#probably intended to serve that function but like she's not doing that so where does that leave us lol

[archersgoon]

the good ending to any hypothetical celie story would be her giving up on the idea of that one big love shes on the grind for

[violetasteracademic]

Hi , I want to ask if you think Lucien was always meant to have a rejected mating bond with an Archeron sister ?

Hello lovely anon!

So.... this is a tough question to answer- because where does always begin in the writing process?

Does it begin in the first draft? Does it begin in the wild prophetic visions you have at three am that you want to scribble down but you don't because you are trying to sleep, but still, it lingers? Does it begin in a beat sheet, a plot outline, a Pinterest board?

I'm not sure if SJM always intended a rejected mating bond. To be completely honest, I go back and forth. I think that Sarah has let a lot of things slip that she wrote that were never going to even be submitted to her editor on a first draft (like the famed Nesta/Cassian/Azriel batwich, RIP and I'm still waiting on SJM to write a threesome). And yet when she shares those things, people almost consider it canon and analyze it to death and use it to prove certain things. At some point, she probably really genuinely considered making Lucien and one of the sisters a couple, but I can't say for sure where in the process that died.

I remember seeing Emily Henry share on her stories recently an addition to her "RIP" character list- as in characters that she had written that literally did not even make it into the book. The first draft of Beach Read was actually a love triangle, involving some local guy who owns an ice cream business or something of the sort who is also trying to romance January. I can see what she might have been trying to do there- give January two options reflecting two sides of her. Ice Cream Steve (not sure if those details are correct but we'll go with it) would have served as a perfect foil to Grave Digging, Bleak Literary Fiction Author Gus. But ultimately, Ice Cream Steve did not even make it to the book. Do we treat him as real? Do we wonder if he may have been a better fit for January? Do we analyze what this means for January and Gus?

I'll get a little bit into the technicality of what developmental editing is and how it can completely reshape a story, erase characters, create characters, and shift their storylines, but what I do know is this- the function of Lucien being assigned an Archeron sister, any Archeron sister, is completely clear: To win him over to the Night Court as an ally and embolden him to help Feyre get away from Tamlin. This is absolutely critical. Lucien's role in the story since this hasn't developed romantically because he is mated to one of the Archeron sisters, it has spun off in a new direction plot wise with the Band of Exiles, Vassa, Koschei, and the human queens- which also develops a tentative relationship between himself and his brother Eris again, with his mating bond hovering in the background. However, his mating bond began this new direction, and it wouldn't have existed without it:

Lucien would not have left if it were not for the mating bond. I believe that is the element that was always true. Lucien's mating bond, be it with Elain, or Nesta as originally planned, was always going to be a plot device. And I can answer where I believe the story of a love triangle at the very least began its groundwork- which is A Court of Mist and Fury. I personally think that as of publishing ACOMAF Lucien and Elain were already done, fizzling out in the developmental editing process, and Azriel and Elain were endgame, but I'm open to those who see it differently.

Before we move on, here are the different types of editors:

A development editor basically edits the story at large. They focus on elements like theme, character development, plot holes, ECT. When dealing with a series, often times an author will provide a detailed packet to their developmental editor before doing dev runs. This is because the developmental editor needs to understand where the story is headed. They need to understand what needs to be appropriately foreshadowed, what themes to highlight, and keep their eye on the big picture so that everything comes to a well developed, emotionally charged, and thematically satisfying conlcusion.

What is clear to me is that Azriel and Elain were being developed emotionally and thematically in ACOMAF:

These are the types of passages that focus on the big picture. Before Feyre's sisters have become Fae, Feyre is musing on what her sisters would be like in Velaris. She thinks about how Nesta would like it, despite herself, and become fast friends with Amren (true) and how Elain would like Velaris, but she would cling to Azriel for peace and quiet. True. Feyre considers how handsome Elain and Azriel would be together if he ever stopped loving Mor.

Developmentally- what is the purpose of this? It's the same book that Lucien and Elain's mating bond is revealed, so why muse on Elain and Azriel as a couple if Azriel could get over Mor, which he now has because of Elain? Meanwhile, Elain is engaged. Feyre doesn't say a word about that. She sees how her sister would want to be with someone like Azriel, and Feyre doesn't even think twice about Graysen because Azriel is right for her sister. This isn't Feyre being an unreliable narrator. Everything else in this passage came to be true.

These are the types of moments developmental editors hone in on to make sure theme and foreshadowing are strong and successful.

Of course this is already after the beautiful moments Azriel and Elain have together- Azriel getting shy and self conscious before dropping one of the most beautiful lines in all the books about being born hearing the song of the wind. Elain already being able to read Azriel- looking to him and smiling and finding comfort and assessing his countenance to see if everything is going okay.

If I'm a developmental editor, and I wanted it to be really clear why Lucien and Elain were right for each other- why would I keep all of this in? Why tie Elain and Azriel together thematically and emotionally? So again, this is where the question "where does always begin" comes into play. Did SJM realize in her first draft that Nesta and Lucien weren't going to work, so she switched to Elain, only to realize that Elain and Lucien don't have chemistry either? Was it after a developmental edit? I can't say for sure on that end. Maybe ACOMAF truly was just setting up a love triangle, but personally I think Elain and Az were always endgame as of the books being published, and trying to explore Elain and Lucien as a couple probably died out before the final draft of ACOMAF and SJM realized Lucien still needed to be mated to one of the sisters, thus ideas about the rejected mating bond started stirring instead and then were hit HARD in ACOWAR. I can see the argument that the door was being kept open for Lucien in ACOMAF, though I personally think Lucien's mating bond reveal was strictly a plot device. But what is extremely clear is that as of ACOWAR the path was set in stone.

Again- these are the things where, not to take credit away from Sarah, a developmental editor really comes into play. If Sarah is going, okay- who is Lucien going to end up with? Nesta? No, it can't be Nesta, even though that was originally the plan. Elain? Maybe, it could be Elain. What does that look like? Maybe it was Lucien and Elain in the pitch packet. Then a developmental editor goes, okay- where are we headed? What are the themes? What are the character arcs and growth we are looking for?

Then we move on to ACOWAR, and both of them were developed to have a theme of choice threaded into their interactions:

What these moments make clear is that the mating bond makes it impossible for Elain and Lucien to get what they truly want out of love with each other- for someone to love and choose them beyond the circumstances placed on them. Lucien wants this just as much as Elain does. They are now thematically connected in that way- in wanting to be chosen above all, despite everything. That's where this Facebook comment makes soooo much sense:

Nesta didn't have any growth or healing to offer Lucien, because thematically there was not really anything there between them. Nesta and Cassian also had this instant, intense connection that could not be ignored or played slowly. Nesta also didn't lose her fiance, she herself saying she had as little at stake in Velaris as she did on the other side of the wall. Nesta had anger and resentment. Elain had loss, which on the surface could thematically match Lucien, but then we dig deeper to learn that they aren't only needing to heal from the loss of love, they are needing to heal from the loss of choice.

Elain was engaged to a man who hates fae. And Elain was always going to become Fae.

Lucien had his history and story with Jesminda since book one. He thought Jesminda was his mate. The woman who loved him for him, not because he was a High Lord's son or because of any other High Fae customs Lucien rejects. This is where you see the development. Lucien and Elain could have worked on an incredibly surface level, both of them having lost their first loves, but deeper themes revealed themselves that showed they mirror each other in a way that doesn't make them right for each other, but that allows them to face what needs to be faced: being strong and brave enough to choose for themselves instead of letting the world control them.

For Elain and Lucien to have made sense together thematically, everything should have been reversed. Elain should have been mated to Azriel, and then Elain and Lucien should have met somehow and fallen in love, and the choosing each other above all, love trumping even a mating bond, Lucien being chosen and loved without question, without hesitation, would have belonged to them.

But again, without the mating bond, Lucien and Elain wouldn't even have met in the first place and Lucien would not have left Spring. So where does that leave us? The mating bond as a plot device. It was literally required to move the story forward, but thematically is anticlimactic for both parties in terms of the kind of love they want for themselves.

So- was Lucien always going to have a mating bond rejection? Probably not. But where in the years long process did all of this reveal itself? Only Sarah knows that. But I think what is quite clear is that it was always going to happen if we start from what is published in the books between him and Elain.

I think it's very possible that SJM did really intend for Lucien to wind up with one of the sisters. But if you've ever gone through the writing process yourself, you realize pretty quickly how many things fall apart and don't work/make sense/are actually anti-thematic to the characters you've created. Maybe she'll tell us one day exactly when Elain and Lucien fell apart, just like Nesta and Lucien fell apart. But we do have to keep in mind that an author like SJM, who was able to sell a trilogy all at once, probably had to have at least a 25 page packet outlining the trilogy and it's development. So- was it Nesta and Lucien in the pitch packet? Was it Elain and Lucien, because even while structuring a pitch she realized Nesta and Lucien would never work while outlining, but thought Elain and Lucien would? Only to discover Elain and Azriel connecting while drafting ACOMAF?

Writing a book is years of plotting, outlining, writing, rewriting, editing, writing again, and sometimes what you come up with is unrecognizable from the plan. And considering SJM contracted a trilogy, she would have pitched in pretty significant detail what would happen in book two and book three. We'll see what Sarah does and does not choose to reveal!

I think that's everything! I love getting these questions from you guys. I still have a cue in my inbox, and I am sorry it's kind of random when my inspiration strikes and I have a clear answer and can quickly think of the passages and ideas! But I will try to get to my older ones that have been sitting for a minute, I promise!

What do you guys think? I know everyone has different thoughts on this and I love to hear them!

[bakugoushotwife]

Poke

Piercer!Dabi x Fem!Reader AU

req: @allofthisistemporaryy

Summary: you've been searching for the perfect place to get you nipples pierced, but nothing is like the reviews said...

warnings: MINORS DNI, explicit smut, rough sex, choking, sadist!dabi, spanking, spitting, mentions of needles and descriptions of piercing practices.

You take a deep breath in and sigh it all out, standing outside the dingiest building you could possibly picture. It looked like it smelled. Could you really go through with this? You look back down at your phone just to make sure you were in the right place. Yup, address matches. You click over to the reviews tab, something you had already studied on your mission to find the perfect piercer. You peered at the words on the screen to see if anything had changed on your way over here. 

“I always ask for Toga! She’s the best!” One review read, rating the piercer a 5 out of 5. 

“The owner is a little intimidating, but Toga is always great and painless!” 

“Toga’s amazing every time! I won’t let anyone else near my body!” 

Another shaky sigh leaves your mouth, feeling somewhat reassured, you turn your phone off and march yourself up to the shoddy door of the establishment. The building was almost entirely brick, except for a wooden porch out front. It was very obviously an old house, probably too run down and dangerous to function as an actual home. It didn’t look very big, the door on the front hanging on the hinges with nothing more than hopes and dreams. There was a neon sign that only half worked hanging in the window, the wire from the ‘Tattoo and Piercing’ sign weaving through the blinds. You take another deep breath, and throw the door open with more force than you intended. A little bell jingles as you step in, gray and stained carpet muffling your footsteps as you drag your way to the service desk. The desk was tall and wooden, overtly so. You leaned up to see if there was anyone behind, as there were no other customers in the shop. 

You can hear the faint buzz of the tattoo gun running in one room, but that’s it. The room does have a smell, you discovered. It’s a mix of tobacco and weed, maybe even alcohol. You can’t tell if it’s the drinking kind or the sterilizing kind, but with the other scents factored in it was probably the former. There was a ‘ring for service bell’ sitting on the desk, and you wondered if you should use it. 

Just as you convince yourself to press it, you hear the buzzing stop and the sound of clothes shuffling and footsteps approaching the other side of the tall desk. A man peers out at you, smirking. 

“I thought I heard someone come in. What can I do for ya sweet cheeks?” He asks, taking you by surprise. You didn’t want to stare too long, but you determined almost immediately that this must be the intimidating owner that some of the reviews mentioned. 

He was tall, much taller than the huge desk that served at the barrier between you. He was lanky, what you could see of his arms covered in brands and tattoos, sleeves pushed up to his elbows. He leaned against the doorway of the room he just came from, folding the arms you were staring at over his chest. The fabric of his white t-shirt was worn enough to where you could see the outlines of more tattoos and even the metal of nipple rings peeking through. His jacket was blue, like his eyes, but the most striking thing about him was his white hair. You were nervous, you knew it was going to be hard to walk into any piercing shop and ask to get your nipples pierced, but you had done all the research to ensure you landed with a female piercer. 

“I dunno sign language, lil lady. Hello?” He asked, a pierced eyebrow raised in your direction. He chuckled after, revealing white–and sharp– perfect teeth. 

“Oh, I’m sorry.” You say quickly, trying to come up with a good excuse for you to be so dumbstruck. “I was just expecting a woman, all the reviews..” You trail off, unsure of how to say what you were in for today. 

The man chuckled again, the sound reverberating through him. It made you smile awkwardly, debating if he was laughing at you or not. “I see! You’re wanting a piercin’ huh? Toga’s off today, but she’s my apprentice. I’m the owner, Dabi.” 

You nod once, contemplating your next move. “Oh, well..I suppose I’ll come back another day then…” You hum pleasantly, giving him a kind smile to make up for your lack of conversation and business. 

“Ah sweetheart,” Dabi pouted, unfolding his arms to lean forward across the desk, “I never get to do the fun pokes anymore, stuck doin’ tattoos all damn day. I don’t bite, hun…what’re you wantin’ done?” He asked curiously, a glimmer of something you can’t place flashes across his eyes. 

Dabi licks his lips as he waits on your reply, looking over your figure smoothly. You were a fine little thing, he decided a few minutes ago, and he didn’t want to let you slip out of his grasp without knowing he’d see you again. 

You hug yourself, biting the inside of your lip. His presence was indeed intimidating, you can verify, but there was something else making you nervous. He was gorgeous, the type of sexy everyone models their bad boy fantasies after. You knew you’d probably have a few of those later…

The idea of him near your chest gave you goosebumps, and before you could really argue with yourself, you blurted, “I want my nipples pierced.” 

This time Dabi doesn’t try to conceal the hungry look in his eye. That was it, the look you couldn’t quite place. ��‘S that so, doll?” He asks, tapping a black painted finger on his cheek with a devious grin. “I’m great with nipples, you can ask around.” He winks, you feel your cheeks heat up and your pussy throb involuntarily. You nearly gulp. He pushes open the traffic door to beckon you back behind the desk, to follow him to his piercing room where he could have his way with you in private. 

Your mind blanks, a flush creeping over you. Why save the fantasies for later? Your body moves forward, and for once you were glad it was acting on its own accord. He lets the door swing behind you, leading you just around the corner to his workspace. 

Dabi smirks as he watches you take a seat in his chair. He closes the door behind you, popping the lock subtly. He wouldn’t want anyone to intrude on his private session, now would he?

He can tell you’re nervous, even though this is by no means your first piercing. He notices a few on your ears and the obvious nostril. He grins to himself, it’s just because of him. “Relax, lil thing. It’ll just hurt worse if you tense up.” He warns, his predatory gaze seemingly devouring your innocent one. 

He pulls a rolling stool between his legs, sliding to the edge of his tattoo chair effortlessly. He sat between your dangling legs, a permanent smirk etched into his features. “So princess, wanna take your shirt off for me?” He coos, resting his hands on either thigh. His fingers were long and slender, and even the touch to your leg set you on fire internally.. You could barely stand to think about how they would feel on your skin, or inside of you. How were you gonna make it through this? 

You nod, reaching for the hem of your t-shirt. Sitting up slightly, you pull it off in a swift motion, letting it fall to the floor. Your eyes focus on his, the intensity of his turquoise glare sending a chill down your spine. You feel the prickly air blow across your nipples, perking them up beautifully. His eyes fixated on them, making you shift your legs to relieve some of the pressure. You wanted him badly.

The good news is, he wants you just as bad. “No bra, I like your style…”He purred, not even bothering to hide the way he stares at your chest, thanking whatever deity blessed him with the opportunity to put his hands on them. “Stand up, I need to mark where the needle will go…” He said, scooting out slightly so you could get to your feet. He didn’t give you much room, still sitting on his stool. You practically had your breasts in his face, and you can feel the tips of your ears burn. 

“Perfect.” He sighs, and you bite your lip. “You’re in good hands baby. You trust me?” He asked, that lusty glint in his eye returning as he reached out for his piercer pen. 

You nod. You don’t know exactly what he’s referring to, but you knew no matter what he asked you to do, you’d do it with little to no protest. Your dignity was fleeting, any rational thoughts being snuffed out by the heat in your core and the building slick in your panties. 

“Say it. Out loud.” He requested simply, laying out the pre-packaged jewelry and needles on a tray next to him. 

“I trust you, Dabi.” You say, voice barely above a whisper. You catch your lip between your teeth as you admire him again. His side profile was so pretty, every feature pointed and sharp. 

“Good girl. I’m going to touch you now, to mark these pretty things up.” He says, turning back to face you. 

“Please.” You say, mentally chiding yourself. Jeez, why wouldn’t you say ‘go ahead’ or ‘okay’, now you sound desperate.

But Dabi enjoyed the way the word sounded on your tongue, and he knew he would drive you to the point of saying it over and over again. His fingers are icy when they land on the supple tissue of your left breast. He holds it just because he knows he can, letting your breasts hang as they would naturally so your piercing comes out perfect. He is still a professional, after all. He marks either side of your nipple before moving to the next side and repeating the action. 

He watched your areolas constrict even more, making him smile. He’s seen quite a few pairs of titties, but none made his pants feel as tight as they do now. “I’m sure you’ve done your research, pretty girl? Y’know no one can go near these jugs for at least six months, probably closer to a year.” He peers up at you from his stool, and his question makes you blush again, or maybe just the eye contact. 

“Y-yeah, not gonna be a problem. No one’s been near them for the past 6 months to a year already.” You chuckle to yourself, wishing you could keep your mouth shut once more. Why did you say that, just so he’d know you’re available?

“Noted.” Dabi simply replied, almost validating your compulsive need to overshare. It seemed as if he were genuinely wondering. “Sit at the edge of the chair for me, sweet thing.” He nodded towards the seat, putting on his gloves as you obeyed. 

Suddenly, your nerves were focused on the pain you were about to endure, mind racing and body tingling with adrenaline. He picks up a needle and slides his stool back between your legs, using his other hand to drag his tray closer to him. “Aw, don’t be scared, dollface. I’ll take good care of you. You can squeeze my leg when it hurts, deal?” He offered, his stare much softer at the moment. 

“Mhm.” You nod, trying to shove away all your worries. You had been through much worse, and you didn’t want to embarrass yourself in front of this sexy body shop owner. You place your hand on his thigh, his body bent over to have a good angle on your chest. 

“Take a deep breath.” He waits for you to follow his instruction before moving on, “Ready and–” He jabs the needle through your delicate skin, humming pleasantly at your reaction. You squeeze down on his leg with most of your strength, wincing barely.“Good girl,” He praises, dragging out the ‘o’ sound to show how impressed he was. “Here goes number two.” He warned, quickly lining up for the other side. 

“I know it’s brutal but you’ll thank me later. Deep breath.” He cues, waiting for your sharp intake of breath before pushing through your other nipple. “There you go, that’s it.” He cooed, patting the hand you left resting on his leg. He slides backward on his stool to get a better look. “Oh yeah babe, those look perfect on you.” He smirks, guiding you to stand. 

You cling to his hands shakily, the adrenaline still coursing through your body. He leads you to the mirror on the wall, letting you see your newly decorated chest. You beam, pleased with the results. The pain really wasn’t so bad when you’re daydreaming about the piercer. His hands rest on your hips, his touch so light you almost didn’t feel it until you saw his grip in the mirror. Your eyes flicker back up to his gaze staring at you through the reflection. He’s smirking, like he always is, watching your expression eagerly. His presence suddenly hits you again all at once. You can feel the heat radiating off his body, just inches away from yours. His breath is icy, fanning over your face and tickling your neck. 

Before you can think better of it, you press your ass back against him. Your eyes widen once you realize what you’ve done, but  his arm slides around your waist to hold you there before you can panic. “Hm, good to know it wasn’t just me.” He cooed into your ear, pressing his bulge against your backside. His other hand slides up your body, careful of your fresh piercings, until his fingers are grasping your jaw, the arm around your waist retreating slightly, his hand resting above your clothed crotch. “Did you want something, sweetheart?” He asks, his eyes dancing like the flickers of blue flames. 

You open your mouth to speak, but close it quickly once you realize you don’t know what to say. His fingers dig into your cheeks a little more, demanding a response. “Y-yes, I..I want to feel you..please!” You manage, cheeks growing hotter by the second. He rewards you by unbuttoning your pants, the zipper soon to follow. He lets go of your face in favor of yanking your pants down your legs, prompting you to step out of them and kick them aside. You hear him click his tongue. 

“No panties either? Are you sure you weren’t planning on this the whole time darlin’?” He chuckles, grabbing your hips again to turn you to face him. He admires your fully exposed body, drinking in the curves of your frame and the fullness of your ass. He might be devastated that he can't play with your tits, but he can destroy everything else. He didn’t miss the contemptuous glare you threw his way, making him chuckle deeply again. “Oh I’m sorry angel, this is a little unfair, huh?” He asked, pulling his jacket off, paper thin t-shirt soon to follow. 

You grin softly, reaching your hands out tentatively. He grasps your wrists and plants them firmly on his chest. “Don’t be afraid, pretty baby. You can’t hurt me.” He teased, keeping his eyes locked with yours as he slid his own sweatpants off, discarded elsewhere. His hands land in the dip of your waist, his touch is gentle for just a moment, until he’s using this grip on you to push you backwards until you’re sitting on the tattoo chair again, legs kept open by his figure standing between them. Dabi kneels to the floor, breathing directly over your throbbing heat. You moan involuntarily, just from the sight of the man looking up at you with the carnivorous look in his eyes.

He hums at this, the sounds he can get from you without even trying to stroke his ego and grow his cock in his boxers.He hooks his arms around your legs, pulling your pussy to his face without another passing second, causing you to gasp out in surprise, He lets his long tongue lap at your center, just tasting how worked up you already were. He drags your own fluids languidly up and down the entirety of you, his lips trapping your clit. When his tongue flicks at it, you gasp again, the cold metal unnoticed previously. You shouldn’t be surprised,  most everything else was pierced, which only left his…

The sound of his own satisfied grunts drag you away from picturing his length, not expecting him to enjoy himself so much. You feel one of his arms leave you, causing you to open your eyes and figure out why. You smile, your confidence building once you notice the man palming himself over his boxers, unable to resist touching himself while devouring your sweet pussy. “Taste good, honey?” You coo, a taunting lilt to your voice. 

The tone of your voice makes him fluster, determined to satisfy you so completely that there would be nothing for you to say, you wouldn’t be able to form words if you tried. He stands abruptly, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand before grabbing your neck with gentle pressure. “You talking shit up here, darlin’?” He arches his brow, analyzing your shocked expression. “Now c’mon baby, you didn’t think you could get away with that, now did you?” His slender fingers tighten around your throat slightly. The pressure makes your head buzz, every nerve on your body craving his everything. 

“Open your mouth.” He says, thumbing at your bottom lip with his free hand. You obey instantly, your body arching out toward him in a need to replace his missing touch. He smirks and spits, slightly off center, watching as your tongue darts out to claim whatever he missed. “Taste good, honey?” He mocks, his hand dipping to rub quick circles around your bundle, keeping you from responding. The only thing you can do is gasp and moan breathily.  “Yeah, that’s what I thought. I knew you were a little freak, acting so cute and innocent.” He coos, crashing his lips on yours. He was rough, but you craved that. His lips were soft, but that was about the end of his softness, the way his mouth moved against yours like you were the breath he needed to survive, the way his other hand clutched the back of your neck to keep you from escaping, how his occupied fingers moved fervently around your sweet spot. It was getting hard to handle, the pressure in your gut building to it’s toppling point as his slender fingers slipped into your eager hole, curling and hitting your insides with ease. You screamed, legs twitching as your first orgasm crashed over you, causing you to flush with embarrassment. He didn’t let you recover, grabbing you up and turning you to your stomach. You caught yourself quickly, turning your head to see over your shoulder, watching Dabi shed the last layer of his clothing. 

It was just as you thought, his solid and achingly long cock was studded with piercings, making you weak in the knees. He smirked, noticing your stare. “Oh baby, you have no idea… I can’t wait.” He chuckled, lining up to your entrance. He palms the swells of your ass, pulling your cheeks apart so he can watch the way your pussy puckers around him, sucking him in eagerly. He gives it to you in one push, letting you experience his excruciating thickness, stretching your insides to accompany him. The piercings tickle your gummy spot, making your vision blur almost immediately. Dabi was so grateful for the mirror in front of you on the wall, able to drink up all your lovely expressions of pleasure. 

“That’s my girl. Look at you baby, takin’ it so good for me.” He growls, driving his body weight into his already powerful thrusts. Your mouth drops open, but no sound comes out, your mind so utterly blank. You feel his body lay over yours, his hand grabbing your jaw like he liked to so often. “I said look at yourself.” He demanded, eyes taking in the way your tits clapped together with the force of him. You open your eyes, but admittedly the only thing you’re looking at is him, the sweat pooling on his brow, the way he gnawed on his lip, his hands gripping you so hard his knuckles are white and you know there will be bruises left to remind you of the way he looks in this moment. 

“Y-you’re.. s’pretty.” You whine, falling to your forearms as you begin to crumble again. He hums, propping his leg up on the chair to drive in at a deeper angle. 

“That’s all you, sunshine.” He coos, the sounds you make in return borderline animalistic. It gives him goosebumps, to hear how loud you can get in his honor. He knows he’s close, but he doesn’t want this to end. He wipes the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand, letting it come back down in a harsh slap to your ass. He smiles as the handprint he leaves behind glows bright red and you barely holler at the sensation.

Your screams go silent again, your body unable to move with him any longer. Your hips ache, his abuse of your insides causing everything to go black. You swear you see new colors as you cum once again, tightening around his shaft. 

“Oh fuck babygirl.” He groans, squelching and slapping noises filling the air. “You want my cum?” He asked, leaning his weight back over you. 

You can only nod, clutching the chair for dear life. “Please! Oh, god, Dabi please!” You choke out, wishing for nothing more than to feel his relief pool in you. 

He smirks, knowing he would love the way you beg for him. It wasn’t another thrust before he was helplessly draining himself inside you, slowing down his sinful pumps until he was still. Both of you are breathing heavily, and his eyes are still locked on your body in the mirror. He massages at your sore hips, wincing slightly at the bruises already forming. “I can get ya some ice, doll.” He offers sheepishly, dick still sheathed inside. 

You giggle and shake your head. “No, no, I’m okay..it’ll remind me of you.” You hum, a smirk of your own on your face. Dabi had his way with you, as you wanted, but you knew he would be addicted to the feeling. 

He kissed the back of your neck and leaned into your ear. “Now tell me you wish you came back another day.”

[pebblysand]

HERE WE GO! WELCOME TO THE PAGE PALS PROJECT! THIS IS YOUR CONVERSATION STARTER FOR CHAPTER ONE. FEEL FREE TO SEND IN ASKS OR JOIN THE DISCORD FOR MORE!

HANDY LINKS/INFO:

chapter: i. out of sand (baby girl)

wordcount: 10, 157

playlist: notes here

castles FAQ: here

g e n e r a l t h o u g h t s:

I felt very emotional, beginning this chapter. There is a sense of finality in this project that I hadn't quite grasped before. This is - in all probability - the last time I read this fic. This is the last time I read this chapter. A chapter I have read dozens of times in the past few years - every time I was stuck, every time I needed to 'get back in.' Most of these paragraphs roll off the tip of my tongue when I read them out loud, because I've seen them so many times. And, I know that for you, reading this, this might not be the last time. Because you will go back, re-read this fic as many times as you like for as long as the internet exists. But I won't. That's not how my brain works, and I need to put projects behind me. To make room for new ones. And, so there is a sense of excitement, yes, reaching the end, but also a sense of grief.

If everything goes well, and if I do post the last chapter when I intend to, castles will have been four years of my life, almost to the day. COVID came and went, so did a couple of jobs, a relationship, a parent. I recently listened to an interview from Alexandre Astier where he described meeting someone in a supermarket once, who asked for an autograph for her husband. 'Ah, he's a massive fan,' she said. 'Though, to be honest, I never got into your work myself.' He was talking about how, for 'normal' people, people who aren't artists, someone else's art is just that: something that you like or don't like. But, for us, it's a part of ourselves. It's thousands of hours of work. And, sometimes, I wonder what castles says about me. What these thousands of hours have come down to. If I die tomorrow, which I hope I do not, this is one the things that I will leave behind me. And, so: what does it say about me? I mean: beyond the politics and the feminism and the quirky little interests. I mean: me, as a person. What do castles readers know about me? I'm not sure I even want to know.

t h e r e - r e a d:

I really enjoyed re-reading this chapter. It's funny to me how for you guys, depending on when you started the fic, you might have read multiple versions of this. I didn't make any big changes, nothing massive, but I did add a couple of scenes/lines here and there throughout the years, I'm curious to see whether you will notice.

in terms of the chapter itself, i think one of the things i like most about it is how it flows. it has that very distinctive castles prose to it, with the timeline that moves back and forth, the run-on sentences, the spiralling in and out of scenes. i recently got a comment on ff.net (lol) that said the chapter was messy and unreadable. and i think in a way, i like that. because frankly, if that bothers you in chapter 1, then you're probably not the right person for this fic, you know? i think chapter one serves its function well. a first chapter is supposed to be an intro, a taste of what you will read next, and i think it is perfect in that. it introduces the plot, the dynamic between the characters. it's long enough to signal that this isn't a fic where you'll read fifteen chapters in half an hour. i think you can read chapter one and tell if this is a fic you'll enjoy or not. and, that's what i want, really. that's what a first chapter should do.

having said that, i think there are two things i want to specifically dive into.

t h e h y p o:

early in the writing of castles, i used to get a lot of criticism about my version of post-war harry and ginny. particularly, there seems to be a subsection of the hinny-shipping crowd that basically thinks that harry and ginny would just meet after the war, scream at each other (or, that at least, ginny would be angry at harry for leaving her behind), kiss and make up, and pour their hearts out to each other about past events. specifically, these people believe that ginny is very good at weeding secrets out of harry, at getting him to talk, and thus the events of castles are not canon compliant with both of these characters.

i feel like objectively, it's not really my place to say whether that's correct. i think multiple versions of the same thing can be 'correct' depending on how you write them. but, if that's what floats your boat, if you have a very strong headcanon about this, then fine - by all means, go read something else (again, that's also the point of chapter 1). but i think this hypothesis sort of stuck in my head for a while, in light of the comments i was getting, because i couldn't help but wonder if that version of things isn't simply an idealised version of reality.

because, to read the books strictly: 1) ginny's anger at harry isn't obvious. you could argue it is there but she's actually quite calm in the break up scene. i am not sure she is that angry with him, especially when you think that she's just been through a war, lost a brother, etc. i think ginny is someone who knows there is a time and place for anger, and who is also incredibly strong and resilient. she still kisses him even after the break-up, after he's clearly decided to leave her behind , so i'm not sure she would lash out in these circumstances. additionally, 2) there's actually not that much evidence that harry and ginny talk to each other - ever. they're a hot and heavy thing, but they don't share much emotional stuff on screen. you can interpret the 'sunlit days' however you want, in the absence of further information, but it's not a given that ginny ever shares anything of importance about her past or her traumas, like what happened with tom. the one scene everyone always points to is the 'lucky you' scene, but that's a mutual understanding more than it is a conversation. she actually never mentions anything beyond very utilitarian details meant to help harry realise he's not being possessed. and, harry never canonically tells ginny about anything of importance in his life either.

and so what all of these comments drove me to do, a few months ago (i think i added this in september 2023) was to link that to the theme of those early chapters of castles. because one of the key elements of chapters 1-3, specifically, is this idea of the lifeline. of the way harry and ginny have spent months, at this point, idealising each other, idealising their reunion, for it to later come crashing down on them. and so i thought i would use the opportunity of chapter one to 1) try and address the 'criticism' above, and 2) make it fit within the world of castles. it led to this:

In his head, their reunion would have been something sweet, like her lips moving against his, the taste of the raspberry-flavoured lip balm she used to wear the year before. He would have confessed to all of his sins, to almost dying, to Hallows and Horcruxes, to the fear and the nightmares, to leaving her behind. ‘I’m sorry,’ he would have said. ‘I am so, so sorry.’  And, he would have tried to explain like he did last year, that all he ever wanted was to protect her, to keep her safe, and she would have yelled. Shouted at the top of her lungs in a rapid succession of angry jabs about what an arsehole he was. ‘I can take care of myself!’ she would have thrown back. ‘You left me!’  He would have looked to his feet. With time, he hopes that they would have fixed it. In reality, though, Ginny Weasley hands him a toothbrush that morning, as he sits back on his heels. Her stare digs holes into the side of his face and he wonders if, had he been Hermione or Luna (had he been a friend, still), she would have cajoled him. Handed him a wet towel for his forehead. Instead, she closes the door behind her on her way out. ‘You should shower,’ she says.

i love the sort of whiplash effect this scenes gives, of the fantasy v. post-war reality, which is obviously a massive theme in castles. and i also love the way it subtly signals that ginny might have changed (just like he has) throughout the war. because, obviously, she has, and we later find out why.

s e x a n d f u n e r a l s:

i cannot express how attached i am to that scene, and to that line in particular. i think there's a number of reasons for this:

first, it's the line that basically motivated me to start castles for real in 2020. i have said this before in other posts but i started drafting some sort of post-war hinny fic as early as 2007. i never finished anything, then when i was 17 (2010), i did a re-read and actually drafted something new. then dropped it again. and, that file transferred from laptop to laptop, from file to file for ten years without me touching it much. until covid came and i was looking through my drive, and i tenderly read what 17-year-old me had written back then, including this 'first time' sex scene which, to be honest, has mostly remained untouched in the final version of this. and, i remember finding it, reading it, and thinking the rest of what i had written was a bit cringe, but that one scene seemed to work. and then, i got to the (now famous) line: to him, the spring of '98 is about sex and funerals, and thought fuck, that's a good line. like, a really good line. and i didn't want to let it go to waste. and, so, four years later, here we are.

i think that line is a very good symbol of what this story is about. 'sex and funerals' - it's a metaphor for how life is about the good and the bad things. that they co-exist as one single entity, and that the beauty of what we do, of the way we live, resides somewhere in between. it's why i chose it as the summary back then, and why it is still the summary now. i really built the entire fic around that line. so, yeah, 17-year-old jo, you already had something going for you, darling.

l a s t l y:

a thought i had while re-reading (and please don't come at me for this), is that... this could have been a one-shot. like, it really could have. i finished chapter 1 and there's a sort of finality to it, isn't there? like, i'm glad i continued this fic, but part of me thinks that all i've been trying to say in the past four years actually is in this chapter. obviously, not as detailed or subtle, but it's there, you know? it could have been a one-shot, lmao.

but anyway, i'm curious, did you guys enjoy your re-read? did you notice the changes i made throughout the years? did you enjoy them? feel free to send me an ask or join the discord server to discuss. i'm so excited to get this discussion started and hear your thoughts!

[ladyhindsight]

We are half-way through the book, and it feels like going nowhere. Team Good is trying to find a way to help Jace, sure, while doing some side quests. Sebastian and Jace are progressing with their own plan as well, and Clary just hangs along not really actively trying to find out anything but to build rapport with Sebastian and make out with Jace. It all seems so aimless at the moment.

Chapter opens up with Alec returning to Magnus’ place after the meet-up with Camille.

A way to make your character to look more dumb than probably intended is to do this. Because what purpose does it serve how long does it take for Alec to realize this insignificant thing?

→ “but the living room was glowing with the blue-white flame coming from the pentagram.”

Alec goes to sleep next to Magnus who had different ideas than sleeping, and we cut to Simon and Isabelle having difficulties cuddling.

Astute observation. Also, it’s always childhood and nostalgia when Simon thinks of Clary. Isabelle will later in this book make a great point about this, but Simon never really gives up that aspect of Clary and his relationship to move forward and grow up, does he.

Just in the previous chapter I said that it’s such an outlandish take for any Shadowhunter to be inclined to think like this. Obviously individual opinions exist and not everyone necessarily likes them, but the fact that it’s one cause of the whole point that makes them Nephilim in the first place, it’s ridiculous that the scars are made such a point of beauty/ugliness in this book.

More so is the opinion that Isabelle presents here, that girls aren’t supposed to be covered in scars. Who thinks that? Where does he get that? What is the influence behind this idea that girls specifically are supposed to be unscarred? Warrior women and daughters of Raziel aren’t supposed to be scarred when they too use runes?

This is so idiotic and more a mundane issue, which for all the superiority the Nephilim feel towards them should make them think it all stupid.

Simon is also hungry and Isabelle tries to seduce him to drink from her. Simon resist but Isabelle is insistent, from which we could draw some parallel points that no means no, but:

This is unintentionally hilarious.

Simon is worried that he drank too much.

I’m going to need some peer-reviewed studies on this. Sure, blood volume as in plasma is replaced and can be replaced quickly, which means even quicker for the Shadowhunters. But even with Shadowhunters and they hyper blood, hemoglobin will take weeks, so does it really help if you’re going to be anemic? No.

Cut to Jace and Clary, and Clary is surprised that Sebastian told her the truth, that he didn’t feed the human girl to the vampire girl.

The writing does it utmost to teeter the edge of maybe we can trust Sebastian and give him a chance, but it doesn’t really work when you have child murder on your tally. Doesn’t need feverish mulling-over when you've witnessed firsthand and secondhand the evil Sebastian is capable of. Clary is neither that worried about the human girl Sebastian dragged along, she just wonders whether Sebastian lied about her fate and is to be trusted.

I don’t know where the jeans appeared because it was told in the chapter 8 that: “The drawers held camisoles and underwear, tops in cotton and silk, skirts but no jeans or pants.” And this is the only wardrobe that Clary utilizes in the moving house of Sebastian. Though obviously Sebastian or Jace could’ve gone and bought her some.

They truly know each other so well.

I'm just taking a dig, they don't have to know or can't know each little thing about each other, but it's funny because otherwise the writing really likes to tell you just that.

Again, the em dashes function like a comma, a colon, or parenthesis. Like commas and parentheses, em dashes set off extra information, and here they are intended as a colon but used like parenthesis. Without the em dashes the sentence here in the excerpt would go like this:

She looked away from him and busied herself putting together a breakfast plate from what was on the table, the chewy, round kind.

→ and sliced bacon that was the chewy, round kind.

Or something.

Much like me with all of Clare's writing. Why, why, why...

The motion he is doing is still running, not floating.

→ making it look like he was running in the air.

Clary doesn’t know Jace can cook eggs, and Jace doesn’t know Clary doesn’t like eggs. Also Clary doesn’t know how to tell Jace she doesn’t like eggs.

Imagine not being able to voice your dislikes because the other one might get disappointed. Imagine just answering Jace’s question: “Neither, I don’t like eggs.” But no, we needed a stupid segue to relationship wisdom from Sebastian, since Clare doesn’t realize that even these tiniest of things and inconsistencies eat away the actual consistency of her narrative she sometimes manages.

Why does he need to strip at all?

Oh, right. For another character-defining moment.

There will be another point also in the book that refers to this same point. Why does it matter where to rune is placed? Because the series has barely told us anything about the workings of runes, it has barely made any sense with the use of them.

You can infer that it matters where the rune is placed. But what runes work best and placed where? Maybe this is not necessary knowledge for the story to work, and maybe I'm just too pendantic about it, but since it is made a point that each rune is placed on a specific place here, I'd personally like to know why those places exactly.

Maryse then gets her one and only PoV.

Jem is so insistent on separating Jace as Herondale that it isn’t even subtle. “Your son” would suffice. (he does say that after though)

Case in point. Also there is no consistency as to what names the Silent Brothers even use.

I just love this exchange because Maryse tells Jem what’s what! And yes, Jem, you did, with your obsession of Jace's Herondale-ness.

YES, HE WAS. And the mentality like you are the reason he did not get to be! Also, what does this even meeeeean???

Cut back to Team Evil. They are on a mission to do something, after hanging around the town for ages, but Clary doesn’t know what they are after. (A chunk of adamas)

This book just loves “subtly” incorporating the incest theme. The sibling love theme just continues and continues, and I am tired and sickened at the “subtlety” under which Clare thinks she operates, though I get why Sebastian phrases it like this.

Why was it so difficult to leave Jace and Clary to wait outside somewhere? Because plot couldn’t happen.

Truly the peak of Jace’s training.

We end the chapter with this cliffhanger but no worries, Clary will experience her warrior awakening in the next chapter, which was actually kind of nice. All the other stuff in this chapter, not so much, which is not a good fanfare for what is coming next.

[st0rmyskies]

I was wondering what exactly does Time do? Like, I know he works for the crown, but whats his like job? Is he like a hit man, or a private investigator? Does Dark do the same thing? Also, I love everything you write, im like obsessed with the townhouse boys!

This is the million dollar question, anon.

Time was brought back into the employ of the crown at the start of The Brave because Ganon Dragmire, the son of Ganondorf, is threatening the power of the matriarchy. The final disposition of Ganondorf, the major threat from Time's generation, isn't known - but it's strongly insinuated that his demise was Time's doing, and that it probably wasn't pleasant. From the end of HSH1:

“The son of the Dragmire clan is eager to prove himself, and to avenge his father.”  “And her highness requires the assistance of her faithful servant.”  “No requirement. She merely requests the assistance of her friend.”

From the start of The Brave:

“Thanks to intelligence gathered from the Gerudo tribe, we have learned that Ganondorf’s son, Ganon, has quickly risen to power within his father’s clan. He is not quiet about his grudge against the Hyrulean crown.... What we don’t know is his true intention: whether he is set on more subtle means of antagonism or if he intends to wage an all-out war.”

Time was asked to return so that he could fulfill the role that Great Deku used to hold on the Sages Council, the close-knit group of advisors to the queen, Lullaby. Although Time doesn't really know how to do this. Remember, he was a little delinquent pulled out of a detention center under questionable circumstances to serve the Hyrulean crown during his first adventure, then took off to Termina where he was treated like little more than a hired thug. So he doesn't expect much different from this new assignment in the beginning.

"...And Link, it goes without saying that your skillset will be integral to our success.” Time folded his hands on the tabletop. “Just provide your targets and leave the rest to me.” “Actually, Link,” Lullaby smiled kindly, “after you accepted your position on the Sages Council, we had convened to discuss what your role on the council should be. You have long served the people of Hyrule in silence. We have agreed that it’s time you are given the proper recognition you deserve.”  Time glanced around the table quickly, but the smiles of the other sages offered no clues. “I would never decline such an honor, but I worry that might defeat the purpose of my position.”  “Not so,” Impa intervened. “In the interest of helping you maintain anonymity, and considering your recognizability,” she added as tactfully as she could, “we have acquired for you a proxy.”

Enter: Dark. Time is now in a position to direct some of the violence and antagonism that goes on on the crown's behalf while, in his words, Dark "gets to have all the fun." He's meant to be an informant and spy to gather information about the Dragmires for the crown to use against them, and to take Time's place on dangerous or bloody missions.

Furthermore, Time's recognition comes in the form of becoming the Queen's Appointed Knight. It's a much more public position that puts him as her right-hand man, as close an advisor and confidante as Impa, and ceremonial head of her Royal Guard.

Note, he's not the functional head of the Guard. As Warriors puts it during their little chess match, "The Knights are known for snuffing out all sorts of problems with discretion and tact, especially those that come from within the [Guard] ranks.” Time is reprising his role as the Fierce Deity in this position; the Knight is historically someone that recruits and soldiers are meant to fear, judge and executioner rolled into one. Because perhaps Lullaby knew more than she let on about how deeply her ranks were becoming infiltrated with Ganon's spies.

[sunshinemoonrx]

Starhound: April Devlog

I've mentioned the RPGmaker game I'm working on a bit before, and since that's always gonna be pretty slow with me working full-time, I thought it'd be good to keep track of my pace with end-of-the-month progress posts. So! Here's what I've done in April.

(For the record, at the moment I'm actually planning on calling the game "Star Hound Vega", as the [Thing] [Descriptor] [Name] pattern is venerable among tokusatsu and mecha type heroes, but "Starhound" is my name for the setting and stories generally.)

Finished the first dungeon! It took more passes than I thought it would, as it always does, and I'm sure there'll be more tweaks in future, but I have now got to the point where I'm able to play through it and go "wow! that functions as intended without breaking! no notes"

2. Updated some sprites! Previously Vega's and Nemea's were just placeholders, but I've arrived at some that I feel pretty good about and represent them much better. Placeholders on the left, final sprites on the right:

I ended up using the "male" creator for Vega, which I think works great for creating butch women. (I have hemmed and hawed a bit over if I'm being Problematic by doing this as she is also the main trans character, however: I am a trans girl and I can do what I want. In seriousness, it is a bit of wish-fulfilment for me--I wish I could be more butch and masc-styled and be read as "a handsome woman" and not "a man", so Vega's living that dream for me. She's a hunk you get it)

I will definitely still need some kind of custom visuals for Vega's henshin hero suit, and Nemea (and her boss, Princess Ascella) when she appears as an enemy.

3. Diversified the music! So a fun thing about RPGMaker is you think you know the small selection of default assets it gives you, but if you dig around in the installed files there's actually a lot more free assets you can transfer in--from walk sprites and portraits from older versions of RPGMaker, to a whole bunch of extra enemy graphics, to a lot more music. In particular, I found some pretty sweet battle themes so now each boss can have its own! (This all mixed in with something I already grabbed right when I started making this--a pack of specifically old toku style music, which is really great for making it feel appropriately flavoured.)

4. Added a town area! The overworld is pretty limited in this, it's not so much travel as using a small consistent hub/base to rest between dungeons (if sequels happen they'll probably be bigger but I'm trying to keep a lid on the minimum viable product scope ykno), but there are a couple additional areas, so...now we have that!

Got to have some fun populating it with cute characters, which was nice.

5. Started the second dungeon! My main goal this month was to finish the first one, so it's nice to be ahead of schedule.

I've also figured out some really fun gimmicks for this one, so the first dungeon will serve mostly as a backdrop while you're introduced to the game's core mechanics, then this one will step it up and be more showy in its own right. Figuring out stuff like "oh you can have specific enemy encounters only happen on certain regions of the map" and "oh you can totally hide one-off boss fights inside random encounters" has got me to a concept I'm real happy with.

So yeah, that's where the game's at right now! For May, my main goal is just to finish the second dungeon, but we'll see where that goes. I plan on making a prototype build to toss at some friends once I've done a pass on the third dungeon (the total plan is for five, plus a final area after), but the third one is very short so I might even be able to do that in May too. But no pressure if the second is all I manage, that's the goal.

[theramseyloft]

Beginner’s housing for a pet pigeon

We can go into the complexities involved in housing multiple pigeons at a later time.

Right now, we’re going to focus primarily on setting up for a single bird who is intended to be a companion animal.

The biggest problem you are going to run into is that the housing commercially available for birds is designed either to display a finch or a parrot.

Finch cages make excellent hospital cages for pigeons, but that is their only useful application.

A Hospital cage needs to be small to discourage the bird from moving around too much and doing anything other than eating and drinking, so that their recovery, be that from disease or injury, can progress with as few delays as possible.

A healthy bird cannot tolerate this degree of confinement for long.

Parrot cages are huge and expensive, but too narrow for a pigeon to be physically able to use.

The bare minimum requirements for any cage a pigeon will be housed in for more than an hour a day is that it be two inches wider than the full wingspan of the bird at the narrowest point, to allow their wings at least an inch of clearance on either side.

They are cliff nesters that don’t roost on branches. Round perches hurt their feet, so they need either flat platforms or square perches.

Pigeons cannot climb the way parrots can. They can only walk or fly, and they cannot comfortably fly if their wings will clip into things like hanging toys or ramps.

So they tend to prefer their enclosure be as uncluttered as possible.

Socialization is best done outside the enclosure, so that’s where most of the toys should be.

Dog kennels set up like this one above are kinder to both the pigeons and the wallets of their care taker than pretty much any indoor bird cage available.

A Labrador sized (usually marketed as a “Large”) kennel will fit bird about homer sized and smaller.

Larger breeds or breeds with longer flight and tail feathers will need a larger size as a base line.

These are very simple to modify.

The nest box is a bunny/ferret corner litter box, about $8-10 at most pet shops. Easy to clean and comfortable.

The perch is a garden stake cut to length, about $5 from the garden center at Walmart or a hardware store like Lowes or home Depot.

Honestly, if I had this to do over, the birds would get a wider, shallower food dish.

Pigeons are ground foragers. It’s easier for them to eat comfortably from a shallow dish than a deep one.

The water dish can be as deep as the pigeon can reach the bottom of.

This is the upper level of a ferret nation Double modified for my first breeding pair of Lucerne waaaay back before my loft was built, when I had a grand total of four breeding pair of pigeons and 16 pairs of Ringneck doves.

This one also has a garden steak cut to fit as a perch.

Their nest box is a large dog bowl full of timothy hay.

Notice that this enclosure has a single hanging bell toy exactly at standing head height for the birds, well out of the way of their wings.

This probably looks unbearably spartan, especially if you come form a parrot back ground.

Remember that pigeons cannot climb and will not fly in a space where their wings may bump into clutter.

The cage for an indoor pet pigeon should serve the same function as the kennel does for an indoor dog:

That is NOT where the dog lives!

At most, it’s where they sleep at night, and where a puppy stays when they can’t be supervised until they’ve learned the house rules.

Pigeons are absolutely smart enough to learn house rules just like a dog or cat.

And pet pigeons are happiest when they have the freedom of motion to exercise, play, and interact with their human flock mates at will.

While they can free fly an entire house, a single bedroom is enough space for most breeds to move around happily.

Pigeon proofing is pretty simple.

They aren’t capable of chewing like parrots, so no need to worry about your electrical chords being damaged and your bird giving them self a nasty shock.

They can’t damage wood or drywall or fabric by chewing.

Pigeons don’t eat plants, but do like the feel of ripping them and will use strips of leaves as nest bedding, so house plants may need to be protected by glass covers.

Things displayed on shelves in the room or rooms the pigeon will have access to need to be heavy enough or well enough wedged in that the bird can’t pull them down if they land awkwardly on them or push them off if they bump into or try to squeeze past them.

Papers need to be stored where they won’t be scattered by the wind that their powerful wings kick up in flight.

Any crevices too high or awkward for you to easily clean need to be blocked some how.

Poop is simple.

The poop of a well fed, healthy pigeon with a good diet should be round and solid enough that it can be easily picked up with a square of toilet paper or a tissue when wet or vacuumed up when dry.

Once you know your bird’s favorite perches, you can make clean up even easier on yourself by laying down puppy pads under them that you can just change out as often as needed.

Once a pigeon has mastered the house rules, you can do away with the cage entirely.

This is the feeding station we set up for Ankhou and Bird-bird.

On the little feed tray for cats were the feeder and waterer with oystershell offered free choice from a dish between them.

Pigeons are one of the very few animals that recognize their reflection in the mirror as a a reflected view of themselves, instead of another bird.

Most like to practice dancing, strutting, their sweeping charge, and bow-cooing in front of mirrors, so those are excellent enrichment for them.

Being cliff nesters, bricks are simply the most comfortable thing for a pigeon to stand on.

Strutting back and forth on the rough surface in front of a mirror will help them keep their claws blunted.

The bricks are holding down a crinkle sack for cats, laid out flat. 

Pigeons love noise stims. Particularly crinkly, jingly, or chiming.

The noise it made made dancing in front of the mirror extra fun on the crinkle mat.

The dead keyboard serves a similar function.

This beans box from Walmart full of straw served as Bird-Bird’s nest box.

She laid eggs fairly regularly, and slept in there most of the time.

Ankhou was a man of simple tastes. 

This baby doll blanket on the nightstand at my bedside was where he slept at night.

Social bird was social and wanted to be as close as possible to us at all times and involved somehow in everything we did.

Pigeons like to take baths, and our free flying pet liked to be offered the opportunity to take one when we showered, but did not like to actually be in the shower with us.

So we got him a little pyrex casserole dish about as long as he was that stayed on the side of the bathtub and made a habit of filling it for him before we got into the shower.

Anhkou didn’t care much for forage pans or puzzle toys, but many pigeons do and they are very simple to make.

A pan or tray with a few fists full of straw, paper strips, sand, or a mix of all three with a high value treat like Safflower seeds sprinkled in to find mimics the way rock doves would forage for seed in the wild.

Puzzle feeders for pigeons are as simple to make as crumpling a sheet of paper with a few high value seeds inside.

Pigeons love crinkly sounds and tugging on the crumpled paper or blowing it around by flapping at it will reward them with a few spilled seeds and a fun noise.

The little wicker balls for kitties with a jingle bell inside complete the holy trinity of stick-texture, shiny, and jingly, and many pigeons love to kick, peck, and toss them.

They like to pick up and shake and toss bread ties with a small jingle bell fastened to the end.

Bird-Bird’s favorite toy was the bell intended to go on a kittens collar. 

She liked to strut around with it holding it by the loop by which it was supposed to fasten and very softly jingling it.

Q-tips with the cotton tips removed and toothpicks with blunted or clipped ends are basically pigeon Legos.

Miniature wind chimes like this little angel and her harp are fun auditory stims too.

If you can swing it (ha!), pigeons enjoy swings, as long as the perch is flat.

Experiment with your birds and see what kind of enrichment they enjoy. ^v^

[soranis-sunshadow]

I think my favorite irony of Hordak is that someone who comes from a overly centralized micromanaged HIVE MIND society cult created a very decentralized military/kingdom. (Is it a Kingdom?)

Like yes Hordak is "Lord" and he had a "Second in Command" but I like to imagine his Force Captains and those in charge of whatever parts of the Horde they are in charge of have a lot of autonomy to do whatever they please. At least i'd think.

I mean we see Shadow Weaver and Catra pursue independent agendas outside of Hordak's own wishes. So it's safe to presume that Force Captains are given A LOT of leeway to whatever they wish as long as it serves the greater mission. Probably some who when with their troops act like they are commanding a private army than being part of a large one.

It's just those little things I think about and the irony of Hordak and the Etheria Horde.

The Etheria Horde is technologically advanced but operates very feudally in a "Earth traditional sense" if that makes sense.

It is delicious irony indeed. But I don't think he intended to create such a decentralized system so much as he didn't know how to actually exert control over his underlings besides his posturing and he assumed that they would function in the interests of the horde (because any proper clone would have done exactly that).

Which, eh... is not a good assumption to have about your underlings. (if someone can abuse their power without repercussions - 9/10 times, they will do it.)

Shadow Weaver lies to him to his face about pursuing Adora.

Even so, we don't really see him actually punishing her disobedience. The only repercussion to this is that he's bitchier than usual then he retreats back into his lab to do his own projects.

Do we ever see Hordak actually punishing someone for doing anything other than intruding on his Sanctum* before Catra does the deed and frees a dangerous prisoner then LIES about it.

*the only place where he can treat his sickness with any modicum of privacy.

It's sort of suggested that had she confessed, the punishment wouldn't have been exile. (though being honest with Shadow Weaver had always made her pay before so to Catra, she had no reason to be honest with Hordak either)

It's really interesting to ponder how much of the damage the Horde inflicted was because of Horde policy and how much was because of the decisions each Force Captain made on the field.

[ot3]

so i just finished orv but i like...dont get the ending? i feel kinda dumb but can you maybe explain it

obviously insane spoilers for the end of orv. do not click this if you're not done.

essentially, here's what happened:

KDJ, when taking over as the most ancient dream, was trapped in the subway for tens of thousands of years, just Watching. the way orv's reality (it's 'worldview', in the vernacular of the text) functions is that in order for time to progress, the world lines must be observed. it's a schroedinger's cat sort of thing; nothing either exists or doesn't unless it's being looked at. the most ancient dream has to exist because the most ancient dream subconsciously watches over and dictates reality; the subconscious will of the dream is what controls the flow of probability

over the course of his journey on the train, kim dokja uses his power as the most ancient dream to interfere with the 0th regression and help YJH. however, everything, including the dream, is constrained by probability, and to manipulate the probability comes with a considerable toll. KDJ paid this toll by allowing his fables to be scattered and reincarnated into new world lines

KDJ actually does this on purpose at some points too; he considers it his punishment for existence, basically. eventually, enough of his fables are gone that all that's left behind of him is the child-like figure that the gang finds when they reach the train at the end of the 1865th regression.

now, the reason that time continues to pass and the world continues to function even without a most ancient dream watching from the train is that all of the little bits and pieces of kim dokja that have been reincarnated as various people and various world lines are subconsciously serving the purpose of the most ancient dream in a de-centralized fashion.

this is where han sooyoung's plan comes in: since the subconscious urge of all of these collective bits of kim dokja is what literally decides how reality functions, she needs to get all of them to subconsciously desire the same reality, thus causing it to become real. the reason kim dokja had to sacrifice himself over and over and over again was because, at the most fundamental level, there wasn't a version of kim dokja capable of imagining a world where he got a happy ending.

so she writes ORV and has YJH deliver it to various worldlines where bits of kim dokja's fables have reincarnated, believing that because kim dokja is kim dokja, he will find her novel and read it all the way through, sympathizing with himself as a protagonist the way he once sympathized with YJH. however, she doesn't manage to get the ending written, which was the most important part since that was to be the 'blueprint' for the new dream, so to speak.

now, if you're anything like me, when you sat there reading this, you realized a couple of things in quick succession: 1. oh god im kim dokja? 2. you probably have spent this entire exhausting epilogue praying with every fiber of your being for kim dokja to be happy with his companions. i dont think anyone could make it to that point in the story and not want that! and just by wanting that, that become real.

so even without the 'proper' epilogue han sooyoung intended, the little kim dokjas out there reading the ending were gripped by that same desire we all were: kim dokja deserves his happy ending!!!!!

there's a stirring from kim dokja's hospital room and the fables they earned together start telling their stories again, something that hasnt happened since the system began crumbling, which all points to kim dokja's successful recovery.

the ending is technically ambiguous, but i personally have zero doubt about what happens. kim dokja is just fine. theyre all living together in a big house

tell me if theres anything else youre confused about and ill do my best to clear it up if i can !

[therealvinelle]

You've said before that you think Meyer is a good writer. I'm neutral to her myself but you're the first person in the fandom to say that that I've seen and I was wondering what your reasons were.

Sure thing.

First of, some referential links. In this post I explain why I like Meyer’s worldbuilding, and in this one I explain (in the last reblog - you can get away with skipping the previous posts) why I think her character creation is well done, and in this one I talk about why I like Twilight in the first place, though that post got a bit off-topic.

So, let me first do the disclaimer that I do not think Meyer is perfect.

Her greatest flaw, I’d say, is that what she intends to write isn’t always what ends up on page. Edward is for instance supposed to be the ideal man, chivalrous and the very antithesis of toxic masculinity. His relationship with Bella is supposed to be a love story on part with all the classics. Jacob, too, is intended as a dreamboat. Alice is the ideal BFF, Rosalie is the bitchy Regina George, Esme is the ultimate mother, and all the Cullen relationships are wonderfully happy. Aro is supposed to be a sinister villain and the Volturi are all corrupt.

Now, all of the above is how Bella perceives things, and I’m all for unreliable narrators. All narrators are, to a point, unreliable, and inferring things from fiction is one of my favorite things to do (as you can probably tell if you’ve been following this blog). However, so far as I can tell Meyer didn’t intend for Bella to have no clue what’s going on at any given time.

As it happens, I also think this is one of her strengths. This woman is living on a different planet, her mind is on a level I can’t follow at all, only spectate in silent wonder. What I’m saying is, no author in their right mind would write Twilight. No one would write Edward as delightfully unhinged as he is, for starters, not without toning him down significantly (just look at how the movies toned him down). To say nothing of how Bella would be a much more functional person, and in turn much less interesting. Aro would be an actual villain, and Twilight as a whole would not be so overwhelmingly bleak.

Her strengths come through in that she’s consistent about it, and while she interprets things differently than I do, she is still the creator of this bizarre universe and one who knows it intimately well. Does she think Edward is great, yes. Did she also write Midnight Sun without pulling any punches, also yes.

I’d put it this way, the flaw of hers that I’m trying to get at is that she creates this rich and horrifying universe and gets full credit from me for that, but she views it through rose-tinted glasses. Which in turn leads to some interesting writing and plotting decisions.

She has one other significant flaw that comes to mind. She’s not good at cutting things.

This goes for both scenes and plotlines. There’s a lot of filler in these books, from Bella making enchiladas in Twilight, to New Moon taking far too long in Jake’s garage and with Bella’s depression before things start happening again, to Breaking Dawn being 2/3rds filler (the wedding, honeymoon, and vampire euphoria especially come to mind.) There’s a lot of stuff in these books that weren’t necessary to the plot. The Host suffer from this as well.

To say nothing of the bigger things she should have cut, like Jake’s involvement in Breaking Dawn. He’d played out his part, Bella chose to become everything he hated, we were done. The book had more than enough story with Renesmée and the Volturi happening, and Jake’s involvement only served to lower the book’s overall quality. And introduce a pedophilic storyline, which, Meyer no.

Then there are decisions she made where I would have chosen differently, such as Bella returning to Forks at the end of New Moon.

However, this all being said, I am a very difficult person to please. Meyer was never going to tick all my boxes, and while I have points of contention with her, my overall impression is a positive one.

(Just to stress how difficult I am to please: I read Good Omens a few days ago. I liked it very much, but it wasn’t perfect. Shadwell, Madame Tracy, Newt Pulcifer and the Them could all have been cut, for starters.

I’m too critical of everything, and it’s not just Meyer that I think should have cut significant parts of their respective stories and made them into something fundamentally different.)

So, now that I’ve torn her apart, what do I like about her? What, for that matter, do I think constitutes a good writer?

To list a few things I like about her as a writer:

She’s good at writing Her prose is very good, her characters are interesting and engaging people, she’s very good at establishing a scene or a character, and she’s evocative. Her prose never bores me, and it makes me feel things.

She has good ideas Self-explanatory,  really. Her lore is extremely original, her characters are interesting, and she comes up with great backstories and worldbuilding. The Southern Wars, for instance, brilliant.

She’s consistent She’s described this herself - she doesn’t get to decide what her characters do, sometimes they do things she very much does not want them to do and she’s quite put out about it. And that, I think, is the key to why her characterization is so consistent - she doesn’t do that dreaded thing where the author forces a character to do what they must to force the plot along, like cramming a square through a triangular hole, she just lets her characters decide for themselves. As her characters are already delightful people, this works out beautifully (Edward conspiring with Jacob that they should forcibly abort Bella’s baby so Jake can then impregnate her comes to mind. Or Aro, whom she views as a powerhungry maniac, showing up at the battleground and being absolutely devastated about that fact.) as they never do anything they wouldn’t do, and their characterization does not change from one book to another. (Counterexample: look at how Kylo Ren in The Rise of Skywalker turns towards the light when we’re closing in on the end of the movie. It’s unconvincing, to say the least, and runs contrary to what has previously been established about him. The movie does not bother to explain why this happens now, what it is that’s so special about one chat with Han and a duel with Rey that makes him turn his life around, nor why it couldn’t have happened sooner. He is redeemed because the trilogy is nearly over, not because it made sense for his character.)

Her plotting is generally good Her plots make sense, I’m invested in them, and they’re reasonably adapted to her characters’ power levels (The clusterfuck that was the Department of Mysteries showdown in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is an example of the antithesis of that).

Of these virtues, I’d place the most emphasis on Meyer’s writing and character creation.

As for what makes a good writer…

It’s difficult for me to pin down.

It’s chiefly whether I think their writing is good, and that means prose, characters, and plot. As Meyer fulfills all of these three, that puts her in my “good writer” box. She’s not perfect, but she has earned her place as a published author.

More, I enjoy reading her books and care about the story and characters she creates. This is a matter of personal preference, but I’m down for what she’s putting out. It would be disingenuous for me to do that and then say “... but of course, she’s a terrible writer”, in part because I feel that’s become a bit of a disclaimer when it comes to Meyer. It’s like the Emperor’s New Clothes. Stephenie Meyer is a bad writer, everyone knows that, if you think otherwise you have bad taste. She has written things, I’ve enjoyed them all, and I’m giving her full credit for that.

[thekitschdiet]

my take on the literary masterpiece, the chic diet

Firstly, I am no one. It’s part of my charm. My fifteen minutes of fame was years ago, when I had an instagram niche meme page. I didn’t even take any brand deals! And my posts averaged six thousand likes! Anyhow. I am hardly literate and well hydrated and carry a small sephora-CVS-hybrid worth in my mini tote bag. Here is my guide on how to live like me, the intermediate kitsch-rat, aspiring influencer. But like, in an apathetic, somewhat dissonant, ironic way. I like saying I live by dogmatic principles. But a lot of it, um, is just eating disorder rituals. But that’s not really important. You’re as hot as you say you are, and as much an authority on what you write so long as you say it with, you know, conviction. It’s kind of venerable how fucking delusional I am, actually. Giving any sort of advice like I’m anywhere close to the ritzy ideal of the amphetamine-areyouami label-american. New York, ideally. West Village, preferably. But I guess the kind of guide I can write is better suited to someone living in a suburb, in a house with the twelve-paned windows. I always thought those were so chic. SO quaint, in a somewhat luxe way. Like, Connecticut vibes. My parents used to drive me up there as a child to buy books and ice cream. Nowadays I’d opt for a matcha latte with novelty ice cubes, but I guess at the time it was pretty sweet. 

Because I popped a Vyvanse at like, 10pm, this next little bit could go one of two ways. I will write the most articulate, brilliant piece of literature of my life. Magnum opus, if there was a skinnier word for it. Or, I will get wrapped up doing something like folding all my last-season knits (which is part of my look, okay! I don’t have a job!) and fixating on a paragraph on how a girl’s collarbones are almost as identifying as a fingerprint, or a signature. I’m not a graphologist, but if you write your A’s with the little tail on top (like on a computer), you’re probably a snake. Nothing personal, just an observation. Also, I do have a biology final to study for. Not that I’m super anal, or even particularly committed to academia, but even in my precariously manicured (read that as separate terms; I did a good job on my nail polish, okay? But I happen to also be teetering on the brink of an epiphany or a collapse. Hence the use of the word precarious.) state, I know it’s important enough I can let one of my countless side-quests sit idle for a couple more days. 

The first section seems only natural to be about hydration. And the whole idea of drinking things, really. There was a section in The Chic Diet about Adderall dry-mouth, which deeply resonated with me. Once I bit off a chunk of a Nivea Strawberry Shine (my favorite lip balm, more on that later) and swished it around my mouth. Didn’t help. Really, really didn’t. Anyway, I suppose that even if it served no purpose for combatting my prevacatingly ingenious cottonmouth solution, I was able to milk a sentence or two out of the experience. “Do it for the Vine”, all grown up! And wearing bananapapaya resin hoops too. Side note, that Etsy shop is a parasocial enemy of mine. It stems from jealousy, which sucks, but hating from inside a club I’m adjacent to is much healthier than being a hateful individual towards people I would, you know, interact with. Daily. Or something. I stopped going to therapy because I felt stupid about going and I don’t live in the right kind of town to warrant vacuous $300 hours. Bitching about my well-adjusted parents and how desperately I wished my anxiety would just “go away” was plainly gross, and a waste. Like, pretty sure almost every problem I have could be solved by a couple painful conversations taking place during a hurricane. Such a shame it doesn’t rain much here. Anyhow, I digress. 

Staying hydrated. It is essential to my character, my persona, if you will; to never be without either an elegant metal bottle (I’m loyal to the smooth enamelled S’well ones, printed to look like marble or a semi holographic solid) or a little 16oz tumbler with a metal straw. Hydroflasks were some of the worst things to happen to society. I want to preface this claim with the fact that I wanted one in the same way a teenage girl wants a new iPhone so she can keep up appearances with her dermatologist-dad friends who still have the XR, by the way. But I ended up spending the money on like, a minidress at Brandy Melville before it fled my city. Or maybe a Fresh Sugar tinted lipbalm. For the better, even though the dress has a busted zipper now and the lipbalm tube has inevitably gotten dinged and dented by the other contents of my mini-totebag. Unlike a car, though, a couple scuffs on your laptop or your luxury lipbalm tube looks kind of cool. Like, you’re not someone who values the pristine, unused quality of an item that was ambiguously intended to be used versus displayed on Instagram.  Now, I’m wondering why this paragraph about hydration is so fucking impossible to stay on track for. I literally drink several litres of water a day, and more tea on top of that. And sometimes an almond milk latte if I can budget it in. Not that I’m so anorexic I can’t afford a 45cal latte. They’re just not that important to me. Anyhow. Drinking lukewarm (on the cool side) water is better than ice-cold. Partially because I just get it out of the tap of my ensuite and I can’t be bothered to wait for it to run cold enough every time, and it just seems wasteful. Plus, there is something so.. skinny about drinking water at an “obscure” temperature. Trust me, I want to know why my thought process is like this too. My favorite tea is blueberry tea foraged in a side aisle at my local supermarket. I love a good commercial, high-end steep or fruit infusion as much as the next girl. Maybe more. My pantry is filled with tins labelled with things like “emerald jade organic” and “magic potion”, which is really just currants and butterfly pea flowers. But there is a necessary glamor about drinking dirt-cheap tea on the daily. Seriously, a box of 25 sachets is like, $3. At a higher point with my, um, Adderall problem, I spent like several times that on pills. I didn’t really need to include that, and could have linked the price point to the cost of a drugstore lipbalm, but I wrote it in. And I’m married to it, stubbornly, as all amateur writers should be when they wittle in a somewhat indecorous little joke. This tea is sooo good because it has a strong fruit-reminiscent taste (not as sweet as a fresh blueberry, but who wants that anyway?), it’s zero-calorie, it’s the most GORGEOUS color ever. The latte, the third drink in my little trifecta, is nothing special. But necessary. The trick is to use a milk frother to whip up sugar free syrup with instant coffee and a little bit of hot water in a glass. It’ll make the most luscious foam.. Top it off with almond milk. My dad is a coffee purist, owning both an upstairs keurig AND a downstairs one (among other more analogue methods, but I can’t name-drop, so what’s the point?), so he hates this drink. Now, calling oneself a plebian is so unglamorous and teetering on self-deprecating territory, dangerously close to insecurity. But I can use it here because I am at least posh enough to have a different pair of earrings for every outfit I could possibly come up with, and I only wear Patagonia if I am in a situation where I just have to wear fleece. Like I was saying. It’s such a simple drink, certainly not a delicacy, and… I had a joke about the word plebian but I keep getting up to refill my water and I fear I have forgotten about it. 

Next section; the importance of a good tinted balm

In the intro I alluded to how a girl’s collarbones function essentially as an identifier, the way a signature or fingerprint does. This is a lie, or at least an exaggeration. But one’s ultimate tinted lipbalm is  actually extremely indicative about who you are, as a person, as a member of society, even… 

If you are loyal to Dior Lipglow, I have a couple questions. One; did you shoplift one tube, once, and refill it with cheaper stuff afterwards? I did that. I consider it one of my better-kept secrets, but now you know. Might as well explain the catalyst for my parent’s first separation now, and the horrifying experience that was meeting my dad’s Manhattan sugar baby (?) at the age of thirteen, wearing an overalls dress from, like, Topshop or something else equally embarrassing. .. Kidding. I digress. It’s such a fancy lipbalm, and good too! It smells like thin mints! But I could just never justify cell phone monthly installation payment money on something I will inevitably talk off. I do own three, but two I stole (before I lost the nerve, somewhat unfortunately) and one, a boy(not)friend bought for me. This is not something I feel any remorse about, because his house was easily four thousand square feet and his sisters had a dedicated all-glass room for their shared peloton. Oil money. Ugh!

My personal favorite lip balm, and I have tried a frightening amount, has got to be the Nivea Fruit Shine collection. The frosted one is shit-ugly. Hideous. But the strawberry one is the love of my life. It’s such a pleasant red, looking healthy and rejuvenated and really completes any look. Only downside is it will always, hopefully not always, remind me of Charles. Kissing Charles, specifically. And him asking me what lipbalm it was, because he knew I was somewhat frivolous and definitive and would have a very long answer. But for whatever reason, I simply stated it was from “out of town”. Not really sure why I said that, but it plagues me (minorly) to this day. Of all the things to make up.. .. The peach one is a perfectly demure spring classic shade. Cherry exists too, but the only tube I have ever had the fortune of owning was purchased in Costa Rica and lost somewhere on the way home. Honestly tragic, it was the juiciest shade. Blackberry is perfect too, but I have to layer it with either peach or untinted lipbalm to avoid what I imagine TooPoor would choose if she believed in tinted lipbalm. I don’t mean this hatefully, I think she’s a queen, but super dark, smudgy makeup suits the eyes better in my opinion. Or something. Or something.

Afraid to bore the reader, I have to move on now. Maybe at a later date I will release an addendum on my ultimate lipbalm buying guide. But also, that is so deeply personal (and everyone needs the excuse of “hunting for the perfect staple shade!!”), so it is really not my place to have any authority on something so intimate and subjective. Etcetera. 

Moving on; Decorating your room

Here is a section I lifted out of my memoir document. It fits, because as enigmatic as I hope I am, I am also quite unchanging.

 I just pushed three hangers and two tiny strappy tops with the tags still on, off my bed. Most nights, all, these days, actually; I spend in my large but cluttered bedroom. I have a little ensuite with a jetted tub I’ve never used because I just never get around to it. There’s a plush grey rug, spanning the expanse of the room (covering an ugly cherry wood that doesn’t match the rest of the house; no clue why. I never asked, and the previous owners were eager to sell so they could finally ditch this town and retire in Montreal for the bagels, or Hawaii for the monk seals. Point is, I’ll never know) with loose beads and loose pills and little shards of glass from plier-crushed beads. I vacuum every day. The whole room tells you exactly the kind of person I am; the clutter I possess, the encapsulation of the projects I start, start, start and the hours I don’t sleep for and the clothes I tried on (these to sell, these to cut up with kitchen scissors; thrifted lululemon and aritzia and heaps of knits and plaid fabric..) I would not say the room is a mess. Lived in, maybe. Chopsticks and mugs and gum wrappers. Single dangle earrings. I just finished the last of my Creme Brulee eos lipbalm; disguised as a relic of 2015, I was gifted it Christmas of ‘20. I think my next waxy conquest will be a tinted Burt’s one I palmed a while back, before I lost the nerve. Peering around the room you will see shopping bags strewn about the mouth of my walk-in closet. Every surface has something shiny or colorful stacked up on it. Cluttered, busy, but intentional. Except for the walls, which are bare. Bare and gray and miles-tall when I lie flat on my back, high out of my mind, willing things to change but knowing I’m responsible for a first step I will always be too scared for. Bare, pristine, no gumtack. Empty, Like they’re waiting. I wait around a lot. It makes sense. That was an awful lot of words about my stupid blank walls when truly it does not bother me that much; I really just don’t get around to it. I have other things on the ground to tend to, like post-email nausea, addressing envelopes, marrying wire and bead.  Writing a document I care about because I am determined and I am alive, alive, alive, goddammit. 

Excerpt over. The memoir is coming out when I get famous, or something earth shattering happens. Like I become the world’s least remarkable entrepreneur, and I get retweeted by Colorpop. I don’t want to be the next Elizabeth Wurtzel. I read two of her memoirs one restless night, absorbing it to make up for the nutrients I didn’t that day (you can laugh. I think that is pretty clever), heart breaking a little bit. She writes about her struggles so intrinsically, you either get it, or you don’t. Anyway. She had the books and the fame from it, and she wrote more memoirs than I think a single person should. That is admirable. Aspirational, even. But I do not want to be like her. Where was I? Oh. Yes. Decorating/adorning/filling your room. Your room should serve as the kind of place to watch a movie (if you believe in film. I don’t) and put on ridiculous glittery eye makeup, or smoke an ~artistic cigarette~ or stay up all night on the phone, which is different from staying up all night simply on your phone. Chatting with someone you are tepidly in love with is much more exciting. Not chic as the whole affair is so juvenile, but fun regardless. It’s somewhere to keep your worldly possessions, too. I know I have a lot! Also, it is kind of thrilling to hide things in your room in little crevices only you know about. Now, unfortunately, everyone reading this will know too. But, like, I trust you not to really.. do anything about it. I keep my extra juul pods in the sliding box my apple pencil came in. That box is almost more useful than the pencil itself. I’m somewhat morally opposed to the iPad. Whole culture is so embarrassing! I have a tea tin with an ounce of golden teacher shrums in it. This is tossed in my closet among tins filled with other things, like lace trim and buttons. Which makes it actually a pretty terrible hiding spot, I see now… Anyhow. Keeping benign little secrets like that is so fun. You can tell I don’t have siblings. I sort of wish I did, but it is easier to believe there is something aristocratic about being an only child. Not sure if older-sister me would be egalitarian enough to share things. But that’s prophesying, which is kind of a waste of time. I live in the now, in a room positively cluttered with meaningless things that mean the world to me, chewing on my lip because my mouth is just so dry and 5gum is just not an after-8 indulgence. To live truly kitschly, you have to have somewhat hideous decor. Now, do not confuse dissonant, or incoherent, with what I mean by “hideous decor”. The kitsch room has as many surfaces to look at as possible, while also shying away from too many shelving units. Then you risk your room looking like a storage unit or something. When my mom renovated (re: paid someone to do it) our New York house so we could sell it, all our stuff was stacked up in a Cubesmart self storage. It was sort of horrifying, seeing my childhood home reduced to plastic storage tubs piled what felt like thirty feet high. Anyway. It’s just not an  inviting way to store things; I imagine it makes your room look like your stuff is all trapped in gelatin. The more fussy, tiny things you have out in the open, the better. Nail polish. Earring trees. Bowls full of rings and lighters and water color pans perched on your windowsill. A rack with the tackiest assortment of knits and bucket hats and baguette bags. And so forth.. Quickly surveying someone’s room is so telling. Bonus points if all your books are spine-in, except for your favorite ones, because you don’t want people to get the wrong idea. (that you read). 

[flufffysocks]

let's talk about andi mack's worldbuilding

sorry this took forever to make! i've been pretty busy with school stuff and i kind of lost my inspiration for a bit, but i ultimately really enjoyed writing it! i wish i could've included more pics (tumblr has a max of 10 per post), and it kinda turned from less of a mini analysis to more of an extremely long rant... but i hope it's still a fun read!

i've been rewatching the show over the past few weeks (thanks again to @disneymack for the link!), and i’ve been noticing a lot that i never did the first time around. this is really the first time i’ve watched the show from start to finish since it aired, and it honestly feels so different this time - probably a combination of the fact that i’m not as focused on plot and can appreciate the show as a whole, and also that the fandom is much, much smaller now, so there’s a lot less noise. so the way i’m consuming this show feels super different than it did the first time, but the show itself doesn’t - it’s just as warm and comforting to me as it was the first time around, if not more so.

i think a lot of that can be attributed to andi mack’s “worldbuilding”. i’m not quite sure that this is the right word in this context, to be honest, because i mostly see it used in reference to fantasy and sci-fi universes, but it just sort of feels right to me for andi mack, because you can really tell how much love and care went into constructing this universe. for clarity, worldbuilding is “the process of creating an imaginary world” in its simplest sense. there’s two main types: hard worldbuilding, which involves inventing entire universes, languages, people, cultures, places, foods, etc. from scratch (think “lord of the rings” or “dune”), and soft worldbuilding, in which the creators don’t explicitly state or explain much about the fictional universe, but rather let it’s nature reveal itself as the story progresses (think studio ghibli films). andi mack to me falls in the soft worldbuilding category. even though it takes place in a realistic fiction universe, there’s a lot of aspects to it that are inexplicably novel in really subtle ways.

so watching the show now, i’ve noticed that the worldbuilding comes primarily from two things - setting and props, and oftentimes the both of them in tandem (because a big part of setting in filmmaking does depend on the props placed in it!).

one of the most obvious examples is the spoon. it really is a sort of quintessential, tropic setting in that it's the main gang's "spot", which automatically gives it a warm and homey feel to it. and its set design only amplifies this:

the choice to make it a very traditional 50s-style diner creates a very nostalgic, retro feel to it, which is something that's really consistent throughout the show, as you'll see. from the round stools at the bar, to the booths, to the staff uniforms, this is very obvious. the thing that i found especially interesting about it though is the choice of color. the typical 50s diner is outfitted with metallic surfaces and red accented furnishings, but the spoon is very distinctly not this.

instead, it's dressed in vibrant teal and orange, giving it a very fresh and modern take on a classic look. so it still maintains that feeling of being funky and retro, but that doesn't retract from the fact that the show is set distinctly in modern times.

of course, this could just be a one-off quirky set piece, but this idea of modernizing and novelizing "retro" things is a really common motif throughout the show. take red rooster records. i mean, it's a record shop - need i say more? it's obviously a very prominent store in shadyside, at least for the main characters, but there's no apparent reason why it is (until season 2 when bowie starts working there, and jonah starts performing there). a lot of the time, though, it functions solely as a record shop. vinyl obviously isn't the most practical or convenient way of listening to music, but it's had its resurgence in pop culture even in the real world, mostly due to its aesthetic value, so it's safe to say that it serves the same purpose in the andi mack universe.

the fringe seems to be nostalgic of a different era, specifically the Y2K/early 2000s period (because it's meant to be bex's territory and symbolic of who she used to be, and its later transformation into cloud 10 is representative of her character arc, but that's beside the point). to be honest, exactly what this store was supposed to be always confused me. it was kind of a combination party store/clothing store/makeup store/beauty parlor? i think that's sort of the point of it though, it's supposed to feel very grunge-y and chaotic (within the confines of a relatively mellow-toned show, of course), and it's supposed to act as a sort of treasure chest of little curios that both make the place interesting and allow the characters to interact with it.

and, of course, there's andi shack. this is really the cherry on top of all of andi mack's sets, just because it's so distinctly andi. it serves such amazing narrative purpose for her (ex. the storyline where cece and ham were going to move - i really loved this because it highlights its place in the andi mack universe so well, and i'm a sucker for the paper cranes shot + i'm still salty that sadie's cranes didn't make it into the finale) and it's the perfect reflection of andi's character development because of how dynamic it is (the crafts and art supplies can get moved around or switched out, and there's always new creations visible).

going back to the nostalgia motif though, the "shack" aspect of it always struck me as very treehouse-like. personally, whenever i think of treehouses, there's this very golden sheen of childhood about it, if that makes sense. i've always seen treehouses in media as a sort of shelter for characters' youthful innocence and idealistic memories. for example, the episode "up a tree" from good luck charlie, the episode "treehouse" from modern family, and "to all the boys 2" all use a treehouse setting as a device to explore the character's desire to hold onto their perfect image of their childhood (side note: this exact theme is actually explored in andi mack in the episode "perfect day 2.0"!). andi shack is no exception to this, but it harnesses this childhood idealism in the same way that it captures the nostalgia of the 50s in the spoon, or the early 2000s in the fringe. it's not some image of a distant past being reflected through that setting; it's very present, and very alive, because it reflects andi as she is in the given moment.

some honorable mentions of more one-off settings include the ferris wheel (from "the snorpion"), the alley art gallery (from "a walker to remember"), SAVA, the color factory (from "it's a dilemna"), and my personal favorite, the cake shop (from "that syncing feeling").

[every time i watch this episode i want to eat those cakes so bad]

these settings have less of a distinctly nostalgic feel (especially the color factory, which is a very late 2010s, instagram era setting), but they all definitely have an aura of perfection about them. andi mack is all about bright, colorful visuals, and these settings really play to that, making the andi mack universe seem really fun and inviting, and frankly very instagrammable (literally so, when it comes to the color factory!).

props, on the other hand, are probably a much less obvious tool of worldbuilding. they definitely take up less space in the frame and are generally not as noticeable (i'm sure i'll have missed a bunch that will be great examples, but i'm kind of coming up with all of this off the top of my head), but they really tie everything together.

for example, bex's box, bex's polaroid, and the old tv at the mack apartment (the tv is usually only visible in the periphery of some shots, so you might not catch it at first glance) all complement that very retro aesthetic established through the settings (especially the polaroid and the tv, because there's really no good reason that the characters would otherwise be using these).

besides this, andi's artistic nature provides the perfect excuse for plenty of colorful, crafty props to amplify the visuals and the tone. obviously, as i discussed before, andi shack is the best example of this because it's filled with interesting props. but you also see bits of andi's (and other people's) crafts popping up throughout the show (ex. the tape on the fridge in the mack apartment, andi's and libby's headbands in "the new girls", walker's shoes, andi's phone case, and of course, the bracelet). not only does doing this really solidify this talent as an essential tenet of andi's character, but it also just makes the entirety of shadyside feel like an extension of andi shack. the whole town is a canvas for her crafts (or art, depending on how you want to look at it. i say it's both), and it immensely adds to shadyside's idealism. because who wouldn't want to live in a world made of andi mack's creations?

and, while it's not exactly a prop, the characters' wardrobe is undoubtedly a major influence on the show's worldbuilding. true to it's nature as a disney channel show, all of the characters are always dressed in exceptionally curated outfits of whatever the current trends are, making the show that much more visually appealing. i won't elaborate too much on this, because i could honestly write a whole other analysis on andi mack's fashion (my favorites are andi's and bex's outfits! and kudos to the costume designer(s) for creating such wonderful and in-character wardrobes!). but, i think it's a really really important aspect of how the show's universe is perceived, so it had to be touched upon.

[^ some of my favorite outfits from the show! i am so obsessed with andi's jacket in the finale, and i aspire to be at bex's level of being a leather jacket bisexual]

and lastly, phones. this is a bit of an interesting case (pun intended), because the way they're used fluctuates a bit throughout the show, but i definitely noticed that at least in the first season terri minsky tried to avoid using them altogether. these efforts at distancing from modern tech really grounds the show in it's idealist, nostalgia-heavy roots, so even when the characters start using their phones more later in the show, they don't alter the viewer's impression of the andi mack universe very much.

so, what does all of this have to do with worldbuilding? in andi mack's case, because it's set in a realistic universe and not a fantasy one, a lot of what sets it apart from the real world comes down to tone. because, as much as this world is based on our own, it really does feel separate from it, like an alternate reality that's just slightly more perfect than ours, which makes all the difference. it's the idealism in color and composition in andi mack's settings that makes it so unmistakably andi mack. even the weather is always sunny and perfect (which is incredibly ironic because the town is called shadyside - yes, i am very proud of that observation).

the andi mack universe resides somewhere in this perfect medium that makes it feel like a small town in the middle of nowhere (almost like hill valley in 1955 from "back to the future"), but at the same time like an enclave within a big city (because of its proximity to so many modern, unique, and honestly very classy looking establishments). it is, essentially, an unattainable dream land that tricks you into believing it is attainable because it's just real enough.

all this to say, andi mack does an amazing job of creating of polished, perfect world for its characters. this is pretty common among disney channel and nickelodeon shows, but because most other shows tend to be filmed in a studio with three-wall sets, andi mack is really set apart from them in that it automatically feels more real and tangible. it has its quintessential recurring locations, but it has far more of them (most disney/nick shows usually only have 3-4 recurring settings), and it has a lot more one-off locations. it's also a lot more considerate when it comes to its props, so rather than the show just looking garish and aggressively trendy, it has a distinctive style that's actually appropriate to the characters and the story. overall this creates the effect of expanding the universe, making shadyside feel like it really is a part of a wider world, rather than an artificial bubble. it's idealism is, first and foremost, grounded in reality, and that provides a basis for its brilliant, creative, and relatable storytelling.

tl;dr: andi mack's sets and props give it a very retro and nostalgic tone which makes its whole universe seem super perfect and i want to live there so bad!!

[falcor-thee-luck-dragon]

Don’t Feed The Flames - Bucky Barnes x (f)reader, Natasha x platonic (f) reader

Summary: Bucky has made you angry after a tough mission with the crew, why you ask? Apparently he thinks it’s totally fine to run inside a burning building to help you complete the mission in question. 

Warning: bit of angst, mostly a good time with the team, Bucky fluff shoved in ur welcome

-reader has fire powers btw, I don’t wanna confuse anyone lol

Masterlist

The mission was difficult to say the least, successful in its own right, but tough for everyone involved. All the Avengers were needed for this clusterfuck of a mission, minus Bruce and Thor who are elsewhere in the universe, lucky them.

All the team needed to do was infiltrated one of the last highly armed Hydra bases left in existence, get rid of the artillery and boom, slither right on in. Objective? Snatch valuable intel as to where the other bases are hiding, and surprise surprise, you and Wanda had to take care of some very pissed off experimentees who were unfortunately brainwashed beyond the point of helping them recover.

Ending the night in everyone quickly evacuating the premise with the essentials while you stayed back to blow up the base to nothing more then bricks and ash. Although during this, Bucky stayed back to shoot some freelancers who tried to take you the fuck out, with what would you know it; flame throwers.

Apparently Hydra is greatly lacking in weapons and functioning brain cells, among other things. Granted, you understood Bucky’s concern for your well-being when he ran into the fire. But oh dear lord were you not happy with him one goddamn bit.

Luckily Sam was able to pluck him out before anything fell on your idiot boyfriend while you were producing mass destruction in the giant airplane storage area. In the aftermath, you came out unharmed but covered in smudge marks and burnt off cloves yet again.

Bucky? Well he came away with a pissed off girlfriend and his life to say the least. And let’s just say the long four hour ride back was a tad bit awkward, even if you were too damn exhausted to show your irritation with Bucky. The team sure as hell knew he wasn’t going to be spared of your wrath when the jet landed.

It took approximately ten seconds for your man to shuffle out of your line of sight, using Steve as a shield to hide behind while they walked out. You had been distracted when Natasha asked for something picked up, then suddenly your mind was on Bucky. A moment later you stomped out of the Quinjet in pursuit of the one and only James Buchanan Barnes as he awaited your fury.

“James!” You growl fiercely, “You are the most fucking reckless person I’ve ever fucking met and I’m literally friends with Tony!” You snap while the rest of your teammates go about their business, trying to listen yet smartly staying out of everything.

“I know.” Mutters Bucky like a kicked puppy suffering his mother’s wrath, blue eyes looking at you with regret clearly visible on his handsome face.

“You know! You know!? Then why the fuck would you just run into the flames like that!” You shout while throwing your arms into the air in frustration, “You’re not fire proof Bucky!”

“Y/N...”

“Do you have a goddamn death wish!?” You interrupt, giving him a dumbfounded look as he glances from Steve to the floor then back to you again, trying to find something or someone with enough pity to help him. 

He finds none, “Well....no.” Your brows raise yet again at his short and annoyingly blunt answers to make up for his stupidly daring boldness. 

“Then why-ugh, whatever never mind.” You dismiss with a wave of your hand before quickly turning on your heels to walk for the metal doors into the main part of the facility, while the others keep their distance from your heated state.

“Wait Y/N, come back I’m sorry!” Exclaims Bucky desperately while you continue to ignore your reckless man, “You’re right I shouldn’t have....ugh...come on babe....shit...” Mutters Bucky as he watches you leave him in such a heated state.

“Dude just let her cool off, oh uh well....no pun intended.” Jokes Sam with a shrug as Bucky watches you stomp away in frustration, your body almost sizzling with actual flame.

“I didn’t mean to....well...ugh, shit I guess I kind of did.” Admits Bucky with a sigh, rubbing the back of his neck as you slam the door shut with a loud thud, “Sometimes I forget fire can’t hurt her. I should have just let her handle the burning building herself instead of going inside when she uh, told me not to.”

Steve walks out of the Quinjet with a bag in hand to greet the two, “Y/N seemed a bit...”

“Pissed off.” Adds Sam with a light chuckle as Bucky frowns at the giant glass window.

“Yeah.” Mutters Steve awkwardly as he side eyes Bucky, “Well ugh, see you guys at dinner, I think Wanda and Vision are getting takeout from somewhere.”

“See ya Steve.”

“Bye.”

Sam and Bucky watch as Steve heads for the metal doors, soon he’s gone and the two are the only Avengers left in the giant parking garage of sorts.

“She’s going to hate me for the rest of the day I know it.” Sadly mutters Bucky, already missing your beautiful face no matter what state your in.

“I wouldn’t say it’s hate.”

“She’s going to be very disappointed in me then.”

“Yeah probably.”

Bucky gives him an offended look, “You’re supposed to say something uplifting or positive.”

“Man don’t look at me for relationship advice. This is Y/N we’re talking about, just give her a couple hours she’ll simmer down.” Inquirers Sam with a friendly pat on the back before he starts walking away for the door, as casually and unbothered as ever.

Bucky keeps silent for a moment while his mind swims with what to do next, suddenly he looks up at his retreating friend, “Hey Sam!” Shouts Bucky just as Sam opens up the door, causing him to stop and give his friend a quizzical look.

“What?!”

“Fuck you!”

Sam immediately snorts, “You brought this upon yourself brother!” And with that he shuts the door leaving Bucky alone and full of regret for putting himself in danger today when you specifically told him you could handle yourself.

Why is caring for someone so hard, wonders Bucky.

——

After taking a greatly needed shower and putting on a fresh new pair of comfortable clothing for the evening, you slipped past your friends rooms and away from where Bucky may be hiding.

Until at last you made it to Natasha’s door without being caught by anyone in the hallway and stopped for a needless conversation. Soon enough you slip into Nat’s room and saunter around for a bit as you wait for her to end her shower.

“Oh shit!” Gasps Natasha as soon as she opens the door and notices you poking around her stuff, “Jesus Y/N how’d you get in here!?”

“I opened the door.”

“I thought I locked it?”

“You did.”

Natasha gives you a puzzled look as you wander over to her nightstand, nonchalantly minding your business while picking up her current novel as she watches you curiously, “So uh, how’s it going?” She asks cautiously, well aware of your irritation with Bucky earlier that day.

Flipping through the pages you answer her honestly, “I’m fine now.”

Natasha nods before turning around to search through her drawers for an outfit, “I figured that much, considering if you were still pissed you’d be throwing fireballs into the cement wall downstairs.” She quips with her usual smirk as you gently close the book and set it back in its rightful place.

“That is.....true.” You agree with a shrug, “I’m just sending a message at this point.”

“Oh really?” Laughs Natasha while slipping on a shirt, “Poor Bucky then.”

“Yeah well he was being an idiot tough guy so....it’s what I’m doing.” You add with a lopsided smug grin, “Serves him right for being reckless with no regard for his physical safety. I love him but at what cost?”

“Someone needs to tell Steve that.” Mutters Natasha as she pulls on some sweatpants.

You chuckle, “What? That someone needs to tell Steve they love him? Not a bad idea.”

“That too.” Points Natasha, “I seriously don’t know how he’s not dead yet.”

Your brows furrow in thought for a moment, “He’s built like a stone sentinel with a will greater then many, he fears nothing.” You deadpan, face stoic and serious.

“Just about.” Laughs Natasha as you begin to cackle right along with her, in the middle of your laughing fit does the door suddenly burst open to reveal...

“Hello ladies.” Chirps Tony with an award winning smile, usual old T-shirt on and hair a bit of a mess though somehow managing to keep his Stark charm.

“I really need to get an automatic lock on that thing.” Mutters Nat to no one in particular.

“What’s up Stark.” You add with an acknowledging tilt of your head, “You here to bother us or tell us something interesting?”

“Everything I say is interesting my dear sparky.” Quips Tony with a brow wiggle.

“Don’t call me that.”

“Right, anyways. Foods here.” Chides Tony as he sets a hand on his hip, “Unless you’re both too cool for movie night. More for us then, I’ll have Vision drop off our half eaten tacos.”

“We have tacos?” You ask with an intrigued raise of your brow, just wanting to confirm and make sure he’s not bluffing, you fucking love taco night.

“Yep.”

“How long have they been here?”

“Wanda and Vis just arrived so you’re the first two I found.” Oh, fuck yeah!

Turning your head to a smirking Natasha you smile back before bolting for the door, “Move Stark!” You snap before shoving him to the side and cackling as you and Natasha book it down the hall with Tony trying to keep up in the background. What can you say, Natasha always makes it a competition and its taco night. Sometimes you gotta play dirty.

Soon you and your assassin best friend who you tripped up before reaching the door finally skid into the Avengers giant lounging area. The room is relatively empty with the exception of Wanda and Vision who are seated at the large metal table near the kitchen where all the various paper bags of tacos are seated. And ripe for the taking.

Smelling absolutely delicious all tucked snug in their wrapping and filled with the most divine ingredients, you could just about die of happiness. With a beaming smile upon your face and the surprised expressions from your two friends you belt out loudly, “Tacos FUCK YEAH!” Before racing for the bags and getting tripped by Natasha.

Whipping your head up to watch her snatch a bag you growl half angrily, “You bitch.” While she happily smiles back down at you, taco in hand.

“What are you doing on the floor? Foods here.” She jokes as you quickly walk over to the counter with all the bags.

“Ha ha, you’re hilarious now give me that.”

After about ten minutes of eating and shooting the breeze with Natasha, Wanda, Vision, and Tony; you’re ears immediately catch the sounds of thundered running down the hallway and other muffled curses from two familiar individuals.

“Fun’s arrived.” Whispers Natasha with a friendly nudge to your arm as it lays on the flat surface of the table while you absentmindedly crumple up a wrapper.

Biting your lip you anticipate the impending commotion, “Fantastic.” And this whole evening could be more enjoyable if your hundred year old boyfriend would have used some common sense.

A second later the door swings open to reveal a panting Sam before Bucky slides in after him, equally as flustered, those two idiots. As they stand there collecting their breaths, Steve casually steps into the room, walking past them and over to the bags of tacos, “Aw sweet, taco night.” He confirms excitedly, hungrily eyeing up a particular bag.

Rolling your eyes, you slouch carelessly into your expensive swivel chair before turning to Wanda who’s seated across from you, “Hey, Red Riding Hood, you’re up.” She turns her attention away from Vision and nods before giving you a sly smirk and using her power to send a balled up piece of taco wrapping straight for your head.

In one calculably swift motion do you incinerate the paper material before its able to reach your face, “Y/N you’re going to set the fire detectors off.” Laughs Tony as he crumbles up a new ball.

“Eh, we could afford a renovation.”

Tony fake scoffs, “Rude.”

“Well Y/N, I thought you did great.” Applauds Wanda with a chuckle as the three other men walk around to the far end where no one is seated, “Alright Tony you next.”

You refrain from making any eye contact with Bucky who steals a few longing glances at your smiling face, instead he follows Sam and Steve to the opposite end and watches as you quickly turn another balled up paper to ash. The sounds of your laughter and the rest of the tables almost enough to drive him insane.

Yet he refrains, Bucky knows he’s essentially in time out, reason for almost getting himself killed today; and you’re not breaking anytime soon, or so he thinks.

Ignoring the three boys hungrily attacking their poor tacos away from the main groups theatrics, Vision suddenly gains your attention, “Well I suppose I should participate with this game or fear feeling left out....uh, what is the objective? Or perhaps the name?”

“They throw wrappers at me and I set them on fire before it hits myself or the ground.” You reply while crumbling up another piece, leaving Vision to process the possible deeper meaning to your brief explanation, though there really isn’t one. It’s just for fun.

“By the way I’ve been able to get her exactly once.” Brags Tony with a shit eating grin, causing you to scoff at that memory. 

“Oh fuck all the way off you flicked water into my face and then threw the paper.”

“And it was very much worth it.” He confirms as you roll your eyes at his cheating from last taco night.

The rest of your friends fill the room with snickers and some louder laughter coming from Sam down at the far end, with a raised brow you snap your head in that direction and stand, “Something funny bird boy?” You quip in a half threatening manner.

Sam’s smirk immediately drops from his face as his expression appears nonchalant, “What nooo. That was Steve.” He mutters before taking another bite out of his taco.

“Y/N that was definitely not me.”

“Uh huh.”

“Maybe it was Bucky.” Jokes Sam as you shift your fiery attention over to a fearful Bucky who quickly shakes his head before smacking Sam on the arm.

“No.” You confirm with a knowing smirk, “He doesn’t have a death wish.”

“Well neither do I please have mercy.” Pleads Sam with hands raised in defeat, “I would like to finish my taco.”

You stare down at them for a brief tension filled moment before casually shrugging, “Yeah alright.” Before sitting back down again.

——

Opening up the trash can you quickly shove down three giant paper bags from dinner with a bit of effort considering how full it is. Natasha and Vision are cleaning up in various areas nearby while Sam, Bucky, Natasha, Steve, and Tony sit in the lounging area discussing if it was necessary that Dobby was killed off in the Deathly Hallows. You know, normal things you discuss with your superpowered friends.

Well Bucky is mostly just listening and stealing glances over to you every couple of minutes, really wishing you would just walk over to him and let him show you how sorry he was with the biggest hug he could possibly muster. Probably never letting you go again, though you wouldn’t mind.

Ignoring your own longing to be cuddled up next to Bucky, you instead fight with the damn trash can to fucking shut its dumb lid already. With one hand forcefully shoving down bags, paper plates, and banana peels you start to think if volunteering for clean up was even worth it.

A blue flame suddenly erupts from your palm and makes a big black hole through the paper bags and plates, your eyes go wide in surprise as you immediately retract your hand from the trash and shut the lid just as quickly.

Taking a single step back you let out a breath before turning your head to find Bucky watching your whole ordeal go down with a drink in hand, guess he must have gotten up to get some juice and stayed for your one on one brawl with the trash can. Rolling your eyes, you wave it off, “Completely under control.” You mutter as he slowly nods.

Well this is awkward.

Shifting your gaze from Bucky to your friends and back to Bucky again, he finally speaks, “Is that why the lid has smoke coming from under it?”

“What?” You wonder in puzzlement before looking back down at the trash can to find smoke indeed rising, “Oh fuck!” Ripping the lid off you’re kindly greeted with a burst of flame and smoke. Well, shit.

“Uh, Y/N?” Asks Bucky with an uncertain chuckle, “You’re positive everything is under control?” Quips your smartass boyfriend.

With more flames rising to an almost alarming level, though not quit yet, you glance at your oblivious friends before racing for the sink, “Yes! Everything is fucking fine!” Wanda skips to the side as you snatch a cup of something from the counter by the sink.

Running back you skid in your tracks and dump the clear liquid onto the flames which causes them to rise even higher and gain the attentions of everyone sitting down and relaxing, “Why is my trash can on fire?” Asks Tony as casually as ever.

“I don’t know maybe it looks better this way?!” You sass before giving the glass a double take, “The hell? What the fuck was in this!” You shout, holding up the glass while fire burns in the trash from behind you.

“Oh that had some Quinjet fuel in it, why do you ask?” Replies Tony, he’s gotta be fucking with you.

Squinting at him in bewilderment, you shake the empty glass in frustration, “Why the fuck would there be a random glass of fuel sitting in a clear unlabeled glass on the fucking sink of all places!”

“What did you think it was?”

“Oh I don’t know!? Water?!” You snap causing the fire to roar even higher at your outburst.

Looking almost like a demon princess standing there with flames rising from behind you, your fists ball up with blue flame, something that you don’t even realize is happening as you give Tony a (what the fuck are you actually stupid) face.

Sensing your obvious irritation and rising anger, Bucky comes to the rescue with a whole bowl full of actual water and promptly dumbs it onto the flames which causes the unless materials to sizzle and whine. Soon the oranges and reds are gone, leaving the contents turned to ash and nothing more then wet soot.

Distinguishing your own flames, you hang your head low, revealing a tired heavy sigh as you mumble, “Shit.” Suddenly you feel admittedly quit drained and annoyed from the events of the day, even if they weren’t all bad.

Your friends keep silent for a moment before Steve quickly stands, “Movie night anyone?” Gaining the attention of everyone in an instant; you bless the blonde for his intuitive ways of helping you out in the smallest of moments. He truly is a great friend.

“Yeah I could watch something.” Adds Sam with a shrug, “I’m thinking Deathly Hallows Part 2.”

“Yeah it’s pretty good I’ll join.”

“Me too.”

“Yeah I’m in.”

Everyone get up and begins walking for the door as you stay standing in your spot near the wet and ash covered metal trash can, everyone exiting for the home theater except for Bucky who’s back is to you while he tells Sam you’ll be there in a minute.

Folding your arms, you suddenly feel like it’s the first time you and Bucky have ever talked one on one with each other, you’re typically a pretty damn confident and fiery person to begin with, it’s just. Being mad at your favorite human in the whole entire world and then embarrassing yourself with accidentally setting the trash can on fire can take its toll.

Also not to mention the mission many hours ago was admittedly hectic and stress inducing and then, Bucky....perhaps a moment to calm down would have been smart if taken earlier. God your life moves to damn fast.

“You are so intense sometimes.”

Breaking out of your self reflective trance, your eyes quickly dart up to see Bucky who’s giving you a soft smile, “If you wanted my attention you could have just asked.”

“Very funny.” You scoff, “I was actually too busy being mad at you.”

“Ah, right.” Nods Bucky as he mirrors your defensive positioning, deciding to cross his arms and make a pouty face like yourself, “So I guess we’ll just stay here and brood then?”

“I’m trying to make a point.” You mutter, you’re not gonna crack, you’re not gonna do it.

“I’m trying to get my girlfriend to watch a movie with me.” Admits Bucky with an affectionate head tilt as you frown, “I know they’re not going to wait for us so....uh....okay let me start over.....I’m sorry for being reckless and almost dying. And I mean it too, with all of my heart. I love you Y/N.”

Although you’d like to throw his dumb reckless ass some sass and strut away leaving him guessing and begging for more, you just can’t find it in you at this point. He looks at you with those big beautiful blue eyes full of love and adoration for you and only you, how could you possibly resist them?

You know with every ounce of your soul that he means every single word, and you also know that he’s missed you since the second you yelled at him and slammed the facility door, leaving him alone and regretting his past decisions that could have potentially ended him then and there.

“Sometimes James, sometimes.” You mutter, shaking your head in disapproval before a small smirk pulls at your lips and in that moment he knows you’re his, “Come here.”

Heeding to your wonderful command that he’s been waiting to hear all day, he swiftly makes the short distance to gather your smaller body into a giant Bucky bear hug, his strong arms wrap protectively around your back as his head falls into the side of your neck as he quickly steals a small kiss.

You pull him in even tighter and fully enjoy the sensation of himself flush against you, metal arm squeezing your rip cage and long dark hair that falls into your eyes; god you love him so much.

Giving you one last little squeeze of affection, Bucky slowly pulls away and presses his head against yours, “I gotta be honest, I have no idea what this movie is about.” Reveals Bucky as he continues to holds you close.

Chuckling you press a kiss to his lips, “I’ll tell you what’s happening. Let’s go before we miss anything else.”

Nodding, he tilts your head up to press a sweet kiss to your lips one last time before letting you go, so that the two of you can begin walking for the door. Opening up the metal and glass door for you like the gentleman that he is, Bucky quickly jogs over to your side.

“So Sam told me these guys are wizards or something? Like they can teleport and fly I think?” States Bucky in question while walking in step with you.

Looking over at him you smile at how cute he’s being right now, giving him an agreeable nod, “Yeah they can do cool stuff like change form and set things on fire.”

Bucky suddenly starts laughing much to your confusion, “Y/N does that make you a wizard?”

Shoving him to the side you snort as he keeps laughing, “Shut up.” You mutter humorously as he stumbles from your friendly push.

Making quick steps to catch up with you, Bucky pulls you into his side, “Forgive me I didn’t mean it...” Snickers your adorable idiot, “I bet you’d be the best wizard, pointy hat and all.”

Shaking your head you can’t help the smirk that tugs against your better wishes, “I’m gonna set you on fire.” You jokingly threaten him with as he affectionately squeezes your side, causing you to be pressed even closer against him.

“Wizard.” Muses Bucky as he plants a kiss to your cheek as you try and push him away.

“Bucky, shut the fuck up.”

“But, I love you.”

[threewaysdivided]

How do you feel about Pink Astronaut. Personally I feel like Paulina deserved a little better than the writers gave her.

I'm 99% sure that's the ship name for Danny x Paulina, right?

(Which probably says a lot about my engagement with the shipping side of the Phandom 😅.)

TBH I don't have any strong thoughts or feelings about it either way.

In all cases I'm a very gen-focussed fan - my interests tend run more in the direction of character psychology, non-romantic platonic/ familial relationships, lore, mystery and theme. It's a personal thing but I just don't read romantic/sexual intent/attraction into character interactions unless they're explicitly framed/intended as such and the way much of the shipping community seems to do so goes completely over my head.

Which isn't to say that I avoid all ship-fics, or that there aren't a number of noncanon ships that I enjoy across different fandoms, but for the most part I favour genfic and when I do read shipfic they tend to be the stories that focus on personality, emotional chemistry and personal/emotional compatibility. And when it comes to thinking about "ships" myself I tend to lean more towards times when characters have canonically expressed that kind of interest, the reasons why they would be compatible/ find each other attractive, how they feel about it and what it says about them.

But back to Paulina:

I think you're right - as a character she (along with basically every human character outside of the main trio, the Fenton family and sometimes Valerie) suffers massively from underdevelopment because of the show's nature as for the most part an episodic kid's superhero-comedy with an ooky-spooky gimmick. Danny Phantom the show is a place where The Status Quo is God and the Rule of Funny/Cool/Drama supersedes everything, up to and including the characters and their consistency.

(You can even see this and the obviously conflicting visions of different parts of the creative team effect the main characters too. Danny suddenly carrying the Jerk Ball in service of a generic "don't be superficial/ materialism is bad" story in Livin' Large, how Tucker is basically learning the same lesson twice across What You Want and King Tuck, the multiple times where Sam's more abrasive negative traits are used as a source of plot/conflict but are never meaningfully addressed or developed because the writers want to keep using those traits for drama and eventually to use her character as the Morally Righteous Generic Love Interest Behind Danny's Heroism... et cetera et certera et cetera.)

Literally every character in DP is done a disservice by the show's writing and Paulina runs into the same problem. She's chained to the post of a very specific narrative function/ character archetype and never intentionally developed beyond what's needed to serve the Plot/ the Joke.

She's clearly written to be the Rich Plastic Mean Girl à la Regina George, and while there is a potentially very interesting character beneath that surface appearance - which we can see in places like Parental Bonding where she shows emotional intelligence by immediately clocking that Sam is actually jealous of Danny's attraction to her, and in her "if my skin is perfect, I'll be perfect" line from My Sister's Keeper which hints at some potentially significant appearance-based self-worth issues - the show itself basically only ever uses her "Pretty Girl" and "Popular A-Lister" status as a source of surface-level character drama for the trio and as a rare plot-convenient situational ally in dire circumstances. Her actions show a consistent characterisation but it's so rudimentary that it barely clears that archetype to become its own thing.

I think if Danny Phantom had taken more structural and tonal influence from Spiderman (or even something like Disney's Kim Possible) rather than Fairly Odd Parents - still keeping things mostly light-hearted but with some extra focus on character consistency and layering some ongoing character arcs over each season - there could have been a lot of potential to develop and flesh out Paulina as a narrative foil/ ongoing rival to Sam and her own character arc. It also could have added some more meaningful non-stereotypical female character dynamics, which are disappointingly but perhaps not surprisingly lacking from a "for boys" Nicktoon headed by a man who named himself "Butch". But as it is she unfortunately falls into that No Man's Land for me, where she isn't developed enough to have much deeper canon worth investigating and isn't really thematically/narratively significant enough that I'd want to develop her myself for story purposes.

As for the Pink Astronaut ship itself, all I can say is that, at least for me, canonically it... isn't really one. At least in terms of what I personally characterise as a 'relationship'. It's stuck at a very shallow level; Danny has a superficial surface-level infatuation with Paulina because she's pretty and popular, and Paulina looks down on "geeky dork loser" Danny Fenton while having a superficial surface-level infatuation with Danny Phantom as "the cute ghost-boy who rescued her". There's no real sense of actual personal chemistry based on them knowing, appreciating or even seemingly caring to know who the other is as a character. None of their "romantic" hijinks really involve them learning anything meaningful about each other or even having a proper conversation. Paulina "dates" Fenton purely to piss off Sam, then "Paulina" shows personal interest in Danny but it turns out to actually be Kitten trying to piss off Johnny, and when she does show interest in him after the reveal in Reality Trip it's kind of obvious that it's because she's interested in dating Phantom and his secret identity wouldn't have mattered either way. And meanwhile Danny spends most of his time either too busy with ghost stuff to properly pay attention to her as a person, or he never really shows any interest or understanding beyond his fantasies about how she's very conventionally pretty (which he finds attractive/desirable) and popular (which he wants to be).

So while there's a lot of potential for people to write that ship in terms of them being two very different characters from different backgrounds who come to learn about each other as people, come to appreciate each other on a personality level and develop an actual romantic/emotional connection based on that... within the show itself that surface level is sort of where it starts and ends.

And like I said, I'm not a shipper. Even with the bigger, more canonically-substantiated ships I look for the personalities moreso than the romance.

So I don't really have any strong thoughts or feelings about it either way.

Sorry if that's not a satisfying answer.

But I do agree: like most DP characters, Paulina Sanchez has a lot more character potential than the writing allowed her.

[noonmutter]

Revelation pt. 3

Daily Writing Challenge 2021 Day 18: Precognition/Collapse

Flecks of gold plumed up and curled into ashy powder in his wake as Terry's exposed flesh went up like kindling. The fine dust was caught up by a draft that he couldn't feel and disappeared into the ether. Immolation felt surprisingly peaceful, once the initial, horrifying agony had reached critical mass and he simply stopped processing it. This felt rather more...floaty?...than shock, even.

With monumental effort, he raised his right hand, and was surprised to find a hand still there. Not his hand, obviously--his hands didn't glow like this. It was almost like trying to see the shape of the sun: staring at it longer made it both easier and harder to pick out the edges and boundaries of his fingers, and even more so to tell if they were moving. It occurred to him after a moment that his hand was also much too big. He could probably crush his own skull with this meathook.

Do you hear me now, outspoken child?

His mind was trying very hard to ...not shut down, shutting down was too abrupt, and still a function. His brain was simply trying to stop. It was tired; he was tired. And more and more of his body was going all... glowy. The sensation was oddly comfortable, like slipping into warm bathwater after a long day, a stark contrast to the searing nightmare that had happened moments ago. It was impossible to speak, and thinking was another herculean trial.

...e...on...ar?

He was immediately awash in warmth and the inexplicable scent of a summer breeze that would have brought homesick tears to his eyes if he'd had the ability. There was also the intense urge to climb a tree that wasn't there. That one was familiar enough that he let out another weak huff of a laugh, at once relieved and resigned. Finally, something that wasn't out to kill him.

No, my ally. I am most certainly not here to kill you.

It was impossible to be certain, with the mass of Revendreth immense in his vision and badly blurred, but Terry thought he'd stopped falling. Or drifting. Or whatever the right word was. Everything was either grey or black and, immeasurably far up above him (and just below his chin), gleaming gold.

Why..?

You called for me. I came.

I called? ... I did... yes. So long ago. Where... Terry couldn't quite muster up the strength to be furious, only heaving the question like a great mental sigh. Where were you?

Your enemies are...very dedicated to keeping you to themselves. I heard only that plea, and tiny remnants of others. I could not see, and could barely hear. I am sorry for the way I found you. It is never my wish to cause pain.

He could feel himself squint. ...the elementals? That was you?

Yes. It was the only way to bring you into my sight.

There was a pregnant silence where he would have been laughing if he could. When he actually did hear himself bark aloud, he startled himself. The exhaustion was still there, but some of the rawness... he felt a little less like a fragment of himself. And as he had that thought, he noticed that he could feel pain again. As much as he would have preferred not to, he knew that that was an improvement, not a punishment.

What are you doing?

To Terry's puzzlement, there was another pause, a feeling that the Lifebinder was hesitating. I had intended to save you. But I realize... this was not our agreement.

Terry closed his eyes, now that he knew he could and it would matter. It was nice to actually see darkness, instead of seeing nothing or not being able to change his view at all.

You are so tired, child. She sounded very much like his mother in that moment, and he found comfort in that without fighting it, for a change.

I am. ...Will I get to see them again?

No. But that is not your fault.

Instantly, his eyes flew open. What does that mean?

You have gone where you were likely destined to go, as you were. But had you gone there the proper way--at the end of your part in the cycle--you would not have ended up there.

Before he had a chance to get cross and tell her to stop talking in circles and riddles at him, Terry felt himself shifting around, rolling over until he was no longer looking at the rocky underside of Revendreth. Instead, he faced a gaping, awful hole like a collapsing star that would consume entire galaxies, and the warmth in his body suddenly disappeared. The longer he stared, the easier it was to make out the constant flow of countless little specks disappearing into the gaping gullet. Raw dread filled him when he figured out what the specks were.

The balance is undone. You, as they did, would have ended up in this consuming pit called the Maw.

What?!

Forgive me, child. There is chaos in the fabric of all things. I could not see.

His heart sank to the same depths as the day he'd woken up in Darnassus and learned that not only had his parents died, his country had too. At the same time, his jaw clenched, and he was warmed again by his own boiling blood. Maybe he might have deserved whatever the Maw was, but his parents sure as shit didn't.

But I see now. And I return to the bargain we made.

Terry was turned over again, and he couldn't decide whether it was better or worse to look away from the hole in the universe. At least he felt less hollow inside this way. A new wash of exhaustion rolled over him, and he closed his eyes once more. When did it end? Was there always going to be something worse waiting in the wings?

I have already borrowed your strength, and it served me well. I have returned it thus. But... it seems to me that I must offer you the choice, before I lend my own.

...How do you mean?

You are tired, and it seems to me, deservedly so. I can end your suffering, and usher you to the fate you would have properly earned if you so wish. Revendreth would likely have been your proper destination. This time, you would encounter it as a soul, rather than a man.

He frowned a little. And the alternative?

I can finish what I already started, burn away the twisted shell that contains your essence, and build it anew. You would return as a living man to Revendreth, and from there, seek a remedy for this sickness on the cosmos. There will be great suffering in this endeavor, as all battles create. You might not return to your mate or offspring for a very long time. You might not return at all, and die, and be condemned to the Maw regardless.

You are a terrible salesman.

You demanded honesty. She was being cheeky. He appreciated that. I now ask you to place your trust in me, and accept the mantle of champion.

Either way, he wasn't going to see Dwyn or his children again. Not for a while, if at all. He'd already thought it impossible a dozen times over, all the way back in the desert on Azeroth. It was hard to hold out hope in the face of that; harder still to do it after that, and being stolen away to what turned out not to be Hell, but Purgatory. He'd clung to determination, to stubbornness, instead; he could accept those in place of hope. He would see them again because he swore that he would, not because things had to turn out okay somehow.

And his parents were down there, somewhere, too. Was that going to happen to the rest of his family? To Leon? To Vember? Alynore? Ansul? Pin? Jia?

What good was his oath if he didn't try everything to follow it, even blind, mad, dangerous faith?

What did he have left to lose?

If ever there was a worthy price for his free will... this was it.

All right. I guess I'm storming Hell.

( @daily-writing-challenge​ )