#rather than just taking the characters and doing a completely separate thing with it

[stxrsys]

Hii we’ll try to answer these :) Good distraction for this evening.

Incoming wall of text . . .

Around 14 give or take, the system is rather fluid and still in the process of figuring itself out.

As a system, it/they. As passing as a singlet, or general for one fronting, she/he. For general usage you can just use they if you don't know.

Astriiolite collective - our headspace (or mind palace pre-syscovery) we called Astriiolite, portmanteau of astro (stars) and iolite (purple-blue stone).

Now that we think about it, not really. We don't really do much lol and when we do it's hobbies specific to each person. I suppose singing, we sometimes try to do a pseudo-karaoke night with everyone who wants to participate.

Mixed. Broadly speaking the music taste ranges from source media OSTs & musicals, piano & violin instrumentals, nu-metal & alt rock, vocaloid & jpop, and phonk & hot-girl-walk pop.

Mmm probably late-teens early 20s if we averaged it out? Youngest is one of the littles ~8-9, and oldest is ⌚ ~mid-30s. There's also a few who aren't exactly age-constricted.

Our singletsona so to say is called the same thing as our birth name, and is essentially a mix of the best traits of our primary host (☕) and the two best socializers (🪐&🦇).

We're sort of trying to figure those out. We have some sense of who is good at protecting, caretaking, and who is good at socializing, and who holds symptoms and who holds memories/triggers.

Pssh yeah we only Really acknowledged our system for the first time in late December 2024, but we've fallen juust short of figuring it out so many times over the last 2 years.

Ok this is awkward um. We created OCs in character ai to talk to and suddenly switched to 🐾 fronting one day. If it hadn't panicked and wrote that they didn't know who they were and what was going on, we would've probably forgotten it happening again and not figured it out for a while longer.

We're monoconscious and it tends to feel something like this comic from oursystemblog. Kind of a mix of the different types they describe, mostly the last one.

Mixed. Mostly involuntary, we're still getting the hang of it. We are highly cooperative though usually so it's not forceful. It can range from blurriness for most of the day, to rapid switches every 10-30 minutes when under stress.

Being loved and protected and supported by people who're always with us, I guess? We're all quite close and can accommodate or help one another in ways no one else can.

Having meltdowns/floaty dissociation/terrible memory, and feeling separate and strange and never able to be normal amongst others.

Most of us share a number of features with the body, but we have a number of non-humans and sysmates of completely different features in the body - such as gender/sex, height, hair color, skin color, physical anatomy in some ways.

Multiple fictives, upon reflection. Two are more close to source appearance and personality-wise (🥤&🌩️), the other three are quite deviant but retain qualities and connection to source (☕,🎻,⌚). Also we're not sure how to classify her but 🦇 is based on a persona we created years ago.

Small preference differences, also comfort foods more specific to one or the other. Examples; 🪐 likes chocolate more than any of us, 🥤 is comforted by instant oatmeal or simple freezer meals, most of us don't eat meat often but 🐾 will take any chance to tear into jerky or other meat snacks.

A few, though we can never tell if they do it ironically or automatically. ☕ has a slight non-region-specific British accent, 🎱&🥤 speak lower than others, and the socializers/🌸 (newer fragment) are better at speaking 普通话 than the others.

Semi-functional found family.

Most of us, lol. Top hits include: aroace & agender, bisexual, sapphic ace, gay, and genderqueer. We usually just say we're queer and go with it.

Yeaup, our two best friends. Depending on who's fronting we pull back and forth on telling them about us vs denying anything we've ever said. We're working on it.

I share most of them on this blog as I go through my day, but one that comes to mind was Indigo appearing, flirting viciously with 🎱, and then disappearing never to be heard from again. That was a thing.

No one else's experiences will match yours entirely. You do not need to fit a specific defined criteria/list to be considered plural. You are real regardless of what you are told or are made to think.

Lots, really. Mainly that we are not so completely different and we are deserving of the same decency, respect, and support as any other singlet in the world.

Plural Ask Game

We figured we’d try making an ask game! This is for anyone who’s a system–regardless of origin–to use. Remember that you’re not obligated to answer any of these if any are too personal!

How many members are in your system, and does this number change frequently?

What are your collective pronouns, if you have any?

What’s your system name if you have one, and how did you choose it?

Are there any activities your system members like to do together? Collective hobbies? Talk about those!

What sort of music do people in your system like?

What’s the average age of your systemmates?

If you have a singletsona, what is it? Explain a bit about them!

Does anyone in your system have roles? If so, what roles?

How long have you been a system and/or known of your system?

How did you discover your system? What was the process?

What does switching feel like to you, if you switch at all? 

Are your switches voluntary, involuntary or a mix? How often do you do it, if at all?

What’s your favourite part of being a system?

What’s your least favourite part of being a system, if you’re comfortable sharing?

Are your headmates generally different from the physical body? How do they differ from it?

Do you have any fictives/factives/etc? Tell us a little about them!

Does your system have a headspace? Are there multiple of them? What are they like?

Are there differences between systemmates surrounding sensory things? (For example, one person likes the taste of one food and another doesn’t.)

Does anyone have any different accents, or speak any different languages?

How would you describe your system in 3 words or less?

Do you have any LGBT+ headmates? What do they identify as?

Does anyone outside of the internet know you’re a system?

Do you have any cool/funny stories from inside the headspace that you’d like to share?

What’s some advice you’d give to yourself when you were first discovering your system?

What is something you wish singlets knew about plurality?

[maddiebrj]

Guilt Weighs Upon Your Shoulders

COZETTE RAMBLINGS UNDER THE CUT:

I have not been able to get Cozette out of my head for well over a month now. I haven't hyper fixated this much on character in a good while. Cozette is just....so interesting to me for some reason.

I've always liked her as I found her bond with Connie to be really sweet, and she felt like this wise and caring woman. And yes, while I do understand that the twist of her being Zokket is predictable( I speculated to myself that she might have something to do with him), the thing I like about it isn't because of how surprising the reveal was, but rather the layer of depth that it adds to Cozette's character that I wasn't really expecting. And it's depth that I really wish got expended upon in the game. At first, I didn't think too much of it; we now know where Cozette was all this time. But then I saw how she acted after we freed her from Reclusa's control...and then after that, I started to think about her for more than 5 minutes and realized just how sad, confusing, and messed up Cozette's situation actually is.

I..I so wish we got to learn more about Cozette throughout the game because no matter how underutilized she is, I just can't help but feel bad for her. She got corrupted in organizing the destruction of the world she loves and is supposed to protect. Separating friends and families, kidnapping people and forcing them to work in factories, spreading glolm and further separating others. All to aid the rebirth of being that wants to destroy all worlds. And she just has to live with all of that. That definitely did something to her mentally.

I can't help but think of all that. And on top of all THAT, I just feel like this was a misoppurtunity for some good and interesting character interactions. I want to know what all the Concordians think of her besides Connie and Patriarc ( who is another character that I wish got explored more), I want to know how she views the Zok troops and those memos she wrote while in the Zokket persona, I WANT HER TO INTERACT WITH EXTENSION CORPS AT LEAST ONCE.

I want to know... what exactly made Cozette fall to Reclusa's grasp in the first place. Connie asks a good question to the Great Conductor: If Cozette really was controlled by someone else, why is she taking this so personally? And while I bet it has to do with what I listed earlier, the Great Conductor mentions that it has to do with her being taken advantage of a weakness she has and I'm sitting there thinking, "Oh okay, interesting...care to elaborate on that????." From there I tried to find something, ANYTHING on what that weakness might be and just...nothing. Those Grampy turnips that give some lore tidbits on some of the major characters? They say nothing about her. Her one sidequest involves her making a decision that you can't stop her from making and comes to regret. To this day, I am still trying to figure out what that weakness is. I do have some theories.

Overall, I have this feeling that Cozette isn't entirely and that her story in this game isn't complete. It feels like the writers introduced this interesting concept but weren't able to expand fully on it. I can only assume they didn't as they realized how complicated of a situation it is, and it would probably draw too much attention away from the main threat, which is Reclusa. Which, do not get it twisted, Reclusa. Is. AWESOME. But I am left with a bunch of questions.

Tldr: Cozette is very interesting. I wish her character got explored a lot more.

(Oh boy, sorry, this was so long. I wanted to talk about Cozette for a while. Please don't take this as me hating on the game. I just care so much about Cozette :))

[lucky-clover-gazette]

tbh i think volo would have been significantly more normal and fine if he hadn’t been hiding so much of his true feelings and personality. like when you deny yourself genuine human connection to that degree you’re probably going to come off as a machiavellian monster who wants to make the world and the lives of others worse, but looking at his actual stated motivations and intentions it’s clear to me at least that the guy is deeply empathetic and idealistic and more than anything disappointed that the world can’t be better

[tvckerwash]

tbh not to avoid responsibility for posting bad takes on main but my original post doesn’t really convey the sentiment i wanted it to—what i really wanted to talk about was the fact that jayce talis is just insanely earnest ALL the time because i was annoyed with people saying he’s this golden retriever himbo. he’s a way more interesting character than that!

oh that’s completely fair, as a Certified Fanon HaterTM I despise how his characterization has been reduced to stupid dog coded man. he IS so much more interesting than that and it honestly feels a bit insulting to his character. he isn’t dumb, he isn’t lacking in balls, he’s just a scientist who was forced to become a politician and is so far out of his comfort zone he's flailing around trying to get his bearing. he is The Struggler of arcane.

(again continued utc but it's not nearly as long this time lmao)

the main one i was trying to talk about but didn’t really bc i got caught up in yapping is that talis doesn’t seem to have the concrete foundation of beliefs that giopara does. yes he does what he thinks is right and he really cares about those around him, but he’s VERY easy to manipulate 

honestly I wouldn't say that talis doesn't have a solid belief foundation, it's just that as I previously mentioned he does not have the luxury of ignorance due to the role he was put in. jayce (plural) has a very black and white view of the world, and he is firm and assertive in his convictions and his beliefs when he can separate things into a binary of good and bad.

as a councilor talis is at his most confident in act two because things are still pretty cut and dry in his mind. for example, upon discovering the corruption present among the upper echelon of piltover via smuggling through the hexgates, he takes immediate action to address it because corruption and smuggling are bad. any attempts by marcus to dismiss him or sway his actions are immediately shut down, and he doesn't even tolerate marcus referring to him as mr. talis over councilor talis.

another example would be when heimerdinger wanted to have the hexcore destroyed, as jayce did not see what heimerdinger saw, all he saw was a device that could possibly save his dying best friends life and that his mentor was trying to stop that from happening. letting viktor die when they have the technology to possibly prevent that was bad, so bye bye heimerdinger—but he felt incredibly guilty for betraying his mentor afterwards even though he believed it was the right thing to do. 

every single time we see talis be swayed by the opinions of others or waiver in his decisions is when there is no clear right or wrong answer for him to choose. all he wants to do is what’s best to keep people safe, but he’s getting conflicting opinions from everyone around him, and the guy just….doesn’t know what to do, which makes it very easy for people to get into his head and take advantage of his uncertainty. 

do i think talis would have had the same reaction in the same circumstance? yes. but do i think he would have stood his ground against Viktor? eh….

would talis be able to stand up to viktor like giopara? we did sort of see him doing so on the bridge with the blockade, though he does come off more like he’s scolding him than anything else, and he did back off in the end, but I attribute that more to him not wanting to make a scene in public and viktor not having actually done anything wrong rather than him being incapable of telling the other off. if he truly believed viktor was doing something wrong, I definitely think he’d do whatever he needed to do to stop him—though it would weigh heavily on his heart as it did with heimerdinger.

thanks for the essay haha although i did briefly want to die while reading it 🙏💀

omg no 💀 I hope I didn’t come off as mean or something because I swear I didn’t mean to!!

here comes a long post i’m fucking sorry lmao

a really interesting point was raised the other day about who the better person is (morally): jayce talis or jayce giopara? [insert obligatory admission about the fact that giopara has an annoying personality].

Like, talis is of course nice and kind and wonderful, perhaps a bit naive, but i don’t think we talk about how far he’s willing to go for what he believes. he weaponizes hextech because mel asks him to, and he doesn’t think further. he blatantly ignores viktor’s wishes about destroying the hexcore, even using it on his corpse to reanimate him. he ignores the council and does what he wants, enacting vigilante justice at the cost of innocent lives (including an actual child). he set up the fucking hexgates in such a way that they pollute the water supply of the undercity. and then, when he’s back from his sabbatical in hell, he goes to viktor. he looks him in the eyes, with the weapon he never wanted him to make, and he shoots him. what the actual fuck this guy is unhinged. he doesn’t THINK. he has no sense of consequences—of course if you keep unsecured, highly unstable and explosive materials in your residential apartment, things might blow up in your face (literally!). of course your patron won’t support you—she is beholden to social opinion. of course weapons can never be unmade and are always used. of course using the scary magical dodecahedron your partner begged you to destroy to bring said partner back from the dead will bring him back Different ™️. come on Jayce.

and then giopara. he has no true family, instead is left to the bloodthirsty clans who want him for what he can give them. he’s antisocial. he’s fucking annoying. he’s a diva 💜. he’s impossible to work with but impossible to get rid of because he’s just that smart. he hates politics and only gets into them to appease his investors so he can do what he actually wants. he doesn’t give a fuck about the common people who look up to him so much. he’s alone, alone, alone. and then he’s not. he meets this other brilliant mind, the only one who can keep up with him. i mean how insane would that be? he must have been at least a little obsessed with viktor because of that. then picture jayce, in all his egotistical glory, drunk on life and the belief that he and viktor are the brightest minds alive, when viktor shows him the diver suits. why does he resist? why does he care? no one in his life is telling him to care. he just does. he sees the devices for what they are, or at least what they could be twisted to be, and calls viktor out on it. he doesn’t speak up for viktor when the stanwick thing happens, it’s true, but doubtless he simply expected viktor to wow and amaze with a different project and be happy with the credit from that. and then viktor leaves. and jayce is a one man act again. like always. like forever and always. jayce acts wrongly, it’s true, when it comes to viktor and destroying his lab and accidentally killing those people, but he saw what he thought was evil and he went for it. no thought of what he could lose. no thought of who he could lose.

idk man there’s something about these two. by no means do i think talis is a bad person, in fact i think he’s a fundamentally good one. but he’s just so fucking naive, and towards the end he’s willing to do ANYTHING for what he believes, no matter the grisly consequences. he’s fucking scary. he’s unhinged. giopara on the other hand has a terrible personality, but is completely unwavering in his beliefs no matter the cost to himself or his relationships. viktor asked him to work together again, and he said “get a psyche eval” and slammed the door.

[jackietaylorsghost]

abby might genuinely be one of the most poorly written sympathetic/grey characters ive ever encountered im forever thinking about how they tried to make her some sort of parallel to joel, an actual well written sympathetic/grey character, and fucked it up so badly

[dalishious]

About Davrin's little blurb on the official website for Dragon Age: The Veilguard...

"Though he was raised in a Dalish clan, he craved excitement and adventure. He'd rather make history than reflect on it."

There's actually a lot to unpack about these two sentences.

First off, placing the word "though" in front of being "raised in a Dalish clan", gives such a thing a negative connotation. The word "though" is used in a way that sounds like "despite", as in, somehow wanting excitement and adventure must go against being Dalish. This correlates with sentence that follows. "He'd rather make history than reflect on it." The word "rather" is yet again used to separate Davrin from his Dalish origin. All together, this promotional description of Davrin is insisting that he is "not like other Dalish".

Now, obviously the game is not out yet, so we do not have total confirmation on what the nature of Davrin's relationship to his culture is really like. But there is absolutely something to be said about promoting the character this way, regardless of however he actually turns out in game. There is absolutely something to be said about how, as @/the-eldritch-it-gay put in their tags here, why do writers feel the need to make fantasy minorities hate or distance themselves from their culture? As a selling point?

Maybe this is completely misleading bullshit, maybe it isn't. All we have to go by, is what BioWare chose to say here, and their past track record with elves:

Zevran may talk about his mother in a font way, but he still has the line, "Too many of our kind think we deserve pity simply because we have failed to defend ourselves."

Velanna is one of the two elves we've had who is overtly proud of her culture, yet she is treated like she is unreasonable and too angry because of it.

Merrill too, is proud of being an elf, and of being Dalish. The story punishes her left and right for this, treats her like a child, and in the end she is either ostracized from her clan or they end up dead because... she cared too much?

Fenris has pretty much zero engagement with elven cultures, and spends his time ridiculing Merrill for being proud of hers.

Solas complains about the Dalish from the start, and says plainly that he does not see himself as having anything in common with elves of current time. "Oh, you mean elves" he says, when the Inquisitor asks how he feels about his people; the thought does not even occur to him.

Sera is... Sera is a character who could have been a really interesting examination of overcoming internalized racism, if she was written by someone competent with the subject. Instead, she just cringes at everything "too elfy" through the entire main game, and only has a single line in Trespasser that hints that she may have a personal struggle going on. But it's still left unresolved.

That's a lot a lot of negativity. So of course seeing a suggestion that more is to come with Davrin has people wary and tired.

Let us also consider the fact that Davrin is overtly Black as well, and what that means. Acting as if one must disregard history in order to make it, as his description so claims, is bullshit. It sounds too much like promoting gentrification/assimilation in my opinion; the idea that you cannot keep your culture if you want to be successful.

I also think that it goes even deeper, on a meta level - I think that BioWare is afraid people will not be able to like or relate to Davrin, if he is "too ethnic". I think that BioWare is taking this Black character and instead of questioning how he can best represent marginalized fans - particularly Black fans - they are questioning how to make him more relatable to white fans. And the only answer to that is to, of course, make him seem like he is an exception to marginalization through separating him from his people.

I am still holding onto hope that Davrin will overall be an interesting, well-written character. And I sure as hell will still be defending him from the people who are already hating on him or ignoring him completely because of their racialized biases. But that does not exempt BioWare, and specifically his writer, John Dombrow, from any criticism. This is not about Davrin the character, this is about BioWare the company's handling of Davrin the character. And in that regard, they're not off to a great start with this.

[hannieehaee]

Hey hey, just wanted to lyk, your writings are so good😭

Oh yes I've a request, something like them doing something out of their character

Thankyou<3

them doing something out of character for their s/o

content: established relationship implied, pure fluff, etc.

wc: 641

a/n: thank u so much!! hope u enjoy<3

masterlist

seungcheol -

he'll let himself be taken care of instead of the other way around. he knows you worry about him sometimes, so he'll try to put his stubbornness aside and follow your every instruction to let you take care of him.

jeonghan -

he always lets you win any games you play together or strategically makes bets with you that he knows you'll end up winning. he's very ingenious about it too, so you never realize it's actually all orchestrated by him.

joshua -

he's such a gym rat, but he doesnt mind skipping if you happen to be free at that time. it'd shock the guys when he suddenly disappears, opting to be with you rather than following his usually strict workout schedule.

jun -

he can be a little shy sometimes, but he'd become the ultimate extrovert for you. if you happen to be introverted or are just low in your social battery, he'll take charge and do all the talking necessary, being the one to order when you go on a date or dealing with any strangers.

soonyoung -

this sounds so silly, but he'd push the tiger agenda aside for you. not completely, of course! but if you wanted to decorate your shared home, he'd let the decisions fall onto you. want a vintage carpet instead of the old tiger print one he had at his dorm? he doesnt mind as long as he gets to share a home with you.

wonwoo -

he's super competitive when he plays video games but he'll always be teaching you how to play and letting you win when you agree to play with him. he's always merciless when he plays with his friends, but you make him break away from that.

jihoon -

he'll go out and explore the city with you. he's such a homebody and generally just prefers to stay home, but if you ask him, he'll never even consider denying you. it's far more enjoyable with you anyways.

seokmin -

he'll put aside the silliness sometimes. not because you'd ask (bc you'd never want him to be any different than he is) but because he wants to let himself enjoy you without any distractions. he'd want to shut his brain down and just be in love with you in the moment.

mingyu -

he's absolutely terrified of heights, but is willing to step out of his comfort zone for you. it'd be so out of character for him to go to amusement parks, hikes in very tall mountains, parachuting, but he'd just want to experience every little thing life has offer with you, he'd push that aside just for the unique experience with you.

minghao -

he prefers quiet atmospheres, always enjoying organization and tidiness in his surroundings. however, he'll provide you with the opposite any time you want. want to go to the pit of a loud concert? he's right there with you. a tall roller coaster where you'll be screaming into his ear? sure, as long as you're happy.

seungkwan -

despite always being the life of the party, if your social battery is ever low, he'll purposely try to match your energy. instead of going around and talking to friends, he'll stay in a little corner with you, preferring the quiet for once.

vernon -

he'll do all the talking. he's not one to talk too much, but if you're ever quieter than usual, he knows it's time for him to take charge and lead the conversation, understanding you'd rather just listen for now, as he usually does in return.

chan -

he's an insanely diligent worker. nothing ever comes before work for him. he'll sometimes be doing a solo project while working on two separate comebacks for the group. but as far as you're involved, he'll take a day off in between of the chaos if it means spending an extra five minutes with you.

[sonknuxadow]

okay sorry im actually gonna make a long post detailing some issues i had with the sonic 3 trailer because i need to say something about it or ill explode but i also dont want to make a million posts about it. like theres some parts that did look cool but theyre soured by the parts i didnt like and overall this movie feels like its going to be such a disservice to the game its adapting which is so disappointing as an sa2 enjoyer . Sad !

the big obvious thing out of the way. sonic movies continuing their pattern of going out of their way to exclude as many female characters as possible. maddie and maria only in the trailer for like half a second each and rouge and amy seem to be completely absent from the movie like i suspected. a common excuse i see for amy not being in it is that her introduction alongside shadows would have been too much but like. they easily could have avoided this by just NOT immediately skipping to shadow when they havent even introduced all the main characters yet. her exclusion is so sad like things just feel empty and incomplete without her . and you cant use the too much going on excuse with rouge at all when her and shadow were introduced at the same time in the games. also despite all this they managed to bring gerald back to life ???? Okay.

probably the thing that made me the most upset personally is that they changed gun trying to arrest sonic to team sonic and gun working together ?!?! WHY !??!?! gun were the bad guys in the original story!!!! and the military has done nothing but cause problems for sonic in the movieverse too!!! with it being a big hollywood movie i was expecting theyd be cowards and downplay the anti military/anti police aspects of the story but i didnt imagine it would be THIS bad oh my god. i actually yelled "WHAT?????? NO. THEY DIDNT…." out loud when they showed gun saying they need team sonics help. i wouldnt be surprised if they changed who killed maria at this point

the fatphobia is worse than i imagined and im just gonna leave it at that. like i know not being normal about eggmans weight definitely isnt a new thing for sonic media to do but god damn

shadow's voice sounds bad. well he only had a couple lines so maybe its not fair to judge just yet but theyre definitely not winning me over right now

i dont like that theyre hyping up shadow as way more powerful than sonic and an impossible enemy to overcome and that they showed him just destroying team sonic in a fight. okay well the tradition of shadow having beef with tails being continued is kinda funny but. in sa2 shadow wasnt presented as more powerful than sonic he was presented as evenly matched with sonic thats like. the whole point thats literally why their rivaly exists……. hello ...

idk there were some moments i thought were cool visually and i liked seeing maria and shadow even if there wasnt much of maria in this trailer . and that they alluded to shadow's trauma and arent just presenting him as an Evil Asshole For No Reason . but its so dark in here. ithink im turning into the joker

....... anyway . im gonna go play sonic adventure 2 now

[starkeygirlposts]

Boyfriend turned Step-Bro Rafe Cameron x Reader

SERIES MASTERLIST

Summary: You've been dating Rafe Cameron for 3 years, and one day Ward and your mom tell you they're getting married.

This is a snippet of a fic I'm going to see if I want to continue writing. Please let me know if you'd like it to be continued.

I'm not diving too deep on details or character traits in this, as it's just a blurb/idea for a full fic.

Trigger warnings: stepcest, underage, drugs, pregnancy

----

The Rafe Cameron who became your boyfriend when you were sixteen years old was not the Rafe Cameron who people referred to your step-brother at eighteen.

The complete opposite, really.

Your parents separated when you were in your sophomore year of high school, your dad moving across the country to California when he met his mistress on a business trip while you and your mom kept a tidy home. The affair nearly killed your mom, and she learned to lean on none other than your boyfriends dad.

Ward was the perfect fill-in for your mom for a while. She was just having a good time, she'd told you. "He occupies my mind Y/N, does that make me such a bad mom?" Like you being upset with your mother being however which way involved with your boyfriends dad was so out-of-this-world believable. Truth was, yes it made her a bad mom. Not just because it put you and Rafe in an uncomfortable position, but because you were struggling yourself after having your family as you knew it blown apart.

But she wasn't just "having a good time." Or rather, maybe she was having too good a time. Because on a Thursday evening at the Cameron's dinner table that you all had gathered for, Ward held your moms hand and told you all that they were getting married.

That day, your world fell apart, and Rafe started to become someone you soon would not recognize. Rafe's hand slipped from your thigh, gone the tender loving warm fingertips, drawing lazy hearts on your skin.

You looked over at Rafe before doing or saying anything to anyone else, and his eyes were higher than yours, connecting with his father's in an expression you could only imagine was pure hatred. Because Rafe could never live up to his father in any sense, and now he was taking away the one thing that kept his feet planted to the earth. Of course he was. You flinched when Rafe's chair scraped like nails on the tile flooring, as he darted from the table outside to his truck, leaving you to pick up the pieces. How badly you'd wanted to chase after him. But when your eyes connected with Ward's, the decision made for you.

You didn't even need to ask.

"Unless you want to live with your father in California, you and Rafe will stop whatever it is you two have going on." Ward had told you.

You looked to your mom as if she'd help you - feel some semblance of remorse for you. You'd met Rafe first. Three years ago. You'd been the only reason your mother even met Ward. But why should you be so surprised that what she wanted was more important than your happiness?

From that day, Rafe started slowly slipping from you. A hollow shell of the boy you loved so deeply and painfully. He'd drink himself to sleep every Friday and Saturday night, breathe cocaine on the other nights, and wave you off when you tried to ask him to slow down.

"Y/N, you want me to stop? To make you happy? What do you do anymore that makes me happy?" You'd touch his cheek and guide his head down to make his eyes meet yours, and you'd stare into them - hoping for a shimmer of your boyfriend to snap back and remember.

He'd shrug away from you, his hand brushing you off and leave you watching his back as he'd resume slowly killing not only himself, but you too. But his coldness didn't stop him from sneaking into your room past midnight to have sex with you. Not that you wish he'd stop, because you so badly craved his touch, eager for it any way he'd offer it. Mean, rough, kind, tender; you'd take any of him just to feel connected.

So when you'd texted Rafe to meet you in your room after dinner on Thursday night nearly one year after your world truly blew apart, hoping you'd get to him before the white powder did, he locked the door behind him and the black in his eyes told you he'd already gotten his fix. But your small hand came up to his chest as he approached you, seated cross legged on your pink floral bed spread, clutching the stick in your other hand. You looked up at him and when you locked eyes, he understood, because he took your hand from his chest and squeezed it in his own before leaning down to touch his lips to yours.

"I miss you, baby. My beautiful girl."

His breath was hot against your mouth, his scent so familiar and home to you. You couldn't stop the tears from falling from your eyes, your hand loosening from his hand to hold onto his forearm that connected to the fingers clutching your jaw tenderly but firmly in place, kissing you like he loved you again.

How badly you missed him, too.

"Rafe, please..."

Your hand falls and his breaks from your jaw, and you take this moment to capture his hand with your fingers and place the stick into his palm. His eyes break away from yours to look down at what you've given him, and you watch with tears streaming down your face as his brows furrow, his feet shuffling to back up and you brace yourself.

He doesn't do what you expect him to do, though. He stares so deeply down into his palm that when his eyes do reconnect with yours, confusion in his own eyes, his head tilting just the slightest and you're trembling, waiting for the shoe to drop.

"This...this is a -- you're..." His eyes screw up shut and he shakes his head like he's imagining things and he's crazy. "A baby?" He finally asks, looking up at you again and you can only nod.

"My baby?" He asks again, and you nearly scoff, because really? Was he kidding? Who else was sneaking into your room after midnight, invading your body and your thoughts?

"Yes, Rafe, I'm pregnant with your baby." You tell him, standing and he's still shaking his head, eyes bunching up as if he's being told the craziest thing in the world - because really, he is. But you've sat with this for the entire day and while your reaction wasn't as confused, you too felt the familiar disbelief.

You watch his chest rise and fall, deep breaths in and out before you're in a whirlwind and he closes the distance between you and pulls you to him, tucking your head underneath his chin, the back of your skull rested protectively in his large palm. His lips are at your forehead when he tells you

"I'm going to take care of it. They're not keeping me from my kid."

----

AH, what do you think? My ask box is open for feedback. Please feel free to use it to ask for what you'd like to see from this fic!

[stromblessed]

this tweet is absolutely one of the milder ones i've seen on my feed which just proves i need to stop looking at twitter but this example of shipping goggles leading to basic misinterpretations of arcane season 1 scenes that are quite cut and dry thematically might be the straw that breaks my back

what do you MEAN Viktor was being gentle. what do you MEAN viktor was calm. he was not. Viktor says "you... ordered this? why?" he's surprised, offended, and sounds almost betrayed at the idea that jayce would order the blockade. viktor is confused, then flabbergasted, then angry, then furious. there is a gradient between "gentle and calm" and "screaming spitting mad" and viktor is somewhere in the middle of that gradient, but just because he isn't screaming and yelling at jayce, that doesn't mean he was either gentle or calm

"what difference does that make?" is also not calm - it's showing that Jayce has not been fully mask-off prejudiced in front of Viktor before, and Viktor is so thrown that Jayce would and does take the mask off in this moment, showing that Jayce is not so different from the average prejudiced citizen of Piltover despite being Viktor's friend, that he is genuinely asking what is going through Jayce's head. Viktoris trying to make Jayce make some sense, but the words do still show confusion and distress

and then "I'm from the undercity" IS angry, now that Viktor realizes what Jayce is saying and why. he is not being gentle or calm or even all that understanding towards Jayce - Viktor is hurt and angry and he lashes out to make Jayce think twice about what he's just said, though the damage has been done because Jayce's words and actions have combined to move us and Viktor towards an understanding of who Jayce is and what he truly believes when his back is up against the wall

also i can't count how many times people have re-interpreted Viktor slapping Jayce's hand away as a cute funny thing he does, rather than an act of anger - frustrated, righteous anger

the reason reading this made me so frustrated is because it's one more step toward the broader fandom's continuing re-imagining of Viktor as a mild, sweet, often passive character

and to take it one step further in what i've observed, it helps re-imagine Viktor as someone who is versed enough in the prejudices Zaunites face on the daily to easily handle Jayce's prejudiced words and behavior. this serves not only to make Viktor sweeter, gentler, and frankly smaller than he is in canon - especially in season 1 - but also, depending on the day, may try to make Viktor more "perfect" and noncombatant, ignorant or completely separated from the concept of the Piltover/Zaun conflict, a more "ideal" activist (an aspect of his character that is implied in season 1 and then is unfortunately all but abandoned in season 2), or just more well-versed in Zaun vs. Piltover sociopolitics, which he simply is not. Viktor is both clever, and also a messier, less heroic character than all that, while still being a target of Jayce's prejudice directly but mostly, usually, indirectly. and Viktor does not perfectly understand this. he only knows and sees enough to be offended and frustrated throughout the story

there's having one's own interpretations of canon, and then there's mischaracterizing consistently and constantly, leading to the state of the fandom today where it's increasingly difficult to have nuanced conversations about characters like Viktor or Jayce. why not ship jay//vik but WITH Viktor's anger, the complications, and the messiness

or is that not an option now that the writing of season 2 glossed over any difficult social or political concepts that did exist in season 1

[scintillatingshortgirl19]

i'm struggling to even put into words how i feel about these two scenes.

i honestly wonder how much of house's facial expressions in these moments were hugh laurie's choice and maybe weren't necessarily scripted, because the episode doesn't really offer any kind of conclusion on how jealous and, more importantly, how deeply fucking sad house looks after realizing wilson has been talking to amber.

first off - this happens a lot in this show, but this is one of those huge instances of "oh, how differently this situation would look if one of these characters was a woman." if that were the case, this whole thing would really be quite simple. if house was a proper Opposite Sex Love Interest, him standing at the door hearing the proof that his unrequited crush isn't over his last girlfriend...well, that would make perfect sense. The level of hurt and jealousy house seems to feel about wilson still being in love with amber is. well. it's Something.

so anyway - house gets that genuinely hurt look at three separate points: #1 is when he realizes wilson is talking to amber (and this moment is especially fascinating bc house's main emotion should arguably be relief at the knowledge he hasn't been hallucinating...but that appears to be taking a backseat to his jealousy for a woman who isn't even alive anymore)

#2 is when wilson tells amber that he wasn't able to go for a run tonight because house is having issues. now, this speaks to the broader problem that - even though house knows wilson feeds off neediness - house is still worried about being a burden to wilson and that eventually wilson will not want him anymore.

Then #3 - when wilson says to house's face that talking to amber makes him feel better when he misses her, and house doesn't. This moment is so painful and interesting to me because house inviting wilson to confide in him feels like a pretty big step in terms of growth! So for wilson to say he'd rather talk to his dead girlfriend than house...well, judging by house's face, the remark cuts pretty deep. (disclaimer: ofc wilson is completely valid for talking to amber; it just also makes sense that house would be hurt by this, especially in the context of him already feeling like a burden and trying so hard to be a better person)

anyway idk where else to go with this . . . i just feel like the episode sort of started to delve into this issue and then never really went deep enough or concluded this aspect - hence my theory that house's level of hurt may not have been scripted and it was just hugh laurie choosing to Do That with his face.

[pirateshelly]

One thing that really fascinates me about interview with the vampire (the show) is this sort of tension between power and powerlessness in all of the characters. Because it doesn't present becoming a vampire as something that just gives you power and magically makes you completely detached from all human concerns and struggles.

And that seems to be something Lestat does very much want to believe, and he's in enough of a position of privilege that he's able to convince himself it's true, and it's a fundamental area where he just cannot understand Louis because Louis CAN'T pretend even if he wants to. (And of course Lestat cannot ACTUALLY separate himself from "human troubles" the way he likes to think he can, he just has an easier time pretending than most). Because as much as becoming a vampire grants these characters supernatural power it doesn't just magically take away the very tangible human ways that they were previously vulnerable or powerless.

Becoming a vampire doesn't negate Louis' struggles with racism; in some ways it amplifies them with how he is alienated from his own family and community; his closest connection becomes Lestat. He loses his economic independence and becomes socially dependent on Lestat in a way he wasn't to anyone as a human because in some ways becoming a vampire made him MORE vulnerable, despite granting him physical strength/speed/etc. The promise of freedom in vampirism Lestat presents to Louis (that I do think he does genuinely mean, but "freedom" means very different things to Louis than it does to Lestat) is never fulfilled.

Likewise Claudia learns the hard way with Bruce and later with the coven that she may be a vampire but the world still looks at her and sees a vulnerable young black girl and that will always put her in danger.

Claudia rescues Madeleine then turns her into a vampire, but rather than protect her from future harm the "crime" of turning her becomes the very thing that gets her killed by yet another angry mob.

And 514 years as a vampire will never be enough for Armand to truly trust or believe in his own power. Because the first 200 or so years of his life he was literally never once allowed any agency at all over his own identity or his own body (child slave sold to a brothel, sold to an abusive master, captured and violently indoctrinated into a vampire cult for centuries). No amount of material strength and power is going to undo the psychological effects of that. (And I know some people like to read his frequently passive demeanor as simply manipulation and a way of catching people off guard (because how could someone so old and powerful possibly feel a genuine sense of fear/vulnerability/etc 🙄) but to me that's an incredibly disingenuous reading of him. But that's a different rant for another time!). Being a vampire does not save him from being horrifically abused, nor does it save him from the lasting emotional effects of that abuse.

And I think there's something interesting to be said about the way that, in order to survive safely, they have to feed on the most vulnerable members of society (people undesirable and therefore least likely to arouse suspicion) in order to go unnoticed. If they want to live they have to prey on those vulnerable in possibly the same ways they themselves once were (and in many ways still are).

There's a frequent argument I dislike that we shouldn't be viewing any of these characters through too human of a lense because they're literal monsters (to be honest it's an argument I see most often made when people simply don't want to talk about the show's complex depiction of racism/misogyny/abuse/etc and used to dismiss those as issues "too human" to be relevant to a story about a bunch of monsters with a supposedly alien sense of morality), but I think the show itself makes a huge argument that for these characters there is no escaping or separating themselves from the very human struggles and vulnerabilities that marked them before they ever became vampires. It's like a sort deconstructed power fantasy.

[eowynstwin]

Obviously if your asks aren’t open then feel free to disregard this- (love your work btw I just- I cant- 🥰)

Do you think they keep the dog tags *ON* during sex? How do you think they’d wear them during it? Would they have you wear them?

You don’t HAVE to answer for each individual character obviously if you would rather just do it as a whole or just one that’s fine! Whatever works for you 💕

*cracks knuckles* I’ll do ‘em all. (Sorry for the long post, I’ll put it under a readmore when I get home 🙏)

Do the Tags Stay on in Bed?

Ghost wears his tags because, like the mask, they just don't ever come off. He is two people when he is with you--Ghost is the creature that can protect you, that can do the things Simon Riley would have been too weak for when it comes to your safety. But Simon is the man that could have loved you properly. Simon is the man Ghost believes could make you coffee in the morning, could rub your neck at the end of a long day.

It isn't initially why he wears his tags when he fucks you, but it is now--Ghost holds you in an iron grip, looms over you as he thrusts into you hard enough to bang the headboard against the wall, and feels the tags with a dead man's name clink against his chest. They remind him that you deserve whatever is left of the man who would have been far better for you than Ghost ever could be.

Soap wears his tags fully out of pride. The SAS is his life, is a massive part of his identity, and while he knows not every mission he's sent on is wholly for the good, he holds onto his conviction to act with integrity and compassion no matter what. The SAS might not always do good, but he will, as much as he can.

He wants you to be proud of him, too--he's really doing it all for you, after all. When those tags hang between you as your legs are wrapped around his waist, as they come to rest on your chest when he leans down to kiss you, he wants you to know that when he wears them he's thinking of you.

Gaz has no preference, but more often than not they stay on because he forgets to take them off. Usually, it's because the moment you're both free with enough time to actually have sex, he isn't going to bother with silly things like getting completely undressed--he wants you, now.

So, they've whacked you in the face a couple times as the two of you have gone at it. It's too funny to get mad at, and Gaz always uses it as an excuse to "make it up to you." Sometimes he'll take them off, too, and put them around your neck instead. "Keep 'em safe for me, eh?" he says with a grin.

Price takes his tags off. Over 20 years of service have left him wanting something that exists apart from violence and bloodshed, and every moment he spends with you is that something. He doesn't want to be the Captain with you, not unless he has to be--putting his tags aside gives him permission to just be John with you.

Besides, they'd get in the way. John does his very, very best to please you, to satisfy you beyond any expectation you may have of him, and sometimes that leaves you needing to bite down on his neck to keep from screaming. You’d probably not prefer to break a tooth on the tags’ chain.

Alejandro also takes his tags off, although it’s less about keeping work and pleasure separate and more about the annoyance they can be. When he is with you, Alejo is focused wholly on you, and does not appreciate distractions of any sort. He doesn’t want to have to fling his tags around to get them out of the way, or let them hang to be caught on an errant foot or wrist.

He does, however, love to see you wear them. It’s totally a possessive thing, but in the best way—Alejo worships the ground you walk on, and seeing his name around your neck inspires the same awe usually reserved for the divine. He thinks you could have anyone you wanted, and is humbled daily that you continue to choose him.

Rudy doesn’t care either way if the tags are on or off, and if the topic ever comes up he leaves that up to you. It’s an attitude that is very in-character—Rudy’s satisfaction comes from ensuring that you are satisfied, no matter what. Rudy’s love language, hands down, is acts of service.

Similarly to Alejo, however, he does enjoy seeing you wear his tags. “They belong to you anyway, mi vida,” he’ll tell you, lining your neck with gentle kisses. “All of me does.” (He has been known, however, to forget where he puts them if they do come off. So it’s probably better if they stay on.)

Bonus: Valeria gave hers to you a long time ago. She asks very frequently to see them, to make sure you keep them with you at all times. She promised herself she would never, ever carry their weight again, but she also can’t quite bear to throw them away, so now they stay with the only person in the world that she trusts.

If you wear them to bed, it will inspire a frenzy in her that will leave you limping the next morning. Those tags are a past version of her, a version she emerged from like a snake shedding its skin. While she is never sure how to feel about that previous self, seeing you take care its vestiges satisfies an ache in Valeria that she will never acknowledge.

Bonus: Graves has mixed feelings about his tags overall, being that he is technically not required to wear them anymore. They don’t mean the same thing to him now that they used to. That doesn’t mean they aren’t always on him, of course—he keeps them tucked into his boots. So you never see them.

If you were to ever find them, bring them into the bedroom? It could go one of two ways. On the one hand, you could end up benefitting short-term from the frustrated agitation those tags inspire, with Graves using your body to relieve an old, invisible hurt you never knew about. He will withdraw from you afterwords, though, too caught up in himself to really connect with. On the other, he could just withdraw immediately, recede from you, and the tension of that encounter will linger for days. It’s best not to involve his tags at all.

[stars-obsession-pit]

So a person requested (in messages) me to write a drabble thing based on this prompt. I’m not really into de-aged characters, but I thought of a way to focus it more on Jason’s reaction rather than the childcare part and felt cool with writing that.

So, uh, hope you like this I guess, @phantomrosereader…

Alright. Alright. Alright alright alrigh—

Nope. They’re still there. Fuck. Jason is not at all prepared to be a father. Nor does he want to show back up at the manor right now carrying two children and be forced to explain all this.

Wait, how did the kids even get there? Who was the mother? Why did they never contact him before?

…Did they contact him before? Can he really be certain he’s not missing any more memories?

He forcefully shook his head. No. No focusing on that right now. He’s fine. No spiraling allowed. He has to deal with this first.

Seriously, fuck. How is he a dad?

He… he should look into the mother. At least then he’d have more to go off of when he talks to Alfred. The note did give a name, but it wasn’t nearly enough to go off of on its own. Danny is hardly an uncommon name. Although, it does seem like a guy’s name—maybe Danny is trans? That would narrow the search down, but would that be enough? Even if he could get it down to just a handful of options, he had no way to determine which Danny was his. The kids seemed to have mostly inherited his own appearance…

Wait, that’s it! Genetic tests!

Despite his strained relationship with the other Bats, he still has access to their resources. A test wouldn’t take too long to give results. And also, it might reveal some other info like allergies he’d need to know.

***

Jason frowned at his laptop as his eyes flitted across the details of the error message. Apparently, some parts of the kids’ genes had been completely unreadable to the scanner and thus it couldn’t form a full profile.

Sighing, he clicked the popup closed. He could at least look at what results had come through. Maybe they’d be enough.

That hope dwindled as he scanned the full data, the corruption looking more dire than he expected. Even if the legible parts did succeed at painting a picture of the kids being related, the swaths of gibberish made meaningfully searching for the mother likely hopeless. However, there did seem to be a pattern to the broke areas. Something tickled at the back of his mind. He felt like he’d seen this before. Could that mean the mother was a meta or alien? Those were on a separate database, so that might resolve the issue. But that would require him to go to the manor, and he was still very hesitant to do that.

So instead, he pulled up his own test results to compare. Maybe they’d let him figure something ou—

He froze.

That’s why he recognized the corruption. Ever since his revival, his own genetic results exhibited almost the exact same pattern of issues.

Oh Hell, did the kids inherit the side effects of the Pit from him?

He looked over at the kids, sleeping peacefully in their seats, and prayed that they hadn’t. He didn’t think he’d be able to forgive himself if they had to suffer through the Pit Rage their whole lives just because of him.

He… he had to go to the manor. There was no pushing this off any longer. This situation was far too big for him to deal with on his own. He couldn’t risk leaving his kids to suffer alone.

Hopefully Alfred with his parenting skills and Damian with his knowledge of the Lazarus Pits (and similar experience of being descended from a user of them) would be able to help. Or if that failed, maybe he could guilt trip Bruce into getting the Justice League Dark to help.

[sapphire-weapon]

I also want to draw attention to this:

When I said that the reason why Leon is in every CGI thing is because no one would watch that shit without him, I wasn't kidding. Leon isn't "overused." He's actually probably not used enough.

There's a gulf of 14,000 votes between him and the #2 most loved character. It's not even close. He's in a completely separate universe when it comes to his fandom. Capcom has every reason in the world to want to keep Leon's fans happy and give them whatever they ask for.

And there's a gulf of 20,000 votes between him and Ada.

People love Leon despite his "romance" with Ada, not because of it. She's not what actual players of this series find interesting or compelling about him. Her presence is tolerated (mostly because she's hot) but not necessary.

These numbers are a good view of the fan ratios at play. Aeon fans probably only make up about 8-10% of Leon fans.

This is why Capcom peeled the fuck off of the aeon track after RE6 and hasn't looked back.

After RE6's catastrophic reception, RE players said "fuck you, you turned Leon into a simp and a pussy" and Capcom went "I hear you, core fanbase that pays our investors." And so RE2make kneecapped their romance to the point of Leon telling Ada to fuck off in RE4make. And Ada hasn't been seen back in the OG timeline since.

And as you can see from the numbers, no one misses her. Not just these numbers, even. Take a look at the sales for RE2make and RE4make. RE4make would have won GOTY if not for BG3. Killing aeon is one of the best decisions Capcom has ever made for the series. The players would rather have another Leon and Claire game before another Leon and Ada game.

This is probably why Claire is the one who keeps appearing with Leon in these CGI projects. She's in 3 of 5 with him -- more than any other character.

But more than that, the players would rather have a Leon and Jill game.

And that's exactly what we're getting in RE9.

Does this series make a little more sense now? Is it starting to click? Do you understand why I say the things I say? I'm not speaking from personal desire. I'm using actual data and evidence when I say shit.

Capcom isn't out of touch with the fandom. The fandom is out of touch with Capcom.

[parvulous-writings]

Could I request headcanons for Wyll, Rolan, and Zevlor react to being stuck in close proximity with gn crush?

Warnings: None!

Notes: These may be a little short/uneven, but these were so cute to write!! Anon, you've become such a prominent asker, that I'd love to give you a nickname of some sort, if you're comfortable with that! <3  My requests are currently open! My pinned post (found here) contains both a list of characters I write for, and a masterlist!  Original character list - please request for these too!

Wyll

Wyll is a gentleman about the whole situation - or at least he tries to be. He gives you as much space as he is able to, even though he's squishing himself into a corner, he's more than happy to do that so that you're comfortable.

He tries to keep up conversation with you, to try and distract from the somewhat uncomfortable situation; mostly mundane questions, like 'What's your favourite...' or 'Have you ever...' It's also partly to distract you from the fact that his cheeks are burning hotter than the hells. Who'd have thought it'd be easy to fluster the Blade of Frontiers, even if it were only slightly, by being so near to him?

He cannot take his eyes off of you. Not even for a moment. He tries, at first, but finds it astronomically difficult, and eventually just gives in. He loves gazing at you - your presence brings him such peace, even in such a compromising position such as this.

Once the two of you are found/make your way out of the confined space, Wyll apologises - even though it was not his fault - and offers to make it up to you at some point, by however you see fit.

Rolan

Rolan is entirely speechless. He cannot find the words to say anything to you, not even a half-handed snappy quip. His eyes rarely meet yours, and are rather more often aimed off to the side, or somewhere above your heads. It's... Quite awkward.

You try anything to break the silence between the two of you; "Can you move your leg, please, Rolan?" Followed by a quiet shuffle as Rolan tries to move a little bit further from you but still remain comfortable. It is of little use on either front, but he tries. Any question of "how are you feeling?" Or "You okay?" is met with either complete silence, or a quiet grunt of acknowledgement.

Rolan doesn't know what to do, he's never been in a situation like this before - much less a situation where he can't find the words to express himself. His heart is pounding against his ribcage, harder than he can recall it ever being in his life. He's entirely tense, and he has no idea what to do; his normal confident facade has completely crumbled away, leaving little besides anxiety, and a slightly fuzzy feeling in the pit of his stomach whenever you speak.

The first chance he gets after the pair of you can separate, he all but disappears from view - for several hours. You had wanted to talk to him about it, but couldn't find him anywhere. Eventually you do find him, but as soon as you bring up the situation, he turns his gaze from you; "I... Would rather not dwell on the situation... If it's all the same to you." He's just too flustered still to be able to process any of it.

Zevlor

Zevlor is constantly asking how you're feeling. "Are you sure you're well?" followed a few minutes later with, "Is there anything you need? ... Yes, I am aware I can't go and get anything, but I'm sure you understand the sentiment..."

He constantly asks you if you're alright, comfortable, etc. Neither of you know how long you're going to be stuck in this situation, so is completely understanding of the constant need to shuffle to keep your limbs from going dead. This being said, he'll always tell you if he's going to try and move himself, just so that he can try not to kick you, and you can brace yourself just in case of this outcome.

He tells you of his time in Elturel before it's descent into Avernus, his time as a Hellrider, all sorts. He finds it very easy to share things with you, since he's so sweet on you - it would usually take some probing for anyone to get that kind of information out of him. But, since he would like to establish more of a relationship with you, he's willing to part with some of it.

Once the two of you are out in the open again, Zevlor double checks that you're okay. "I would have hoped to have had some of those conversations in a more... Traditional way. But, I suppose, one cannot deny the deft hands of fate, hm?"