is difficult to handle.”

“Oh , I beg to differ , All Jacksons are difficult to handle.”

The garden behind the mansion is filled with even more people than your brain was accustomed to seeing while the DJ stands at the top of a platform , headphones on and screaming into the mic every once in a while to hype up the crowd in front of him , but you realise it’s hardly needed. People are already way too hyped up in here.

“Y/n?” You hear a voice say and you immediately turn around to face Hwang Hyunjin standing under the wonderful night sky, looking as gorgeous as ever. But then again ,when does he not look pretty?

“Hey, Hyunjin. How have you been?” You ask with a smile. Your awkward hand movements do not go unnoticed by him but he thankfully doesn’t comment on it.

“I’ve been good. How have you been ?” He replies , inching closer to you. From the corner of your eye, you see Yugyeom slowing disappearing into the crowds, leaving you all alone to deal with your ex boyfriend’s best friend. You make a mental note to never lend your Netflix account to him again.

“I’m okay, too.” You say.

Hyunjin nods, his eyes staring at you curiously, “Tell me , y/n , how have you really been? I know what happened between you and Minho.”

You gulp , heat creeping up to your cheeks.

“I’m fine, really. Don’t worry about it.” You say, biting the inside of your cheeks nervously.

“If you say so.” he grins , putting an arm around you , “But I’ll be real honest with you , Minho - ”

The words are cut off when the DJ suddenly blasts a new song through the speakers , simultaneously yelling into the mic. The sweaty, wasted , hopeless crowd around you yell a few ’ Let’s GO! ’s and ’ Fuck It Up ’s in response.

“What were you saying?” You yell over the music , pinching Hyunjin’s t-shirt to get his attention. He glances at back you then points toward his left , “That.”

You turn your head in that direction , your heart skipping a beat the moment your eyes meet Minho’s nervous ones. You see him walk towards you in long strides ,his handsome features painted with anxiousness and worry and a foreign sense of guilt. You were angry at him ,yes ,but as he makes his way to you , his silky hair bouncing softly ,his pink lips slightly parted, his starry eyes locked on you ,he looks…Brilliant? Breathtaking? Gorgeous? Stunning? All of these?

He wears a blue tshirt with black pants and has a jacket tied around his waist. He looks beautiful- even though you are mad at him. He looks way too beautiful to not acknowledge it.

And just a few seconds before he reaches you , you break away from Hyunjin’s hold and run away into the crowd.

“Y/n, wait!” You hear the both of them yell at the same time. But only one of them follows behind you and you don’t even have to look back to know who it is.

Fear and anger creep into your body , slow but painful like poison. You remember the last few days and how horrible it had been for you , all because of Minho and his lack of understanding in a moment when it was needed the most. Over the past few weeks, your ex boyfriend had made no attempts to contact you whatsoever and if he thinks he could just pop out of nowhere and start talking to you again, then he’s gravely mistaken. You might still love him and want nothing more than to hold him close , but that doesn’t mean you aren’t angry anymore . You are not ready to face him. At all.

Your feet burn as you run further away from Minho, jogging up the stairs inside the mansion with your hand tightly gripping the cold metal railing.

“Y/n, please, just listen to me once.” He yells, still not giving up.

You scoff , “Why should I? You didn’t listen to me that day either!”

You find a door at the end of the staircase, your hands pushing it to reach the empty terrace that you’d heard Jackson bragging about during your English classes when everyone was too bored to listen to the professor. The terrace really was beautiful, with all kinds of flowers blooming and a fountain with lights , you would have almost been breath taken if not for the man closing up behind you.

“Y/n, damnit, ” Minho huffs, reaching his hand out toward you, panting, “Stop, okay? Just listen to me , please.”

Not like you have an option anyway. You sigh in defeat , walking toward the fountain, the carpet grass rustling under your feet. “What?” You demand, your voice bitter with anger.

Minho stands in front of you , his brown unkempt hair and firey eyes reminding you of the night you guys had kissed for the first time. He stands at an arm’s distance, giving you enough space to think things through. He would never want to force you to do something you wouldn’t want to. And even if everything turned out to be not in his favor tonight, he’d gladly accept it because he deserved it after treating you so badly.

“I’m sorry.” He whispers after a few seconds.

You roll your eyes, “For what? What did you do? As far as I know, THE Lee Minho never makes mistakes!”

He hangs his head low with shame ; he didn’t mean a single word he’d said that night. He was worried, yes, he was very worried about your bashful attitude but he was also very grateful to you for always having his back. It physically hurt him to see you bleeding and completely worn out that day.

“Well, I did make a mistake this time. I said some words that I didn’t mean at all and I’m afraid the girl I intended those words at hates me.” He says , pressing his lips in a line.

“Damn right , she does.” You can’t even look into his eyes anymore because you’re too afraid of laying your true feelings bare in front of him.

“I’m really, really sorry, baby. I know I’m an asshole and I hurt you. I have no excuses to offer but I just want you to know that a single second more away from you will drive me crazy. ”

You process his sentences slowly - letter by letter, inking those words permanently into your memories. “Why?” You ask. What a silly question ,y/n, do you really want to torment this man so much ?

Minho gulps, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the movement, “Because you’re quite literally my everything.”

Minho only dares to grin a little when you no longer throw virtual daggers from your eyes at him. “I hate you , you know?” You say.

“I know ,y/n. I don’t even blame you. I shouldn’t have said all that. I was just so, so mad. But that really wasn’t an excuse to be so rude to you or break up. I should have talked it out instead . I deserve the hate.” He admits.

The frown on your lips dissipates slowly ,making way for a sad, small smile.

“It was so hard, Minho. You don’t even know. I had never felt so lonely in my entire life.” You say.

“Believe me, y/n, I know.” He whispers as your hands find their way to his cheeks, rubbing them ever so gently.

You scan his face, absorbing in the fact that he was actually in front of you and this wasn’t one of your unrealistic imaginations.

Minho takes not more than a half step towards you and you automatically wrap your arms around his neck , like the millions of times you’d already done before. Everything about him is so familiar yet so new. Like layers and layers to discover and only one goddamn lifetime.

He nuzzles his face into the crook of your neck , mumbling soft apologies against your skin, his arms tightening around your waist with every passing second.

“I missed you so much.” You admit, playing with his beautiful brown locks, taking in the smell of his (your) favorite body wash.

“I missed you too.” He replies , “So goddamn much. I almost wanted to cuddle Hwang Hyunjin at night.”

You laugh ,as he admires the way your noes scrunches up when you giggle and the way your eyes bend into crescent moons. In that moment, Minho realises how much he loves seeing you laugh ,especially when he’s the reason behind it. It fills him up with so much pride.

You hear the DJ change the song into a slow , romantic one as his voice booms through the speakers once again , “Ladies and gentlemen, grab the person next to you, with consent of course, and hold them close for this one because tonight is all about dancing with strangers!”

The crowd goes feral.

Minho raises an eyebrow at the DJ’s words , a sly smile playing on his lips , “Shall we?”

He pulls away from the embrace, gently bowing toward you and offering you his hand like some gentleman right out of a fairytale.

“He said dancing with a stranger, not girlfriend.” You deadpan but you take his hand anyway.

He chuckles, leaning closer to rest his forehead on yours, “Technically, we’re still broken up. That makes us strangers.”

You have to give in - not because of his weird reasoning but because of how terribly cute he looks when he smiles like that at you. He holds you close, swaying slowly to the music and grinning like there’s no tomorrow.

“What’s so funny, Lee Minho?” You ask , raising your eyebrow.

He shakes his head, still grinning, “I just realised how rare it is to find a woman who would quite literally declare war for you.”

“Now, you’re exaggerating a little bit with the war thing but yes, that’s the essence of it.” You reply with a proud smile.

He laughs, as you put your hand on his cheek once again and press your lips softly to his. You’d missed this so much - not just kissing him but also this feeling of intimacy you share with him everytime you’re in a closed space, sharing the same air. You missed his teasing, his stupidly sweet laughter, the warmth of his embrace. You missed Lee Minho - your safe place, your best friend, your world.

And even after everything, you both know for sure that you would fight the world for Minho if need be, and he’d do the exact same thing for you. Every single time.

[bnhayyy]

The Call (6)

Chapter Title: Heartache

Wordcount: 2.8k

Fic Tag: Click

Ao3 Link: Click

Chapter Summary: Mikasa tells Annie about her past.

Notes: Alright! So this chapter is a little on the short side. The next two chapters will be as well, having originally been one super long chapter that I cut into three for the sake of themes and pacing. But on the bright side, yesterday I posted a Yumihisu one-shot that takes place between the second and third scene of chapter three, so be sure to check that out if you haven't seen it already. Once again, thank you to Celadon for betaing this chapter! And if you’re enjoying this fic, please consider joining my writing discord or buying me a ko-fi! You know, ko-fi. The thing that exists so monetized tumblr doesn't have to.

The week following the visit to the club passed by in a blur. Annie watched as Mikasa doubled down on trying to hunt Ymir, only for none of her efforts to bear fruit. For good reason. The whole time Mikasa hunted, Annie carefully walked the line of looking helpful while contributing nothing. 

Her faked efforts and need to preserve the scapegoat for as long as possible canceled out Mikasa's genuine zeal.

Or maybe Ymir was just better at this than they were. The results were the same either way. It looked like they weren't going to see Ymir again until she was ready to be seen.

Krista had proven herself to be both a help and a hindrance.

Annie hadn't seen the girl since that night at the club. Art was the only class she shared with her, but a little snooping had revealed that she hadn't been to any of her other classes either. Apparently, she had been calling in sick. Although they had been able to find the apartment building she lived in, they hadn't been able to get her exact address, and Mikasa wasn't quite ready to break into every single apartment in her quest to find Ymir.

Or confirm that Krista was still alive.

Annie noticed that Mikasa's anxiety had subtly grown with every day that they didn't see Krista… just not enough to make her break the law. For her part, Annie didn't press the matter. Seeming too willing to break into someone's apartment could set off all kinds of alarms. Besides, it was good that Krista was making herself scarce. If she had decided to stick around and give Mikasa ideas about Ymir's innocence, Annie really might have had to act.

That didn't mean that she was in the clear. Even if she was staying away for the time being, the fact remained that Krista Lenz was an unknown factor in a carefully calculated equation. Ymir too, for all that her little group had been using her presence to their favor so far. They had the potential to throw everything off balance if they decided to get involved. For that reason, they had decided to crack down on as much as they could.

Getting phone taps set up was a risky, tedious, and nerve-wracking process. However, by the end of the week, the phone in Smith's office, Smith's landline, Smith's cellphone, Mikasa's phone, and even Jean, Connie, Sasha, and Armin's phones were all bugged. Annie still had to find an opportunity to get Smith's friend's phones, but she planned on taking care of it soon.

Annie didn't know what to make of those two. An overly energetic watcher and a grouchy little demon hunter, the meeting Smith called to introduce them to everyone had been dominated by the former rambling while the latter glared at anyone who dared to look at him for more than three seconds. She didn't understand how Smith would mesh with personalities like theirs. Yet watching them for a little while had made it clear that the three of them were close. Genuinely close, not like the act that she, Reiner, and Bertolt put on.

Or the lie that she was building with Mikasa.

***

Annie: Patrolling tonight?

Mikasa: Of course

Mikasa: I'll be at your place at 7

***

It was 7:15 when Mikasa arrived. Annie may not claim to know her well, but she had gotten to know the last slayer well enough over the past few weeks to know that being late was unusual for her. She raised an eyebrow when she opened the door for her, allowing it to ask her unspoken question.

"Armin was over," Mikasa said as she stepped inside.

"I see," Annie said, closing the door. "You seem... close."

No. That wasn't right. One of the first things she had learned about Mikasa was that she wasn't truly close to anyone, Armin included. Annie leaned against the door as she reconsidered her phrasing. "You seem like you could be close," she settled on.

Mikasa stiffened. She turned to face Annie, but instead of making eye contact with her, she looked down at the bag that held her slaying supplies. "Yeah," she said, voice soft, but too vague to make out any specific emotion. She clutched her bag to her chest, probably unthinkingly. If she knew that she was holding onto it like a comfort and a shield, god knew that she probably wouldn't let herself. "If things were different, we probably could be."

Annie frowned. So that was the problem, the mindset that she and Reiner had been working so hard to cure her of. (Just in time to snatch her life away from her.) "You keep him at a distance because you're the slayer," she surmised.

"No," Mikasa said, causing Annie to blink in surprise. "It's because of..."

Mikasa hesitated. At least, that was what Annie thought was happening at first. As the seconds dragged on, she saw that whatever she was thinking about seemed to be actively causing her pain.

Annie frowned and stepped away from the door. She wanted to know about Mikasa, but not if it forced the other girl to dredge up painful thoughts. Annie was already going to be enough of a shadow on her existence. If it eased her suffering a little, she was okay with the other slayer dying a mystery. "Hey," she said, "you don't have to-"

"No," Mikasa cut her off. "You deserve to know this." A shadow of resolve fell over her expression as she spoke. She clearly wasn't happy about whatever she was going to say, but that wasn't going to stop her from saying it.

Annie felt something warm flicker in her chest. Maybe it was respect. Maybe it was admiration. Whatever it was, it was helpless to change the course of events. She still acknowledged it, because there was something to be said for someone who was willing to face things that they knew would hurt them. 

This feeling was probably the closest that Annie would ever come to self-sacrifice, the selfish, cowardly person that she was. But she could still allow herself to look at that light.

For as long as it was allowed to burn.

"Do you want to talk in my room?" Annie asked. If Mikasa really was about to spill her guts, then a degree of privacy was the least she could offer her. It was the only thing she could offer her.

Mikasa swallowed heavily and nodded. "Yes please."

Annie nodded and turned to lead her down the hall. The room at the very end was hers. It was small - all of their rooms were. Their organization had paid for them to rent a small house so that they didn't have to take the additional risk that would have been killing someone and occupying theirs, but they hadn't been willing to spring for anything extravagant. At least it wasn't hard to make people believe that a trio of college students could afford to rent it.

If Mikasa had any thoughts on how sparsely decorated the room was, she didn't voice them. Annie lead her over to the bed, where she sat down on one end while Annie took the other. There they sat, Annie trying not to stare too intensely at the other slayer as she waited for her to start. For her part, Mikasa was clearly trying to gather herself. She stared distantly up at the ceiling as she ran through whatever thoughts might be racing through her mind.

Finally, Mikasa shifted her gaze to Annie. "I met Armin through his best friend," she said. "A boy named Eren Yaeger."

Annie frowned. Barely anything had been said, yet she already got the sense that it was more complicated than that. The look on Mikasa's face made it impossible for her not to. 

"There was a home invasion when I was fourteen," Mikasa continued. Her voice was gaining a distant quality, like she was trying not to get caught up in the memory. Based on what she was saying, Annie was all but certain that really was the case. "My parents were killed and I was abducted. Eren ran into us when they were forcing me into the car."

Mikasa paused. Her attempt to distance herself from her emotions must not have been working, because something in her gaze fractured.

Suddenly, Annie had a horrible feeling about how this story ended for Eren. 

"Eren saved me," Mikasa managed. "He killed two of my abductors, and when the third arrived, he gave me the strength to kill him myself."

Mikasa had killed someone? A human being? Annie tried to keep her surprise from showing too readily. She must have failed, because Mikasa paused, fresh hesitation written across her features. 

Annie gave a tiny nod. "It was understandable, given the circumstances."

"That's…" Mikasa faltered. "Eren said that they didn't count as human beings."

"I suppose he might be right." Of course, by that logic, she probably didn't either. 

Mikasa nodded. Whether she was agreeing with Annie or simply recalibrating herself, she did not know. The slayer pulled herself together and continued before she had a chance to make a definitive guess either way.

"After that, it looked like things might be... Eren wrapped his scarf around me and said I could come home with him." Mikasa's expression was blank in a way that could only be forced. However, something in her eyes said that she was struggling to breathe. "That was when the vampire showed up. I didn't know that I was the slayer yet or understand what that meant. But I think he knew, somehow, and wanted to kill me before I could become a problem. It was me he was after. But he was harder to fight than a human, and I was scared, and Eren... he wouldn't let him take me without a fight."

For half a second, Mikasa zoned off, her gaze focusing on some point over Annie's shoulder. She snapped back to herself before Annie could figure out if she should say something. It made her wonder if she didn't want any interruptions.

No. It was more likely that she just wanted to be done with this story as soon as possible.

Annie understood the feeling.

"The vampire knocked both of us unconscious," Mikasa continued. "He must have taken the car keys off one of the dead men's corpses, because when we woke up, we were in the trunk. We tried to get out, but it was no use.

"He took us out by a cliff looking over the sea. He went for me first. Eren didn't like that. I tried to fight the vampire off and told Eren to run, but I couldn't... It wasn't..."

Mikasa started blinking as she fell silent. Annie would have been horrified to see the normally stoic slayer struggling to hold back tears if she weren't surprised that she hadn't started crying sooner.

"You were fourteen," Annie whispered. "You didn't have any training or know what you were dealing with."

Even fourteen-year-olds with years of training and who knew what they were dealing with would have a hard time against a vampire. How much had she struggled against Bertolt and Reiner when she was that age? She had been one of the best human cadets in the organization and Bertolt was far too prone to trying to go easy on her, but it was still hard. It might have been easier if she had already been called back then, but even that wouldn't have been enough to make up for the fear and ignorance if she hadn't been aware of the supernatural.

It seemed that Mikasa didn't see it that way. She shook her head and murmured, "I still had the strength of the slayer."

"Raw strength isn't everything," Annie insisted.

"Maybe not," Mikasa said. "But it should have been enough.

Her gaze drifted back to that spot over Annie's shoulder for a moment. Annie couldn't begin to try to gauge the look in her eyes, especially since it was only visible for a short moment. Her eyes switched to something far more shuttered and closed off in an instant.

"I was thrown over the cliff and into the ocean," Mikasa continued. "I thought I was going to die. And for a moment, I did."

The slayer's eyes closed as she remembered the moment, and Annie was foolishly tempted to do the same, just to acknowledge the event that allowed her to come into being.

Even if Annie herself had only become a slayer two years after Mikasa's death. She wondered, did Mikasa realize that some poor, unknown, short-lived slayer had come between them? She must have. Annie had already said that she was called in 2016 back at the meeting. The lost slayer was probably going to be one of those things that no one talked about, for those who realized that she'd even existed.

Just like Eren Yaeger.

Mikasa opened her eyes. "The cliff was by a park," she said. "Someone must have heard the commotion, because emergency services arrived and resuscitated me. But it was too late for Eren.

"Armin and I met at his funeral."

Annie felt her mouth go dry. What could she possibly say to that?

Perhaps it was a good thing that Mikasa wasn't done talking yet.

"There were holes in my story. Most of the adults brushed it off as trauma, but not him. He asked what really happened, and I was still weak and scared. I told him everything, and he... he offered to help me. I said no, but I did reach out to tell him when I killed my first vampire, because it was... it was the one that killed Eren.

"I thought that would be it for us, but he kept reaching out. Kept trying... to be my friend." Mikasa paused, the fragile expression of someone caught between hope and longing fluttering across her face before she remembered to shut it down. "And I want to. He's... Armin is good. But that's exactly why I can't let him get close. Erwin may have had a point about him knowing how to defend himself from the Supernatural, but I want him to stay as far away from this as possible. And..."

You can't see him without thinking about Eren, Annie thought.

She understood. That was exactly how she had felt about Porco in the months after Marcel died. That was how she felt when she looked at the vampires she'd been abandoned with for a while after Porco and Pieck disappeared. Armin may have been a good person, but he had also been Eren's best friend, whereas it sounded like Mikasa hadn't even known him for a day. If being around Armin was painful for Mikasa, then she could only imagine how it felt for him.

How difficult must it be to build a genuine friendship around a barrier like that?

Impossible, if you weren't even willing to try.

"...It's complicated," Mikasa finished.

"Sounds like it," Annie murmured. "But... it also sounds lonely."

This, she also understood. That understanding did not make her any less of a vile thing. It did not stop her from taking advantage of a moment of vulnerability and loneliness to draw the other slayer closer to her. Closer to her eventual doom.

"It is," Mikasa admitted. Her words were slow and measured, holding all the weight of an unbelievable, life-changing confession. "But it's... less with you around, I think."

Annie's heart did a funny thing as it tried to stop and speed up at the same time. "Is it?" she asked. The dryness in her mouth was back. She wanted to move closer to Mikasa, even though there were a million reasons why she shouldn't.

"Yeah," Mikasa said. "It's... it's nice having someone around who understands what it's like to be the slayer." Her lips twitched into a small, bittersweet, but genuine smile. Annie's eyes lingered on them. "I'm glad that I met you, Annie."

Annie swallowed heavily. "Me too," she lied. In that moment, she wished that she had never met Mikasa Ackerman. She wished that she'd never even heard of her, that she and her companions had continued with their lives utterly unaware of her existence.

She wished that she didn't have to kill her.

She wished that she didn't want to kiss her so much.

Annie shifted back, only then realizing just how close she had gotten to the other slayer, and stood up. "It's getting late," she said. "We should get patrolling, if you're still interested."

Mikasa nodded, snapping out of whatever trance had fallen between the two of them. "I am," she said.

And that was that.

Or so Annie told herself. Because although she wanted to believe that it was a fluke, that she had caught herself and would be able to continue walking her predetermined path, unwavering and unstoppable...

...In her heart of hearts, she could not deny the tension, that there was tension between them for the rest of the night.

She couldn't quite convince herself that it was gone come morning.

[kittyprincessofcats]

RWBY Volume 8, Episodes 8-12

All caught up with RWBY now! (Except for the premium only episode.)

So, two things first: 1. From now on, my blog will no longer be spoiler free for RWBY! I don’t have premium access, so no spoilers for that, but beyond that, I might now reblog spoilers for everything that’s been released to the public. Blacklist “#RWBY spoilers” if you don’t want to see them.

2. I was going to ask what the spoiler policy in this fandom in general is when it comes to premium access. From what I’ve seen, Youtubers usually wait a week before uploading their reaction videos, which I appreciate – but here on tumblr almost no one seems to hold back. I saw a spoiler for “Creation” before it was released publicly. The day episode 13 was released for premium access, I had to unfollow people for posting untagged spoilers for it. And when I went into a RWBY-related tag for one second, I saw a really big spoiler that put me in a very sour mood because it also happened to be very aggressively worded against fans of a certain character (basically, along the lines of “I’m glad X bad thing happened to Y character because I hate them and their fans”). So, that scared the shit out of me and I ended up looking up more specific spoilers about what exactly happened because I wouldn’t have been able to sleep otherwise. So, from what I’ve seen, this fandom’s spoiler policy is just “fuck anyone who doesn’t have premium access” 😒. Always nice to see people being so considerate.

With that said, let’s get into my thoughts on episodes 8-12. Under the cut, because unlike some people, I try to be considerate of others who might want to avoid spoilers.

- So, the Hound really was a person. Specifically, a person with silver eyes and that’s probably what happened to Summer. THANKS, I HATE IT. This is exactly what I feared it would be and what I didn’t want it to be. (I don’t want Ruby and Yang to have to fight and kill their grimm-ified mom, that’s too sad, okay?)

- I love that Whitley really came through and came up with a plan for evacuating everyone! He’s a good bean after all! And that he managed to press that button on the computer before running from the Hound? Amazing.

- Willow Schnee being one hell of a mama bear and summoning a thing to protect Whitley was epic. She was so close to breaking down before that, but then her child was in danger and she just jumped into action right away. Protective mom instincts ftw!

- Blake’s talk about how she looks up to Ruby and how she herself lost the youthful optimism Ruby still has was SO sweet! (Also, Ladybug is an underrated ship/friendship and I really don’t get why people say they never interact? Have you all just forgotten volume 1 and how Bumbleby’s first meeting happened because Yang was trying to wingman Ruby who was trying to befriend Blake??)

- Penny fighting the virus from the inside was amazing, she did so well! I also loved seeing Nora encourage her (and echo Blake’s earlier words back to her).

- Unrelated to these episodes specifically, but I tried to think about who my favourite RWBY charactes even are right now, and I find it super hard to narrow down because I love so many of them, but if I tried to somewhat narrow it down, then (in no specific order because don’t ask me to also come up with an order): all of Team RWBY (though Blake is a personal favourite), Ilia, Penny, Salem, Cinder. (But then again, I also love Winter and Qrow and Robyn and... you get it, it’s hard to narrow down. Oh, and of course Pyrrha, but... you know.)

- “Witch” was honestly my favourite episode of the bunch. That one was just so full of epic stuff. (And now I’m wondering if Salem being one of my favourite characters has anything to do with my love for witches. I used to be obsessed with witches as a kid. In every story I read that had a witch, the witch was always my favourite character.)

- Yang and her team sure found a way inside that whale fast! Also, really handy that Ren’s semblance evolved just in time for when they needed it. But hey, I don’t want to complain about convenient plot stuff too much. Sometimes the heroes are allowed to have a little bit of good luck.

- Hazel listening to Oscar and deciding to get both him AND Emerald out of there was amazing! He really does have a soft spot for kids and wasn’t kidding about not wanting more kids to die – we love to see it! I also think it makes for an interesting parallel that Hazel decided to do this right as Ironwood was sending students to fight on the front lines and Marrow was calling it out.

- I really liked Ren telling Yang she doesn’t have to hide her fear behind jokes. Ren being able to see emotions is going to bring about so many more good moments, I just know it!

- Emerald and “Hazel’s” talk with Salem gets so much better when you know “Hazel” is actually Oscar – Emerald has gotten so much better at illusions and fooled Salem herself! That’s impressive!

- It’s really practical that Ren could sense Emerald’s fear. But also, the group really didn’t have the time to discuss if Emerald was trustworthy – they needed to get out of there asap.

- The way Salem spits out the word “semblance” when she talks to Emerald shows again that she not only underestimates these “new humans” and their powers, but also considers them inferior. It’s a nice little detail how just her tone when she says that word says so much about her worldview.

- Yang straight-up running up to Salem and blowing her up was epic. It didn’t last of course, but it was still a super bold and epic move. I’ve talked before about how cool Yang is and she just keeps getting cooler.

- Yang calling Salem out was amazing and epic, too! And when she referred to Summer Rose as “my mom” that made me tear up just a bit 😢. (I really don’t like Salem’s smile when she says “her again”, though. I don’t want grimm-ified Summer, I really don’t want it, okay? keep it far away from me where I won’t have to see it.)

- I’m a bit sad about Hazel’s death, but it was a really fitting end for his character and a really cool way to go out. The way he looked at all of those kids in danger (proving again that that’s what it’s about for him), whispered “No more Gretchens” to Oscar, punched Salem in the face as she was about to hurt Emerald, injected all of those crystals into his skin (which looked epic, by the way), told Emerald to go, fought an epic fight against Salem and then grabbed her and set himself and her on fire, burning her like a witch – it was epic stuff! RIP Hazel, you died as a hero and went out in an incredibly epic way!

- Hazel’s sacrifice must have been super tough on Emerald. He died protecting her (and JOYR) and it worked. She got away from Salem, but only because someone else, a friend, died for her. Not only must it be awful for her to lose Hazel, she probably also blames herself. (And, as I’ve seen others point out, it was probably the first time in her life an adult did something to protect her. Wow. Someone get this girl therapy, please.)

- The whale getting blown up was an absolutely epic moment. From the music to the cinematography, I loved everything about it. (That said, I will miss the whale. RIP coolest villain lair ever.)

- I loved Watts’ speech to Cinder – and I’m saying this as someone who became a huge fan of Cinder this volume. I love her, but I also love roasting her, and a lot of what Watts said was stuff she desperately needed to hear. I honestly didn’t even like Watts before that moment, but that speech might have made me like him just a tiny bit. The way he just laughed when she dangled him from a building, the way he spelled it out for her that her methods haven’t been working and threw her failures in her face, the ending with calling her “a bloody migraine” – Like I said, I’m a fan of Cinder, but that was glorious and cathartic and beautiful to witness. But what makes it really perfect is Cinder’s reaction: The fact that you’d expect her to kill him or at least scream at him, but instead she spares him and just sits down and cries. I really love what they’ve been doing with Cinder this volume and that they’re finally showing her as someone way deeper than just a power-hungry villain.

- In general, let me quickly talk about Cinder, because even without having seen the last two episodes I can already tell you that she’s my standout character / favourite character of the season. (It was Ilia for Volume 5, Salem for Volume 6, Penny for Volume 7 – and now it’s Cinder.) I said back in my post about Volume 5 that I wish they’d do more with her because after becoming rather interesting in Volume 4 they just went back to making her a pretty flat villain – and I officially have to eat my words and apologize to RoosterTeeth right now! This volume proved to me that they know what they’re doing with Cinder and explained so much about her. I’m sorry for ever doubting the writing. I now want to go back and rewatch the whole show while paying more attention to Cinder and I can’t wait to see where her arc goes from here (yes, I want an eventual redemption, and what about it?). This volume is obviously setting up something big for her – I just have no idea what it is. And at the end of the day, she’s still the Maiden of Choice. She’s the key to the Beacon relic, and that’s going to become important eventually.

- Oh, and can I mention, just by the way, that I think Cinder looks amazing? I don’t understand all the people who say they miss her red outfits when this is clearly her best look yet. The black eyepatch, the cape, the earrings, the short hair, the high boots, the shorts instead of a dress, all the black – this is her absolute best look, period.

- I’ve also noticed that the scene between her and Watts is the first time Cinder has referred to Penny by name. She’s always referred to her with phrases like “some toy” or “Polendina’s creation” before, but this time she just called her “Penny Polendina”, then “Penny” again, and asked Watts how she’s supposed to take Penny’s power “if she’s dead” (not “destroyed”, which is what Watts said, but “dead” – something you say about a person, not a machine). I think somewhere down the line, Cinder has started to see Penny as a person and respect her as the Winter Maiden. Maybe it’s because of how Penny won the fight at Amity, or maybe (though this might be wishful thinking on my part) it’s because Penny questioned why Cinder serves Salem and showed her and Emerald mercy.

- Also, side-note: While I loved Watts’ speech, it sure is bold of him to call Cinder entitled when his own villain origin story is getting overlooked for a science project.

- Neo is an amazing little troll and I love her. From stealing the lamp and skipping along the ruins of the whale happily to those texts to Cinder, all of her moments were brilliant and hilarious.

- Some characters not just forgiving Emerald is totally fair and realistic. But, as I said before (and as Oscar also points out), they don’t have to. People think a “redemption” – or let’s just call it switching sides instead of using such a loaded term – has to include everyone’s forgiveness, but it doesn’t. If Yang and Jaune never want to personally forgive Emerald, that’s okay. They don’t need to forgive her to recognize that she’s changed and work with her. And, as Oscar and Ren point out, Emerald’s abilities would be very useful to have on their side. So, personal feelings are fine and all, but right now they don’t have the luxury to dismiss a potentially very useful ally. (And same for Oz, by the way. It’s fine if they’re still mad at him, but they also need his help.)

- Also, have I already said that I’m very happy for Emerald? Because I’m very happy for Emerald for getting out of there! (Mercury’s and then Cinder’s redemption next, please!)

- F*ck Harriet for trying to get Winter in trouble for letting JYR go. I’m hating her more every second. And then she seriously said “Who cares?” about Ironwood’s plan to nuke Mantle? She’s the most unlikable of them all.

- Everyone’s reunions were so sweet! I loved Ruby and Yang hugging 😭. And Yang cupping Blake’s cheek and their forehead touch had me all 🥰 🥰 🥰.

- After he threatened to nuke Mantle, I hope we can all agree that Ironwood is a straight-up villain now. The most infuriating part is that he didn’t even have to do anything! Whitley and Weiss had figured out a way to save everyone in Mantle and the SDC ships to evacuate people were already there. All Ironwood had to do was let them evacuate everyone to Atlas, and then Penny would have opened the vault willingly and Ironwood could have used the staff to raise Atlas as planned. Problem solved! He should have just sat there and ate his food – but he was so pissed about things not going his way (or maybe he just genuinely hates Mantle that much) that he thought sabotaging the rescue plan and threatening genocide was a better option.

- I loved Marrow’s arc in these episodes and how you could tell more and more that his conscience was making him turn against Ironwood. First he questioned Winter when she was going to nuke the whale before JOYR were back, then he seemed shocked when he thought they were dead, then he tried to talk sense into the other Ace Ops after Ironwood’s ultimatum, and then he straight-up called out Ironwood himself. That last one was dangerous though, and he was lucky Winter was quick enough to jump in and pretend to arrest him, because Ironwood was going to just shoot him in the back.

- Speaking of, I wonder how long Winter has been planning to double-cross Ironwood. How long was she already disagreeing with him, but waiting for the right moment to make a move? Either way, I’m glad she was there to save Marrow.

- The Renora confession scene was so sweet and got me a little choked up 😢. I’m glad they sorted out their issues and told each other how they feel. But like I said before, I think Nora’s arc of trying to find out who she is without Ren is really good and important and Ren respecting that was really good and important as well. It was just a very wholesome scene. Also, I like that we got a little bit more backstory for Nora (her mom abandoned her? that’s awful), and Jaune awkwardly leaving the room was hilarious.

- Robyn telling Qrow he’s a better Huntsman than Clover because he chose to do the right thing was a really important moment for Qrow, imo. (And just a side-note: I’m sure most Fair Game shippers are pretty chill – and I’m a strong believer in ‘ship and let ship’ – but a certain subset of them is starting to get on my nerves with how they ignore Clover’s canon character and story (acting like he would have rebelled against Ironwood if he were alive as if the whole reason he’s dead wasn’t precisely because he cared more about Ironwood’s orders than doing the right thing) and how they make every new plot point about their ship somehow (Oscar’s semblance? Better be a time-travel thing so Clover can come back. Staff of Creation? Better be able to bring people back from the dead so Clover can come back.) It’s so annoying.)

- Yang and Ruby’s talk about their mom was really intense. Ruby’s been holding all of these feelings in for so long, so seeing her say out loud what we’re all fearing (that Summer was turned into a Grimm) and seeing both her and Yang break down over it – that was a lot. I loved seeing Yang comfort Ruby and tell her that her plan for Amity wasn’t useless. Their sisterly bond is so sweet.

- Penny asking Ruby to kill her was another really intense moment. The look on Ruby’s face in that moment really said it all. Ruby has been through so much, has lost Penny before, so hearing that request – even though they fortunately didn’t have to go through with it – must have still been a lot for her.

- I really loved Emerald’s cute “newly reformed villain” moments. (“You guys have been getting your asses kicked… some of that my fault” & “I’m just going to be super pissed if you all finally decide to give up the moment I switch sides.”) I’ve said before (in my She-Ra posts) that my favourite part of any redemption arc is the “former enemies, now awkward around each other” stuff, so this was right up my alley!

- “The girl who fell through the world” was referenced twice now. Between that, the image of everyone falling in the opening, and the lyrics “sometimes it’s worth it all to risk the fall”, I’m going to predict that someone – most likely all of Team RWBY – will fall into that void and potentially end up in a different world.

- The group’s plan to defeat Ironwood, stop the bomb, and get to the vault was amazing all-around. I love the parts Emerald and Winter got to play in it, I love how we saw the plan’s execution before seeing how they came up with it and I love how everyone got to help, even the Schnees and Klein. I also love that the hole Oscar blasted through the ground of Atlas became relevant again.

- The design of the vault and the door are really nice and now I wonder what the other two are going to look like.

- Saving Penny like that was super risky, but they really were out of options. Just the fact that Ruby had to be quick enough to use her semblance and get to the staff before the virus kills Penny… jeesh, that was close.

- Ambrosius is a super fun character! I love that he looked at Penny and said “I’d love to meet whoever did this.” Also, the staff seems more useful than the lamp. The lamp only lets you ask three questions per century, while the staff can be used as often as you want – as long as you’re okay with whatever it previously created disappearing.

- I honestly still don’t completely understand what Penny is now. Is she meant to be human now? Or is she just a being made up of pure aura? How does this work? Ambrosius only created the copy that destroyed herself, so what’s left is Penny’s aura – but she somehow also has a body now? I guess we’ll find out more about what exactly this means later.

- Also, while I wasn’t sure how I feel about this decision re:Penny at first, now that I’ve thought about it for a bit, I think it works. It fits with the Pinocchio story, and I like that they didn’t phrase it as “she’s a real girl now”, but as “this is the girl who’s been in there all along”. Also, Penny saying “wow” after hugging Ruby and then going on a hugging spree was adorable.

- Watching “herself” self-terminate must have been really traumatic, though. Even if that copy was just a robot, it was still a disturbing scene.

- Who shut down communications in the middle of Jaune’s broadcast? I’m assuming it was Cinder, Watts and Neo.

- The whole dimension with the doorways that Ambrosius created looks amazing. (A while before watching this episode, I wondered if Raven could theoretically save Atlas by getting everyone to safety with her portals. It might not have been Raven, but I’m glad I was at least onto something.)

- “Do not fall.” So, about that… they’re all falling in the opening, (and we referenced “the girl who fell through the world” twice now), so I don’t have a good feeling about that. Also, Watts has been dangled from somewhere high twice now, so the third time has to be when he actually falls down.

- And Cinder is there to ruin the plan because of course she is.