#so her name is just a translation of the word bird because. fucking nobody has bothered to talk about how last names worked

[sweet-as-an-angel]

Miguel’s Reaction to You Calling Him a DILF

Warnings: Implied Smut, Dominant Miguel, Profanity, Use of ‘Daddy’, Lyla Trying Her Best <3, Fem Reader.

Despite spending every day with Lyla, an absolutely chronically online AI, Miguel knows little in the way of internet jargon.

Thus, this term - DILF - is one he’s never come across before. Namely because Lyla has never seen it fit to implement it into a conversation.

But, when Miguel overheard you calling him your “Favourite DILF; just a gorgeous, scrumptious specimen,” he had to ask Lyla to translate for him.

Miguel swore he could see her eyes widen, her brow stiffen and crease.

“It’s…it’s — uh — well…”

Lyla scratched the back of her head, her stare sloping off to the side — away from Miguel’s cattish stare. Her teeth gritted, a gateway, a preventative measure to ensure your safety and wellbeing. The only barrier between your open secret and miguel’s discovery of it.

“Oh, come on, Lyla,” Miguel crossed his arms over his chest, as if to inhibit the anxiety starting to bloom there. He doubted that you’d ever bad-mouth him, especially given how close the two of you were, but Lyla’s apprehension was starting to spark some doubts. Regardless, he persevered, kept his stare hard and neutral. “It can’t be that bad.”

“It..it means…” Lyla sighed, pinched the bridge of her nose beneath her glasses. She didn’t look up at Miguel, instead finding you in her mind’s eye and cursing you. And wishing the best for your safety.

“Dad I’d like to fuck.”

She came out with it, the words almost poisonous and sour on her tongue as they passed through. And the fact that she’d had to say them to Miguel of all people didn’t help.

At first, Miguel didn’t think he’d heard Lyla correctly, his posture and face remaining unchanged in the fallout of his discovery.

It was only after three seconds passed, four, five, that he truly heard — understood — what Lyla had said.

“Oh.”

A warmth bled across Miguel’s face, a creeping blush hidden only by the console’s yellow hue. Without another word, Mifuel turned tail, unfurling his arms, unravelling to his broadest potential. He began his descent, his destination clear as day in his mind’s eye.

Lyla’s’s eyes widened further, almost bulging from her head. She called, stammering: “(Y-Y/N) probably didn’t mean it! Not like that! So-so don’t go too hard on ‘er, okay?”

Miguel searched the entire facility for you, his face a concoction of emotions nobody (save for yourself) had ever seen before, thus making his mood indecipherable to all that were not you.

He eventually found you, isolated, in a room. Practically begging for what was to come next. He slipped inside, closed the door behind him.

You turned and smiled, sensing Miguel’s presence; the impression of authority.

“Hey, Miggy!” you chimed, eyes crescents. You turned back to checking off your stock list, paying little heed to the shadow advancing on you.

“Playing innocent, I see,” Miguel’s voice swooped and glided as the greatest bird of prey does, coming to stand mere centimetres behind you, his warmth at your back; a dark sun.

“I thought you’d be at home, caring for our child.” His hands came to sit on your shoulders, heavy and large. For a second, you were befuddled, believing Miguel to be spinning you a riddle. Then, realisation. Your heart dropped; you knew Miguel could feel it. Oh my God, Lyla.

“We…don’t have a child, Miguel,” you laughed, humourless and breathy. You knew you had to play your cards right. Carefully. Miguel gave a heavy, brief chuckle.

“Not yet,” he squeezed your shoulders, hands slipping down the length of your arms, the feeling of spiders creeping along your skin. “But seeing as you’re so keen on calling me daddy, I see no harm in pretending.”

His lips came to your neck, pressing deceptively soft kisses there. 

You were frozen, though a fire stoked within you. One you couldn’t bring yourself to put out.

“After all, I am your DILF, aren’t I?”

You bit your lip, eyes squeezing shut as Miguel’s hands slid to your waist, pulling your back to his front where you felt something thick and large and bulging against your tailbone.

“A baseless accusation, don’t you think ?”

Your breath shuttered. “I didn’t mean it as a bad thing—“

“It doesn’t matter how you meant it. What matters is it’s inaccurate,” Miguel spoke with a stoic logic you’d seen one too many times. He pulled you to him, tighter, closer, his heart pounding against your back.

“But, luckily for you, I’m in a giving mood. I’m not going to punish you for your little transgression. Instead, I’m going to give you an out.” He descended upon your skin again, nipping it between his blunted teeth, the threat of his fangs in your periphery.

“What…what’s that?” You almost didn’t want to ask, your heart creeping up your throat as if to muffle your words.

Miguel’s hand slipped from your waist, sliding sharp fingers down the expanse of your back, leaving trails of goosebumps. You felt his hand come between where the most prominent part of himself and you connected, his knuckles digging into the small of your back. He ran a hand over himself through his suit, palmed himself. His eye twitched. “You just have to be a good girl and lay down and take whatever I give you until I say we’re done.”

His grip on you tightened. You could feel how dark his gaze had become, weighing heavy on you like a robe.

You said nothing – could say nothing.

“Now, you wanna say that again,” his voice was muffled by your skin, his kisses becoming wetter, languid. He pushed himself against you, taking you by the hips and pulling you so he caught you just right. You spied his eye twitch in the reflection of the filing cabinet across from you as you cracked an eye open, a steady redness overtaking Miguel’s stare, his lips turning up at the corners, revealing his fangs.

“Or are you gonna keep that pretty little mouth shut and make me into a real daddy ?”

Reblog for more content like this! It helps creators like myself tremendously and it is greatly appreciated :-)

Masterlist Masterpost

Yandere Masterlist Juicy Original Content <3

[deathbirby]

Ancient History of Fodlan

This post will be from the beginning to when Seiros defeats Nemesis.

I might go back and edit this post if more information comes to light.

Let's unpack!

The Beginning

"A long time ago, the progenitor god came from somewhere far away and descended upon this continent." - Rhea

The Church says that the Blue Sea Star is the home of the Goddess. She supposedly fell from it and landed on Fodlan, but what exactly is the Blue Sea Star? Is there a real-world example of it? Yes.

The Blue Sea Star is supposed to be the star Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. My proof?

Sothis is the Greek name of the Egyptian goddess Sopdet, the personification of the star Sirius.

Rhea has a theme called "Gazing at Sirius."

Sothis's special in FEH is called "Sirius."

Seiros is another word for Sirius.

Aelfric says that the Ashen Wolves got their names from the beasts who guard the Blue Sea Star. This is quite fitting, as Sirius is also known as the Dog Star.

Oh, and Sothis might just be one of these 'beasts'. I talk more about what Sothis looked like as a dragon in a previous post.

Arrival

"She changed her form to resemble that of a human, and gave her own blood to birth her children. The progenitor god and her children shared knowledge and skills with the people of the land. Together, they built a prosperous civilization."

Sothis, after her journey from the Blue Sea Star, alighted on the continent of Fodlan. What does 'alight' mean in this case? Well...

Pictures taken seconds before distaster

By crashing into the continent as a meteor, of course!

She changed her form to resemble the humans who already lived there and used her own blood to birth her children. These Children of the Goddess would come to be known as the Nabateans.

Sothis and the Nabateans shared their knowledge with the humans and together a prosperous civilization, full of advanced technology was built.

Of course, this peaceful period wouldn't last long.

Conflict

"But the humans turned their backs on the teachings of the progenitor god and engaged in senseless wars."

In the land of Thinis, where the old god(s) was/were supposed to have lived, at last the one who is not god awakens. The grotesque monstrosity resurrects to sink the world to watery depths. Bringing extinction to all children of men, salvation to all beasts, all birds, and all fish. Bringing retribution to the children of men who spilled too much of the blood of life. - Romance of the World's Perdition, Japanese translation

The humans waged senseless wars against each other, as humans do.

Fuck that ship in particular

They realized they made a mistake when Sothis revealed her true form. This quickly sent them into a panic. The False God would only promise cruel retribution for the children of men who spilled too much of the blood of life. Or so they thought. Rhea only says that the humans challenged Sothis to war because they became too arrogant. Which side is true?

This part really stumped me. Was Rhea just... biased? It seemed like a simple answer, but I needed more proof before coming to a conclusion.

I was listening to "The Spirit Dais" when I remembered something. That song is Sothis's theme, and it has lyrics.

[When] all creation lapses into chaos [In] eternal night There, the goddess returneth

Huh. When all creation lapses into chaos, the Goddess returns? Guess we got an answer. Sothis did reveal herself to the humans, and it was because the constant wars were causing chaos. That still leaves the question of whether or not she was going to blow them up into smithereens as retribution or give them a very stern talking to.

So... yeah. Rhea is biased! Nobody could've seen that coming. It's also understandable because from what we know, she might not have been there.

That's not to say that the Agarthans aren't also extremely biased, but considering Rhea claims that they destroyed everything and their book admitting they destroyed quite a bit, I'm willing to believe they destroyed a lot.

Moving on.

War

Defeat the one who is not god before the world sinks to watery depths. To this end, the children of men erected pillars of light upon the land. Thinis, Malum, Septen, and Llium were all utterly destroyed, and the land vanished. Yet even still, the one who is not god stood.

The humans felt a primal fear, like when faced with a storm or natural disaster. They believed they had to act before Sothis destroyed them all. To destroy the False God, they created the pillars of light. They fired them at Sothis, devastating the continent, and still, the goddess stood.

This could be the pillars of light being used on Thinis or in the wars among humans themselves.

"Eventually people began to think of themselves as gods and challenged the progenitor god herself to battle. The land was scorched in the war that ensued and the majority of humans were annihilated. I believe that those who slither in the dark are the descendants of those who retreated beneath the ground during that time."

Trying to kill the goddess and destroying countries is enough reason to go to war, and go to war the goddess did. The Agarthans tried to win through sheer numbers alone, but it was useless. They stood no chance against the might of a Goddess. The pillars of light already did a lot of damage to the continent, but Sothis went above and beyond and swept the entire board clean. The majority of humans were killed, with the descendants of those who retreated beneath the ground becoming Those Who Slither in The Dark.

I also want to adress something that I said a long time ago: that Sothis created new humans to populate the planet after blowing shit up. Rhea does say that the majority of humans were annihilated. You could read this as some humans still surviving the massive war and not retreating underground.

But I still believe that Sothis created new humans. Look at what Hanneman says about TWSITD;

"Shambhala... An underground city with an entirely different lineage than the goddess?" - Hanneman

An entirely different lineage than the goddess, hm? Looks like modern humans are created by Sothis. Is that the reason why they can turn into demonic beasts? I'm not too sure...

Sothis knew what demonic beasts were and how to defeat them when she was an amnesiac living inside Byleth's head. Byleth can even ask how she knows this, and she tells them to focus on the giant fucking monster.

That means she has dealt with demonic beasts in the past. It makes sense. Many Nabateans likely died during the war, and humans who stumbled upon their crest stones/blood would've transformed into demonic beasts. That is a plausible reason for why Sothis would know about them and how to deal with them

It's also possible that the Agarthans did some demonic beasts experimenting. How the hell did they even have the technology to create weapons out of the Nabateans? They had to have started somewhere.

And Sothis does call them parasites in Three Hopes, but that could just be because they are literal parasites who steal other people's bodies.

Despair

A flood named despair covered the world.

I said in the past that this was a literal flood, but now I'm not so sure. There are three options here:

Sothis flooded the world. Take the text literally, and this is what it says.

Sothis went scorched earth on the Agarthans, and it was considered to be a "Flood of Despair."

A mix of both. She went scorched earth first and then used the flood to extinquish the flames.

I think option 3 is the most likely one. The post I linked before explains it a little better. Here is some text from it:

The reason I don’t capitalize “despair” is because I don’t think there was a literal flood which was given the name Despair. The Japanese phrase is zetsubō toiu na no kōzui ( 望という名の洪水), which literally means “a flood named despair”, but this construction is most often (at least in my experience) used in a figurative sense. As a very random example of the same phrasing, take the title of the ending theme song of the anime Bakuman, “Those Who Fight the Monster Named Reality”. There is obviously no actual monster; the monster is just a metaphor for reality. Applying this to our sentence, we arrive at the meaning, “despair covered the world like a flood”. However, this is by no means a definitive answer.

Not a definitive answer but still quite compelling. After all, someone else does say that Sothis did not just flood the planet...

Hatred

The children of men fled to the depths of the earth. To a place where the gaze of the one who is not god does not reach. To a place where the light of the sun does not reach. To a place where the waters of despair do not enter. Swearing eventual revenge against the surface ruled by beasts, against the one who is not god.

The Agarthans hate Sothis. She and the Nabateans forced them underground and stole their light away from them. But there is also another factor. Remember how the text said that Thinis is where the Old Gods are supposed to have lived? Could these Old Gods be the Nabateans? No. The Agarthans know that the Nabateans are Sothis's children. They would not call the children of a False God the "Old Gods."

It looks like the Agarthans had their own religion. Thinis is where their gods are supposed to dwell, and Sothis awakening there completely invalidates their religion. It explains why they hate her so much before the war even started. She goes against everything they believe in.

"My name is Epimenides, an ordinary man who vowed to kill the beast which set the earth ablaze." - Epimenides, Into the Chasm

Epimenides, one of the Agarthan survivors, goes as far as to say that Sothis is the one who set the Earth ablaze, completely ignoring their own actions. Is that also bias? Judging by the Agarthan book admitting they blew shit up; Yes.

But hey, this does make it sound like the Flood of Despair wasn't just a literal flood.

It almost seems like a self-fulfilling prophesy. They must destroy Sothis before she destroys them all, but their actions may have just been what led to their demise.

You know, this entire conflict reminds me about this piece of text about Sirius:Sirius rises late in the dark, liquid sky On summer nights, star of stars, Orion’s Dog they call it, brightest Of all, but an evil portent, bringing heat And fevers to suffering humanity.

Sacrifice

This is where it gets a little interesting. Sothis seems to have created Fodlan after the destruction of the entire continent. Take a look at these quotes:

"This world of yours is quite a sight. Was this one of my own creations, or... Ah. Never mind that last part." - Sothis, FEH

"My power covers Fodlan's every inch!" - Sothis, Three Hopes

"And look what you brought me- the three who fancy themselves sovereigns, ruling over that abomination's wretched spawn." - Epimenides, Into the Chasm

Her power covers Fodlan's every inch. Epimenides calls Fodlan her wretched spawn. She has created worlds according to FEH. Fodlan is designed to look like the head of a dragon. Is that just an easter egg? Probably! Still, a lot of things point to her recreating the continent after all of it had been utterly destroyed.

"It took the progenitor god an astonishing amount of time to revive the ravaged world. But eventually, the continent found peace again, and the progenitor god, having fulfilled her duty, fell into a long slumber in the Holy Tomb."

Reviving the world cost so much energy that it killed Sothis. She fell into slumber in the Holy Tomb, a place that she created to protect her children from the javelins of light. Why is her death called a slumber? I'll talk about that in a different post.

Peace?

The Nabateans who stayed behind built a settlement in Zanado to protect the Holy Tomb as they quietly lived out their lives.

However, some Nabateans would go on to rule over different lands. The Agarthans hated this state of affairs, so they devised schemes. They granted a bandit the technology to make powerful weapons from the corpses of the Nabateans. This bandit would come to be known as Nemesis, the King of Liberation.

Of course, if you give a human power, they would want even more power, and that means finding a stronger dragon to defeat and harvest, and so on. It was a vicious cycle, a cycle that led to the birth of the Ten Elites.

Nemesis plundered the Holy Tomb and took the remains of the Goddess with him. From her bones and heart, he created the Sword of the Creator. From her blood, he acquired the Crest of Flames. With this powerful relic and crest, he would move on to Zanado.

Some say that the rule of the Nabateans wasn't entirely perfect if it led to Nemesis and his Ten Elites to be thought of as heroes. That's not an unfair assumption to make, but do not try to use it as justification for the genocide of the Nabateans.

The two extremely biased factions who knew the truth both called Nemesis a thief. That was all the man was, a bloodthirsty thief who believed in the strong ruling over the weak.

Edit: garlandgerard pointed out that the term the devs use for “govern” contains the kanji for “cure”. That goes against the idea that the Nabatean rule was tyrannical or bad.

Tragedy

"Even now I cannot forget the sight...of that massive canyon, painted red with blood..."

The Nabateans in Zanado stood no chance. Nothing could prepare them for a human wielding their progenitor's corpse. It was a massacre. The canyon was painted red with their blood, meaning that they were in human form. Do you know how many human bodies you need to paint an entire canyon red to the point it gets called the "Red Canyon"? Hundreds, thousands, millions? It doesn't matter. An entire history and culture ended within a day. They were all slain... except for one.

Saint

"I was the only survivor of Zanado, and all I could do was wander across Fódlan clinging to my desperate desire for revenge."

A direct daughter of Sothis survived the tragedy, and she would go on to wander across Fodlan, clinging to a desperate desire for revenge.

She called herself Seiros, naming herself after the star her mother came from. Seiros traveled throughout Fodlan, performing miracles that led people to form the Church of Seiros in her name. She fostered the founding of the Adrestian Empire, working closely with its first emperor, Wilhelm Paul Hresvelg, and sharing her blood and Crest with him.

Seiros gathered the remaining Nabateans who were scattered across Fodlan. The most notable being Macuil, Indech, Cichol, and Cethleann. These four would come to be known as the Four Saints. Cethleann would be grievously wounded in one of the battles, leading her to fall into a slumber of her own.

Revenge

It was time for the battle of Tailtean. Seiros fought Nemesis on the Tailtean Plains, and there she defeated him. Looming over Nemesis with a dagger aimed at him, she asked if he recalled the Red Canyon. His eyes widened in recognition, but he didn't get a chance to say anything as she drove the dagger into his chest. Over and over again, screaming that he took everything that she loved.

She did it. Nemesis was dead. She hugged Sword of the Creator, which had been cast away during the fight, close to her.

"He's gone now, mother..."

Her mother always believed that revenge was something you do not take for someone else. It is to slake your rage and heal your wounded heart. But this line, to me, makes it clear that Seiros did it for her mother. For her fallen Nabateans. You can see her look up the moment the words leave her, her eyes becoming empty and distant.

She got revenge for her mother, and yet... The Goddess's bones stayed silent.

[mothmansrevolt]

LU girl Scout 2 au electric boogaloo

i gotta lot of stuff on four cause ive been writing a fanfic off and on. I keep forgetting the different Karen names as well.

⦁ They meet in a barn on Lon Lon Ranch or in the park. Time keeps a whiteboard of running rules and ideas. Many of these include things the group is not allowed to do. ⦁ All of them involve fire. ⦁ One of them is a rule banning certain people, Dark is definitely on his list as well as a tentative rule on Shadow. Anyone named Karen who enters the barn will immediately be exterminated. ⦁ Dark and Shadow have an emo band with actually good but really edgy music? ⦁ This band has no set name but does have a youtube channel called _Cracked_Mirror_ ⦁ Four is the camera man and often appears VERY confused in the background music videos. They make music and vlogs and Kaaren disapproves. ⦁ Four and Hyrule are local cryptids. Twilight is the cryptid tamer. Wild is believed to get you an autograph from the cryptids for five bucks. Legend is halfway a cryptid halfway a nuisance. Time is the ultimate cryptid. At least six different paranormal teams have come after them and have all found evidence surrounding the troop. There is currently a blog run by Legend and Warriors about the evidence surrounding the troop and it is extremely ludicrous ⦁ "Kazoo Kawaii" is a patch they all have and regret immensely ⦁ Hyrule has a GPS keeping track of him. He doesn't use it because he enjoys exploration. Four often has to go with Twilight to grab him. Its not uncommon to see a disgruntled guy in overalls being trailed by a tiny child stomping through the woods. ⦁ Unofficial patch "clapping ass cheek run" is the reason why Wind is not allowed to make patches anymore. Only Legend owns this patch and is VERY proud. Warriors is salty. ⦁ "best mom" is a patch they made just to give to Malon. She cried and hugged them all. ⦁ Tetra is perpetually confused by girlscouts. Her and her gang of 'pirates' aid Wind in his quest to be the very best girlscout that no one ever was and it is not helping nor working in the slightest. ⦁ Tetra is banned from helping directly after a patch for tracking led to them all stalking a prominent citizen and accidently bringing into the light a huge affair that destroyed the entire company. ⦁ Karen actually has partial legal gaurdianship over Four. Nobody knows how. Four's grandfather has many friends in town keeping the word from getting to Karen. ⦁ Vaati and Octavo are Karen's sons who have no idea what the fuck is going on but do know they are related to Four. They don't really get along, its very tense but the brothers do actively keep Four away from Karen because they don't like their mom and they feel kinda bad. It becomes a bad game of Karen after Four in two different ways. give this poor child a break please ⦁ They have a running deal of Vaati driving Four around in exchange for cookies. ⦁ People think the Links are very different from their girlscout counterparts. Its very confusing. The Karen squad only knows that Twilight, Legend, and Warriors are actually Links. ⦁ Sky volunteers at the local bird shelter and is absolutely thriving. His community service patches are earned there. ⦁ People do not fear the links, they fear the hylia scouts. They have teamed up on local bullies who go after their friends and beat their asses in skirts. ⦁ Sky is the most feared because he pulled the master knife on someone once when they threatened his friends and were insulting them. Nobody makes the tiny ones sad. no one. ⦁ The 'master knife' is just a really rad swiss army knife thats exremly good and hard to use. ⦁ The goddess bow is a slingshot. ⦁ All of the links are masters at these weapons. ⦁ Malon works full time at the farm but used to work in child social services for a good few years. She is actively keeping Karen away from Four as well and its the reason why Four became so close to her family and Twilight was allowed to babysit him. ⦁ Yes Four is old enough to stay home alone. No this is not  good idea hence Twilight and Wild. Wind is also old enough to stay home alone and will often watch Aryll and hang at Four's house.  ⦁ The town "minish" is actually a huge group of mice, like somehow highly trained mice that has collectively adopted Four. Do not upset Four. You will find mice will regret this. ⦁ Forest minish are a collection of mice and racoons. They have also adopted Four. ⦁ Ezlo will attack people if need be. He also tends to 'talk' a lot in place of Four, which often involves him squawking and chirping loudly at whoever. Four translates as he chooses. ⦁ Wolfie is more wolf than dog, may even be just a full on wolf. nobody, not even animal control, knows. ⦁ The Links get around through bicycles just because their numbers inconvenience the Karens' minivans. Half can't even effectively ride a bike so really its just them walking everywhere with the bikes or lying face down on the road. ⦁ Some of the bikes are bedazzled. ⦁ The karens will compare themselves to the three golden goddesses which is a big no no to many. ⦁ Twilight is undecided on his major but is leaning to learning agriculture and business to help the family farm. ⦁ Wild plans to go into cooking! he's a damned good one to. ⦁ There's a special order on the secret cookie list that is just homemade cookies from Wild. There's also pot brownies from who knows. They just kind of show up? There isn't that much pot in them? Malon is freaking out over this. There's a running bet among the scouts, many think its Tetra. ⦁ Everyone has a special blanket at Lon Lon Ranch and they all basically live there ⦁ Four is really ahead in school and doesn't understand the concept of summer. Even though he and the 'girls' go to girl scout summer camp. He just thinks you are in school all year because he just continues lessons all year. ⦁ Sky is thought to be the biggest lesbian (next to Warriors) because he won't shut up about how much he loves his girlfriend. Alternatively everyone thinks Zelda is cheating on Sky with... Sky... ⦁ They have to refer to themselves out of uniform as Link. Usually they use their nicknames when alone together or with the farmers in the surrounding area, because the farmers know. they know all. ⦁ There's an "annoy a karen for a day" patch. ⦁ they have twenty. ⦁ Each. ⦁ Warriors is on a lot of sports team and is captain of all of them. Time is coach of the football team even though he has never played football. They have gone to nationals so many times. ⦁ Four, while not actively in “legit” highschool, still often hangs around the campus much to the hate of the security guards. they can never catch him. Its often that a teacher will turn around and realize Four has joined them in the .5 seconds they weren't looking. ⦁ Every week there's an extremely awkward dinner between the troops in the area where Time struggles to upstage the karens. Wild cooks backup food because Time can't cook, Malon refuses, the karen's only bring really bland food because apparently spices aren't a part of their diet. Wild cooks some damned good vegan food for the Karens ⦁ Time owns a "Proud Scout Dad leader" shirt that he wears everywhere. He also has a mug with #2 dad. Ezlo is #1 dad and Time is fine with this. They also always get family discounts wherever they go.

[the-lady-bryan]

harry potter/farscape crossover idea

okay so firstly, i’m NEVER going to develop this further. i’ve just got no muse. but here we are, with what little bit i did throw into notepad at one point.

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

Harry had stopped believing in coincidence centuries ago.

It didn't help that he was yanked for a while back and forth through realities - though admittedly that was partly his own fault because he didn't quite anticipate the level of power his magic had risen to after the Battle of Hogwarts and the defeat of Voldemort. When he wished to be anywhere else than dealing with the press and the fans and the fame and oh Merlin damn it Ginny we're not even dating and you and your mother are picking out goddamned wedding china!

But he digresses.

His reality hopping had finally ceased and his magic had FINALLY settled down. It looked like this reality would be his permanent one provided he didn't fuck it all up again. Which he tried - he really tried because holy fucking hell some of this shit he had to deal with was absolutely insane! He'd seen Voldemort the Snake-Face but that did NOT prepare him for meeting the literal psychic bipedal lizards called the Scarans. And he'd rather not meet them again if he could help it.

To survive in this crazy universe he'd had to adapt and unfortunately that meant kill or be killed.

Harry had come to terms with the blood on his hands a long time ago.

Unfortunately it was right before he was picked up by the Peacekeepers - the military arm of a race called the Sebbacians. And that's how he ended up in prison for assassinating some asshole dictator in the middle of nowhere who, unfortunately had Peacekeeper connections roughly eight cycles - years - after the fact. He'd settled down on some other backwater planet that reminded him a lot of Earth. Well, one of the Earths he'd been to at any rate. So what if the people were slightly orange and melted shit when they screamed. He just got better at making up scream-proofing charms on the fly is all. They were called Interons or something of the sort. Didn't matter much to Harry. He'd found a place to settle down and live a quiet life for the first time in three hundred years.

And now he was being transferred from his comfortable cell on some planet to a prison ship. Oh joy of joys.

Another eighty years later....

Harry sat with his muzzle on like a good little prisoner when they came into his cell for the routine torture and supposed interrogations. How did he still look like a child after eighty years? How old was he really? Where did he come from? Who else has he murdered? Who all hired him? The usual really.

They left him alone mostly unless they transferred other prisoners off the ship and he was all that was left.

They'd killed him a few times, but they didn't realize it. He'd healed and awoken too quickly for them to notice.... But someone did. He was sure of it. He just couldn't quite figure out who...

At least until he'd been on the ship for another fifty years. That's when he felt her for the first time poking at the edges of his awareness. She called herself Moya. She was the ship. The Leviathan is what the Peacekeeper guards called her.

Harry looked up from his liquid meal, the straw still stuck in the hole of his muzzle that allowed him to drink and "eat" when he heard the guards outside his door. Curious, he silently asked Moya what was happening as a blue woman was taken past his cell. A new prisoner. A Delvian, Moya had said. Harry was just grateful the new prisoner wasn't another goddamn Hynerian. Horrible little bastards reminded him of horrifying mix of Mundungus Fletcher and Draco Malfoy. Not something he liked to imagine. But at least she should be much more pleasant company than Rygel.

He found he liked the Delvian. Her chanting was very soothing. Moya and her Pilot seemed to like it very much as well.

Harry was woken by the roars of a tentacle faced beast of a man? He thought it was a man at least... when they brought the Luxan on board. With the muzzle on though, he could hardly say anything to anyone other than Moya and Pilot. And that was only because whatever it was they did, it was similar enough to legillimency that he basically said fuck it, why not. Otherwise, he'd have gone crazy long before then.

And then... one day, he woke to sirens and the ship jarring about and oh dear heavens that's laser fire isn't it?

"Don't just sit there! Come on!" Oh it was that horrible muppet thing again. Harry just stared at him in annoyance before the blue woman ran past and it dawned on him... Oh, it's a prison break.

It didn't take long for Harry to subdue a couple of guards. With some of Moya's lovely little robots leading him around he was able to avoid most confrontations and make his way to a safe storage chamber and hunker down until the fighting was over. He quite liked the chamber, and made his opinion known to Moya and her Pilot.

Eventually when things have settled down and they've starburst away Harry is led by some DRDs to where the other escaped prisoners are. They were't really pleased to see a young man wearing a muzzle and holding a pulse rifle judging by the multiple weapons pointed at him.

"who the hell are you?!" "He was here before anyone else." "ship's manifest doesn't even have him listed." "That muzzle can't be comfortable. Here, allow me..." "Are you mad! You take that off him and he'll kill us all!"

The muzzle is taken off and the first thing Harry says for a couple of centuries is, "You, the blue one. Oh I have so much enjoyed your chanting. It helped soothe Moya and her pilot for a time. I don't... I don't quite know what had them so agitated for a while but it certainly did help them. And myself as well. I look forward to hearing more of that lovely chanting. Now can I get a decent cuppa tea? Perhaps a food packet? I'll take anything solid. I've been living on liquid nutrients for around a hundred and fifty years and I can tell you it's not a pleasant way to eat."

"You're speaking English. That's English! My translator microbes things not translating you! That is the god damn Queen's English!"

"Of course I'm speaking bloody English! I'm from bloody England you fucking yank!"

"you said fuck! Not.... You have no idea how good it is to see another human!"

"I can assume you're from Earth, Mr..."

"Crichton. John Crichton. Astronaut."

"Harry Potter. Wiz-"

"The Master of Death!" - The Hynerian.

"Well I was going to say Wizard but I suppose that works just as well."

"Peacekeeper legends claim you can kill a man with just two words. Is that true?"

"Yes. With the proper motivation at least. But I.... I turned from my calling a long time ago. I'm not exactly a man of peace or pacifism, but I just wanted to settle down and have a quiet life after all my travels and adventures."

"Wait a minute..... A wizard. Named Harry Potter. You've got to be kidding me! Next you'll be telling me you ride around chasing a little flying ball on a broomstick."

"you know about Quidditch? Tell me, Mr. Crichton, are there any wizards or witches on Earth still? What year even is this by your calendar?"

"Dear god he honestly thinks he's a wizard..."

"what did I say?"

Then a few days later, after Harry's saved Crichton's life, the man finds him sitting and staring out a porthole, floating a cup in front of him with just a wiggle of his fingers with a fond smile on his face. "There's these... books. Kids books, back on Earth. My friend’s kid was obsessed with 'em. Got on the pre-order list at the bookstore near the base so he could get the third book the day it comes out for her birthday." "Why are you telling me this, Mr. Crichton?" "The first book is called Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone. The second one that came out last year was called Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets." And at this, Harry closes his eyes and sighs. "And what was the third book to be called? Did you know?" "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Did you really kill a giant fucking snake with just a hat, a bird, and a sword?" "If I told you yes?" "What kind of world do you come from where twelve year olds are expected to know how to fight a giant fucking snake?" "It was over sixty feet long. Built like a brick shithouse. And for some reason facing off against that with a magic bird, magic hat, and a magic sword was... according to my senile headmaster, a good way to build character."

This starts a sort of ritual between the two not-the-same-earth-earthlings. Crichton knows all about the first two books because his friend's kid is fucking obsessed with them and so Harry gives him a first person "this is how shit went down" and "this is honestly what i was thinking at the time" and "yes, with my bare hands, i murdered a man at eleven and nobody thought to send me to a fucking therapist. It was all "here's some bloody candy, Harry. Don't ask questions. Also here's house points in return for killing a man at the tender age of 11." That should have been our first clue that Albus too many fucking names Dumbledore was crazier than goddamn Voldemort ever thought of being."

And when Crichton is captured and tortured with the aurora chair, Harry's there for him in equal measure as Zhaan. And he never asks him about it, but he's just like "Bro. I got your back. You ever need to scream at someone about it, you come to me. We can compare scary pale faced black wearing nightmare men any time." And when Harry finds out that his new best bro has a clone of Scorpius in his head, he starts teaching him occlumency techniques because he's like "even without magic, this shit is damn helpful. Oh, and if you ever find yourself kind-of possessed by the bastard - hey, don't look at me like that John I don't make the rules. This shit just happens when you've got someone else living in your head. Trust me. Remember what I told you about that fucking scar of mine? Right. So listen. You ever get possessed, you want me to, uh, off you? I mean, I don't want to. But I will if I have to. Sometimes if you die for a bit, it helps reset shit." "I'm not immortal harry! I can't just reset my brain like some fucking wizard!" "There! That anger! Hang onto that. Trust me. It'll help if you ever get possessed."

And of fucking course when he's possessed by Scorpius Harry's like "I know that's you, you fucking asshole. Let go of my best bro or I will fucking gut you like a fish." "no you won't. You kill me, your kill John." "that's right and i already had this conversation with him. I'm sure you were there for it, too. You've got 24 arns or the real you is going to get a rather nasty visitor after I forcibly rip that chip out of Johnny's head and fry your ass so nobody gets to have the wormhole tech in there. You understand me, lizard breath?"

[sippin-on-red-wine]

No. 6 Collaborations Project: A review!

It’s been a week since this fabulous album has dropped into our hands. Click “Keep reading to hear my thoughts on each track!

Track 1. Beautiful People Khalid ★★★★ Favorite Lyric: You look stunning dear/So don’t ask that question here

Thoughts/Reflection: Ed keeps referring to this song as ‘cozy’ and I completely agree. The vibe is cool. I love the tone of his voice here and I think it meshes really nicely with Khalid’s. The content isn’t super relatable, but I think we can all take something away from this one. It’s a good note on self-awareness and being able to see the reality in things that may look glamorous on the surface. 

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Track 2. South of the Border feat. Camila Cabello, Cardi B ★★★★★ Favorite Lyric: So join me in this bed that I’m in/Push up on me and sweat darlin’/So I’m gonna put my time in/Won’t stop until the angels sing

Thoughts/Reflection: This track is literally freaking scorching hot fire. TBH I’m surprised that they led the album with IDC and not this one. It feels like big radio potential to me. Regardless, this song is an absolute BOP - so catchy and so fucking sexy. 

I know Ed’s Spanish leaves something to be desired ☺ But I feel like we can cut him some slack after singing (yet another) song dedicated to going down on a woman. The ginger is forgiven! Five stars for him! And I’m going to have SOTB on repeat all summer (or for the rest of my life).

Oh, I also really like Cardi on this song. IDK if she’s problematic or w/e, I don’t really follow her in the media at all. But her verse is fun. (I think Ed got a lil jungle fever AY) bahahahah

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Track 3. Cross Me feat. Chance the Rapper, PnB Rock ★★★★★ Favorite Lyric: Know she gonna slide anytime you bitches talk shit/Keep a lil blade in her fuckin’ lip gloss kit 

Thoughts/Reflection: Love love love LOVE this one. It just makes you want to get up and DANCE the damn thing! I have to laugh a little at the thought of Ed being hard & tough, lol, but it’s a cool concept nonetheless. Like he said in his Charlemagne interview, it’s kind of a love song…. but a different tempo. It’s catchy as all hell and Chance’s verse is fucking cool. 

Full points. 

-

Track 4. Take Me Back to London feat. Stormzy ★★★★★ Favorite Lyric: Coz you can win BRITS (it don’t stop)/And you can do Glasto (headline slot)

Thoughts/Reflection: Fuck. This song, though. IIt’s the first one that jumped out at me when I did my first full album listen. And I haven’t stopped listening since. The chorus is so syncopated. Stormzy is sick on this track, I love his voice so much. And it just feels like the two of them really play off each other nicely and probably had a blast making this song. 

Also, Ed flexing “Grossed half a billi on the Divide tour/No I’m not kidding what would I lie for” is BDE and I’m personally really here for it.

This song is a banger and you should dance in your kitchen to it while baking pastries. FIve stars for you, Big Mike and Teddy.

(Dear God please let Stormzy guest live in Ipswich)

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Track 5. Best Part of Me feat. YEBBA ★★★★ Favorite Lyric: it’s not a lyric but that part when Ed & YEBBA are harmonizing perfectly in the whoooaaAAaaaA 

Thoughts/Reflection: I love the sound on this song! His voice is so raw and tender here. It reminds me of Plus era, but grown up. I think it may be how delicately he approaches the syllables in his verse and the chorus. YEBBA’s tone is super rich and lovely, and they sound great together.

I’m taking a “star” off here because I don’t love the lyrics. I get that he’s being vulnerable and showing insecurities in verse 1, but then YEBBA follows that up with lamenting about misplacing things and being late for the train? It doesn’t seem to match up with admitting physical/bodily insecurities. Also, it could just be that I hate that Ed thinks of himself this way.

DUDE IS HOT AF

-

Track 6. I Don’t Care feat. Justin Bieber ★★★★ Favorite Lyric: I don’t like nobody but you/I hate everyone here

Thoughts/Reflection: Oh god. When did this song come out? I’m trying to think back to my first impressions of it, LOL. It’s bright and poppy and of course it went and stayed #1 all summer (thus far). I remember thinking it was so cool that the melody is super mainstream and upbeat, but the underlying theme is around social anxiety. “Crippled with anxiety/But I’m told I’m where I’m sposed to be” 

I mostly skip this one now that the full album is out, but I think I listened to it for a full 48 hours on repeat when it first dropped. Bieber is problematic and shit, and honestly I don’t think he adds much to the song. I really like Ed’s acoustic version where he does the whole thing solo.

The bridge slaps. Literally. I love that clapping bit behind it. I wish that Ed hadn’t fucked up the lyrics to the bridge in the acoustic version lolololol

Four stars, will bop along for many moons to come

-

Track 7. Antisocial feat. Travis Scott ★★★★★ Favorite Lyric: So antisocial but I don’t care/Don’t give a damn I’m gonna smoke here/Got a bottle in my hand bring more tho

Thoughts/Reflection: DID YOU SEE HIM GUEST AT TRAVIS’ SHOW LAST NIGHT? This song was already one of my faves but holy shit. In interviews, Ed talks a lot about feeling awkward on stage without a guitar - but it didn’t look like that last night. He was bouncy as all hell, sounded great, looked great. Looked like he was loving the crowd’s energy too.

And the music video? That deserves a post all on it’s own.

This track is pretty short but it’s packed with good stuff. Ed’s intro is really strong here, the chorus is interesting despite the repetition. I physically can’t help but groove along to this tune. I’m sorry. I have no say in the matter

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Track 8. Remember the Name feat. Eminem, 50 Cent ★★★★★ Favorite Lyric: 20 years old is when I came in the game/And now it's eight years on and you remember the name/And if you thought I was good, well, then I'm better today

Thoughts/Reflection: YES. YES. YES.  The song intros with a reference to Ipswich, bitch. I love how Ed makes those connections back to his upbringing.

It’s a little unreal that these three iconic voices/styles can flow so well on a song and still sound so balanced. 

I’ve got this one on repeat too. I’m determined to learn all of the words damnit!!

Five stars for a tune that I would love to see performed live someday.

-

Track 9. Feels feat. Young Thug, J Hus ★★★

Favorite Lyric: See you wigglin’, jigglin/If I have a bite will it taste like cinnamon?

Thoughts/Reflection: This song is fine. I like the feature verses. The song just doesn’t stick out that much for me.

-

Track 10. Put It All on Me feat. Ella Mai ★★★

Favorite Lyric: I try to be strong but I got demons/So can I lean on you?/I need a strong heart and a soft touch

Thoughts/Reflection: Falsetto. Falsetto everywhere. I love that! Ella Mai’s voice is so rich. Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot more to say on this one. It’s not a song I’m playing on repeat, but I don’t skip it either.

-

Track 11. Nothing On You feat. Paulo Londra, Dave ★★★★ Favorite Lyric: You and I/Whisky on ice/Maybe later we can turn down all the lights

Thoughts/Reflection: This song is SEXY and cool…. ‘smoke clouds and the scent of perfume’.... the imagery. Man. More falsetto here. Also, please go look up the translation of Paulo Londra’s verse. Thanks. I’m sweating. Is it hot in here? This album is *sexual* 

ALSO THE ‘BRRRP’ AFTER “they keep ringing my phone”  bahahahahah 

-

Track 12. I Don’t Want Your Money feat. H.E.R. ★★★★★

Favorite Lyric: I need you here for the good times and the bad times/Yeah the pullin’ out my hair gettin’ mad times/Not just the when I’m in your bed on my back times

Thoughts/Reflection: THIS IS SUCH A GODDAMN TUUUUNEEEEEE!!!!!!! I love this song so much. 10/10 jamming out to this in the car at every opportunity. Finger snappin’ cool r&b vibe. I love the super quick tempo (but not quite rap?) in Ed’s verses. And I always appreciate the little double-meaning-references in Ed’s songs - like ‘diamonds, silver or gold’ means $$$ of course, but also just success in terms of album sales performance.

TBH when I saw the title on Ed’s tracklist reveal, I totally thought this would be a slow mushy love song about how Ed’s lucky to have found someone who wasn’t into him for his money. This was a pleasant surprise!! I love that it’s a little angsty.

Five STARS bitch I love this song and y’all are sleeping on it

-

Track 13. 1000 Nights feat. Meek Mill, A Boogie Wit da Hoodie ★★★★

Favorite Lyric: Birds eye view/Pay my dues/For a two-mile queue

Thoughts/Reflection: i been ON for a thousAND NIGHTSSSSS NEW YORK TO LONDONNN DIFFERENT CITY EVERY DAYAYYY

1000 Nights: a flexy bop and I love it

This song is about the Divide tour which has been going for approximately 572 years. Not that I’m complaining.

But it’s cool (how many times have I said ‘cool’ in this post? don’t answer that). Ed loves touring and that comes out in this song. And Meek’s verse is so fun to rap along to!

Four stars.

-

Track 14. Way To Break My Heart feat. Skrillex ★★★★★

Favorite Lyric: I can’t stop thinkin’ bout her/And her lips on mine, so soft/Feelings I don’t know the name of

Thoughts/Reflection: biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitch.

This song is NOSTALGIC and I simply adore it. It has that same… “cozy” feel that Beautiful People does. Which is strange, considering it’s a song about heartbreak. But it’s just so. Soft. And warm. 

We’re back to super soft placement of words and such pure tone. 

It’s hauntingly beautiful. And yet uptempo! Bless, Skrillex. I especially love the drums that come in during the chorus, after “you’re still gone, and i’ll say”

PS, the soft sound of mouth smacking at :13. Use headphones.

Some of my favorite Ed songs are ones about heartbreak, and I appreciate that he included one here. About an imaginary heartbreak 👀

Take another five stars from me, bud

- Track 15. BLOW feat. Chris Stapleton, Bruno Mars ★★★★★

Favorite Lyric: Hot damn/Pop it like a pistol mama/You got me down on my knees/Baby please?

Thoughts/Reflection: *laughing nervously*

Again, definitely not what I expected out of this track when the titles were all revealed. I LOVED release day on this one. The world collectively lost their shit. I need nothing more in this world than to see this song performed live, especially with a full band and Ed on an electric guitar. 

I’m still not over this loud, full, energetic song full of men bellowing about wanting to, well, fuck.

Bye

(five stars from me and also my 62 year old coworker Jan)

:::OVERALL:::

This album is SO GOOD MATE and I already cannot wait until the next collabs project! Ed blessed us with 15 amazing tracks to tide us over until Subtract comes out. They’re so different from his normal album stuff and I really love to see him try new sounds and get to create/collaborate with artists he admires so much.

it also has me real hot and bothered lmao

Thanks for coming to my tEd talk.

[tessatechaitea]

Black Canary: New Wings #1

Nothing says Seattle more than a fishnetted woman in a blond wig and bustier preparing to kick your ass.

I remember being excited about this series when it came out but I can't remember why I felt excited about it. Is that a metaphor for life? Why can't I feel the joy in the remembrance? I look at it now and just think, "This looks fucking boring." And that's me being boring! Usually I'd say something like, "If this comic book were an imaginary genetic disorder, it would be reverse Prader-Willi Syndrome because I don't want more of it ever." Holy shit that was terrible. Especially since "reverse Prader-Willi Syndrome" is probably Angelman syndrome. And this comic book isn't that at all because it doesn't make me happy or thirsty. I never actually said I was funny! The words, "I have a great sense of humor named Marcus," never passed my keyboard. That's what you chose to believe! But that other thing you believed, the one where I'm a terrible person who would make light of serious genetic disorders for the sake of a truly terrible metaphor? Yeah, that's true. I own that one. "Black Canary" is an anagram for "Crack by anal." I'm suddenly more interested in this comic book because it must secretly be about doing crack through your butthole or else why would that anagram exist? I just realized what I've been doing wrong my entire life. It's more fun to live by Coast to Coast AM midnight caller logic where you believe every thought that enters your head must be true rather than have to live within the confines of reality! The issue begins with the host of a Seattle radio station asking callers this question: "Does migrating gang activity threaten Seattle's Asian neighborhoods?" Probably! I bet it's all that anal crack coming up from Southern California! If you're not a American, I added that so you understand where all the gangs migrate from in the United States. Seattle is too overcast and wet to come up with its own gang activity. Nobody would be threatened by The Puddle-Jumpers or The Caffeine Splashettes or Pike's Place Bass Solos or The Ardent Un-Umbrellaists or We Love Trees, Bitch. At first I was going to be upset about the "migrating gangs" comment because I'm the stereotypical Californian who wound up living in the Pacific Northwest. But it's not totally my fault since my divorced dad moved up here and I spent a lot of time up here and I fell in love with it up here. So I guess that's one thing I can think my father for! The radio host calls for the people in the Asian community to rise up and kick gang ass to help make their streets safer. And he doesn't just talk the talk! He kicks the ass the kicks the ass! Why doesn't that work like "talk the talk"?!

I don't know how the drug dealer managed to give his money to the buyer and get his ass kicked to boot. What a lousy businessman.

Even though I don't recognize her name, I'm glad to see a woman is writing this comic book. That probably means we won't have more than two scenes where Black Canary is wearing a towel or kicking ass in her underwear. Oh wait! I'm a male infused with male gaze! I meant to say, "I'm sad to see a woman is writing this comic book. That probably means we won't have more than two scenes where Black Canary is wearing a towel or kicking ass in her underwear." Whew! I almost betrayed my gender for a second! I must be low on testosterone! I'd better go out on the street and "accidentally" bump into a guy smaller than me so I can start some shit! Okay, I'm back! Did you know small guys are pretty tough? Also, do you think I need to make an appointment with a dentist if several of my teeth feel lose? Do they just naturally stiffen back up if I stop wiggling them with my tongue?! I sit staring at the page following the one I scanned for several minutes. I don't know if it's just too confusing with all that's happening or the kick of testosterone my body just received from the fight. It could also be head trauma from totally winning the fight.

The terrible business man drug dealer is a black guy working for a white supremacist Neo-Nazi. He calls the radio host a China Doll which seems weird although kudos to him for not being gendered in his racial slurs, I guess? According to the footprint patterns on the ground, they were also practicing a dance while wrestling over drug money. The drug dealer admits to having lost his money in a drug deal for the third time this week because I don't even know how that happens. He hands the money to the buyer to let the buyer make the change? Nearby, Dinah can't sleep because the birds outside of her window are too loud and maybe the dancing going on under her window but she looks to the sky when she sticks her head out of the window so what am I supposed to believe? She decides to read some relaxing literature about the feminist politics of housework and then gives up to go practice her judo. That's a fucking lot going on in one page!

Later, Dinah does her budget for the month and discovers Green Arrow is spending too much money on boxing glove arrows. Apparently being a Seattle vigilante doesn't bring in much cash and Dinah has been paying all the bills with her Sherwood Florist flower shop. I guess Oliver Queen didn't have any money in 1991? Maybe Crisis on Infinite Earths wiped out his bank account and he wouldn't get it back until Zero Hour? Anyway, Dinah is pretty pissed with Oliver's spending habits.

I know Dinah is chastising Ollie for being a brutish pig here but technically he wins the argument because she describes his sexing as hot.

Dinah heads up to the Quinault Indian Reservation to get some mystic wisdom from Aunty Wren, an elderly Native American woman. Her advice is "Ask the douchebag for help." It comes across as a critique of Black Canary being too prideful to ask for help because she's a strong woman who doesn't need anybody. But I like to think the point of the advice is this: if Oliver isn't helping out, ask him to help. If he doesn't help out after asking him to, you now know he's a useless piece of unforgivable shit that needs to be thrown in a dumpster. If I don't think that then I have to think this: Oh, sure! Blame the woman for needing to be too strong! How about blaming the man for being a grown ass man child that won't take responsibility without being told to take it after which he'll only grouse about how much he's being nagged. But then again, I don't need any more reasons to dislike Green Arrow than this one: he's a fucking Robin Hood cosplayer with stupid facial hair who fights against modern weapons with a bow and arrows. Aunty Wren introduces Dinah to Gan Nguyen, the radio show host vigilante. He's also an Asian translator for the Quinault. Gan and Dinah flirt a bit while getting to know each other before heading back to Seattle on the ferry. While Dinah is in the toilet, Gan gets jumped by some gang members who have been looking for him. Dinah changes into Black Canary, kicks some ass, and saves the day. Later, Gan is all, "I know it was you who saved me but I won't say that explicitly! Just so you know you can tell me if you want to tell me and I won't say anything but I know and you know I know!" Dinah is all, "Yeah, yeah. Whatever." And that's almost the end except for an epilogue that's some pretty damn fine and insightful writing about our country and what the fuck has been going wrong (and gone wrong) with it.

Fucking hell that's good stuff.

Black Canary: New Wings #1 Rating: A. This is why I'm sad comic books are no longer really affordable. In 1991, this comic book was $1.75 which was easily cheap enough to pick it up and see what it was about. Doing so let me read a really great story with a point of view and something to say. If this were on the shelves today at $4.00, the only people giving it a chance would be Black Canary fans. That's a fucking shame and the main problem with print comics today. They're just too fucking expensive to take a chance on anything that isn't already in your fandom alley (or by a writer or artist you love). Not to mention how the cover didn't excite me at all! But I still picked it up to see what was going on with Black Canary and apparently past me liked it as much as current me because I got the whole mini-series and at least a few issues of the series that followed it. Well done, Sarah Byam!

[yellingmetatron]

The Story of Saint Olga of Kiev

Well kids, Metamun is here for story time.  You see, I’ve recently learned of a Kievan saint named Olga who has charmed me to the moon in back.  I had originally thought to write about her in-character as Metatron, but, well…

To be perfectly frank, Olga is sort of terrifying.  Terrifying in a way that particularly appeals to me, but that might just be my Slav coming out.  Weirdly, I feel much more comfortable expressing my admiration personally than having Metatron do it, despite the fact he’d probably feel the same—he’s “good” not “nice”.  Still, I’d much rather have people think I’m a bloodthirsty nut than my muse.

Once upon a time in the mid-900′s AD, the wife of the ruler of the Kievan Rus’ was a woman named Olga—or, if you like, Helga. She was a Varangian, you see, the descendant of Vikings that settled in Slavic territory, and therefore something of a cultural mix.  The Varangians were a force to be reckoned with, and often called to serve the Byzantine Emperor as his personal guards.  Olga and her husband Igor were pagans, probably following a syncretic Nordic-Slavic pantheon.

Now, Kiev was the most powerful city on the Dnieper.  As such, the Kievans had many tributaries from whom they collected money and raised soldiers.  One such tributary tribe was that of the Drevlians, who had in the past aided the Kievans when they fought Byzantium.  But when Igor took the throne, they decided to switch their allegiances.  Igor wasn’t having with that, and met the Drevlians in person to demand they pay their due tribute.  They agreed, but as he was riding home, Igor decided that they’d come up short.  He went back to demand more tribute.  The Drevlians, perhaps understandably, decided to kill him.  This would prove to be a big mistake, though not as big as what they did next.

See, the Drevlian prince quite liked the idea of being the new ruler of Kiev.  And with Igor out of the way, Olga was single.  With Igor dead, she would be named regent for her three-year-old son, which meant she was going to be the main power in Kiev for quite some time to come.  As his wife, she’d be expected to defer to her husband in most things.  The Drevlians decided to send a diplomatic delegation to Kiev, explaining that they’d just murdered her husband, and that their Prince intended to wed her.

Now, it’s not discussed in the chronicle itself, but I figure a few thoughts occurred to Olga: First off, she was in an incredibly precarious position as a regent.  All of her actual authority was derived through being the mother of her three-year-old son, and as history teaches us, toddlers are distressingly easy to get rid of.  There was every reason to assume her new husband would try to have him disinherited in favor of his own heirs—and that was only if he were feeling indulgent enough not to murder the boy outright.  Her own subjects would also be massively indignant that their city was being put in the power of foreigners; some native Kievans might get ideas about staging a coup.  To sum up: Both Olga and her son, Svyatoslav, had massive flashing targets stuck on their foreheads.  She needed to act quickly to establish to her subjects that she and Svyatoslav were not people to go against.

So, she was all smiles and niceties to the people who came to tell her they killed her husband and wanted her to marry their leader:

“Your proposal is pleasing to me; indeed, my husband cannot rise again from the dead. But I desire to honor you tomorrow in the presence of my people. Return now to your boat, and remain there with an aspect of arrogance. I shall send for you on the morrow, and you shall say, ‘We will not ride on horses nor go on foot; carry us in our boat.’ And you shall be carried in your boat.”

They probably couldn’t have been more pleased with this outcome.  This lady sure was pliable!  Exactly what they wanted in their Prince’s new wife. They did as Olga asked, haughtily demanding to be carried through the city in their boat as if it were a palanquin.  To their delight, the Kievans complied, cheering all the while as they carried the boat to its final destination.  Its final destination in this context being a massive pit Olga had dug right in the middle of court.  Olga had them buried alive, but not before asking them if this great honor was to their liking.  The response is not recorded, but I’d hazard “no”.

In doing this Olga made two things clear: She was a pious and devoted wife who would stop at nothing to avenge her husband, and she was absolutely somebody you didn’t wanna fuck with.  But she wasn’t done yet.  As far as anybody among the Drevlians knew she was still hosting the Drevlian delegation—dead men tell no tales, and the Kievans weren’t gonna tip their own ruler’s hand.  The Drevlians were pleased when she sent a messenger thanking them for their diplomatic visit, and requesting that they send more of their distinguished nobles and warriors “so that she might go to their Prince with due honor.”  She emphasized this particularly: She wanted them to send “the best men who governed the land of Dereva”.  Naturally, a lot of Drevlian bigwigs were eager to sign up for such an honor.

As with the last group, she received them with great pomp and hospitality.  She commanded her people to draw a bath for these fine men, so that they might appear in full cleanliness and dignity before her.  The Drevlians went merrily to the bathhouse, at which point Olga had all the doors blocked and set the place on fire.  There were no survivors.  Olga, as we shall see repeatedly confirmed, didn’t do anything half-way.

So she sent yet another message to Dereva.  They still hadn’t heard what happened to everybody they sent to Kiev, but just sort of assumed they were still partying it up in the great city.  This time, Olga asked politely that she be allowed to enter the Drevlian city where they killed her husband.  Although she of course still intended to marry their prince, as a devoted widow she must weep over his grave and throw him a funeral feast—remember, she was a Varangian.  Mourning among Viking types generally involved a lot of mead.

She was graciously allowed her visit with her retinue, and per her request, they even footed the bill for all the mead.  She took the opportunity to have a good cry over her husband’s remains, as was proper for a Varangian widow.  Personally, I hope she got some genuine closure.  And then the feasting started.  But Olga’s retinue notably didn’t carouse quite so hard as their hosts. Once the Drevlians were good and drunk, she gave the order for her sober soldiers to begin a great massacre.  Supposedly five-thousand Drevlians were killed, a number which I think was exaggerated but does make for an impressive story.  Although Olga was not a shield-maiden type and did not take part directly in the slaughter, she did walk among her retinue, encouraging them as they cut down everyone in their path.  What a great manager!

So finally the rest of Dereva figured out what was going on, and an official state of war was declared.  Olga, remember, had already decapitated their leadership and diplomatic corps, as well as taking out a considerable chunk of their army.  She led the Kievans to victory after victory in the battlefield, so that in the end only the capital city of the Drevlians, Iskorosten, held out.  The Kievans lay siege to it for a year, and there were still no signs of them giving up.  Olga was starting to get impatient.  So she sent this message:

“Why do you persist in holding out? All your cities have surrendered to me and submitted to tribute, so that the inhabitants now cultivate their fields and their lands in peace. But you had rather tide of hunger, without submitting to tribute.”

Translated into modern English: “Come on out.  Olga won’t hurt you~”

The Drevlians sent word back that they were afraid she was still sore about that whole murdering her husband thing.  Olga tut-tutted, saying she’d had enough revenge after everything she’d already done.  Protip: Never believe a Varangian lady when she tells you something like that.  Anyway, she told the Drevlians she only wanted a token show of submission: Three pigeons and three sparrows from the roofs of each house in Iskorosten.  The Drevlians breathed a sigh of relief that their tribute would be so light, and complied.

When this tribute was delivered, Olga had her soldiers tie a piece of cloth and sulfur to the leg of each bird.  Then she told them to set each piece aflame.  In a panic, the birds flew back to their nests, which as has been established were in the roofs of every house in Iskorosten.  Soon the whole city was burning, and nobody could put the fires out quickly enough because the flames were coming from everywhere.  The Drevlians fled their city, whereupon Olga had some killed and some taken into slavery, a gift for her followers.  She did leave some of the Drevlians alive in Iskorosten, though; enough to supply a decent tribute in the future.

Now, Olga did all this while she was a pagan.  Although there are plenty of gory saints, all this fuss isn’t what got her canonized.

Supposedly, the Byzantine Emperor next tried his hand at wooing our Olga. This, like so many details in hagiographies, might be a fabrication; the historical Emperor at the time was already married.  Of course, there are a number of nasty possibilities that might render that point moot.  Anyway, the story goes that Olga was still not interested in re-marrying.  But she didn’t have as much of a beef with the Byzantines--now and then Kiev fought with them, but it wasn’t personal-- and anyway they’d be much harder to kill.  So she got clever.

Olga welcomed the Emperor’s proposal, and asked that he first sponsor her conversion to Christianity—she asked him to be her godfather, in other words.  He was very pleased to do this, and personally took part in her baptism, calling her his daughter as part of the ceremony.  Then, he repeated his marriage proposal.  Here’s what happened next:

“[…] she replied, ‘How can you marry me, after yourself baptizing me and calling me your daughter? For among Christians that is unlawful, as you yourself must know.’ Then the Emperor said, ‘Olga, you have outwitted me.’ He gave her many gifts of gold, silver, silks, and various vases, and dismissed her, still calling her his daughter.”

Absolute legend Olga.

When she wasn’t killing Drevlians and outwitting Emperors, Olga was a capable administrator and warrior-queen, and she groomed her son well for the throne-- although his empire fractured on his untimely death.  She made an attempt to Christianize the Kievan Rus’, but that didn’t really go anywhere in her lifetime. My take?  Since her conversion was a political move (would have gotten the Byzantines off her back whether the marriage proposal story was true or not), she might not really have tried all that hard to get her subjects to convert.  Despite this, she bears the title Isapóstolos-- Equal to the Apostles.  Her grandson would later successfully Christianize Kievan Rus’, but only after he made an earnest attempt to reform Slavic paganism into something that could compete with Christianity.

Some people might read Saint Olga as a monster.  I would like to remind everyone that the 900’s AD were not happy nice funtimes.  And the moral of all this is, don’t murder a Varangian lady’s husband and ask her to marry you unless you’re really, really sure you’re prepared for the consequences.

[simblrbreezycakes]

i was tagged by @chippedcupanddustybooks sweet bb. i am tagging @irrelephantsims @magnoliidae @simplymelaninated and anyone who hasn’t been tagged i swear i feel like the last person doing this LOL. heckin long ass questionnaire under the cut.

1. What is your full name? Brianna Leigh [Redacted] 2. What is your nickname? Breezy 3. Birthday? may 4th 4. What is your favorite book series? hmmmm series? idk.... i really like every single john grisham book and they aren’t related but when you have such a niche brand of book i feel like it counts lol.  5. Do you believe in aliens or ghosts? kinda on both. 6. Who is your favorite author? oh whew. tough one right here. idk man, i have a few? but if i had to choose i guezz i would say george orwell.   7. What is your favorite radio station? who tf listens to the radio like det anymore lmfao. i don’t have one. before i listened to 107.1 in memphis in the car sometimes, but i moved so. 8. What is your favorite flavor of anything? i loveeee pineapple anything. 9. What word would you use often to describe something great or wonderful? lit 10. What is your current favorite song? currently really into pink in the night by mitski and also sicko mode by travis scott.

11. What is your favorite word? good ole fuck(in/ed/etc.) i also really like voluptuous and bubbles. 12. What was the last song you listened to? last thing i listened to was another lifetime x nao.  13. What TV show would you recommend for everybody to watch? absolutely check out the good place. also hilda, the dragon prince, she-ra princess of power, criminal minds, law and order (the original), and snapped. 14. What is your favorite movie to watch when you’re feeling down? i used to watch the notebook religiously when it rained/felt upset like shit. but lately i’ve been watching say yes to the dress to combat my depression lol. 15. Do you play video games? yah 16. What is your biggest fear? dying alone and no one finding me. like literally alone not like meta alone “oh no one loves me” like dead ass alone somewhere isolated. 17. What is your best quality, in your opinion? hmmmmm idk that i care a lot about other people? 18. What is your worst quality, in your opinion? all of them lmfao. i’m annoying, i’m physically unattractive, i talk too damn much, i can be kind of a bitch both intentionally and unintentionally, i’m a trash writer, i can be selfish, and i self depreciate a lot (lol see above response “all of them”) and i’m sure that gets on people who love and care about me’s nerves ((but like....i mean it lmfao)) 19. Do you like cats or dogs better? whew tough. prolly cats though.  20. What is your favorite season? winter followed by a tie between spring and fall.  21. Are you in a relationship? nah lmfao.  22. What is something you miss from your childhood? not being so fuckin ugly and depressed lmfao. 23. Who is your best friend? “my person” as greys anatomy stans would say is ivy lynn [redacted] [redacted] but i also wanna shout out my home girl mary (i know you follow me on here), my home girl christina (also follows me on here but she never checks her simblr anymore), my smoothie gang bitches, my NSA bitches (which includes both ivy and mary lmfao), and my memphis as fuck family. honorable mention to loml [redacted] who is skating on thin fucking ice with me right now lmfao. 24. What is your eye color? brown 25. What is your hair color? brown 26. Who is someone you love? don’t make me answer this tumblr gods. 27. Who is someone you trust? all my best friends, my parents, my brother. 28. Who is someone you think about often? fucking murder me @ this question lmfao. my friend kate (RIP) my grandmother grannypeg (RIP) and [redacted] 29. Are you currently excited about/for something? i’m excited to spend christmas in a new country! forging new traditions and all that. 30. What is your biggest obsession? currently i’m obsessed with wedding stuff and mens fashion and how mens fashion such as suits translates into womens fashion. we love a hot lady in a tailored suit amiright? 31. What was your favorite TV show as a child? spongebob squarepants RIP :”( 32. Who of the opposite gender can you tell anything to, if anyone? [redacted] 33. Are you superstitious? kinda i guess? not really about stuff like stepping on cracks breaking mamas’ backs or opening umbrellas indoors but little things about familial traditions. 34. Do you have any unusual phobias? not really a phobia but i have misophonia. i also hate eye shit. like eye violence or anything fuckin around with eyes is a big no from me dawg. 35. Do you prefer to be in front of the camera or behind it? absolutely behind the camera. i used to be a theater kid so like being on stage i don’t mind but when it comes to the spotlight and being filmed??? no no no no no. lemme be a cinnamontawgrowfur all day.  36. What is your favorite hobby? watching movies, playing skyrim (I MISS IT SO MUCH), reading, watching music videos, modern calligraphy/hand lettering, baking (ALSO MISS IT MUCH) 37. What was the last book you read? lol a textbook about developing countries.

38. What was the last movie you watched? i just rewatched the swan princess the other day but in terms of watching something brand new i think it was this tom cruise movie my friend showed us and i thought she said someone else ( i don’t remember now. maybe tom hanks?) it was pretty good he was irish or sum with nicole kidman and they came to the united states and pretended to be siblings but the sexual tension was so fucking high dawg. 

39. What musical instruments do you play, if any? nothing i’m wack and a disappointment to my musically gifted family (my dad and brother)  40. What is your favorite animal?  polar bears followed by giraffes. 41. What are your top 5 favorite Tumblr blogs that you follow? i’m gonna go with my main tumblr because ion wanna hurt nobody’s feelings but i follow a celebs of color page i really love, a fashion page i really love, and a few artists i really love. 42. What superpower do you wish you had? teleportation or shape shifting.  43. When and where do you feel most at peace?  i feel most at peace when it is raining and i’m in my room, everything is clean and tidy, candles are lit, i have nothing to do so the world is my oyster, i have a nice cup of coffee or hot cocoa or tea, and i just am v i b i n g.  44. What makes you smile? seeing my friends, my brother (when he isn’t pissing me off), funny videos of red dead people falling off their horse in cinematic mode, pretty flowers, cute art, round birds. 45. What sports do you play, if any? i don’t lmfao. 46. What is your favorite drink? honestly a frozen margarita no salt. 47. When was the last time you wrote a hand-written letter or note to somebody? a month ago.  48. Are you afraid of heights? absolutely. 49. What is your biggest pet peeve? people chewing with their mouths open and people talking to me like i’m incompetent/assuming i don’t know anything about what they’re trying to talk to me about especially if it is my area of expertise lol. 50. Have you ever been to a concert? hail yeah. many. 51. Are you vegan/vegetarian? nope! 52. When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up? honestly i don’t know but i have a distinct memory of a bunch of girls in my second grade, yours truly included, wanting to be strippers. and i don’t know why or how this came up or if we even truly knew what stripping meant but. yeah. OH i guess around the time i was in 4th/5th grade i started wanting to be a harvard law graduate and be a lawyer but i gave that up in like high school and then bounced being a lawyer back and forth in my noggin up until i applied for grad school. shout out to my mary for doing it though.  53. What fictional world would you like to live in? hmmmm idk. none of em really. 54. What is something you worry about? if i made the right decision(s) in life lol.  55. Are you scared of the dark? not really.  56. Do you like to sing? yeah i do! doesn’t mean i’m good at it though haha. 57. Have you ever skipped school? yeah lmfao. 58. What is your favorite place on the planet? i miss Rwanda a lot. but honestly my favorite place is wherever the people i love are. my family loves to travel so whenever i’m with someone i love sharing an experience? i’m in heaven. 59. Where would you like to live? idk anywhere i guess. somewhere it is mostly cold most of the time though haha. 60. Do you have any pets? my bb boi fred lives with my dad and my mom has a dog and 2 cats. we used to have 3 but one of em ran away when she moved to her house, we caught him, he ran away again. oh whale. 61. Are you more of an early bird or a night owl? oh a big time night owl. big time. 62. Do you like sunrises or sunsets better? honestly i like sunrises better but i am never awake to catch em hahah. 63. Do you know how to drive? yah and i fuckin love doing it. 64. Do you prefer earbuds or headphones? i prefer headphones. like really quality ones too. but i tend to use earbuds more often because i don’t need quality while im working out or going to class just easy grab and go. 65. Have you ever had braces? nope but i used to want some so bad. 66. What is your favorite genre of music? i love rap, dream-y pop music and dream-y rap music, i love 80s music. all 80s music really lmfao.  67. Who is your hero? mi mum and mi dad. also viola davis queen of inventing acting and every single color in the rainbow. 68. Do you read comic books? kind of. i was trying to build up a collection before i moved but i only had my BP comics. 69. What makes you the most angry? injustice and offensive ass content and behaviors. also don’t fuck with my friends. i got two dudes on my shit list right now that it is *on sight* if i ever see them again. 70. Do you prefer to read on an electronic device or with a real book? a real book all the way. idk what it is about digital reading my brain shuts the fuck down. i am super fast reader but the second i try and read something digitally it takes me maybe like 10-15 min to get through just a few sentences. 71. What is your favorite subject in school? history lol i was a history major. 72. Do you have any siblings? yeah my chicken nugget puppy brother dylan. asshole. 73. What was the last thing you bought? some historical romance i think? it’s in dutch so idrk.  74. How tall are you? 5′7 i think. 75. Can you cook? yeah i love cooking but saddly don’t do much of it. 76. What are three things that you love? my teddy bear my momma got me for valentines day, my st. agatha figurine, and my yikes tapestry mary got me. i realize now after reading the next question you probably meant like shit in general so. the smell of a fresh cup of coffee, snuggly warm sweaters, postcards and tiny gifts from friends. you know the ones “i just got this for you because i thought you’d like it” 77. What are three things that you hate? funky ass attitudes, the smell and feel of lavender oil, corn. 78. Do you have more female friends or more male friends? female 79. What is your sexual orientation? i’m a big ole heterosexual. sorry to disappoint :/  80. Where do you currently live? the netherlands. 81. Who was the last person you texted? my friend and former roommate. today is her birthday. 82. When was the last time you cried? like an hour ago lmfao. 83. Who is your favorite YouTuber? i don’t have one haha. vevo i guess. 84. Do you like to take selfies? do i like taking them? not really. it takes me too damn long to get one that looks good enough. i like sending stupid selfies to friends though. 85. What is your favorite app? i use twitter probably the most but my favorite app is my spider solitaire game haha. 86. What is your relationship with your parent(s) like? we are very close. i would say both of my parents are my biggest supporters and cheerleaders but how they do that looks a bit different. my mom and i are very similar but sometimes how we handle certain things is very different so we can be the best of friends one day and the completely butt heads the next. 87. What is your favorite foreign accent? i loovveeeee a scottish accent and an irish accent. also tbrh i love a good southern boy drawl. like idk if i could play for you all the way this one dude who works with my mom talks? i would because i wanna bottle it and listen to it whenever i feel bad. 88. What is a place that you’ve never been to, but you want to visit? i would really like to go to norway for my birthday. 89. What is your favorite number? i don’t have one. 90. Can you juggle? nope but i did try and learn i have a video of it somewhere lmfao. 91. Are you religious? kind of. i’m more spiritual than religious and lowkey hate saying that because it sounds so hoitietoitie but it’s true. 92. Do you find outer space or the deep ocean to be more interesting? the ocean. so much of it we haven’t explored. thinking about space makes me feel existential and dead inside.  93. Do you consider yourself to be a daredevil? nah haha 94. Are you allergic to anything? yeah i’m supposed to take one claritin a day but like i don’t. 95. Can you curl your tongue? yeah 96. Can you wiggle your ears? nope :(  97. How often do you admit that you were wrong about something? i’ll admit i’m wrong if i’m actually wrong but you’re gonna have to a helluva lot of convincing to get me there lmfao. though if my being “wrong” has caused harm to someone else i’ll apologize quicker than lightning because the last thing i would want is for my stubbornness to hurt someone i love. 98. Do you prefer the forest or the beach? um the mountains 99. What is your favorite piece of advice that anyone has ever given you? "never turn down a date. you never know who you might meet while you’re out” -my grandmother to my mother to me. 100. Are you a good liar? lmfaooooo i am a reformed liar. 101. What is your Hogwarts House? HUFFLEPUFF BAYBEEE 102. Do you talk to yourself? yah 103. Are you an introvert or an extrovert? an introvert. i may be loud and talkative sis but i promise you i’m over compensating because i want you to like me lmfao. 104. Do you keep a journal/diary? i have a private twitter does that count. 105. Do you believe in second chances? depends. 106. If you found a wallet full of money on the ground, what would you do?imma keep it real with you chief i would keeps the money lmfao. in the past i would’ve tried to return it to the owner but i am big broke bois with a lot of unexpected expenses coming up so like... yeah lmfao. we keepin that coint. 107. Do you believe that people are capable of change? sometimes. 108. Are you ticklish? yes lmfao 109. Have you ever been on a plane? yeah! 110. Do you have any piercings? yah i got my lobes pierced one on each ear, my nose, and a cartilage piercing. 111. What fictional character do you wish was real? my girl nancy drew. 112. Do you have any tattoos? yeah i got 2 of em. 113. What is the best decision that you’ve made in your life so far? idk lmfao. probably when i applied for cityterm and when i appled to go back to undergrad. 114. Do you believe in karma? Yeah but not in a “oh you hurt me? you’re gonna get your come uppins” way but in a every action affects your soul and your being kinda way.  115. Do you wear glasses or contacts? im supposed to wear glasses but ask me if im wearing em right now lmfao. 116. Do you want children? presently i don’t see myself wanting or having kids but i want to foster. 117. Who is the smartest person you know? my friends lol. 118. What is your most embarrassing memory? literally every single memory has a tinge of embarassment lol. but probz when i walked into the cafeteria my first day of highschool as a smol freshman and my knees locked up and i fell forward and my giant ass backpack (because i never used my locker ever in any grade) wrapped around my neck and had me stuck in a strange position in the middle of the parting of the tables in the cafeteria.  119. Have you ever pulled an all-nighter? hell yeah lmfao. 120. What color are most of you clothes? blue or black 121. Do you like adventures? yeah! 122. Have you ever been on TV? yeah but like on the news and shit. 123. How old are you? 24 124. What is your favorite quote? i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart) 125. Do you prefer sweet or savory foods? OOF TOUGH BUT UHHH probz sweet. 

[krokonoko]

Doin one of my play by plays of the Pokemon movies.

It’s been a while since the last one! That’s cuz chronologically, we should do the 3rd one next, but the 3rd one is my fav and I’d rant for hours about how good it is and ain’t nobody got time for that, so we gonna skip straight to the fourth one.

I always remembered the fourth movie decidedly unfavorably. It’s categorized in my head as “the one that started the era of Pokemon movies that suck.”

And yeah it’s. Not as good as its predecessors. It was the movie that started the formula of “cute helpless legendary Pokemon needs to be saved from evul ppl.” It was the first one starring Ash’s new German voice actress, which was a big reason for me to stop watching the anime back in the day cuz WOW that new voice was the most grating thing in existence.

But looking back, I feel like I did the movie injustice. I think it’s got a lot of neat moments, and some that I honestly love, if only for their silliness. So let’s do this.

We start with music rehashed from the first movie. Not a good look, though that’s probably 4Kids fault.

GOD that cgi is ugly. And even worse, it was already back in the day!! There was never a time when this looked good.

wow thanks lady that looks gross af

those are some big ass nidoran

Oh no, the evil guy is weakening Celebi in order to catch it...! ...Wait that’s what we’re doin all day long in the games.

Honestly, it never made sense to my why the plot of the anime was so often revolving around keeping people from catching wild Pokemon? I mean I guess Team Rocket wants to use them for bad things, but Ash & Co. usually justified them keeping Team Rocket from catching wild Pokemon with accusations like “These Pokemon don’t belong to you!” ...bitch, yeah, they don’t belong to you either, they don’t belong to anyone, that’s why we’re catching them, that’s the entire purpose of the goddamn franchise?

And if the problem here is that this guy wants to catch a legendary Pokemon, then why am I required to catch legendaries to advance the plot in the games?

The cutest fucking Tyranitar.

What IS this guy’s outfit. Also will you believe me if I tell you it took me over 15 years to figure out this dude is a Team Rocket member?

“The Pokemon I catch with these balls become evil, and their powers are immediately maximized.”

Ah sure that sounds scientific and only slightly OP.

The title screen doesn’t exactly help the impression that this movie is severely half-assed, even if it’s made by 4Kids.

I also think it’s really funny that the English name of the movie is this run of the mill punny 4Kids bs. I mean. 4Kids. 4Ever. Wow. What ingenuity. And the German translation team took a look at that and went “NOPE, not doin it”, and called it “The timeless encounter”.

We’re about to see a Croconaw!!! :DDD

Will I ever be over the fact that Brock’s cute tiny Zubat evolved into a badass Crobat while I wasn’t looking? Nah.

Ah there it is, Ash’s new voice... You gotta understand, I had this huge crush on Ash when I was ~10yo, and his voice was a big part of that. So when it got replaced, I didn’t exactly take it well. Also the new one was doin its best to be even more grating than the English one. THEN AGAIN, the voice actress actually isn’t that bad in this movie and Mewtwo Returns.

HE.

No one knows how to actually pronounce Suicune until you hear someone else say it in a certain way and you go “NO that’s NOT how you say it!!”

I love how the old lady with the green hair is revealed to be the guardian of the entry to the forest since she was young. It’s just so funny how we just saw her jump about 30 foot off a tree as a teenager when Sammy was about to enter the forest, and go like “/game grumps zelda voice/ heeey kid, s’just a legend or whatever, but timetravel, it’s a thihiiing! Here, have some bread! byeee!” And then the kid vanished, and now she’s this grumpy old hag who waves her staff at everyone coming past her house like “DON’T EVEN FUCKING DARE GETTING CLOSE TO THAT FUCKING FOREST OR SO HELP ME GOD I WILL KICK YUR ASS!!”

babies babies bABIES

That Stantler is fucking legendary. Idk how it is in the English version, but in the German dub, it’s just got the most normal voice. Like, often the ppl voicing Pokemon will kind of talk in a hissing tone, or make their voice sound deeper or whatever, but this Stantler sounds like a completely normal dude just matter-of-factly stating: “Damhir. Plex.”

And instead of, idk, holding Celebi into the water at the edge, Sammy walks into the lake, clothes and backpack and everything, and squats there like a tool. I mean I get it, the imagery is much stronger like this, but couldn’t he at least taken off the shoes? The backpack? THAT’S GOT HIS NOTEBOOK IN IT???

I love them. Every single one of them is so valid.

Nothing to see here, just a pretty shot.

I really like these old anime glow effects~

The best part about Celebi healing Misty’s knee is how she doesn’t just slowly try to put weight on it or something, but straight up jumps around on it. Ride or die, man.

This is one of my fav moments in the entire movie, cuz you got Celebi cruisin around in the foreground, and the boys sitting there, looking at the viewer with this exact vacant stare for multiple seconds without making a noise or moving.

You know, I mean... the first two Pokemon movies were some pretty basic stuff. Esp. The second one was really just a McGuffin hunt. But this one is just such a poster child for the plot that would be recycled in Pokemon movies like no other. The entire narrative has completely halted. All we are doing is watching Ash, Sammy and Celebi bond. There are no stakes and no tension, except for the fact that the Pokemon hunter is still on the lose but he’s so forgettable, who honestly even still cares about him?

And the thing is, this bonding between Ash, Sammy and Celebi is important so they can save Celebi from turning evil later, but it still rings kinda hollow what with the montage they’re getting of all the fun times they had for the last, say two hours?

The much more important thing, which puts this movie a bit ahead of most other Pokemon movies with this structure, is that Ash isn’t just bonding with the legendary of the week, but also with Sammy.

And Sammy isn’t just a bff of the week, but an established core cast character. Imho, that’s what makes the movie worthwhile.

The dumb thing about this is that Celebi didn’t even get corrupted for any good reason. It was literally just “yeah it was in that weird pokeball for a sec now it’s evil.” ^^°

cgicune

I remember first watching this movie and this was the point where I honestly started hating it because I was so disgusted by how unimaginative everything about this... ball? is...

yeah no, this is just. really really bad.

OKAY here’s another thing. WHY did Suicune turn up now?

On the one hand I do realize I like this movie more than I thought I did. On the other hand I’m starting to see why it was such a problem for me back then. This movie is just trying to copy formulas from the prior ones without really. Working for it. Remember Lugia and Ash working together? Lugia saving Ash and all that? Wasn’t that cool?

Yeah but there was also a reason for WHY Lugia stepped in and WHY they helped Ash. It was Lugia’s task to step in in case the three birds started fighting. And Ash was the chosen one. It’s flimsy as fuck, but it worked.

What’s Suicune’s connection to all of this? They’re... sorta like... another guardian of the forest. Cool. Then why didn’t they step in the moment the hunter attacked Celebi? There’s no real reason for them to save Ash and Sammy, except for the fact that they’re protags and they need plot shield.

Everything about the writing in this movie makes it so obvious even to a young teenager that this is just ticking boxes.

The thing is, the first three movies had at least one character developing. It took a human’s sacrifice for Mewtwo to learn the value of life, both of the life of others and their own. In the second movie, Ash had to live up to the responsibility of being the chosen one. And the third movie is just amazing and Molly is a really interesting character, she overcomes a deep grief and learns that escapism is not the answer to her problems and it’s just all around the best Pokemon movie of all time it’s got so much emotional depth idek where to start.

But here... Who learned anything? Who developed? And I think that’s where later Pokemon movies fall short. There’s not a lot of character development, and even if there is any, it just rehashes of the old movies. And while I couldn’t have put it into words like that when I was a young teen, I think that’s part of what bothered me so much about this one. 

Also what’s with this bs talk about the lake being polluted or the forest dying? A couple of trees got uprooted and there’s a bit of dirt, honest to god nothing but soil and stuff, in the lake. Give it a couple of months and it’s gonna be fine. It’s not like there’s toxic waste in the water or anything.

I mean you could say the forest is dying cuz Celebi is dying, but by the logic of the movie, it was the other way around! And honestly, nothing in the background even looks like its wilting at ALL. So this really doesn’t leave much of an impression.

Fuck this, this is not earned.

At this point, the hunter guy is just bullying Celebi.

And this little overpowered dingdong can’t even free itself from some dude grabbing it. Okay sure so Ash needs to save it againnnn what are the emotional stakes hereee

ANYWAY. It was all worth it for the only actual plot twist in the history of Pokemon movies:

And I actually really, really like this one. It’s not just an awesome twist but also a super sweet moment between Ash and Prof. Oak that deepens their bond.

So yeah, I think I already said everything I had to say about this one. Kind of the beginning of the end for Pokemon movies. Not saying there aren’t some winners in between, but man did they get formulaic. And the recent attempts to break up said formula are. Questionable at best. It seems like Pokemon can’t really escape itself, though I’m sure if they wanted they could create meaningful stories like the first or third movies or just solid, fun action movies like the second one again.

[writer-and-artist27]

Finding Kei

Note: The theme for this is ReoNa’s Rea(s)on from Sword Art Online Alternative: GGO. Because it’s a good song and the translated lyrics match the situation in my opinion. And look, I ended up using it faster than I thought. I don’t own anything or anyone except Tomoko. Davy Jack belongs to @unlucky-marine and Kei belongs to @langwrites.

Also, I think it has to be said now that Seaside Sibling Train takes place in the timeskip between S&S Chapters 20 and 21, since Tomoko’s 10, but some ninja are now 11. :p

Anyway! Please enjoy~!

“Explosions Around The Docks?”

Jack-nii was just as incredulous as I was when I recited the newspaper headline aloud from past his hand. Technically, I was reading the newspaper past all the piles of paperwork flanking his arms as always on the desk, I mean. Once again, other Marines were freeloading on him, to my own annoyance. “Tomo-chan, you weren’t supposed to read that.”

…Well, he was annoyed for a different reason, anyways.

Tomoko-chan.

I know, Hisako.

Outwardly, I tried not to pout. “I finished organizing all the photos you left for me, Jack-nii! I couldn’t help it!”

I did not want to vocally admit I was bored, but I’ll admit that I’m currently bored. Photography and paperwork can only drag on for so long until you can start to feel your soul sap away to all the words.

My Marine caretaker put a hand to his face, giving me a single, half-hearted look of annoyance through his fingers before he sighed and reached over with his other, free hand to pat my head. “It’s not something you should be worried about, Tomo-chan. I’m the one who has to deal with that later today, not you.”

Uh.

Hisako only snorted, rolling her eyes while smiling wryly.

“…Does it help that I was curious?”

Jack-nii only hid a quiet snicker. “Maybe!”

I ended up pouting anyways. “Should I be worried?”

This time, the answer was a flat and deadpan, “No.”

“Muu,” I mumbled instead. That was a definite sign that I needed to. Instead of voicing it, I ended up blurting out, “Is there anything else I can help you out with then, Nii?”

The nickname wasn’t even on purpose. It only slipped out in a strangely cute, high-pitched voice that was in turn a byproduct of boredom, so by the time it registered in my head, my face was already flooding with fire and Jack-nii was gaping at me. “T-Tomo-chan, did you just call me ‘Nii’?”

Frig, I just called Jack-nii by Sora’s nickname, and only Shiro has dibs on that, fuck, what do I say—!

Pfffffffft. Oh, Tomoko-chan…!

Hisako, you’re not helping!?!

“Um,” Outwardly, I was starting to squeak now as I took a few steps back, already thinking about finding a corner. Even in my kimono dress, the room was starting to feel embarrassingly hot and humid. “I-I mean, Jack-nii, you are like an older sibling to me, and Nii is a nice nickname, I think, um—” My voice was cracking. Frig. Hands, do not sweat on me, please! I do not need to wash this dress again when it was just washed this morning. “You’vealwaystookgoodcareofme, especiallyforthesepastsixmonths, sothat’swhyyou’reNiitome—!?”

There was a very, very long pause.

Jack-nii’s Marine hat nearly fell off his head, only barely staying on by the back strap as his ahoge poked up from the top of his brown hair. “Tomo-chan…”

Um. Why is he not reacting. Say something, please, like, “Don’t say that!” or SOMETHING. I hate silence like this!

Hisako was starting to cackle loudly, falling out of her armchair in the library while holding her stomach.

That’s it. I needed to find a corner now.

Covering my face as best as I could with my hair, I turned on the heel of my sandals to face away from my caretaker while discreetly looking around for the darkest corner in the room. Thankfully, there was a nearby closet. With a locking mechanism built into the door. That would work. “Well, I’llshutupandgosulknow, sogoaheadandgetbacktowork, Jack-nii! IGNOREME.”

I was already preparing my legs to run towards my new hiding spot when a chair was suddenly pushed back, and I could hear stomping behind me, like wha—

Big arms were already encircling my waist, and I tried not to squawk as soon as my feet had promptly left the ground. Yep. It was my caretaker. Being strong, tall, and able to lift me up without any problem. Aaaaaah. “Wooo! I caught a rogue Tomo-chan!” Jack-nii proceeded to cheer, and the heat was still on apparently because I was already squeaking in protest.

“N-Niii—!”

HAHAHAHAHA!

“Awwww, Tomo-chan, don’t be shy and hide!” My caretaker only proceeded to snuggle me, even with my squirming and all, and wait, was he used to this?! “It’s completely okay for you to call me ‘Nii’! You are my little sis, so why not?”

Even with the vocal reassurance, I still found myself sputtering from the embarrassment. Wiggling didn’t do much to help, because my caretaker was still an adult and I was a little kid trying to swivel around and face him properly. Aaaaaaah. Why couldn’t I go into a dark corner and sulk already? “B-But Jack-niiiiiiiii, it’s weird!”

And taking from another actual little girl who says the name so much better than me.

“And it’s adorable, Tomo,” he insisted with a large grin, apparently ignoring my current thought process with his reply, and gosh, when did he start swinging—

Surprised laughter was already leaving my lips as soon as my caretaker started spinning around in circles, still hugging me all the while. Adrenaline was pumping through my veins, and soon enough, I could barely think on anything else because I was just trying to hold on and hug back. Gosh, Jack-nii was strong. The Marine jacket really hid the muscles. “N-Niiiiiiiii! Q-Quit — hahaha — spinning me! I-I’m — haha — getting dizzy!”

Aaaaaah. Pretty colors.

Hisako was positively choking on her laughter now. She was enjoying herself too, I guess?

Jack-nii was still laughing with that large grin of his when he finally stopped spinning and set me down on my feet, only going on to hug me even tighter. Eh? “I love the name, Tomo, so you don’t have to be embarrassed.” From the closeness, I could feel his smile as the grip on me tightened. “I’ll be happy to be your ‘Nii.’”

Aw.

For some reason, tears were pricking my eyes as I nodded. The scent of his bandana was comforting, and I was already burying my nose into it to take in the sea while squeezing back. “Muuu.”

Jack-nii only snorted but hugged me tighter.

I ended up pouting childishly into his shoulder, because really, how could I resist him. I love Jack-nii. Simple as that. “I’ll still call you ‘Nee’ when you’re feeling feminine, okay?”

Jack-nii snorted again, but there was something affectionate in the tone before he pulled away and pecked my forehead between my bangs. “Of course, sweetie. And thank you.”

I tried not to flush red from the gesture and nodded anyways. “I-I love you, Jack-nii, so it’s no problem!”

Jack-nii only pulled away a single centimeter when I finished spreading all the apparent cheese in the room before something sparked in his eyes and it resulted in more hugging. I could’ve sworn I even caught a small tear in his stare before he was snuggling me again, and baaaaaaah.

At this rate, I would be worried about him even finishing work. Aaaaah.

Hisako never did stop laughing for quite a while.

The radio set crackled as the man adjusted the volume on his mic. “Are you all in position?”

“All set, Sensei.”

“We’re all clear here.”

A pause followed before there was a dry drawl of, “Obito, don’t start tearing up or something from the explosions, okay?”

Something bumped in the background. “OI! I-I have my goggles and eye drops! You don’t have to remind me, Bakashi!”

Then there was a sigh over the speakers. “Boys, this is not the time to be butting heads. I don’t like this place either, but we have the mission to worry about.” Another sigh. “We need to find Tomo, then get back as soon as we can.”

Rustling followed on another end. “Kei, let me know if you feel Tomoko-chan’s chakra anywhere, okay?”

“Judai-jichan, I’m right next to you.”

“Still, as extra insurance.”

The man at the center of it all rolled his eyes with a soft chuckle. “Judai, stay on track and look after Kei and Obito for me, alright?”

“No need to tell me, Minato. I got it.”

The mission was already a go.

“So, the explosions were around here… Hopefully nothing’s going to happen, but knowing my luck…”

Tomoko-chan. Do something. Hisako tapped Oblivion against the ground for extra emphasis. We can’t just walk in blind again.

Oh dear. I decided to speak up via tugging on his sleeve. “Um, Jack-nii?”

My caretaker slowly loosened his grip on the closest cherry bomb on his belt before glancing down at me with a more hesitant smile. “What is it, Tomo?”

“What are we…” I gestured to the area around us, teeming with ocean and the occasional bits of trash, grimacing at the smell of bird poop. “What are we doing at the docks? Aren’t these the same docks from the paper this morning?”

Jack-nii’s smile turned a bit more forced as he nodded stiffly, adjusting the brim of his hat all the while. “Headquarters called for Marine investigation. Wendy’s busy, and I dunno what the he—heck!” I didn’t miss how he cut himself off on cursing before smiling again a bit more naturally, “Leith is doing, but I can’t exactly leave you alone back in your room now, can I, Tomo?”

Embarrassment was flooding me yet again. “Y-You didn’t have to, Jack-nii, I could’ve waited back at the base for you.”

My caretaker only smiled and blew a small teasing raspberry at me. “But you would worry and then do something reckless, wouldn’t you? If not that, then sulk.”

More heat was flooding my face, and I let go of his sleeve to pout again. Apparently, my childish instincts were even kicking in because I ended up stomping one of my sandals against the gravel. “Niiiiiii.”

“Tomoooooo,” he echoed back.

Pfffft. That’s a loss, my dear.

My Nobody was getting a penchant of not helping at this rate. Darn it.

“Muuuuuuu!” I ended up saying finally, looking away to hide the red on my face. The white-pink lace of my kimono dress wouldn’t help anything. “Nii, you dork.”

Jack-nii snorted before his free hand landed on my head, patting it. “I love you too, sweetie,” he cooed happily.

Of course he wasn’t in Serious Mode yet. Or I just snapped him out of it. Somehow. What was I, a cupcake? How did he start loving me?

Hisako lightly tapped Oblivion against my shoulder. Cinnamon Roll.

…What?

Cinnamon Roll! You are a cinnamon roll, Tomoko-chan!

HISAKO, YOU’RE NOT HELPING!

I wasn’t expecting my thoughts to be jolted at the sound of a distant explosion. In hindsight, I probably should’ve expected it, considering how Ace-nii announced his presence before proposing to Leith-nee on that same day, but then again, we weren’t in Dressrossa right now and we were near the ocean, so where the hell—

“Tomo-chan, get behind me.” Jack-nii was already pulling out one of Marcy-nii’s homemade cherry bombs, and I could already feel a lump surfacing in my throat at the steel in his voice as I nodded vigorously, ducking behind his hand to instead hide behind his jacket. The Marine hat on his head seemed tighter somehow with the angle and his taking a defensive stance. I didn’t miss how he was also starting to crouch, like he was about to break out into a run any minute now. “Just let me know if there’s anyone around you who looks dangerous, okay?”

A part of me was wondering how he could still sound so comforting in my direction. “O-Okay, Nii,” I said instead, because there really wasn’t much else to say to that.

In a world filled with Marines, pirates, and guns, self-defense could only go so far.

BOOM, went another explosion in the distance, this one sounding closer than the one from before.

Hisako was already readying Oblivion. Tomoko-chan, deep breaths. Deep breaths.

I found myself gripping the hem of my caretaker’s Marine jacket while inhaling as much air as I could. Both out of comfort and for something to hang onto.

Jack-nii swiveled his head around a few more times. “Where are they—”

Another BOOM.

I couldn’t help the loud squeal of shock leaving my lips at the sound of screams in the distance, and Jack-nii was tensing as soon as fire started shooting up from a nearby warehouse. “Wh-what the—”

And then I could hear yelling. Very familiar yelling.

“TOMO-CHAN, WHERE ARE YOU?!”

Hisako nearly dropped her Keyblade. What.

My heart could’ve stopped.

Instead of saying something aloud, I poked my other Self. Hisako?

My Nobody answered almost immediately. What is it, dear?

I wasn’t the only one who heard that, right? Right?!

My heart was beating hard now.

Hisako immediately shook her head, long brown hair nearly slapping her cheeks in the process as her glasses slipped down to the bridge of her nose. It wasn’t just you, Tomoko-chan. I heard it too.

Then…then…

The idea had already latched onto my mind as the fire burned in the distance.

Jack-nii was completely at a loss for words in the outside world, though. “What the heck…?” Around us, other Marines were running, trying to get out of the way of the fire, but I found my feet frozen.

It can’t be… can it?

Then I heard another voice. A voice much closer than any other explosion today.

“HISSATSU: RAPID STORM!”  

Even though my caretaker was tensing from all the chaos, I already knew who was yelling.

The name was almost like sawdust on my lips. How did they even get here?

“Papa…?”

Jack-nii was already swerving his head to look at me in disbelief. “Papa?” he echoed.

There was another close BOOM with the end of that remark, and then I was seeing someone fly out of the smoke. Technically leap, but as soon as my eyes landed on a blue Konoha hitai-ite and the gleam of a kodachi sword, my jaw dropped.

“KEI?!”

I couldn’t even make out Jack-nii’s shocked sputtering.

It didn’t even take that long for the mystery person to land a few meters away from us, crouching in a way akin to the old action movies, and once the sudden wind and smoke started to clear, I was making out a white-blue hooded jacket and messy black cowlicks that I wouldn’t see on anyone else.

Tears were already filling my eyes as soon as the person raised their head from looking down at their knee.

It had been 6-7 months, but she was still Explosive As Ever, apparently. Even when I was gone…

I slowly let go of the back of Jack-nii’s jacket to peer past my caretaker’s arm. “Kei?” I said again, my voice cracking. “I-Is that you?”

My reincarnation buddy, my bestest friend in the entire world, only stared at me with wide black eyes as her mouth took on a surprised “o.” Whether it was the reunion that was going on or the carnage around us, I wasn’t sure. But those black eyes and eyebags were definitely dead-ringers for Kei. “T…” the syllable was almost silent on her end as she continued to gape. “To…”

I wasn’t even aware something else exploded nearby until shrapnel was flying everywhere and Jack-nii was covering me in a protective hug. Even when squeaking, he didn’t let go until the smoke had cleared, leaving me to breathe in the scent of salt water from his jacket for quite a while.

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON OUT THERE?! Hisako demanded angrily in my place.

For once, I didn’t have an answer until Jack-nii slowly let go of me, and once my eyes could adjust to the fading grey smoke and the newly trashed dock area, I could make out a head of two-toned brown hair.

The tears were spilling over now because there was only one person I knew who had hair like that. And the old navy blue ninja headband.

“P-Papa?!”

Oh. Hisako said quietly, lowering Oblivion.

Papa was already on his feet as soon as my voice echoed in the sky, and I didn’t even have a second to move before there was wind and he was standing in front of me. His eyes were glowing a dark red-orange and green, but they were already starting to fade for a tired yellow as he fell to his knees, his hands reaching out to cup my cheeks. The gesture made me feel like I was a doll he hadn’t seen in years. His palms were rough with calluses and perhaps some dirt, but they were still Papa’s hands. “H-Hime…” he breathed a soft and broken laugh as soon as he was making eye contact with me, my tears already starting to fall onto his fingers. “Hime.”

“Papa…!” Joy was filling my heart and flooding my veins with cheese and probably every other single warm emotion in the world, but I couldn’t find it in myself to move. All I could do was smile as widely as I could as my nose started to clog. It was like I was experiencing the joy of seeing Ace-nii propose to Leith-nee all over again, only better. “I-It’s you, Papa, right? It’s really you, Papa?”

He was nodding vigorously as the tired yellow in his eyes quickly faded for happy brown, a bright grin on his face. “It’s me, sweetie, it’s me.” And then I was being squeezed in another hug as something musty wafted through my snot-clogged nostrils. Even if my ribs were creaking from the grip, it was hard to miss the water droplets falling onto the top of my hair. Oh goodness. “Tomoko-chan…!” Papa choked above my head. “We found you, hime…!”

I was gone for way too long.

My vision was promptly shot too as I buried my nose into the shoulder of his green flak jacket. “I-I missed you too, Papa! I missed you too!”

I wasn’t even sure where Jack-nii was now, but soon another pair of arms was joining into the hug, and then I could smell a bit of ink and mochi.

“You doof,” Kei muttered angrily, but the messy black hair brushing my cheek was nothing to laugh at. She was here too. The heat wasn’t even in her words anymore as her chin bumped the side of my head. “Where have you been, Tomo? All the way out here?”

“S-Something like that,” but I was laughing, and it was the first time in a while that I felt free, “But I found you all again, didn’t I?”

Kei only snorted in disbelief but tightened the now apparent group hug as soon as Papa started brushing through my hair with a hand. “Yeah, right. It’s more like we found you, Tomo-chan.”

Hisako was smiling. She’s right, y’know.

The first sob was leaving my lips now in a happy choking noise, but I didn’t want to break down completely because my loved ones were here, and I still needed to address Jack-nii in the area. “I-I’m sorry for missing so much. B-But I’m okay, and I’m here!”

Kei snorted again, but there was a hiccupy quality to it this time as the grip on me loosened, probably for the sake of giving breathing space. “Go on, Tomo. Judai-jichan could probably use a better explanation than you getting kidnapped.”

I could vaguely hear the clatter of books falling to the ground in my head. Oh, fuck.

Even in all the emotions rolling through me, my mind still had enough coherence to squeak in protest. “I got here by black hole thingy!”

Papa and Kei were now pulling away from me to stare in disbelief.

“Um,” I said, because there was still fire in the distance from explosions, and now I could vaguely hear a loud yell of my nickname. Again. “Portal thingy?”

And whoop-de-doo, another second was all it took for another friend to barrel into me. I didn’t have to look up to know it was another member of Team Minato, but once goggles were digging into the shoulder of my kimono dress, I already could guess. “H-Hi, Obi.”

My Uchiha friend only let out a muffled cheer, lifting me up high before spinning around, and I had to hold back teary giggles. “We found you, Tomo-chan!” was the happy yell in my ear. “We finally found you!”

I politely didn’t mention his wiping his eyes with his jacket sleeves to instead hug back by winding my arms around his neck. “Missed you too, Obi. Missed you too.”

He cheered again, but I could already tell that there was a slight hiccup in the noise as he put me down, grinning. “You’re worse than Kei when it comes to trouble, Tomo-chan! Seriously, you’ve been here for the past few months?!” Obito then glanced around the docks before turning back to me with a teary eye and a loud and dry remark of, “This place sucks!”

“You all did kinda burn the place,” I pointed out, trying not to pout and/or deadpan from the exasperation of getting indirectly burned because the lump in my throat was still there and all. “Explosions?”

The Uchiha only jumped with a loud shout of protest. “HEY! That was Kei!” Obito then fumbled with his hands.

My reincarnation buddy, even when a few centimeters away, still had enough energy to look indignant. The eyebags helped her case a lot. “Don’t put all the blame on me.”

Nearby, I could see Papa put a finger to his ear. He was muttering something, but I couldn’t make it out because Obito was hugging me again, aaaaaah. “Tomo-chan…!”

Goodness, he was going to cry soon.

I patted his head, holding back the urge to smile. To think I missed this. “I love you too, Obi. Thank you for coming and finding me.”

He jolted for a single second before squeezing tighter, and I tried not to squawk because ribs. “Tomo-chan, you’re a doofus!”

“A-And you’re making it hard to b-breathe!” I choked out instead, because gosh, my ribs were creaking more now. How many hugs could I take at this rate? Ninja were strong. “Obito!”

Kei was definitely laughing now as soon as Obito squawked too and let go.

A long second of silence passed before Papa turned back to me with a more hesitant smile. “So, hime?”

I wiped my tears away with my kimono sleeve, both because I didn’t have a tissue on me and the nearby smoke was hard to inhale. “Y-Yeah, Papa?”

He then pointed behind me with his tanto, and the horror only hit as soon as his eyes flashed red-orange and green again. “Think you could explain the person standing behind you there? With the hat?”

I glanced behind me, only to see Jack-nii wave at me happily, apparently not minding Kei and Obito’s now combined glares in his direction.

Goddammit, Jack. Hisako muttered.

I tried not to blanch as soon as there was another WHOOSH of air. “Are we late?” said the newly arrived Minato-san. Another hand was then resting on my head, and I looked up only to see Kakashi give me an eye-smile of all things before looking forward, and once I followed his stare and landed on Jack-nii again, my heart was the next thing to fly out of my ribs.

Oh no.

“Not really, Minato, no,” Papa said testily, still pointing his tanto in Jack-nii’s direction. I didn’t miss how he extended his chakra to make said tanto into a large and threatening chakra blade. “Just in time for interrogations!”

Meep.

“I’m alright with that, Judai-jichan,” Kakashi added quietly, his hand still resting on top of my head.

Jack’s gonna die.

I don’t want him to die.

Do something.

On it.

I raised one of my hands and added a soft, “Um, Jack-nii over there took care of me? For the past 6-7 months?”

Kei was the first one to swivel her head back and stare at me incredulously. “What.”

“Eh? You don’t believe me?”

Obito shook his head at the same time Kakashi said, “Not even a bit.”

Jack-nii only grinned, crossing his arms behind his head nonchalantly. “I knew I would like you people!”

GODDAMMIT, JACK.

[sara-reading1]

Inconceivable - avocadomoon

Well," Bellamy says dryly, "this whole diplomacy thing sure is going great."

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

On some level, Clarke doesn't know why she gets surprised by these sort of things anymore. Last month, the entire camp ate some bad not-strawberries and everybody's tongue turned blue for over a week. Two days ago Jorah saw something she insisted to anyone who would listen was an actual unicorn, and on the hike over here, they'd been serenaded by a flock of birds whose caws sounded eerily like a bunch of gravelly old men beatboxing. So - you know. Earth is weird.

Still, every once in awhile it manages to, well - let's go with 'take her off guard.'

"They want you to have sex," says Arden.

Clarke and Bellamy stare at her. Arden fidgets.

"Uh, with each other," she clarifies.

"What," Bellamy says flatly.

Arden flinches a little, which, Clarke doesn't exactly blame her. Bellamy's what the fuck voice is legitimately terrifying. "It's part of the ritual they perform for the spring solstice. All their trade partners do it; it's how they prove their worth to God that they're, er, rejoicing in the bounty of...something." Arden shrugs a little helplessly. "There were a few words I couldn't translate exactly but that's basically the jist - "

"But the sex part came through loud and clear?" Bellamy snaps.

Arden flinches again, and Clarke slaps his arm, an automatic instinct. A few feet away, she can see the grounder clan council - the Marach, she corrects in her head, if they're going to be trade partners the least they can do is use their actual name - standing stoically, watching them with easy, placid patience. They don't look like the type to demand weird sex favors in return for grain and access to hunting grounds, but well - Earth is weird.

"You asked me to come and translate, well that's what I did," Arden says defensively. "It's not normal French, okay, it's French after a hundred years of evolution and it's not like textbooks on the Ark got automatic updates or anything. I'm doing the best I can."

"You're doing fine," Clarke soothes. "You're sure - I mean - it wouldn't be like, a miscommunication of some kind?" she asks hopefully. "Like maybe the word for 'sex' actually means, like, 'gift' or - or 'communion' or something now - "

"They were...pretty explicit on the sex part." Arden shifts uncomfortably. "There were hand gestures." She frowns. "I don't wanna talk about it."

"Jesus fucking Christ," Bellamy says.

"Okay," Clarke says, trying to keep her calm, "okay. Can we, I don't know. Can we negotiate? Maybe explain to them that it's - it's not something we do, and we could...offer them something else, instead?"

"I can try," Arden says, looking skeptical. She glances at Bellamy one more time before turning back to the Marach. Even the way she walks away looks reluctant.

"Well," Bellamy says dryly, "this whole diplomacy thing sure is going great."

Clarke glares at him. "Yeah, because clearly the smarter option would be to kidnap their leader and hold them hostage in exchange for two barrels of grain a month, Bellamy."

Bellamy looks contemplative at that, and Clarke tries very, very hard not to be offended that he seems more willing to start a war than to have sex with her. She fails. "Don't tell me you're actually considering doing this."

"I'm not," Clarke says, feeling an embarrassing rush of blood flood her cheeks. "I definitely do not want to have sex with you."

"Good, because neither do I."

"Good."

"Good."

Clarke turns away from him at the same time as he does the same to her, and they stand in resentful silence for a few moments, watching Arden speak and gesture with the Marach. It...doesn't look like it's going particularly well.

"If we're going to have any long-term presence in this area, we need to have peace with these people," Clarke says after a moment, quite needlessly.

"I am aware of that," Bellamy says, enunciating each word in that precise way he has when he thinks she's treating him like an idiot.

"They might take our refusal to do this as an insult."

"I am aware of that, too."

Clarke glares at the side of his head. "You're being difficult."

"You're being sanctimonious."

Clarke huffs. It's not like she does it on purpose. "I'm just saying," she starts, and breaks off when it comes out much louder than she'd intended. Two of the Marach councilmen glance over warily, and Bellamy shoots her a severe look. "I'm just saying," she tries again, controlling her volume, "that we need this. Like, we really need this, Bellamy. We can't handle another fight right now and winter was tough this year; we're exhausted. We can't pick up and move again until we all get some rest."

It's been a very long, fraught week, these negotiations with the Marach, and Clarke can see every second of it on Bellamy's face in that moment. "Why don't you just come out and say what you're trying to say, Clarke?"

"Fine." Clarke sighs. "It's better than what the River Clan asked us to do."

Both of them wince in unison. Nobody likes to talk about the River Clan.

Bellamy glances back over at the Marach. Arden is still talking, holding her hands out in a placating gesture, but none of them look particularly moved. "It's a dangerous precedent," he says, voice carefully quiet. "For us, if not for them. To compromise on our principles so easily."

"Sex is a principle for you?" Clarke asks incredulously, unable to help herself. Bellamy shoots her another dirty look. "No, really, I mean - it's not like they're asking us to kill each other at the end of it, it's just - "

"Oh come on, you know what I meant," Bellamy interrupts, irritated. Clarke squares her shoulders. Fine, yes. "It's a slippery slope - today it's sex, tomorrow it's, I don't know, human sacrifice or something. Besides, we don't even know all the details yet."

"Details," Clarke says blankly, and Bellamy looks pointedly over at the ceremonial center of the Marach camp, a large, stone altar decorated with various bundles of food and flowers. "Oh my God - "

"Yeah," Bellamy says, with finality. "So. Don't go taking off your pants just yet, princess."

Clarke looks at the ground and concentrates on not blushing. She fails again. "We still may not have much of a choice," she mumbles. When she dares to raise her eyes again, Bellamy is focused on Arden, who's heading their way, two Marach in tow.

"There's always a choice," Bellamy says darkly, and Clarke groans internally. That's the kind of thing he says before he starts wars, generally. "Look, just back me up on this play, okay? I'm not going to let them force you into anything that makes you uncomfortable. We'll hear them out but we won't roll over."

"Fine," Clarke agrees, reluctantly charmed by his sneak attack gentlemanliness, as always. "I appreciate that."

"You're welcome."

"Still don't want to do you," she adds.

Bellamy nods knowingly. "Back atcha," he says, and grins a little bit as they fist bump.

Okay, so, Clarke is a twenty-four year old woman who has lived on Earth for the better part of a decade, and pardon her language, but, well - she's seen some shit. She's done some shit. She's lived some shit. And contextually speaking - it wouldn't really be that big of a deal.

The whole princess thing is more of an advantage than anything these days, but this part of it never fails to be irritating - how they underestimate her sometimes. It gives her authority, reverence, helps people look up to her and seek her guidance, but it also makes them think that she's...breakable. It makes people who hate her want to ruin her, and people who care for her want to protect her, and it's annoying as all hell in either incarnation, to be honest.

So while the idea of having weird possibly-public sex with her platonic political life partner in exchange for a measly trade agreement and a tentative non-aggression pact might not be Clarke's favorite way to ring in the growing season, but like she said, Clarke's seen some shit, and last winter she had to perform open-heart surgery on a fourteen-year-old boy with his mother's dagger at her neck the entire time, so like, let's try and keep some perspective here, people.

Clarke's a nice girl, and she does still believe in love. But sex is sex, love is love, you can have one without the other, and she's pretty sick of eating those crappy berries that taste like creek water every day, so whatever. She's not about to lose her head about it.

(Plus, it's not as if Bellamy isn't - that she hasn't - whatever. She's not thinking about this. Shut up.)

But like, even if she had thought about it - which she hasn't - it's not like it would mean anything, that it wouldn't be totally understandable. She and Bellamy have been living in each other's pockets for years, and it's not like there haven't been - it's natural, okay. Perfectly natural, especially considering that Clarke's love life hasn't exactly been all that lively, considering the blood, death and politics of survival on planet Earth. She's been busy, alright?

Sometimes she thinks she knows his body better than she knows her own, she's had her hands in it so many times. Every scar, every wound, every bruise, she knows, can place on the mental map in her head that pulls up every time her eyes close, and even beyond that, even beyond the intimacy that comes from stitching someone back up over and over, holding them together with your bare hands, there's everything else there too - late nights in tents and muddy ravines and muggy, moss-filled caves, early mornings at the edge of camp passed with cups of purloined coffee and seaweed tea. Every fight, every decision, every moment since she first stepped foot on the ground has happened right next to him, standing shoulder to shoulder, back to back, Bellamy Blake - her partner. A complicated man with simple desires, her perfect complement, in so many ways.

(Like - put like that, it's weirder that she hasn't thought about it. But she hasn't. Again, just clarifying.)

But thoughts are just thoughts and, just, it's not like that, with Bellamy, right? It couldn't be like that, not when it's so important for them to be in sync, not when they have an entire colony of people - almost four hundred now, Clarke thinks sometimes, faintly and with no small amount of shock - depending on them to be sane and solid and unwaveringly together. And sex and love and all that, that's just - that's a bad idea. It just - it just is.

Anyway. Not that Clarke would - anyway. She's done talking about this.

"I'm sorry about this," Arden says again, a little frantic as she tries to apologize, help Clarke into the dress and not meet her eye, all at the same time. "I know how you feel about skirts and I tried to talk them out of it but apparently it's important, like a roleplay thing and - "

"Roleplay?" Clarke repeats dumbly, pausing. The bodice on this thing is made from some kind of bone, and she can already feel the ache she'll have later, the old bullet wound in her side that never quite stops hurting. "What, do we have lines or something?"

"Oh - no," Arden says, flustered. Clarke is reminded kind of suddenly that she's barely nineteen years old. As fierce as she is, and as passionately as she fights for them, she still came down with the Ark, still was shielded from the worst of those first few years, tucked safely away in quarantine at Mount Weather. "No. From the way I understood it, it's like a ceremonial, uh, reenactment, I guess? They have this whole story about the seasons, how spring and summer reunite to defeat autumn and winter every year. Spring is female, summer is male, and they celebrate by, uh - "

"Right," Clarke says resignedly, grunting as Arden pulls the last latch together on the dress. It's too small for her, really, made for somebody with smaller breasts, but at least she can breathe in it somewhat comfortably. And it is pretty - the bodice is horrific but the skirt is made from well-made, white cotton - they must have traded with the Mountain for it - and it flows loose around Clarke's knees, brushing pleasantly against her bare skin. It is, honestly, the nicest thing she's worn in years. "That's an interesting way to look at it, I guess."

"Yeah, I thought so, too." Arden's face brightens a little, and she pulls at her braid a little nervously, smiling sweetly at Clarke. "You look very pretty in it, you know."

"Thanks." Clarke smiles back. It feels kind of awkward on her face. "And - you made sure to get them to agree to the lock on the door, right?"

"Yeah, yes," Arden says. "Bran - that's the main guy, the tall one I was talking to - he was really insistent about it, actually. Apparently when the leaders from other clans do it, they usually bring their own people to stand guard. He wanted to make up the difference, since all you guys have is - well. Me." She smiles sheepishly, then blushes and looks away.

"Right," Clarke says slowly. "Well, glad to know the ritualistic sex clan has such high standards of privacy. Admirable."

"It seems important to them," Arden says, maybe a little defensively. Clarke looks at her sharply, and some of her fire finally comes back, straightening her posture and turning her eyes flinty. "It's their religion. It really is important to them. And it's not meant to be an invasive thing, it's - a celebration, meant in good faith. That's why they seemed so insulted when we wanted to turn it down." She shrugs. "It's a great honor, to be allowed to perform this. Apparently."

Clarke exhales slowly, and tries very hard not to laugh at the reality that having sex with Bellamy Blake is, at the moment, a great, sacred honor.

"Okay," she says, "thank you for your help. I appreciate it."

Arden nods, stepping back at the dismissive tone. "You're welcome," she says, back to deference. Clarke is grateful for that, at least. "They'll send him in soon, I think."

"Alright."

"I'll leave you alone," Arden says quietly.

"Wait," Clarke says, halting her, "thank you. Honestly. And - " she clears her throat. "Thank you for agreeing to - I know it might be awkward for you to lie, when we get home, but - "

"It's nobody's business but yours and Bellamy's," Arden replies firmly, and Clarke remembers now why this girl is her second, why Bellamy chooses her to accompany them on these necessary, delicate trips. "Good luck," she adds, a bit wryly, and Clarke laughs sharply, surprising herself.

"Thanks," Clarke says again, and finds herself surprisingly comforted, watching her close the door softly behind her.

Finding herself alone, Clarke moves to sit down on the bed and then changes her mind, heading to the small, wooden table instead. The turf structures the Marach live in are small, and crude-looking, but they're impressive in their sturdiness, and this one is packed full of the highest luxury that exists in this part of the world: wolf pelt blankets on the bed, an array of hard-to-find fruit on the table, even a jug of what Clarke strongly suspects might be the spiced wine the southern clans produce sometimes, when the crops are good enough. Her mouth waters, just looking at it.

She nibbles a little at the food, confirms her hypothesis about the wine. Walks over and touches the elaborate, beautiful designs on the walls, carved into the hardened mud and painted meticulously in vibrant colors. It is amazing, she thinks, what humans are capable of, even in the most dire and stressful of circumstances. It never really fails to humble her.

(She's not nervous. She's not. She is not. She definitely, one hundred percent, absolutely is not even a little bit - )

"Hey," Bellamy says, suddenly appearing in the doorway, and Clarke nearly jumps out of her skin. When she whirls around, he's smirking at her. "Wow, okay, someone's jumpy. It's almost like we're about to - "

"Shut up." Clarke scowls at him, smoothing down the skirt nervously. "You startled me, is all."

Bellamy smirks again, but apparently is going to take the high road on this one, and doesn't reply as he steps inside, shutting the door firmly behind him. The deadbolt sliding into place is a comforting sound. "They treat you alright?"

"Yes." She picks at the dress again fastidiously. "They put me in a dress," she says a little dumbly. Bellamy raises an eyebrow at her, like, well, duh. "I mean, obviously." She picks at the bodice. "It's a little small."

"Still better than what I got away with," Bellamy says scornfully, stepping further into the room. For the first time, Clarke registers his clothing - the dark pants most of the Marach men wear, and his chest, bare and painted in the same swirling spirals of paint that adorn the walls. "I feel like I got attacked by a bunch of overexcited kids with fingerpaint." He grimaces, flexing his arms in apparent discomfort, causing the swirled designs painted on them to distort a little with the movement of his muscles.

"That's," Clarke says, throat sort of dry, "uh, it looks still wet. Won't it…"

Bellamy shoots her another one of those looks. "Yeah - I think that's the point, princess."

"Oh." Clarke looks down at her dress. Suddenly the bright white color and hard-to-unfasten bodice make a whole lot more sense. "Oh. Okay."

"Right. So." Bellamy sounds resigned, running one hand over his brow as he speaks. "I suppose we could try to fake it, but - "

"We can't," Clarke blurts, feeling an odd jump in her stomach when he turns to look at her curiously. "I mean, just - good faith. That's the golden rule, remember?"

"Right." Offer something to a grounder, you follow up. Period. The lesson they'd learned in many, varied, violent ways, that first year on Earth. It hasn't failed them yet. "The whole...principles thing again."

"Yeah, and - " Clarke shrugs. "It seems like a lot of effort to go to anyway, when we could just…"

Bellamy raises an eyebrow, waiting for her to finish, a mean grin spreading across his face when she trails off into silence. "Gonna be hard to do it if you can't even say it, princess," he says.

"Oh, shut up."

"No, I'm just saying, like - effort is kind of a big part of it. Are you sure you've been doing it right?"

"I said shut up," Clarke says, laughing a little. She's a little relieved, ludicrously, that he's being a jerk about it. It makes her feel a little bit more sure-footed. The laughter bubbles up again at the look on his face - that skeptical side eye he graces her with whenever she does something he doesn't understand. Or agree with. Or like. Or - you know, that's probably just how he looks at her, most of the time. "Nothing. Sorry. Just - this is weird, and - "

Bellamy's mouth quirks a little. "Right."

"Can we just…" Clarke shakes her head, taking a moment to close her eyes and breathe out, gathering some of her calm back around her, a comforting shroud. "We should eat."

"Okay." He's still smirking a little, but joins her at the table nonetheless. "Is that - "

"Mulled wine," Clarke finishes with a grin. "Yes."

"Christ." Bellamy snags it from her outstretched hand and takes a long swig straight from the cask, sighing in pleasure as he lowers it back to the table. "Fuck, I haven't had good booze in forever."

"Not that I don't love Monty's moonshine or anything," Clarke says, "but I know, right?"

Bellamy grins wolfishly and generously hands the wine back for her to take her turn. Clarke shivers a little when his hand brushes her forearm as he pulls back.

"Haven't had a spread like this in awhile," Bellamy comments after a second. He picks up a fruit Clarke doesn't recognize and taps it against the table, frowning and discarding it when the sound seems to displease him. "Might as well take advantage of it, I guess."

Clarke watches him pick up a strip of dried meat and rip it in half with his fingers, sort of transfixed by the movement of his hands in the dim light.

"Here," he says, handing the other half to her. Clarke takes it, bites into it mindlessly, eyebrows shooting to the top of her forehead when she realizes that this is bear meat - the rarest thing on the table, probably. Her surprise is mirrored on Bellamy's face when she looks over. "I'm still not crazy about this," he continues, "especially since we can't be a hundred percent that Arden's interpreting what they say right. But they're obviously trying to impress us. Which is a nice change of pace, if nothing else."

"Either that or this is part of their whole - celebration bounty spring whatever thing," Clarke says, popping the rest of it in her mouth and chewing greedily. God, it feels like it's been forever since she had food that actually tasted good.

"Well, princess," Bellamy says, grabbing the platter of meat and taking it over to the bed, the only piece of furniture in the room, other than the table. "Let's indulge. I'd say we deserve it."

Clarke bites back a smile, squares her shoulders, and grabs the wine.

"Now you're talking," she says.

Okay, so, just to clarify something else: she isn't stupid, or anything. She knows what it all looks like. It isn't like that, but it looks like it.

They usually share a room; it's just easier that way. They're not usually rolling in privacy, anyway, and after this thing with one of the Ark refugees who'd gotten maybe a little obsessed with Clarke (she hesitates to call it stalking, okay, it was mostly just...really sincere love notes and a lot of sad staring) Bellamy tends to get a little overprotective, so it's honestly easier just to sleep wherever he is rather than deal with his neuroticism about it the next morning.

The last time she remembers seeing him with a girl was about three years ago, before the cease fire with the Mountain and the trade accord and all that. She'd run into her coming out of his tent one night - an older woman, Clarke doesn't remember her name, something beginning with N, maybe? - and had caught a glimpse of the scattering of dark love bites down the back of her neck. But then came the drought, and the peace talks with Mount Weather, and since then they've been on the move almost constantly, so - it hasn't really been the first priority for either of them.

It's not like she thinks that he's in love with her or anything, that he's spent all these years pining away tragically, like some twisted post-apocalyptic Austen hero. She knows he loves her, of course, the same way she knows she loves him. The same way they love Octavia, and Jas and Monty and so on and so forth. Hard not to love somebody when you live like they do, honestly. Bonds forged in fire and blood and blah blah, whatever.

But - maybe it's still different. Maybe people keep thinking they're together because they are, in a way. Half the grounder clans they encounter just assume that they're married, and the Mountain certainly thinks the same - hell, even Clarke's mother probably does too, wherever the fuck she is now, with her own little group of Ark separatists, roaming around the world, trying to live life. And maybe, sometimes Clarke thinks - well, it's not a real marriage, is it, but does that really matter, at the end of the day?

But that's not - okay, fuck, this train of thought got away from her somewhere. She should...probably stop talking now.

It doesn't take long for them to get a little tipsy - drunk, she fears, is out of their reach, not with just one bottle and years of experience with Monty's booze, refined to battery acid perfection.

It is nice, though, to get a little floaty on wine and food that tastes good, on a comfortable bed with warm blankets, the sound of happy people creeping in from outside, the party that's since kicked into full swing. Clarke is, she dares to think, relaxed.

"This whole - spring and summer thing," Clarke says, reclining back on the pillows, shamelessly taking up most of the bed. "Why is spring a girl and summer a guy? Why not the other way around?"

"You think summer's more feminine?" Bellamy asks.

Clarke shrugs. "I don't think either of them have a particular...gender, honestly."

Bellamy downs the last of the wine, discarding the cask on the ground next to the bed. "The Greeks only had three seasons - spring, summer, and winter. There was a goddess of each - three daughters of Zeus called the Hours." He frowns. "I don't remember the names."

Nerd, Clarke thinks fondly. "I thought the Greek version was the whole Persephone and Hades thing."

"That too. The Greeks just liked stories." Bellamy shrugs. "There's usually one about the seasons along with an origin story, in most cultures. I don't remember them all. O's favorite was the Mesopotamian one, Ninhursag. She cursed her husband to the underworld for cheating on her with their own daughter, which made the earth barren and created winter." Clarke wrinkles her nose and Bellamy snorts. "Yeah. Octavia always liked the messed up ones the best."

"Sounds like her." Clarke sighs. "I guess the Marach's story is nice, in a way. Romantic. The whole idea of it being this grand battle that these two lovers keep winning, over and over, every year."

"Or losing," Bellamy points out, ever the cynic. "Just depends on where you start the story."

Clarke rolls her eyes as dramatically as she can manage. "Of course you would say that."

"Winter comes every year, princess," Bellamy teases.

"So does spring," Clarke points out, and something happens then, with his face, like it twists and darkens a little and he looks down at the bare skin of her knees, peeking out beneath her skirt, and she has to look away. "Uh - "

"You'd make a lousy spring goddess anyway," Bellamy says, a little too loud. Clarke looks back up at him abruptly, caught between outrage and surprise. "Well, you hate it, don't you? You're always sneezing on everything and grumping around for three months straight - "

Clarke laughs despite herself. "It's annoying! People go crazy after being cooped up all winter, they get reckless, hurt themselves more, get pregnant more - "

Bellamy's laughing at her, shaking his head. "You just never know how to have fun."

"Do too." She wrinkles her nose at him. "I'm fun."

"You're a downer," Bellamy tells her.

"I'm - ! You're the one who got all offended about this sex ritual thing, which seems like kind of a downer to me," Clarke says, forgetting to be embarrassed. Bellamy laughs again, a little incredulously, and she crosses her arms stubbornly in the face of it. "You know what I mean."

"I do," Bellamy says, sobering a little. He's sitting close to her feet, reclining sideways across the bottom of the bed, but he's so tall, his arms are long enough that he can reach up and touch her arm without even moving. Clarke feels a little claustrophobic, all of a sudden, even though he's as far away as he can get without leaving the bed entirely. "I just - I didn't want you to feel uncomfortable."

"I don't," Clarke says honestly.

"I mean that." He moves down to her hand, opening his palm up in invitation. Clarke takes it easily, used to that kind of touch from him. "Listen up, I'm gonna be real with you for a second."

"Listening," Clarke replies, smiling when he waits for her to meet his eye before he continues. So grave, she thinks. So formal.

"I know this is one of those things," he says, "that we're gonna do because it makes sense, and you were right before, it doesn't have to be a big deal. But Clarke, I'm not - you have to know I'm not going to do anything to you that you don't want me to do."

"I know that," Clarke replies, a little surprised.

"I want you to be okay with it." He purses his lips. "I need to know you're okay with it, alright? That's the only way I'm gonna be okay with it."

"Okay." Clarke feels a little overwhelmed by the intensity of his words, and the way he's looking at her, so serious and insistent. "I'll tell you if I get weirded out, if you do the same. Okay?"

He nods, and Clarke holds her breath as she watches him sit up, keeping his grip tight on her hand the entire time.

"Come here for a second," he says, tugging a little, and Clarke blinks, letting him pull her to her feet to stand at the edge of the bed in front of him. He really is that tall, she thinks a little dizzily. He doesn't have to reach up that far to touch her waist.

"Still okay?" he asks, a little dryly.

Clarke bares her teeth at him and he laughs. "Fine."

"Good," he says, and slides one hand down, experimentally, over the curve of her ass and further down to her thigh. She shivers.

"No kissing," she says suddenly, and he freezes, tilting his chin back and away from her. She feels a wave of something like shame fall over her. "I mean, just - "

"No, good idea," he interrupts, and pulls her abruptly closer, down onto his lap. Clarke squeaks a little, embarrassingly, and grabs his shoulders on instinct to steady herself. "Good idea."

"Keep it platonic," Clarke breathes, fascinated by the way the paint contrasts against his skin, a little paler than usual after the long months of winter, but still darker than her own. It's still tacky, and when she pulls her hand away from his bicep, there's a smear of color on her palm. Her dress has paint on it, too.

"Clinical," Bellamy says, voice a few steps deeper than usual. His palms are on the small of her back.

"Well, let's not go overboard," Clarke says bravely, and the smile she gets is worth the way the words make her insides tremble.

"Really, because I always thought you'd be a 'close your eyes and think of Earth' kind of girl," Bellamy says, settling his hands back on her waist.

Clarke smirks down at him and gets a little more comfortable, watches his reaction as she squirms closer. His eyes go half-mast and he actually shivers, which is kind of fascinating.

"No," she says triumphantly, "you really didn't."

They've kissed a few times, when they were drunk. One horrible night, around the time Finn and Raven had left, Clarke got so tired of being sad that she even went to his tent and asked him to fuck her, to which he responded with a droll, "not tonight honey, I've got a headache," and then kindly tucked her into his bed and glared at her until she went to sleep.

She woke up the next morning with a gigantic headache and cursed herself all the way through breakfast, ducking around corners to avoid him at every turn, thinking he was going to make fun of her. But all he did, when they finally came face to face, was give her one of those unimpressed looks, and said, "don't be such a drama queen Clarke, shit," and shoved the bag of seaweed he'd gone out to collect into her arms. She'd almost dropped it, and snapped at him to be careful, and he'd rolled his eyes and made a joke about doctors and clumsiness and brought up the time she'd tripped and hit her head in the lake and had to be pulled back to shore by Octavia, and then she'd forgotten why she was embarrassed about it in the first place.

Not a big deal. Whatever.

"I'm gonna - quit it, for real, I will walk away right now," Bellamy says, dodging her slap and rolling over onto her leg to keep it pinned down.

Clarke can't reply, too busy laughing at the look on his face. "Look at you! Oh my God, you look like you're about to march into battle or something - "

Considering how many times she's seen him actually march into battle, she'd think he'd take that seriously, but alas. "You know," he says imperiously, and leans a little harder on her leg. "Most girls enjoy this part. In fact, this is kind of the highlight for them, more often than not."

Clarke looks at his face and starts laughing again.

"That's it, I'm gone - "

"No, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, okay." Clarke takes a deep breath and pats his head consolingly. "You can go down on me now. I'm totally serious about it."

Bellamy peers up at her skeptically, which is how she knows he's not really angry. "Nah, you know, I don't think I'm in the mood anymore."

"Well, you better get in the mood, buddy, because we've got to work for our food tonight."

Bellamy manages a full two seconds before he cracks, burying his laugh into her thigh. Clarke laughs along with him, just at the pure absurdity of the situation. The absurdity of her life.

"Are we even awake right now," Bellamy rumbles, into her skin.

Clarke shivers. That feels good, she notes absently. "It's possible."

His breath is warm against her skin, and it's not like he's even done anything or even taken anything off yet, but just being touched, in places nobody has touched her in so long, is enough.

Bellamy lifts his head up after a minute, seeming to pick up on her shift. "When's the last time somebody did this to you, princess?"

"I don't know," Clarke says, a little shakily. She's suddenly very aware of their position, of the fact that it's Bellamy leaning down between her legs, with his hands up her dress and his mouth on the inside of her knee. She closes her eyes so she can think clearly, trying to remember. "Um, Rehka, probably."

"Rehka?" Bellamy looks up at her, incredulous. "That was like, three years ago."

Clarke shrugs helplessly. "It's not like I have a lot of time to date."

"Yeah, but…" Bellamy trails off, still looking gobsmacked at the mere concept of a human being going that long without oral sex.

"Oh, like you've been getting it on the regular," Clarke says dryly. "Your room is right next to mine, don't forget."

"Well, it definitely hasn't been three years," Bellamy mutters.

"Three years since...this, not three years since sex in general," Clarke protests.

Bellamy looks even more offended at that, if anything. "Now that's just sad."

"Well, it's not like you're my first choice to break the dry spell," she says resentfully, smirking when Bellamy rolls his eyes at her in exasperation. "Are you gonna get on with it or just hang out and judge my sex life all night?"

"So demanding," Bellamy replies, with faux disappointment. Right, Clarke thinks. Like 'pushover' is really a quality he looks for in bed partners.

Before she can formulate a reply, he slides his hands up and presses his thumbs into the dips of her hipbones, just hard enough for her to feel it.

"You're wet," Bellamy observes, almost casually, "does arguing turn you on, princess?"

"No," Clarke says through a gasp, wincing at the sound of her own voice. Man, that didn't sound even a little convincing.

Bellamy seems to agree, smirking a little and tugging at the waistband of her underwear. "Can I take these off?"

Clarke nods, lifting her hips up so he can slide them down and over her knees. She kicks at them awkwardly, trying to shake them off, biting her lip to keep the laugh in when Bellamy shoots her an exasperated, indulgent look.

"Are we more serious now," Bellamy says once they're finally gone, voice low, and bends down to kiss her navel. Clarke has to swallow a few times before she can reply, her throat is so dry.

"Please," she says, meaning it to be dismissive, but it comes out as a genuine plea, instead. Bellamy kisses her again, then bites gently at the stretch marks that line her abdomen, smoothing the skirt of the dress up and out of the way.

"Just tell me if it's too much, alright," he says, and then moves the rest of the way down. Clarke tips her head back and thinks, yeah, fat chance.

She doesn't feel much at first; it's almost like it's happening to someone else, in a way, and Clarke is just an observer, watching from the sidelines. But then Bellamy makes this sort of - sound, like a grunt almost but more nasal, and presses down harder with his tongue and Clarke gasps so loudly she almost coughs, and fuck, fuck that is good.

She doesn't know what to do with her hands; there's no wall behind the bed to brace against and the fur on the blankets is too slippery, so she grabs her own hair instead, gripping the strands at the back of her neck like she's trying to hold herself down. It's good, it feels so good it's a little overwhelming actually, and Clarke very suddenly remembers that she likes sex, likes being touched and held and kissed.

Bellamy has large hands, nice hands, with calluses that scrape pleasantly against her skin, and he holds her thighs apart, pushing them back and up, against her chest. His mouth is warm and pleasant against her, and he goes slow at first and then gradually gets faster, easing off every time she starts to twitch and tighten up. It's like teasing but also not, because all it does is just make it last longer, and the up and down of it isn't cruel, just - steady, a relentless ebb and flow. The wet sounds of it make it all seem that much more real, grounding the sensations firmly in the reality of Bellamy, leaning over her, his hands on her thighs, his mouth on her clit, rubbing paint off onto her skin and his face buried between her legs.

It's unreal in the way things tend to be when you never expected them to happen - how it just overwhelms you, makes you float along on this giddy little high and you just keep thinking, this is happening, this is actually happening.

She rides that giddy high all the way up and over, fisting her hands in her hair and letting it roll through her, sweep her head to toe like the shockwave from a dropship engine. It feels good, it feels clean, uncomplicated, and Bellamy eases her through it, only pulling away when she hisses at the sudden overstimulation.

"Okay?" he says after a moment, and pulls one of her legs down to rest over his shoulder, using it to brace himself over her. His mouth and chin are wet; Clarke stares, transfixed.

"Yeah."

"You sure? You're breathing hard."

Orgasms tend to do that, Clarke wants to say, but she can't quite seem to catch her breath to manage it, and realizes abruptly that he's right.

"Fuck, hold on," Bellamy says, wiping his mouth quickly and moving out of the vee of her legs, up next to her on the bed, "it's the dress, right?"

Clarke nods, letting him pull her upright so he can get to the laces. "Too small," she manages, gripping his waist as he messes with the bodice, tearing the ties apart and peeling it carefully free. "Oh my God," she breathes in relief when it's finally gone, wincing and raising her arms to let him pull the entire garment up over her head. "So much better."

"Should've told me," Bellamy mumbles, rubbing at the marks on her skin.

"The dress seemed important," Clarke replies wryly, leaning back into his embrace. Her legs are still tingling a little bit.

"I think breathing is actually a little more important," Bellamy replies, in that gently scolding way he has sometimes.

Clarke just shrugs, leaning more heavily against him. There's still paint all over his chest, and now it's on her, too, and some hidden, visceral part of her heart wriggles in satisfaction.

"Do you," and her voice cracks. Clarke swallows and tries again, "do you want to - "

"Yes," Bellamy says.

Clarke laughs and leans her forehead against his shoulder. There's paint in her hair, even. Now it'll be on her face. She doesn't care. "You didn't let me finish."

"Trust me, whatever you were about to say, the answer's yes."

"Careful," Clarke teases, "you shouldn't write blank checks like that."

"I feel pretty confident about you at the moment," Bellamy replies, and slides his free hand up her stomach to her breasts.

Clarke indulges him for a few moments, but it doesn't actually do much for her - never has - and the pressure to pretend is oddly absent. "Come on," she says, pulling away and flopping back down on her back. "Like this."

Bellamy grins at her, lacing their fingers together and letting her pull him down. He settles down on top of her like he's always been there, like he knows just how to balance so the weight is pleasant and not overwhelming. "Hell, princess, I should've known you'd be like this."

"Like what?" Clarke asks, placing her palm on his chest and smearing some paint that's gathered in the dip of his collarbone, pulling it up and drawing a muddy, colored line up his neck.

"Fun."

Clarke gapes at him. "You said I wasn't! Not even an hour ago, I heard you."

"Well normally you aren't," Bellamy says, "but it's the buttoned-up types like you that you have to watch out for."

"I'm not sure how to feel about that, Bellamy."

"Feel this," Bellamy tells her, and bends down to kiss her neck, "feel good."

Clarke takes the direction to heart, tilting her head back and closing her eyes. But, seriously though - "I'm telling you," she says, as he trails wet little kisses down her throat, "I can be fun. I am a fun person. And not just in bed - like, generally."

"Of course you are," he mutters, and bites her chin.

"I mean, maybe I get a little single-minded sometimes, but so do you, and since when are you the gatekeeper of what's considered fun or not, maybe I like studying Lincoln's herb journals - "

"Clarke," Bellamy says, "I'm going to fuck you now."

"Yeah okay," Clarke says, and hitches her thigh a little higher up on his waist. "I'm still fun though," she adds, which is why Bellamy's laughing as he slides inside her, why she's laughing too, gripping his shoulders and grinning wildly up at the ceiling.

The first thrust is always Clarke's favorite and Bellamy doesn't disappoint, pushing in as far as he can and pausing a little to let her get her breath back. Clarke's laugh turns into a moan, one of those really good ones that come out because you just can't hold them in, and Bellamy curses under his breath, his arms shaking a little where they're braced on either side of her head.

"That's it," he murmurs, pulling out and thrusting back in again, slow and steady. "Clarke - "

"I know, I know," she says, and laughs again. "Faster - you can go faster - "

Bellamy breathes out harshly and presses his face into her cheek for a second, a gesture so oddly sweet that she actually tears up a little. I'm so glad it's him, she thinks, and grips his neck with one hand, scratching at his scalp and getting paint in his hair. I lied before, I'm so glad it's him.

She doesn't know how long it lasts, because she loses herself in it the second he starts to move again, holding her knee in one hand and her hair in the other. Her whole body feels like one long, giant current, and every spot he touches is like a live spark, a jolt of electricity, and of course he was right. Of course she should've known it'd be like this.

At some point, he must kiss her, or maybe she kisses him, or maybe it doesn't matter because who cares who started it when it's so good, when she feels devoured in the best way possible, so small beneath him but so powerful, all at once. Clarke wants it to last forever. She wants to go back in time and yell at herself for not doing this sooner. She wants to do it again and it's not even over yet. She wants.

(Understandable that the concept is a little foreign. Clarke's forgotten what that felt like, too.)

Bellamy makes these noises as they kiss, like rough little grunts deep in his throat that make Clarke shiver, and he says her name over and over as she comes, whispering it into her ear like a secret - Clarke, Clarke, Clarke. Then he's right there behind her, as always, pressing in deep and burying his groan in her neck as she shakes and tries to keep her legs from falling back down to the bed in exhaustion.

Clarke whimpers a little, digging her fingernails into his bicep, the ache in her left thigh getting a little unbearable. Bellamy immediately pulls away, easing her legs back down to the bed and pressing his mouth to her sternum, like an apology.

"No kissing huh," he says, and licks some of the paint off the inside of her right arm. Clarke has the presence of mind to hope that it's digestible and not made of those freaky berries that make your hair grow really fast, because that would be awkward.

"Well, heat of the moment, it doesn't count," Clarke replies, waving her hand dismissively. "Besides, we don't like each other remember? That's what's important."

"Right." Bellamy sits up on his knees briefly, unintentionally presenting her with an impressive display of their handiwork. Whatever designs that paint had at the beginning is just a smeared mess of muddy yellowish-grey now, and Clarke bites her lip a little, looking down at her own torso and seeing the matching stains. "Would you look at this?" He's snagged her dress from where it fell, holding it up gingerly. The skirt has ripped from the bodice, and the whole thing is just a scraggly mess. "Think they'll frame it or something?"

"Oh my God," Clarke says, "I don't even wanna think about it."

Bellamy shakes his head and tosses it down on the floor. "Let 'em go wild," he mutters dryly, and grabs the blankets, pulling them up from where they've bunched together at the foot of the bed. "Over," he says, and jabs at her thigh gently.

Clarke grumbles a bit but moves obligingly to let him collapse back into bed next to her. "God, I'm tired." She opens one eye. "Don't say it."

"Say what," Bellamy says, but his face is smug.

"Ugh," Clarke replies, making a face. He laughs in reply - a genuine one, a rare thing for him that's been unusually frequent tonight - and Clarke maybe feels a bit of smugness of her own.

"C'mon princess," he says, manhandling her under the blankets, tucking her into his side with one long, powerful arm. "Let's get some rest. Long hike back home tomorrow."

It occurs to Clarke that she should maybe feel awkward about their nakedness, but -

"This isn't cuddling," she tells him. "Just co-sleeping."

"Of course," Bellamy replies easily.

"I wouldn't cuddle you if - " she pauses to yawn. "If you were the last man on Earth."

"Yeah, I don't like you either," Bellamy replies agreeably, and strokes her hair.

Clarke sighs in contentment and scoots a little closer. She feels much better now that they've made their positions clear.

Arden wakes them up the next morning with a polite knock and two grounders carrying an incredibly welcome basin of warm water, which Clarke indulges in for maybe a little too long, judging by the exasperated looks Bellamy starts shooting her after the first ten minutes.

"Don't even act like you're not checking me out right now," Clarke tells him, weirdly giddy and comfortable in the intimacies of waking up together, bathing in front of each other, being able to look over and watch him get dressed in the early morning light. "You know you like it."

"I check you out all the time," Bellamy tells her. "I didn't think I'm ever subtle about it."

"Oh, you're not," Clarke says, and cups some water in her hands, letting it splash down over her bare shoulders. "It's nice not to have to pretend not to notice, though."

Bellamy smirks at her, and keeps watching.

The Marach leader - Bran, Arden had said - greets them with a friendly smile once they finally emerge, bowing at them each in turn and chattering away in his rapid, almost-French.

"He says - he's thanking you," Arden says haltingly, trying to listen and translate at the same time. "He says it was a beautiful celebration and he's happy you honored them with your participation, and - something about air? Sky? Who knows - oh!" Arden pauses, listening intently when Bran turns to speak directly to her. "Merci beaucoup. Oui." She turns to smile at them both. "He's eager to be friends. That was the last thing."

Clarke's shoulders relax a little, and she feels Bellamy's do the same, next to her. "Tell him thank you," she says. "Tell him we're the ones who are honored, and…" she trails off, glancing up at Bellamy, a look of bland approval on his face. "And that it was our pleasure."

"And ask what they're gonna do with the dress," Bellamy murmurs, just for her ears, and Clarke bites her lip against the smile.

Arden's translation takes a little longer this time, but Bran's good cheer is palpable, and he seems to be patient with her in a way that he hasn't been yet, all week. Who knew, Clarke thinks wryly, that sex could have such an effect even on somebody who wasn't one of the people having it. Wonders truly never cease.

"They have food for us," Arden says finally, turning back with a grin. "Breakfast in their main greeting hall. Then they're going to send us back to camp with an escort, and the first supply of grain they promised us."

"Great," Clarke says, "I'm starving."

Bran touches Arden's arm politely, nodding encouragingly at all three of them and gesturing at a one of the larger turf buildings, towards the center of the encampment. Arden shoots Clarke one last triumphant grin and scuttles off to follow his lead, leaving Clarke and Bellamy to trail behind in their wake.

"So," Clarke says triumphantly, "this whole diplomacy thing sure is going great."

"Oh, shut up," Bellamy replies, raising his voice over her laugh. "It still could've been the altar. I maintain that was a legitimate concern."

"I don't know, that could've been fun," Clarke replies, just to see his reaction. He doesn't disappoint her there, either. "What, too much for ya? Not into it?"

"You are so annoying when you're in a good mood," Bellamy complains, and she laughs again, happier than she's been in months and not particularly caring if he knows it.

Who cares, anyway. They have grain, and new allies. She's clean, the sun is shining, she had two orgasms last night and there's a smear of paint beneath Bellamy's left ear he'd missed that she's going to really enjoy looking at for the rest of the day. Life is good, for the moment.

"Fine," Bellamy says, "you're fun. I'll admit it, if it means that much to you."

"It kind of does," she admits. Their hands tangle together as they walk, so naturally Clarke almost doesn't notice at first, until she does. She's not about to let go, though. It'd be like giving up. "You really don't know what you've been missing out on all this time, you know."

"Well, I do now," Bellamy says, and tugs her a little closer. "Don't I."

"Nothing you'd like, clearly," Clarke says cheerfully.

"Yeah," Bellamy replies. "You're kind of a turn off, frankly." Clarke grins hard at the side of his face until he smiles, rolling his eyes a little and shaking his head.

Not a big deal at all, she thinks, and squeezes his hand. He squeezes back. It's good to be on the same page.

[grishae]

500 FOLLOWERS.. !?

Once a upon a time… — well, the blog thing started in London, where I lived for four months with @crisegna because of Erasmus and someday I said out loud: “I want to make aesthetics. More of them.” and she told me: “so do it because you can, obviously” (i love you okay). And I started doing then, and what’s more important: sharing them on tumblr. But I took a break and this summer I decided to start making them all over again. I don’t even know how it started precisely, but some of you people are so damn nice and this blog is getting bigger since then!!!! And that gives me strength and a lot of motivation because I can edit for a public and improve myself everyday. Also @monnsoul followed my edits and I followed hers back, when we were mundanes out of sight. Because before being THIS noticed I was a fan (i’m still a fan) of a lot of artists who also follow me back

The thing is that I enjoy editing and someday I’ll try writing (because I already write in spanish but english is international.. okay you get it, maybe i’ll translate most of them). AND ALSO, for thank you all I remind you that I can accept more  make me choose requests ♥

To sum up, I want to write several facts about me because I want to break the ice and idk I think i’ll work.

name’s Silvia, from Spain (Barcelona) and I’m struggling with being bilingual (which means spanish and catalan and now english and french *cries*)

i’m studying translation and interpreting (here comes english and french)

I LOVED LIVING IN LONDON. SUCH A COSMOPOLITAN CITY. The National Gallery and Soho were my fav places.

i’m ginger (not naturally, because i’m dark blonde) and my father so (but he’s naturally redhead and I envy him for that), so they call me ginny and ginger and some beautiful nicknames

i’m 21 but i don’t like like….like a girl of 21s okay

i love dancing but when nobody’s watching

my first literary crush was Jace Herondale (FIRST WAS JACE LIGHTWOOD, HI THERE 15 YEAR OLD SILVIA)

I have two tattoos: one in my shoulder (my brother’s birth date) and a piscis constellation on my ribs. and they didn’t hurt at all

i’m cancer and that means i’m temperamental, susceptible and emotional af, but also implies i’m creative and i have a heart of gold OKAY

my hands are always cold

i like things to be said clear: i hate misunderstandings

i can read book after book. I HATE THE LACK OF BOOKS ON MY HANDS, I FEEL SO LOST

love writing as well.. I participate in several contests but guess what, BAD LUCK

i’ll never stop writing even though it hurts me when i’m blocked 

I’M ALSO A GAMER.  play station (mostly) or pc games

I cosplayed a few characters (including Arrietty from Ghibli, Iris from FFXV and Priscila from The Witcher 3)

my hands are ridiculously small….

i eat like a bird which means: nothing

because I drink so much i can’t help it

pineapple in pizza YES 

not pizza crust are allowed

my actual hollywood crush (and over a year ago) is Sebastian Stan

I wear glasses to read, when i’m in front of a screen.. but i do not really need them (strange thing, so long to explain it)

I strongly believe that four-handed writings are incredibly awesome

when i have an idea on mind i have to write it down immediately, even if i’m already in bed oops

i’m the queen of post-its: every book i read has a post-it 

funko pops are lovable

i express myself through memes

i believe in karma and i’m not catholic 100% but i do feel there’s.. someone

i have an angel

i’m superstitious and i respect tarot

scrapbooking YES

panic at the disco!, halsey, maroon 5, you me at six, against the current are my top bands/singers

fav colors: orange, blue, purple (in that order)

i’m very close to my father, and i think i can’t live without him

i travelled a lot thanks to my mother but i hate flying!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i can’t stand with lazy people and those who break promises

i believe in the power of words???

if i had been a science girl, i would have studied genetics

i mostly read in spanish but i can obviously read in english, it’s just a little fear of not understanding 100% the plot

in classes i leave like 5 minutes earlier before they finish because — don’t ask why

japanese culture freaks me out ♥

I love making phone jokes…. BITCH, NOBODY CAN RESIST MY FICTIONAL CATALAN ACCENT

i hate when people talk to me when i’m with my earphones…. I PREFER LISTENING TO MUSIC AT THAT MOMENT, OKAY?

i also hate when people talk to me when i’m reading because i can’t read with music or voices but on the train/underground it’s licit, yeah

i enjoy a lot going to the cinema!!!!!!!! and also talking a lot in the middle of the film :)

i use to give books to my friends in their birthdays… and they always expect that

i use the ‘gay’ word all the time

my friends and I used to play a game in london - until now: we shout GANSEY BOY when we’re on the street, randomly (or not so randomly)

i loved my latin/greek teacher, the way she explained myths and also grammar and she was very important to me, because she believed in me a lot and helped me with existential crisis (fuck high school)

art history matters to me, a lot, and my teacher was so great too

my town is…. like Henrietta, and i invite you all to come here and visit the woods, best guide ever here *smiles*

i don’t know what to say but thank you very much again ♥♥♥

the girl in the pic it’s me…. hi there, this is ridiculous but I wanted to be a freak, just a little bit…

i don’t know either if i’m missing something, but when i got more followers (mehehehe) i’ll improve this for sure *sends help*

[the-lady-bryan]

Harry Potter/Farscape crossover idea?

still going through my ideas/wips folders. this is in the “wtf meds” folder which means 2 things. 1 - i was fucked up on my meds when i came up with/wrote it. 2 - because of this i don’t know where the fuck the idea was going.

also, i might have already posted this somewhere so if it seems familiar, there’s your reason.

so enjoy.

-----------

Harry had stopped believing in coincidence centuries ago.

It didn't help that he was yanked for a while back and forth through realities - though admittedly that was partly his own fault because he didn't quite anticipate the level of power his magic had risen to after the Battle of Hogwarts and the defeat of Voldemort. When he wished to be anywhere else than dealing with the press and the fans and the fame and oh Merlin damn it Ginny we're not even dating and you and your mother are picking out goddamned wedding china!

But he digresses.

His reality hopping had finally ceased and his magic had FINALLY settled down. It looked like this reality would be his permanent one provided he didn't fuck it all up again. Which he tried - he really tried because holy fucking hell some of this shit he had to deal with was absolutely insane! He'd seen Voldemort the Snake-Face but that did NOT prepare him for meeting the literal psychic bipedal lizards called the Scarans. And he'd rather not meet them again if he could help it.

To survive in this crazy universe he'd had to adapt and unfortunately that meant kill or be killed.

Harry had come to terms with the blood on his hands a long time ago.

Unfortunately it was right before he was picked up by the Peacekeepers - the military arm of a race called the Sebbacians. And that's how he ended up in prison for assassinating some asshole dictator in the middle of nowhere who, unfortunately had Peacekeeper connections roughly eight cycles - years - after the fact. He'd settled down on some other backwater planet that reminded him a lot of Earth. Well, one of the Earths he'd been to at any rate. So what if the people were slightly orange and melted shit when they screamed. He just got better at making up scream-proofing charms on the fly is all. They were called Interons or something of the sort. Didn't matter much to Harry. He'd found a place to settle down and live a quiet life for the first time in three hundred years.

And now he was being transferred from his comfortable cell on some planet to a prison ship. Oh joy of joys.

Another eighty years later....

Harry sat with his muzzle on like a good little prisoner when they came into his cell for the routine torture and supposed interrogations. How did he still look like a child after eighty years? How old was he really? Where did he come from? Who else has he murdered? Who all hired him? The usual really.

They left him alone mostly unless they transferred other prisoners off the ship and he was all that was left.

They'd killed him a few times, but they didn't realize it. He'd healed and awoken too quickly for them to notice.... But someone did. He was sure of it. He just couldn't quite figure out who...

At least until he'd been on the ship for another fifty years. That's when he felt her for the first time poking at the edges of his awareness. She called herself Moya. She was the ship. The Leviathan is what the Peacekeeper guards called her.

Harry looked up from his liquid meal, the straw still stuck in the hole of his muzzle that allowed him to drink and "eat" when he heard the guards outside his door. Curious, he silently aske Moya what was happening as a blue woman was taken past his cell. A new prisoner. A Delvian, Moya had said. Harry was just grateful the new prisoner wasn't another goddamn Hynerian. Horrible little bastards reminded him of horrifying mix of Mundungus Fletcher and Draco Malfoy. Not something he liked to imagine. But at least she should be much more pleasant company than Rygel.

He found he liked the Delvian. Her chanting was very soothing. Moya and her Pilot seemed to like it very much as well.

Harry was woken by the roars of a tenticle faced beast of a man? He thought it was a man at least... when they brought the Luxan on board. With the muzzle on though, he could hardly say anything to anyone other than Moya and Pilot. And that was only because whatever it was they did, it was similar enough to legillimency that he basically said fuck it, why not. Otherwise, he'd have gone crazy long before then.

And then... one day, he woke to sirens and the ship jarring about and oh dear heavens that's laser fire isn't it?

"Don't just sit there! Come on!" Oh it was that horrible muppet thing again. Harry just stared at him in annoyance before the blue woman ran past and it dawned on him... Oh, it's a prison break.

It didn't take long for Harry to subdue a couple of guards. With some of Moya's lovely little robots leading him around he was able to avoid most confrontations and make his way to a safe storage chamber and hunker down until the fighting was over. He quite liked the chamber, and made his opinion known to Moya and her Pilot.

Eventually when things have settled down and they've starburst away Harry is led by some DRDs to where the other escaped prisoners are. They were't really pleased to see a young man wearing a muzzle and holding a pulse rifle judging by the multiple weapons pointed at him.

"who the hell are you?!" "He was here before anyone else." "ship's manifest doesn't even have him listed." "That muzzle can't be comfortable. Here, allow me..." "Are you mad! You take that off him and he'll kill us all!"

The muzzle is taken off and the first thing Harry says for a couple of centuries is, "You, the blue one. Oh I have so much enjoyed your chanting. It helped soothe Moya and her pilot for a time. I don't... I don't quite know what had them so agitated for a while but it certainly did help them. And myself as well. I look forward to hearing more of that lovely chanting. Now can I get a decent cuppa tea? Perhaps a food packet? I'll take anything solid. I've been living on liquid nutrients for around a hundred and fifty years and I can tell you it's not a pleasant way to eat."

"You're speaking English. That's English! My translator microbes things not translating you! That is the god damn Queen's English!"

"Of course I'm speaking bloody English! I'm from bloody England you fucking yank!"

"you said fuck! Not.... You have no idea how good it is to see another human!"

"I can assume you're from Earth, Mr..."

"Crihton. John Crihton. Astronaut."

"Harry Potter. Wiz-"

"The Master of Death!" - The Hynerian.

"Well I was going to say Wizard but I suppose that works just as well."

"Peacekeeper legends claim you can kill a man with just two words. Is that true?"

"Yes. With the proper motivation at least. But I.... I turned from my calling a long time ago. I'm not exactly a man of peace or pacifism, but I just wanted to settle down and have a quiet life after all my travels and adventures."

"Wait a minute..... A wizard. Named Harry Potter. You've got to be kidding me! Next you'll be telling me you ride around chasing a little flying ball on a broomstick."

"you know about Quidditch? Tell me, Mr. Critchton, are there any wizards or witches on Earth still? What year even is this by your calendar?"

"Dear god he honestly thinks he's a wizard..."

"what did I say?"

Then a few days later, after Harry's saved Criton's life, the man finds him sitting and staring out a porthole, floating a cup in front of him with just a wiggle of his fingers with a fond smile on his face. "There's these... books. Kids books, back on Earth. My friends kid was obsessed with 'em. Got on the pre-order list at the bookstore near the base so he could get the third book the day it comes out for her birthday." "Why are you telling me this, Mr. Critchon?" "The first book is called Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone. The second one that came out last year was called Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets." And at this, Harry closes his eyes and sighs. "And what was the third book to be called? Did you know?" "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Did you really kill a giant fucking snake with just a hat, a bird, and a sword?" "If I told you yes?" "What kind of world do you come from where twelve year olds are expected to know how to fight a giant fucking snake?" "It was over sixty feet long. Built like a brick shithouse. And for some reason facing off against that with a magic bird, magic hat, and a magic sword was... according to my senile headmaster, a good way to build character."

This starts a sort of ritual between the two not-the-same-earth-lings. Critchon knows all about the first two books because his friend's kid is fucking obsessed with them and so Harry gives him a first person "this is how shit went down" and "this is honestly what i was thinking at the time" and "yes, with my bare hands, i murdered a man at eleven and nobody thought to send me to a fucking therapist. It was all "here's some bloody candy, Harry. Don't ask questions. Also here's house points in return for killing a man at the tender age of 11." That should have been our first clue that Albus too many fucking names Dumbledore was crazier than goddamn Voldemort ever thought of being."

And when Critchon is captured and tortured with the aurora chair, Harry's there for him in equal measure as Zhaan. And he never asks him about it, but he's just like "Bro. I got your back. You ever need to scream at someone about it, you come to me. We can compare scary pale faced black wearning nightmare men any time." And when Harry finds out that his new best bro has a clone of Scorpius in his head, he starts teaching him occlumency techniques because he's like "even without magic, this shit is damn helpful. Oh, and if you ever find yourself kind-of posessed by the bastard - hey, don't look at me like that John I don't make the rules. This shit just happens when you've got someone else living in your head. Trust me. Remember what I told you about that fucking scar of mine? Right. So listen. You ever get posessed, you want me to, uh, off you? I mean, I don't want to. But I will if I have to. Sometimes if you die for a bit, it helps reset shit." "I'm not immortal harry! I can't just reset my brain like some fucking wizard!" "There! That anger! Hang onto that. Trust me. It'll help if you ever get posessed."

And of fucking course when he's posessed by Scorpius Harry's like "I know that's you, you fucking asshole. Let go of my best bro or I will fucking gut you like a fish." "no you won't. You kill me, your kill John." "that's right and i already had this conversation with him. I'm sure you were there for it, too. You've got 24 arns or the real you is going to get a rather nasty visitor after I forcibly rip that chip out of Johnny's head and fry your ass so nobody gets to have the wormhole tech in there. You understand me, lizard breath?"