#repeating 'it might be on purpose and get resolved later on' over and over again but it's not looking good bruv

[hella1975]

Mha has some genuinely really interesting concepts and worldbuilding, and then the way it’s executed is just so???

this is such a good way of explaining it like 99% of the show is actually executed pretty well there are certainly... aspects that i dont agree with but generally it's very good. and then there's the todorokis

[whateverthedragonswant]

the creator said that in 5b they'll have eddie dip his toe in the dating pool, but what's the point? ana was perfect for him and he couldn't feel anything for her? repeating the same crap yet again and forcing another useless love interest on eddie is pointless.

Hey, Anon!

Oooo I don't know how perfect Ana was for him tbh. Perfect for Christopher, yes (and even that is debatable), but not for Eddie. And they made sure to show us that in many different ways from the outset. "Jinxed", "follow your own heart", etc.

I get what you're saying but I do really believe this is just part of the Buddie journey we're taking. I truly don't see a woman being Eddie's ideal romantic partner in the end. They've called this into question way too many times, even last season, in order for it to be some woman he goes on a date with in 5B or later on.

Well, I know I probably sound like a broken record by now but think about him dipping his toe in the dating pool like this: when someone gets out of a relationship (divorce, breakup, death, etc.), once they have some time to process the end of that relationship and they are ready, they are always encouraged to get back out there, even if it's just baby steps. Why? Because it not only helps them to try to find a new relationship but it's also part of the whole process of healing/getting over it. Not to be crude, but you know that line of "to get over someone, you need to get under someone else"? I'm not saying this is exactly that or that sex with other women is going to happen (though tbf it might, who knows?) or that sex with someone else is an absolute necessity for someone to get over a relationship ending (like I said, a very crude line) but the idea is essentially the same. Eddie has done so much work over the past season and has had so much emotional growth, it only makes sense that now he is looking towards what he wants and trying to find it. The man never knew what he wanted in a life/romantic partner before. He married Shannon because she got pregnant and from the sound of it, before the pregnancy, the relationship wasn't that promising. Eddie ran to the military, and then re-upped so he didn't have to deal with Christopher's CP. Then Shannon left him and Christopher. He was closed off and focused on taking care of Christopher. Then Shannon came back into their lives and when he finally lets her back in, she tells him she doesn't want to try again, it's over, and she wants a divorce. Then she dies which throws him into a spiral of grief and unresolved anger, all while still trying to focus on taking care of his son. Then he meets Ana who is the first woman he's been attracted to since Shannon, who has similarities to his wife and appears to be perfect for Christopher, but ends up not being perfect for Eddie himself. Panic attacks happen (which never happen to Eddie) and Eddie is starting to feel trapped. He breaks it off and then leaves his would-be family to take another job that he hates, thinking he's doing right by his son. Then he finds out his son didn't mean what he thought he did, but he can't undo this mistake, which ends up helping to spearhead him into a breakdown which he then needs to get help for. He does the work and starts to get better, returns back to his 118 family, sure of his purpose in being a firefighter and helping people, even resolves his issues with his father (which I can tell you from personal experience, that is a MAJOR turning point in your life when it happens), and now for the first time, he's doing what's right for him.

So it's only natural that now that his son is older and he's doing great, that he's back at the 118 for good and he's secure in his position, that he now looks to other areas of his life and thinking about what he wants from those areas. Son? Good, check. Work? Good, check. Home? Pretty good, check. Family? Good, check. Love? ....and there you have it. The dating is simply that, opening him up even further to determine what it is he wants romantically and from a would-be life partner. That's it. People didn't like Ana Flores when she happened (with some good reason) but it was in her name what her purpose in the story truly was: to open Eddie up (and Christopher to the idea of Eddie dating someone other than his mom). People are not going to like the idea of this dating pool thing (and most already don't lol) but guaranteed its purpose in the story is to open Eddie up to the possibility of finding what he really wants (not yet realizing he already has it). That's all this is and it's still leading all of us down the Buddie road.

Hang in there, Anon. I hope you have a great rest of your day!!! <3

[jiminiesfavouritecolourisblue]

Is there somewhere - BTS royal / bodyguard au Drabble part 4

So after this I was thinking of writing some prequels to the Drabble series before moving ahead with time and the challenges these lovely characters would face ongoing. Same with the CEO drabbles, as always let me know what you think {angst and fluff ahead}

Prev | Next

————————————————————————————————————————

You hadn’t seen them for a month. You told yourself you were glad, that it didn’t hurt you that they gave up. You asked them to leave, you would stick by that, and this proved you right.

These things happened for a reason, you tell yourself, and while life was still a dense cloud hanging over you, it didn’t rain. Since that night trouble stopped following you, no one approached you in the clubs, the paparazzi stopped following you, you felt safe again, by yourself without any bodyguards.

“I haven’t seen you in so long Y/n,” your childhood friend sat across from you at a little quaint cafe in the town closest to your castle. You would have invited her to your place but the mess increased tenfold, that being said, you think your father must be sending people to clean while you were out. He hadn’t said anything about it, you were grateful he hadn’t, you weren’t ready to have that conversation with the King. He was always too busy for you, so this gesture came as a shock.

“I’ve missed you Y/n,” Sana says taking your hand in hers and squeezing it earnestly. “I’ve been worried about you.”

“You don’t need to worry I’m okay,” you say reassuringly.

“Y/n it’s a cloudy day and you’re wearing sunglasses,” you take by her sarcasm she doesn’t sound convinced.

“I’ve got a headache that’s all,” you bury your head behind the brunch menu, pretending to look over the options as she hums in response. It had been years but she still knew you well, and this was nothing like you were.

“Who hurt my friend?” She asks reading through your behaviour like she read the newspaper articles about it online, hence the impromptu visit from half a world away despite her own busy schedule.

“Doesn’t matter, it’s in the past,” and yet it’s still so present. The wound might be healing but it was leaving a red swollen scar in its place.

She lets the subject drop noticing how your shield goes up.

“Your bodyguard is really hot, if you wanted to invite him in to join us I wouldn’t mind,” she wiggles her eyebrows playfully, trying to lighten the mood but her words have the opposite effect on you.

“My what?” You breathe, you don’t have bodyguards. You turn to face where her eyes are set behind you and sure enough, outside the glass windows trying to look conspicuous is a man in a suit you’d recognise anywhere. You hate how your heart starts to ache as it beats faster, how there’s a hum of electricity starting to burn under your skin.

“Is that not your bodyguard? You used to talk about them so much, that’s....” she squints her eyes at the male, who bows his head in panic realising he’s been caught. “Jin! Right?”

Every time you FaceTimed Sana one of the boys would be with you, not on the screen unless it was Jin or Jimin but professionally standing out of the cameras range staying with you trying not to smile as you gushed about them with her, begging one of them to say hello. Yoongi and Taehyung were the only ones to ever give in. They would say hello shyly before standing at their post, Jin and Jimin on the other hand would sit on the bed or sofa with you. Jimin would make you blush and tease you while talking to Sana, Jin would tell her all your bad habits and complain about you playfully. Namjoon and Hobi never gave in, you were close to breaking Jungkook’s resolve before he left.

“I’ll be right back,” you say to her, rising from your seat to walk to the guilty looking male who’s ears have turned red. He says something in his sleeve and you realise the others must be close by or at least contactable. It all suddenly makes sense, you hadn’t seen them, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. The house, your father was far too busy to burden himself with your mess, the sudden calm around you where normally there’d be a bustle of cameras and people.

“Princess,” he greets you bashfully, embarrassed for getting caught and complicating things. “Funny seeing you here, I was just waiting for a friend...”

“Liar,” you whisper, but it’s loud enough to shut him up.

“I can explain,” his cheeks are going red like his ears, you don’t know what you feel. There’s an emptiness that presents its self in his presence, like your body is trying to protect itself by going numb, even though your heart is begging you not to.

“I don’t want to hear it right now,” you close your eyes at the wave of sadness that overwhelms you. “I think you need to leave.”

You repeat your words from a month ago and it still cuts through him the same as it did then.

“I can’t...” he shuffles awkwardly from foot to foot.

“Jin you’re not my bodyguard anymore, this is harassment,” your cold eyes pierce through him but he stands strong against your onslaught.

“Actually...” he tries to chuckle but it dies as soon as it leaves his mouth. “Well you see, w-we- no your father... the king,” there’s a pause as he clears his throat and his hesitation irritates you.

“We’ve been reinstated as your bodyguards by order of the King,” a new voice behind you saves the stuttering man in front. You can’t help the fists form at your side as your mouth sets itself in a line. You turn to face Namjoon with a stern expression.

“No.” He knew you’d be stubborn, he knew it was a little underhanded of them, but after that day they couldn’t leave you like this. They would give you space, hope they could redeem themselves slowly, but they also had to keep you safe. They didn’t care you were next in line for the throne, they didn’t care their feelings for you were inappropriate in their line of work, you meant the world to them, you were their friend, and they couldn’t leave you again.

“I’m really sorry Princess, but the decisions been made,” he answers you sincerely. “We won’t get in your way, you won’t know we’re here, bu-”

“I said no,” your lips are tight, eyes enraged as you clench your jaw. He sighs, but he knows it would take time to heal the rift between you and the seven men.

You were right when you thought the rest of them were close behind, Yoongi and Jimin walk into your field of vision behind Namjoon, blazers buttoned, Jimin’s hair jelled back, Yoongi’s hand in his pocket. The sight takes you back and it knocks your confidence a little.

“Well that’s treason Princess,” Yoongi reasons with a small smirk forming on his face. “I guess that would get rid of us for you, being beheaded by the King.”

You shake your head is disbelief, a big sigh leaving your lips as you close your eyes to gather strength.

“I can’t do this right now,” you walk away back to your friend who’s eyes haven’t left the interaction. “I’ll deal with this later.”

——————————————————————————

You wonder what happened to their promise to stay out of sight and out of mind the following Saturday.

Maybe you walked through the bad part of town on purpose, maybe you wanted to piss them off or put yourself in danger, maybe you just wanted some control. A man that looks like trouble wolf whistles as you walk in his direction, and you smile like he’s your salvation. You don’t make it another two steps as a hand grabs your arm forcefully. You turn to find an angry Hoseok glaring at the man now cat calling you before turning his glare to you, nostrils flared like a bull about to charge.

You physically have to stop yourself from gulping at his aura, you know if pushed Hobi would cause harm to anyone that disrespected you. His grip on your arm tightens as the man doesn’t stop yelling profanities at you, he’s obviously intoxicated not that it excused his behaviour. Hobi hadn’t spoken a word, you can see him trying to ground himself and his anger, starting to lose his control, trying to regain his cool.

The guilt washes over you at his gaze, your smirk long gone as you struggle to keep eye contact. He hasn’t seen your face soften like this in so long, a glimpse of the old you coming back with concern.

“Hobi I’m sorry,” you whisper. “Let’s just go.”

His eyes are shut and he’s shaking with fury, at the man, at you, at himself.

“Hobi please,” you cup his cheek with your palm, stroking your thumb against his skin, feeling panic rising in yourself. The man is in front of you both now and you feel shame for making such a stupid decision. You press your forehead against his jaw as he stares daggers at the man.

“Your boyfriend giving you problems sexy?” He wears a shit eating grin as he speaks. “You looking for a bit of fun?”

Your touch calms your bodyguard enough to clear the haze of anger that threatens to attack the man where he stands. He releases a big breath before taking your wrist and walking you both away, pace unforgiving.

He still doesn’t say a word as you both get to the car, he pulls open the backseat door aggressively, looking at you expectedly. You don’t argue, you don’t scoff, you don’t walk away. Your eyes are round, looking up at him, begging for forgiveness. How the tables turn.

You get in without complaint, flinching as he slams the door shut. He gets into the drivers seat, putting his seat belt on before staring at you through the rear view mirror, jaw still clenched. You look lost, he hasn’t started the car and he hasn’t stopped staring at you.

“The seatbelt Y/n,” it’s a low growl and you quickly move to lock yours in place at his tone. Your heart is beating so fast you think it’s trying to escape. You don’t blame it, your hands are curled on your knees like a child ready to be scolded and you can’t look ahead as he pulls off.

——————————————————————————

You didn’t say a word the whole journey, scared a single sound would set him off. His grip was unrelenting on the wheel, you don’t think he cooled down at all even though he made sure he wasn’t driving recklessly with you in the car.

He doesn’t take you back to the castle, he takes you to their place. They rarely used to be at home when they worked for you, the castle was large enough for them to stay and they had no reason not to. You hesitate to leave the vehicle when Hobi opens the door for you, he’s patient even through his fury. He holds a hand out for you to take like they used to.

You want to ask him what you’re doing here, why he’s brought you, but you decide to take his hand and let him lead you indoors.

“Princess?” It’s odd to see Jungkook in his normal clothes, to see any of them in their casual wear, it looks homely. They all stare between you and Hobi, looking confused as you both walked into the living room.

You were staring at the floor as he explained where you were when he was on duty, the others now looked at you in shock and disappointment. It was hard for you to hear too, like he was talking about someone else, another girl, you wished the ground would swallow you whole.

“Princess this really has to stop,” it’s Jimin that breaks the silence after Hobi’s speech. His usual sweet disposition was wiped away with worry. “I get it, we messed up, but you can’t keep doing this to yourself Y/n.”

You don’t raise your head to meet his words, you stay with your eyes down and feet cemented where you stood. There’s a finger under your chin but you move your head to the side to avoid it bringing your face up.

“We’re really sorry,” Taehyung whispers beside you.

They blamed themselves for everything you had been through since the moment they left, but how could they undo it, how could they make this okay? His words don’t comfort you, they hurt you, they bring up the night they left all over again. But you feel the sincerity in his words, how hoarse it sounds, filled with every desire to turn the clock back. It brings tears to your eyes, it makes you choke on the emotion rising in your throat. You want it to be okay too, but you couldn’t erase the abandonment they left you with.

There’s a hand rubbing your back soothingly as your bottom lip trembles and your shoulders shake trying to keep the sobs down.

“It’s okay,” the hand on your back moves to your hair, and Taehyung rests his lips on your temple as he speaks. “We hurt you Princess, shout at us, let it out, cry, just stop holding it in.”

If you did as he said it would make you vulnerable again, you’d be letting them in and you don’t know if you’re ready for that. But he wasn’t wrong, holding all the pain down without a healthy form of release was making that gaping hole in your chest erode the rest of you away.

“I’m-m s-so a-angry-” you struggle to get your words out, having to take a shallow breathe with each word as they came out in a sob and it physically hurt you to speak. “At all o-of you.”

Tae’s crying too, Jungkook’s behind you but you can hear him sniffle. You lean into the Taehyung, pushing your face into his neck as you close your eyes and break down, he doesn’t hesitate to bring his arms around you when you think you’re about to fall.

“You had each other,” you wail, not caring at how deranged you sounded. “I had no one, you left me when I was injured!” Your head drops to his chest as you bang your fist against Taehyung’s chest finally letting it all out, and he takes it without bracing himself for each hit. “I needed you and you guys broke me.

Who was I supposed to talk to? Do you know how ridiculous it sounds to the people of my world. My bodyguards abandoned me, so fucking what? Get new ones.”

You grip his top that’s stained with your tears, you’re so angry, so heartbroken and the only people that would listen and help where the ones to cause you this pain.

“But you weren’t just my guards, you were my friends and I thought you all felt the same.”

There’s a whisper of “we do” but you ignore it.

They’ve never seen you like this, not when Taeyeon revealed her true colours, not when Sana moved away, you had said goodbye to people before, it was a part of life but nothing compared to when they left you, and you knew why, you just didn’t want to admit to it out loud. You didn’t want their pity, the pathetic Princess who had no friends who fell in love with her knights in shining armour, the people who were employed to ensure your safety. Misplaced feelings because you had no one else, you could hear Namjoon’s lecture already. They had never see you that way, if they had they wouldn’t have left.

If only you knew the thoughts running through the rest of their brains, how could they tell you they were compromised, that they broke your trust by falling for you, that every protocol dictated to them in their training stated they couldn’t keep a charge safe if they had feelings for them, they had to resign. Looking back it was the worst decision they ever made, but at the time it seemed like the most appropriate.

You scoff through your tears, “if you felt the same you would’ve at least come to see me, but you didn’t, you would’ve at least called or texted but you blocked my number, I tried to contact you everyday for the first two weeks and it was like you all didn’t exist anymore.”

There’s a grasp softly pulling you out of Taehyung’s hold and he whines as you’re taken away. Namjoon’s eyes are red, he looks like he’s on the brink of tears himself, but he holds it together.

“We’re so sorry Y/n,” he could never stop saying it, even if he did earn your forgiveness it could never assuage the guilt that weighed on them. “We honestly thought it was the right thing to do, if we kne-”

“On what planet was that ever the right thing to do Joon?” You cut him off, you didn’t want excuses.

“We made a mistake, leaving you was a mistake but we made one before that,” you frown at his words, what mistake? He contemplates his words but there’s no way mince them, no way to make what he’s about to say any easier. He’s not trying to make excuses, he’s not trying to justify his behaviour he just wanted to be honest. “We fell in love with our charge, the biggest offence we could commit, the biggest threat to your safety was us.”

He watches your eyes go wide as tears streamed down your face, he waited for your disgust, your displeasure.

“We are so in love with you Princess, it killed us to leave you but you have to believe me when I say we thought it was for the best.”

You can’t breathe. He wants you to say something, he needs you to say something, anything. You just stare at him in disbelief until you find the words to speak.

“Are you so stupid?” You gasp, gaze flickering to all their faces, theyre holding their breaths. “Are you all so blind that you couldn’t see that I was in love with you too?”

It was Namjoon’s turn to stare at you in disbelief, their jaws dropped.

“How stupid could you be Namjoon! Did you even think for a seco-” your voice is muffled by his chest as he pulls you into him, and he finally lets himself cry. You were right he was so stupid, he always prided himself on his intellect but look at the mess he made. He holds you like he’d never let you go, tight like you’d disappear in his arms.

“I’m so sorry Y/n, I’m so sorry,” he whimpers and it breaks your heart, you’ve never heard the leader sound like this. You sigh deeply in his arms, warmth finally starting to fill the hole.

“It’ll be alright Joonie,” you hug him back and he’s so grateful for you in that moment. “We’ll work through it.”

You have to believe that you will. More arms wrap around you both, tears of relief, tears of hope mixed with apologetic whispers, words of comfort. You feel the warmest you have in months.

[goldenvoicedminstrel]

Hot take; Maglor has written every member of his immediate and extended family a song inspired by them. Every single one of them has promptly learned to play/sing that song, even if that is the only song they know (looking at you Caranthir) they know it perfectly.

This comes in handy later, because when Maglors memories start fading he keeps his family alive by singing their songs over and over. It’s also good for the family members, because when everything else about Maglors existence fades away, they have the songs to prove that he was real and that he loved them.

I had a lot of thoughts and even more emotions about this, so enjoy my rambling.

Let’s say it starts with someone, perhaps Fëanor, telling his small son the story of the Ainulindalë, how Eru composed the Great Music and the Ainur sang Arda into being, and how everything and everyone is a part of that Music.

Of course young Makalaurë, who learned to sing before he could speak, is enchanted. 

We are all a song! The next day he comes to Nerdanel and starts to hum a simple, sweet melody, that sounds a bit like a lullaby. When she asks what song it is, he only says: “Yours.”

(She begins to use it as a lullaby for him when he is afraid at night, and later for his brothers as well. It works without fail.)

And that is only the beginning. Because once he has started to hear the melody in everyone around him, he cannot stop and while the most important part is still the melody, he starts to make up words, too, and so the songs are born.

Maitimo’s gives him a lot of trouble at first. He is too young and inexperienced and he finds that his attempts to create something as graceful, kind and perfect as his older brother all fall short. It takes him years to finally put together a melody “well-formed” enough. It is indeed very beautiful and harmonic and has a majestic air to it that makes his brother blush, but Maitimo will always love best the first attempt his little brother presented him with so long ago.

It is easier for his younger brothers, children in general are louder in every way, and though he makes small changes over the years and adds parts to their songs as they grow, the melody at core remains the same.

Tyelko’s starts as a children’s rhyme, that teaches his brother to imitate the animals he loves (the elf version of old MacDonald had a farm) and evolves until it seems to be made up only of the sound of the birds and the barking of dogs and even, in a particularly dramatic moment, the bellow of a stag. 

Little Carnistir’s song starts out much quieter, but rises unexpectedly at times, and when his brother was very young, Makalaurë used to throw him into the air with the crescendos and he would shriek and giggle until he was red in the face. Later, he adds some words a plays on the numbers that Moryo so enjoys, and sometimes he can hear him absentmindedly hum the melody under his breath when brooding over another problem. (There is also a rhyme very obviously leading up to a swear word, which is then abruptly left out for comedic purposes.)

Words are important in Curvo’s song as well. It is the most complicated, fast-paced like their father’s, made up of many different parts all moulded together. There are many wordplays, because smithing is hard to portray in song, but word-smithing is much easier, and Makalaurë always knows when his brother is singing his song in his head, for an amused little smile appears in the corner of his mouth.

Each of the twins have their own song, but they are both built around the same musical theme and made to be sung as a duet. The Ambarussa immediately invent a game in which one of them hides in the woods, and the other, with his eyes closed, has to find him  only through singing his part and listening to the answering verse.

(He likes to add verses for special occasions and perform them elaborately. He did this for all his brothers when they came of age, and again for Curvo’s wedding. On the other hand he is not afraid to compose a verse of pure mockery when his brother have been getting on his nerves again. But those are only temporary of course. Though they can be very catchy.)

The last time he sings his brothers their songs, the last time any of them do so out loud in front of the others, is on the ship to Beleriand. He hopes it will raise their spirits and strengthen their resolve. 

Then their father dies violently and for the first time Makalaurë does not feel like singing, not even in grief.

(Or perhaps he stops singing them before that, when one of the Ambarussa fails to answer their brother’s song for the first time.)

Maitimo is taken and when he comes back, Maglor cannot bear to induce the torment his brother’s body and fëa have suffered into his melody as well, but when he tries to sing him his old song on his sickbed, Maedhros flinches away. And Maglor understands.

He has always tried to capture their fëa with his songs. But the people he wrote his songs about do not exist anymore, while at the same time he will not- cannot- erase this last piece of home, of a happier time, so he keeps the songs locked away in his mind, like a most priced jewel in a glass case, to be viewed but not touched again.

(Later, much later, when Maedhros steps forward, Silmaril in hand, into the fiery chasm, he does not remember his melody anymore.)

(When Caranthir dies alone in Doriath he hums.)

Yet still, parts of them, snippets of melody, make it into his greatest work before he realises it. His brothers’ songs become the strands that make up the frame of the Noldolantë, because as much as Maglor says the song is about the downfall of the Noldor, first and foremost, it is about his family.

He begins singing them again only after they are all gone.

They sound sad at first, because even the happiest song does when sung by a sad man,

but they become happier the longer he repeats them, and he is happier because he is with his brothers again and that feels so much more real than the cold, wet sand and hard rocks under his feet, and the chill clinging to his ragged clothes and protruding bones. 

The songs become happier and then they fade away.

But still they are sung in Valinor, where all those lost souls return to eventually.

After everything that has happened, it is not easy to remember the person you used to be and even harder to know who you are now.

When Nerdanel welcomes back her sons, who stumble out of the Halls like frightened children once again, she hums a melody to them that, she too, had locked away in her mind for a long time before releasing it again, in the times when the quiet was oppressing and the absence of her family like a physical wound. She hummed it under her breath or sang it to the empty room to remind herself her son had loved her once. 

Her own song. Calm and steady, slow where her husband’s had been fast, and repetitive where his had been ever changing. In every repetition a little detail had been changed, chiseled away like the outer layers of stone, until laid bare was the first song her son had ever written, a simple, sweet melody gifted by a little boy to his ammë.

She hums this melody into her sons’ ears when she takes them into her arms again for the first time in millennia, when they still cannot quite believe her to be real. Later she sings them another song, theirs, unchanged by time like none of them are, and her words are sincere and not filled with cruel irony.

The Ambarussa are the first to pick their melodies up again, and they begin to echo them back to each other like they did when they first learned them, and they rediscover that they are not alone.

Caranthir hums his song under his breath, and remembers he does not have to keep all his emotions hidden, and that his outbursts had once not only been angry, but filled with laughter as well.

Curufin repeats the familiar words, and recalls a time when his sharp tongue had been a source of amusement rather than manipulation, and his sharper mind had sough to solve complicated problems instead of creating them. 

Celegorm stands in the woods and imitates the animal calls his song helped him perfect long ago- and the animals answer him. He listens and laughs without cruelty, and remembers what love truly felt like.

Maedhros, when he finally arrives, sings the melody carefully, and when he tries to recreate its beauty, he remembers what it felt like to be whole and at peace.

But while they have their brother’s songs they do not have their brother.

They wait and they keep singing, hoping against all reason that somehow it might reach him, bring him comfort that they are safe now, bring him back to them.

He never comes. And so they cling to their songs in a way they cannot cling to him, and once again the songs remain unchanged.

Not because they pretend to be the same people they were before, but because this is the last thing they have of Makalaurë. He never wrote a song about himself, after all.

[astradrifting]

GRRM really created so many parallels and foreshadow using the DoD characters that honestly we could just figure the asoiaf ending by analyzing it. My favorite is the Aegon III-D@ny parallels, the fact that one of his closest allies was a face-scarred Master of coin Lannister who ended as Hand to Bran' parallel character just make it so obvious its funny.

Oh my god I didn’t even realise Tyland Lannister was initially on the greens’ side! I’m not super fond of Tyrion ending up as Hand, but you’re right that it’s so obviously meant to reference him. There’s so many parallels that it’s a little crazy. I don’t want to say that the second Dance will end exactly as the first did, it’d be a little too neat if history repeated entirely, but you can see so many echoes of it even in the show’s bastardised ending.

“The broken, shattered realm suffered for a while yet, but the Dance of the Dragons was done. Now what awaited the realm was the False Dawn, the Hour of the Wolf, the rule of the regents, and the Broken King.”

(TWOIAF, Aegon II)

I’m not sure what the False Dawn is going to parallel to, it refers to the period of time after Aegon II’s death but before Lord Stark got to King’s Landing, when people thought that peace had finally come. It kind of brings to mind the War for the Dawn, though personally I think that the threat of the Others will be resolved before the Dance is over. The Hour of the Wolf is obviously about House Stark’s rise back to power, and the Broken King is Bran - though if he actually becomes known as Bran the Broken I might end up committing violence ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. 

The parts about Lord Corlys Velaryon are why I’m so hopeful that Jon’s book ending will be completely different from the show’s. He’s arrested for Aegon II’s death by Cregan Stark, even though Cregan had previously declared for Rhaenyra, because as TWOIAF puts it, “to kill a cruel and unjust king in lawful battle was one thing. But foul murder, and the use of poison, was a betrayal against the very gods who had anointed him.”

Corlys didn’t deny his guilt, and expressed no regret. “What I did, I did for the good of the realm. I would do the same again. The madness had to end.”

Cregan Stark declared him to be guilty of murder, regicide, and high treason, and he was sentenced to execution. But many spoke in his defence, even people who had fought against him in the Dance. Baela and Rhaena Targaryen, Corlys’ granddaughters and Aegon III’s half-sisters, convinced Aegon to issue an edict pardoning Lord Velaryon, which Alysanne Blackwood then convinced Cregan to let stand. Lord Velaryon was pardoned and even restored to his offices and honours, made one of the king’s regents and given a place on the small council.

Corlys’ words definitely could be Jon’s as well, a much more in-character declaration post-D@ny’s death than the drivel GoT tried to feed us. I was worried for a bit that this would be how Tyrion is let off scot-free, but Baela and Rhaena, who were vital to his release, are such obvious Arya and Sansa stand-ins, and they’re certainly not going to expend any effort in helping Tyrion. So Corlys’ circumstances more likely lays the groundwork for how Jon will be freed and remain in political power, while Tyland frankly inexplicably becoming Aegon III’s Hand after he was in favour of brutally killing him parallels Tyrion managing to fail up, as a way of reconciling the old regime with the new one.

This makes Tyrion becoming Hand more palatable IMO. Either Jon and Tyrion both should have been punished or neither should have been punished, not the travesty where Tyrion gets everything he’s ever wanted while Jon is exiled to a Watch with no purpose and a Wall that’s already half-collapsed, so what exactly can it protect against? I suppose they were afraid of seemingly rewarding Jon for killing d@ny, especially if pol!Jon had been revealed, but most people noticed how nonsensical his ending was, and it just led to ‘Bloodraven/Bran is the real villain’ takes anyway.

(Side note: Asha/Yara basically still being loyal to D at the end annoys me so much, and made no sense. Jon did more to help save her by giving Theon that pep talk than D@ny did. Maybe it was a leftover from her taking Victarion’s role in the story, but in no reasonable world is anyone going to listen to the Ironborn who brought the Fire threat over in the first place.)

Of course Tyland Lannister isn’t actually Hand for long, given that he dies barely two years later from Winter Fever, feared and hated, alone except for a maester and King Aegon. It might be an indication that Tyrion will face a similar fate, that he’ll die after he’s seemingly won, exactly what he threatened Cersei with:

“A day will come when you think yourself safe and happy, and suddenly your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth, and you'll know the debt is paid."

(ACOK, Tyrion XII)

So that I can stop talking about Tyrion, here’s some facts about Rhaena and Baela that are obviously meant to reference Sansa and Arya, so much so that it feels a little bit like GRRM is winking and going “See what I did there? Huh? Huh? Did you see??”:

- their descriptions: “Rhaena was slender and graceful; Baela was lean and quick; Rhaena loved to dance; Baela lived to ride...” + “Baela was wild and willful”, “more boyish than ladylike”, and kept her hair cropped short as a boy’s

- Rhaena spent most of the Dance in the Vale, where she lived in relative comfort as the ward of Lady Jeyne Arryn. Baela was a dragonrider and so moved between Dragonstone and Driftmark, but was captured on Dragonstone when Aegon II descended upon it

- Rhaena was favoured to be queen after her brother, considered more qualified than her wild sister

- Baela liked to spend time with “unsuitable companions” she would bring to the Red Keep - including a comely juggler, a blacksmith’s apprentice whose muscles she admired (!!!), a legless beggar, a pair of twin girls from a brothel, an entire troupe of mummers once

- After her brother’s regents tried to marry her to a lord 40 years older than her, Baela escaped the Red Keep by climbing out of a window, trading clothes with a washerwoman, then walking right out of the front gate. She ran away to Driftmark and married her supposed cousin (though more likely he was her half-uncle), the legitimised bastard Alyn Velaryon, which might have had me worried about j0nrya if Alyn weren’t best known for being a daring sailor who went on many voyages, including sailing the Sunset Sea, until he was finally lost at sea during Aegon IV’s reign. Alyn’s mother was also called Mouse, for being “small, quick, and always underfoot.”

- another fun fact about Alyn: he’s a bad haggler, and had to agree to a high ransom and many concessions in order to get Prince Viserys returned to Westeros. This automatically disqualifies him as a Jon stand-in, because as we all know, Jon Snow can haggle like the best of fishwives.

- My absolutely favourite detail that has my jonsa heart singing - Rhaena was more dutiful than her sister and would have married a man that the king and council chose, saying that as long as he was “kind and gentle and noble, I know that I shall love him.” She was able to marry her first choice, whom the regents didn’t immediately approve of but that they ultimately accepted  - Ser Corwyn Corbray, the brother of the Lord Protector of the Realm, a second son (!) whose late father had gifted him the Valyrian steel sword Lady Forlorn (!!!)

And as a treat for @istumpysk, some similarities between Rickon and Viserys II!

- the youngest child of their family

- separated from their older brother after they were forced to flee their home, trying to get to safety while their other brothers and mother were at war

- worshipped their oldest (half-)brothers, but were closer to the brother nearest their age

- spends the war stuck on an island, populated by people closely linked to their family’s origins - Skagosi are descended mostly from the First Men, while Viserys was on Lys, where the blood of Old Valyria still runs strong

- sought by/held hostage by a powerful and wealthy family, who will treat them well but whose intentions are dubious

- will be brought back from exile by an upjumped bastard/commoner from a port town who was raised to lordship and became their monarch’s chief admiral

- after they are returned, long after the wars and crises, is happily welcomed as the heir to their older brother’s throne (shhhhh just let me have this, let the baby live)

Thanks for the ask!

[forever-rogue]

Gotta another idea for you (I think? Don't know if I already submitted this)

Anyway.

"Take it off . . . Or I will."

Maybe the oc/reader is wearing something sarcastically or mocking - a hat, t-shirt, or what have you. And oc/reader would respond with "Make me" and it ended up a wrestling match of a sort then make out session?

Ohhh, I enjoyed this and I hope you all do too ;)

The Mandalorian Masterlist

»»————-　♡　————-««

He was supposed to be back within 3 days. 3 days.

It was going on 5. 5 kriffing days without your Mandalorian Tin Can.

Not you were worried. Sort of. Maybe. A little bit.

More so than anything else you were bored. Bored and stuck on the ship in the middle of nowhere. You couldn't even leave and go and anywhere. Luckily you had the small green bean with you but still.

You missed the grumpy, disgruntled Mandalorian. The kid was great and all but he even he was missing Din.

Part of you was wondering if he was doing on it on purpose, just to get a rise out of you. He'd done it before...just not, you know, for days.

Maker.

As much as you trusted him and knew be could handle himself, there was a tiny part of you that was worried. You hated the effect he had on you sometimes.

Normally you accompanied him on business, as his right hand...person. Friend? Partner? Lover? You'd never really put a label on your relationship, and sometimes it left you wondering. The line between just being work partners had become thinner and thinner over time and what had started off as a one time deal ended becoming a...very often type of deal.

You'd promised you wouldn't catch feelings. But that had happened a long time before your first night spent tangled up together. Not just for you, but for your Mandalorian too. The Mandalorian. Not yours. Just the.

But...kriff. Here you were. Missing him and worried about him. You'd get him back for that later. Now all you could do was wait for him to get back. You could go out and look for him, you supposed, but then you'd have to take the baby and you weren't about to subject him to anything dangerous if you didn't need to. And you had no clue what awaited you in the lawless land.

Instead you waited around. And waited. And waited. And cleaned the ship from top to bottom. Made some of the small repairs you spied. Made sure the weapons were pristine and properly stored away. You were tired - listless. But sleep wasn't going to come to you. It hadn't come in more than a few hours here and there since Din had left.

Instead you focused on your green bean, making sure he was bathed and had a full belly before trying to singing him softly to sleep. It took a while, but not long enough. Not long enough for Din to make a grand reappearance.

Once he was tucked safely into his pram for the night you found yourself wandering aimlessly. You sneaked into Din's quarters. Sneaked was a strong word; it wasn't like you weren't in there on a semi regular basis. But without him...it felt odd. Wrong even.

But you missed him, ached for him both mentally and physically. His presence was often the only thing that kept you feeling safe and sane.

Opening the door to the small space he called a wardrobe, small sigh escaped your lips at the familiar smell. No matter how often his clothes were washed, his scent always clung to them. It was comforting, reassuring in the times he was gone. Touching over some of the worn fabrics, you wondered what would happen if you happened to take a shirt and wear. It would only be for a little while...and you'd put it back before he came home. He wouldn't even notice.

So you pulled one of long sleeves out and quickly discarded your own shirt, opting to wear the Mandalorian's. Immediately you felt a sense of warmth and comfort wash over you. Maybe he wasn't there physically, but this was pretty close. It would do for now.

Eventually, despite the late hour, you were still wired. Maybe you shouldn't have had all that caf earlier, but it was too late to regret those decisions.

Instead you turned the holo-radio, playing some music softly as you danced around the hull of the Crest. It was a vain attempt to wear yourself out, and you were in nothing but Din's shirt and your underwear, totally engrossed in the music.

So engrossed that you didn't hear the ramp open or the purposely heavy footsteps of one Din Djarin.

Din chucked his gear onto one of the nearby crates, before deciding to wait and see how long it took for you to notice his presence.

While you didn't hear him, you could practically feel the gaze of his helmet burning holes into your back. When you finally turned to face him, his arms were crossed over his broad chest, his head tilted to the side. Kriff.

"D-Din! You're back," you almost stumbled over your own feet at you stared back at him. Your heart was fluttering as you tried to determine whether he was happy, angry, or...something. Your smile was flattering as you followed his gaze and realized he was staring at your chest, "oh! I didn't...think you were...coming back tonight."

"I said 3 days," his voice was rough and gritty, as tantalizing as it was when he was growling in your ear under the cover of dark while he was inside you. That alone was enough to send a shiver down your spine.

"Its been 5," your resolve was already weakening as he took a step closer.

"Exactly," his intense gaze was already starting to make you weak in the knees, "you should have been expecting me anytime."

"I-I-I..." you backed up but soon hit the wall and found yourself trapped, "didn't..."

"Is that my shirt?" he tugged at the collar with his gloved hand as you swallowed thickly. The room was filled with nothing but pure tension, sexual tension, as you stared at him wordlessly. When you remained silent, he roughly, although not hard enough to do any lasting damage, grabbed your chin and turned your face up to meet his, "I asked you a question, sweet one. Is. That. My. Shirt?"

"Mhmm," you mumbled as you looked at with the widest and most innocent eyes possible.

"Take it off," he said sternly. If you didn't know him, didn't know about your relationship with him, you might have been scared. But you weren't. You knew right where this was going. You gave him a defiant little look before catching him off guard and ducking out from under his arm.

"No," you insisted, sticking out your tongue at him, just to rile him up a little bit, "what are you doing to, Big Bad Mandalorian?"

"Take it off," his voice was low and dangerous as he came back to you, "or I will."

"That doesn't sound much like a threat," you raised your arms up, letting the fabric ride up and expose some of your soft bare skin, "come and take it off then."

"You are such a brat sometimes," he sighed before slowly stripping off some of his armor.

"And what about it?" you teased as he came over and you started to dart out of his grasp. But it didn't take much for his long legs to catch up as he wrapped an arm around your waist, and quickly flipped off the lights, leaving the Crest in darkness.

"Such an easy catch," he snorted as you tried to squirm out of his grasp laughing as you wrestled him to floor. Of course, if he'd been trying at all, he'd never let you get the one up on him. But he easily acquiesced and let you pin him to the ground as you straddled his waist. His large hands made quick work of pulling off your, his, shirt and throwing it onto the floor.

"Maybe I wanted to be caught," you grinned at him, despite the darkness as his hands found purchase on your waist, "I was worried."

"About me?"

"Who else, Tin Can?" you as you leaned down, hands going to the sides of his helmet. When he didn't stop you, you slowly pulled it off and set it to the side, "you were gone for too long."

"Getting all soft on me?" his rich, warm voice was like music to your ears as you leaned down and kissed him, finding his lips warm and soft, "I was fine."

"I am not soft," you instead as you kissed every part of his face before going back to his lips. A hand went to the back of your neck as he held you tightly against him, his own kisses becoming more and more heated. You paused for a moment, running a hand through his mussed curls, "just don't be gone that long next time. Or tell me if you'll be longer, or send a message or something."

"Fine," he promised as he pulled off his gloves and stroked your cheek. You keened into his touch before going back to kissing him again, "softie."

"Shut up," you insisted weakly as you held onto him as tightly as possible, already feeling relieved that he was back and safe in your arms, "I know you missed me too."

"How so?"

"You always do," you insisted, "I can tell- the way you kiss me. Its different and I can feel it."

"And what about it?" he repeated lightly as you groaned your hips against his, "tell me what you need, sweet one."

"You, Din. I need you."

"And then you shall have it."

[dabisburntsack]

Pay attention to me

Fandom: My Hero Academia

Pairing(s): Shigarki Tomura x GN!Reader

Genre: Fluff

Synopsis: Restless from your lack of attention to him in quarantine, Shigaraki takes matters into his own hands.

Wordcount: 2162

This is apart of a quarantine fluff collab done with the crackhead sanctuary discord server! Can’t wait to see how everyone’s fics turned out! This was fun to do I hope you all enjoy ٩( ᐛ )و

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Shigaraki was secretly enthusiastic after a mass pandemic had broken out in Japan, usually the two of you would not be able to see much of each other due to the danger of being caught with your profession as a pro hero and his as an extremely wanted villain. Now you had no choice other than to be wrapped in each other's embrace as chaos roamed outside the solid walls of your modern apartment. No one was there to judge you guys being together and the usual paparazzi outside of your residence had been resolved as people were not stepping foot outside.

However, what he didn’t expect was for the hero commision to still call you forward as an essential worker. Villains it seemed were still up to no good, even though Shigaraki had told the rest of the league to stay put and inside; lesser known villains had decided to make their own names known in the country's vulnerable state. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the times you were home you had steadily grown yourself attached to the retro nintendo switch gaming console. What the fuck was so good about animal crossing anyway? Did you enjoy spending time with that rat Tom Nook instead of him?!

Shigaraki was used to him being the gamer between the two of you, he enjoyed it as you pleaded for him to get off whatever device he was on at the time by smothering him with kisses till he gave into you. Sometimes he would even do so on purpose to get affection from you. Being on the other end of it though, was something he quickly learned he did not enjoy. Not being one to initiate intimate gestures in the relationship, he just watched you hoping you would notice him sulking and give in to him.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Sunday morning. No hero duties, just you and him, sleeping in till noon; but as his hand caught the coldness coming from your side of the bed, Shigaraki buried his head into his pillow and groaned. He could hear your padded footsteps going downstairs. Rolling over he yawned into his hand before checking the time, 8:45am. Why were you awake at 8:45am. Why was he awake at 8:45am on a Sunday morning.

Throwing off the sheets he winced as his feet hit the cold wooden floor of your shared bedroom, he was going to have to drag you back to your cocoon pile himself. Muttering, he walked his way downstairs before peaking into the living room to see you huddled on the

couch, switch in hand. Of course you were up so early just to go on that damn game.  

“Player two, what the fuck are you doing awake right now”

Your head snapped up like a deer caught in headlights as you saw your boyfriend's tired face leaning beside the door frame. Sheepishly rubbing at your neck you pouted up at him, “But Daisy Mae is selling turnips”

“Daisy who is doing what???”

“Daisy mae” You repeated bringing your switch up so he could look at what you were referring to “look at her she's so adorable, I have to buy from her I can’t make her sad by not buying”

Shigaraki looked down to your screen and blanked. There on screen was an orange little pig with a hat full of turnips, and standing by its side smiling brightly was your avatar. You got out of bed for a pig??? A pig selling turnips from its head...and was that a snot drop hanging from its snout?!!

He looked back up at you and if emojis existed in real life, he swore you would be the pleading eyes one with the face you were pulling at him. Ok, but who gave you the right to be so fucking adorable, he was meant to be mad at you for having woken him up so early!! Over a PIG!!!

“And why do you have to ‘buy turnips from daisy mae’ so early in the morning, you can do it later on”

“You can only buy before noon” You pleaded at him “Come on who could resist look how cute she is”

“I can be cute” Shigaraki huffed under his breath “Come back to bed, I’m tired and cold”

“Ok ok after this I will, you go warm it back up for me” You had already started slotting your switch in the port that hooked it up to the TV.

Shigaraki puffed out a breath but obliged and made his way back upstairs, waiting upon your arrival. Sliding back between the covers he peered at the doorway to your bedroom patiently to see when you would come back, however something about the warmth of the sheets and the way the mattress moulded perfectly into his back pulled him back into slumber in an instant however much he tried to fight it.

When he awoke again it was 11:15 and he was content to see you rolled up on his chest. He breathed out slowly, tucking a hair strand behind your ear, before kissing the top of your head.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Waking and sleeping at ridiculous times had seemed to turn into the norm for you after that however, as he once again caught you out of bed at 3am this time, when he awoke from feeling the coldness of your body not pressed up against his. He blearily rubbed his eyes with his forefinger and thumb before seeing a brief light flickering from downstairs through the cracks of your bedroom door. He threw his head back and protested, muttering under his breath on how much of a hassle you were, before pulling off the covers and making his way downstairs. Blinking at going into the light he found you once again curled up on the sofa, controller in hand and staring avidly at the TV screen.

“Y/N.”

“Yes?” You replied not taking your eyes off the screen.

“What are you doing awake?”

Well at least you had the dignity of alighting a blush that made its way up your neck and across your cheeks. You meekly turned your gaze to him ready to spring up your puppy eyes but he looked back at you with a deadpan expression. Still, you tried your luck by pouting at him and blinking your eyes in mock innocence.

“But shiggy there’s a meteor shower today and I had to watch it”

“It's a game, can't you do it in the morning?” Shigaraki sighed, being once more brought to weakness by your gaze. He couldn’t resist you, not when you were looking at him like that paired in an oversized t-shirt with a blanket draped over your head. HIS oversized t-shirt might he add.

“I have to do it nowww, the stars only come between 7pm and 4am”

Honestly he didn’t know how to respond, you really stayed up to watch a pixelated star fall from the sky. Is this how bad he was? He shook his head but couldn’t help at the slight smile that tugged at his lips. Making his way over to you he took off your blanket before wrapping it round the both of you.

“Lets see this damn star that has you awake all night then”

You beamed at him. He melted.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

With the days going by of you ignoring him for your switch, Shigaraki thought doing the same to you would be a good idea. But as it went on he couldn’t bring himself to carry on, he wanted your attention, and he had just thought of a way to achieve his goals.

Basing his plan on the night a few weeks ago when you had stayed up for that meteor shower, he dragged out an assortment of blankets to the old trampoline you had in your garden. Since that night he had decided if you so badly wanted to stay up for a stupid capatilist racoon, you could do so with him too and experience the real thing. He had gone ahead and checked the weather for when clear skies would take place for you guys to stargaze in your back garden, along with a nice dinner beforehand. He had already started cooking back when quarantine had begun trying to ease the load off you as you worked on your hero duties, and although not the best, his food was the least bit savagable now. (Although this did include multiple temper tantrums on his behalf and having to call Kurogiri to calm himself down.)

Coming back inside he checked on the curry he had left to simmer only to find it was burning. FUCK. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck, ten minutes away he looked up in exasperation at the mess in front of him, this wasn’t going well. The curry was burnt, the salad was old and the flowers he got you had disintegrated when he tried to move them into a vase as he wasn’t wearing his gloves earlier on. Maybe it wasn’t too late for Kurogiri to teleport some decent food his way…

As the door chimed from your arrival he hurriedly put down the plates and scratched at his neck, he didn’t usually do huge gestures in the relationship between you guys, that was more your thing. He showed his love in small ways, he liked touching you, having at least one body part pressed against you eased his nerves. Whether it be your thighs brushing against each other as you sat next to each other or feeling the warmth of your hand against his leathered one it never failed to put his mind at ease. This was long overdue, he wanted to show you how much he cared, if things would just go his fucking way the once.

“I’m home!” You called out, he knew your routine by now, you would go hop in the shower as to decontaminate yourself from any germs and then come eat with him before going off to spend hours on your switch. Well not tonight, you were his for tonight.

“Welcome home, brat”

His attention turned back to the utter chaos in front of him and he brought his forefinger and thumb up to massage the bridge of his nose. Picking up his phone with all fingers but his pinky he dialled Kurogiri’s number but stopped in his tracks as he heard a gasp in the room.

“Shiggy?”

His ears felt hot as he turned to face you, you were looking at the small dining table set up in the kitchen and looked up at him with tears in your eyes.

Shit.

His cooking really was so bad he had made you cry fuck this wasn-

“Shiggy you did this for me?”

...

“Well who else would I do it for”

The air was knocked out of his lungs as you flung yourself into his arms, he was still fearful whenever you made sudden movements on him as of his quirk but he relaxed as he noticed the leather adoring his hands was there.

“I had a bad day at work today, I missed you so much all day”

Shigarakis arms wrapped back around you as he buried his face into your hair. “I missed my player two aswell”

Staying in each other's embrace, Shigaraki hummed in content. “I burnt the curry by the way”

“It's the thought that counts, I’m sure it isn’t so bad”

It was bad. Shigaraki seemed to have missed out a lot of steps and he ended up calling Kurogiri after all, after eating and showering together (you had jumped straight into Shigarakis arms and needed to be clean from your day of work) Shigaraki grabbed your hand and tugged you outside.

“I thought we could stargaze together…” Shigaraki muttered out his ears turning red yet again. “Like you do with bob rook”

…

“Tom nook?” You laughed

“Yes the dumb racoon boy”

“Are you jealous of said dumb racoon boy?” You asked, amused.

“No” He replied too quickly, and was silent for a while before speaking up “You’ve been playing on that game a lot recently though”

“Finally got a taste of your own Medicine, have you?”

“I’m not as bad as you”

“I beg to differ”

He flicked the top of your forehead as you giggled and laid back in the nest he had built on your trampoline, before staring up at the sky. It really was a beautiful night to stargaze, the weather was pleasant too, with the warm summer air and no breeze. Shigaraki laid down next to you, laced his fingers with yours and brought them up to his lips, placing a chaste kiss on your knuckles.

“I love you”

“More than Tom Nook?”

Pretending to think about it you hummed. “Mmmm yes I think so”

“You think so?”

“Of course I love you more than Tom Nook dummy”

Shigaraki was quiet for a while before softly muttering out “I love you too”

[chosonore]

pairing: noritoshi kamo x f!reader

warnings: nsfw, oral sex, fingering, noritoshi is mean, begging, edging, biting? (he gives u a bite like once)

wordcount: 1.6k

here's a little (not so little LMAO) extended snippet of the little thing i showed @sukirichi !! at this point my doc is already at 3k words and it's just gonna become a mammoth of a series probably dhfusedsfkjf ENJOY

and you swear that he knows, he just has to know what a mess he's already made of you in such a short amount of time as he asks, "what's wrong hm? what do you need, baby?" and you fall for it, hook line and sinker. you think to yourself, fuck it, the opportunity is right there. he may be an insufferable dick and you might fight more than you get along but the opportunity is there and god, do you want to be selfish. you lean up to kiss him but he pulls back, clicking his tongue, repeating again and this time more firmly, "what do you need?" you can't help but stare at him, how his slightly damp hair frames his face, his chest that was exposed by the loosely tied bathrobe and how it revealed parts of his thigh. you want to see more of him, touch him. there's a burning feeling inside your chest, it's clawing at your skin, trying to break free. you grow more restless as he stays still and gives you a stern look until you grasp the hem of his sleeves and whimper quietly, "please kiss me."

it feels like an eternity until he presses his lips against yours, everything that is so unmistakably him floods your senses. his scent wraps around you until your brain can't make out any more coherent thoughts other than him. 'toshi, 'toshi, 'toshi, your 'toshi. he moves so languidly; his lips are warm and soft but bruising at the same time, kissing you with fervour. you begin to ease into the kiss, letting go of all your inhibitions. you could worry about it later, you'd decided, this is a future you problem. you wiggle in his hold, hands coming up to push at his bathrobe. noritoshi doesn't budge and continues to kiss you, sucking your bottom lip - your hands become more restless, desperate to touch him. he makes an unenthused noise, biting your bottom lip as if warning you to not push him. still, he somehow obliges and sits back on his heels, taking his bathrobe off and throwing it haphazardly to the side.

he looks ethereal, somewhere in the distance you think you can hear angels singing. you reach out to touch him again, earning you yet another warning glance from him. “where do you get the confidence to do whatever you want after that little stunt you pulled earlier?” he questions you in a low voice. whatever snarky remark you had on your tongue is thrown out of the window when noritoshi leans down to touch you, slowly pushing your oversized shirt up to reveal your shorts, then your bra. your breath hitches in your throat, you can’t tell what he’s thinking because even in this state he keeps his perfect poker face on. and when he undresses you, you almost feel embarrassed of how eager you were to rid yourself of your clothes. yet you feel exposed - noritoshi doesn’t make a sound as he just studies you as if you’re a luxurious meal presented on a silver plate, the sound of his breathing alone makes you squirmish. he doesn’t give you the satisfaction of a compliment nor does he let you know what he thinks, instead leaning down to kiss you again.

before you can deepen the kiss, he’s already moved down to your neck. you mewl in disappointment, wrapping your arms around his neck and burying your hands in his hair. this time, he lets you touch him, too absorbed in his mission to paint the skin of your neck in hues of red and purple. noritoshi moves lower when he’s finally satisfied with his work of art, you’re a great canvas, he thinks to himself. the burning feeling in your chest is flaring up again, you feel uncomfortably hot and the only relief you get is him touching you. he must know, he’s doing this on purpose. you’re convinced. a surprised gasp leaves your lips when his tongue swipes across your nipple before wrapping his lips around it. his fingers flick the other one and- oh god does it feel so electrifying, so delicious, so good. you moan his name, gently tugging on his hair as he continues his ministrations. “noritoshi,” you whimper, trying to grind against his thighs. “please- please touch me.” he moves faster than you can react, snapping the waistband of your panties against your skin.

“i am touching you,” noritoshi responds matter-of-factly, cupping your breasts. “is this not enough?” you shake your head, making him chuckle. he takes his sweet time, lathering your chest with the utmost attention. at this point you’re sure you’ve soaked through your panties and onto the sheets and you’re desperate. finally, his lips leave your nipple, his breath grazing them, making you shiver. he seems to enjoy it, enjoy the effect he has on you, how you’re writhing for him and him only. with swift movements, he removes your panties and your legs are thrown over his shoulders - how are his shoulders so broad - and he’s pressing kisses to your inner thighs. “look at you,” he coos, glancing up at you. “you’re so wet for me and i haven’t even touched you here yet. are you craving me?”

“yes,” you mewl truthfully, wiggling your hips slightly. you miss how his face lights up in delight, loving how you’re slowly but surely coming undone for him. he’s placing kisses everywhere but where you want him, where you need him. you’re at his mercy, he alone decides the pace. the desperate little tugs at his hair leave him unbothered, you can’t even move properly because he’s keeping a tight grip on your hips, holding them down onto the mattress. “do you want me?” you nod quickly. “then beg.”

"i'm not- i'm not gonna fucking b-" you don't get to finish your sentence as noritoshi gives your inner thigh a bite. "language," he hisses in irritation. "we can do this all night, baby. i don't have any qualms about keeping you here, making you squirm until you know not to treat me like that." to emphasize his threat, his hands languidly stroke your inner thighs, inching closer to your heat. goosebumps raise across your skin. noritoshi pays no mind to your laboured breathing or how you stare at him in disbelief. you would not beg him more than this, this stupid asshole, who does he think he is to expect you to do as he says? as if sensing that your attention wasn't on him anymore, one of his hands reached up to pinch your nipple.

you feel his fingers grazing your pussy, flicking over your clit but not quite touching it. yet the pleasure, coupled with the sharp pain of his pinching, is enough to make you delirious. you moan his name, hips rutting up slightly to meet his hand. noritoshi pulls away abruptly and makes you whine in frustration. "noritoshi!" you whimper again, closing your eyes in embarrassment. "please just- just touch m-" you feel another, harder pinch, tingles shooting straight to your core. "look at me," noritoshi growls and you open your eyes quickly, not wanting to disappoint him again.

"please touch me, please just… i need you, need your lips or fingers," you struggle to find the right words, huffing in frustration at your weak attempt to persuade him. "please make me cum, please. i'll be good for you, i promise, i promise. wanna be good for you." a sardonic smile graces noritoshi's lips, your begging music to his ears. he almost wishes you could see yourself like this - the yearning evident in your eyes, your beet red cheeks. what would you say? how quickly your resolve had crumbled, even though you'd vowed to yourself to keep him at an arm's length away from you. what's more heavenly to his ears are your moans and he intended to draw every last bit out of you tonight.

when his tongue finally makes contact with your cunt, a loud moan leaves your lips, you almost sob in relief. your thighs tremble slightly, threatening to close but noritoshi's quick to pry them open and delves deeper into your heat. he alternates between lapping at your folds, then dragging his tongue across your clit before giving it a suck. your hips rock against his face, meeting his movements as if it was already second nature to them. you think you see stars when you inch closer to your climax. tugging at his hair you whimper out his name, letting him know that you're close, so close. that's when he pulls away, smirking at you as your high slowly ebbs away. you make a noise in protest, brows pinching in frustration but noritoshi just coos at you condescendingly. 

"you seem to forget who's in control here," he tsks at you, dragging his thumb across your clit. your hips jerk. "but, baby, you look so pitiful, i might just feel sorry for you." hope sparks in your eyes when he presses a brief kiss to your lips before slipping his fingers past your folds, his thumb drawing circles on your clit. "ride my fingers," he commands and you react immediately, eagerly rutting against his fingers. you miss the dark glint in his eyes, the look that tells you you're not easily let off the hook whatsoever.

[manicr]

X-Factor: Daken

Since I did a development analysis on Daken in X-Men Blue, it feels only reasonable to do one for X-Factor, especially considering the the latest issue (#8). I had thoughts that I articulated in the tags, but I think I should try to put them together and look at Daken as a character in the whole of X-Factor.

Firstly, Daken isn’t recruited into the team, he persistently volunteers despite the objections of the team. He is presented passed out on the bar floor, drinking to deal with his feelings. Word of God states he’s depressive again and Laura being in the Vault is a big factor in that. Daken later confesses that he’s been “playing nice”, implying what he did was trying to be good and finding it a role, rather than natural.  His drive to join the team seems to be desperate to distract himself from his negative feelings, needing purpose and preoccupation.

However, very in-character, he excuses himself with flippant commentary, and the fact that he finds Aurora attractive:

He, as in XMB, makes himself useful to the team with his powers and instincts, despite them not being welcoming of his presence. He persists and tries to reach out to them, even if only a little, like he’s learned to do with his sisters and what we saw in XMB. He even calls them out on their bullshit against him, and tries to “be good”. The team still doesn’t trust him, and are bothered both by his flirtatiousness and his past villainy.

He actively pursues Aurora and gets himself thrown out of Mojo-verse, however his interest isn’t just romantic/sexual, but he wants to solve what happened to her when she died. He knows she’s not telling everything. He tries to be kind and reach out to her, not forcing her to say, but curious -- maybe having his own hypothesis on what happened. He knows something is off, and can’t let it go. Seems to care enough to want to help her.

Now were three issues in and Daken has been trying his best to help, reach out and fit into a team that is not very welcoming or accepting of him. Aurora is a fixed point of interest for him, and he tries especially with her. She seems flattered by the attention at this point.

Then the X of Swords event happens, essentially without Daken though he fights in the background, and we get our first major time-jump. That jump seems noticeable in text, as there seems to be a greater comfort and trust in the team as a whole, not just towards Daken.

At a party in the Boneyard, Daken talks with Polaris, trusting her enough to ask her if the kindness he sees is real It is, and it’s a bit of an alien concept to him still. He equates it with lack of intelligence “simple-mindedness” or faking it as an act to get ahead/mask whatevers beneath. Polaris mentions his childhood trauma.

Daken also takes some ribbing from Lorna regarding his past and glum attitude, but laughs it off, but we get some foreshadowing through it. Daken’s trauma regarding snow is tied together in XF, harking to a Dark Wolverine era trauma of him  as a child being forced to ‘train’ in snow by Romulus. It’ll repeat itself in XF again.

We also get to see a little of what Daken does on his spare time, drawing with charcoal: having finally found some other outlet than fighting, fucking and drinking for his feelings.

He also reaffirms his interest in Aurora, as well as his familial affection for Polaris. He shows off growth in being able to have different types of affection, to have family that he cares for when back in his own series he refused social bonds like family (in ref. to the Fantastic 4) and saw them as based on fear, social obligation, and naivete.

Themes of being trapped, trauma and abuse are repeated in XF by different characters -- it applies to all of them in different ways. The letter “Why didn’t you just leave?” that speaks of this.

It echoes trauma that Daken needed to deal with himself under Romulus control -- even when he was physically away from him. His character arch has been to find himself, and not just flippantly in his eat-prey-killing comment, but also a way out of the trauma of abuse and making himself ‘smaller’ lesser to fit with the living weapon Romulus wanted. To find and dare to feel, to feel worthy, and not fear some punishment from his abuser. Of course, this applies to so many characters in X-F, both sub-textually and directly like with Siryn and Shatterstar.

One of the major relationship changes now in the book is Daken and Northstar’s relationship. Northstar confides and trusts in Daken as a team-mate from previously having refused it. Daken in turn takes his orders and seems to want that trust:

This culminates in Northstar rescuing Daken when he was trapped and beaten by the Morrigan. And according to Aurora, Northstar is behaving towards Daken as a person he doesn’t want to lose, by yelling for him and checking on him. He explicitly cares for Daken now, even with the protectiveness he still feels for Aurora. The dying in the snow theme repeats it self.

Then there is Daken and Auroras long conversation about his powers, her feelings and his feelings. He reveals the limits of his skills and she insists on understanding, which seems to make him feel better about it. She empathizes with the burden of his skills, seeing the drawbacks.

There’s a lot of subtext regarding his relationship with his own powers, he outwardly uses them shamelessly but at the same time this implies that it’s far more fumbling, uncertain and emotionally harrowing for him. And that he’s willing to see that and feel that rather than see it as his right to do whatever or refuse his powers utterly.

The Morrigan fight is overlayed with a speech about trauma, highlighting how it directly relates to Daken. He’s traumatized. He’s been abused. He’s been rewired to be dysfunctional, to hide his pain and the suffering. And it makes him feel worthless, unloved, and that no one cares, has never cared.

Later, Daken acknowledges how poorly he felt, how helpless, and how suicidal it made him feel. Even if he thinks its hypnosis rather than his own real feelings. His description fit in with depression and trauma-related issues, the feeling over never reaching shore, of drowning, and helplessness combined with the negative-self talk, that no one cares, loves him, or will be there for him since he’s worthless and a burden. But also how he looks to Aurora for comfort to deal with that.

Generally this issue irons out issues of consent, the genuineness of both their feelings as well as Daken being more like a real friend and family member to the team, but also about revealing his trauma. To show that he is not alright, despite his flippant flirty exterior. He struggles with his past, his trauma and his feelings about himself, and the belief that he deserves to be loved, cared for and to belong. This is repeated in issue #8 which hammers these themes home once more. Daken is not alright, but he wants to be.

This is growth from early Daken who didn’t even want to admit to himself that he was abused and molded by Romulus, and using rage and hurting others as a way of dealing with his own feelings, as well as using others and himself because it didn’t matter, he didn’t and no one else did either.

The in the snow theme is repeated and his fervent desire to be saved, from everything, himself as well as everything and everyone that might harm him. He seems to believe that being loved by Aurora will save him. Which is not the healthiest approach to dealing with trauma but a very common one, latching onto other people, because he doesn’t yet have the sense of self or self-worth to believe in it unless someone else does too. This for most people a necessary step towards growing and getting better.

He also is still stuck in the abuse-trauma-victim cycle and blaming himself for being harmed, seeing that he’s somehow not being good enough and that’s why he’s being hurt. “I’ll be good” are the words of someone who has been hurt over and over again by someone who made them believe they somehow deserved it. That they were ‘bad’ and needed to be punished.

...then he is faced with the fact that he truly does believe this about himself, that he’s not over it, that he’s not yet free or saved from the feelings that the trauma left behind.

But then... he dies, self-sacrificing to save his team mates and the information they carry, knowingly risking up to a week of his memory and experiences. He uses Aurora as a morality pet, to prompt himself into action, excessive such even.

He is resurrected without the memory of any of this to the point BEFORE Northstar came for him. He knows he lost that. He knows from reports that he lost things, even if not the extent of it, and now the hurt and pain from DAYS in the snow is fresh again, without any help from Aurora to process it nor knowing for certain that she loves him, without being proved that his team cares and came for him in the end. He might now the latter in paper, but that’s not the same emotionally speaking.

So, he’s angry. He knows he’s lost things, he’s been hurt and killed. But he doesn’t have the comfort of resolving these things with his team like he did, not with his habit of hiding his pain, and feeling like a burden. So he fights instead.

So, where have we ended up at the end of issue #8 of X-Factor?

Daken has been accepted by his team, because of all of HIS hard work, reaching out and kindness

Daken has opened up about his powers and his suffering (though lost half of it to the mind transfer time gap)

He has established a relationship with Aurora with clear consent, affection, but not yet full transparency of their mutual pasts (again some lost from his perspective)

He is starting to realize that he’s not yet ‘over’ his own trauma and that he’ll need to continue working on it (some lost)

Daken isn’t a perfect character nor perfectly written, he was abused and shaped by that abuse and trauma into something vicious, that he didn’t dare change from for a long time. Instead he tried to enjoy it, to revel in it, rather than face the pain and grow. He hurt and killed a lot of people, including himself, and it’s takes years of development for him to start to grow past that old self. Getting away from Romulus was only the first step.

He needed people to make him see how fucked up he was and to motivate him to be better, from Johnny back in Dark Avengers, then Laura and Gabby, and then trying on his own, attaching to Donna for a while, before teaming up with the X-Men and then X-Factor and Aurora as support for himself. It’s pretty clear that on his own, he can’t do it, he needs help, support, structure and purpose -- as do the majority of people. I’d also recommend therapy, but he’s not there yet.

One day he might stand on his own feet when it comes to feeling good about himself and managing his own life. But right now he’s in a place where he needs a strong support system, not just his family and lovers but also friends.

[themetaphorgirl]

how to say “I love you”

okay so

this was actually inspired by this ask that I answered

and then I realized I could tie it into this post from @criminalmindsgonewrong

and then it exploded

(special shoutout to @f-m27 for letting me scream about this and reading it over!!)

----------

He forgot how to say I love you.

He didn’t do it on purpose. It just....happened.

“I love you,” he said to his father when he was tucked into bed at night.

“I love you,” he said to his mother when he came home from school.

His father stopped tucking him in, and stopped coming home, and after a while he never came home again.

His mother loved him, but sometimes she forgot who he was.

And he was too busy holding things together, sneaking out to the payphone with his mother’s credit card to pay the late power bill and buying groceries that he was too small to cook and working through classes with children twice his size.

And after a while, he forgot how to say it.

And then he went to school, and things changed.

He let Penelope borrow a pencil when she was trying to get her homework, and her last pencil broke, and she didn’t have a sharpener. All he did was hand her one of his. “Oh, I just love you!” she said, and he blinked in confusion, because it was just a pencil.

He said something funny without realizing it was funny, and Derek threw his head back and laughed, and tossed his arm around his skinny shoulders. “Aw, I love you, man,” he said. “You’re hilarious.” And he didn’t understand still, but he smiled because he’d done something right.

He was cornered by the bullies, because even here he was a target for kids bigger and older than him- but not smarter, never smarter, but smart could only take him so far. And JJ darted in between, pushing him behind her. “Pick on someone your own size,” she snarled, and when they left she knelt down, checking him for bruises and scrapes.

“Are you all right?” she asked anxiously. “They shouldn’t have done that, that’s not okay.”

“I’m fine,” he said, bewildered, because no one had come to his rescue before. But she took his hand and marched him away, anger cooling from red to pink in her cheeks, and he wondered why she decided to do that.

He got caught in the rain, hesitating behind the bigger kids as they watched the rain fall in gray sheets and the white sting of lightning shoot through the clouds, and eventually they made a break for it, trying to dodge the storm but losing the battle. They made it to the main building of the school, rainwater dripping from their clothes, and Emily ran her hands through his wet hair. “Shit, babe, you look like a drowned rat!” she laughed, and as she helped him wring out his blazer he thought he knew what she meant.

He couldn’t sleep, and he was stressed, and he wasn’t used to handling it yet like he was back home. He didn’t know how bad it was until a cup of water was pressed into his hand, and he looked up to see James. “You want to talk about it?” he asked, and he did, he did want to talk about it, and the words tumbled out like dropped marbles, and James let him speak until he was tired, listening intently, his body angled towards him and his eyes focused, and that was the kind of language he could translate into I want to hear you.

He was at David’s house- and he was never invited to people’s houses, ever, this was a first- and David was cooking dinner for everyone, and joy buzzed in his chest like honeybees, and that honeybee joy spilled out of him in facts and statistics in a steady stream of actually actually actually, and David didn’t stop him. “You know so much, I’d swear you’re Italian too, passerotto,” he said.

He wrinkled his nose, confused, and Emily tugged him to sit down on the barstool before he tipped over. “It means little sparrow, it’s a good thing,” she explained.

“It’s what we call our children,” David said, and he cupped his face in his hands and kissed both cheeks, and he beamed.

He was burning, fever crawling under his skin and twisting in his belly, and he wanted to lie down and sleep, but he couldn’t, he had other things to do and other things to worry about, he had grades that needed to stay impeccable in order to keep him in this school, he could sleep later. But Alex caught him by the shoulder, frowning, and pressed her hand against his forehead.

“You’re burning up,” she said, and he leaned into her cool hand, his eyes closing.

“I’m okay,” he mumbled, but she took him back to his room and tucked him into bed like the child that he was, and when he woke up calling for his mother that even in his haze he knew couldn’t answer, she held him on her lap and rocked him while he cried, and even though he couldn’t find words right then, he knew safe.

He didn’t know what to make of Hotch. There was a solemnity about him, an adultness that weighed heavy on his shoulders in an unspoken burden. But Hotch steered him quietly, unseen- prying his book from his hand when he stayed up late reading, scooping vegetables on his plate at dinner, replacing his hand-me-down clothes with new ones.

Hotch caught him in frustrated tears once, rolling off his cheeks in fat drops and plopping onto his homework, because a ten-year-old genius is still a ten-year-old, but he hated that he was crying, hated that he was acting like a baby, hated that he couldn’t stop.

But Hotch smeared his tears with his thumb, his dark eyes thoughtful. “You don’t have to do everything on your own, you know,” he said quietly.

“I have to,” he said, a sob catching in his throat like a trapped bird, suffocating him. “I always have to.”

Hotch shook his head. “No, you don’t,” he said. “You can rely on other people. You don’t have to be strong all the time.”

“I have to,” he repeated. “I have to, I have to.”

Hotch stroked his hair back from his forehead. “We’re not going anywhere,” he said, and he spoke with a firm resolve that said I have stood where you stand. “Let’s take a break from the homework, okay? It’ll still be here in an hour.”

He had forgotten how to say I love you. But he had to learn how to hear it first before he could say it back, and he had to say it his own ways.

He knew Penelope was upset, even though objectively he knew it was just a television show, and even if it was canceled she could always watch the episodes. But her mascara was running down her cheeks in dark rivulets as she cried at the dinner table, and he hated to see her so sad, so he got her ice cream, a bowl of vanilla soft serve covered in a million colors of sprinkles, and she smiled for the first time all day. “Thank you, cherub,” she said, squeezing his hand, and he smiled back, pleased.

He figured out how to come up with things to make Derek laugh. No one had ever thought he was funny before, but Derek did, and his laughter was genuine and warm and bubbling, and the warmth spread to him too.

He learned to write back when JJ left him notes in her tidy cursive, scrawling back things that were important and things that weren’t on intricately folded squares of notebook paper, and he looked forward to hearing what she was saying, and he knew she looked forward to hearing what he said too.

He still shied away from bullies, and once in a crowded hallway he ducked behind Emily, grabbing hold of her jacket. She looked down at him with a frown, then followed his gaze at the boys looking for him, and she wrapped her arm tightly around his shoulders.

“Stick with me, passerotto,” she said, and he could hear the pride and the concern in her voice, and his fear subsided.

He got stuck on geometric proofs after a long day and a sleepless night, the shapes and numbers and words blurring in his vision, and he crumpled up the page, splintering the edges into his fingers. But after a moment he smoothed it back, the creaselines making faded scars and softening the paper, and carried it to James.

“Can you take a look at this?” he asked.

James set his book aside, marking the page. “Absolutely,” he said, leaning close to get a better look. “Geometry? Oh, yeah, that’s the worst. Let’s make a little sense out of it.”

And James’s calm voice soothed his ruffled feathers and shone a little clarity like a break in the clouds on a dark day, and of course, it all made sense now, and his frustration melted.

He joined the chess club, and he met new people, but he was proudest when David sat down to play with him. David was all impulse and passion and risky choices that didn’t always pay off, but he was still good, though rarely good enough to beat him. He beat most kids, even the oldest kids, too full of youthful joy to hide his light and blend in.

“Where’d you find him, Rossi?” another senior complained, smarting at another loss to the hands of a child too small for his feet touch the floor when he sat at the chessboard.

“We found him as a baby on the steps of St. Thaddeus,” David laughed, but he hugged him around his shoulders and ruffled his hair and basked in his glow like a proud older brother.

He spent a lot of time in the library. It was quiet and safe there, warm lamplight casting comfortable shadows as he sprawled on the floor with a book. Alex walked up and down the aisles as she shelved books, humming rock’n’roll under her breath like hymns in a cathedral, and he was content. Sometimes she took a break to sit down in one of the armchairs with a book of her own, and sometimes he crawled into her lap, seeking comfort, and she gave it freely, making space for him in her arms without questions.

He found safety in his circle, and the anchor of his circle was Hotch. Without fail he stood by him, catching the little things that used to slip through the cracks. He never went to bed hungry. He never went outside in the cold without a coat. He never stayed awake worrying if the electricity might get shut off again. The ground had stopped tilting beneath him.

He sat in the common room, kneeling on the chair as he leaned on the table to finish his essay, filling the page with his messy handwriting as rain tapped on the window. JJ sat next to him, working on the same essay for the same class, while Penelope’s paper had become a page of swirls and flowers. Derek was stretching on the floor, complaining happily about how difficult his last game had been. James and David bickered good-naturedly over a chessboard; Alex read through a thick novel in French as Emily, bored, wove lazy braids in her long red hair. Hotch half dozed on the couch, arms crossed over his chest, one side of his headphones tilted off his ear so he could still hear what was going on.

Spencer looked at his paper and frowned. “Hey, Dad?” he said.

Hotch didn’t open his eyes. “Yeah?” he said sleepily.

“Tomorrow’s Thursday, right?”

His eyes were still closed. “Yeah, tomorrow’s Thursday, kid,” he said. “You still have another day to get that essay done.”

Spencer leaned back. “That’s what I thought,” he said. “Thanks.”

JJ tapped her pen against her lower lip. “Did Spence just call Hotch ‘dad’?” she said, grinning.

“And did Hotch just answer to it?” Emily said.

Spencer smiled as he went back to his essay. He still didn’t know exactly how to say I love you, but he was fairly certain they all understood him.

[tothebookishatheart]

When Calls the Heart: Season 8 Triangle Analysis (With A Bookish Lens)

The In-Love Experience vs. Real Love

        In Gary Chapman’s book, The 5 Love Languages, he identifies how a romantic relationship can change after a couple gets married. Love is essential to any romantic relationship, but Chapman makes a distinction between two types of love a person might feel in a relationship. There’s the “in-love experience,” and then there’s real, true love (p. 36). Although Chapman illustrates how both of these types of love can be experienced in the same relationship, I think Elizabeth’s romantic relationships with Lucas and Nathan each embody one of these types of loves specifically; as a result, one relationship is truly the foil to the other.

 The In-Love Experience:

          In Chapman’s book, the in-love experience is described as “a temporary emotional high” (p. 41). It is idealistic, euphoric, and is separated from reality. Viewers witness all three of these aspects between Elizabeth and Lucas in their dates and interactions.

          On their picnic date in episode 6, there’s a clear example of how the idealism of the in-love experience affects Lucas and Elizabeth’s relationship. During the episode, Lucas says, “Well, since our first date did not go as planned, I thought I need to try to make it up to her.” As a reminder, Lucas and Elizabeth’s first date was moved to Elizabeth’s backyard to stay close to Little Jack because he was missing her. Still, their first date had no shortage of romance (objectively speaking) with candles, compliments, a nice meal, and both admitting to a sense of happiness. They were also able to dismiss reality and be in the moment when Lucas made mention of Gustave coming to pick up their dishes the next day.

         For all intents and purposes, their first date was ideal, but, according to Lucas’s own words, it was something that required a redo. It wasn’t perfect. Why not? The only thing that prevented it from “going as planned” was the intrusion of reality, i.e., accommodating Little Jack’s needs and moving the location of their date. Now, I’m not pointing this out to imply Lucas is anti-Little Jack, but to say Lucas and Elizabeth are more in pursuit of the “temporary emotional high” of the in-love experience, not real love. When people are in that state, they are happy and content to be caught up in the romance of love – and, subsequently, there is a disassociation from reality.  

          Another example of the in-love experience is in episode 8, when Lucas is accused by Christopher of being responsible for Henry’s health scare and Elizabeth goes to his office to comfort him. In that instance, Elizabeth offers to stay so they can talk, but instead of talking they prioritize the euphoric feeling of physical touch with close proximity and a kiss on the hand. Again, Elizabeth and Lucas deflect reality by not discussing their thoughts and sharing their concerns on a serious matter.

            Furthermore, in episode 9, when reality finally enters their relationship, they still manage to avoid in-depth conversation. In this episode, Lucas and Elizabeth discuss Nathan’s Fort Clay revelation and Elizabeth’s reaction to Nathan’s second profession of love. In each scenario, one of them is emotionally impacted. However, they only talk about what happened, they don’t process their feelings together. In fact, they both prefer to do so individually. A similar occurrence happens in episode 7, when Lucas quotes “Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not.” Again, Lucas and Elizabeth talk about discussing and sharing secret sorrows, but they never actually share their secret sorrows. Alternatively, the quote signifies the start to them showing a physical display of affection.

          Truly, in the height of their relationship, Lucas and Elizabeth value and pursue the euphoric feelings associated with romance. Now, the in-love experience isn’t bad, it just doesn’t last. Basically, its emphasis is on feelings. But that’s not real love. True love. So, what is the difference between the two?

 Real Love:

            In episode 2, a heavy dose of reality enters Elizabeth and Nathan’s relationship when Elizabeth tells Nathan, “You want more than I can give you. It would just hurt too much if I lost you the way I lost Jack.” Later, in the conversation, Nathan professes his love for Elizabeth – and, in response, she runs away. I’m recapping all of this to say that reality is actually an essential element in maturing a relationship into real love. Reality needs to be acknowledged, accepted and worked through for true love to ever be attained. This is why Chapman describes real love as “a love that unites reason and emotion… (it) requires effort and energy. It is intentional and it is a choice” (p. 41-42).

            In episode 9, Nathan’s intentionality is on full display when he talks to Elizabeth about why he didn’t tell her about Fort Clay and his connection to Jack sooner. During the conversation, Nathan says, “When I found myself…when I found myself falling in love with you, I felt like I was betraying Jack and his memory.” In this sentence, Nathan pauses before repeating himself and declaring his love for Elizabeth again – and I find this very telling. In this pause alone, Nathan is making a choice. He’s been here before and the memory of professing his love only to be met with rejection is very real and present in his mind. Yet Nathan willingly makes himself vulnerable to her again. He makes a choice to love her and make his love known to her – even being aware that rejection could be waiting on the other side.

           Nathan continues, “I fell in love with you, and I think love is always worth fighting for.” Again, Nathan’s words emulate the true meaning of real love by Chapman’s definition. The first part of this sentence shows his emotion, but the second part emphasizes his choice. Nathan is choosing to love Elizabeth through everything - in spite of the less-than-ideal circumstances, his hurt and rejection. He’s not giving up on her and this commitment “requires effort and energy” (p. 42).

           Additionally, in Chapman’s book, real love is also described as something that “involves an act of will and requires discipline, and it recognizes the need for personal growth” (p. 41). This is amazingly reflected in episode 6, when Nathan has his “I’m not giving up” speech with Carson, in reference to Elizabeth. This is the point in the season where Nathan decides to pursue real, true love with Elizabeth. This is a choice that can only be made in the aftermath of reality. As Chapman puts it, “true love cannot begin until the in-love experience has run its course” (p. 42). (Yes, Nathan and Elizabeth have their own in-love experience, but more on this later.) From this point moving forward, Nathan has the resolve not to give up on Elizabeth, the discipline to persevere despite all the obstacles and external factors that try to push them apart, and a recognition that for their relationship to truly succeed, he has to be more open and vulnerable with her so she can truly know him. Nathan literally checks every single box, proving that his love for Elizabeth has matured into something deeper than it was before.

         This insight into real love, references back to episode 1, when Lee profoundly says, “Love isn’t just a feeling or an emotion. It’s a choice.” I believe this truly is the theme for Nathan and Elizabeth’s relationship as we see Nathan pressing forward into real, true love. But the question arises, what about Elizabeth? Where does she emotionally stand, now and moving forward? To fully answer that question and understand the dynamics at play in Elizabeth and Nathan’s relationship, we have to start at the beginning of their relationship.

 Elizabeth’s Struggle to Accept Real Love

           As I mentioned earlier in this article, Chapman states the in-love experience and real love can generally occur in the same relationship – it’s just a matter of maturing from one to the other when reality enters the relationship. This means Nathan and Elizabeth had their own in-love experience when they were falling in love. And yes, they fell in love in season 6 and 7. It might look differently from Elizabeth and Lucas’s in-love experience, but they definitely did fall in love. With every sincere compliment, word of encouragement, gift from the heart, show of support, moment of vulnerability, and deep conversation – they have fallen in love. And no, they did not need a single date to do it.

          I’m insistent on this because of Elizabeth’s reaction when reality comes into their relationship. In season 7 episode 10, the town is on high alert when a Mountie has been shot and it’s immediately presumed that it was Nathan who was killed. Elizabeth is distraught until she sees Nathan walking towards her – and overcome with emotion, with love, she runs to him and embraces him. This is the moment when Elizabeth realizes she loves Nathan; this is also the moment when reality first pushes into their relationship and Elizabeth’s fear is first realized.

          Logically, Elizabeth knew that Nathan was a Mountie, but it had never hindered their relationship before now. Until this moment, her focus was on her feelings for Nathan, wanting to be near him, and wanting him to be in her life. But when reality presses in, things get personal. Suddenly, Elizabeth is aware that she could lose Nathan, just like she lost Jack, and then have to endure the pain, grief and heartbreak of losing someone she loves all over again.

          In answer to this, her solution is simple: avoid her feelings. In season 8 episode 1, Elizabeth admits to this in her journal entry in the beginning of the episode. However, the more present Nathan is in her life and the more intentional he is in pursuing a relationship with her, the more evident it becomes to her that she needs to distance herself from him entirely. That’s why in episode 2, Elizabeth doesn’t want to discuss her decision with Nathan or engage with him emotionally, even if she can’t deny feeling the same way he does. She really just wants to leave and not process her feelings more than she already has.

        From this point, Elizabeth makes a very interesting choice. She doesn’t press into real love, like Nathan decides to do. Instead, Elizabeth emotionally regresses; she seeks out the “temporary emotional high” of the in-love experience with another man, Lucas. Now, there are two reasons why I’m defining the in-love experience between Lucas and Elizabeth as a temporary romance and not them falling in love.

         Firstly, Elizabeth’s feelings for Nathan never change. In his book, Chapman is clear that reality enters every romantic relationship, but sometimes instead of doing “the hard work of learning to love each other without the euphoria” couples “fall out of love” leading them to “withdraw, separate, divorce, and set off in search of a new in-love experience” (p. 41-42). It’s true, Elizabeth and Nathan separate from each other in episode 2 and Elizabeth starts a “new in-love experience” with Lucas in episode 4, but Elizabeth never falls out of love with Nathan. In episode 9, when Nathan tells her he loves her again, Elizabeth doesn’t respond – she just leaves, like in episode 2. But the second time Nathan professes his love, things have most certainly changed. Elizabeth is in a relationship with Lucas; they’ve been on dates, picnics and have been holding hands. If her feelings for Nathan have changed and she was now in love with Lucas, this would have been the time to say so. Instead, Elizabeth flees from Nathan just like in episode 2, and the strongest emotion motivating Elizabeth to run away in that conversation was her fear. Fear to love Nathan. Fear to lose Nathan. And, even 7 episodes later, her feelings have not changed. This fact cannot be minimized and this information even displeases Lucas when Elizabeth recalls the event to him in the same episode. It’s very telling.

          Secondly, Elizabeth never truly confronts reality. At the end of episode 2, when Elizabeth flees from Nathan, she is obviously emotionally distressed and, at the very least, she needs to give herself time to process her feelings. However, Elizabeth decides to pursue a romantic relationship with Lucas a relatively short time after. The timing suggests Elizabeth never really processed her feelings for Nathan, her fears, and residual grief over losing Jack. Instead, it implies that Elizabeth’s relationship with Lucas is a band-aid solution to avoid her feelings for Nathan.

         Additionally, Elizabeth’s fight with Rosemary in episode 9 makes it clear these things were not properly addressed. In her fight with Rosemary, Elizabeth says, “I never asked him to be noble. I never asked him to fall in love with me.” Now, it’s true the Fort Clay revelation stirred up Elizabeth’s grief over losing Jack prematurely, but it’s evident that Elizabeth is taking Nathan’s words personally. She’s defensive and bitter. She tries to blame Rosemary for encouraging Nathan because she’s terrified of her own feelings and Nathan’s feelings for her. In this conversation, all of the issues Elizabeth has put on the back burner are suddenly pushed to forefront and because she never properly addressed her feelings, Elizabeth’s instinctive response is to lash out.

           Moving forward from this point, Elizabeth has to process her feelings, decide to accept real love and choose to love Nathan in return. It’s clear her solution isn’t working. She’s hurting herself and those around her – and things can’t keep going on like this. But this is When Calls the Heart. Eventually, Elizabeth will follow her heart, pursue real love and “be with the person she’s meant to be with.”

 Cited Sources:

Chapman, Gary. The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts. Northfield Publishing, 2015.

[seancekitsch]

Intended: Chapter 2

warnings: none i think??? talks abt betrothals and gender roles, canon witcherverse stuff

You arrive at the gates, half starved and littered in cuts and bruises. You cling to the dagger like it is the one thing keeping you alive. Foolishly, you had not rolled up the bed roll and taken it with you, so now your back bends at an odd angle filled with exhaustion and discomfort. After a stern conversation with the guards at the gates, the people of Brugge welcome you in. Lady Venzlav, the widowed sister of the queen, taking you in like an adoptive grown daughter. First thing she does is give you a much needed bath. She gives you new dresses, ones that go to the floor and do not show off your riding boots, ones that are suitable of a lady of the court and not of a vagabond or a traveler. You get new plaits in your hair gifts of jewelry from men at court to replace what you lost and as an attempt at flattery or courtship. For all intents and purposes, you return to your old life. Only, it's not. Your family, your home; it's all gone. You struggle to find new friends, a new place in the court despite Lady Venzlav’s encouragement and the welcoming of everyone else. But there is a twinge of pity in their eyes, and you feel it when your back is turned, you feel it licking at your back like the flames that Cahir- stop. You are safe. You are in Brugge; You can reinvent yourself as a Bruggian. You can forget the knight and the week in the woods.

Exactly a month and six days later, you find yourself waking from your fifth dream of the night in the black armor and his soft smile that used to make you swoon. These dreams are bittersweet, reminding you of the future that could have been, what you almost had. But they also stir up his lies. Cahir had looked you in the eye, kissed you, laid beside you and held you in his arms all while lying to him. He kidnapped you, but somewhere deep down you knew it wasn't meant like that. You know that every time you practice in your chambers, swinging clumsily with the dagger, sloppy movements in the mirror alerting you to all of your inadequacies. It reminds you of what else he could have taught you.

Lady Venzlav is a nice woman, if not set in her ways. She encourages the book reading, the writing, all of which you always loved. She encourages music and dancing, which are fine. But it’s the scripture and the belief of a woman’s place that tend to upset you. She believes you should be a good and dutiful wife, demure and obedient once you are betrothed to a suitor. She proactively considers you betrothed in her mind, and has been watching you closely. Had she known there was a dagger concealed in your stays when you had entered through the gates, especially a Nilfgaardian dagger, she would have had it destroyed. This was your big secret, one you were sure you'd be punished for if anyone were to catch you practicing combat with a weapon belonging to the enemy. The dagger feels heavy in your hand, it's a comforting heaviness, one that feels like safety and comfort. One that you can hardly bear to think about, for it reminds you of an embrace by a campfire. You're confident in your abilities, as clumsy and foolish as they might look. You had a good teacher, that you couldn't deny, and you know with practice you will only be better.

The dagger keeps your mind at bay. Your slashing and weaving in the mirror with a torn chemise and stays you kept hidden from Lady Venzlav making you feel strong and self sufficient like being on your own had made you feel. Lady Venzlav had been less than subtle about taking up your parents' mantle of having you married off sooner rather than later. Your status of a spinster did make you a questionable wildcard at court, and she already had several prospects for you. A small charity, she was going to let you pick from the possible suitors; all of them twenty years your senior, known for being womanizers or brutish, all abhorrent in their own special ways. Of course this is because you are an outsider. Although you may adopt the identity of being Bruggian, you are not, and you will not be afforded the luxury of a choice of Bruggian in your marriage prospects. Not that you mind better choices either, you intend to snub them all as you did the suitors in Cintra. Before your heart belonged to you alone, but now you fear you may have left it in the woods. You angrily throw the dagger to the ground, huffing at the thought of being resigned to the title of wife.

Cahir wanders alone. Heading slowly east, but mostly hoping to avoid any detection. He knows, should he be found to have failed his mission, to have failed to bring Cirilla back to Nilfgaard, makes him an enemy and a fugitive in his own right. He faces imprisonment, possibly execution, if he returns home. Truly, if he had just let the woman go, sent her to another kingdom or let her to her own devices, he might have been able to find Cirilla before she found herself with the witcher. He might have been able to succeed in the quest and been able to bring her to Nilfgaard, where he would have been rewarded and maybe even given a shiny medal or some other trinket that seems inconsequential now. But he knows that slim chance dried up like a stream in a drought, and now he walks in hopes of finding you, the one living soul on this continent that he would feel safe seeing, and even then you might run him through with that dagger when you see him. Cahir knows he would not blame you if you tried.

He had never, truly, intended you the harm or heartache he caused. He had realized the moment he entered Cintra that there was no good reason whatsoever a man like the emperor would want a little girl. Cahir always longed to be a knight, like the ones he would read about in legends and would play pretend as when he was a child. He wanted to be a hero, to help someone and be dashing and put his life on the line and return home with a hero's welcome where a nondescript beautiful lady would give him her favor and they'd fall in love, just like in the books. When he saw you, savage and hardy, the face of the woman he imagined as a child came into focus, features unblurred, sharpness set in. He knew he had to save you, even if he didn't fully realize what he was doing yet. He realizes the moment you leave that knighthood is no longer on his list of priorities. The moment he wakes up alone, his priorities in life become a humble one, wanting nothing but to be back by your side and to make you happy. Cahir is a realistic man, however, and knows traveling must be done by moonlight, and that if he is truly going to defect he must lose this armor somewhere along the way. He has been shunned from three towns he tried to search for you, and hopes none of them were where you were. There was one where he was able to work for a horse, and now saves his muscles riding. He has a good feeling about the next country over, about Brugge. This is where he heads now.

“Cahir, I mean to ask,” you start, a little nervous. What if he wasn't the man you knew him to be? The armor he wore did not reflect the gentle man he was. He nods, encouraging you to keep talking as he carves the fish he had caught earlier for dinner.

“Why don't you have the Nilfgaardian accent? You have the armor. You look the part, but you don't sound it.”

At your words, his posture straightens, a look of pride flashes across his eyes as he sets aside the fish to talk with his hands presumably.

“Ah,” he begins, “Beauty and extremely perceptive. That's because I’m not Nilfgaardian. I’m from Vicovaro.”

“Isn't that one of the Nilfgaardian vassals?”

“Yes, but it is also so much more.”

You can tell that this is a point of pride for him in the way he can't hide a smile, and the way his hands are already gesturing before his thoughts are fully out of his mouth. You fiddle absently with the hem of your skirts as he tells you of the beautiful sunny shores, the memories of the sun tanning his skin as a child, the magnificent sprawling schools, the beautiful ancient castles and lush greenery.  He’s proud of his mother’s homeland and to bear her name along with his own. There is a difference between Vicovaro and Nilfgaard, how silly you were to not know it before.

“Vicovaro,” you repeat, tasting his home on your tongue. You'd only known Cintra, though you know you weren't a born Cintran. The cold and wind didn't suit you, often spending the winter months hiding indoors by a fire and writing away in your journals.

“Maybe one day I can take you there,” he offers, truly meaning it.  You scoot closer to him, curling your fingers around his palm and bringing it to your lap.

“We could make it home,” you say, equally truly meaning it, “I’d follow you anywhere, Cahir.”

You lean in for a kiss.

Lady Venzlav’s screaming in the hall outside your chambers snaps you out of your memory. You scramble to hide the dagger back in your stays as her voice gets closer and what she says becomes more clear.

“It’s the army! The Nilfgaardian army, they’re riding to the gates!”

Again? Again you must flee from this army? Again you must watch your home and all of your belongings burn around you. Not this time, you resolve, you will not go down without a fight. There's no knight to kidnap you and spare you from whatever fate you face and that's how you want it. You tighten the laces on your boot and move across the room to fling the door open to find the lady your mentor.

“Nilfgaard is here? At the gates? We must fight!” you exclaim, head swiveling in search of anything to rip off the walls to help arm other women of the court if you were to need it.

“We must hide,” the older woman counters, no doubt remembering the sacking of Cintra, no doubt remembering the friends she lost. You decided it best not to tell her of the knight that helped you from the flames and the letter opener you’d swung screaming like a banshee and his gentle care in guiding you from peril, despite how you hope you'd never see him again, nor do you care what his fate might be.

“If hiding does not work, we need to have a choice,” you spit with finality, the scar on your collarbone looking garish in the torch light and reminding the good Lady Venslav of what you’d seen. She nods solemnly and goes further down the hall, no doubt to alert the other ladies of what they must do.

You, however, run to the window of the staircase at the end of the hall, the only one that gives you a view of the gate. There is exactly one knight on one dark horse making his way to the gate. Nilfgaard would never send just one soldier, you think, they are not in the business of parlay or envoys before an attack.  It has to be a trick, a trap, a diversion, but why? It's not any of those things, it dawns on you, and your heart lurches into your stomach. It’s him.

You descend down the stairs in a fury, blindly pushing past guards and other nobles on your way to any level that will grant you access and force your way through until you reach the servants kitchen. There's always an exit in the servants kitchen. You untuck the dagger and hold it tightly in your hand, like a lifeforce in its own as you push through the heavy door that leads to the grounds. The grass is muddy, no doubt from the cold misty rain of the evening, and your boots sink slightly, slowing down your hellpath to the knight.

He immediately spots you, skirts flowing and the same ethereal anger following you as the night he met you and the night he lost you. He halts his horse and waits for you, a smile gracing tight lips despite the snarl he sees on your own face. You stop several feet away from him, the man you visit every night in your dreams but  haunts your waking thoughts.

“Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach,” you address him with his full name, commanding attention you've already won.

“At your command, my lady.”

[rubykgrant]

(Carolina)

The first video plays for them all, automatically.

He’d set it to some kind of timer, they aren’t sure how he figured out how long to make it last… had he actually calculated the exact right amount of time it would take for them to win the fight? Even with all the unknowns and variables? It doesn’t seem possible, but it also seems to be what happened.

There was just enough of a pause when the battle was over for them to barely catch their breath, and start to feel cautiously optimistic. They did it, they won. In fact, that is exactly what he tells them.

It doesn’t feel like a victory.

The first message plays for them all automatically. They don’t have a choice but to listen to it. Carolina and Wash hear it together, Doc hears it alone, and the rest of them hear it as a group. When he’s done talking, and what just happened starts to sink in, they each notice they have another message waiting for them… from him. Individual messages, sent to them all. These need to be opened and played voluntarily.

None of them play these videos. None of them talk about it, either. Because of this, they don’t even realize he sent a message to ALL of them. They wonder, why did I get another message? If they listened, they would have their answers… but none of them do, and none of them talk about it. Perhaps if they did, things would have happened differently. They would have seen that he had, in fact, said good-bye to everybody. They would have understood how they each felt about this situation a little better. They would have made different choices later. Instead, they don’t talk about it, and they don’t listen to the messages…

Carolina doesn’t watch… because it doesn’t just “hit too close to home”, it is a bulls-eye. This is EXACTLY what HE did. He watched HER final message, over and over and over again. Almost constantly. When he wasn’t literally replaying it, it was still on repeat in his mind. Carolina can’t do this. She won’t. She REFUSES.

This message was mostly likely just a copy of the original, one to watch again of somebody wanted to… she does NOT want to. Church should have KNOWN that. He had gotten to know her very well during the time they spent together. It had been a rocky start, certainly… Carolina had been in no mood for making new friends or mending old connections. Mood aside, she was out of practice. In her time spent hiding, she had avoided any close relationships. Casual acquaintances was pushing it. She kept a low profile. A cold demeanor. It suited her purposes, and had worked just fine… then all THIS happened; Wash, the absolutely irrational group of Sim Troopers, and Church.

Church was just as stubborn as her, and a loud-mouth on top of that. She could scream at him, threaten him, or try to ignore him… he still wouldn’t shut up. The most annoying part was, sometimes it was nice listening to him. He also kept tricking her into having a conversation when she had resolved to shut him out; he’d either keep pushing her buttons until she finally snapped at him, or he’d say something that was so stupid it surprised a laugh out of her. Once he knew how to do that, Church became even MORE annoying. Once she realized keeping quiet wasn’t the right way to deal with Church (he just filled the silence with his own voice), Carolina would talk back.

They talked about a lot of things, and to be fair, Church was kind enough to leave certain subjects alone… or at least, he didn’t force her to keep re-opening old wounds that still hurt. Instead, he had basically tricked her into talking again; he’d say something regarding one of his own memories, and it would prompt a response from her. He was a jerk like that, either making her mad or making her laugh when she didn’t want to do either… until she eventually DID want to talk to him, and say something to make HIM laugh, and share a memory of her own. She got to know him very well too, and then one day Carolina realized… they trusted each other, and they liked each other. This was an actual friendship. This was the closest thing she had to “family” in… a long time.

Church KNEW how she felt about them; her father and her mother. He KNEW that. The had talked about it, and he had BEEN THERE. Church was right with her when they had found the Director, her father, the man that had “created” them both. Carolina had wanted to kill him, and so had Church. He had hurt them both, as well as countless others. He had destroyed so many lives. When Carolina saw him in the end, she couldn’t do it… he was already broken, ready to give up. She couldn’t “forgive” her father for what he’d done… but she could let go of hating him. He couldn’t let go. That was what REALLY killed him. She saw in his eyes; he finally realized he’ll never get what he wants, and now he sees no point in staying alive. Carolina wasn’t going to kill him, not now… but she wasn’t going to stop him either.

Why hadn’t she been good enough? They BOTH lost Allison, Carolina had lost her mother, he had lost his wife… but he still had a daughter. She SHOULD have still had her father. He didn’t care about her. Not enough. Not in a way that really mattered. Why not? For a long time, Carolina had thought there was something wrong with HER… a small child, thinking she had to prove she deserved to be loved. A teenager, and then a young woman, pushing herself beyond her limits, just to feel like she matters. She had to be the BEST.

It was like she had tunnel-vision, only able to focus on ONE thing, and not see the world around her. Obsession. When you have a family history of a problem, you had to be careful. It might not be a problem you have, but there was a chance. Carolina had truly followed in her fathers foot-steps for a while… so focused and selfish… she had to stop. She had to let go of it, for herself, and everybody else who would ever be around her. She had to change. Church knew that, and had even helped her change.

He had known her very well… so why… WHY had Church done THIS? Give up his life, and behind a message… Church had somehow combined both of the most painful memories of her parents into ONE. When the message played the first time, Carolina started crying. For the first time in a long time, she didn’t try to hide it, either. Her eyes stung, her nose started running, and she sounded like a kid bawling over a skinned knee when they fell of a bicycle. She’s been through pain before, emotional and physical… this shouldn’t hurt so much, but it does. It hurts.

Carolina doesn’t talk about this, because even that will remind her too much of Church. He’s not here to annoy her, argue with her, or trick her into laughing. She’s just angry. Angry at him for leaving, angry at herself for not being good enough, angry at the others for letting him do this. She can’t talk to anybody, and she won’t watch this other message. She REFUSES.

[snowflake-of-destruction]

A House Divided

A little, silly kidfic Sorikai for the soul, and for @shaky-mayhemm

Note: The more times I try to change colors of the first letters of the first words in each paragraph, the more formatting glitches and scrambled paragraphs I get, so see if you can get the “oh so secret message” without it being completely pointed to.

Selphie was at fault to start with, though, if she was going to be ascribed the blame for the hurt feelings, she would have to be given credit for starting some wheels in their lives turning, which Riku and Sora both agreed she did not deserve, even if Kairi was more magnanimous. Thus, it became a habit just to talk of conversations and promises made when they were too young to fully weigh choices. Still, the most accurate account begins with: one day when they were all young-- too young to even be allowed to swim in the water surrounding play island without an adult in the surf with them--if that gives perspective--Selphie, to everyone's surprise, scored the winning goal in the game of land-blitzball the group of them were playing in order to decide what game they would really spend the day playing, and chose, to absolutely nobody's surprise, house.

How it went down, everyone accepted their fate and divided into family units with minimal grumbling, phrasing which means that Wakka threw the blitzball into the sea and lost it forever when Jecht--the parent chaperone on play island that day who was five minutes away from falling asleep on the sand and typically didn't care what they did, unlike most parents who at least had restrictions about not hitting each other in the head with wooden swords or throwing sand--refused to go into the water after it. 

As it was, the game mistress, Selphie, who should have, by all rights, been content, found a problem with Sora, Riku, and Kairi's family. Specifically, she didn't like that the family was Riku, Kairi, and Sora all together parenting a yellow coconut Kairi was trying to rock to sleep while Riku built him a bed out of sand and palm fronds and Sora cooked dinner for the household--a savoury stew of sticks, sand, and mushroom. She stood with pursed lips and hands on hips, and declared that their proud coconut son, Rekka, couldn't have all three of them for parents because that wasn't how things worked.

Kool-aid stain lips pursed and Sora asked, with all the curiosity and innocence of a child, “Why can’t it work that way?”

Yearning to prove his maturity, Riku tried a more practical, solution based approach with, "Can we change the rules?"

Madly defending her rights as alpha-female of their friend group, Kairi was more direct and firm, her, "It does if I say so," leaving very little room to argue. 

Already invested, Selphie stuck firm in her first assessment, voice gaining volume and rising in pitch to an affronted shriek that doubled down on, "It's just not how it works!" that was rooted in fear that they were trying to sabotage her game on purpose and embarrassment at being left as a single mother since Tidus and Wakka had happily coupled up and were introducing a piece of driftwood they had named Chappu to the newly dubbed Grandpa Mark IV Jecht who "just wanted a damn nap."

Young Sora provided the counter argument of bursting into tears while Kairi used every bit of her clout as the girl who had fallen out of the sky last year to put power behind the statement that she was going to launch Selphie to the moon, which caused Riku to wrap his arms around her from behind in a combination restraint and hug as the glare that he leveled at Selphie over Kairi's shoulder as he repeated his request to change the rules said that, while he'd stop Kairi from launching Selphie to the moon, he was just as upset by Sora's crying and would bury her in the ground. 

Heroic duty calling him to intervene, Tidus left Chappu in Wakka's expert care, reminding him to support the baby's head, and padded over to see what was the matter. He proceed to have the situation explained to him by an increasingly agitated Selphie who refused to admit she was wrong when the other three were cheating and leaving her with no partner to raise her baby with after she'd won fair and square, and, in the end, took Kairi, Riku, and Sora's side. "I have two dads and a mom. It happens in real life. Isn't that right dad?" He yelled the last words and Jecht gave a thumbs up, undoubtedly having no idea what he was agreeing to and not caring.

Even presented with such evidence, Selphie stayed strong, however. "Your parents are dee-vorced and your dad second-married your Papa. You don't have two dads and one mom all in the same house together. That would be chaos!" She threw her arms out to demonstrate the extreme degree the universe would be thrown off by the anarchy of two dads and one mom all living together, "And a couple is a two. When you ask for a couple of cookies even if you want three cookies you only get two cookies."

“My grandmother always told me three cookies will make you sick!" Kairi argued, "So it’s because of stomach aches, not because a couple equals a two!"

“Mmm, no, she's right." Riku's arms slackened their grip on Kairi and defeat entered his voice. "A couple means two. Three is a few. Miss Rosa taught us that grammar rule." 

In wake of that knowledge drop, the argument ended there. Riku was one year older and had been taught a great many things in school the rest didn't know yet, which made him a Trusted Authority. If he knew the rules, those had to be the Enforceable Law. Riku would have liked to lie, especially when Selphie started dragging the still distraught Sora away by his arm to be her husband and pick out a baby with her, but he couldn't compromise his Trusted Authority status. He also ruled out revenge when Kairi suggested throwing Rekka at Selphie's head ("I'm allowed. We're both girls.") both because the plan could "trauma-ato-rize" baby Rekka and cause one billion years of therapy but also because Selphie was not being mean. She was right. The three of them would never raise a baby together, or be married, or be a couple. A couple was two.

Luck decreed Sora and Selphie would divorce after fifteen minutes when Tidus and Sora started using Chappu and Sora and Selphie's baby, Spaceship Train, as swords in a fight over a spot of beach where both wanted to build a vacation home to get away from the hustle and bustle of the beach ten feet away. After a brief huddle, Riku and Kairi divorced amicably so Kairi could marry Sora with the promise that they in turn would divorce soon so Riku and Sora could get married. This triggered a new round of accusations of cheating and renewed fighting until Jecht was forced to intervene and decree that they could either all find a way to get along or he'd row them straight back to the main island. The children meant to choose the former, but the latter came true sooner rather than later

On the way back home,  Sora, Riku, and Kairi were especially subdued, each lost in thought bigger than child brains usually were forced to hold in an afternoon of beach play. Sora was absorbed in planning how to train a pet dolphin, but Riku and Kairi were both still  consumed by melancholy at the revelation about their future, or the restrictions on it.

Very carefully, Kairi traded spots in the boat, going from sitting beside a sulky Selphie, to hanging on to Tidus, to slipping beside Riku. He smiled at her, obviously faking, so she wasted no time in giving him a reason to smile for real. “You and Sora have known each other longer. You two should get to be the ones who get married when we grow up.” She had decided it, and when she decided something, she made sure it happened.

“Even if you knew you would always-and-forever-pinky-promise mean that, it doesn’t mean Sora would agree.” Riku replied after a too long pause, his face shifting into a frown that added centuries not just years to his rounded baby face. “You’re pretty special, Kairi, and pretty pretty too. He might choose you.” He knew then that he’d choose Kairi for himself over just about anyone else, using forever stakes as puppy-love often did when forever to the young mind often only lasted as long as five minutes (or ten, if you counted five as merely an eternity, less than forever).

“You know I can hear you,” Sora grumbled. Everyone could. Sora was just the only one that still cared about deciding how the friends would avoid becoming an illegal trio. “I should get to decide for myself.” Sora sucked in air to puff out his chest. “And I choose that I won’t choose. We’re going to all stick together, and we’re going to be a family. You two have to promise. Nothing can take us apart, and, even if it’s wrong, then we all go to jail together.”

On the bench behind him, Riku and Kairi shared a look, searching for one another’s reactions before forming their own. Riku was the first to nod, and give his word, clenching and unclenching his hands. “I’d make sure only I went to jail to protect the two of you.” Kairi screwed up her face like she was going to argue, so Riku took her hand to hold and squeezed it. “But it should be the three of us together. If you marry your very best friend, I have two of them now.” He paused again and waited, not getting the chance to say more when Kairi and Sora expressed their agreement by jumping to their feet and setting the boat to rock and Mr. Jecht to yell.

Undeniably, it wasn’t the most thorough or well informed discussion, and there were times where the childlike resolve that it was always to be the three of them equally, inseparably, and united in commitment (may the first to change their mind be launched right to the moon) was replaced with doubt or temporary jealousy, but all three would pinpoint that day as an early memory of being faced with the heartbreak that came trying to imagine a life not lived as one--and, yes, grudgingly, they would consider thanking Selphie for making them play house.

[formula365]

A thing of the past - Bahrain GP review

In 1973, the Formula 1 season closed with the US Grand Prix at Watkins Glen. The title had already been decided in favour of Jackie Stewart, who had secretly decided to retire at the end of the season, and leave the mantle of leading driver of Tyrrell to his teammate, François Cevert. Stewart would leave at the peak of his powers, with 100 GPs to his name, tired of seeing friends die on track. It had been a dark era for the sport, and there had been an impact on his and his wife’s mental health. It had taken too much of a toll for them to bear it any longer.

As fate would have it, they were in for another sad ending. On the Saturday practice session, Cevert lost control of his car in the Esses, hit the barrier on one side and was sent careening towards the barrier on the other side at an 90 degree angle. The second impact ripped the barrier from the ground; Cevert was killed instantly, from injuries caused by the barrier that was meant to save his life.

A lot has changed since those days, and Stewart was one of the men who most contributed to that. After retirement, he lead a campaign for improved safety in both tracks and cars. It took time for safety to arrive at today’s standards, but F1 can now boast an incredibly positive record. Despite some big shunts, only one driver lost his life in the past 25 years. People like Stewart, Charlie Whiting and Dr. Sid Watkins were instrumental in achieving this remarkable record, and the changes they campaigned for have saved many drivers. 

Romain Grosjean added his name to that list yesterday. As the replays of his accident hit our screens, and the carcass of his survival cell became visible in the wreckage, it was clear that the barrier had given in. His head would have gone straight into the upper section of the barrier, at a speed of over 200km/h; just like his countryman 47 years ago, the car headed to the barrier at close to an 90 degree angle. Had it not been for the halo, the last great measure championed by Whiting before his untimely death, Grosjean would surely not have survived.

But for all that was impressive in how the car, the marshals and the medical car protected and ultimately rescued the driver, there are questions to be asked, particularly about the barrier. Improvements in barrier technology were one of the most important steps towards driver safety; accidents like the one that killed Cevert showed the importance of improving the design and build of the barriers to ensure that they could sustain heavy impacts without breaking apart. Barriers that were supposed to save lives were taking them instead.

Which is why we have to question what happened to Grosjean’s car. The similarities between Grosjean’s and Cevert’s crashes are inescapable, and in both cases the barriers failed to do their job. Yes, the halo saved Grosjean’s life, but the main point should be the fact that the halo should not have been necessary at all. If the barrier had fulfilled its purpose of absorbing the impact and throwing the car back out, the halo would have played no part in this crash at all.

To make matters worse, the way the fail structures of the car are meant to work, once the survival cell was stuck in the guard-rail, the back of the car had nowhere to go and, as it’s meant to do, it split from the monocoque. The violence of the impact and the fact the chassis was wedged between sections of the barrier probably led to the break happening further back in the car structure than it should. (I am in no means an expert in this, so take this sentence with several grains of salt) This, in turn, led to a fuel line rupturing, which led to the fire. The barrier failure not only caused the accident to be more serious than it should have been, it also caused a fire that made the driver escape harder and more dangerous than it should have been.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t want to diss on the FIA, when their relentless pursuit of safety has significantly contributed to saving many drivers’ lives. Grosjean’s survival was not a matter of luck, or a miracle, as many have said; it was the product of decades of work and science by those in charge of the sport. If news of tragedy are now rare in motorsports, we owe it to them. There is also no way to entirely remove the danger factor off these sports: every time a driver straps themselves to a cockpit, there is always a possibility that it will be their last time.

But certain elements of danger should be a thing of the past, and what happened to Grosjean is definitely one of them. There will certainly be a thorough investigation into the crash and the causes of this failure will come to light. If the past is any indication, the FIA will learn new lessons and will implement new measures to ensure that barriers will be improved and will continue to do their job. Most importantly, I am certain they will ensure that barriers will not endanger drivers’ lives rather than save them.

The comments made by Ross Brawn after the race were very encouraging. Instead of the usual platitudes about what a great job they have done to protect drivers, he talked about the things that did go wrong. It shows that the willingness to admit problems and study solutions has not gone away and that there will be a continued resolve towards protecting the stars of the show.

We should rejoice that Grosjean survived with only minor injuries what was quite possibly the scariest accident of the past 25 years. Witnessing a car burst into flames was something that we thought belonged to the distant past and brought home the stark reality of the risks these super humans take for our entertainment. But we should also not allow such an incredible escape to blind us to glaring problems that led to this big scare in the first place. There were other times in the past in which we were lulled into a sense of false security by miraculous escapes. Let’s not repeat that mistake.

Talking points

•  When the race eventually got underway, it significantly helped to clear the fight for third in the constructors’ championship. What little hopes Renault and Ferrari still had were ended, and Racing Point lost a bag full of points when the chequered flag was in the horizon. Perez had another masterful race, taking third place early on and controlling Albon from a distance. His engine giving up the ghost was a cruel moment for the team, with the despair etched on Otmar Szafnauer’s face and body language in the pit wall.

•  The major beneficiaries of Perez’ misfortune were McLaren, who leapfrogged Racing Point and are now 17 points clear in third. Even without that retirement, they would have still outscored the pink panthers, but this has made them overwhelming favourites in this particular battle. As mentioned in an earlier review, they continue to maximise their results even when they don’t have the fastest car. That ability to get the job done even when the odds are against them is an excellent sign for the team’s future.

•  And Sainz’s race was enormous. P5, coming from P15 on the grid? Bwoah.

•  Daniel Ricciardo, who will replace him at McLaren, left his teammate in the dust once again. The first time he was stuck behind Ocon he asked to be let by on the radio, as he was clearly faster; the team obliged and he quickly left his teammate behind. Later on, after a round of pit stops, he found himself behind Ocon again but this time passed without the assistance of the pit wall. The Frenchman is not a bad driver, but the Aussie’s superb form is making him look vulgar.

•  Albon inherited a spot on the podium, and, after his big crash on FP2, the champagne must have tasted sweet indeed, but it was not lost on anyone how he lost the battle to Perez, the one driver vying for his seat, while driving superior machinery. Nevertheless, it is a moment that can give him a boost of confidence for the final two races and allow him to relieve some of the pressure.

•  When asked after the race about the potential for drivers refusing to drive after witnessing such a terrible accident, Verstappen said that if he was a team boss he would fire them on the spot. The Dutchman’s alpha male attitude is beginning to grate a lot of people the wrong way, especially when his words have such a negative connotation in terms of mental health. It was heartening, though, to see a few of the drivers of the 2019 F2 grid were quick to denounce his words, having lived through something even worse than Grosjean’s crash. There is a different mentality in the new generation of drivers coming through, making Verstappen’s attitude look more and more out of place in today’s motorsports.

•  Pierre Gasly drove another masterclass, this time in terms of tyre management. He was struggling by the end and was saved by the late safety car, but would have nevertheless (quite probably) finished P8 on a one-stop strategy in one of the most tyre abrasive tracks on the calendar. It was risky, but with Perez’ failure at the end, it proved to be a good roll of the dice by AlphaTauri.

•  At the front, nothing new. Hamilton controlled the pace from start to finish, keeping Verstappen at bay and always responding when the Red Bull driver pushed that little bit harder. In the end, the Dutchman had nine of the ten fastest laps of the race, but it was still no match for Hamilton’s consistency over a grand prix distance. Try as he might, his car is no match for the W11 and that is robbing us of a mighty fight between arguably the two best drivers on the grid.

•  Dr. Ian Roberts deserves all the plaudits he is getting, and then some, for the way he ran towards the flames to help Grosjean escape the wreckage. With protective equipment that is far less safe than the drivers’, he still dared to run towards the fire. Enormous bravery.

•  A different type of bravery was shown by the Haas team members, who still had a car running in the race and carried on with their jobs. Even knowing that Grosjean was ok, it must have been difficult to continue their work after that enormous scare. But carry on they did; a special bow to them for that as well.

•  To cap off another miserable weekend in terms of safety, a marshal crossed the track with a fire extinguisher in his hands right in front of Lando Norris’ car. He was trying to reach Perez’ stricken Racing Point, and the safety car had been deployed, so the speed of the cars had been significantly reduced, but this is a risk that simply should not be taken. An eerily similar situation killed Tom Pryce in 1977. And once again, Michael Masi shrugged it off by saying that, while not ideal, we should not castrate (his words, not mine) anyone for trying to help put out a fire. Non-chalant, flippant, callous. I miss Charlie Whiting.

[fatalism-and-villainy]

Guarded Curiosity

for @coldwind-shiningstars, a fic featuring their OC - Wen Qing/Li Xiaofan, 3.1k, pre-relationship academic flirting. Thank you Novy for letting me borrow your OC and I hope I got her right!

Wen Qing was hardly in any sort of position optimal for hearing gossip – indeed, she had never had the opportunity nor inclination to be a sophisticated and well-connected lady who traded in rumours. But the reputation of the new mistress of the Unclean Realm had not failed to reach her ears. It was, in this particular case, a matter of vocation. The new Nie-furen was apparently extraordinarily sharp-minded and inclined towards matters of science and philosophy, and had produced numerous writings on the subjects with voracious speed and energy. She was also said to have amassed an impressive circle of female companions, among them the most forward-thinking minds in cultivation theory.

There were plenty who might have denounced such behaviour in a wife, but Nie-furen was apparently, for all her intellect, a polite and unassuming personality, and well-attuned to the affairs of the household; as such, naysayers had little to find fault with.

But Wen Qing knew little of this when she first heard the name Li Xiaofan. For her, it was merely a name in the footnotes of a recent medical publication, read with a furrowed brow over her morning congee, that had compelled her to track down the individual in question. It was to her deep surprise to learn that this woman was the wife of Nie Huaisang, and that she was in search of intellectual companions of a demographic very similar to Wen Qing. Wen Qing’s connections had then swiftly obtained her an invitation to the Unclean Realm.

As such, Wen Qing found herself, neutrally dressed in pale gray, before a small audience of women assembled in Li Xiaofan’s own study. Li Xiaofan herself sat in the centre of their semicircle. She was unexpectedly slight and unremarkable compared to the others, who seemed to be subtly competing with one another in finery; she even wore very few of the adornments fitting for a sect leader’s wife, contenting herself solely with a simple bronze headpiece, jade earrings, and a few rings. What did stand out about her were her eyes – exceptionally steady in their gaze, and betraying nothing of the thoughts behind them.

Wen Qing was unaccustomed to this sort of public scrutiny, especially within this conclave of female camaraderie, wherein the rules seemed to be deeply and imperceptibly etched into the setting. Nonetheless, she steeled herself and, smoothing out the stack of paper in her hands, began to read.

The reception was… not quite chaos, although something adjacent to it. There was a brief period of silence when Wen Qing finished reading, and then a woman sporting large, opulent green earrings asked a question to which Wen Qing had barely time to respond before another woman intervened with another question, clearly designed to undermine the first. It was little time before a cryptic and impassioned debate had broken out that seemed at something of a remove from the topic at hand, and much more based in the simmering conflicts and resentments of the group.

Wen Qing knew well enough when to keep her tongue. But she felt rather at a loss as to what to do, still standing before her preoccupied audience. She was tapping restlessly at the stack of paper she held, and considering taking the risk of clearing her throat so as at least to issue some kind of concluding thanks or acknowledgment, when she heard a voice speak disconcertingly close to her.

“Excuse me, guniang.”

Wen Qing had trained herself out of flinching years ago; she merely let the little shock pass through her, soundlessly as lightning blinking across the sky. She turned to find that Li Xiaofan had materialized behind her, having approached silently amidst the heated and calamitous debate. Her face wore the same placid, unforthcoming expression as it had since Wen Qing had set foot in the room.

“Nie-furen.” Wen Qing inclined her head. “I thank you for your hospitality, and for allowing me to speak today.”

“The privilege was ours,” the other woman replied. “But, guniang, may I trouble you to have a look at your notes?”

“My notes?” repeated Wen Qing.

“I only wished to see if you had diagrams handy.” Li Xiaofan’s voice was mannerly, near-apologetic, and yet also firm in resolve. She betrayed none of the imperiousness that ladies of the household often did, but she was clearly not struggling to fit into her role either.

“Of course.” Wen Qing offered the stack of papers. “They are interspersed throughout the written argument – you may peruse them as you like.”

Li Xiaofan stretched out both her hands, as if formally accepting a gift. There really was an unexpected elegance to her movements.

Flicking through the pages, a tiny frown came over Li Xiaofan’s face. She paused on one page for a moment, and then nodded to herself. “Yes, it’s what I thought.” She looked up again. “Forgive me for pointing it out, guniang, but I’m afraid there is a potential flaw in this diagram. I thought so as I was listening, but I needed to look for myself.”

“A flaw?” Wen Qing was disconcerted, not only at her own mistake, but at the level of attentiveness on the part of the other woman. Especially in light of the cacophony of feedback from her companions, it had been difficult to tell if she had been listening at all, let alone following along with such precision.

Wen Qing narrowed her eyes, taking another look at Li Xiaofan. Her tone in raising the issue had continued to be near-deferential, but there was a strange expression emanating from the exactitude of her gaze and the set of her mouth – possibly something like satisfaction.

Wen Qing could not suppress a spark of interest.

“A flaw,” she repeated, moving in to look at the diagram over Li Xiaofan’s shoulder. “Please, explain it to me.”

***

Before his death, certain people, especially those of a more sentimental nature, had hoped for Nie Mingjue to marry, commenting that a woman’s touch would make the Unclean Realm more hospitable. But no such hope had been attached to his younger brother, whose aesthetic tastes were well known (and widely panned).

“Yes, my husband has quite the passion for flower arrangements,” Li Xiaofan said, reaching out to delicately caress one of the roses at the side of the stone path. “He truly has transformed the place – or so I’m told. Of course, I never visited before our courtship.”

“It looks lovely,” Wen Qing volunteered. Serviceable enough, as a response.

“Do you like flowers, Wen-guniang?” Her companion asked. “I suppose you must, for their medicinal purposes.”

“I don’t have such a one-track mind. I will confess to a weakness for their beauty as well.”

Li Xiaofan relinquished the rose blossom. “Do you consider appreciation of beauty to be a weakness?”

“Not inherently,” Wen Qing replied. “But surely one must admit it has that potential.”

“I see.” Li Xiaofan resumed walking, and Wen Qing hastened to match her pace. “For the record, I am less interested in flowers for their aesthetics, myself – although you could find a few among my companions who have made that their area of study. I have recently developed a pet interest in grafting.”

“Grafting?”

“Indeed. I have been conducting some experiments – I can show you the plants in question later, and my notes, if you are interested.”

“Most certainly.” Wen Qing gestured at the flower boxes lining the walkway. “Are any of these your creations, then?”

“Oh, no!” Li Xiaofan gave a little laugh. “I would never dare to tinker with my husband’s roses. He is rather particular about them.”

“I see.” Wen Qing paused. “It seems you and Nie-zongzhu keep your interests separate.”

Li Xiaofan eyed her with a furtive scrutiny. “My husband has his own pursuits, and I have mine. This is how ideal marriages are conducted, I think.”

Wen Qing inclined her head in concession. “I wouldn’t know, of course.”

“Naturally. Did you ever intend to get married?”

Wen Qing stopped for a moment to properly look her in the eye. “No,” she said honestly. “Marriage was always a means to an end – a possibility, for the protection of me and mine. Nothing more.” For a-Ning, especially – and it was so disconcerting, to be making decisions without a care for a-Ning. He was strong now, strong beyond comprehension – she had to remember that. “Now, I have so few ties, marriage would be only a pursuit of pleasure. And I sense… well. It would bring little of that, for me.”

That exacting gaze was still resting on her, not faltering for a moment. It was remarkable, how much more calculating Li XIaofan’s eyes were, up close like this. “You have no interest in comfort and security for your own sake?”

“I believe I am capable of creating them myself.” Wen Qing hesitated for a moment. It had been a long time since she had been in a formal conversation that required this kind of guardedness. “But the first, I’ll admit, has never really enticed me. I prefer my work to leisure. And the second – well, how guaranteed can such a thing be?”

“We think alike, then,” said Li Xiaofan. “My husband is a lover of leisure – although his mind is frequently at work. As for me, my work is soothing to me. He coaxes me to lay it aside every now and then, and I coax him to put his observations to use. As such, we work together quite efficiently.”

Wen Qing nodded along. The particular balancing mechanisms of marriage were still quite foreign to her. In the past, she had often been unnerved by married women outside her family. Their bound hair and their assured poise signaled a seamless adoption of the rites of the household - and, secretly, subliminally, the rites of the bedchamber. The women made her dread such a conference of knowledge upon herself, and yet provoked an inexplicable curiosity in her as well. But Wen Qing had also known the dangers of curiosity when unguarded.

This ritual no longer gave her the same trepidation, but it jarred her to be reminded that Li Xiaofan was in such a different class of women from her. Though it was difficult to imagine her and Nie Huaisang engaged in any kind of relations.

All the same, it was perhaps a comfort to be navigating this creeping intimacy with an attached woman. One who had her own house and husband, who needed nothing from Wen Qing except her intellectual prowess, and whose other designs on her were solely in the province of wanting.

Wanting what, exactly? Wen Qing turned her head ever so slightly to take in a sidelong glance at the other woman. Li Xiaofan’s face betrayed no intention, her small, puckered mouth completely impassive. Certainly, given her views on marriage, she did not seem the sentimental type – whatever passions this woman was capable of, they did not seem to be based in flights of fancy. Wen Qing could not help wondering what it would take to break that carefully controlled neutrality of expression.

“Wen-guniang?” Li Xiaofan lifted her eyebrows. The expression was undeniably striking on her.

Wen Qing felt like shaking herself. “Ah, forgive me. I am not usually so distracted – I have had a long journey.”

“Of course.”

“It is admirable that you have achieved such a partnership,” Wen Qing continued, more confidently. “All couples should hope to be so well-balanced.”

“Indeed. You were concerned with such balance today, were you not? With your articulation of the interactions of the Zang-fu. It was surprisingly metaphorical.”

Wen Qing inclined her head. “That presentation was considerably more philosophical than my usual inclinations. I suppose recent circumstances have prompted me to think more… abstractly.”

“You specialized in acupuncture, correct?”

“Largely. I also pursued some more… experimental lines of thought.”

LI Xiaofan quirked her lips, but made no more insistent inquiry. “I see.”

Wen Qing hastened on. “In truth, it was your remarks on moxibustion that compelled me here.”

“Oh, that?” Li Xiaofan swept her robes up as they progressed up a small series of steps that opened out into a courtyard. “I’m surprised it had such far-reaching influence, really. Medicine is more of a side project for me. I am certain Wen-guniang’s insights would make me seem quite foolish in comparison.”

She had not quite mastered the composure of a great lady, Wen Qing thought. Such a performance of modesty ought to be utterly free of contempt, and buoyed by a certain warmth and grace that underlined the speaker’s being ultimately above the judgment of the other. Li Xiaofan had not quite grasped the cadence of such a response yet, it seemed – the tone came down in some muddled place between smug and perfunctory. It was quite an intriguing chink in her armour.

“Nie-furen is too kind,” Wen Qing replied smoothly. “Of course, I’m aware of the focus of much of your work. But at what age did you take an interest in medicine?”

“Early,” replied Li Xiaofan. “I did not get a chance to study it formally until shortly after my marriage. But I have always been interested in the workings of the physical body.”

Naturally. Li Xiaofan’s origins would not have permitted her to devote herself to extensive scholarship. Such a mercantile family would have been much more concerned with producing a marriageable daughter than a scholarly one. But she had clearly had a fierce drive for knowledge, if the rumours were to be believed.  

“The workings of the physical body,” Wen Qing repeated. “And do your companions share such an interest?” She winced internally. Heavens, this woman made her clumsy.

“Some of them,” the other woman replied evenly. “Though sometimes through the aim of achieving transcendence – and through more unconventional means.”

Wen Qing paused. “Do you mean dual cultivation?”

Li Xiaofan turned her head to meet Wen Qing’s gaze. Her eyes betrayed a glint. “Not quite.”

“More than two?”

A little smile blossomed in the corner of her mouth. “Precisely.”

A new sensation was taking root inside Wen Qing, something like exhilaration – if exhilaration was the proper word for a kind of momentary vindication that brought a palpably physical, almost dizzying effect. Amidst the towering walls and century-old stonework, she was in uncharted waters.

“There is something so charming about the contrast of flower and stone,” Wen Qing commented. “It’s the kind of artistic touch that, I’m told, the Unclean Realm has been lacking in the past.”

Li Xiaofan cast another amused, knowing look at her. “You are fond of diverting the discussion, aren’t you?”

“So are you.”

“Not at all.” Li Xiaofan began to move again, taking long, quick strides. “I am not one for evasion. I am merely patient.”

Wen Qing quickened her pace as well. “So patient that I imagine you intend to keep me here for at least several weeks before my work reaches a level that you deem publishable.”

“Keep you here?” Li Xiaofan laughed, a soft and light sound that seemed unsuited to the tone of their conversation. “Do you imagine this as a prison, Wen-guniang?”

“Of course not.” Wen Qing lowered her head in an appropriately demure gesture, but maintained the steady conviction in her voice. “I only meant that Nie-furen has famously high standards.”

Li Xiaofan was gazing straight ahead as they walked, a kind of playfulness in her refusal to meet Wen Qing’s eyes. “I have made you no invitation as yet.”

“You would hardly have personally corrected me if you thought my work beneath your notice. And your companions seemed sufficiently engaged by it.”

“That particular cohort is very easily stirred up,” Li Xiaofan countered. “But yes, I believe the two of us have considerable potential together.”

“The two of us?” Wen Qing stopped. “Are you imagining a more extensive collaboration than mere supervision?”

Li Xiaofan paused, slightly ahead of her, and turned back to lock eyes with her again. “Yes,” she said simply. “I would like to work with you.”

She retraced her steps, drawing closer to Wen Qing. “I have assembled a collection of intellectually curious minds together to create an environment that, I think, facilitates innovation. Within it, certain individuals are more closely bonded, more suited to one another. Just imagine the way in which each zang is paired to its own fu, and they exist in concert with the other pairings by way of the Wuxing.”

“I hardly think that metaphor applies here.”

Li Xiaofan cocked an eyebrow inquisitively. It truly was astonishing how malleable her affect was, how much it had shifted from their first meeting.

Wen Qing explained, stumblingly, “A zang can hardly abandon its paired fu for another on a whim.”

The other woman chuckled, ducking her head down. “Is that your objection? Metaphors are flexible, Wen-guniang. You have been more broadly thinking through certain means of coexistence through this framework, yes? Surely we can agree that the complexities of human choice and connection transcend the mere workings of our bodies.”

“Perhaps.”

“Evading again,” said Li Xiaofan. She had such a subtle array of different amusements at her disposal, thought Wen Qing.

“Nonetheless I will accept your offer,” Wen Qing said.

“The offer I still haven’t formally issued?” Li Xiaofan smiled, close-mouthed and ladylike, but there was a triumphant gleam in her eyes. “I should warn you though, Wen-guniang – I won’t be able to favour you extensively or openly at first. You should know that many of these women… well, they are unaware of your origins. And they dislike seeing an upstart rise so quickly.”

“I understand.”

“Don’t worry, of course – your secret will be quite safe with me, Wen-guiniang. Or should I say -?”

“Lai.”

“Lai-guniang,” Li Xiaofan continued evenly. “That said, this cohort is not the nest of vipers you are presumably imagining.” She turned her head to the side, her eyes knowingly appraising Wen Qing. “There are many women here who share your interests, and could be of much help to you in navigating the customs here. I could point you towards them later.”

“You are most kind, Nie-furen.”

It was only after the niceties had left her mouth that Wen Qing realized that she had sealed their agreement, its parameters still uncertain. Li Xiaofan had drawn close, suddenly, and all the heat in the courtyard seemed to emanate from the space between their bodies.

“I am pleased you came, Lai-guniang. We will have much to discuss.”