#so far i have only had to come up with 2 or 3 partial song lyrics but i will probably need more alas

[kazz-brekker]

pros of writing a main character who is a bard:

not having to write fight scenes bc that skill is not in their wheelhouse

many opportunities to make them comedically exclaim “not my lute!”

good excuse to make them talk all the time

cons of writing a character who is a bard:

having to come up with fake song lyrics

[pomrania]

Fairy vs Walrus: the game

You are a fairy and a walrus, travelling together bound by that most sacred of pacts, "wouldn't it be hilarious to prank some humans". However, you both have different ideas of how to go about your journeys.

(This is a variant on a game I'd partially written up yesterday; this morning I realized that not only could I adjust it to be about this subject matter, but that would solve one of the problems I'd had regarding end conditions.)

Requirements: two players, one to be the fairy and one to be the walrus; two d6s for each player; the encounter table, below, or make up your own

Here's a basic summary of the gameplay loop. Both players roll their dice. They each say a feature of the scene, and then determine which feature the fairy and walrus go to. If that doesn't conclude the game, then it starts again at a new round; there may or may not be a minor time-skip between rounds.

Encounter Table 1. a depiction of your kind 2. a tasty treat 3. an obstacle you'd need the other party to help you get past 4. a street performer singing a song you like 5. the setup for a stupid pun 6. a human's doorstep (All entries on this table are subjective to each party rolling; an obstacle for a fairy looks very different to an obstacle for a walrus.)

At the start of a round, roll both your dice in secret. One result will correspond to an entry on the encounter table; the other result is how much power you have to go there, whether by force of argument or simply going in that direction until the other party decides to follow instead of getting left behind. You can assign the dice as you choose; so, if you rolled a 3 and a 1, that could mean entry 1 on the table and a 3 for power, or it could mean entry 3 on the table and a 1 for power.

Once both of you have assigned your dice, share the feature from your table’s entry. Figure out together what the scene looks like, such that both elements are present; for example, if the fairy had entry 2 and the walrus had entry 1, this would mean a scene that involves both a depiction of a walrus, and something a fairy would consider a tasty treat. Then, reveal your other dice result, the one for power. If your dice value is higher, then the fairy and walrus go to the feature you'd rolled; the other player describes what happens.

In the event of a tie, where both parties had the same result for their power roll, reroll both dice, and use the new results to compare power. The exception is if the tied results were both 6. In that case, both the fairy and the walrus feel so strongly about going in a certain direction that they do it without regard for the other party, get far enough from each other that the bond strains, and the magic fades; the humans realize that there's an actual walrus among them, and the walrus becomes limited to normal walrus movement. Decide whether you want to end the game there, or continue playing; in the latter case, the fairy arrives in time for the magic to come back, and a bunch of humans are left wondering why they all hallucinated a walrus.

Assuming you don't get too far apart, the game concludes when you manage to show up on some human's doorstep. Describe which of you the human is more surprised to see.

[latinasforace]

Crimson Petals in the Night ( Giyuu x Blood Hashira F! Reader )

n/a: hiii i’m starting a new series!!! hope you all r interested. This is just the introduction but I will have the first chapter ready by tmr (hopefully…)

:3 enjoy!

reader is female coded!!!! & the blood hashira. Abilities will be explained later on. oh and i’m hsing she/they for reader.

& pls keep in mind, this is taking place 2 YEARS BEFORE CANON EVENTS. so 2 years before tanjiro’s family was attacked & nezuko turned.

INTRO CHAPTER

The moon hung low in the night sky, its silver light spilling over the quiet garden like a gentle kiss from the heavens. The world was draped in a cloak of darkness, with only the soft rustle of leaves and the occasional song of a nightingale breaking the stillness.

The garden, though dirty and wild with untamed plants and broke pottery, abandoned, held a certain charm—a promise of what it could be with tender care, bathed in the soft glow of the full moon, feeling like a hidden relic from a time long forgotten. The silence is almost palpable, broken only by the occasional rustle of leaves as the night wind weaves through the dense, overgrown foliage.

A small, arched bridge stretches across a narrow stream, its wooden planks creaking faintly under the weight of time and neglect. The water below glistens with a silvery sheen, reflecting the moonlight like scattered pearls on a dark canvas.

At the far end of the garden stands a small shed, its wooden walls weathered and darkened by years of exposure. Vines snake up its sides, clinging to the structure like nature’s determined attempt to reclaim what was once hers.

The shed’s roof, once a testament to craftsmanship, now sags slightly, covered in moss and creeping ivy. It blends seamlessly into the surroundings, as if it has always been a part of the garden’s quiet, melancholic beauty.

The flowers, though still vibrant in their hues, grow haphazardly among thick clusters of weeds and vines. Their petals catch the moonlight, giving the garden an otherworldly, almost surreal quality. It’s a place that feels both real and imagined, where the boundaries between the physical and the fantastical blur.

The air is thick with the scent of damp earth and the faint sweetness of blooming flowers, creating a heady mix that lingers with each breath.

In the heart of this quiet abandoned sanctuary, a young woman knelt, her delicate hands cradling a handful of seeds. Wearing a kimono of the finest silk, with a contrast of deep black, adorned with intricate red flowers that seemed to bloom across the fabric like a garden at midnight. Her hair caught the moon’s light, making her appear ethereal—like a spirit of the night, come to bless the earth with new life.

She pressed the seeds gently into the soil, her touch careful, as if she were whispering secrets to the earth. There was a calmness in her actions, a peace that belied the danger lurking in the shadows beyond the garden’s borders.

But peace was not meant to last.

“Why are you out so late at night?”

The voice was stern, edged with authority, cutting through the tranquility like a blade. The young woman did not startle; instead, she looked up slowly, her eyes meeting those of the man who had spoken. He stood at the edge of the garden, his form partially obscured by the shadows, yet the intensity of his gaze was unmistakable. The man wore the attire of a Demon Slayer, his half patterned haori billowing slightly in the breeze, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword.

The figure in the kimono tilted their head slightly, a confused expectation reflected on their face. “Why shouldn’t I be?”

His eyes narrowed, clearly unamused by the casual response. “There are demons out at this hour—deadly ones. You’re bound to get eaten, standing here so vulnerable.”

“Is that so?” The figure’s voice was soft, yet there was a teasing edge to it that suggested they found his warning more amusing than frightening. “And here I thought the night was for everyone to enjoy.”

He stepped closer, the moonlight revealing the sharp lines of his face and those b. “This isn’t a game. If you stay, you’ll get yourself killed.”

There was a brief pause, and then the figure let out a soft, almost mocking laugh. “Oh, I see… You’re worried about me.” She leaned forward slightly, the red flowers on her black kimono catching the light as they did. “Do you make a habit of rescuing strangers, or am I just special?”

He didn’t answer right away, taken aback by the unexpected response. There was something unsettling about how calm they were—how unafraid. He had expected fear, or at least concern, but instead, they seemed to be toying with him, as if the danger he spoke of was nothing more than a minor inconvenience.

“You should leave,” he said, voice hardening as he tried to regain control of the situation. “Now.”

The figure regarded him with a knowing smile, their eyes glinting with something that almost resembled mischief. “Perhaps I will,” she replied, her tone light and unhurried. “Or perhaps I’ll stay a little longer… The night is still young, after all.”

For a moment, he didn’t know how to respond. He was used to dealing with fear, with people who needed protection—but this young lady, with this mysterious aura and defiant calmness, was something else entirely. A puzzle he wasn’t sure how to solve.

Without another word, he turned and walked away, leaving the figure alone in the garden. Despite his warning, she felt no fear—only the quiet satisfaction of having stood her ground.

As she continued her work, a faint glint of metal caught the moonlight, hidden among the gardening tools and materials by her side. A closer look would have revealed a deep crimson blade, its hilt wrapped in black and red, with a guard shaped like a blooming rose. But the swordsman, now long gone, hadn’t noticed—his attention too focused on the mystery of the woman herself than to notice the subtle hint of her true identity as a slayer.

She watched him disappear into the shadows, her smile lingering as she resumed their task, planting seeds in the dark earth with the same deliberate care as before.

The night air was cool and still, but the tension left behind from their exchange hung in the air, like the scent of something yet to bloom.

To be continued…

[glasyasbutch]

playlist: daybreak

this one goes out to the dead wife we're not having phone sex with

link to playlist on spotify

explanations below the cut

1. May It Be by 2Cellos

[Instrumental]

So the reason this is on here is bekah said "you need to find an instrumental that's like. two cello duet. that's daybreak to me" and i said you know what you're so right and spent multiple hours sorting through instrumental songs until I came upon this one, and in my lotr loving heart, I knew that I couldn't let her go.

If you're NOT a slut like me. May It Be is the closing credits song on the first movie, and its an elven blessing passed on to Sam and Frodo as they set out on their journey. About how darkness will come but they have a duty to fight on through it until the darkness too falls away.

And i just think. I JUST THINK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! there's something so samfrodo about daybreak in the sense of like. They too left the comfort and safety of their home to join a party of adventurers to fight for something far bigger than themselves and in doing so formed a bond of intimacy that transcends platonic or romantic or sexual and then after it all they return home and they have everything set out for them. The hero's welcome, the world made safe, the comfort of a simple life with each other. but they don't get to keep it. "the shire was saved but not for me" and they have to be PARTED FOREVER because the process of their journey turned them into incompatible creatures even in their closeness and -

also its two cellos and bekah asked so nicely.

2. Battle Cry by The Family Crest

Oh my love, my heart, don't cry / We were born to die / For this moment, for all time / Oh I will fight for you, I will die for you

PALADIN ! ON ! PALADIN ! ROMANCE !

3. The World Is Ugly by My Chemical Romance

These are the lies and the lives of the taken / These are their hearts, but their hearts don't beat like ours / They burn 'cause they are all afraid, but mine beats twice as hard / 'Cause the world is ugly, but you're beautiful to me

bekah said some gay people got engaged to this at her mcr show last year and i should put this on daybreak and i said okay

so fun fact, in the many many bodies day and break had had before these ones, they slowly fell in love and were together for hundreds of years. and then. maybe 200? 250? years ago. they had a NASTY fucking divorce. like. Nasty. and hadn't been Together together since.this song is break to day, realizing over the past few lifetimes that they had fallen back in love with day.

they had to go through watching her die in some Really awful ways (the world is ugly), and loving her even harder with every horrible event (you're beautiful to me), waiting, just waiting, for day to realize (are you thinking of me like im thinking of you), and it all finally collapsing into inevitability the moment they stepped out of the aegis into the world of mortal emotion and mortal passion and mortal loss for the first time (their hearts don't beat like ours) and god. it's all so fragile. i have to say it. i love you i love you i love you i love you

4. Lover of Mine by 5 Seconds of Summer

I'll never give you away, 'cause I've already made that mistake / And if my name never fell off your lips again, I know it'd be such a shame / When I take a look at my life and all of my crimes, you're the only thing I think I got right

the last song was break falling for day the second time, this one's day falling for break again.

day was the one who really initiated the last breakup (who's surprised). he and break got into a really bad fight about whether what they were doing (dying over and over with no end) was Good or Not, break died soon after and had to get resculpted, day spent the ENTIRE time bitching to her partially made clay form and then the second break was back up said "you're welcome, by the way, for not leaving you dead. never talk to me again"

this is the song for the regret that's built up over the last couple hundred years, once the anger faded and he realized that nothing hurt more than seeing someone else take the title of sculptor because he hadn't been there for her like he used to, she hadn't wanted him like she used to, and the absolute cascade of love he was almost ashamed to admit to having again but he just couldn't hold it back anymore

5. I Go Where You Go by Bell X1

What if they need us, the other side of the world / Can our voice down the line really save them? / I go where you go, I go where you go

This song is about people leaving their kids to go on a romance re-sparking vacation, yes, but it's also about the decision to leave the only home you've ever known and the only purpose you've ever been given because you think you need to to save them, and because the OG party is so determined and so fragile and you're starting to realize you couldn't live with yourself if they got hurt so you need to save them too, but more than anything, it's because break thought she was going to be leaving by yourself and you said. um???? no me too

(not to samfrodo at you again but its so. i'm going to mordor alone. sure you are. and im coming with you.)

6. Her Song by The Family Crest

The weight of the world is resting on your back / And everyone you know says it gets much easier / When the weight of the world falls slack / Kick up your feet and let's move together, I'll set the sail if you lift the tether / All of the times that we've shared together, all of the sound and all kinds of weather / This is the way it should be forever, this is the way it could be forever

a second family crest song has hit the playlist.

it's so. this is the OG party extended honeymoon phase. everything is beautiful and we're young and in love and on top of the world and we do everything together and we're never apart and we have a rhythm going and it's just perfect. this is the way it could be forever. don't you just love the ending?

7. Ashes - Part 2 by The Struts

You were taken from me, but I can still see that smile / And I know that you tell me "move on", but it's taking a while / I find myself laughing at things you would say, and how through the bad times you'd say "it's okay" / You're living in me now and that's where you'll stay

the transition between the ending of the last song and the opening lines of this song makes me actually want to throw up on the floor. just btw.

also courtesy of bekah, this song is for the moments after the rift collapses with break still in it, thorn blasted back, sobbing and holding the shards of her god piece in bloody hands. the moments in which kez looks pale because they don't have any spells, and callie's not here but she wouldn't either, and there's actually no way to get her back without risking some horrible twist of the monkey's paw. she's really gone.

but day's going to take her home. day's going to take her home. a year and a day.

(also! the first verse about "drunk on the ceiling is not the best place" is ABSOLUTELY about the like full week long bender that day and kez went on in the immediate aftermath to cope. it was BAD and it was MESSY. and its not super important but it is special to me.)

8. She Ain't You by New Hollow

There's nothing, nothing on her mind, and she's far too, far too kind / So miss, me kiss, one more time, at least for old time's sake / 'Cause she's got your hair, and she's got your eyes, and she's got your exact same horoscope sign / She may be pretty, she's something new, but that means nothing / She ain't you

courtesy of morgan. the entire playlist could be this song 20 times in a row quite honestly. it's just. Day spent !!!! all that time!!!!! sculpting her to be as exact as possible to the old version. she tried so hard to get it right, so patient, so careful, like she always did. but handmade is handmade, and the differences are subtle, but they're There. And they're not fixable.

9. She Knows My Name by The Family Crest

So it's not that bad, when she goes / 'Cause she sings my name like it's a sad, sad song / Oh it's not that bad when she's away, that bad when she's away, that bad when she's away / She knows my name, she knows my name, she knows it well / And she knows my face, she knows my face, more than herself / But I wish her well, I wish her well, I wish her well

FAMILY CREST THREE FOR THREE . SORRY THEY WROTE EVERY SONG ABOUT MY D&D CHARACTERS' DOOMED ROMANCE.

It's day at break astral, and astral at day, and it's both of them at each other at once, and they love each other so much. but they also don't, how could they? they're different. break is astral now, and day is still day, which is a problem, because day now is Very different from the day that lives in the collective conscious flooding astral's nervous system. they might have to go. they might have to leave. if they do - i wish you well.

10. Boston by Augustana

You don't know me, and you don't even care, oh yeah / You said you don't know me, and you don't wear my chains, oh yeah / She said I think I'm going to Boston, think I'll start a new life / Think I'll start it over where no one knows my name

Day leaving the aegis ... TWO!!!!!! "You don't know me and you don't wear my chains" is the lyric of ALL TIME here, that really sums up why Day left.

It wasn't because Astral wasn't Break. He knew that would happen. He knew. He'd done it a million times before. He left because he had too many ties to everyone else - to Callie and Arthur and Thorn, and god, so many to Kez. Ties that Break had, but Astral didn't, and more importantly, Astral had no way of putting back on, while Day had no way of taking off.

also I hope "she knows my name, she knows it well" into "i'm going to boston where no one knows my name" makes you want to put your head in a hydraulic press as much as it makes me want to do that.

11. Best Intentions by Hodera

And when you picture this, I just want you to picture both my eyes looking intently / Hear my words as free verse poetry, feel my hands painting your body / Don't regret you ever met me, 'cause I know you couldn't love me / But if I must be a memory, won't you frame me / In a way that you will smile when you're picturing my face / And then I promise I won't call you like I did when I was drunk in Austin, Texas

courtesy of morgan. they left on bad terms, but not hating ones. and as much as they try to keep it final. every once in a while. they get a new one of astral's memories bleeding into the back of their mind through the collective consciousness. they're sure astral gets some of theirs. which is sort of the same thing as calling someone drunk from austin, texas.

Also wanted to throw morgan's thoughts in here: "I'm currently facedown thinking about calling the og adventure 'one crazy summer' and how it would feel to put it down so casually like that".

12. Long + Lost by Florence & The Machine

Without your love, I'll be / So long and lost, are you missing me ? / Is it too late to come on home? / All those bridges are old stone / Is it too late to come on home? / Can the city forgive? I hear its sad song

ripped unashamedly from the playlist for isa/tore (another d&d couple of mine going through a died and came back wrong kinda scenario. ask me about them.)

25 years is a long time to be away from someone. Even if they're hundreds of years old, 25 years is more than a blip in memory.

13. Saturn by Sleeping At Last

You taught me the courage of stars before you left / How light carries on endlessly even after death / With shortness of breath you explained the infinite / How rare and beautiful it is to even exist

saturn is a song Of All Time. it's a song for when you lie on the shower floor at 3am and think about how much you love everyone in your life and everyone no longer in your life and everyone who's in your life but one day won't be and how it mattered even if they left and how it mattered because they left and you just love a lot of people which means you lose a lot of people and that's. okay.

14. A Duet for Our Time: Of Anguish by Columbus State University Trombone Ensemble

[Instrumental]

once again. courtesy of bekah. i'm kissing you and your music taste so tenderly on the mouth.

if you don't want to listen to 6 minutes of trombones and get emo Real about two made up guys who loved each other too hard to lose each other and lost each other anyway. get out

[its-all-ineffable]

Anti-hero {Lestat series}

A 13-part series, where every fic is inspired by a lyric from the Taylor Swift song 'Anti-hero'. All these fics are primarily Lestat-centric or from his POV, but most of them feature a healthy heap of Louis and/or Loustat as well!

{Part 1} Midnights become my afternoons Summary: Lestat becomes a creature of the night, and laments the loss of entertainment. Luckily, he finds that nightlife may not be so bad, particularly with companions. For a while.

{Part 2} I'm a monster on the hill Summary: Lestat finds a reason to stay in New Orleans – a beautiful, enchanting reason. Following the mysterious man he sees pull a knife on his own brother to a lavish saloon, Lestat ponders on his newest infatuation.

{Part 3} I have this thing where I get older but just never wiser Summary: Lestat wonders at the similarity between his first and current loves while trying to cope with the first of Louis' major depressive episodes. Sometimes, it feels like history's repeating itself.

{Part 4} I wake up screaming from dreaming, One day I’ll watch as you’re leaving, ‘Cause you got tired of my scheming, For the last time Summary: Lestat wakes from a nightmare of Louis leaving him, and tries to deal with it alone. Louis doesn’t let this happen.

{Part 5} I wake up screaming from dreaming, One day I'll watch as you're leaving, And life will lose all its meaning, For the last time. Summary: Lestat pushes, and Louis snaps. Tensions reach their breaking point. And Lestat, as always, ends up alone. He always ends up alone. “It’s why you’re always gonna be alone.”

{Part 6} Did you hear my covert narcissism, I might disguise as altruism Summary: Lestat reflects on why he really turned Claudia, and realises it wasn’t for Louis. It was for himself.

{Part 7} I should not be left to my own devices…, I end up in crises Summary: Louis falls into a deep depression after Claudia leaves. Lestat flounders over what to do, and years pass by as the two lovers fight and ignore and cheat, and then…nothing. Louis has nothing. Lestat muses on why – it is his fault, he knows. But it never is his fault. Not him, not Lestat de Lioncourt. Or, Lestat has a chance to help Louis, to help them both. To become better when he realises what’s happened to them. But, of course, he misses it.

{Part 8} I'll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror Summary: “Lestat was well aware he liked pain. Far too much. Always had.” Lestat ruminates on pain, and the forms it’s taken in his life, after causing the worst night of pain he ever could. He comes close to self-awareness. He doesn’t quite manage to meet his own eyes.

{Part 9} And then someone screams out, “She’s laughing up at us from Hell!” Summary: “The funny thing about being only almost dead was that Lestat could still hear things. His eyes were rolled back, vision obscured, his limbs wouldn’t move and his mind churned sluggishly, but he could still hear. The old blood within him had kept him from dying completely, kept him partially conscious. But it was the worst kind of torture. Because he could hear them. And he could do nothing.”

{Part 10} It's me, Hi! I'm the problem, it's me Summary: “He was the weed that needed to be pulled up, the leech that needed to be squashed.” A look inside the head of a half-dead vampire as he realises where he went wrong, and begins to understand that he’s been the monster in the story all along.

{Part 11} Pierced through the heart but never killed Summary: “He'd survived, as he always did. Lestat de Lincourt, Lelio, the Wolfkiller. Never completely beaten, always a way to get back up, to keep going. He didn’t want to be that anymore.” Lestat always survives. Two attempts on his life, told from his perspective. One of them inspires him to change. The other brings him lower than he ever thought he could go.

{Part 12} I'm the problem, it's me,...Everybody agrees Summary: Lestat comes into the world and begins to learn just how much he missed. But he’s haunted by the ghosts of Louis and Claudia wherever he goes; doomed to be alone, his two companions dead and gone. And it is all his fault. He’s the problem, the problem that got them killed. Or so he thinks. Until he stumbles across a little-known book called ‘Interview with the Vampire’…

{Part 13} It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero Summary: ‘The hair on the back of Daniel’s neck stood up, and he knew that predatory, assessing gaze was locked on him. “I must say, I’m a very big fan.” Daniel put the kettle on and turned around, only to be met with a paper copy of ‘Interview with the Vampire’. “May I have an autograph?” Daniel scoffed, meeting Lestat’s eyes as the vampire put on an exaggerated pout. “Sure. But that’s not what you came here for.”’

[adultswim2021]

Squidbillies #20: “Rebel with a Claus” | December 25, 2006 – 12:00AM | S02E14

In this one, Early shoots down Santa Claus. His crime? Not giving Early the present he asks for every Christmas (the still-beating heart of Nascar racer Jeff Gordon). He and Rusty have him tied up in a chair. They kill and skin his reindeer and torture Santa. The elves try to rescue him but they also get brutalized. And that’s basically the one joke of this one: Santa is viciously brutalized by the Cuyler’s. It might as well be an episode of Happy Tree Friends. 

I really hate this one and find it mostly unfunny. The main joke is not just the violence, but also mocking movie/crime show tropes. The Elves here are shown having tactical gear, and operate as a militarized unit on Santa’s behalf. That’s a fun choice, but none of it makes me laugh. I also appreciate Dave Willis’ performance as Santa. He is the official Santa of Adult Swim, as far as I’m concerned (eagle-eyed viewers will remember that he played Santa in Aqua Teen Hunger Force and, I believe, Space Ghost Coast to Coast! Maybe other places!). It also evokes horror movies like Saw, or Last House on the Left, portraying both Early and Rusty as being unrepentant, dangerously violent hillbillies. I guess that makes this episode conceptual. It doesn’t make it funny. I don’t know, it just doesn’t suit this show too well, despite the fact that unpleasant humor is sorta this show’s bread and butter. My least favorite episode so far.

That’s it for Squidbillies for now! Isn’t that nice??

ANNOUNCEMENT! PLEASE READ!

For various reasons, I’ve decided to postpone Space Ghost week, ever-so-slightly. Longtime readers (all six of you), know that I’ve adopted the custom of taking a break from Adult Swim when I complete a calendar year so I can tackle a different season Space Ghost Coast to Coast. But I’m going to wait until we get through January of 2007 before I do Space Ghost week. That’s because...

1. I could use a little time to catch-up on creating a backlog of posts that will make the task easier, and I’m in the middle of a holiday weekend as of this writing and might actually be able to. I couldn’t do this in time because of various calamities.

2. Technically speaking, the final episode of the 1997 season of Space Ghost aired in January of 1998 (January 1, to be exact), so why not mirror that as well?

3. If I go through January, I will complete the rest of the runs for all the current shows we are covering, and come February Adult Swim will be refreshed with new premieres of new shows and feel more like a new beginning than an interruption.

Three good reasons! Well, one good reason, the other two are symptoms of some sort of brain problem. But still, they had numbers next to them. You have to admit that.

EPHEMERA CORNER

End-of-the-year Marathons (December 25-31, 2006)

At the end of 2006, Adult Swim ran several marathons several nights in a row. Until the end of the year, as a matter-of-fact. They were:

December 25: The Venture Bros December 26: The Boondocks December 27: Robot Chicken December 28: Squidbillies December 30: Bleach December 31: Metalocalypse For these nights they forewent their usual custom of airing the block and repeating it again, in order to show more episodes of shows. In Squidbillies and Metalocalypse’s case they partially repeated some episodes, but the desired effect was to have the entire series up to that point air in a row. I remember recording these and making DVDs from them. It was very handy at the time!

MAIL BAG

lisa lisa mailbagger here: lol I was literally referencing that complication album hit, I tried looking for it on youtube but had no success. A lot of those albums even if they were 80s themed had such ambiguous names it makes them impossible to search. If only discogs had a section for those collections.

Oh WOW. Yeah, I remember discogs had a thing where you could search for songs to see what releases it appeared on, but that was in beta and I think they removed it for being bad. I have a strong suspicion that those commercials turned up a lot on MTV. Just download some Beavis and Butt-head Moron-a-thons and go through ‘em.

mattpanreblogsstuff writes:

The fact that in the DOOM bumps you can see an ornament of Bloo (from CN's Foster's) in the corner while DOOM is getting completely wasted. Godly combo.

I never notice that! I remember watching these bumps at least a couple times and admittedly didn’t rewatch them when I posted that video. Also I didn’t really watch Foster’s Home that much, but what little I saw was great, and I should probably watch it. 

[elsewhereuniversity]

Why You Should Wear Boots after Picking a Major You Didn’t Want

A university is a place where dreams are thrown away.

Such is the case far too often. It remains Real even between the railroad, highway and train tracks. Even there, people interrogate themselves: ‘This is your dream, but is it realistic? How much is the starting salary? Look at your classmates, elegantly breezing over what you clawed through, tooth and nail. Look at your competitors––’

So many choose to drown their dreams themselves… even though, at Elsewhere University, the dead do not rest quietly. The Wild Hunt is proof of that. Yes, that Wild Hunt, which rides across campus when the fog rolls in. We all know the versions in which they hunt for students unlucky (or unbelieving) enough to be outside when the hounds begin baying. Stay inside, stay quiet, and you’ll be all the better for it, if they ignore you.

What about the other versions, though? What about the versions in which it is best to open your windows and howl back? There are tales like that, too––

Sometimes, those brave enough to shout along with the Wild Hunt will be rewarded with a share of prey or gold. Those kind enough to repair a lost hunter’s sled soon discover this to be the right choice, for upon closer inspection, the hounds are not just hounds. Their bones are laden heavy with wrath.

And sometimes, villagers tell tales of a cloaked rider on a white horse. Horseshoes spark against the night breeze. He will ask you to play an impossible game of tug-of-war. If you are wise, you will tie the other end of the rope to a sturdy oak. The leader of the Hunt likes clever little things. He might even drop a reward in your boot.

Perhaps this is why you see students wearing boots for a while after they declare their majors. Even Magenta (who got her name from always wearing high-heeled loafers of that particular shade) and Ma-Boi-Blanche (who has 17 pairs of white sneakers) wore boots back then. Rumor has it, according to a friend of a roommate of a Forbidden Major, that this footwear will help you abandon your misery.

When the Wild Hunt rides as a group, they come to condemn. The RAs are not wrong in telling you to run for safety when the fog descends.

On the other hand, when the leader of the Hunt appears alone, he comes to test. In this more benign (but not safe, never safe) form, 4% meet a bedraggled man, 2% a king of old, 3% a specimen of demon (the Christian subspecies), 6% a harlequin, and 5% a sledder with a thick Mecklenburg accent.

84% of those who have survived the encounter say that the leader of the Hunt wears a cloak and a wide hat that partially hides his eyes (one of which is duller than the other). He gallops in on a splendid white horse.

95% of those who survived the encounter were wearing boots (one of them was wearing spatterdashes over court shoes, but eh, close enough).

100% of the survivors say that you must be ready to be tested. Be kind, clever, daring. If you are all that––and wary, wise, lucky too––the leader of the Hunt will let you go and stuff something in your boot. A post-it, on which is written the major that they chose, yet hated with every fibre of their being.

Now, put the boot back on and walk. It may be a bit awkward to walk around, what with the paper writhing under your feet, but do so anyway. Every student who has tried it reports that when they got back to their dorms, the paper had vanished from beneath their soles. In its place, they had gained a floating sensation, grafted in their bones.

By the end of the year, Ma-Boi-Blanche and Professor Redd were chattering away like old friends. The Professor had to admit that his student wasn’t very good at dissections, but there was an unmistakable passion for anatomy in his eyes, and he would improve soon. (Very soon, especially with Professor Redd’s talent of acquiring practice bodies, his jaunty hat growing redder with every new specimen.)

On the other side of campus, the law majors learned to listen for the click-clack of high-heeled loafers. Woe betide the unlucky people who faced off against Magenta, who suddenly threw herself into mock trials with gusto. Her opponents gained a Pavlovian fear response to seeing any shade of pink.

This did not go ignored. The Involved went up to the two, in order to warn them.

“The Gentry do not offer things for free,” they said. “And intelligence isn’t cheap. What in Morganwode did you pay?”

To which the ones who met the Huntsman merely laughed, because they weren’t any smarter. The only difference was that now, they were interested in the subjects they found so odious before.

In the old tales, a satisfied rider of the Wild Hunt will reward a human with meat. The person will walk back home in the dark, one shoe on and one shoe off, the boot growing heavier with every step. Once home, they will see that the raw, bloody meat has transformed into gold.

There are a few who still receive this, not always in the payment of gold, but in blessings. (Childe House’s oldest RA is one of them, which explains why the once-every-305-days evacuation has a 100% success rate, even when half a dozen residents don’t understand what a “mandatory house meeting” or a “fire drill” is.)

  Which begs the question: why does the leader of the Hunt help so many?

Rewards are meant to be given to the exceptional few. Yet the unhappy are not part of these few. Given the number of students with newfound rapture in their eyes, one does not need to be exceptionally kind, clever, or daring to transfer their passions. Just wary, wise, and lucky are enough.

When asked, the leader of the Wild Hunt proclaimed that such a spell is child’s play. We’ve already provided the ingredients: two subjects and a passion. The price is low because all he needs to do is to sever the interest from one subject, then attach it to another. Simple work, he said. He would never think of charging so much for something he could do before breakfast. It is not befitting a warrior. Think of it as a favour from a father to his children, he said, then laughs as if there is a joke here that no one else understands.

There are more people who understand than he might think, for the more competent members of the Forbidden Major have another theory. Anyone with passing knowledge of folklore would be able to recognize this person at a glance, they say (quietly, and never to the Huntsman’s face). He is the amalgamation of ghost, fae and old god.

The first rider of the Wild Hunt might be, depending on the amount of fertilizer on the campus lawn and the moon phase, the oldest warrior poet. There are less battlefields for him to watch over now, but still he is song and madness. Still, he is overcome with fury when he sees yet another soldier buckle before the fight has begun.

This child would have made a fine skald. That child could have become a brilliant shield-maiden. This one had the makings of a king, yet they chose to push these futures away, he said through clenched teeth. These children began to think there was nothing left. They started to look at the pond and that single eighth-floor window which could open all the way.

This is not a battlefield, but… to give up before the horn sounds, under his watch?

Unforgivable, he said, with an unblinking smile, all teeth and lone glittering eye. To despair is to slander my hundred names.

So the leader of the Hunt casts a few spells here, a little trickery there, and coaxes the bright frenzy back in their eyes, or so the Forbidden Majors whisper. The price is only low because of who and why he is. He helps them so they can die more valiantly, another day.

  Think of it as a favour from a father to his children, he says, then laughs as if there is a joke here that no one else understands. This is despite the fact that half the Forbidden Majors and a fifth of the Literature Majors know who he is.

(Not that they would reveal that, ever. The all-father’s wrath is a terrible thing.)

  Addendum:

Statistics unavailable for those who encountered the Wild Hunt’s leader alone, while not wearing boots. Mythological references, as well as the Sword-House valet’s intuition, imply it is better not to know.

[Author’s Note]

I did not intend “Why You Should Wear Boots after Picking a Major You Didn’t Want” to be so long. Do pardon me.

There is much debate over the identity of the Wild Hunt’s leader. My personal favourite theory is that the leader is Odin, or some variant of him, which this submission is based on. Still, I couldn’t resist hinting at the others:

“Bedraggled man” = multiple stories, in which the Hunt’s leader is any hunter who preferred hunting to going to church, or else slandered a certain god

“King of old” = Arawn

“Harlequin” = in Vitalis’ Ecclesiastical History Vol. 2 (1140), Hellequin/Herlequin is the herald of a Wild- Hunt-esque procession of tortured souls. There is also King Herla.

“Sledder with a thick Mecklenburg accent” = Frau Gauden

-Louis

[superhero--imagines]

Part 1 Here! / Part 2 Here! / Part 3 Here! / Part 4 Here! / Part 5 Here! / Part 6 Here! / Part 7 Here! / Part 8 Here! / Part 9 Here! / Part 10 Here! / Part 11 Here! / Part 12 Here! / Part 13 Here! / Part 14 Here! / Part 15 Here! / Part 16 Here! / < This is Part 17!>

Donate to Move to Higher Ground HERE!

Song for this Chapter - (X)

A/N: Soooo I might not update Saturday this week because I’ve been pretty slammed at work this week. If anyone would like to Beta read the next two parts of this series (Especially if you’re BIPOC) pls DM me. The next part I’m not so concerned about, but the part after. (Also need Beta readers for my original pieces!) 

* Your legs dangle beneath you as you continuously bump your head against the tree trunk hoping the contact will knock some sense into you

* It doesn’t even hurt, barley a tickle.

* You decided that the safest, and least embarrassing, place for you right now was up a 100 foot tall tree.

* You came here for some peace and quiet, to get away from everyone and sort out your thoughts

* Not that it matters since half the coven has been up here to talk to you

* Carlisle came first, though you’re betting he pulled the “dad” card so he could go first.

* “Lovely view.”

* “Hmm” you mumble

* He lets out a deep sigh, and you hate yourself for not making this easier for him.

* “So I heard that you and Edward had a .... romantic encounter.”

* You laugh

* “A romantic encounter,” you repeat, you look at Carlisle who mirrors your smile.

* “Edward does that too” He mumbles. Carlisle doesn’t miss the way you stiffen at the mention of his name.

* A long, deep sigh escapes him

* “I just want you to know that it’s fine,” He’s sitting far away from you on the branch, partially because of your powers and partially because he understands you want space.

* “You’re two healthy vampires and I understand you have needs-“

* “Oh my god Carlisle please don’t tell me you’re giving me “the talk” right now on a tree branch” you’re mortified but you’re laughing

* “I just want you to know that however you choose to proceed, I love and support you.”

* And then Carlisle does something he hasn’t done in a decade,

* he inches closer, breaking into your personal bubble and gives you a kiss on the forehead and a pat on your shoulder

* You smile after he leaps down and runs back to the house

* He hasn’t done something like that since he found you in Volterra, newly turned and asking to die.

* Truly a compassionate man.

* Rosalie’s the next one, she actually calls your attention from the ground

* “I brought you some blood in case you’re hungry” she shouts, holding up a thermos with what you assume is blood.

* You sigh, it looks like you won’t be getting much space

* She leaves just as much space as Carlisle when she sits by you on the branch

* “Nice view up here huh?” She even cups a hand over her eyes to see further

* This family and small talk

* “Do you want to talk about it?” She finally asks after a long moment of silence.

* You shake your head

* “Not really” she nods, lacing her fingers together on her lap. There’s another long moment of silence

* “Does everyone know?” She raises an eyebrow and you clarify 

*“That Edward felt that way I mean.”

* Rosalie gives you a smirk that basically says, ‘I thought you didn’t want to talk about it’, but she doesn’t tease you any further. 

*She lets out a long sigh and looks down to her hands

* “Remember that time you came to our house for the first time to play monopoly?” 

*You nod. 

*“Most of us pieced it together back then”

* You sigh, all the way since back then?

* It’s been over a decade.

* “Mostly because we usually don’t have board game nights, and Edward asked if we could so he could have an excuse to bring you over”

* That dork. 

*You can’t help but smile.

* Of course Edward saw how lonely you were in that house and decided to find an excuse to get you five other friends.

* Another long moment of silence passes

* “Look I- I know Edward is my brother and I would be thrilled if you guys got together-“ 

*she places her hand on top of yours.

* “But I want you to know that I love you, and if you decide that’s not what you want, then that’s okay.”

* Her eyes are so kind, she gives you a gentle smile.

* “No matter what you decide, I’ll still love you, you’re still my best friend-my (sister/brother).”

* You feel your eyes sting and you nod, you give her a weak smile and she sighs wrapping you in a hug.

* “I’ll come back later with more blood” she caresses your face before jumping down, running back to the house

* As soon as she’s out of sight you feel your branch bend down

* “Great view, you see any bears yet?” Emmett asks and you sigh, swirling the cap of your thermos off

* “Care for a drink Emmett?”

* “Well don’t mind if I do”

* Out of all of them, you think you like Emmett’s interaction the best

* He doesn’t talk about Edward, just makes conversation with you like nothing is wrong, like you’re staying up this tree like a stranded cat because it’s fun

* “I heard you kissed a bunch of people at the party” you groan and put your face in your hands

* “I was drinking, I guess I drank too much, and made some questionable decision.”

* He grins and pats your shoulder

* “It’s not that big of a deal, we’ve all been there. Besides I thought it was pretty bad ass.”

* You smile, of course he would.

* Emmett doesn’t sit far away from you like the others, he sits beside you and swings his arm over your shoulder bringing you into a hug.

* “Don’t stress out about things too much up here, and when you’re ready don’t be embarrassed to come home.” He plants a kiss in your hair before swooping down

* That’s your big brother for you

* It’s not more than ten minutes until you feel the branch away again

* “Oh my god, can’t I have just a minute-“ the words die in your throat when you turn to see who’s sitting next to you.

* “Oh, hey Edward.”

* He’s sitting just as far as Carlisle and Rosalie were, if not further, he offers you a brief smile.

* A long moment of silence fills the air and you gulp

* “It’s a real nice view huh?” You say,

* oh geez now you’re the one talking about the view

* “Yeah it’s beautiful.” Edward’s not looking at the view, he’s looking at you, and the implication makes you even more flustered than you are.

* You watch Edward, he’s so happy he’s glowing. Every few seconds a smile will creep onto his face only for him to force it into a frown, only for it to twitch back into a smile again. 

* You laugh.

* “You’re doing that thing where you can’t hide how happy you are.” 

* Edward openly grins once you say that.

* “You’re happy too, I can feel it all the way from here.” He says holding a hand out.

* Ah your powers are leaking through

* Looks Rosalie and Carlisle just wanted to look serious when they were here

* “Of course I’m happy” 

* He told you he loved you, how could you not be happy?

* He basically confirmed your wildest wishes and hopes.

* This is the happiest you’ve ever been

* “I don’t understand why you’re sitting up here honestly,” he shakes his head boyish smile curling onto his face as his eyes stay focused on the horizon. “I know you feel the same way as I do”

* He’s right, you do feel the same as him.

* Maybe for just as long as he has, you’ve just been holding yourself back because you thought he would never have those feelings for you

* Because you’re not the one who’s going to make him the happiest he could possibly be

* “Look Edward, I think you could do so much-“

* “Is this about Bella?” He interrupts, a bitter laugh when you remain silent. “Why do you think I would ever love her?”

* “The way you look at her-“

* “I don’t get that either, you talked about that last night too, I’m not sure what you’re seeing but the look I give her is of minimal tolerance.”

* ...

* Wait

* What

* “Oh cut the crap Edward, I saw the way you guys looked at each other on the stairway”

* “What stairway?” 

*Is he trying to play dumb? Because honestly- you’re a little convinced with that confused puppy look he’s giving you

* “At Conner’s party, you guys were talking at the stairwell, you looked at her like she was telling you all of the universe’s secrets.”

* He looks embarrassed, a hand tangling in his hair. 

* “Um- about that-”

* You caught the criminal red handed. He might like you, but he likes her too doesn’t he. Well he’s probably entranced by that scent of hers, no doubt he’ll forget all about you-

* “We were talking about you.” 

* ....

* (Y/N). Exe is broken

*  “While you were gone, we both came to an agreement to set our differences aside for you-”

* Why would they go that far for you, it’s not like you care-

* You remember the vitamins

* Going out of your way to include her in things, 

* Driving her home even when any normal person would have just ignored the whole thing

* Oh my god, you’re Bella’s best friend

* And even worse, everyone probably thinks she’s your best friend too. 

* (Y/N). Exe is broken

* “Don’t misunderstand for a second, I still find her absolutely repulsive, and whatever haze she’s got over the school is absolutely perplexing-”

* “But what about the carnation?” you interrupt.

* She’s the only one he bought a carnation for.

* “What carnation?”

* “The carnation you bought her on Valentine’s Day!” 

* Sure one carnation isn’t anything compared to the bouquet he bought you, but it had to mean something

* “I didn’t buy anyone any carnations.” He tells you, his eyebrows threading together

* Oh f*ck

* f*ck *f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck *f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck *f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck

* You bought Bella that carnation.

* You bought all of your friends carnations, light red ones for friendship

* “Were you jealous because you thought I bought her flowers and not you?” 

*A mischievous grin arch’s onto his mouth and you hide your face in your hands 

*“You were, weren’t you? That’s adorable.”

* The criminal is teasing you, only this time you can’t complain because it’s rightly deserved

* “But- then what were you talking at the lockers about?”

* Edward’s face pinches into a look of disgust.

* “She came by to rub in my face how you had given us both the same colored carnations”

* “Wait-Bella knows you felt this way about me?”

* He laughs

* “(Y/N/N), I’m pretty sure everyone knows I love you.”

* Everyone but you apparently

* Was it really all in your head?

* Edward has loved you this entire time and you just...never noticed?

* “Honestly, I love you (Y/N), but sometimes you get fixated on these ideas for no logical reason-“

* Oh there’s a logical reason alright

* “-like what possible reason could there be for me to love a human like Bella? It’s just comple-“

* “Because you’re supposed to Edward!” 

* It’s the straw that finally broke the camels back.

* You tell him everything, about everything that happened in the books.

* Him falling in love with Bella, killing James, leaving her in new moon, the werewolves, the newborn army led by Victoria, their marriage and Bella’s pregnancy

* You frame it like you had a prophetic dream the night you turned, which is probably the closest way you can explain what happened without looking insane.

* Not that Edward would mind, he would probably get the best recommendation from Carlisle for a mental health institute and happily visit you three times a week with flowers and other gifts. 

* You both sit in silence after you finish telling him everything, the only sound the gentle whistle of the wind.

* “So what?”

* He asks, shrugging his shoulders and looking at you like you just told him a tv show he doesn’t like is getting cancelled

* You scoff in disbelief

* “ So what? Edward she’s your soul mate!”

* “You’re my soul mate” he says plainly, he’s inched closer to you this entire time, and now his thigh is only a flew inches away from your own.

* You feel embarrassed at his words, how can he say that so easily? 

*You’re still not even sure soul mates exist.

* Noticing you embarrassment he places his hand on top of yours, intertwining your fingers

* The contact makes butterflies erupt in your stomach.

* “I understand that you think that story is the one I want,” he says it slowly. 

* “But there’s already so many thing that are different.”

* He’s right things have changed, you know that.

* “Besides I don’t think I’m the one Bella has a crush on” he gives you a meaningful look and your eyebrows thread together.

* Wait what’s that supposed to mean

* “This world is different than the one you saw.” He squeezes your hand, and you sigh, 

* It’s different because of you.

* He should have had all those things. If it weren’t for you he would have had all those things

* “Edward she can give you a baby, a real baby that’s yours!”

* There’s only one common thread for all the vampires you’ve seen that still hunger for their humanity

* They all want a child.

* What Edward is getting, it’s a miracle. A Hail Mary. The odds of something like this happening are one in one billion at best.

* He gets to have a baby, and the woman he loves. It’s a win-win.

* He sighs and squeezes your hand.

* “But I don’t want that.” He says it so bluntly, like it’s the simplest thing on earth. 

*Your brain stops working.

* Well that can’t be right

* “We’ve never talked about it, but I’ve never wanted children, not even when I was a boy and still human.”

* Wait Edward doesn’t want kids? 

* Your head snaps up to meet his eyes

* “I think to want to bring children into the world you have to be at peace with the world and with yourself. And I’ve never been able to have either of those things.” He shrugs, his legs swinging under him.

* “What you saw- I was probably just going along with whatever Bella wanted, but I don’t think I would genuinely want to raise a child in this world, especially not when I look like I’m seventeen for the rest of my life”

* That makes sense. 

*Edward’s always been sensitive about his age. He looks older than 17, probably because of the venom. 

*But he’s the youngest of all his siblings, you know deep down he can handle the vampirism,

* But he can’t handle being a child for all of eternity.

* “But even if I did want kids, I want an eternity with you even more.”

* He squeezes your hand and you squeeze back, gulping the burning in your throat

* Whether it’s from thirst or the overwhelming emotions you’re not sure

* “Okay.” You finally say after several long moment of silence 

* “Okay, you’ll be mine for eternity or...” 

* You slap him lightly on the chest and he barks laughing

* “Okay...we can... date.” You say it haltingly, carefully even.

* “Like humans” you add for good measure

* You expect a bit of protest from Edward, he’s been waiting for you for over a decade now, you can’t think of a man alive who would be alright with just dating.

* But Edward smiles like you just agreed to marry him. He puts a hand on your face, and caresses your cheek with his thumb.

* “Alright, we’ll date like humans do.”

* You’re still a little worried but you find yourself smiling when Edward presses his forehead against your own. 

* His lips meeting yours.

* “(Y/N) and Edward sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.” You tease when he pulls away and he laughs again

* “You’re the worst you know that?”

* “Yet you still love me,” you tease “you loooooove me, you waanaaaa spend eeeeternity with meeee.” You sing and he laughs.

* “Suddenly I’m regretting my decision to court you.” 

* You sit in silence for a second, enjoying his scent. 

* It feels safe here

* It feels like home

* “Are you ready to go inside?”

* You should, you feel a lot better now, but-

* You groan and bury your face in his shoulder.

* “It’s going to be so embarrassing, everyone’s going to know what happened and Emmett is never going to stop with the sex jokes”

* Edward just grins, he can’t believe after waiting for so long, you’re his now.

* It feels like a dream

* You’re right though, it’s is going to be super embarrassing going back home after this.

* He gets why you chose to wait it out in a tree

* “Yeah, let’s stay out here for a while longer.” He says wrapping his arms around you.

BONUS:

* Rosalie is peering out the window with gold opera glasses to her hand

* “Oh! He leaned in closer! I think he’s holding their hand”

* Alice groans beside her

* “No they’re just talking, they’re going to be doing that a lot”

* “What else do you see Alice?” Jasper asks from behind her, watching the tree you and Edward are sitting on intently

* “I’m not sure...it’s all changing really fast, in one they make up and go back to being friends,”

* Emmett groans from behind her, he can’t handle anymore yearning or weird sex talks with his brother

* “In another they push Edward of the branch and say: “oh why don’t you just go back to Bella you human lover””

* Rosalie shudders, well that’s not good

* Honestly she should have just told you Bella and Edward had come to an agreement to be civil around one another for your benefit while you were gone

* They basically bonded over how much they like you

* The carnation was probably just a sign of that truce, if it was even from him

* She’s got a feeling it was probably from you and you just forgot, but she didn’t want to embarrass you 

* Besides she figured it might be the final push you need to admit your feelings to him

* “They’re kissing! You guys they’re kissing!” Alice shrieks, and all of them turn their attention back to you

* Ah so you are

* “And so end the brooding chronicles” Jasper whispers and Rosalie hides a laugh

* “I would call them the yearning chronicles” Alice adds

* “Have you considered that maybe the reason they’re out there is because they want privacy?” Carlisle says without looking up from his open newspaper.

* The four of them shuffle awkwardly before walking away from the large window

* “You too Esme” Carlisle says

* Esme sighs, tucking her black opera glasses into her apron

* “Don’t blame me when we don’t have anything to say at the wedding when it comes time for a toast” she mumbles, walking back to the kitchen to finish her cookies

* “A wedding?”

* Queue Carlisle half sobbing half wheezing into his newspaper

* “Not one, but two kids leaving the family?”

Tags:  @moonlights27​ @thebluetint​ @the100thtwilight​ @awesomebooklover17​ @oneofthepotterheads​ @smileygirl08​ @imdoingathingmom​ @iconicgguk​ @yrawn​ @alyciaswhore​ @little-horror-show​ @wicked-watering-can​ @lazydreamers​ @ xxxmuxxx @ideas-for-you-to-adopt​​​ @poisoinedhope @maryleigh8796​​ @moose-squirrel-asstiel​​ @hotmessgoodness​ @jaimewho​ @corabmarie​ @what-am-i-doing10​ @alluring-venus​ @imdoingathingmom @anotheryooniverse​ @im-tired-not-sleepy​ @emmettcullenisahimbo​ @my-super-musical-life​ @smolvampiregirl​ @it-was-all-a-beautiful-dream​ @mihikaahujaaa​

[bethanyactually]

Tag game! The wonderful @preux-chevalier tagged me a few days ago, and I've been waiting for the mood to strike to do this. I think I'll also include my favorite lyric from each song, or maybe some relevant commentary, just because.

You can learn a lot about a person from their music, so put a playlist on shuffle and pick the first 10 songs.

1. Saint Honesty - Sara Bareilles

Baptized by truth we will reap what we sow/Build our own higher ground/When the rain's coming down/This is worth it to me

2. Lost Stars - Keira Knightley (from the movie Begin Again)

Please don't see just a girl caught up in dreams and fantasies./Please see me reaching out for someone I can't see.

3. Keep It Close - Seven Lions (feat. Kerli) (from the Sense8 soundtrack)

(gonna be honest, this song is not about the lyrics, it's about the mood)

4. So Far Away - Carole King

If I could only work this life out my way/I'd rather spend it being close to you

5. Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go - Wham!

(oh my goodness, I hadn't seen this video in decades and it's a BOP. I had forgotten how much the music video in Music and Lyrics was actually referencing it, lol--shoutout to @sdwolfpup, who will probably now have "Pop! Goes My Heart" in her head playing on a loop, you're welcome)

6. Starships

this is a Nicki Minaj song but this version is the one performed by Mike Tompkins, the cast of Pitch Perfect, and assorted fans. It makes me smile every time I listen to it, and the video is a lot of fun as well as sort of a time capsule of the internet in 2012.

7. Whistling in the Dark - They Might Be Giants

There's only one thing that I know how to do well/And I've often been told that you only can do/What you know how to do well/And that's be you/Be what you're like/Be Like yourself

8. Do You Believe In Love - Huey Lewis & the News

I used to have you in a photograph/I'm so glad it's changed/But now I've got you and it's gonna last

9. Big Backyard - Barenaked Ladies

I've been living so long with this hole in my heart/I became a drifter and began to roam/Now all I really want is a home

10. Sowing the Seeds of Love - Tears For Fears

I've always been partial to the lyric Everyone read about it, read about it/Read it in the books, in the crannies and the nooks, there are books to read, but I'm gonna also highlight the lyric Politician granny with your high ideals/Have you no idea how the majority feels because that is a callout specifically of Margaret Thatcher, who was Prime Minister of the UK when this song was released.

Thanks, Sarah! <3 Gonna low-key, no-pressure tag some folks from my recent activity: @onehandedbitch, @acesexualspock, @madfatandhungry, @agentbethanyofshield, @feeisamarshmallow, @seaspiritwrites, @ishipwaytoomuch, @wasdplz, @condescendingbench, @amazingstacey, and @fooferah always.♥︎

[chudleycanonficfest]

Stars in the Night Sky

Day 3, Story #2 is by @adenei

Title: Stars in the Night Sky

Author: adenei

Pairing: Jily (James Potter x Lily Evans)

Prompt: Stargazing

Rating: PG

TW: None :)

****************

The castle is peaceful as it nears midnight, a calm surrender to the usual bustling halls during the day. Rounds ended over an hour ago, but the quick pair of footsteps was not rushing through a late shift, they were on their way to the Astronomy Tower to meet their partner and begin Professor Sinistra’s constellation project. 

Allocation of the work was all in the luck of the draw. Where one half of the class drew a name, and the other pulled the astronomical phenomenon they were to study. Lily Evans had pulled the piece of parchment on stars and constellations, and according to the project’s outline, she and her partner would be tracking Orion, Cassiopeia, Gemini, and Canis Major for the next two weeks.

The project left Lily questioning why she chose to pursue the subject after passing her O.W.L.s. Maybe it was because she has always been fascinated by the subject, or maybe it’s for the sole fact that Astronomy is one of the subjects she can discuss with her family since it relates closely to muggle sciences. Regardless, she’s not sure it’s worth the lack of sleep she’s about to endure over the next few weeks.

As Lily climbs the steps of the Astronomy Tower, her heart thunders in her chest with anticipation about who her partner will be. The class is small, with only ten students, but she didn’t bother to hang around and discuss ‘who had who’ at the end of class. She had a meeting with Professor McGonagall about her Head Girl duties and couldn’t be bothered to worry about who her partner was. 

But now, after finding out through Mary that she’s been paired with Remus and Sirius pulled Benjy Fenwick’s name, Lily is nervous. Rumblings at dinner also confirmed that Calliope Forsythe of Hufflepuff was disappointed that she chose Bridgette Marls’s name instead of James’s, leaving Lily sweating the remaining possible outcomes. She doesn’t want to jinx it by getting her hopes up that James may have pulled her name out of the cauldron, and she’s mad at herself for wanting it so desperately.

We already spend enough time together with our Head duties. Plus, we’re friends now, so we can hang out whenever we like...just not alone.

Her last thought is only a partial lie, considering they’re ‘alone’ when creating schedules for rounds, but it never fails that some fifth or sixth-year students are always barging in to use the Prefect’s lounge to study, ruining any potential chance for either to make a move. Even when they’re on rounds, their conversation is constantly interrupted by catching a couple in a broom closet or empty classroom. 

Lily lets out a huff of frustration as she recalls the last time, when she was sure he was about to ask her to Hogsmeade, but then there was a loud clatter from a room up ahead, breaking the moment. So really, it’d be ideal if James were her partner for this project. She’s sick of the song and dance they’ve been playing since the start of term and wants nothing more than to find out whether he still fancies her or not. After all, it’s only a matter of time that some other girl will swoop in, causing his devilishly handsome smile to be trained on them instead.

As Lily approaches the foot of the stairs leading up to the observation room, she checks her watch. 11:59. Right on time. She holds her breath during the entire stair climb, and only when she rounds the corner to the dimly lit area with one singular candle on the table to take notes, does she see him. He’s leaning over the table, the light illuminating his messy black hair as his glasses slip down his nose. The sleeves on the white shirt of his uniform are rolled up to his elbows, exposing the sinewy muscles of his forearm as Lily stands there, getting lost in a daydream that finds those arms wrapped around her body.

The hoot of an owl in the distance snaps her out of her thoughts as she takes a few steps closer.

“I hope you haven’t started without me.” 

Lily’s light chiding gets James’s attention as a wide smirk dons his face. Her insides tremble as her heart pounds faster in her chest.

“How can I get started if I don’t know what we’re supposed to be looking at,” he remarks, eliciting a nervous laugh from her chest.

“Yeah, sorry for not sticking around after class. I had another appointment.”

“Well, I hope my reveal isn’t too much of a shock.”

“Better you than Mulciber or Avery,” she teases. “Why didn’t you ask Professor Sinistra what topic I pulled after you gave your information and got our timetable?”

James walks around the table to join her as she pulls out the project guidelines. She assumes he would have known what they were studying, considering everyone had to check-in and get their schedules from Professor Sinistra. Depending on what the group has chosen, their research times varied.

“Because I thought we were going for the surprise factor,” his cheeky grin matches the lightness in his voice. “Besides, I figured it’d be another excuse to pore over the parchment in close proximity.”

Lily searches the space next to her to see just how close James is before meeting his gaze. She becomes dizzy from the scent of his cologne, with hints of cinnamon and sandalwood invading her sense of smell. If she gives in to temptation now, they won’t accomplish anything on their first night.

Work first, play later.

Strengthening her resolve, Lily makes a swift turn and heads for the telescope. “We’re responsible for tracking the four constellations that are listed on the first page. I’ll see which one I can find first and we’ll go from there. We can take turns tracing, and observing if that’s alright with you.”

“Sure, I’ll get the parchment set up,” James agrees.

Lily’s not sure, but she thinks she may have heard a hint of disappointment in his tone. She pushes the thoughts aside and peers into the massive telescope that’s bolted down in the center of the room. It doesn’t take long to find Jupiter, and from there, she’s able to see a handful of the stars that make up Orion. The belt is the most prevalent as she takes mental notes to transfer on the paper.

Settling into a steady hum of working together, the pair take turns between the telescope and table, making light work of the night’s observations. When Lily checks her watch again, she realizes they’ve finished with time to spare. She wanders over to the railing, and even though she’s spent the better part of the last ninety minutes studying the stars, she finds herself looking up to the sky once more. Only this time, she’s stargazing with only the naked eye. 

She feels James approaching before he arrives at her side, gazing up at the twinkling stars among the backdrop of black and midnight blue.

“We make a pretty good team.” Her voice is soft as it carries through the air between them.

Lily’s exhaustion is prevalent as her eyelids become heavier, but she can’t be bothered to move away from James’s side. Not yet, anyways.

“You haven’t gathered that from our flawless round schedules and seamless Prefect meetings we’ve run so far as Heads?”

Lily can’t help the smile that creeps across her lips. He’s playing into her words in the exact way she was hoping for. “Of course, I’ve noticed. I was just thinking out loud…” she trails off, hoping she’s got him hooked and wanting to know what else she’s about to say.

“About what?” Barely a second passes before the question leaves his mouth.

She drags her teeth over her bottom lip as she looks up at him. Here goes nothing.

“Just about how our teamwork might work in other respects, too.”

His lips part as she hears a sharp intake of breath. “Evans,” he warns as he inches ever closer to her face.

“Potter,” she challenges right back.

They are mere centimeters away from each other now, and it’d be so easy to close the gap between them. James seems to have frozen in front of her as she finds herself leaning up on her tiptoes to press a feather-light kiss to his lips. She pulls away, not wanting to push her luck.

When he doesn’t move after she pulls away, her heart sinks. Lily grabs her bag and turns to head back to the common room. Clearly, I was mistaken.

“Sorry, I just thought—” but she never finished her apology.

Her foot grazes the top step of the staircase before a warm, strong hand wraps around her wrist and pulls her back, where she hits a wall of muscle. Her lips are on his again, and this time he’s kissing her back as her arms snake around his shoulders and her foot lifts off the ground of its own accord. 

James Potter is kissing me!

The moment only lasts a few moments before they pull apart, their breathing heavy under the starry night.

James breaks the silence after a minute. “So, er, Hogsmeade this weekend?”

Lily grins as she backs away slightly, leaving him standing there as she heads toward the stairs for the second time. She flashes a ‘come and get me’ look. 

“I thought you’d never ask.”

[cappymightwrite]

Jon Snow, Manfred & The Byronic Hero: Part 2

Previous Posts: PART 1

Hopefully Part 1 served as a good introduction on the topic and characteristics of the Byronic Hero, as well as how Jon Snow in particular is likely an iteration of this figure. But now we come to the real meat of this meta series — a closer look at Byron's dramatic poem Manfred (1816–1817), and more importantly, its titular character in comparison to Jon Snow. I was originally going to do an analysis and comparison of two key episodes in Manfred and A Storm of Swords, Jon VI, but have since decided to give that its own post... that's right kids, there will be a part 3!

(Detail from Lord Byron, Thomas Phillips, 1813)

So... why Manfred? Why not Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, or The Corsair, or Don Juan, or any other work by Lord Byron? Well, I'll tell you why, my sweet summer children. It's because of THIS:

Manfred/Manfryds and Byrons in ASOIAF, by order of first appearance and publication:

Ser Manfred Swann (ASOS, Jaime VIII)

Ser Manfred Dondarrion (The Hedge Knight)

Manfred Lothston (The Sworn Sword)

Manfryd o' the Black Hood (AFFC, Brienne I)

Manfryd Yew (AFFC, Jaime V)

Ser Byron the Beautiful (AFFC, Alayne II, TWOW, Alayne I)

Ser Byron Swann (ADWD, Tyrion III)

Manfryd Merlyn of Kite (ADWD, Victarion I)

Manfryd Mooton, Lord of Maidenpool (The Princess and the Queen, TWOIAF)

Manfred Hightower, Lord of the Hightower (TWOIAF)

Manfred Hightower, Lord of the Hightower (Fire and Blood)

Like... what the hell, George?

I find this very interesting, very interesting indeed! *cough* intentional, very intentional *cough* And I have to thank @agentrouka-blog for reminding me of the existence of these Manfreds/Manfryds, and thus pointing me in this particular direction. This evidence is, for me, my smoking gun, it's why I feel justified in exploring this specific work. In my opinion, it really strongly confirms that GRRM is aware of Manfred, he is aware of its author — as a literary name, it is pretty much exclusively connected to Byron, it's like Hamlet to Shakespeare, or Heathcliff to Emily Brontë. In fact, GRRM likes it enough to use this name several times in fact, its frequency of use aided by a slight variation on its spelling.

So, as we can see, there are a striking number of Manfred/Manfryds (9!!) featured in the ASOIAF universe, whereas Byron (2) is used a bit more sparingly — perhaps because the latter, if more liberally used, would become far more recognisable as an overt literary reference? Interestingly, though, we can see a direct link between the two names as both bear the surname Swann: Ser Manfred Swann and Ser Byron Swann (note the exact spelling of Manfred here, as opposed to Manfryd). Ser Byron was alive during the Dance of Dragons and died trying to kill the dragon Syrax, whereas Ser Manfred was alive during Aegon V's reign and had a young Ser Barristan as his squire. So, in terms of ancestry, Byron came before Manfred, which makes sense since Lord Byron created the character of Manfred; he is his authorial/literary progenitor, if you will.

But why Swann, though? Is there any significance to that surname? Well, I did a little bit of digging and turned up something very interesting, at least in my opinion. In Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem Lines written among the Euganean Hills (1818), in its sixth stanza, the poet addresses the city of Venice... the “tempest-cleaving Swan” in the eighth line is clearly meant to be his friend and contemporary, Lord Byron, that city’s most famous expatriate:

That a tempest-cleaving Swan Of the songs of Albion, Driven from his ancestral streams By the might of evil dreams, Found a nest in thee;

(st. 6, l. 8-12)

Ah ha! But let's not forget that the Swanns are also a house from the stormlands — stormlander Swanns vs. "tempest-cleaving Swan." It seems a nice little homage, doesn't it? You could also argue that the battling swans of House Swann's sigil are a possible reference to Byron's fondness for boxing (he apparently received "pugilistic tuition" at a club in Bond Street, London). But to make the references to Byron too overt would ruin the subtly, so it isn't necessary, in my opinion, for the Swanns to be completely steeped in Byronisms.

All in all, it would be very neat of GRRM if the reasoning behind Byron and Manfred Swann is because of this reference to Lord Byron by Shelley. How these names and the characters that bear them might further reference Byron and Manfred is a possible discussion for another day! It's all just very interesting, very noteworthy, and highlights how careful GRRM is at choosing the names of his characters, even very minor, seemingly insignificant ones.

(Illustration of Villa Diodati from Finden's Illustrations of the Life and Works of Lord Byron, Edward Finden, 1833)

Now onto the actual poem, and the ways in which Jon Snow could being referencing/paralleling Manfred. First things first, a bit of biographical context. Take my hand, and let's travel back in time, way back when, to 1816, the year in which Lord Byron left England forever, his reputation in tatters due to the collapse of his marriage and the rumours of an affair with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh (plus he was hugely in debt). No doubt, most of us are familiar with the story, but in 1816 Byron travelled to Switzerland, to a villa on Lake Geneva, where he met the Shelleys and suggested that they all pass the time by writing ghost stories.

The most famous story produced by them was, of course, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) — which may have served as the partial inspiration behind Qyburn and Robert Strong! Byron himself did begin a story but soon gave it up (yesss, we love an unproductive king); it was completed, however, by his personal physician, John William Polidori, and eventually published, under Byron's name, as The Vampyre (1819). But Byron didn't completely abandon the ghost story project, as later that summer, after a visit by the Gothic novelist M. G. Lewis, he wrote his "supernatural" tragedy, Manfred (1817).*

*I've seen it dated as 1816-17, but the crucial thing to rememeber, in terms of Byron's own biography, is that unlike The Bride of Abydos, he wrote it after his departure from England... this theme of exile will come up later.

Manfred is what is called a "closet drama", so is structured much like a play, with acts and scenes, though it wouldn't have actually been intended to be performed on stage. Indeed, Lord Byron first described Manfred to his publisher as "a kind of poem in dialogue... but of a very wild—metaphysical—and inexplicable kind": "Almost all the persons—but two or three—are Spirits... the hero [is] a kind of magician who is tormented by a species of remorse—the cause of which is left half unexplained—he wanders about invoking these spirits—which appear to him—& are of no use—he at last goes to the very abode of the Evil principle in propria persona [i.e. in person]—to evocate a ghost—which appears—& gives him an ambiguous & disagreeable answer..."*

*As in Part 1, more academic references will be listed in a bibliography at the end of this post.

To sum up the narrative for you, Manfred is a nobleman living in the Bernese Alps, "tormented by a species of remorse", which is never fully explained, but is clearly connected to the death of his beloved Astarte. Through his mastery of poetic language and spell-casting, he is able to summon seven "spirits", from whom he seeks the gift of forgetfulness, but this plea cannot be granted — he cannot escape from his past. He is also prevented from escaping his mysterious guilt by taking his own life, but in the end, Manfred does die, thus defying religious temptations of redemption from sin. He therefore stands outside of societal expectations, a Romantic rebel who succeeds in challenging all of the authoritative powers he faces, ultimately choosing death over submission to the powerful spirits.

According to Lara Assaad, the character of Manfred is the "Byronic hero par excellence", as he shares its typical characteristics found in Byron's other work (as discussed in Part 1), "yet pushed to the extreme." As noted above, there is a defiance to Manfred's character, which is arguable also found in Jon. Certainly though, in all of Byron's works, the Byronic Hero appears as "a negative Romantic protagonist" to a certain extent, a being who is "filled with guilt, despair, and cosmic and social alienation," observes James B. Twitchell. I'll come back to those characteristics presently.

As noted by Assaad, "Byron scholars seem to agree on this definition of the Byronic Hero, however they focus mainly, if not exclusively, on the dynamics of guilt and remorse." Indeed, it is only in more recent years that the incest motif, as well as the influence of Byron's own biography, have been more widely discussed. But perhaps the most compelling aspect of the Byronic Hero is his complex psychology. Although trauma theory only really started to flourish during the 1990s, thus providing deeper insight into the symptoms that follow a traumatic experience, it nevertheless seems, at least to Assaad, that "Byron was familiar with it well before it was first discussed by professionals and diagnosed." As we know, GRRM began writing his series, A Song of Ice and Fire, during the 1990s, and character trauma and its effects feature heavily in his work, most notably in the case of Theon Greyjoy, but also in the memory editing of Sansa Stark in terms of the infamous "Unkiss".*

*The editing, or supressing, of memories is not exclusive to Sansa, however. E.g @agentrouka-blog has theorised a possible memory edit with regards to Tyrion and his first wife Tysha.

But if we return back to that original quote, in which GRRM makes the comparison between Jon and the Byronic Hero, his following statement is also very interesting:

The character I’m probably most like in real life is Samwell Tarly. Good old Sam. And the character I’d want to be? Well who wouldn’t want to be Jon Snow — the brooding, Byronic, romantic hero whom all the girls love. Theon [Greyjoy] is the one I’d fear becoming. Theon wants to be Jon Snow, but he can’t do it. He keeps making the wrong decisions. He keeps giving into his own selfish, worst impulses. [source]

As noted by @princess-in-a-tower, there is a close correspondence between Jon and Theon, with each acting as the other's foil in many respects. In fact, Theon does sort of tick off a few of the Byronic qualities I discussed last time, most notably standing apart from society, that "society" being the Starks in Winterfell, due to him essentially being a hostage. Later on, we see him develop a sense of deep misery as well due to his horrific treatment at the hands of Ramsey Snow. Like Theon, his narrative foil, Jon is also a character deeply informed by trauma (being raised a bastard), but the way they ultimately process and express that specific displacement trauma differs profoundly — Theon expresses it outwardly through his sacking of Winterfell, whereas Jon turns his trauma notably inwards.*

*Obviously, I'm not a medical professional — I'm more looking at this from a literary angle, but the articles I've read for this post do include reference to real medical definitions etc.

Previously, I observed how being "deeply jaded" and having "misery in his heart" were key characteristics of the Byronic Hero, as well as Jon Snow — this trauma theory is a continuation of that. Indeed, to bring it back to Manfred, Assaad goes as far as stating that the poem's titular hero "suffers from what is now widely recognised as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)." I am purposely holding off on discussing what the origin of that trauma is, in relation to Manfred specifically, because, well... it needs a bit of forewarning before I get into it fully. Instead, let's look at the emotions it exacerabates or gives rise to, as detailed by Twitchell, and how they might be evident in Jon and his feelings regarding his bastard status.

(Jonny Lee Miller as Byron in the two part BBC series Byron, 2003)

Guilt

Does Jon suffer guilt due to him being a bastard and secretly wanting to "steal" his siblings' birthright? I'd say a strong yes:

When Jon had been Bran's age, he had dreamed of doing great deeds, as boys always did. The details of his feats changed with every dreaming, but quite often he imagined saving his father's life. Afterward Lord Eddard would declare that Jon had proved himself a true Stark, and place Ice in his hand. Even then he had known it was only a child's folly; no bastard could ever hope to wield a father's sword. Even the memory shamed him. What kind of man stole his own brother's birthright? I have no right to this, he thought, no more than to Ice. – AGOT, Jon VIII He wanted it, Jon knew then. He wanted it as much as he had ever wanted anything. I have always wanted it, he thought, guiltily. May the gods forgive me. – ASOS, Jon XII

But I think Jon's sense of guilt also extends to the high expectations he sets for himself, his "moral superiority" in the face of his bastard status, as discussed in Part 1. He feels guilt pulling him in two different directions, in regards to Ygritte: guilt for loving her, for breaking his vows, and potentially risking a bastard, but also guilt for leaving her, for abandoning her, and potentially leaving her unprotected:

His guilt came back afterward, but weaker than before. If this is so wrong, he wondered, why did the gods make it feel so good? – ASOS, Jon III Ygritte was much in his thoughts as well. He remembered the smell of her hair, the warmth of her body... and the look on her face as she slit the old man's throat. You were wrong to love her, a voice whispered. You were wrong to leave her, a different voice insisted. He wondered if his father had been torn the same way, when he'd left Jon's mother to return to Lady Catelyn. He was pledged to Lady Stark, and I am pledged to the Night's Watch. – ASOS, Jon VI "I broke my vows with her. I never meant to, but..." It was wrong. Wrong to love her, wrong to leave her..."I wasn't strong enough. The Halfhand commanded me, ride with them, watch, I must not balk, I..." His head felt as if it were packed with wet wool. – ASOS, Jon VI

This guilt surrounding leaving the women/girls he cares about unprotected also extends to Arya. Yet it was his need to prove himself as something more than just a bastard, by joining the Watch, which initially prevents him from acting, and which also makes him feel guilt for being a hyprocrite:

Jon felt as stiff as a man of sixty years. Dark dreams, he thought, and guilt. His thoughts kept returning to Arya. There is no way I can help her. I put all kin aside when I said my words. If one of my men told me his sister was in peril, I would tell him that was no concern of his. Once a man had said the words his blood was black. Black as a bastard's heart. – ADWD, Jon VI

I think there is a lack of reconciliation between Jon and his bastard status, between what being a bastard implies in their society: lustful, deceitful, treacherous, more "worldly" etc. Deep down, subconsciously, Jon really rebels against it. You can see that rebellion more clearly in his memories as a younger child, less inhibited:

Every morning they had trained together, since they were big enough to walk; Snow and Stark, spinning and slashing about the wards of Winterfell, shouting and laughing, sometimes crying when there was no one else to see. They were not little boys when they fought, but knights and mighty heroes. "I'm Prince Aemon the Dragonknight," Jon would call out, and Robb would shout back, "Well, I'm Florian the Fool." Or Robb would say, "I'm the Young Dragon," and Jon would reply, "I'm Ser Ryam Redwyne." That morning he called it first. "I'm Lord of Winterfell!" he cried, as he had a hundred times before. Only this time, this time, Robb had answered, "You can't be Lord of Winterfell, you're bastard-born. My lady mother says you can't ever be the Lord of Winterfell." I thought I had forgotten that. Jon could taste blood in his mouth, from the blow he'd taken. – ASOS, Jon XII

But Jon knows this truth about himself, he knows that he has "always wanted it", and that causes him so much guilt because he can't allow himself to be selfish in that regard, because to do so would confirm for him his worst fears... that he truly is a bastard in nature as well as birth — treacherous, covetous, dishonourable.

Despair

As he grows up, learning to curb his emotional outbursts from AGOT, Jon appears more and more stoic upon the surface. But beneath that, buried in his subconscious in the form of dreams, you have this undyling feeling of despair, this trauma connected to his bastard status, his partially unknown heritage:

Not my mother, Jon thought stubbornly. He knew nothing of his mother; Eddard Stark would not talk of her. Yet he dreamed of her at times, so often that he could almost see her face. In his dreams, she was beautiful, and highborn, and her eyes were kind. – AGOT, Jon III

These recurring dreams, sometimes explicitly involving his unknown mother, sometimes not, represent a clear gap, a gaping blank in Jon's personal history and his perception of his identity:

"Sometimes I dream about it," he said. "I'm walking down this long empty hall. My voice echoes all around, but no one answers, so I walk faster, opening doors, shouting names. I don't even know who I'm looking for. Most nights it's my father, but sometimes it's Robb instead, or my little sister Arya, or my uncle." [...]

"Do you ever find anyone in your dream?" Sam asked.

Jon shook his head. "No one. The castle is always empty." He had never told anyone of the dream, and he did not understand why he was telling Sam now, yet somehow it felt good to talk of it. "Even the ravens are gone from the rookery, and the stables are full of bones. That always scares me. I start to run then, throwing open doors, climbing the tower three steps at a time, screaming for someone, for anyone. And then I find myself in front of the door to the crypts. It's black inside, and I can see the steps spiraling down. Somehow I know I have to go down there, but I don't want to. I'm afraid of what might be waiting for me. The old Kings of Winter are down there, sitting on their thrones with stone wolves at their feet and iron swords across their laps, but it's not them I'm afraid of. I scream that I'm not a Stark, that this isn't my place, but it's no good, I have to go anyway, so I start down, feeling the walls as I descend, with no torch to light the way. It gets darker and darker, until I want to scream." He stopped, frowning, embarrassed. "That's when I always wake." His skin cold and clammy, shivering in the darkness of his cell. Ghost would leap up beside him, his warmth as comforting as daybreak. He would go back to sleep with his face pressed into the direwolf's shaggy white fur. – AGOT, Jon IV

"That always scares me", he says quite tellingly. From this key passage, in particular, we can see that Jon feels a deep rooted despair at essentially being unclaimed, unwanted... being without a solid (Stark) identity around which to draw strength and mould himself. He's afraid of being a lone wolf, because as we all know, "the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives," (AGOT, Arya II).

This dream points him in the direction of the crypts — "somehow I know I have to go down there, but I don't want to" — which actually does have the answers he seeks because that is where Lyanna Stark is buried. Yet Jon is "afraid of what might be waiting for [him]", and wants to "scream" with dispair because of the darkness. So, this need for a confirmed identity is a double edged sword, which will no doubt be further complicated when his true parentage is revealed.

Elsewhere, Jon's dreams continue to have this despairing quality to them, often involving Winterfell, the Starks, and especially Ned, which is very interesting on a psychological level:

The grey walls of Winterfell might still haunt his dreams, but Castle Black was his life now, and his brothers were Sam and Grenn and Halder and Pyp and the other cast-outs who wore the black of the Night's Watch. – AGOT, Jon IV

Last night he had dreamt the Winterfell dream again. He was wandering the empty castle, searching for his father, descending into the crypts. Only this time the dream had gone further than before. In the dark he'd heard the scrape of stone on stone. When he turned he saw that the vaults were opening, one after the other. As the dead kings came stumbling from their cold black graves, Jon had woken in pitch-dark, his heart hammering. Even when Ghost leapt up on the bed to nuzzle at his face, he could not shake his deep sense of terror. He dared not go back to sleep. Instead he had climbed the Wall and walked, restless, until he saw the light of the dawn off to the east. It was only a dream. I am a brother of the Night's Watch now, not a frightened boy. – AGOT, Jon VII

But it is never "only a dream", is it?

And when at last he did sleep, he dreamt, and that was even worse. In the dream, the corpse he fought had blue eyes, black hands, and his father's face, but he dared not tell Mormont that. – AGOT, Jon VIII

Even Jon's conscious daydreams in AGOT revolve around his dispairing search for a solid identity:

When Jon had been Bran's age, he had dreamed of doing great deeds, as boys always did. The details of his feats changed with every dreaming, but quite often he imagined saving his father's life. Afterward Lord Eddard would declare that Jon had proved himself a true Stark, and place Ice in his hand. Even then he had known it was only a child's folly; no bastard could ever hope to wield a father's sword. Even the memory shamed him. What kind of man stole his own brother's birthright? I have no right to this, he thought, no more than to Ice. – AGOT, Jon VIII

A lot of these early dreams occur in A Game of Thrones, probably in response to his removal from Winterfell... his self exile. But later on in the series Jon continues to have dreams that tie him to the Starks and to Winterfell, ominous and sometimes despairing too. There's honestly too many instances to list, but if you want to understand the root of Jon's existential despair... it's in his dreams.

Cosmic Alienation

Cosmic alienation, now that's an interesting one in regards to Jon, since he definitely hasn't reached this state... yet. Life and his belief in the divine (the old gods) still hold meaning for him, but then he gets murdered by his black brothers. In the show, the writers hint at some cosmic alienation through Jon stating that he saw "nothing" whilst dead, but then they take it no further and generally do a piss poor job of post-res Jon. This characteristic of Manfred coming to the fore in Jon depends on what happens in The Winds of Winter, but I don't think it is at all that far fetched to assume that Jon will return to his body with a darker, altered perception of things.

Social Alienation

In Part 1, I discussed how Jon, like Byron's heroes, could be read as a "a rebel who stands apart from society and societal expectations." On a more psychological level, we can see how this Otherness, stemming from his bastard status, deeply affects Jon and his perception of himself and the world:

Benjen Stark gave Jon a long look. "Don't you usually eat at table with your brothers?"

"Most times," Jon answered in a flat voice. "But tonight Lady Stark thought it might give insult to the royal family to seat a bastard among them." – AGOT, Jon I

In his very first chapter, we see him quite literally alienated from the rest of his siblings, made to sit apart from them, an apparent necessity he seems fairly resigned to. Also in Part 1, I gave examples of instances in which Jon is mockingly called "Lord Snow," as well as a "rebel", "turncloak", "half-wildling", all of which serve to alienate him from the rest of the brothers of the Night's Watch.

Stannis gave a curt nod. "Your father was a man of honor. He was no friend to me, but I saw his worth. Your brother was a rebel and a traitor who meant to steal half my kingdom, but no man can question his courage. What of you?" – ASOS, Jon XI

The above interaction may seem on the surface to be about one thing — whether or not Jon will be of help to Stannis, offer him loyalty etc. — but tagged onto the end we have quite a poignant question: "what of you?" What are you, essentially. Who are you? The truth of his parentage may, in part, solve these questions... but it may also serve to alienate Jon from his perception of himself further. Ultimately, who exactly he is — what he believes in, who and what he fights for, etc. — will be solely his decision to make going forward.

So, the Byronic Hero, certainly in Manfred's case, but also in later iterations, is arguably traumatised by his own past. But regardless as to whether his trauma is related to a mysterious past, a secret sin, an unnamed crime, or incest, aka "secret knowledge", what is clear in Assaad's interpretation, is that the Byronic Hero is "living with the traumatic consequences of his own past and so suffers from PTSD." But why is Manfred traumatised, what is the specific cause of this trauma, or how might it reveal something deeper about Jon's own trauma? Now, here we come to the unavoidable... I'm going to start talking about Byronic incest and the pre-canon crush/kiss theory, and how it potentially parallels certain aspects of Manfred.

I should preface this by stating that I don't think Jon is suppressing trauma because he committed intentional incest with Sansa, but I do think (or at least somewhat theorise that) Byronic incest does come into play regarding his intense feelings of guilt and existential despair.

But still, stop reading now if are opposed to discussions of the pre-canon crush/kiss theory and the literary incest motif as a whole!

(Detail from The Funeral of Shelley, Louis Édouard Fournier, 1889)

Hey there to the depraved! If you aren't already familiar with the theory, here are some previous discussions/metas on the subject:

Full Blown Meta:

A Hidden and Forbidden Love by @princess-in-a-tower

Ask Answers (Long):

Jonsa as a more positive mirror to Jaime and Cersei? by @princess-in-a-tower, with additional comment by @jonsameta

Discussing the theory by @jonsameta

Evidence for pre-canon Jonsa? by @agentrouka-blog

Kissing in the godswood? by @agentrouka-blog

Why don't we read about Jon's reaction to Sansa and Tyrion? by @agentrouka-blog

More on Jon's supposed non-reaction by @agentrouka-blog, with additional comment made by @sherlokiness

A Jonsa "Unkiss"? by @fedonciadale

A hidden memory? by @fedonciadale

Sansa's misremembering by @fedonciadale

Descriptive parallels between A Song for Lya and Jonsa by @butterflies-dragons

Ask Answers (Short) & Briefer Mentions:

Jealous Jon by @princess-in-a-tower

Your new boyfriend looks like a girl by @butterflies-dragons

Like in Part 1, I've tried to cite as much as I could find, but as always, if anyone feels like I've missed someone important or that they should be included in the above list, please just drop me a line!

Now, it's a controversial theory, and not everyone's cup of tea — I think that's worth acknowledging! I myself am not wholly married to it, I'd be fine if it wasn't the case, but that being said, I can't in good faith ignore it when considering Lord Byron and the Byronic Hero. The incest is, unfortunately, very hard to ignore, both in his work and in his personal life. It's pretty hard to ignore in Manfred, for that matter, which is why I've held off talking about it... until now!

All aboard the Manfred incest train *choo choo* !!

First stop, Act II, scene one. Oh, wait, an annoucement from your conductor... apologies everyone, I purposely neglected to mention quite a key detail. Remember "Astarte! [Manfred's] beloved!", (II, iv, 136)? Yeah... it's heavily implied that Astarte is in fact Manfred's half-sister. *shoots finger guns* Classic Byron! *facepalms*

Oh, and that's not all! Let's consider the context surrounding the writing of this work for a moment, shall we? Unlike The Bride of Abydos (1813),* Manfred was written notably after the fallout of his incestuous affair with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh, composed whilst in a self-imposed exile. *spits out drink* Woah, woah there cowboy... what in tarnation?! EXILE?!

*As referenced in Part 1, @rose-of-red-lake has written an excellent meta on the influence of Lord Byron's work (and personal life) on Jonsa, paying special attention to the half-siblings turned cousins in The Bride of Abydos.

Although, as noted by rose-of-red-lake, The Bride of Abydos bears strong parallels to the potential romance of Jon and Sansa, as well as Byron’s own angst regarding his relationship with Augusta Leigh, the context surrounding Manfred seems... dare I say it, even more autobiographical. Because like Byron himself, Manfred wanders around the Bernese Alps, solitary and guilt ridden, in a state of exile heavily evocative of Byron's own — as I mentioned earlier, the beginnings of Manfred occured whilst Byron was staying at a villa on Lake Geneva, in Switzerland... the Bernese Alps are located in western Switzerland. In light of this, I think it's very understandable that some critics consider Manfred to be autobiographical, or even confessional. The unnamed but forbidden nature of Manfred's relationship to Astarte is believed to represent Byron's relationship with his half-sister Augusta. But what has that got to do with Jon?

Look, I don't know how else to put this:

Byron self-exiles in 1816, first to Switzerland, to Lake Geneva, where it is unseasonably cold and stormy — his departure from England is due to the collaspe of his marriage to Annabella Milbanke, unquestionably as a result of the rumours surrounding his incestuous affair with his half-sister.

Displaced nobleman Manfred wanders the Bernese Alps, in a kind of moral exile, where "the wind / Was faint and gusty, and the mountain snows / Began to glitter with the climbing moon" (III, iii, 46-48), traversing "on snows, where never human foot / Of common mortal trod" (II, iii, 4-5), surrounded by a "glassy ocean of the mountain ice" (II, iii, 7). He feels extreme, but unexplained guilt surrounding the death of his "beloved" Astarte, who is heavily implied to also be his half-sister.

In A Game of Thrones, Jon Snow chooses to join the Night's Watch, with the reminder that "once you have taken the black, there is no turning back" (AGOT, Jon VI). By taking the black, Jon arguably exiles himself from the rest of the Starks, from Winterfell, to a place that "looked like nothing more than a handful of toy blocks scattered on the snow, beneath the vast wall of ice" (AGOT, Jon III). But we aren't given any indication that he does this due to incestuous feelings regarding a "radiant" half-sister, akin to Byron/Manfred, are we? And it's not like we have several Manfreds/Manfryds AND Byrons namedropped within the text, is it? Oh wait... we do. *grabs GRRM in a chokehold*

What the hell, George?!

(Lord Byron on His Deathbed, Joseph Denis Odevaere, c. 1826)

But lets get back on track here and take a closer look at that section of Manfred I mentioned at the beginning — Act II, scene one, aka the part where all the incest and supressed trauma really JUMPS out.

So, early in Act II, in the chamois hunter's abode (a chamois is a type of goat?), according Assaad's analysis, Manfred is "hyper-aroused by a cup of wine." The wine is offered in an attempt to calm Manfred; however, to the chamois hunter's great dismay, it instead agitates him and makes him utter words which are "strange" (II, i, 35). Rather than wine, Manfred sees "blood on the brim" (II, i, 25). His sudden agitation and erratic behaviour confound the chamois hunter, who observes that Manfred is losing his mind: "thy senses wander from thee" (II, i, 27). Assaad's analysis of this scene, which she believes "is the most revelatory in the entire play" discloses "a bitter truth: Manfred's traumatic past informs his present life."

We might compare this with Jon, in particular, how his dreams reveal certain bitter truths to do with his past, now subconsciously informing his present. I've already looked a bit at his crypt dream from AGOT, Jon IV, but we see a sort of recurrence of this dream again in ASOS, Jon VIII. The imagery of being in a crypt, somewhere underground, buried, in the dark, a place of ghosts and spirits, is extremely evocative. Indeed, to go back to Byron's own description of Manfred, the setting of a crypt is extremely suggestive of certain bitter truths "left half unexplained", of secrets buried... and we know that's true because the secret of Jon's parentage is hidden down there, in the form of Lyanna Stark.

He dreamt he was back in Winterfell, limping past the stone kings on their thrones. Their grey granite eyes turned to follow him as he passed, and their grey granite fingers tightened on the hilts of the rusted swords upon their laps. You are no Stark, he could hear them mutter, in heavy granite voices. There is no place for you here. Go away. He walked deeper into the darkness. "Father?" he called. "Bran? Rickon?" No one answered. A chill wind was blowing on his neck. "Uncle?" he called. "Uncle Benjen? Father? Please, Father, help me." Up above he heard drums. They are feasting in the Great Hall, but I am not welcome there. I am no Stark, and this is not my place. His crutch slipped and he fell to his knees. The crypts were growing darker. A light has gone out somewhere. "Ygritte?" he whispered. "Forgive me. Please." But it was only a direwolf, grey and ghastly, spotted with blood, his golden eyes shining sadly through the dark... – ASOS, Jon VIII

I don't think it's outlandish to state that, unquestionably, Jon's bastard identity is a source of ongoing pain for him. I talked about the theme of despair in Jon's characterisation and it is very evident in the above, and it stems from this "bitter truth" of not being a trueborn Stark, of not being "welcome", or having a true place. The emotions/mindset this trauma, concerning his birth and identity, evokes in Jon is arguably what brings him, on first glance, so closely in line with the Byronic Hero:

Their grey granite eyes turned to follow him as he passed / The crypts were growing darker = A mysterious past / secret sin(s)

You are no Stark / I am no Stark = Deeply jaded

There is no place for you here / I am not welcome there / This is not my place = standing apart from society and societal expectations / social alienation

He dreamt he was back in Winterfell / He walked deeper into the darkness = Moody / misery in his heart

He fell to his knees / Forgive me = Guilt

He walked deeper into the darkness / Please, Father, help me / He fell to his knees = Despair

These aren't all the Byronic characteristics I've addressed in relation to Jon, but it is a substantial percentage of them, all encapsulated, in one way or another, within this singular dream passage. As far as what is fairly explicit in the text, being a bastard is Jon's "bitter truth", it is the "traumatic past inform[ing] his present life." But what is Manfred's "bitter truth", what past trauma is informing his present? And can it reveal a bit more about another layer to Jon's trauma? Because there is a key distinction — Manfred's trauma, his PTSD, stems from a specific event, notably triggered by the (imagined) "blood on the brim" of his wine, whereas for Jon, we have no singular event, we have no momentus experience, we just have this "truth."

As mentioned previously, Assaad has recognised the character of Manfred as displaying symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In Assaad's article, she remarks that "an experience is denoted as traumatic if it completely overwhelms the individual, rendering him or her helpless," and this is quite evident in the interaction between Manfred and the chamois hunter. Sharon Stanley, an educator and clinical psychotherapist, writes that "the word trauma has been used to describe a variety of aversive, overwhelming experiences with long-term, destructive effects on individuals and communities."

So, if trauma is related to an experience, or experiences, is it still accurate to say that Jon experiences trauma, connected to being a bastard? Because there is seemingly no singular or defining root experience, or event that it stems from, it just is… it is a compellation of several moments, revealed to the reader through Jon’s memories and/or dreams. What is being "left half unexplained” here?

Assaad makes reference to the American Psychiatric Association's definition of PTSD, in which it observes that for an individual to be diagnosed with PTSD, they have to suffer from one or more intrustion symptoms, one or more avoidance symptoms, two or more negative alterations, and two or more hyperarousal symptoms. The dreams Jon has certainly suggest something, but it seems like a stretch to say that, like Manfred, he is suffering from PTSD, right? We and Jon are very much aware that he is "no Stark", at least not in the sense that he is Ned's trueborn son, this isn’t something Jon is actively suppressing. By comparison, it is incontrovertible that Manfred committed something in the past, which he deeply wishes to forget and disassociate from:

Man. I say ’tis blood—my blood! the pure warm stream Which ran in the veins of my fathers, and in ours When we were in our youth, and had one heart, And loved each other as we should not love, And this was shed: but still it rises up, Colouring the clouds, that shut me out from heaven, Where thou art not—and I shall never be. C. Hun. Man of strange words, and some half—maddening sin

(II, i, 28-35)

However, we cannot be sure what this traumatic point of origin is, though we know that it is related to something he has done to his beloved Astarte, which subsequently led to her death. Many critics have suggested that his sin is that of incest, and as I noted earlier, that Manfred as a whole is more than just a bit autobiographical and/or confessional in nature. Manfred's incestuous sin therefore re-enacts Byron's incest with his half-sister Augusta. But regardless of the true cause, Manfred is traumatised by his past and cannot overcome it. Is there something in Jon’s past, that may have subconsciously, or consciously, influenced his departure to the Wall — his self exile — which he cannot overcome, and which is closely tied to the issue of and pain he feels due to being a bastard, not just the illegitimacy, but also the negative characteristics it assigns? Is there an event, or experience, we can pinpoint as the origin of Jon’s trauma and potential PTSD?

To circle back to Jonsa, there is some, not unfounded, debate amongst us concerning the validity of the pre-canon crush/kiss theory. I've always found it an interesting theory, but until now, I haven't really given it too much thought. In light of the Byron connection, however, as well as the textual analysis I have for Part 3, I think this scenario, as detailed by agentrouka-blog, seems more and more likely. And I don't say that lightly, I really don't. It is a somewhat uncomfortable speculation to make, even if the interaction was more innocent rather than explicit (this is the side I firmly fall down on), however, it’s ambiguity does potentially parallel Byron’s Manfred and Astarte. This post would be even longer if I included my side-by-side text comparisons, so you may have to trust me for the moment that there are some very striking similarities between Act II, scene I of Manfred, and Jon's milk of the poppy induced dream in ASOS, Jon VI, as well as the actual buildup to that vision.

But, that sounds frankly terrible doesn't it? And it doesn't bode well for his future relationship with Sansa, does it? And what does it mean if Jon is suffering from PTSD due to an incestuous encounter with Sansa? What does that mean for Sansa, Sansa who is doggedly abused and mistreated by men within the present narrative? This is awful, why would GRRM root their romance in something traumatic? Oh I hear you, and these are questions I needed to ask myself whilst compiling this. But you see... now bear with me here... it isn't the actual encounter itself that was traumatic, for either Jon or Sansa, and that is reflected in both their POVs, because, though they think about each other sparingly (explicitly at least), it is never done so negatively. No, the potential PTSD Jon suffers from this experience isn't connected to Sansa, to whatever occured between them. Rather, I believe, it's connected to either the fear, or the reality, that Ned, his assumed father, saw and/or caught him (either Sansa had left at this point, or didn't fully grasp the issue), and this fear, this guilt, this sense of despair, is made evident in this passage:

When the dreams took him, he found himself back home once more, splashing in the hot pools beneath a huge white weirwood that had his father’s face. Ygritte was with him, laughing at him, shedding her skins till she was naked as her name day, trying to kiss him, but he couldn’t, not with his father watching. He was the blood of Winterfell, a man of the Night’s Watch. I will not father a bastard, he told her. I will not. I will not. “You know nothing, Jon Snow,” she whispered, her skin dissolving in the hot water, the flesh beneath sloughing off her bones until only skull and skeleton remained, and the pool bubbled thick and red. – ASOS, Jon VI

That's the traumatic experience, I believe, not the kiss — yep, I strongly suspect there was a kiss. Moreover, Jon's recurring assertion, throughout the series, that he "will not father a bastard" is tied to this in some way, it’s tied to Ned, it’s tied to some sense of guilt and shame. It’s not tied to Sansa. But we'll look at this passage, what it means, what it parallels, and what directly precedes it, in comparison to Manfred, a lot more closely next time.

I'll leave you with a slight teaser though — the parallel that made me really sit up and take notice:

C. Hun. Well, sir, pardon me the question, And be of better cheer. Come, taste my wine; 'Tis of an ancient vintage; many a day 'T has thaw’d my veins among our glaciers, now Let it do thus for thine. Come, pledge me fairly. Man. Away, away! there’s blood upon the brim! Will it then never—never sink in the earth?

(II, i, 21-26)

Note this imagery!!!

Maester Aemon poured it full. "Drink this."

Jon had bitten his lip in his struggles. He could taste blood mingled with the thick, chalky potion. It was all he could do not to retch it back up. – ASOS, Jon VI

In both instances, a drink is offered, with "blood upon the brim", and "blood mingled". In Manfred's case, this is an explicit trigger for him, whereas for Jon? Well, it bit more hidden, a bit more buried, but this moment is, to my mind, the catalyst, because its imagery strongly evokes the colours of the weirwood tree — "blood" red and "chalky" white — you know, the "huge white weirwood" he later on envisions.

*spits out drink*

Maybe the magnitude of this parallel isn't completely evident as of yet, but it will be... or at least I hope it will be, so stay tuned for Part 3!

(Starting to run out of Byron pics so... I dunno, here's Rupert Everret, from The Scandalous Adventures of Lord Byron, 2009)

In Conclusion

To summarise, why is the Manfred connection so monumental to me? Why do I find the pre-canon kiss theory, specifically the scenario detailed by agentrouka-blog, now very hard to dismiss? Because:

The nine (!) Manfreds/Manfryds included within the text, as well as the two Byrons, one of which, the first mentioned in fact, first appears in Sansa's POV. But crucicially the direct link made by GRRM between Byron Swann and Manfred Swann.

The strength of the similarities that can be observed between Jon and the Byronic Hero, but also notably to Byron's Manfred, the "Byronic hero par excellence", according to Assaad. Especially the recurring emotions of guilt and despair, the latter exemplified perhaps most clearly in Jon's dreams.

The prominent theme of self-exile to escape something, something that perhaps cannot be openly stated, present in Manfred, Byron's own life, and Jon's narrative.

Those pesky half-sisters: Augusta, Astarte, and Sansa.

The PTSD symptoms clearly present in Manfred, but left "half unexplained", and seemingly not explained at all in Jon's POV — I'll dig more into this in Part 3.

The "blood upon the brim", and "blood mingled" — more on that in Part 3, I hope you guys like in depth imagery analysis!

Obviously, this is all still just speculation on my part, and it's speculation in connection to a theory that is understandably controversial. I'd be happy to dismiss it... if it weren't for the above. So, I suppose I'm in two minds about it. On the one hand, however you look at it, it's more trauma in an already traumatic series... which is *sighs* not what you want for the characters you care strongly about. But on the other hand, that literary connection to Manfred (and by extension to actual Lord Byron), the way it's lining up, plus that comparison GRRM himself made between Jon and the Byronic Hero... that's all very compelling and interesting to me as a reader, as a former English literature student. So, I don't want it to be true because... incest hell. But then, I also want it to be true because then it makes me feel smart for guessing correctly.

But anyway, we're going to be descending into incest hell in Part 3, so... we'll just have to grapple with that when we come to it. I hope, if you stuck with it till the incesty end, that you enjoyed this post!

Stay tuned ;)

Bibliography of Academic Sources:

American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edn (Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing, 2013); online edition at www.dsm5.org

Assaad, Lara, "'My slumbers—if I slumber—are not sleep': The Byronic Hero’s Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder", The Byron Journal 47, no. 2 (2019): 153–163.

Byron, George Gordon Noel, Byron’s Letters and Journals. Ed. Leslie A. Marchand. 12 vols. London: Murray, 1973–82.

Holland, Tom, "Undead Byron", in Byromania: Portraits of the Artist in Nineteenth- and Twentieth- Century Culture, ed. by Frances Wilson (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000).

MacDonald, D. L. "Narcissism and Demonality in Byron’s 'Manfred'", Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal 25, no. 2 (1992): 25–38.

Stanley, Sharon, Relational and Body-Centered Practices for Healing Trauma: Lifting the Burdens of the Past (London: Routledge, 2016)

Twitchell, James B., The Living Dead: A Study of the Vampire in Romantic Literature (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1981).

[jvwhyte]

SJM's pinterest board. ACOTAR 6/7.

(No conclusion just suspicious stuff lmao)

Here's a photo i found on SJM's ACOTAR pinterest board:

THE MOIRAI (Moirae) were the three goddesses of fate who personified the inescapable destiny of man (and women). The role of the Moirai was to ensure that every being, mortal and divine, lived out their destiny as it was assigned to them by the laws of the universe.

In nearly all mythologies the three Fates, rulers of the past, present and future, are represented and many believe they symbolize the Triple Goddess, Virgin, Mother and Crone (Creator, Preserver and Destroyer).

In Greek mythology, the Moirai—often known in English as the Fates—were the white-robed incarnations of destiny.

“There were at least three dozen priestesses who worked and researched and healed here, though it was nearly impossible to count them when they all wore the same pale robes and so many kept the hoods over their faces.”

Clotho (/ˈkloʊθoʊ/, Greek Κλωθώ, [klɔːtʰɔ̌ː], "spinner") spun the thread of life from her distaff onto her spindle.

(Clotho: the mute priestess at the library)

Lachesis (/ˈlækɪsɪs/, Greek Λάχεσις, [lákʰesis], "allotter" or drawer of lots) measured the thread of life allotted to each person with her measuring rod.

Atropos (/ˈætrəpɒs/, Greek Ἄτροπος, [átropos], "inexorable" or "inevitable", literally "unturning",[13] sometimes called Aisa) was the cutter of the thread of life. She chose the manner of each person's death; and when their time was come, she cut their life-thread with "her abhorred shears". The figure who came to be known as Atropos had her origins in the pre-Greek Mycenaean religion as a daemon or spirit called Aisa. Another important Mycenaean philosophy stressed the subjugation of all events or actions to destiny and the acceptance of the inevitability of the natural order of things; today this is known as fatalism.

The Morrígan or Mórrígan, also known as Morrígu, is a figure from Irish mythology. The name is Mór-Ríoghain in Modern Irish, and it has been translated as "great queen" or "phantom queen".

The Morrígan is mainly associated with war and fate, especially with foretelling doom, death or victory in battle. In this role she often appears as a crow, the badb.[1] She incites warriors to battle and can help bring about victory over their enemies. The Morrígan encourages warriors to do brave deeds, strikes fear into their enemies, and is portrayed washing the bloodstained clothes of those fated to die.[2][3] She is most frequently seen as a goddess of battle and war and has also been seen as a manifestation of the earth- and sovereignty-goddess,[4][5] chiefly representing the goddess's role as guardian of the territory and its people.[6][7]

Mor may derive from an Indo-European root connoting terror, monstrousness cognate with the Old English maere (which survives in the modern English word "nightmare") and the Scandinavian mara and the Old East Slavic "mara" ("nightmare");[14] while rígan translates as "queen".[15][16] This etymological sequence can be reconstructed in the Proto-Celtic language as *Moro-rīganī-s.[17][18] Accordingly, Morrígan is often translated as "Phantom Queen".[16] This is the derivation generally favoured in current scholarship.[19]

The Morrígan is often considered a triple goddess, but this triple nature is ambiguous and inconsistent. The triple appearances are partially due to the Celtic significance of threeness.

(Three is a VERY common number in acotar (might make a whole other post on that))

Could Mor be one of the fates or even something more powerful than them, could she have a bigger part than we thought in the next story with Koschei ?

In the Republic of Plato, the three Moirai sing in unison with the music of the Seirenes. The term "siren song" refers to an appeal that is hard to resist but that, if heeded, will lead to a bad conclusion.

In Greek mythology, the Sirens (Ancient Greek: plural: Seirênes) were dangerous creatures, who lured nearby sailors with their enchanting music and singing voices to shipwreck on the rocky coast of their island. It is also said that they can even charm the winds.

i bet your thinking where tf is this looney going with this....well,

i also found this photo:

Celtic Mythology The GWRAGEDD ANNWN [wives of the underworld]were lake-sirens in Wales. These lovely creatures are known to choose mortal men as their husbands. One legend has it that they live in a sunken city in one of the many lakes in Wales. People claim to have seen towers under water and heard the chiming of bells. In earlier times, there used to be a door in a rock and those who dared enter through it came into a beautiful garden situated on an island in the middle of a lake. In this garden there were luscious fruits, beautiful flowers and the loveliest music, besides many other wonders. Those brave enough to enter were welcomed by the Gwragedd Annwn and were invited to stay as long as they wanted, on the condition that they never took anything back from the garden. One visitor ignored the rule and took a flower home with him. As soon as he left the island, the flower disappeared and he fell unconscious to the ground. From that day on, the door has been firmly closed and none has ever passed through it again.

“My grandmother was a river-nymph who seduced a High Fae male from the Autumn Court.”

Gwyn believes her grandmother to be a river-nymph. Is it possible that she was not but instead a lake siren? We know that Gwyn and Catrin's names are welsh (Lake-Sirens are found in wales) and the spring court has many ties to welsh mythology so is it really that far fetched?

In Celtic and Norse mythology, selkies (also spelled silkies, sylkies, selchies) or selkie folk (Scots: selkie fowk) meaning "seal folk"[a] are mythological beings capable of therianthropy, changing from seal to human form by shedding their skin. They are found in folktales and mythology originating from the Northern Isles of Scotland.

To further back up this, here is another photo of a Selkie woman on SJM's pinterest.

In David Thomson's book The People of the Sea, which chronicles the extensive legends surrounding the Grey Seal within the folklore of rural Scottish and Irish communities, it is the children of male selkies and human women that have webbed toes and fingers. When the webbing is cut, a rough and rigid growth takes its place.

Children born between man and seal-folk may have webbed hands, as in the case of the Shetland mermaid whose children had "a sort of web between their fingers",[25] or "Ursilla" rumoured to have children sired by a male selkie, such that the children had to have the webbing between their fingers and toes made of horny material clipped away intermittently.

“My twin had the webbed fingers of the nymphs—I don’t.”

Once again we see that Catrin posses traits of these water-creatures.

Keep in mind SJM has this on her board - The cover of Celtic folktales which has one story in particular of a 'sea-maiden' whom makes a deal with a mortal man.

I proceeded to continue searching through the board and found this:

Sathariel (Hebrew סתריאל, Greek: Σαθιήλ) is one of the Qliphoth, corresponding to the Sephirah Binah on the kabbalistic Tree of life. It represents the Concealment of God, which hides the face of Mercy. The form of the demons attached to this Qliphah are of black veiled heads with horns, with hideous eyes seen through the veil, followed by evil centaurs.

'veiled heads with horns'

The Qliphoth are the shadow of the Sephirot, the chaotic force that exists when the Sephirah is unbalanced. Binah is the Sephirah that gives birth to form, the great mother of the cosmos, the eternal womb. Through her, the spiritual energy of Keter and Chokmah are woven into the matrix that eventually becomes matter.

In Jewish Kabbalistic cosmology of Isaac Luria, the qlippot are metaphorical "shells" surrounding holiness. They are spiritual obstacles receiving their existence from God only in an external, rather than internal manner.

Quiphoth (shadow of sephriot) = Shadowsinger

"shells" surrounding holiness = The shadows protected Azriel

They emerge in the descending seder hishtalshelus (Chain of Being) through Tzimtzum (contraction of the Divine Ohr), as part of the purpose of Creation.

Sathariel had black feathers on his wings and his body was shrouded in darkness.

Honestly idk where tf im going with this 😩😩

I've put in far too much effort to delete it so i apologise if you've gotten all this way to be disappointed but

Conclusion:

Mor =/≠ Three fates

Gwyn = Heritage is sus? could be related to some interesting people

Azriel = Sathariel ?

If anyone has ideas to add pleaseeee tell me lol

i'll probably update this when i can be bothered

(FYI i love Gwyn and i'm not saying she's a siren or luring anyone but you've got to admit her grandmother is a sus lmao, especially with half the shit on SJM's pinterest.)

[thoughts-on-bangtan]

Hi! I hope you’ll answer this question bc it bothers me quite a lot.. https://www.quora.com/What-does-it-mean-now-that-BTS-are-partial-owners-of-Big-Hit-Entertainment do you think it is true what the second person (Christine Herman) said? After reading this, i started to wonder…what if BTS does really have only profit in mind while doing new projects these days? Maybe they don’t really care anymore about creative and meaningful lyrics and sound? With Butter and PTD…all this generic music sung in English. Of course they say “we wanted to make fans feel good”, “butter and ptd represent who we are” and all these things fans want to hear but.. do you really think it’s true? moreover, don’t get me wrong, i don’t find product placement in their reality shows as something terrible, i believe this is a normal thing, however, nowadays the members really film ads and do marketing a lot. so yeah, for some reason i began to question their integrity dhsjjss i hope you will understand from where my concerns come from and won’t find this ask stupid sjdjjdjd

After reading that persons answer I can immediately tell you that I basically don't agree with an overwhelming majority of what she said (even more so since a lot of it just makes her sound like a manti that hates the company and basically would want them to make music for free or something). Generally I don’t agree with most of the opinions this person holds, and also Quora really isn’t a good source for info or good opinions, most of it is written by mantis, haters, and toxic shippers with an agenda so most ARMY will tell you to stay as far away from that website as possible.

Anyway, her focus in that answer was on money, since BTS are shareholders (and how that’s a conflict of interest despite other artists doing the exact thing but no one really cares or ever thinks about it), but what she failed to consider and note was that Big Hit Music, so BTS' label, isn't part of HYBE in the sense that shareholding has no baring on it since BHM is private. So while BTS profit off of HYBE doing well, and have a small percentage of a voice as shareholders, that has nothing to do with BHM in the classical sense, even if BHM's earnings reflect well on HYBE numbers and the shareholder money. 

BHM was made private to ensure their artistry would remain untouched, that was the whole point of that.

Even if they weren't HYBE shareholders, take Namjoon as example. He has more than 170 KOMCA credits, is among the top 3 Korean artists with the most credits and is also the youngest of them all. It is said that his earnings from that alone can sustain his family for 3 generations over. Look at Hobi and Chicken Noodle Soup, that song was a hit and he paid the original creator of that song 2 million dollars upfront and earned a lot back due to how successful it was. Same goes for Hope World which, again, was and is still immensely successful. Look at Yoongi and his work both as prod. SUGA, featuring artist SUGA, and as Agust D, as well as the credits he holds for his work on BTS songs (giving him as well a total of over 100 KOMCA credits, just like Hobi). Bangtan have worked and continue to work extremely hard for their music, put their heart and souls into it, and it shows even if their style changed as they grew older and more mature.

Yes, money is a major motivator, but looking at the above paragraph, do you really peg the members as these corrupt money hungry sellouts with no music related integrity? Who would need to sign major deals and would throw away their passion to just release empty shells of music for the sole reason of money? Am I naive enough to believe that they don't care about money? Of course not, we live in a capitalist society and even if BTS wouldn't care about money anymore at this point, HYBE very much does, and yet still I can't find it in me to agree with any of what was said in that answer that person wrote.

More below the cut:

And that point about how Hyundai cars were sold out because of BTS, isn't that the point why literally any company ever hires celebrities to advertise and endorse their product? And sure, again, I'm certain they earned a lot on these deals, they aren't the first or last or only ones in the history of ever to do so. Besides, look at JK and what he's done for small companies, or Tae who wore a brooch made my a small creator at the airport which catapulted that creator into the eyes of millions of ARMYs enough so that they could move to a proper studio and earn money with their work. Or the modern hanboks JK wore which led to the brand being able to move into actual stores in malls because of their sudden new popularity and demand. Or him wearing a bracelet that helps whales with a percentage of the money from the sales of said bracelet. And for all of that JK and Tae didn't earn any money at all. JK himself said that he's more conscious of the brand he wears now because he wants to help smaller businesses in these trying times, not because they pay him to do so (especially since they would never be able to afford that), but because he's aware of the influence he has and how he can use it to help others. Sound very much like a capitalistic villain, right?

As for the product placement bit, have you been on YouTube recently? Have you noticed that many, if not most, YouTube videos by “bigger” creators (and by that I mean even people who are around the 100k subscriber mark) begin with them thanking whoever sponsored that particular video and give you a scripted minute to two minute long ad before getting into the actual topic of the video? And In The SOOP featuring Chilsung Cider, FILA clothes and the random mention of how good Samsung phones are isn’t much different from it, though really, if you’re not someone interested in fashion much, would you really notice or care that they wore FILA? It’s just...clothes? If it weren’t a BTS related show, would you even notice it much? And it’s not even like they mentioned those brands every five minutes or anything, just a few times, which sure sounded a bit out of place at times, but personally I thought it was easy to look past. That’s just how things work nowadays and it’s odd for people to behave like somehow BTS are the first and only ones to use product placements despite literally every movie and show doing it in subtle and less so manners.

The answer by that person you sent also mentioned the Hyundai song for their car IONIQ and, unsurprisingly, that person wrote it off as just some commercial jingle but I’d actually disagree with that. Not to sound like a Hyundai and Samsung stan, which I am neither of, but I actually think those two knew best how to utilize the artist they have spent millions on signing a deal with. Hyundai didn’t just write them off as pretty faces with a millions strong fan army behind them and that’s it, they remembered that they are musicians so they gave them a song and made a whole music video for it as well. And say what you will, it is a good song. Then, just a few days ago, Samsung stepped up their game and we were given Over The Horizon Prod by SUGA of BTS. For those who aren’t Samsung users, Over The Horizon is their signature ringtone and basically their company sound, and over the years different artists were asked to make their own version of it. And this time they reached out to Yoongi and asked if he’d like to do it as well. It’s kind of a big deal. Sure, Butter is used in one of their commercials much the way Dynamite was last year, but that’s beside the point. Would that person make the same claim about Imagine Dragons whose song Believer is also part of the ads for the new Samsung phones? I have my doubts.

Furthermore, and I don't want this to come across as mean toward you but, I think it is uncalled for to question their artistic integrity based on a total of 3 (three) English songs when last year alone we received 50+ songs, most of which were in Korean, among them the entirety of BE which was, according to the members, the album they were most involved in ever when it comes to both music and everything around it.

You can dislike their English songs, that’s more than fine, they have a very extensive discography you can listen to instead, but questioning their integrity based on them doing something that most, if not every, artist on their level does (as in sign ad deals with brands etc) is a bit much if you ask me. Does that mean indie artists whose songs get picked up for commercials (or for Netflix shows or movies) and thus it catapults them into the mainstream are also just money hungry people with no integrity and ones who don’t care about their music? Or is that, again, just a standard Bangtan is held to (as in that their integrity is questioned based on everything, even the most trivial/normal things) that only applies to them and no one else?

In the recent Weverse Magazine article about how Permission to Dance came to be there is a lot of talk about not only that song but also Butter and Dynamite, among the things being discussed and talked about they mentioned how the original lyrics for Butter were much more materialistic but that the members didn't like that so they asked for that to be changed. Likewise the original lyrics for Permission to Dance, as you'd expect from the penmanship of Ed Sheeran, were much more romantic, almost proposal like, which wasn't what the members wanted either so it was, again, adjusted in a way that would fit what they, as well as the A&R team, wanted. While you may not like these songs, they still had a say in them to a certain degree, could say yes or no and ask for adjustments. Why else would PTD take eight months?

While they might outsource their English songs, their main focus, so their Korean (as well as Japanese) discography is still centered around them, their lyrics, their songs, their sound. Of course you’ll also find outside producers and some lyricists on those as well, because that’s how music works these days, as in collaboratively, that doesn’t change anything at large. Their integrity is still very much there, their hearts are still in it, what other reason would any of them have to say that they want to continue for a long time, for Yoongi to say they want to figure out how to make their career last as long as possible, for JK to say that he wants to sing forever?

Admin 2 also wanted me to add that in their opinion, to a certain degree (though not fully of course), their English songs are like a way to laugh at and expose how shallow the English-centric music industry is. As in, while they made music in Korean with deep and meaningful lyrics, the US industry didn’t care but once they switched to easy to listen to sound with easy to understand English lyrics, they suddenly paid attention, are played on the radio, and even received a Grammy nomination which they wouldn’t have gotten for a Korean song ( A1: regardless how much Black Swan or Spring Day really would’ve deserved it...). 

[cablesscutie]

Inspired by @hayleynfoster’s comic and some hilarious headcannons about the littlest steambaby with Hayley and @favlie​

Read it on AO3

1.

The day Avatar Aang comes to meet his second niece, Fire Lord Zuko refuses to let his youngest child out of sight.  Katara rolls her eyes, and reminds her husband that neither of their children had ended up psychologically disturbed because of their flights.  “Not,” she adds, pointing at Aang, “that I am allowing a repeat, but I think just holding her while firmly on the ground will be fine.”

“Mmmm,” Zuko hesitates, curling Kallik closer to his chest.  Her big eyes blink up at the adults guileless from her blanket.  “No.”

“You let Azula hold her!” Aang argues.

“She doesn’t do anything with the babies!” Zuko shoots back.  It’s not strictly true, he knows, but his sister’s ritual with newborns is unsettling in a much different way.  She simply stares deep into each child’s eyes upon being handed them, until some kind of understanding passes between her and the baby.  Results have varied, but the most important part is that there was no threat to life and limb.  

Katara’s raised eyebrow says that she also doesn’t believe Zuko’s words, but she doesn’t say anything.  They are, after all, a united front - to the children, to politicians, to their friends.  In the privacy of their chambers, however, he knows he will be hearing about this.

2.

Katara and Zuko take the kids to spend Kallik’s first birthday at the South Pole.  It’s a tradition they’ve observed with all three, and Zuko always looks forward to going to visit her family.  The house is loud and chaotic, full to bursting with people, the exact opposite of his own lonely childhood.  There is no posturing, and everyone loves and squabbles openly.  On this particular visit, they have overlapped with Aang’s stay with Sokka and Suki, so Gran-Gran’s house is in even more of an uproar than usual by the time Zuko and Katara arrive.

Kya immediately dashes off to coo over her little cousins as they toddle around behind Pakku, pretending to be otter penguins.  Satoshi runs to the kitchen to be showered in kisses and cookies from Gran-Gran.  Hakoda finds them barely out of their parkas and already thoroughly abandoned.

“I could’ve sworn you had at least one other child,” he tells Katara, scratching his head as he pretends to search for his missing grandchildren.  She laughs and hugs her father tight.  Neither of them let go for long moments, and Zuko’s throat feels tight when he notices his father-in-law’s misty eyes.  He looks down at Kallik, thinks of his other two children, and wonders for the thousandth time how Hakoda could ever forgive him for keeping Katara so far away.  It’s why he hands his daughter over easily when her grandfather waggles his fingers expectantly and says, “Alright, give her here.”

Hakoda settles Kallik on his hip with practiced ease, and pulls Zuko into a brief hug with his free arm.  “Good to see you, son.”  

Zuko clears his throat.  “You too,” he says, and Katara laughs softly at his awkward shuffling, amused by how he doesn’t know what to do with his hands without a baby in his arms.  She answers his question by lacing their fingers together as she leads him deeper into the house to find her brother and their friends seated around the hearth fire watching the kids run around.

Hugs are exchanged all around, and Zuko settles into their familiar company.  Hakoda joins them after taking Kallik to say hello to Gran-Gran and Pakku, and bounces the baby on his knee to make her laugh.  Aang makes silly faces at her that have her letting out piercing giggles and reaching out to try and grab at the wooden beads of his necklace.

“Well clearly she’s bored of me,” Hakoda says, making to hand her off to her uncle.  “Here you go -”  Zuko leans over and intercepts.

“Oh no.  No baby catapult,” he says, shaking his head.

Aang gives him a pout to rival Momo.  “Come on, we’re indoors!”  Katara clears her throat, and when Zuko glances over, her eyes are narrowed at him.  With a sigh, he holds Kallik out to Aang.

“Fine.  But I’m watching you.”

3.

Extended family vacations to Ember Island always sound like a good idea to Katara.  At first.  When her husband is burnt out and aching, and the kids are climbing the walls, and she just wants to lie in the sun with a book, it seems like the cure for everything.

And then they arrive.  Somehow, much like she forgets the excruciating pain of childbirth, she never recalls the onslaught of chaos and catastrophe that comes every vacation.  Like the time Sokka got stung by a jelly-ray.  Or the time Suki and Zuko got in a fight about disciplining each other’s kids.  Or the time every single one of the kids managed to get sunburnt and couldn’t sleep.  Every year, it’s always something, and somehow, it usually ends up being at least partially her problem to solve.

This year, though, is somehow turning out alright.  They reach day three without major incident, and almost entirely without tears - a near miracle for a vacation involving five children under the age of ten.

“I’m almost done with my first book already,” she tells Zuko as they rock slowly in a hammock on the deck, whispering in hopes of keeping any listening spirits from knowing that she’s gotten her hopes up.

“Good, you deserve the break,” Zuko says.  He looks on the verge of sleep despite the fact that the sun is still climbing in the sky.  The dark circles beneath his eyes are already faded almost to nothing.  She sighs happily and grabs her book, but before she can actually crack it open, she hears Toph cackling and her Mom Senses light up.  Zuko calls after her in surprise as she leaves the hammock swaying wildly behind her, but she doesn’t look back on her way to the beach.  

When she arrives, it is just in time to see Toph pick up Kallik, a wicked smile on her face.  Sokka and Suki’s twins are further down the beach standing beside Aang, both of them jumping up and down with excitement, waiting for something.

“Go long, Twinkle Toes!”  Katara’s eyes go wide, and faster than should be possible, she reaches them, yanking Kallik out of Toph’s hands.  “Hey!”

“Absolutely not!”  Katara says, scowling.

“I was gonna catch her!”  Aang shouts.  Katara shakes her head.

“This is not happening.  No way.”  Then, silently lamenting the loss of quiet time with her husband, Katara looks at the twins and asks, “Who wants to go get some ice cream?

4.

At Zuko’s request, his birthday is not a big deal with his family.  It’s a combination of the fact that the entire Fire Nation loses its mind about the day anyway, so he is all but forced to spend a day attending a festival in his honor, and the fact that he is used to his birthday being a marker of all the disappointments he has been in the past year.  It is a long-standing compromise with his wife that she is allowed to throw him a small, family-only party, to be kept within the bounds of the garden.  He enjoys the excuse to get everyone together without a barrage of meetings involved, and the rest of their family is so boisterous in comparison to him, he can almost forget that the day has anything to do with him at all.

For his thirtieth birthday, he makes the further concession of allowing Uncle to set up his new phonograph so there could be dancing.  Zuko is manning the crank, watching Katara and Kya swing each other around while Aang sits next to him, flipping through the records looking for the right song.

“Do you have a request too?” Zuko hears him ask, and turns to see Kallik has toddled away from Uncle Iroh and approached the Avatar.  She puts her hands on his knees and starts bouncing, flashing him a smile that shows all of her new teeth.  “You want upsies?” Aang coos, and reaches to scoop her up by the armpits.  Zuko clears his throat loudly, shooting Aang his best murder eyes, and the Avatar shrinks back into the collar of his robes a little.  “What about dance party?”  He lets Kallik grab onto his fingers and starts hopping around with her to the beat, hunched over and both of them giggling.

5.

“Oh Uncle Aaaaang!” Kya sings, striding out into the garden where Appa has just landed. She has Kallik on her hip, and Satoshi follows along at her heels, excited to see Appa and Momo again.  His pockets are already full of lychee nuts for his fuzzy friends.

“Hey guys!” Uncle Aang calls, his gangly arms waving excitedly.  “Are you the welcoming committee now?”  He lands in front of them on a gentle breeze, setting down his bag and grinning broadly.

“Mom and Dad are in a meeting,” Kya informs him.  “But somebody wanted to go for a little flight.”  She hitches the toddler higher and winks conspiratorially.  “If you catch my drift.”  Uncle Aang’s eyes go wide, and he looks between the kids with unease.  Satoshi feels terror grip his throat.  He knew his big sister was crazy, but would she really…?

“Oh I dunno, your Dad was pretty...adamant...that you all are grounded until further notice.”  Satoshi lets out a sigh of relief.

“Dad’s in a meeting,” Kya reiterates, as though being in a meeting involves entering another dimension.  She should know better, her brother thinks to himself.  Mom and Dad always find out when they’re up to no good, and as the sibling who’s usually leading the charge into trouble, Kya should definitely have that figured out by now.  Uncle Aang should absolutely know that by now, but with horor, Satoshi realizes that the Avatar is looking a little bit convinced.  “And we’re not gonna tell on you,” she wheedles.  Speak for yourself, Satoshi thinks, glancing around to see if there are any guards within earshot if he calls for their parents.  Sadly, it seems nobody has realized that the Avatar requires careful supervision.

“Well…” Uncle Aang considers, then comes to his decision, smiling once again.  “Alright, I guess one can’t hurt.  Who’s going?”  

Kya moves to offer Kallik to him, her tiny hands reaching out and making grabby motions.  Satoshi’s world goes into slow-motion.  There’s a roaring in his ears, and as if from outside his body, he hears his own voice say,

“I am.”  Kya and Uncle Aang blink at him, stunned.  Their uncle is the first to recover, and asks,

“Are you sure, kiddo?  I mean, you weren’t the biggest fan when you were a baby…”

“I want to try again,” he makes himself say, despite his sweating palms.  Uncle Aang grins and ruffles his hair.

“That’s the spirit!  You get that from your dad.” 

As his uncle’s hands grab him under the armpits, Satoshi hears Kya mutter, “It’s the self-sacrificing idiot gene,” and then he is gone.  As he soars through the air, he wonders if maybe his body hasn’t even left the ground yet.  He can’t feel anything.  Maybe he just died of panic and this is just his soul taking off for the spirit world.

Then he reaches the height of his arc and starts plummeting back to Earth, and the sensation of all his internal organs rattling around asserts the fact that he is very much still alive and experiencing this.  He closes his eyes before he gets anywhere close to the ground, so it comes as a surprise when he comes to a sudden stop, cradled briefly by robes smelling of hay and bison fur, before being deposited back on his feet.

“How’s the weather up there?” Uncle Aang asks him, patting him on the back.  Satoshi doesn’t know what the weather was like.  He doesn’t know anything except that solid ground beneath his feet may have replaced his mother’s hugs as his favorite feeling in the world.  He meets Kya’s eyes, and sees from her horrified expression that he must look like as much of a husk of a child as he feels.

A quiet, affectless “Thank you,” is all that he can manage to say, and then he is wandering back into the palace, where he shoves his head into the nearest antique vase and screams.

+1

“Psst.”  A small sound behind him has Aang on alert.  The Fire Nation Royal Palace hasn’t been a place of danger for years now, but with Toph and Sokka around, the probability of sneak attacks has risen a hundred fold.  He doesn’t see anything though, and goes to turn back around, only to be caught by a surprisingly firm grip on his cape.  About two feet below where he’d expected to find his assailant, Aang comes face to face with his youngest niece, Kallik.  Her expression is the same determined furrow of the brow that Katara and Zuko have shared for so long it is impossible to tell which parent bestowed the trait on her.  It has the eerie effect of summoning the terrifying force that is their combined will.  Aang already knows that whatever she wants from him, he’s going to cave, and it will probably get him in trouble.  “I hear you’re in the business of yeeting kids.  I want in.”

Aang sighs.  Zuko has been trying to prevent this day since the moment Aang met Kallik, and Kallik has been trying to evade her father’s overprotective tendencies since the moment of her existence.  It is a battle Katara has elected not to fight, likely remembering her own impossible stubbornness and the futility of trying to stand against it.  So it is with all of that knowledge that he says, “Okay.”

“Flameo!” Kallik cheers, punching at the air.

“Well ‘flameo’ was actually more of a greeting -”

“Let’s save the fun facts.  I wanna fly.”  With a creeping sense of dread, Aang follows the child pulling him along by the cape until they reach a courtyard.  Kallik turns to face him, plants her feet, and rubs her palms together.  “Alright,” she says, spreading her arms wide.  “I’m ready.”

“Here we go...I guess,” Aang says, glancing over his shoulder as he reaches out to scoop her up by the armpits.  The coast is clear, so he swings her around in circles a couple of times to get ready.  As his niece starts to giggle, the garden blurs, and wind ruffles his robes, Aang feels the giddy anticipation of liftoff.

He hoists Kallik, up, up, up.

And then her momentum carries her out of his hands, and the wind that has built up around them propels her even higher.  Her already small body shrinks until she looks more like the shadow of a bird in the night sky, clearing the palace roofs.  A happy shriek pierces the air.  Aang smiles, feeling her wonder as if it is his own.  This is always the best part of someone’s first flight - witnessing them discover the wind anew - and while taking Air Acolytes to glide at the Northern Air Temple is fun, nothing compares to sharing this part of his culture with his nieces and nephews.

Kallik tumbles back into his arms, eyes wide with wonder, ecstatic grin plastered across her face.  “Again!” she cries, the moment breath rushes back to her.  

Aang laughs and holds her on his hip.  As he always does, he asks, “How’s the weather up there?”

“The moon is huge!  And I could see the whole city!  And the ocean!”  Kallik’s pudgy hands move in broad, sweeping gestures so similar to her mother’s bending as she speaks.  He still remembers Katara’s delighted gasp the first time she flew, Toph’s bruising grip, Zuko’s shocked laugh.  This moment, too, will be another piece of the Air Nomad legacy living on.

As Aang tosses Kallik yet again, Katara finds Zuko leaning against a pillar at the edge of the courtyard, watching.  She approaches her husband, curious to find that he isn’t having a coronary at the sight of their daughter in freefall, and takes hold of his arm.

“You gonna yell at him?” she asks, feigning nonchalance.  He doesn’t look away from them, but he is smiling, serene.

“Eh, she seems fine.”

[riverdale-retread]

Riverdale S5 E4 (The True Season 5 Start) (maybe spoilers, probably not) (will also only make sense if you’ve watched the episode, as this is not a recap).

5 Things I loved  

1.  I loved that Archie is in some sort of war but we don’t see what war.  This makes for a much more interesting way to deliver the information they need to rather than get bogged down on which war in which place.  It made me think of Dogville, a film by Lars von Trier, where the ‘set’ is a sound studio with markings on the floor.  You are watching a show, says Riverdale, so this a deliberately crafted alternate universe.  It doesn’t matter which war. 

2.  When Archie comes back to Riverdale, the Serpents are performing a song on stage at the Whyte Wyrm.  Utterly pure Bollywood.  There is no reason to do this song number, they just wanted to do it.   I love that there is so much show in Riverdale.  I’ve also never seen a heavily pregnant woman do a sexy song and dance routine AT A BAR in any form of media before!  There’s references to Britney back in the day with the girls in short shorts carrying actual boas on their shoulders. I also hollered with laughter at both Archie and Kevin outright wanting to laugh at this show Toni is putting on.    

3.   I love the post time jump misery of everyone. Post college life as a 20 something can suck so bad, seems to be the point. 

 Job  - Being committed to a career can lead to discovering people in your life don’t want you to outshine them (Veronica). You might think you’ve set yourself up for something long term and then turn out to be wrong (Archie).  You can do all the things - graduate from a good college with good grades after you earned a sensible degree - and still have to hustle like a maniac or settle really hard to make ends meet (Toni, Kevin, Fangs).  Tasting early success can end up showing you only how  very far you have to go and how little it matters (Jughead). 

Personal life - You can definitely have an I have absolutely no friends, wtf happened to me evening or two (Betty). Whatever you didn’t heal from in your teens can take over your whole life with drastic adult consequences (Cheryl, and possibly, Reggie). You can be irresistibly drawn to the absolute wrong person to be with and nobody can stop you because you’re grown (Veronica, Betty, Jughead, and again, possibly Reggie).  You have even less support from parents/ guardians than ever before (Veronica, Cheryl).  And sometimes, when you meet up again with people you were really close to in your teens, it’s actually awkward and terrible (the Diner scene).

4.  I love thicc slutty miserable adult Jughead.  I had a person who really disliked me for this blog (their ask was an ad hominem attack)  ask an interesting question:  A Jughead stan? (derogatory).   I wasn’t sure, but I think now I can be. I’m a Jughead stan!  I am surprised that I find adult Jughead so much fun, like, even more intriguing than the beautiful delicate sadboi, the passionate Serpent Fail King, the feral manic G&G player, or the smug preppy (though I am partial to this last) iterations.  This irritable person who talks over a fan to correct her and obviously engages in a game of self-defeating chicken about not doing any housework with his equally irritable girlfriend - I love this, that he went from being the most perfectionist idealist teen to this dude who memorizes his best performance review for his job. (See also my 3rd point). 

5.  I love that they did something with the Serpents and the Serpent Queen.  FP’s failures (it was more FP’s fault than Jughead’s) as Serpent King decimated the Serpents, and Betty should never ever have been anything other than a Serpent groupie, so Toni and Sweet Pea (SWEET PEA GETS TO TALK!) reconstitute the group, with Toni at the head, and they seem to have learned something from Jughead’s time as King, when the Serpents were homeless and under a lot of strain. They’ve diversified - they own a bar, they run a trucking business, and those who want to and can also get white collar jobs

3 things to consider

1. The dream shows how Archie views all these old friends.  Jughead is a burden and an obligation, at the same time - someone he has to save, maybe, but definitely someone whose entire weight he has to carry around.  Reggie is an equal (when he falls, Archie moves on). Veronica, Betty, Fangs and Sweet Pea are merely his ‘audience.’   The person who actually takes time to pay attention to what is happening to him and sends him love & encouragement without any demands is Cheryl.   Someone - if it was you please say in the comments! - gave me an important hint, that Cheryl is known or likely to be the spokesperson for the creators of Riverdale, so maybe this just means, The Show Loves Archie.

2. Betty thinks she caught serial killers, in the multiple, in high school. But she didn’t, so she’s still very wrong all the time about her own life.  Her Dad and Charles desperately wanted her to know who they were and she just refused to take the fucking hint, and Jughead actually figured out most of the rest (Penelope as the true Gargoyle King, that Hiram was using the Gargoyle King as a prop, the stuff with the Stonies).  The one bit that Betty put together on her own was that Warden Norton killed the Principal In the Cupboard, and he wasn’t even that important.

3.  What makes a town or city function? According to Riverdale they are in order of priority: (1) emergency services esp having a fire station and more law enforcement than the lone sheriff and social services, (2)  solvent residents (signified by the abandonment and decay of the leisure space, the park, as well as the metastasized skid row), (3)  connection to the national transportation network (if Greyhound won’t have a stop in your town you’re done for?), and (4) a high school.

[adhd-disaster-willie]

you’re the one that brings the sun; chapter 5/6

chapter 1, 2, 3, 4

warnings: swearing

word count: 2,757

notes: okay so this update took a while because I’ve been busy with school and writers block has been kicking my ass, but I think it’s worth it :)))

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It was established in August that at least once a month, Alex will receive a phone call informing him to be at Julie’s house in ten minutes for a mandatory slumber party. It’s endearing sure, but he would like some sort of warning other than Luke calling him and saying that if he doesn’t show up as soon as possible, he’ll paint his drumsticks neon green. So that’s how Alex ends up sitting cross legged on Julie’s bed, putting Reggie’s hair into a bunch of tiny braids and watching The Princess Diaries for what’s probably the hundredth time. 

“Lilly is definitely a lesbian,” Flynn says through a mouthful of popcorn. 

Alex hums in agreement and Julie nods. “If only this movie weren’t made in 2001,” Julie says mournfully.

“Y’know I always thought that Joe was gay,” Alex admits. “Up until he dances with the queen.”

Reggie attempts to look up at Alex, earning an offended squeak from the latter. “Really?”

“Yes, now will you please stay still, I only have one more left.”

“Ok but there is no way Mia’s mom is straight!” Flynn says.

Julie seems to mull it over for a bit. “She does live in an old fire station. And artists are never straight.”

“Yea, like Willie!” Luke pipes up, sitting up from his position hanging halfway off the bed. “Willie’s not straight.”

“We should start a betting pool on how long it takes for Luke to bring up Willie,” Alex mumbles, his cheeks flushing pink. He ties off Reggie’s final braid and pats his head approvingly. “You look like a real princess.”

“Do I?” Reggie grins up at him with a bit of a twinkle in his eye and Alex chuckles. 

“No subject changing,” Luke protests. “How’s Willie doing?”

“Still a pining idiot,” Flynn answers with a cheeky smile. 

“I’m trying to watch the movie.” Alex shoves at Luke’s face and slides down off the bed to sit on the floor beside Reggie. 

“You’ve seen this movie a million times,” Luke points out. He leans down so his head is hanging off the edge of the bed and smirks mischievously at Alex, who is pointedly refusing to look at him. “Aleeeex,” Luke whines. “Don’t be a buzzkill.”

“Alice, please,” Flynn says. Alex shoots her a look seeping with betrayal and Flynn raises their hands defensively. “I haven’t seen Carrie in a few days!” They protest. “I need drama.”

“Drama?” Alex asks. “Or blackmail material?”

Flynn shrugs, which only serves to cement what Alex was thinking. “Yea, nope. It’s not like anything has even happened since-” He cuts himself off, realizing his mistake and preparing for the onslaught of questions. 

“Since!?” Luke cries. “Since what?!” He grabs Alex’s face roughly and looks at him with wide eyes. “Since what, Alex?”

“Nothing!” Alex squeaks, wrenching himself from Luke’s grasp. “Nothing! It was- let go of my fanny pack! Julie stop filming!!!” Alex swats at Luke’s hands and attempts to leap forward to grab Julie’s phone, but ultimately fails. 

“I’ll let go if you tell me,” Luke teases in a sing song voice, his grin only growing the more Alex fights. 

“Fine! If you just- sorry Reg the puppy-dog eyes only work on Luke and Bobby.” Reggie sighs in disappointment and Alex finally manages to get Luke off of him, huffing angrily and brushing nonexistent dust from his hoodie. “You’re a barbarian,” he mutters.

“Well?” 

Alex responds to Julie’s prompting with a long-suffering sigh. “You have to promise not to make fun of me,” he says. They don’t promise. The movie is long forgotten as Alex’s friends gather around him, looking all too fascinated by his latest embarrassment. “He well… don’t laugh, ok. He wore a crop top last week and I tripped on my own feet and scraped up my knees.”

Flynn raises an eyebrow. “Nuh uh, there’s more, spill.”

Alex groans, burying his face in his hands. “They got all worried and started putting bandaids on my knees and I almost fainted. Then- please don’t make me say this,” Alex pleads, looking to Julie as if she’s his last hope. She shakes her head. “When they finished lecturing me I just looked at him and said ‘nice shirt’ and ran off. Nice shirt??? What is wrong with me?”

“Wait a minute,” Julie says, gesturing for Alex to pause. “You just… ran off? Where?”

Alex doesn’t say anything. 

“I’ll paint your drumsticks if you don’t tell us,” Luke threatens. The difficulty is that Alex doesn’t doubt him one bit, and knows that Julie has a healthy supply of paint in a drawer just a few feet away from Luke. 

Alex mumbles something under his breath and Reggie pokes him. 

“Sorry what was that? Speak up.”

“Orange, I’ll paint them the ugliest shade of orange ever.”

“I went and hid in my closet!” Alex blurts. “For like an hour. I am never going to live that down.”

“That’s… incredibly ironic,” Julie laughs. 

“I’m telling that story at your wedding.”

“Reginald, don’t even think about it!” Alex kicks Reggie lightly and raises his hand to flip off the other three, who are all dying of laughter. “I hate all of you. I need new friends.”

“Good luck with that.” Flynn pats Alex’s head; he can practically hear their stupid smirk. 

“Fuck off.”

“No.”

---

Alex wakes up with his foot in Luke’s face, one arm thrown over Julie, his face in Reggie’s neck, and a very giggly Flynn perched on the end of the bed taking pictures. He sits up and murmurs sleepily, squinting in the oddly hazy room.

It’s gray and gloomy outside, quite fitting for mid-November, but far from Alex’s ideal weather. He’s always been partial to spring, when it’s not too hot and not too cold and not always cloudy and sad. 

Flynn hops off the bed and onto Julie’s chair, where she spins a couple times before turning her phone to show Alex. “This is gonna be my new lockscreen,” they giggle. Alex stares at the photo, baffled as to how his arm was bent like that. 

Breakfast is heaps of pancakes and fresh coffee (bless you, Ray) that for a moment, Alex considers just dumping over his head. Julie is curled around Luke for warmth throughout the whole morning and Flynn makes a point to gag at least once every 5 minutes. Alex knows she’s happy for them though, they finally got their act together a little over a week ago and at least this is better than the pining. Alex doesn’t say that though, because it will only get him a lecture on how he is not one to talk about pining. 

Alex almost thanks a god he doesn’t believe in anymore when the rain outside doesn’t seem to make any moves into thunderstorm territory. Willie hates thunderstorms. He stays cocooned in a blanket until noon, but eventually Tía Victoria shoos them all out, claiming that Julie will never finish her homework with them all glued to her. 

Alex is sopping wet when he finally arrives at his dorm, sadly no car can go right up to the entrance of the dorms. The first thing Alex notices when he walks in is the candles, and the second thing is the haphazardly thrown together fort in the middle of the room, which he narrowly avoids tripping over. “Willie?” He asks, lifting what he assumes to be the entrance and raising an eyebrow at Willie, who is grinning at him and shining a flashlight in his face.

“Ok, get that out of my eyes.” Alex clamps a hand over the light and Willie sticks his tongue out. “Did the power go out?” Alex asks, worry etching over his face. He can’t have all their food being ruined, with Alex living off his coffee shop job and Willie off of the occasional commission and odd check from his eccentric uncle. 

Willie shakes their head. “Nope.”

“So why the… candles?”

“It’s fun!” Willie pulls Alex into the fort, stumbling back and just barely evading them toppling over each other into a quite compromising position. Willie presses his back against the couch and pats the space next to him. “It’s like you’re a little kid again.”

“Luke used to love making forts,” Alex admits. “We would move all the furniture in his living room and make the absolute worst blanket forts you can imagine. Like seriously, it’s no wonder none of us went into architecture.”

“Really? I can totally see you as an architect”

“That’s…”

“I’m joking, hotdog,” Willie giggles, bumping their shoulder together. He has a tendency to raise his eyebrows when he’s amused; Alex finds it all too endearing. Accompanied with the way their eyes crinkle when the laugh and the soft candlelight leaking through the thin blankets and draping over his features, Alex thinks he’s having trouble breathing. 

“I was drawing you, y’know,” Willie says softly after a few minutes of silence.

“Hmm?”

“The day we went stargazing, I was drawing you. You’re- you’re a good muse.”

“Oh.” Alex’s stomach flutters. “I uh… thank you.” He gives Willie a hesitant smile before turning to focus on the flickering light. His breath feels weighted, like every exhale means something, but he can’t quite pinpoint what. There’s a light breeze whistling through the crack in the door and Alex closes his eyes for a moment, pretending that it’s wrapping around him and holding him close. Alex didn’t get much affection as a child; his parents had always been very stiff. Sure, they loved him, but they weren’t that good at showing it aside from a rough shoulder squeeze and tight smiles so full of expectations. When he came out, even the snippets of affection faded; no more of his mother fixing his hair or giving him a quick kiss on the forehead when he was sick. Two months after his coming out, they just… kicked him out. He came home to find his belongings shoved carelessly into a trash bag or two and that was that. Luke more than made up for the lack of physical affection, but Alex knows that there will always be something missing. 

Wide awake, Alex lets his head fall onto Willie’s shoulder. This time with care and attention, hesitancy. He hears Willie suck in a sharp breath but then the tension melts from their shoulders and fizzles into nothingness. For a moment, there is nothing but them and the pattering of rain against the windows. 

“Lets go for a drive.”

Alex looks up expecting Willie’s usual carefree and impish grin, but he’s taken aback by his wistful expression and something bursts in Alex’s chest. Something that may be instinct and may be just an overwhelming surge of emotion.

“Okay.” His voice is barely a whisper, a single wisp of smoke snaking from a blown out candle.

The air is damp and the rain is coming down hard; Alex reaches a cautious hand out beyond the awning and winces at the downpour. But Willie is wiggling his stupid eyebrows in the way that makes Alex’s face heat and he can’t say no as Willie drags him through the wet grass, shrieking with laughter and going slower than necessary to relish in the water pouring down from the sky in torrents. They’re soaked to the bone and breathless, overflowing with mirth, by the time they reach Alex’s car and clamber into the seats. Right after a brief argument about who’s driving of course. (“You will not be touching my steering wheel with your grimy paint hands, William.” “Says you.”) So Alex is driving. 

Willie has their hands pressed to the window, breath fogging up the glass and sending them into a fit of giggles every time. Alex switches on the radio and there’s a song playing that he recognizes but couldn’t sing along to; something soft and low, like lilting waves. Willie knows it though. And they’re singing. Oh. They’re singing. Alex almost has to pull the car to a stop and put his head in his hands because Willie never told him he could sing.

Willie’s voice is low and slightly raspy, but not in a bad way. Alex knows he’s heard this song before, but he’s 100% certain that this is his first time really hearing it. And it’s beautiful. Or maybe it’s just Willie. It’s probably just Willie. 

Alex brings the car to a slow stop in the parking lot of an odd gas station that always seems to be closed. He doesn’t turn it off though, because he would rather die than have Willie stop singing. He leans his head back and breathes, certain he’s inhaling Willie’s voice. Willie’s voice which is like sparks on his skin, like smoke that crowds his lungs and opens his soul for the very first time. He feels a sense of mourning when the song stops and something else comes on, something peppier and sickeningly sweet. He switches the radio off. 

“I didn’t know you could sing.” Alex isn’t even looking at them; he’s fiddling nervously with the strap of his fanny pack.

Willie smirks proudly. “You learn something new every day.”

“Yea.”

Willie traces a heart in the fog on the window and lets it sit there. Then he unbuckles his seat belt and pokes Alex’s shoulder. “Hey ‘Lex, come on.”

“No.” Alex shakes his head vigorously. “No. We’re already soaking wet and-”

“Hot dog.”

And damn it, the nickname may be so incredibly stupid but Alex has such a weird soft spot for it. He groans dramatically, making a point to wring out his hair, which is already mostly dry at this point. “You’re the worst. What if it starts thundering?” 

Willie shrugs. “I have my noise cancelling headphones. And you can-” they cut themself off. 

“I can what?”

“Nothing,” Willie squeaks. “Please. Please.”

So Alex climbs reluctantly from the car and stands in the parking lot looking far from amused. “You owe me.”

Willie laughs loudly, grabbing both of Alex’s hands and spinning him in an aimless circle, pulling them both into a dance  to music that’s only in his head. They twirl Alex around several times, and Alex is certain that he’s going to actually fall over and faint. Willie raises his face to the sky and squints, letting the rain soak him without care. Alex is in awe and how open and free Willie is, like nothing can ever go wrong and if it does they’ll always be flying. He doesn’t realized they’ve stopped dancing until Willie turns to him with a curious expression. Their eyes rake over his face and Alex realizes he’s staring. But for once, he doesn’t look away. And for the first time, he sees the corner of Willie’s mouth quirk up and their eyes flick to his lips and even linger there for a brief second. 

The rain doesn’t seem to have plans to stop anytime soon, and they’re both shivering and wet and Willie’s hair is dangling in front of his face. Alex reaches out and tucks it behind his ear, both of them holding a breath, waiting. It’s right there, right in front of him, and Alex is inches from just grasping it and clutching it to his chest. Willie takes a step forward so their faces are just inches from each other and Alex can feel their breath against his cheeks. He exhales shakily and raises one hand to cup Willie’s cheek, his touch feather light and afraid. Willie leans into the contact and grins upwards, their nose wrinkling fondly. He gives a silent nod and for the first time in years, Alex takes the plunge. 

Their first kiss is soft and slow and Willie tastes like rain and green tea. Alex smiles against their lips, a breathy laugh escaping his own. He’d think this is a dream, but no section of his imagination could conjure something even a fragment as magical as this. They’re in the middle of a parking lot, cold and wet, and yet Alex feels the warmest he ever has. Alex is hesitant to pull away, but he does, just barely. Their foreheads stay resting against each other, like breaking apart would break them. Then it comes crashing into him. Alex just kissed Willie. He just kissed Willie. And Willie kissed him back! Holy shit!

“Wowza.” Wowza? What the fuck Alex? 

Willie breaks into joyous laughter, throwing his head back and clutching Alex’s shoulders. And Alex laughs with him; he buries his face in the crook of Willie’s neck, his heart full to bursting. Wowza indeed.

---

notes: ...I did say I was thinking about a Willex rain kiss. I actually wrote like half of chapter 6 a while ago so I might be able to post it tomorrow. 

chapter 6

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