#read quest for the missing spoon

[lavandulawrites]

Sumeru’s Damsel In Distress

Yandere Alhaitham, yandere Cyno, yandere Kaveh, yandere Tighnari x female reader (not separate)

Part 2

I was wishing for Sethos and managed to get c3 Alhaitham (he was c0). When I played Cyno’s story quest earlier today I got the idea for this fic. (Let me know if anyone wanna be apart of my taglist).

Synopsis: You are invited to Alhaitham and Kaveh’s house among with your two friends, to taste their new tea.

Masterlist

Warnings: drugging, imprisonment

Word count: 1974

Kaveh had been stirring the tea for 5 minutes straight. The cup was in a beautiful dark green design with little flowers. The tea spoon was engraved with flower details and must have cost a small fortune. You were sitting on the divan to the left of Kaveh. He had prepared some tea for the five of you and brought it out in the little salon in his and Alhaitham’s house. The tea set was beautiful and luxurious, a good fit for Kaveh’s exquisite tastes. Tighnari and Cyno was sitting opposite of you and Alhaitham to your left.

The window behind you were open and the curtains fluttered in the warm summer wind. The flowers on the windowsill colourful and clearly thriving in the heat. The garden behind the house well attended and beautiful.

You fiddled with your bracelet. Your gaze flickered up and your eyes met orange ones. The general mahamattra’s eyes were watchful. His white brows furrowed slightly.

Tighnari eyed Kaveh’s stirring intensely.

The blond smiled. “I saw your new book in the bookstore today. I must say the design you chose is absolutely stunning” his voice eager. “I started reading it, but unfortunately I haven’t had the time to finish it yet” he laughed sheepishly. The spoon in his hand still stirring in an almost robotic manner.

The dark haired fox stilled Kaveh’s hand and muttered something between his sharp teeth. The architect nodded slightly and stilled his movement.

��Your novel is definitely one of the best I have read. Your sight on humanity and morals are really interesting as well as your storytelling. I am impressed” Alhaitham drew your attention away from the forest ranger and the architect. His lips twisted up into a small smile.

Kaveh sat your teacup in front off you and smiled. “The instructions on the package said to stir it good, so sorry for the wait” he laughed awkwardly.

“It’s okay” you shook your head.

Kaveh poured the steaming hot tea into four cups for each of the men. He stirred them, but not as long as he had with yours. When you were about to open your mouth, Tighnari chimed in “When you stir it extra long, the taste is milder. We know how you prefer your tea mild”.

You picked up the teacup. It was hot, but not too hot. The aroma slightly sweet. You caught your reflection in the dark surface. A sudden bad feeling crept through your veins and your hand stilled.

Noticing your hesitation, Alhaitham spoke up. “Are you alright?” his voice concerned.

“Yeah, I just got lost in thought…” you smiled slightly. With a slightly trembling hand you brought the cup to your lips. You didn’t know why you had such a bad feeling. You wanted to brush it off, but something told you to trust your instincts.

Tighnari cleared his throat. “This blend has great health benefits so I would advise you to drink it” despite his soft voice, you could make out the sternness hidden beneath it.

A weak “Yeah” escaped your lips.

You wrapped your lips carefully around the rim and swallowed. The tea was slightly sweet and a little bitter, but overall pleasant. You swallowed and lowered the cup.

As your gaze went between the four men before you, you noticed the hint of relief in their expressions. Kaveh grinned beside you and lifted his cup. “Let’s toast to [Name]’s newest book!”

The five off you brought your cups over the table and clinked them against each others. You did not miss how they exchanged glances. Their eyes swirling with a deep emotion you couldn’t quite place. It sent shivers down your spine and you gulped. Alhaitham’s ever so observant eyes didn’t miss the shift in your manner.

Time blended together as you talked about all and nothing. Your uneasiness had long passed and the house was filled with laughter. As time went on you felt slightly drowsy and you casted a glance over at the clock on the wall. It was time for you to head home.

You cleared throat “I think it’s time for me to head home. Thanks for having me, Alhaitham and Kaveh. I have had so much fun”. You smiled and was about to stand up when Kaveh placed a hand on your shoulder, making you sit down again. “Wait a moment. I will bring you some food to go. We didn’t eat it all so there’s plenty left!” his smile didn’t reach his eyes which were wide and frantic. As he made his way to the kitchen he bumped into different things and almost tilted Cyno’s glass over. Alhaitham eyed the blond with an unreadable expression.

“Are you tired, [Name]?” Cyno’s voice soft. He reached his hand over the table and gently grasped yours. The skin on his fingertips rough after many years of wielding his spear. On the back of your hand his long finger drew circles in a soothing manner.

“I am, that’s why I should head home” your eyelids slightly heavy as you blinked.

The hazel eyed man sighed softly “Why don’t you rest your eyes?”.

Your eyes flickered up to met the fox’s predatory eyes. His expression soft and yearning. A expression one reserved towards their lover.

“I really should… go… home…” your speech became slurred as you struggled to keep your eyes open.

Kaveh entered the room and paused in the opening. Why was his hands empty? Didn’t he say he would bring you some food you could take with you home?

“It finally took affect. I really started to stress out” the blond sighed out in relief.

“I told you I would time it correctly, didn’t I?” Tighnari answered him.

What were they talking about? You leaned back against the backrest, your head heavy and feeling like it was filled with cotton. Your mind drifting. Voices broke through your sleepy state.

“Is she fully out now?”

“Not yet. I would give it a few more minutes.”

“I have already sent her editor a letter in case she wonders where she has gone.”

“It is almost frightening how naive she is… We really did the right thing.”

Strong arms snaked underneath you and cradled you against his chest. A deep voice sounded in your ear “We will take good care of you. No one will hurt you now”.

When you opened your eyes, you were met with a unfamiliar ceiling. Daylight swept through the curtains and lit up the room. Your head was hammering and your body felt numb. You scanned the room as a attempt to understand where you were. The room was decorated with flowers and delicate trinkets. It was decorated exactly as you would decorate it…

You removed the sheets and sat upright. The covers were soft and a pale pink colour. You didn’t wear the clothes you wore last night, but a rose pink nightdress. The fabric was silky and beautiful. You swung your legs over the edge of the bed. You carefully sat down one foot, then the other and slowly rose. You were wobbly and slightly off balance, but you managed to make your way over to the door that seem to lead outside the bedroom.

You slowly opened the door and peered out into the hallway. The interior was the same as that of Alhaitham and Kaveh’s house. Weird. You stopped in your tracks as you tried to recall the night before. None of you had engaged in alcohol. In fact the only beverages you drank were tea and water.

You walked down the hallway as you studied your surroundings. You had been to the scribe’s house before, but you had never been to that part of the house. You stopped before two green tainted glass doors. You could hear the faint sound of voices. Even though you did not hear what they said, you recognised them. It was the voices of your four trusted friends.

You opened the door quietly and entered the kitchen. The smell of freshly baked bread made your stomach slightly growl. The fennec fox had his gaze fixed on you as you entered the kitchen. He had without doubt heard you the moment you stood up from you bed.

At the sound of your stomach, the white haired man turned his head to face you. “You are finally awake. Kaveh already baked some bread. We thought you would be quiet hungry when you woke up” his expression soft and on his mouth was a gentle smile.

You blinked. The kitchen table was set to five. Alhaitam stood by the coffee grinder. His green orange gaze set on you. Kaveh stormed towards you and took your hands in his. “I hope you are hungry! There’s plenty off food, so eat as much as you want!”

You tried to wry your hands out of his grasp, but it proved to be an impossible task. He was really strong, not surprising when he wielded a claymore. “Why am I here?” your question snapped Kaveh out of his cheerfulness. “What happened? What the fuck did you do?” your eyes were wide in terror as you stepped back.

The blond tightened his hold on your small hands. His expression was dark. “We did this to protect you” his answer curt.

The grey haired scribe stepped in and placed a hand on his senior’s shoulder. Kaveh hesitated before he released your hands.

You quickly stepped back. The wall hit you back, making you slightly lose balance. You were trapped. Tears welled up in your eyes. Why didn’t they tell you that this was only a misunderstanding?

“You are going to stay here. This is your new home. Forget about the outside world. It will only do you harm” Alhaitam’s stern voice snapping you out of your tears.

“Yeah, me and Cyno will stay here when our schedules allows us. This is truly for the best” Tighnari smiled. “Why don’t you get something to eat, hmm? You will feel better when you have some food in your stomach” he pulled out a chair for you to sit. “I will get you some medicine too. I can imagine that you have quite the headache now”.

Cyno placed his hand firmly on your lower back and guided you to the table. He looked at you sternly and you sat down. Tighnari gave you some medicine which tasted bitter.

“I still don’t understand…”

“Why did you kidnap me?” you looked up at the four men with a sacred expression.

“It’s not technically kidnapping as you already were in their house…” Cyno remarked.

“Shut it Cyno” Tighnari snapped. “Be a little but more mindful. Her fear is a natural response”.

Cyno held his hands up in a defensive way and muttered a “sorry”.

“We have noticed that you often find yourself in dangerous situations and we think that staying here, is for the best” Kaveh had kneeled down besides you. His hand gently holding yours. “We know all too well how cruel humans can be and we wish to protect you. You are too precious after all, darling” his red eyes laced with obsession mixed with a love deeper than any well.

You swallowed thickly. The situation you found yourself in really started to dawn on you. You were absolutely helpless. There were no chance in hell that you would escape the clutches of the unforgiving general, the intelligent scribe, the passionate architect and the cunning forest ranger. You were truly doomed.

“It seems you finally realise your place. Good” the scribe patted you gently on your head. “Just you wait, it won’t take long before you realise this is where you belong”.

Soft lips met your cheek as you started off into the distance. As the grey haired man lips made contact with your skin, you knew your fate was sealed.

[yuriosakawa]

The Haunted Sundae

The neon lights outside flickered erratically, casting strange shadows against the wet pavement. Danny could feel the pulse of the city in the air, a sort of underground tension that hummed beneath the surface. It was the kind of place that made even the bravest of souls uneasy. But for Danny, this was just another stop on the long, grueling path to find Phantom.

He stepped inside the bar, the creaking door groaning as he entered. The air was thick with smoke and the low murmur of conversation, but it was quiet—too quiet, for his taste. The bar was dimly lit, with cracked leather booths and an assortment of patrons whose faces seemed strangely blurred at the edges. The bartender, a tall, thin figure with hollow eyes, gave him a once-over before pouring what could only be described as a vile-looking drink.

Danny scanned the room, his mind already calculating how this would go down. He wasn’t here for a drink, not even for the atmosphere. His goal was information, and he knew this place well enough to be sure that he wasn’t dealing with regular human patrons. No, every single soul here was a ghost.

Taking a seat at the bar, he casually placed his order, his voice smooth. "I'll have a strawberry sundae," he said, eyes locking onto the bartender.

The bartender blinked, momentarily taken aback. It wasn’t the typical request. But after a brief hesitation, he nodded and began preparing it. Danny was always the odd one out, even in a place like this. Most would have ordered something stronger—some ghostly concoction to numb the senses or fuel their darker desires. Not Danny. He was too focused to let anything get in the way of his mission.

As the sundae slid onto the bar in front of him, Danny took a spoonful, savoring the sweet, creamy taste for a brief moment. The ghosts around him didn’t even bat an eye at the unusual order. They were too busy watching him from their dark corners, murmuring among themselves.

Danny didn’t waste time. His eyes scanned each figure in the room, trying to read them, assess them. None of them looked like they had any useful information. They didn’t even seem to care that he was there—just another ghost, another stranger among the lost souls.

“Anyone know where I can find a Phantom?” Danny asked casually, his voice piercing through the low chatter like a blade. He looked around again, making sure his words hit the right ears. “You know, the one who’s been... missing.”

A few ghosts shifted uneasily in their seats. One muttered something incoherent, while another laughed softly, the sound hollow and strange. Danny didn’t flinch. He was used to the resistance.

“Figures,” he muttered to himself, pushing the sundae aside, his appetite gone.

In a flash, Danny sprang into action, his movements so quick and precise that the ghosts didn’t have time to react. He pulled out his guns, twin pistols gleaming with an eerie glow, and fired in rapid succession. The ghosts barely had time to scream before they evaporated into nothingness—disappearing with each shot. His fingers moved like a blur, targeting them one by one. No hesitation, no mercy.

The bartender was the first to go. One shot to the head, and the man—if he could still be called that—disintegrated into a burst of ectoplasm. The patrons followed, disappearing in a rain of vaporized particles as Danny worked his way across the room. They had no chance.

Within moments, the bar was silent, save for the faint hum of electricity from the flickering neon lights outside. Danny stood in the center of the room, his eyes scanning for any sign of useful information. But there was nothing. No leads, no hints, just empty, hollow souls who had been useless in his quest. He turned and began heading for the door, but as his hand touched the handle, he heard a noise behind him—a faint rustle, the unmistakable sound of something sneaking up on him.

Without missing a beat, Danny spun on his heels, his pistols raised and ready. The ghost who had been foolish enough to think they could catch him off guard was already mid-attack, but Danny was faster. Before the ghost could even form a coherent thought, Danny fired, the shot ringing out with a finality that echoed through the room.

The ghost collapsed into a heap of ectoplasm, and Danny muttered under his breath, “Bingo.”

With that, he exited the bar, the door swinging shut behind him with a soft thud. His search continued, as relentless as ever. He didn’t need to kill every ghost in his path, but when they got in his way, he made sure they didn’t stay there. There was only one thing on his mind: finding Phantom.

And no one, not even ghosts, was going to stop him.

[incorrect-riordanverse]

watched ep 3 & 4 of the pjo show. here are random thoughts:

ep 3

ive said before that ive put off watching the pjo show after episode 2 because the pacing seemed like a rush of getting from story checkpoint to story checkpoint and it never sat in one place long enough to actually grip me. episode 3 started off like that too, before the trio went on the quest. i only started to really like it when they were on the bus together and more of their dynamic was shining. theyre so funny bru.

i like all the acting but leah jeffries and aryan simhadri are CARRYING SO HARD. its like they took annabeth exactly how i imagined her out of my head and plopped her on screen and im so shocked at the accuracy??? her attitude and side eyes and sass is perf. and simhadri’s grover is insane because (dont come for me) i actually like the show version of him better than i did in the book 😭 perhaps reading him was rocky and i interpreted him wrong but seeing him on screen makes me SO attached to him. like in the books he always seemed like a sort of third wheel and annabeth and percy were outshining him so much but he’s actually slaying the show. i love him lots.

i like the dichotomy between percy and annabeth. their dynamic is already so juicy, especially with how they view both their godly and mortal parents. you can see some of their fatal flaws already shining through UGH i love them

i like medusa WAY more in the show. she seems so menacing yet classy and much more multifaceted. my only complaint was that she died way too quickly. there was so much build up in tension only for her to get one-tapped and it was honestly disappointing.

LIN MANUEL MIRANDA SPOTTED 🫵🫵

dialogue was great in this episode, btw.

ep 4

dream sequence went so hard -> “just breathe mummy ☺️ you’ll always be here 😁” *cuts to percy alone on a desolate plane where she is, in fact, not here*

sighhh sometimes i forget these kids are just twelve and theyre literal BABIES and percy just misses his mum 🙁

annabeth exposition time. a comment on all the exposition— there’s always something each episode but i think the show is doing a well enough job of not dumping everything in a way thats spoon-feedy to audience or in a way that makes viewers feel overwhelmed. theyre breaking information up nicely (imo).

echidna is slaying so hard. sorry but the villains are actually eating the whole dish up. mwah no balls.

its giving “im not a monster, im a mother” 🔥

fight scene annoyed me again but at least the mother of all monsters wasn’t ONE TAPPED. but i was annoyed because the monster was not thrashing him around as much as it had the opportunity to and it was giving plot armour im so sorry. might be cause of budget or target audience/rating though idk. the commentary of the show seems more mature however.

anyways yurr those are my observations. i like these last two eps more than the first two so maybe i should let this series cook.

remember to pirate this show if ur gonna watch it!!

[illuminatedquill]

Ghost Stories 05

Feat. Hera Syndulla + Kanan Jarrus/Ezra Bridger + Sabine Wren

Story Context: Kanan grows increasingly concerned about the growing rift between Sabine and Ezra after the Sith Holocron incident. With Hera's permission, he locks them both in the Ghost's airlock to force them to talk through their issues.

Breakfast time on the Ghost was usually a lively affair on most mornings (well, morning as Hera counted it - as a rule, for someone well-travelled as she was, whenever you woke up counted as morning).

Kanan could usually be found in the corner, sipping on a fresh mug of caf and reading up on the Holo-Net for the latest news of the day. Zeb typically brushed out his hair as part of a necessary daily grooming routine; Chopper was in the cockpit, checking the ship's systems.

Sabine and Ezra, the two teenagers aboard, could always be counted on to be found at the communal table together, chowing down on the meal and doing their usual back and forth about whatever held their interest at the moment: one of Sabine's newest artworks, the outcome of a recent mission, or making Zeb paranoid about potential bald spots.

With recent events however, the once cozy atmosphere of the Ghost crew sharing a meal together felt like a distant memory. Kanan had become blind, a result of his ill-fated trek to Malachor. Ahsoka had perished, seemingly, against the Emperor's top enforcer, the Sith Lord known as Darth Vader.

And as for Ezra, he almost succumbed to the temptation of an ancient Sith relic; in his quest to prevent future tragedy, the Sith Holocron had caused a dark, angry persona to develop in the young man. Ezra had become increasingly erratic and reckless in his missions, aiming to cause maximum damage to the Empire at any cost.

Thankfully, he had been saved by Kanan's intervention. But the influence, Hera noted, still remained and was keenly felt by everyone in the crew despite Ezra's apology and promise to do better. There was some distance now, between the young Jedi and the crew. Everyone was still trying to figure out how to move forward, weeks later.

One person, however, seemed particularly affected by Ezra's recent descent towards the dark side. Sabine, Ezra's closest friend, had become increasingly distant and cold towards him as of late.

Carrying two bowls of steaming porridge to the communal table on this morning, Hera announced, "Dig in. It's fresh."

Ezra, sitting at the table with a mug of fresh juice next to him, eyed the food with wolfish interest. Smiling, he said, "Thanks, Hera."

Sabine walked in, wearing her standard Mandalorian armor, hair freshly dyed and trimmed.

Ezra waved at her. "Good morning, sleepy-head," he teased.

Sabine didn't reply to him. Without glancing at Ezra, she took her bowl of porridge from the table and said, "I'll eat in my room, if that's okay."

Hera saw Ezra's smile fade. "Sabine, why don't you - ", she started to say before being cut off.

"I've got a lot to do today. Can't stay and chat. See you later," Sabine said abruptly. She turned around and disappeared down the hallway leading into her room, almost bumping into Kanan.

"Sorry, Kanan," she mumbled before continuing on her way.

"No worries," he replied. Despite his newfound disability, Hera had the sense that Kanan was observant as ever. The older Jedi knew something was up with Sabine regarding Ezra.

Ezra quietly ate his meal alone, clearly trying to act nonchalant in the face of Sabine's casual disregard. Hera sighed and stepped away to speak with Kanan privately.

"You caught all that?" she murmured to him.

He tipped his head towards her. "Of course. Sabine's emotions spiking all over the place regarding Ezra. Hard to miss; it feels like standing next to a live electric cable in the Force."

Hera watched the young Jedi eat another spoonful of porridge in silence. She knew Ezra was taking Sabine's recent distance towards him hard; the two had been close before his incident with the Sith relic. He blamed himself and had been working doubly hard since then to right the wrongs that were inflicted while under the influence.

It was difficult work to make amends, she knew. Hard to regain trust once it's broken the first time.

Still, she wondered if Sabine wasn't being too harsh towards him.

"How do we fix this?" she asked.

Kanan stroked his beard, contemplating for a moment. Then he said, "I've got an idea, if you're willing to play along."

She arched a curious eyebrow at him. "I'm listening."

He turned towards her with a small, evil grin. "I need to borrow the airlock."

A knock came while Sabine was finishing maintenance on her blasters. "Enter," she said.

The doors slid open to reveal Hera. "Can I borrow you for a second?"

"Sure," replied Sabine. "What's up?"

"Need your help checking some faulty wiring in the airlock. Shouldn't take long."

Sabine stood up, stretching tired muscles. Whenever Hera said that maintenance wouldn't take long, it usually ended up being a mess requiring hours of work. The Ghost had seen its fair share of scraps; the venerable freighter had stayed true throughout the years of service under Hera's command, but it wasn't meant for combat. The added wear and tear coming from duties outside its capabilities meant extra repairs.

Arriving at the airlock hatch a minute later, Sabine was surprised to find Ezra waiting there also.

He blinked at her. "Sabine?"

She turned to Hera. "What's this about? I thought it was just going to be the two of us."

Hera let out a brief sigh. "Change of plans."

The airlock hatch hissed open -

An invisible force gave a firm shove to Sabine's back, propelling her forward into the airlock. A moment later Ezra followed suit, almost falling over her.

"What the - " Ezra gasped.

In the opening, Kanan was standing there with an exasperated Hera. He gave them a sardonic salute -

And then the hatch shut with a resounding thud. The airlock's interior went pitch-black as the power was shut off.

Sabine awkwardly clambered over Ezra and banged on the hatch. "Hey!" she yelled. “What the hell are you two doing?"

Hera's voice was muffled through the durasteel hatch. "Kanan's idea," she replied, sounding apologetic.

"You agreed," came his reply. "And supplied the airlock."

"Yeah," Hera retorted. "And if there's any damage from these two because of your brilliant plan, it's coming out of your hide, Kanan Jarrus."

From behind Sabine came a groan. There was a rustle of sound; in the darkness, she could just make out Ezra's figure sitting up from the floor. "I've got a bad feeling about this," he sighed.

"What plan?" asked Sabine through gritted teeth.

Kanan spoke up. "You and Ezra need to talk. Can't have you two acting all frosty towards each other. Not now."

Sabine's face heated up. "I'm not acting frosty towards Ezra," she snapped.

There was a pause. Then, Ezra's voice came through the dark, sounding sad. "You really don't want to be in the same space as me, huh," he remarked.

She turned towards him. In the pitch-black, she couldn't see much of him, but it wasn't hard for Sabine to imagine those bright blue eyes - and the look of hurt in them.

"That's not - " she started, then stopped. Forcing herself to calm down with a deep breath, she said softly, "It's not like that, Ezra."

From the other side of the hatch, Kanan said, "Sounds like you two have some talking to do."

Sabine banged on the hatch in response. "We'll play along with your stupid plan, Kanan. But this will be a private talk. You and Hera can beat it."

There came the sound of a muted conversation from the other side. Then Hera replied, "We'll be down the hall. Bang three times when you guys are finished."

Sabine gave them a couple seconds to leave and then clumsily felt along the airlock's wall until she found Ezra. "Scooch over, goober," she said. "It's tight in here."

Ezra obliged her. They sat in silence for a few moments, absorbing the ridiculousness of their situation. Sabine leaned her head back against the wall, trying to corral her thoughts and feelings into something coherent.

"So, are we not friends anymore?" His tone was casual, which did not soften the question's delivery in the slightest.

Sabine winced, feeling like something sharp had pierced her heart. She took a deep breath and then turned her head towards him. "Ezra . . . I'm going to speak for a little bit, okay? I just want you to listen."

A silence hung thickly between them as she awaited his response. She really wished the lights were on, just to see his face, how he felt.

But maybe it's better this way, she thought. At least, for me.

"You scared me, Ezra Bridger," she said quietly. "You went off the rails and almost got yourself killed. And I couldn't do anything except watch it happen. You're my best friend and there was nothing I could do to prevent you from going down that path."

"The Sith Holocron," said Ezra cautiously. "I was under its influence."

Sabine shook her head. "It's an amplifier. Like any other type of power. It amplifies you, makes you able to be . . . more of yourself, do you understand? I've seen you and Kanan use the Force to do some amazing things, but this? It wasn't corrupting you."

There was a pause. "I don't understand," Ezra said.

She poked him hard in the chest. "It's you, di'kut. It was all you. The holocron brought out the darkness, but it was still you, Ezra. That anger, that recklessness, that raw power - it was always there. And it will always be there. And that scares me."

Sabine heard Ezra inhale sharply in realization. "Oh," he said quietly. "Okay. I get it now."

"Do you really?" she asked. "You'll be tempted from now on. It will be harder not to draw upon that power again when faced with tough situations in the future."

"Is it really so bad?" he shot back, frustrated. "I'm trying to save people - the people I care about from dying!"

"Like Ahsoka," pointed out Sabine.

"Yes," he replied. "You weren't there, Sabine. You don't know how it feels to be powerless like that. Our enemies wield power like that, how are we supposed to fight back? Ahsoka was my friend! What use is this power if I can't protect the people that I love?"

"And how are you protecting those same people if you get yourself killed?" Sabine shouted. "Jedi are supposed to know better - you are supposed to know better! You're the best of us, Ezra! Kanan is always saying that you have to control these feelings, or they control you! You let your anger and grief over Ahsoka's loss get to you and almost lost yourself!"

She could feel her friend's hot stare. "You're one to talk about feelings," he countered. "I've been trying to speak with you for weeks. Kanan had to lock us in this airlock just to get you talking."

Sabine deflated, feeling the sting of truth in Ezra's words. "Yeah," she muttered. "I know."

"So, what?" he asked. "You're still scared of little old me?"

"Not just you," she said wearily.

"Well, what else is there?"

"I'm also scared of myself," Sabine said. "Okay?"

She could practically see the gears come to a grinding halt in his head. "What?" he asked, confused. "You're scared of . . . yourself?"

"Were you listening? What was the first thing I said to you?"

"That . . . you couldn't do anything to help me. All you could do was watch," Ezra recounted slowly.

"Yeah," said Sabine. "So don't talk to me about feeling powerless. You watched a friend disappear on Malachor without being able to do anything - and so did I. Only it was you with that Sith Holocron."

Chagrin radiated off Ezra like a heat wave. "I'm sorry," he said softly. "Being forced to leave Ahsoka to face Vader alone . . . that's how you felt seeing me succumb to my anger, wasn't it?"

Sabine leaned against him, relief washing over her. "Finally got it through your thick skull, di'kut."

She felt him reach through the darkness and grip her hand. "You helped me plenty of times, Sabine. You never left my side."

Sabine shook her head. "I was enabling you. There were many nights that I stood outside your door . . . I knew you were listening to the holocron. I wanted to barge inside and drag it away from you. I couldn't do it."

She swallowed. "Because I was scared."

"Of yourself?" he asked. "I still don't understand."

"Of my feelings," she whispered. "All this time, Ezra Bridger, you fit into this neat little box. And then Malachor happened. And now you don't fit anymore. You're too real."

"I'm . . . too real?" He sounded bemused. "What, was I an imaginary friend or something?"

She punched him lightly. "Don't laugh."

In the pitch black she could just make out Ezra putting his hands up in a placating gesture. "I'm not, I promise."

"Good," she growled. "It's just . . . you got complicated. You weren't supposed to be. I don't know how to act around you anymore. That's why I've been avoiding you. I'm sorry about that."

"Relationships are complicated," Ezra said. "You ran away when things got difficult, in the past."

"And I did it again. I'd rather be in a shootout with an army of stormtroopers than talk feelings. It's just easier."

"Well," Ezra said dryly, "that first skill is probably more important considering what's going on."

Sabine snorted. "Don't kid yourself. They're both important. Even with this war against the Empire. Emotional baggage can be deadly in a firefight, just like a well-aimed blaster bolt."

She squeezed his hand affectionately. "My feelings for you haven't changed, Ezra. We're still friends. We'll always be friends. It's just . . . complicated now."

"Okay," he said. "So . . . we'll take it slow, then. Think of it as a fresh start."

Sabine nodded. "I like that."

"I promise not to pick up anymore Sith Holocrons. You promise not to freeze me out when you're upset at me. Sound good?"

She laughed. "Sounds like a deal, goober."

"Good," he said seriously. "Now, let's get out of here. I think my leg's starting to get a cramp."

Sabine stood up, wincing at the protest from muscles that were idle far too long. With her fist, she banged on the airlock hatch three times. A few moments later, the hatch hissed open as the power returned.

Kanan stood there with Hera, a smug grin on his face. "Had a good talk?" he asked.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Someone's in a good mood considering he just locked two kids in an airlock without power."

"Happy to help," he replied cheerfully. Hera sighed, took him by the arm, and lead him away.

Sabine turned around to see Ezra rising on wobbly legs. "You coming?" she asked.

"Yeah. Hey - you keep calling me di'kut? Is that a Mandalorian term of endearment or something?"

"Oh," she said. She hadn't realized that some of her native tongue had slipped out while talking with him. "No, it's not. But I say it with affection when I use it for you."

"Thanks," he growled. She smiled mischievously at him.

He took a step forward - and tripped over a raised step. Caught off-balance, Ezra began to fall -

Sabine caught him.

[thessalian]

Thess vs Subtle Support

So still going through Veilguard, with whatever spoons I can spare. And apparently, despite every complaint that no one does enough or says enough or is reactive enough, I've had two very distinct indications that the Veilguard is very happy to step in and ensure that at least Rook's love life is going smoothly.

First it was Taash. We were on one of her personal quests, and I'd heard that this bit of banter existed but I didn't expect to get it quite so soon. Taash obviously assumes that Lucanis and Rook are already boning, so they're like, "Pop the wings next time. Take them flying. All non-binary people love flying". I understand that Taash says that whatever gender Rook is loves flying, but I do like how it comes across with a non-binary Rook, because when Lucanis says, "You like flying; your whole dragon thing", it feels like it vindicates Taash. Not that they need it specifically, but they kind of do, deep down where their insecurities still live. Taash is very, very keen on precision - on getting it right (they get that from their mother, I'm sure). So when Taash says that non-binary people love flying, and Lucanis says that Taash loves flying, I feel like Taash is internally nodding, like, "Right; I'm non-binary, and I love flying, so non-binary people love flying. I got this." And I imagine it makes them feel a little more confident in their identity.

And then Neve. I've read all about how Lucanis apparently still flirts with Neve even if not being romanced by a Rook, but I've never seen it. They're friendly, they banter, but not ... like that, if you get me? And that just got underlined when I was on my usual tendency to check the map for where colleagues are gathered outside their usual living spaces and go over to eavesdrop. (Seriously, if you only wait for the light to go on outside their spaces, you're missing out; check the map and eavesdrop.) So I see Lucanis and Neve in Neve's office and I think, "Oh, hey, maybe I'll finally see this 'Lucanis flirting with Neve even when romancing a Rook' thing I keep hearing about!"

Did I hear that? No.

Did I hear Neve note that Lucanis was smiling a lot more, elaborate that she reasoned that Rook was good for him, and, when Lucanis kind of sheepishly says, "I ... am starting to figure that out", say "Good. Just making sure" in a tone that suggests, "You'd better not fuck this up, assassin; I Know People"? Yes. Yes, I did. And it gave me warm fuzzies like you wouldn't believe.

I know it's not enough for everyone. I guess for me, I think it's the subtleties that make it. They hardly have time to really talk romance while they're trying to sort out their issues and save the world from effective gods. But it seeps out regardless. It's there in his notes, in his smiling more, in Taash noticing. I'm anticipating another romantic scene with eager anticipation. I like my slow burns; what can I say?

Anyway, I also got Mythal's essence, kicked the ass of a couple of dragons, and at some point have to go rescue some Dalish folks from Elgar'nan, because apparently he thinks that his followers are only good for sacrificing in a blood ritual. ...I hate him. Aaaaand I'd better get some sleep because it's going to be more work and more overtime tomorrow. No fucking wonder I'd rather be in Thedas right now.

[chameleonspell]

HTDC commentary - 35: steam

[Looking back at HTDC after ten years: comments on lore, character notes, influences, art, whatever. May contain spoilers for later chapters.]

chapter text: 35: steam

In which Julan tries to be helpful, and Iriel reacts badly.

“He must have very limited horizons for a thief, this Caryarel.” muttered Julan. “Was he just starting out? Maybe he’ll go wild and take a spoon, next. Anyway, don’t you think he’d have sold the stupid bowl on, by now?” “That’s what we’re here to find out.” “Yeah, well.” Julan surveyed the mouldering cluster of huts that comprised the bedraggled little fishing village. “If I were a desperate criminal, on the run with my precious hoard of… pottery… I wouldn’t hide out in Gnaar Mok. Because then I would be in Gnaar Mok. With my bowl, yes, but still. In Gnaar Mok. Am I missing something, here?”

I should apologise for the fact that shortly after I condemned using content from the mod, half this chapter is just reworkings of Julan's comments on the Caryarel quest, because I still think they're funny. But see, I worked really hard on making Julan's comments on the Imperial Cult questline funny, because otherwise he would do nothing but complain all the time, which would be boring. So instead, I had him veer between exasperated flights of fancy, and full-on troll-mode. I still haven't written him commentary on Legion quests, though, because I don't want to make the Imperial Legion funny, and I don't like playing as the sort of character who'd go to Morrowind, and join the bloody Legion. Maybe I'll think of a way to approach it, some day, but I wouldn't hold your breath.

Also, "mouldering cluster of huts" is quite nice, excellent unpleasant mouthfeel.

“Why didn’t he sell the thing? He took the risk of stealing it, just to carry it off to Gnaar Mok and keep it in his shack? Was he obsessed with it? Maybe we’re only getting a tiny glimpse of something, here. The tragic love story of a man and his bowl, cruelly parted by–”

It's very cheap humour, taking pot-shots at nonsensical video-game quests, and I know that. I'm not proud of it, but it IS fun to write.

I realised just now, checking the details of this quest, that I fucked up! Iriel isn't supposed to know that Caryarel is in Gnaar Mok at all, because Kaye never told him that. I should have included some incredibly awkward scene where he finds that out from another Altmer ex-pat. PLOT HOLE, this is why you should never re-read your own work.

“I think you’re reading a little too much into this.” “That’s because you’ve never known the depths of boredom you can sink to, alone in the Grazelands. Sometimes reading too much into things was all that kept me going.” He handed the bowl back to Iriel. “To be honest, I’ve never been this far from home before. Not like you - you’ve lived in three different countries, now! So, what do you think of Morrowind? Resdayn, I mean. Morrowind is what the n'wah called it. I try to call it Resdayn, but I always forget, since everyone calls it Morrowind now. Yet another reason to hate the Empire! Taking our names, even! But anyway… do you like it here?”

You can see Julan's in his chipper, talkative, very-slightly-manic mode, jumping from topic to topic. Someone read him as having ADHD once, and while people can read whatever they'd like into him, I'm not sure I agree that's how his brain is working. At times like these, I can see where the impression might come from, but the root causes are different, under the hood. Here, he's mostly just trying hard to be sociable and funny, to engage with Iriel - notice that he's apparently coming off his Ashlander Children rant-modes, which tend to involve some degree of alcohol.

Iriel gave him a sidelong glance. “You’d have thrown the Imperial criminal garbage a welcoming party, would you? I thought you said Ashlanders hated foreigners.

The majority of Iriel's interactions with Dunmer so far have been Camonna Tong, who hate foreigners loudly and violently. He has no reason to think Ashlanders are going to be any better, and part of him is still waiting for the other shoe to drop with Julan, for the friendly veneer to wear off in favour of racial slurs.

“I… uh… well… that would certainly be the… traditional view on the matter. But I told you, I don’t hate outlanders, as long as they’re not invading us and forcing their culture on us. You shouldn’t expect all Ashlanders to have the same opinion on everything, you know! We do have minds of our own!”

Obviously Julan gets uncomfortable and deflective, if pushed to admit that he disagrees with standard Ashlander opinion. Notice how he immediately moves to position himself as part of an "us" who is being invaded and culturally repressed by outlanders. Who is this "us", exactly? If it's Dunmer as a whole, then House Dunmer are the biggest perpetrators of invasion and cultural repression against Ashlanders, far more so than the Empire. If it's Ashlanders, then he's eliding his own outcast status, again. I don't think Julan needs to be 100% ideologically coherent and logically watertight at all times for his concerns to be real and his anger to be legitimate, but sometimes it seems like he's arguing with himself, more than anyone else.

“So you’d like more foreigners in Morrowind, would you?”

Iriel deliberately poking the sore spot, because if his new pal is going to turn out to be a xenophobic asshole, he'd like to know now, before he invests any more time.

Ire sees all Dunmeri hatred of foreigners as racism, though it's actually more complicated than that. You do have to take the power dynamic into account - Morrowind is a colonised land, and for Vvardenfell in particular, the Imperial incursion was only 13 years ago, the wounds still very fresh. It's not racist to be mad about foreigners invading you and kicking you off your land to build military bases.

It's just that... with most Dunmer, you get the impression that they'd be racist to everyone anyway, with or without a "legitimate" reason like invasion. Look at how they treat the foreigners they have power over, especially their constant, horrendous racism against the Khajiit and Argonians whom they kidnap and enslave. They're rude and abrasive to everyone else, including Dunmer not born in Morrowind, and I'm not even touching the fact that their foreigner-slur sounds upsettingly close to the n-word.

As an Altmer, Iriel's in a strange position, technically being on the same level as the Dunmer, a member of an Imperial colonised land. But Altmer, even defeated by the Empire, retain a certain status via their historical dominance, ongoing cultural influence and self-mythology as descendants of the Aldmer. While it doesn't give him much real power in a place like Vvardenfell, and feels to him as if it has the opposite effect when Camonna Tong target him, Iriel certainly benefits from Altmeri privilege. People - even the Tong! - treat him far better than they would a Khajiit or an Argonian in the same position.

“I didn’t say that, but… I mean…” Julan was frowning, considering the question far more seriously than Ire had intended him to. “I’d like to learn more about other places. I read some stuff in a book, once, but then Mother found it, and threw it on the fire.”

Along with the opening of Vvardenfell to Imperial mining and colonisation in 3E 414 came a huge influx of non-Dunmer, turning a near-racially-homogenous place into somewhere where, just over a decade later, only 1 in 2 people were Dunmeri. Julan was nine years old in 3E 414 and, out in the wastes, only knew something had changed when the missionaries and Legionaries started to appear. Those foreigners were unambiguously bad, to be sure, but later, other foreigners travelled through the area, and they were just... people. Strange-looking people, with weird accents and clothes. People he got yelled at for talking to, but Mother also thought books about foreign countries were dangerous, and he'd already figured out she was full of shit on that point. Maybe Julan would like more foreigners in Morrowind, maybe that would be interesting? He's experimenting with the idea, knowing it's "wrong" according to his sources of received wisdom, but struggling to justify to himself why that would be the case.

Sometimes I fantasise about travelling, and seeing all the other amazing lands out there. Of course, it’ll never happen. I have duties, responsibilities. I can’t just… walk away. Find a boat, and… sail off into the horizon…” He stared dreamily out across the murky water.

This line hurts so much worse if you're re-reading the fic. But... this is why Julan argues with Iriel when Ire claims Julan would never leave Vvardenfell with him. Julan wants to leave Vvardenfell, has always wanted to leave Vvardenfell! There's just always been a million reasons lining up in front of him, telling him that everything will fall apart, if he does. But he's not, y'know, happy about that.

Ire followed his gaze to the lumpen mass of rusted towers visible amongst the trees.

This is the screenshot in my tumblr header image: the Dwemer ruin of Aleft, as seen from the Gnaar Mok docks.

“How will we know till we look? Anyway, I bet you’re smarter than anyone else who’s been in there. You might find stuff they missed!”

He's really trying, huh? Full puppy-dog mode, full loyal supportive friend who believes in you, and definitely isn't just trying to talk you up, because he saw you collapsed in a mess of heartbreak and skooma-drool the other night!

Ire snorted, but allowed himself to be flattered without further protest.

It was almost starting to work, too. But now, a few things are going to happen to ruin his mood.

“Move!!” Julan hurled himself sideways into Iriel, who found himself thrown into the wall, but out of range of the Steam Centurion’s giant spherical fist, which came crashing down onto Julan’s shoulder. Fortunately, he was ready for it, and moved with the blow, twisting low, so that most of the force glanced off his pauldron. The construct tilted forwards, centre of gravity skewed. “Now!!” Julan yelled, driving his chitin blade at the joint of its leg.

Look, Ma! I'm writing a fight scene! It's not the best fight scene ever, these sentences definitely need some tightening up, but at least I'm not evading it completely!

Let the record additionally show that the first time Iriel got up close and personal with a Steam Centurion, he was fighting for his life, and very specifically trying NOT to get fisted by it.

Julan had got to [...] disable a few Centurion Spiders with well-placed kicks.

They're just like metal mudcrabs! Shani informs me that only outlanders and idiots get killed by mudcrabs. Every Dunmeri child is taught early on how to kick them sharply onto their backs, so they can't do anything to you.

He’s not going to give up, is he? Is it because of those stupid clannfears, he thinks he has to prove himself, over and over? Auri-El…

Orrrrr, maybe he's just doing his job, and you're feeling guilty for taking him somewhere you knew could be dangerous, with no real plan for if things went south?

Iriel mostly uses non-fantasy swears, but at some point I realised "Auri-El" sounded hilariously like "bloody hell", so I had to let him have that one.

If he had been alone, Ire would have been long gone, under cover of invisibility.

Iriel can't use his regular escape mechanisms without leaving Julan to die. Invisibility is passive and individualistic, it enacts no change on the world, and can't do anything to help others, only yourself. It's all about avoiding risk, but if Iriel wants to keep Julan alive, he's going to have to do something risky, instead.

I'm sure he rationalises the bravery of this away, later. He just didn't want to get saddled with the guilt of Julan's death! But a coward would have abandoned Julan, and blamed the Ashlander for his own suicidal recklessness. In the heat of the moment, Ire's first instinct was to preserve life.

he dashed forwards and threw his arms round Julan, pulling him into the sphere of pink light he was focusing.

Watch out Julan, it's the gay agenda!

(The gay agenda: not die)

He had expected Almsivi Intervention to return them to Ald'ruhn, but sunlight and running water instead of ash storms and wind ruled that out. Then he recognised the Temple courtyard. He was in Balmora again. Shit. We were too far south.

Again with the teleportation drama; it's so easy to do, though! Almsivi Intervention isn't based on the closest beacon, it's by demarcated zone, and you can easily assume you'll go to one beacon, when in fact, you're across the border and into the zone of another beacon that's even further away.

although part of his brain was wistfully considering how long it’d been since he was last wrapped around someone like this, Julan was stirring, and this wasn’t really the time or the place. Or the person, he told himself.

[...]

Julan opened his eyes and blinked a few times. He pushed himself up to sitting, his face a picture of confusion. Then he saw Ire, and, comprehension dawning, grinned sheepishly. Blood trickled down over his lip. Iriel had an overpowering desire to hit him.

Iriel is being forcefully reminded that other people are complicated. Horribly complicated, and dangerous in more ways than one. Iriel doesn't want to have some idiot's death on his conscience, and he definitely doesn't want to start feeling attracted to Julan, because that's an even worse threat to his soap-bubble mental stability.

(Hitting Julan would not have helped. Hitting Julan would have done the opposite of helped. It might have precipitated the guy's bisexual crisis twenty-three chapters earlier, but it wouldn't have helped.)

He settled for shouting, instead.

“You idiot! You utter, fuckwitted, shit-for-brains… warrior!! What is wrong with you, do you have some kind of death wish? I can’t handle this, I can’t… don’t you dare ask me to keep…” He broke off, frustrated at his inability to express himself and the unshed tears burning behind his eyes.

And here's the rest of the steam, escaping the valve. Ire loses his shit totally disproportionately, but the pressure's been building up ever since he took Julan on.

Quick note: at no point in the fight did Julan actually refuse to fall back, he never even got a chance to try. The thing that Iriel is claiming to be angry about, is not a thing that happened, or the thing he's actually angry about.

I can’t deal with this. When he comes back, I’ll tell him he has to leave. It’s not just the fighting, it’s everything. I’m too used to being on my own. This is too much pressure. We’re too different. I feel like he’s judging me all the time, my skooma, my sexuality, my past, my decisions… I don’t need this.

It's The Being Perceived.

Being perceived when you hate yourself feels like being judged and criticised, even when they're not actually doing that, even when they're being nice and trying to help.

It wasn’t until he was halfway down the glass, and her eyeballs began to slide around her face, then he realised something wasn’t right. His head felt heavy. He tried to stand, and everything lurched blurrily sideways. Sottilde calling, “I’m really sorry, Ire!” was the last thing he heard.

People think I had Iriel get roofied a lot, but actually, this is the only time it happens! All the other times, people only TRY to roofie him, but he doesn't fall for it! Iriel is an alchemist, so he knows how this stuff works, and forever after, is paying careful attention to weird undertones in his drinks.

What's Sottilde even doing to him, anyway? It must be Drain Fatigue, because while Damage Fatigue is a possible effect, there are no ingredients that work to make a valid potion for it, and anyway, it's permanent, and they're only trying to knock him out, not give him chronic fatigue syndrome.

Ire's drinking shein, which is comberry wine, and comberries already have a Drain Fatigue property, so maybe Sottilde would only need to add one extra ingredient? There are several possible options: Bonemeal (please no, Ire's suffered enough, plus I don't think it would dissolve), Guar or Kagouti Hide (again, challenging to hide in a drink), various Bitter Coast mushrooms (maybe, I guess?), but the likeliest option for Tilde to have on hand would be marshmerrow. Would a little marshmerrow juice squeezed into comberry wine work to cause instant knock-out?

Honest answer: no. You need alchemical equipment and processes to draw out and magnify the qualities of ingredients enough to have the effect of potions. Tilde's no alchemist, so probably Habasi gave her a pre-made potion to put in Ire's wine. Much as I enjoy the idea of every meal in Morrowind having the equivalent of complicated drug interactions to beware of, eg: it's safe to put hackle-lo on a kwama egg, but only if the egg is small. If the egg is big, you will be instantly paralysed.

Conveniently for Morrowind drink-spikers, shein also drains Intelligence, which makes it very funny that Ire likes it, or at least, prefers it over the other noxious brews available in Morrowind taverns. Skooma does the same thing. Go on, babe, nuke your one semi-decent stat! It's like the opposite of a Magical Girl Transformation: a Scientific Boy Regression.

Anyway. Like when I had him get hit onna head, this feels a bit like the author intervening to do a "mean thing" to Iriel. Usually, you want the unpleasant things that happen to a character to be powered solely by the inexorable machinery of their own flaws and mistakes catching up with them, but I had to do something drastic, here. Iriel was recoiling hard from having a companion, from that constant scrutiny, someone always looking over his shoulder. The character, left to his own devices, wanted to dump Julan and run away to lie alone in a swamp for a week, just to get over the amount of social interaction he'd been forced to endure. I don't want him doing that just yet, so he's getting kidnapped.

That, or cruel tarhiel picks random ways to have Iriel black out, when they can't think how to end a chapter; you decide.

next: 36: clean previous: 34: medicine

[sunnyrosewritesstuff]

Ready to rec some awesome fics that I read this month!! Feel free to add on with some of your own Bagginshield recs. 😁

January 2024 Rec List

T Rated:

Beyond the Pixels by Ticklesivory (Complete, 15K, 1ch.)- This is one of my new favorite AUs! Living in a post-apocalyptic world, Bilbo and Thorin meet in a virtual reality game that will change their lives. All the world building and lore of this AU is laid out beautifully, and I would love to read more building on Thorin and Bilbo's relationship.

Customer Service 101 by BiSquared (Complete, 4K, 1ch.)- I really enjoyed Thorin being the one working at the book store for a change. Thorin is working when he spies a cute guy who asks for his help escaping from a stalker. Honestly, its a lot cuter and more light-hearted than I summarized.

Defying Death (or at least the ones in charge) by Lucigoo89 (Complete, 15K, 1ch.)- I enjoyed the humor and emotion of this fic greatly. After his death, Bilbo refuses to move on until he reunites with his dwarven family. The level of sass coming off Bilbo in this fic is off the charts, and I love it!

The Gift of Hobbits by MoroseBarnacle (WIP, 22K, 5ch.)- Magical hobbits are one of my favorites! Bilbo has the power to bring people back from the dead and uses it regularly to revive his friends on the quest. I just love how they rally around their hobbit even before they found out what he could do. Found family wins.

Invisible vs. Indivisible by Moirai (Complete, 52K, 11ch.)- This was an indulgent re-read for me. Bilbo is captured by orcs but gets away using the ring only to discover his companions think him dead, and he can't find it in himself to make the reveal just yet. I always wished for a sequel to this, but it does end in a place that makes it enjoyable to imagine what happened on the rest of the quest.

Lord of Bones by Porphyrios (Complete, 6K, 1ch.)- This is one of those fics that you wonder how that much world building was packed into that one-shot. Due to an outdated dwarven law, the restoration crews are having trouble moving the bones of the dead dwarves which is where Bilbo comes in being that he's not a dwarf. Porphyrios does such an amazing job with dwarven politics and this is a sweet fic even with an atmosphere of sadness.

Spoonful of Sugar by RainyDayDecaf (Complete, 29K, 4ch.)- I have been looking for this fic for SO LONG! Without giving too much away, a prank Bilbo had pulled on Thranduil when they were still prisoners might be the secret to curing Thorin's goldsickness. This is just one of those fics that is so fun to read from beginning to end.

M Rated:

Backs to the Wall by Conkers (WIP, 62K, 13ch.)- I held off on this fic for a long time, not because I was worried I wasn't going to enjoy it, but because I knew how much it would have me foaming at the mouth. Missing the deadline, the Company splits up at Laketown with Thorin, Dwalin, Nori, and Bilbo remaining to earn some coin. I'm beside myself with the gentle, sweet moments of pre-Bagginshield that have me screaming.

The Kitchen Thief by mordelle (WIP, 44K, 17ch.)- This such a unique AU. Thorin is a baker who catches the thief stealing from him to discover that he's a hobbit and his One. There are so many great things about this fic but the 'nutty baker' line will always be my favorite.

Less Than the Best by Sullen_in_Love (Complete, 8K, 1ch.)- YES to all my favorite tropes. Thorin needs to find a dwarrowdam to marry and Bilbo takes over the interviews only to learn something horrifying: they all find Thorin ugly. Honestly, I'm so glad I clicked on this fic because it was a really enjoyable read.

E Rated:

Below the Belt by LordOfTheRazzles (Complete, 6K, 1ch.)- I hope everyone knows by now that Razzy and I talk, so I knew the gist of the fic before even opening it. Thorin needs help taking care of his injuries and so Bilbo helps him. However, the execution in this fic was just perfect. It's one of my new favorites for 'this scene'.

The Danger in Missing You by Fantasyinallforms (Complete, 5K, 1ch.)- In the best way possible, I forgot this was a smut fic. Bilbo is determined to help during a cave-in, distressing his friends and later, Thorin. Bilbo's actions at the beginning to save the trapped miners is just so refreshing and a great start! (The smut is pretty good too though. XD)

Of Palaces and Ruins by livelongandgetiton (Complete, 127K, 17ch.)- I am in my 3rd reread of this fic. Archeologist Bilbo Baggins is hired to nanny for the Durins to earn a spot on a dig in Erebor, but ends up falling in love with his employer. If I'm ever not bragging on this fic you might check on me because I LOVE IT!

Sleep Alone; Start All Over by vicious_summer (WIP, 18K, 1ch.)- I got super excited just by the summary for this fic. After an accident, Bilbo is the one who ends up losing about seven years worth of memories including the fact that he's married to the King Under the Mountain. I'm just always so impressed with vicious_summer's writing style as it has a more Book!Bilbo vibe.

Not Rated:

The Tale of Two Canines--Or When Dwalin Met Ori by BrightStarling (Complete, 16K, 10ch.)- A bit more Dwori, you definitely get more Bagginshield in the sequel. Thorin is a husky owned by Dwalin, Bilbo is a corgi owned by Ori, and a meeting in the park will bring these four together. It's just so cute having puppy Bagginshield!!

[gelarshiesprofruitboarder]

what quest for the missing spoon did you guys read

[dez78]

Arabella x Gale (Valentine Special)

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

Fandom: Baldur's Gate 3

Pairings: Hammerweave

Summary: Arabella returns home after Paladin duties and her husband; Gale has a few surprises in store for her on love day.

Note: Song: My Valentine by Martina Mcbride

My dearest Arabella,

Words cannot describe how I feel about you. You are everything to me, you are my world, my gorgeous wife. When you see this, I will be in the kitchen. Welcome home, my love.

-Your devoted husband

Those were the words, Arabella read when she looked in the mail. Gale knew she always checked the mail when she came home from one of her quests. She smiled brightly and hurried into the house.

She barely had time to strip off her armor before she was in Gale's arms. He welcomed her home with a passionate kiss.

"Oh, how I've missed you." He breathed against her lips. Arabella set her hammer aside and pulled Gale in closer, deepening their kiss. They had been apart too long.

When they finally pulled away, they caught their breath. Gale stood at his full height and took his wife's hand, he led her to the table. He pulled out her chair and she sat down.

"My dearest, I've prepared you a fine meal." He announced proudly as he dished out his wife's bowl, Arabella sat patiently, but eagerly at the same time.

Gale went to the table and presented her with his famous beef stew. Arabella smelled the steam that came from the bowl, she sighed.

Gods how she missed his cooking these last two weeks.

Gale dished out his own bowl of stew and sat down, giving Arabella a spoon, she greedily dug into the stew, Gale laughed.

"Seems someone missed my cooking." He teased,

"You've no idea." Arabella said with a mouthful. Gale only smiled; it made his heart jump. Even after a year of marriage, his dearest Bella seemed to make him blush and feel those butterflies still.

Gale cut some fresh bread and poured them two glasses of the finest wine, Waterdeep had to offer.

"How was questing?" Gale asked his wife, she devoured the stew and smiled sheepishly at him, Gale only waited. Arabella swallowed her food, sipping her wine before replying.

"Successful, but I'm glad to be home." She smiled with a pink hue to her cheeks, Gale's heart thrummed faster. His love, his wife, called his home her home. She had before, but today it just seemed to affect him more. He teared up.

The rest of the dinner was a silent time, but it couldn't have been more comfortable. It always was between the husband and wife.

After dinner, Gale took Arabella to the bedroom where she stripped out of her armor while Gale started a bath.

When it was all ready, Gale called Arabella into the washroom, upon her arrival, she was welcomed by rose petals in the water and on the floor along with candles along the bath.

She smiled brightly; Gale meanwhile held a pie that he had baked earlier. It was strawberry pie, sweet and tart. He even took the time to cut the strawberries into hearts.

"Oh Gale." Arabella breathed, she felt so exposed suddenly, her vulnerability shone through. Gale set the pie on the table beside the bath and took his wife's hand, he pulled her into a kiss. Their bodies pressed together in an intimate act. Arabella melted into the kiss.

Gale pulled away and got into the tub, inviting his wife, she eagerly accepted the invite. She sat between his legs, he massaged her shoulders, making her sigh. Her muscles were sore from swinging her hammer.

"If romance ever ran out of rhyme, you would still have my heart until the end of time." Gale said poetically, Arabella looked back at him and smiled.

"I wanted to thank you for being such an amazing woman. You can't even begin to realize how much I truly love you." Gale continued, making Arabella tear up.

Her husband nuzzled into her as he gently washed her body, his touch was so soft. Arabella was feeling sentimental now, Gale had a way with his words, he always knew what to say.

"You are the most beautiful, most incredible wife a man could ever ask for. I'm truly lucky to have you Bella, to call you mine forever, however long that may be." Gale went on with his charms all while washing Arabella's body with a lavender soap that made her smell like a meadow.

She let her hair down and allowed Gale to wash it for her, his fingers were gentle as he massaged her scalp. Arabella leaned back into him and let him work his magic. The soap was also lavender scented, it smelled nice, Arabella thought.

Once she was finished, Gale cut them a piece of pie, he gave his wife the first bite. The strawberries were perfectly sweet, and the crust was just the right amount of flaky, it was delicious. She hummed as the flavors danced on her tongue. Gale took the next bite, before offering another to his beloved.

She eagerly took the generous offering and smiled up at Gale, he smiled down at her, he still chewed his food as he kissed her wet hair. Arabella leaned against him, adoring this moment together.

"You're all I'll ever need, my love, my Valentine." Gale whispered against his wife's ear; she shivered delightfully. The wizard nuzzled into his paladin's neck and spoke again,

"There's more to come after this bath, just so you know."

Arabella could feel his smirk against her skin, she blushed a deep red and laughed nervously,

"Oh really?" She questioned sheepishly.

"Yes, Bella. Really." Gale replied, Arabella's blush made it to the tips of her ears as she anticipated what more could entail.

The two of them continued their bath, eating pie. Relishing in the moment in this point in time. It was the most relaxed either of them had been these last weeks. It was perfect.

[commanderquinn]

meta: sam coe - post-campaign analysis

allllrighty i am officially post-campaign so time for first thoughts. since im still collecting my feelings/opinions on the main quest i dont want to go super into that. i wanna wait and consolidate into a deep dive on that one. BUT i am a fic writer with a fixation on socioeconomics, intergenerational trauma, and more specifically the phenomenon of atheists clinging to their religious parents morals because they haven't taken the time to evaluate their biases and the reasons they still hold them

translation: the silver spoon space cowboy is an interesting concept. poory executed in the case of starfield, sadly, but great framework for fandom to chop the head off of and bring to their own individual comfort interpretations.

this meta will include spoilers for the following:

-sam's questline and the npcs involved

-his romance

-cora, the safety storyline around her, and how she's the best part of the space game

-why bethesda was fucking stupid to turn the cowboys into cops when they have the perfect opportunity for not that. i went in hoping for retired/reformed army rangers fed up with war looking to defend their home from fascism given the "han solo simulator" marketing, but all i got was this lousy ass rendition of the texas rangers, which i for SURE did not want

-i WONT be going into detail about the main plot for this post, just fyi. i wanna save that, and sam's relation to it, for its own essay. id still recommend not reading meta's until you finish the game tho

-i miss obsidian's writing. this game made me want to play outer worlds for the 100th time. that will probably come up a lot

this is probably gonna sound more than a bit scattered and off the fucking plot for the first section, but bare with me, im making a point eventually i promise. gotta make sure we're all on the same page first.

now that ive done a majority of his content, it's clear what the intent was for sam and i applaud it. i like it when good hearts in bad systems spot the fundamental flaws and decide to abandon it entirely, or work to change it. i hate perfect characters. i hate characters that have no growth to find. sam is a great character for showing the awesome power of a perspective change. but damn. what a waste when you're talking about a format where a writer is constricted to:

-an exact conversation trigger (bethesda games have always relied on interrupt & player approach, and i didnt notice any variation on game engine front but i wont know until they release the ck so)

-word limit on all responses (yes, you can make long dialogues in engine. but those words still have to be f u n d e d from a dev standpoint. words are not free in video games. capitalism sucks for art.)

-multiple conversation branches that ALL have to circle back to the original topic (they have to follow a set pattern of establishing a subject, then the players possible responses to that subject, the npcs responses to those responses, AND provide a seamless, one dialogue tie-in path to the next branch. it sounds super easy until you're the shmuck writing it, and then it doesnt feel so easy anymore)

-get approximately two personal quests with, what was it, 12 motion scripted scenes? (im watching other peoples pts now so ill try to remember to count, but it was. hmm. lack luster imo. im not saying quantity is vital. im a bioware fanatic, i know the power of quality when its actually delivered. i didnt have any moment like that for sams quests and it was kind of crushing. ill get into it.)

-appeal to a wide enough audience to obtain profit by holding back eXtReMe ViEwS (id like to point out that there is, at this exact moment in time, an active pr campaign (and a few scattered gaming content creators) surrounding starfield talking about how pronouns are politics and should be left out of gaming. over a setting flag in a save file. you literally dont even have to press a button about it. like, you pick your characters body. masc bodys are auto assigned m pronouns. fem bodies are auto assigned f pronouns. you literally dont even have to SEE the button, and it never gets brought up. the only purpose it serves is so the game knows what voice lines to fire. that. is. it.)

im not going to humor the "thats dumb, bethesda makes political games" contribution to the argument.

i get straight people think they're being super helpful and witty on that one, but i think the world would collectively benefit from allies taking just a few extra seconds before standing on that soapbox to maybe consider that calling existence "politics" might be, gee idk, insulting. maybe more than a lil dehumanizing. maybe super easily solved by just NOT giving into their parents obsession with playing devils advocate. i think if maybe allies could shut the fuck up for a minute or two at a time and go look for voices of authority within the communities they're defending instead of trying to talk over them, that'd probably work out better. might help cut out the completely useless middle man their parents taught them to be when they drilled home "you have to respect everyone's opinion"

no the fuck you do not, actually. i, as someone on this earth attempting to be a compassionate person, owe people a chance at understanding. i do not, under any circumstance, owe someone any kind of respect WHATSOEVER if they cannot respect me as a human being. full stop. i dont owe it to them, i dont owe it to their religion, i dont owe it to the government they try to establish. i do not owe respect to people attempting to oppress me. i never have and i never will.

but remember. there is context to be found in the passing of time. yes, you need to tell grandma to stop being racist. no, you do not need to banish grandma to the nursing home if there's still a chance that she's willing to sit and listen. a chance that she'll empathize with social perspectives that the racist society she was raised in never allowed her to have. breathe and give grandma the chance. then send her to the home if she's still racist.

(yes that was an analogy for how i imagine a perspective conversation with jacob would go. i do not have high hopes of that man finding self awareness given. well. who he is as a person.)

now. if you've played through sam's content, you already know why im bringing all of that up, but lets put together a list of all the things that Make Sam Coe Who He Is before we wrap it all up in a pretty bow that hopefully reads a lot less scattered than this "yo society got some trauma actually" lead up ive dumped on you

quick interrupt just for me: i love that im back on tumblr where i dont really have to give all that much of a fuck about making sense. any audience i could find here is equally unhinged so mostly i just have to format it in a way that makes your brain not hurt. sorry if you dont have adhd <3

1: lets talk about cora's hair.

im going to make the race observation because its bothering me from a dev standpoint AND the gamer crowd is already starting to make cuck memes which sucks to see.

i get that this doesnt matter in a colonialism scifi future where a service like enhance exists and we're talking about two rangers that apparently went under cover regularly, but it matters in the context of how sam was handled in a 2020 era commercial, creative environment. im just going to MENTION that cora coe's biological mother (that jab was me not liking her as a person, not me giving a shit that she's white) is paler than pale, and sam does NOT look like some of his earlier promo images. bethesda as a company also has a very long history of making characters arguably tan to avoid this shit.

9/16 edit: was asked for source, heres the exact image im referencing, which is still his set image on the starfield wiki to date:

(im going to preemptively warn any white artists building the urge to argue over this: you DO NOT want to die on a hill about lighting for this one, fucking trust me. thats not what this conversation is, and if you dont understand that as a White Artist, you need to sit this one out until you understand the full weight of the conversation and the profound effect of media treating skin color like a rare diversity accessory. bethesda has a very very long history of this. their last major story title, fallout 4, (76 was a money grab made in the other studio and i barely want to call it a game) had a whopping total of two black characters in its main cast, and both of them acted in subservient roles so please. please please please just. stop trying to defend bethesda on this one. its dehumanizing, cowardly, and malicious in this day and age. i promise im not trying to bite anyones head off here, im just Old And Tired when it comes to suburbanites in fandom.)

i think having solomon be canonically black would have been a really important aspect. i think it would have given the opportunity to show white people why its fucked up that they get SO EXCITED to save war mementos (or in the case of starfield a nasa memento) and will go on and on about how vital it is to save that piece of history, but when you bring up memorializing the importance of race as it pertains to human history and cultural history/pride, they suddenly start getting Very Uncomfortable and throw out phrases like "what does it matter we're all human" while standing next to the gun their grandfather smuggled home from the war

there is no brightness slider on pc and i havent gone reshade tweaking so everything is still washed out on my end (dont worry, as an rtx user, imma be makin a rant post on that) b u t. cora coe has a pale as fuck mother and a vaguely tan father with blue eyes and straight hair, meanwhile my precious angel has a darker complexion and curls that look like they're closing in on the 3c range so like. im getting vibes that sammy boy mighta been whitewashed during game dev, and thats about as far into THAT topic as im gonna bother to venture for this post.

2: his dad

were we supposed to have more daddy issues content??? istg it feels like there was the initial map talk and then nothing. im not saying that i cant pull blood from a stone and give you an entire essay on that glimpse of family trauma just from a few lines of dialogue, but still. feels like thats maybe something that should have gotten more detail.

"no forgiveness between me and my old man. it's uh... coe tradition."

oh boy. oh boy oh boy oh boy. what a line to start his personal quest

before we go ANY FURTHER im gonna drop a reference to one of my favorite aaron sorkin scenes of all time. its from the movie he did about the chicago seven, and i think it fits VERY well when having a conversation about how sam is shaped by his father

unfortunately the exact scene i want to show isnt clipped anywhere easy i could find, so here's an article that talks about that scene specifically if you want more context but dont want to watch the whole movie. what we're really focused on is this:

which is a scene where a fictional account of bobby seale, the leader of the black panther party at the time of the chicago 7 trial, said that above quote to a fictional account of tom hayden while they were having a conversation about how the stakes of this trial are life and death for him as a black man, but little more than a family dispute and a dark spot on their records for the (all white) chicago 7.

its a GREAT continuation of sorkin’s fascination around father son conflicts (he covered it a time or two during his writing days as west wings original creator, which is a great political show id strongly rec) and it really really works when used in comparison to those rebellion days sam had that he still flagellates over

sam was a privileged kid without a foundation of emotional support or a safe environment to vent to. he didnt have the words needed to communicate what he was feeling and thinking and experiencing. he didnt have the means to express himself in a way that wasn't immediately criticized by the people in his life. it doesnt take a degree in psych to figure out that sam first ran for the stars to run from his father. and it sounds like that was tradition

from the MOMENT YOU MEET HIM, jacob is full stop "my way or the highway" until you hit him with the good ol bethesda persuasion and his disposition pulls a 180 to hand you the next plot device

sam: "you know why im here."

jacob: "oh? and what's that? you come to your senses? realize where you ought to be for once?"

w o w

i wonder why sam never felt safe in his own home. i wonder why he doesnt feel safe leaving cora there. i wonder why that miserable fucking attitude and guilt has sam convinced that jacob will be the worst possible thing for his curious daughter's self esteem.

yes, grandparents sip a different kind of koolaid when it comes to their grandkids. no, that is not enough to protect that child from that much intergenerational trauma. sam's made a bad choice keeping cora in space, but he's made an EXCELLENT choice keeping her away from jacob.

forget "showing respect" to his son's choices, jacob won't give them the time of day. he brushes off constellation and wont go meet them for himself, he insists that cora being "in her family home" is the only priority (isnt THAT telling) and, as if that wasnt enough to prove he's incapable of empathy, the fact that he outright, direct fucking quote during that first scene with him, says to sam's face

"the only mistake im seeing here is you"

fuck anyone who walked away from that scene of a parent saying that to their own kid and had the response of "i dont understand why sam wont let jacob take care of cora." fuck you, genuinely from the bottom of my heart, if that was your reaction.

i looked for opportunities to get sam to talk about what the rest of those "30 plus years of experience with the man" really looked like after that. the fact that it was used as a plot device without any (from what I COULD FIND in my first pt, if i find any ill edit this) kind of dialogue discussion about that trauma around his father's behavior/mentality and the terrible influence it had is such a waste. chances are!!!!!! id fucking agree with him!!!!!!!!!! SO TELL THEM TO ME BETHESDA!!!!!! give me the chance to storm back into that house with the full story and let that geriatric fuck know why he will not be allowed back into my daughters life (yeah we're gonna be calling cora our daughter on this one bc, again, she's the best thing in the game) until he can learn to be a safe emotional environment for her

and THEN, at the end of the romance, the wrinkly mf drops a "hey can you go over sam's head and make the parenting decisions now" 20 minutes before your vows get exchanged in his living room (WE'RE GONNA TALK ABOUT THAT MESS OF A WEDDING LMAO ITS A LOT but im probably gonna save it for another sam post where i talk more in depth about why packing a complicated romance in that tightly just Dont Work). like wow. wowowowwow. if that doesnt perfectly sum up how he views the dusty's (shhh i really hope that name catches on pls i keep seeing ppl use captain instead its heartbreaking) role in the family now, and confirm how he's always viewed his own son, idk what does

3: lillian "i can abandon my kid and demand she be taken care of in the same breath" hart

i was originally going to go into hella detail on his relationship with his ex but honestly i think im just gonna leave a few paragraphs and not touch on her again bc its bad for my blood pressure.

okay, here's the deal. im biased in the sense that i had a mother with attachment issues and lets just say that his ex is worth about as much to me as a pile of dogshit. it'd be one thing if she had that moment of "oh. sam and cora bond really well and i dont fit" and decided to look at that and evaluate if she wanted to continue trying to be a parent.

but she didnt have a moment of reflection. she didnt talk to a therapist. she didnt have a discussion with sam. she went back to work and decided "oh well, my kid doesnt like me" and then left her daughter with an open wound and no shot at closure. which is just. wow. that's active abandonment. she WALKED OUT of cora's life because she couldn't stomach the idea that she didnt immediately win over her daughter without any effort to connect to her.

then she has the nerve to yell at sam for not doing the best for cora. like bitch, you cant even consistently answer the phone??? what are you on??? she's REPEATEDLY broken cora's heart with false promises, and clearly made no effort to truly atone for that given just HOW angry sam is ALL the times he brings it up.

and she does it all for what????? a beat cop reputation and some shiny medals????? like shut the fuck up with that righteous indignation piglet, you're killing smugglers under someone's made up authority to protect COMMERSE, not creating galactic peace. the idea that THAT SHIT is worth more to her than her own daughter having a mother who's around for all her life milestones is inFURIATING and id fucking deck her if i could.

the fact that there's zero chance to call her out other than one single "thats a pretty awful thing to say" option is a real cop out from bethesda. they realized they put a woman in a position where she could be really, truly yelled at for something like child care, and chickened out on following through with it so they wouldnt take any heat.

thats gross and should piss you the fuck off, by the way. that sure the fuck isnt what equality looks like by any measure. you don't empower women by acting like they're infallible creatures you cant call out for being flawed. and you sure as shit dont empower the next generation of women by forgiving their abusers.

4: cora's safety

which brings us to the big sticky: sam is a disaster and i DONT think that keeping cora on a combat-active spaceship is right. i think she'd be much better off living in constellation hq (aside from the main plot obvsly) with a constant open comm to her dad and the ability to bring her to outposts and secured sights.

the problem with the biomother's abandonment isnt the distance. its the lack of attempt to connect. its the lack of forming a bond. its the fact that she had zero desire to understand her child once she figured out her child didnt "love her the most" when thats literally not a thing. the problem was never the physical space, and it wouldnt have to be in sam's case, either.

he's a dad that's there for cora day in and day out, he just never got the chance to grow out of the panic stage of a parent worried the first fever is going to kill the baby. he didn't have his dad because he had to get out to protect himself, he doesnt have a mom because of how long she's been dead, and lillian checked the fuck out at an early stage apparently. so sam was left to be the nervous wreck trying to keep history from repeating itself. the man's flying blind in the face of all the combined generational trauma of himself, his father, and his ex, all while trying not to fuck up shaping a human life.

you're damn fucking right he keeps cora glued to his side, i legitimately do not think his own ptsd would allow him to do otherwise without someone like the dusty to come and and go "hey dude, maybe its time we read some emotional intelligence and trauma books so we can start getting cora into a stable environment for literally the first time in her life? also im going to teach her gun safety for my own sanity because you keep letting her walk all over you and its scaring the fuck out of me thinking my daughter is going to try to raid a pirate ship at 15 because no one taught you proper boundaries."

5: his morals

its been 30+ years and his father wont let go of arguing and micromanaging long enough to try to understand his son. lillian is a workaholic who believes her only inherit value is what she can provide to an organization that views living, breathing human beings as occasionally expendable while screaming about its pursuit of freedom and equality.

sam coe is a man who got told what he was supposed to be his entire life, tripped into drugs and crime in an angry, sheltered act of rebellion, and walked away from it all with a very skewed, very flawed interpretation of morality as a result.

lillian and his father are the clear moral compasses in his life. like yeah, sure, he'll talk about how cora is his driving force until he's blue in the face. and he's not lying!!! he's not even technically wrong. she is his active motivation day in and day out. but she is not his Morality. she hasn't developed enough as a person to be able to be that kind of beacon. she's a kid rushing herself through childhood because she thinks that will make her better and no one in her life recognizes it enough to stop it. she shouldnt have to be the moral guide for someone who's supposed to be guiding her

sam cant let go of the ranger envy. he couldnt stomach being around it, but he cant look at that discomfort long enough to identify why. he can walk into a bank and plain as day go "ah, don't you hate the smell of capitalism," but he can't bring himself to blink the stars out of his eyes long enough to ask why the rangers are so willing to put smugglers to death without trial. sam has enough awareness to identify the system is flawed, but he doesnt have the guts to really stare that down

he'll make cracks about walter having too much money and influence, but he wont actually mention how he and his wife are the root cause of an extraordinary amount of pain and suffering and perfectly avoidable manslaughter as a result of their business. i get that constellation runs as a dont as dont tell organization, but if sam's going to give me shit about nabbing a paper weight from a guy's desk, i think we should talk about how he doesnt display anger for walter's business practices.

sam coe, at his heart, is a dreamer who doesn't want to look too close at things. he was taught that some things just Are, and looking for too many answers will find you trouble. he's got the spirit of an explorer dampened by a lifetime spent under cops.

you can hear it in his voice whenever he talks about how proud he is of cora for being a goddamn prodigy. you can hear the wonder and the excitement there. you can hear the curious kid in him that probably got pushed out of the way while he was trying to shape himself into a Proper Coe

i think sam coe is a dreamer who was forcibly taught to fear learning as a child, and thats the real tragedy of him.

so let's start to tie our bow here.

sam is a man who, in a way that only a privillaged kid can, stumbled into neon's life of drugs and smuggling and self harm through destructive behavior with both eyes firmly shut.

he didn't fall into drugs after a lifetime of being submersed in the culture of it. he didnt take them because he grew up surrounded by people that just knew that's all life was ever going to hold. he didnt get into smuggling because he was starving. he didnt take on his first "criminal act" because there was a life and death battle going on somewhere in his life.

this man was drowning in guilt and shame centered around not "being a proper coe" by the time he was free of his father's control, by all accounts. you can hear how much self hatred he has over the memory of that time in his life. look, im not going to say that age and recovery doesnt come with regret, but he talks about it like degeneracy and something to be guilted about rather than just... living life. like so what you did some drugs?? so what you did a capitalism no no?????

corporations arent people. you shouldnt steal from them because itll put YOU at risk, but under no circumstance should anyone hold onto any guilt for stealing from them. money is fake and capitalism murders people every hour of the day. fuck the system, its fucking rigged, look out for you and yours while capitalism is stealing your natural resources and making private homesteading prosecutable (translation: in our actual, real life here, the government can throw you in jail for building a house without a permit. go look up at the sky and think about the moral journey humanity had to take to get us to that point, and then come talk to me about how i shouldnt encourage people to steal from corporations)

anyways back to the video game, as far as the "what if he was unknowingly smuggling something like organs or weapons" argument, there's no desire for me to defend it, tbh. i dont view crime as a personality brand the way cops do. someone being convicted of a crime doesnt make me see them as lesser, it makes me see them as a person who did a bad thing. i do bad shit all the time. we all do. we're human. sometimes there's an excuse for the behavior, and sometimes there isnt. that's not the end of the world. you own up to your actions, you apologize, and you put in the effort to make amends that fit the situation. end of story. the obvious exception to that being when someone you have victimized tells you to fuck off because they dont want your further involvement.

yes. yes there are people in the world that are genuine monsters that spend their time and energy looking for ways to do the cruelest shit imaginable to their fellow human beings. but those are fucking outliers, so no, im not going to let a conversation about morality be derailed by a fraction of a percent of the population

but people (like the rangers) who aren't ready to look at the whole picture of context, who would rather hyper focus on the unbending rule of the land, don't see that. they see a "type" of person once a crime has been committed rather than "a person who found themselves in this scenario"

sam was raised by cops. he fundamentally does not understand how biased his own view is. he'll sometimes make a vague mention of crime being a necessity, but you can hear how many strings are attached there just from the way he talks about it. he truly views crime as a black and white subject with exceptionally few slivers of grey to be found. you can hear the "law and order is what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom" in his voice whenever he talks about how the rangers are "good people" he just "didnt fit anymore" and it's heartbreaking

he'd be so much better off if he would take a moment to reevaluate his priorities and look a lot closer at that guilt he carries and why he carries it. i think it would even help him better connect with cora in the long run. it would for sure give him a better handle on why letting his daughter take on college courses this early in her life isnt something to brag about. its a bad sign that she's pushing herself to Be Something in the exact same way he used to. he just doesn't recognize it because her way is "healthy" by society's fucked up view of child prodigies

tl;dr

i don't need to fix sam coe. he's stubborn, traumatized, and sheltered, not broken.

give that man good enough head and i'm absolutely sure he could be talked into reading some -clutches pearls- marxist literature

[protohay]

seeing talk of telling ppl to read homestuck… you should ALSO read sweet bro and hella jeff. Unfortunately it has gross bullshit but i feel like its an important part to reading homestuck

I also recommend reading the book: quest for the missing spoon. It’s not related to homestuck in the slightest but its THE best sbahj media in my opinion. it has its flaws but overall much more enjoyable.

Theres also Paradox Space, which you should be reading if you decide to read Homestuck. It has funny sbahj stuff too and its just nice

[bookquest2024]

Book 3: The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Dates: January 7

Books read: 2

Books remaining: 98

Blog Post:

Okay so if you look at my book list, The Great Gatsby is actually #3 on the list, not #2. Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust. However, I have the book on hold from my local library, and there’s only ONE copy for the whole area’s metropolitan library. I really did want to read the books in the randomized order of my list, but if I’m going to read them all within 365 days, I can’t waste days waiting for my holds to be ready. SO– I’ve moved onto #3. I’m going to do my best to read them in order, but you have to be flexible on quests.

Moving on to The Great Gatsby–I was looking forward to reading this one for many reasons: (1) it’s much shorter than the first two books, readable within one day; (2) I’ve read it previously when I was in high school, and I was looking forward to re-reading it with a new, older (but not like, a lot older, okay?) perspective; and (3) everyone has strong opinions about The Great Gatsby–it’s a popular book. 

I remember reading The Great Gatsby in high school and liking it, but I didn’t really remember why I liked it. And having now reread it, I have no idea why I liked it back then. Maybe I was in love with the idea of being rich (who isn’t?), maybe I found Gatsby’s love for Daisy incredibly romantic. Whatever the reason, the feeling did not last. First, before I go any further, I do NOT remember reading this incredibly gay scene, when Nick is in the city getting drunk with Tom and his mistress, and he leaves the apartment with the artist, Mr. McKee: 

"Come to lunch someday," [Mr. McKee] suggested, as we groaned down in the elevator.

"Where?"

"Anywhere."

"Keep your hands off the lever," snapped the elevator boy.

"I beg your pardon," said Mr. McKee with dignity, "I didn't know I was touching it."

"All right," I agreed, "I'll be glad to"Come to lunch someday," [Mr. McKee] suggested, as we groaned down in the elevator.

"Where?"

"Anywhere."

"Keep your hands off the lever," snapped the elevator boy.

"I beg your pardon," said Mr. McKee with dignity, "I didn't know I was touching it."

"All right," I agreed, "I'll be glad to."

" . . . I was standing beside his bed and he was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear, with a great portfolio in his hands.”

Like, clearly this isn’t overtly a hook up between Mr. McKee and Nick, but I’m 100% convinced that it happened and I don’t know how I missed it the first time I read the book. That said, I went to a very conservative high school so maybe that’s to be expected. Anyway. 

Moving on: each and every single character in this book is sooooooo annoying. Nick is a rich, pretentious idiot who thinks he’s better than everyone. Actually, he might be better than everyone we meet in the book, but unfortunately for him, that’s not saying much. Tom is a racist, sexist asshole who peaked in college (literally: “one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterwards savors of anticlimax.”). Jordan, my favorite character in the book, is a liar committed to being a bystander. Daisy was born with a silver spoon in her mouth and is doing her best to be miserable about it. And finally, Gatsby is a poor man who got rich quick doing something unsavory–it’s never explicitly said what–who is so obsessed with a woman that he can’t handle the fact that that woman loves her husband, even a little.

Jordan is my favorite character in the book, even though Nick tells us she’s a liar and implies that she cheated at one of her golf championships, because at one point Tom says she’s too wild and her family shouldn’t “let her run around like that.” What can I say, I love a woman who goes against the grain. 

The book is really well written and is filled with the kind of imagery that is perfect for exploring in a high school/college literature class, so I understand why it is as popular as it is. But the “love story” between Daisy and Gatsby stinks of a man obsessed with the idea of being rich and earning the love of a woman far above his station in life, without needing to know anything about the woman herself, and a woman who’s bored and wants to get back at her husband for cheating on her. This obsession fails him in the end, as it’s too much for Daisy: “‘Oh, you want too much!’” she cried to Gatsby. “‘I love you now–isn’t that enough? I can’t help what’s past.’” She began to sob helplessly. “‘I did love him once–but I loved you too.’” Poor little rich girl with two rich men fighting over her. It’s a very boring love story–the only exciting thing about it is Gatsby’s murder. 

Nick and Jordan’s relationship is 1000 times more interesting to me, even if it is less obsessive and romantic. Nick initially admires her self-sufficiency (and of course, she’s beautiful). He goes to many parties with her, and decides that she avoids clever men so that she can get away with her lying. Jordan says she herself is careless (in the context of driving), and hates careless people, and that’s why she likes Nick. Nick can never decide if he’s in love with Jordan, he considers himself careful, and “one of the few honest people [he has] ever known.”  In the end, after Nick breaks off their relationship, Jordan says “‘You said a bad driver was only safe until she met another bad driver? Well, I met another bad driver, didn’t I? I mean it was careless of me to make such a wrong guess. I thought you were a rather honest, straightforward person. I thought it was your secret pride.’” Something about how Jordan is hurt by Nick is closer to real emotion than anything else felt by anyone in this book.

I really feel like Jordan could have been redeemed, if Fitzgerald gave her a chance. Sure, she’s a liar willing to stand off to the side while Tom and Daisy hurt each other, other people, and themselves, but before Nick “throws her over,” Jordan takes steps to distance herself from Tom and Daisy. However, we’ll never know if that was her decision, or if that was a result of Tom and Daisy running away from Myrtle’s murder. Personally, I kinda hope Jordan is still out there lying to the sexist men of the 1920’s.

It is actually really impressive that Fitzgerald, after introducing us to the worst people we’ve ever met, is able to make us (okay, maybe just me? I’m not sure who “we” are) feel bad for Gatsby after his death. Nick does his best to get any of the hundreds of people who would come out to Gatsby’s parties to go to his funeral, and fails. Instead, Gatsby is buried with only his dad (who apparently beat him), Nick (who met him that summer, like three months ago!!) and a guy called “Owl Eyes” (who is a drunk guy that was amazed that Gatsby’s library has real, actual books in his library, rather than fake cardboard covers) as attendants to his funeral. Owl Eyes says it best:

“‘I couldn’t get to the house,’ he remarked.

‘Neither could anybody else.’

‘Go on!’ He started. ‘Why, my God! they used to go there by the hundreds.” 

He took off his glasses and wiped them again, outside and in.

‘The poor son-of-a-bitch,’ he said.”

In sum, I enjoyed rereading this book–I really love to hate things sometimes, and this book includes so many characters and situations to hate.

My favorite lines/quotes of the book:

“Almost any exhibition of complete self-sufficiency draws a stunned tribute from me.” Nick, when he meets Jordan for the first time.

“‘In two weeks it’ll be the longest day in the year.’ She looked at us all radiantly. ‘Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it.’” Daisy. This line is something that has stuck with me since I read the book the very first time–because, yes, I do normally miss the longest day of the year, even after all winter of wishing for more daylight hours. I’ve always wanted to be married, or do something special on the Solstice, so that I always have something to celebrate that day and never miss it. 

“‘What’ll we do with ourselves this afternoon?’ cried Daisy. ‘And the day after that, and the next thirty years?’ ‘Don’t be morbid,’ Jordan said. ‘Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.’” This is just a lovely line.

“‘I love New York on summer afternoons when everyone’s away. There’s something very sensuous about it–overripe, as if all sorts of funny fruits were going to fall into your hands.” - Jordan.

[demifiendcruithne]

also just for clarification purposes - persona is a subseries of shin megami tensei, which actually predates pokemon by some years; i don't think any games got a release outside of japan until after pokemon was released, which may be a reason for misconception (the earliest i'm aware of getting a western release is either smt3 nocturne which is on ps2 or demikids on gbc; i'm going off memory because no spoons so i might be missing more obscure ones like last bible) (i'm 99% the original megami tensei manga didn't get a release over here either, and likewise the megami tensei games before it became shin megami tensei) it is definitely possible the success of pokemon caused smt to get western releases, but smt came first as a whole out of those two

the only other things i can vaguely temporally place is dragon quest 5 which also let you recruit monsters, i know it was before pokemon but i don't know where it is compared to smt; yokai watch is the newest of that group unless it similarly was a thing in japan for much longer, but i distinctly remember its western release being around gen 7(?) because i was annoyed at delayed news and (probably wrongly) blamed its announcement; digimon and yugioh i have no frame of reference for except i know digimon existed when i was a kid (for reference i was born end of 1995) because pokemon vs digimon was a big thing, and i remember reading about digimon tamagotchi on a site i frequented

Have you considered making a video about how creature collectors (especially pokemon-likes) have this weird tendency to mimic the design principles of Pokémon in their creature design? Not all of them do, but a sizable amount do, and imo it's kinda disappointing. To me it reinforces the notion that creature collectors are forever stuck in Pokémon's shadow.

Frankly, as someone who have seen a lot of fan-made designs specifically for the Pokemon world and have seen several separate creature collectors (though I am not too familiar with the ones on Roblox), I don't see it. There's a marked difference in the design features and proportions that goes in the creatures and presentation of Temtem, Coromon, Cassette Beasts, Bugsnax, and Ooblets compared to that of Pokemon, Digimon, Yokai Watch, Persona, or Yu-Gi-Oh's.

The only similarity is that several of these franchises use bright colors and cute proportions which I don't think is trademark-able, but if you think that makes them Pokemon-like, I'd say that's a testament to how much Pokemon has dominated the genre for the past 2 decades.

[protohay]

Need to convince every homestuck fan to read Quest for the Missing Spoon

[protohay]

Favorite sbahj thing is when Sweet Bro wakes up after fucking dying and asks if Half Life 3 has released yet