#so i was like “golly gee i hope she doesn’t die

[eggowaffless]

iloveheriloveheriloveher

Bianca DiAngelo moment

[ghostmartyr]

How do you feel about people still calling Mikasa bland or undeveloped? Do you think her hate is unwarranted especially because some people think how she treated Louise is somehow the worse thing in the manga?

It might just be the mood I’m in, but

Do you think her hate is unwarranted

Anon, there were giggles. Actual giggles. I hope you’re pleased with yourself.

Mikasa is one of my favorite characters, and the majority of the hate aimed at her has never struck me as something in thorough need of acknowledgment. Except maybe to note that golly gee, there sure is a lot of it, however could that possibly be. Other interesting topics include how passionately against Annie many people were while extending heartfelt sympathy towards Reiner and Bertolt’s tragedy.

I don’t really want to talk about sexism, because I am tired, but the degree and style of hate Mikasa gets is pretty impossible to separate from sexist fandom tendencies, so ‘unwarranted’ is a polite way of putting it.

Even for people who neutrally despise her simply because for them, she’s That One Character, fandom environment is such that if you call a female character a bitch, people are going to agree with you. The amount of energy you’ve put into explaining that feeling is not a factor.

People are jerks about Mikasa, basically. It is a thing. It is not a thing I am eager to engage with, but it is absolutely a thing.

There are also genuine details that frustrate people about Mikasa. People are annoyed that she seems to skate through the plot without meaningful development (debatable), especially compared to male members of the cast (scalding), or that she cares too much about Eren to count as a truly dynamic character, or her treatment of Louise, or that her link to Hizuru is glossed over, or how criminally low her speech bubble count is in Uprising --

I love Mikasa. I’ve also never really been bothered by the things that regularly infuriate other people who adore her. I would love to have an entire volume devoted solely to her viewpoint, and obviously she deserves it, but I’m okay with how the plot utilizes her.

‘Undeveloped,’ remains rather unfair. Mikasa is straightforward and easy to understand. She’s lost her family. She doesn’t want to lose it again. She is a ruthless protector.

As the story progresses, there are few fights Mikasa comes across that she can’t brute force her way through. Her conflicts aren’t philosophical ones like Armin’s. Her entire presence in the manga is arguably defined by her inability to be there for the one person she wants to care for.

Eren resents her, and she knows it. They’re family, but she has the skill and power he’s hungry for. She’s the good example his mother holds up to him.

Then she fails him. Eren is taken, multiple times. None of her strength helps. Back in Trost, she can’t even help Eren with his new ability. Armin is the one who reaches Eren.

There’s an impossible distance between her and her family, and it’s excruciating. That is her core plot-mandated challenge. That is what we’re fully exploring right now, and the resolution is likely going to greatly impact the finale.

In the meantime, what she learns is to be patient. To listen to more experienced parties. To survive even when it feels like her entire world is gone. To sympathize with people she actively hates.

Mikasa’s heart has more to it than just Eren -- just her family -- and coming to grips with that has been a long process. So long it’s tempting to call it subtext, but it’s not. It’s just a very slow burn. Mikasa cares about people. She cares very, very deeply. She is fine with murder to do away with a threat to her family, but she also will immediately stop when someone she claims to have no room for asks her to. She loves Armin enough that she would like to kill Levi to guarantee his shot at the serum, but she knows what world that will create, and she can’t make herself be its beginning.

It is hard for her. It is a struggle. It’s quiet, but it’s not that difficult to see. Her relationship with Kiyomi and Hizuru hasn’t gotten many pages, but it’s used to efficiently illustrate that Mikasa’s home extends past Eren and Armin. Paradis is her home, and whether she ‘counts’ as Eldian or not, they’re her people, and she’ll fight and die for them.

Louise fits into Mikasa’s life as someone who takes away the wrong lessons. She sees strength. That is what she admires so deeply in Mikasa. What she misses is the driving, compassionate force behind it. Mikasa isn’t receptive to Louise’s admiration of a victorious, bloodstained fighter. She, and the world, are beyond that. Louise can’t see who her hero is, so the distance between them will never be bridged.

And in the final arc, where Mikasa is forced to consider that that’s what she’s done to Eren, warm feelings aren’t going to be her first thought regarding Louise.

People can have whatever takes they want. My feeling is Mikasa’s a great character, and that greatness is built on the page.

Thank ye for the ask.

[softlighter]

so the magicians finale has totally fucked me up like I have a looong list of questions and concerns

1. IS JULIA STILL A GODDESS BECAUSE MY LADY OF THE TREE DESERVES IT/ CAN SHE REGAIN HER LOST POWERS???

2. So Penny40.  He’s still alive/dead.  Was his memory wiped?  What’s the deal with him in the Underworld and Hades?  Hell, question 2B is WHAT IS UP WITH HADES???  First he convinces Penny to stay in the Underworld, then he gives Reynard the god-killing bullet… dude has got some ulterior motives.

3. Related, gods in general, can we like see more of them??  I want to know more about them and see how they’re gonna react to this shit show, which, it’s been not even a half hour yet, is still too raw.

4. Julia and Q have no memory of each other.  They are totally blank slate, like this is hurting.  Will they get their memories back?  Will the characters stay rebooted?  I DON’T KNOW AND I DON’T WANNA KNOW (for another few hours okay, come back to me and I’ll be begging).

5. What’s the name of the thing that’s possessing Eliot?  Does it have a name?  Or is it the whole “fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself” sort of thing except WE DON’T EVEN HAVE A NAME AND I AM DEEPLY AFRAID.  God Hale is gonna slay this role but wow I am not ready for this.

6. How did Dean Fogg get involved with the library?  What was their prior deal?  Can Irene die already?

7. WHO IS THE NEW FAERY (faerie?  Fairy?  Fairie??? I DON’T KNOW) QUEEN?  KING?  SOVEREIGN?  Gosh I hope they’re okay and can like help out their old pal Julia… you know… the one that helped ended their slavery… golly gee wouldn’t that be nice…. if they somehow got the gang back together… just some thoughts…

8. Is Marina23 gonna come back into play in season four and help right all this shit because she’s still in Universe 40… she now has magic… I don’t think Fogg or the library knows she’s back but at the same time that also means she doesn’t have magic.  I just really hope we see Kacey Rohl again okay, I love her and if she helps the gang, even better.

9. Did anyone else get vibes from season one, when Q was trapped in his mind and he was playing that game with that dude from Fillory with the creepy eyes and the chess board?  When Julia like cursed him and Marina got her memories back?  I got some of those kind of vibes, could just be coincidence but I’m majorly scared.  Also what does playing consist of like is it fighting is it serving is it hide and go seek like what’s up with that?  Because the monster was entertained for thousands of years so we might get a small reprieve.  Maybe.  Listen, I’m trying to be optimistic.

10. Speaking of Penny40 again, how much does he know about all this?  What was his part with the siphon and the mind wiping and all that stuff?  Is he regretting staying with the Library?  Is HE gonna break Alice out and they’re gonna go try and rescue everyone?  I mean if we get to see two Pennys in one place… I don’t think anyone would be upset.

11. This kind of ticks me off but like how the hell was there enough magic in that fairy crack for Alice to destroy keys made from a GOD?  Like I’m pretty sure that fairy crack is powerful but not more powerful than a full fledged god, but apparently it is?  Idk it just kind of others me and then like she either had enough crack leftover OR enough juice leftover to plan to wipe her memory but that’s just bothering me a wee bit.

12. How the hell am I gonna survive until season four??? 

[redhead-33]

Yoonmin fanfic idea: cliche I love the bad boy Yoongi and soft boy Jimin perhaps a little too much **mentioning of parental physical abuse** Yoongi is the stereotypical bad boy or so everyone thinks. Everyone, even his friends Namjoon and Hoseok think that Yoongi is the biggest punk in the school. He is two years older then everyone in his grade so what exactly do you expect? It doesn't help that he rides a motorcycle, wears a leather jacket, and there are even rumors that he smokes! Of course Park Jimin tries to stay exactly 17389 miles away from him at all times. The Junior already has enough to worry about with pretty much the rest of the school bullying him, he'd rather not have the schools toughest guy pounding his face in as well. But one fateful day at the nurses office brings the two together in ways they never expected. Jimin was there trying to get his nose to stop bleeding when Yoongi walked in with a black eye. The nurse sighed when she saw him and asked what his father had gotten mad about this time. Yoongi smirked at the nurse, a woman everyone knows is his aunt, and told her that its because he didn't make a 33 or higher on the ACT. Jimin had never seen a woman so angry in his life. The nurse got up and put her hands on her hips, her tone was more then fed up, "That man. How dare he! You had a 32 dammit. You've already been accepted and given full scholarships to what? 6 schools? Good ones at that! If your father thinks he can do better you should tell him to come see me because I might just need to give him a mental exam!" Yoongi let out a small chuckle, "calm down Aunt K. I know it seems frustrating but it's ok. Once I leave it'll be fine. I just hope he doesn't get any stupid ideas again." The nurse threw her hands in the air, "Yeah! Like uprooting his whole family from Korea without any notice and moving to America and making his son take kindergarten twice because he had no English teaching before school. Or maybe like moving again once the same child was in 8th grade and already had fantastic friends where he was just because he heard the weather was better in North East!" Jimin of course wasn't sure if he was supposed to be hearing all if this so he tried to sneak out of the nurses office but sadly hit his hip on the edge of a table and was compromised. The two heads simultaneously snapped to jimin st the same time, one gaze a lot kinder then the other. Jimin awkwardly smiled and forcibly laughed, "sorry, I'll be going now, I think my nose stopped bleeding. Thanks for the bandaids Nurse K." The woman nodded, her smile was kind, "I'm sorry we ran out of the regular ones. I just had those I'm my purse and it's my emergency stash for my daughter. I hope it's ok that they are pink and blue." Jimin shook his head, "it's ok, really. I like the colors. They're my favorite actually. You could probably tell, ya know, my hair and all." The woman let out a small laugh, "I guess so. But Jimin, are you sure you dont want to tell the principal this time?" Jimin nodded yes. "Why not sweetie? If you tell the principal who is doing this they could get suspended or something. You don't have to endure this bullying." Jimin sighs, "What happens when they come back from suspension? They just say 'Oh golly gee I realized what I've done wrong sorry ol jimin pal!' No, they'll kill me. I'd rather be bleeding then dead." The woman sighs back, "Ok. Just, try not to get hurt anymore ok. I'm running low on supplies." Jimin nods his head before leaving. Right before he exits the main office to go to class there's a hand on his arm and Jimin curls in on himself, ready to be hit. But it never comes, instead a deep, slightly gravelly voice fills his ears, "Don't tell anyone." Jimin opens his eyes and looks up to see Yoongi, looking quite anxious at that. "Don't tell anyone what?" Yoongi rolled his eyes, "what you heard in there. Don't tell them about the schools or the score and dont you fucking say a word about my dad. Jimin nods, "I want planning on it." He started to leave but Yoongi's grip stayed firm. He looked back at the boy and Yoongi was giving him a confused look, "What?" "Why do you let them do it?" Jimin furrows his eyebrows, "Who do what?" Yoongi mutters a swear under his breath, "Why do you let those shit heads hurt you? I've seen you dance when I'm passing by the dance class, you have muscle even if your cute oversized sweaters cover it. You could take them but instead you let them hurt you because what? You're gay? Why dont you fight back?" Jimin almost laughs, "I'm not much if a fighter. Even if I could've take them I wouldn't want to. Small, ignorant minds talk with their fists." Yoongi scoffs, "Well I don't find it too smart to allow yourself to get beat up every day. It's not stupid to fight back, it's self defense, it's bravery." Jimin shakes his head, "Your bravery is nothing but a mask to hide your emotions. My bravery is coming to school every day even when I know what awaits me. I'm not going to stoop to their level. They only hurt me because they are afraid of me." Yoongi cocks an eyebrow, "Why do you say that?" Jimin smirks, "Let's face it, I'm hotter then half of the girl population at this school and almost all if the boys. I scare them because I threaten their idea of masculinity and make them question their idea of sex." That was when Yoongi knew he wanted Jimin. There was something about the way the boy had said those words that left Yoongi stunned. Jimin shook Yoongi hand off and left. That was also the day Yoongu decided to beat the living shit out of anyone who hurt Jimin. A few months pass and Jimin doesn't get beat up quite as often and he is starting to get suspicious. He doesn't get why its stopping but then it all goes to hell as he's walking home one day. Three boys jump him and start to beat him up. Jimin doesnt really know what happened at first but all of the sudden he's on the ground and his favorite sweater has holes in it while one of the guys from the football team kicks him repeatedly in the side. As he comes to terms that this is where he'll die Jimin shuts his eyes and tries to curl into himself as the three continue to kick and punch him. But then it stops and Jimin hears a few grunts and then shoes running on the pavement and then there's a hand on his cheek, gentle and warm. Jimin slowly opens his eyes and sees the face of Min Yoongi. His lip is busted but aside from that he looks unscathed. The boy looked at Jimin in concern as he tried to sit up but doubled over in pain. Yoongi helped him sit up and then spoke, "What happened? I swear to god I'm gonna kill those bastards, I tell them that if they ever hurt you at school again I'll kill them and then they go and wait for you outside of school. I'm gonna destroy them." Most of what Yoongi was saying was rambling and if Jimin were honest he barely understood because he kept looking at the olders bottom lip where blood was coming from that was covering his chin. Jimin brought his hand up and brushed Yoongi's lips, effectively shutting him up, "You're bleeding. " "Jesus fucking christ Jimin. Who cares about my lip when you are bleeding and bruised-" Jimin pouted, "Me. I do." They sit there for a few seconds just looking at each other, realizing what Jimin Just said. Yoongi broke the gaze off when he felt his cheeks start to turn red and moved to take his jacket off, "Here, put this on. Your shirt is ripped pretty badly." Jimin looked at the jacket in awe, "I didnt know you could take it off. I've never seen you without it on. This is so weird!" "Oh for god's sake just put the damn thing on." Jimin struggled at first but was finally able to put it on. The two spoke just a bit longer before Jimin agreed to go with Yoongi to his house, Yoongi only offered because his father wasn't home. It was there that the two great closer. Jimin found out that Yoongi actually didnt smome but had only tried it out once in the ninth grade and never did it again because of all the coughing he did afterwards. People only assumed he got addicted after that. Jimin also found out that Yoongi was really into music and that he didnt want ti fo ti some ivy league school for college but actually wanted to peruse music. Yoongi found out that Jimin is planning on going to a preforming arts college after high school and that he had been dancing ever since he was three years old. He also found out that jimin is heavily inspired by love poems and short stories and he loves to write in his spare time. That night the two boys fell in love and nothing else in the world mattered to them in that moment. Not bullies or strict abusive fathers. Not grades or sexuality. Only love.

[silver-the-cat]

Jack in Wonderland - Part 9 of Still going strong!

((Yay! Another part! I’m pretty sure I haven’t mentioned this yet, but I do have a friend (not on Tumblr) with whom I do show the parts to before I post it. Well, I showed this part to her and her feedback has been great so far. So shoutout to her even tho she isn’t on this website! I just wanted to mention this because I got the right kind of feedback I was looking for from here.

Anywho! Enough with my rambles. Hope you all enjoy!))

“I noticed you dropped this and….well, I wanted to make sure you got it back.”

Words had an incredible effect. It was so strange that after hearing a certain string of words together, you could believe something for so long. And that you could be surprised when someone says something that suddenly contradicts what you’ve been led to believe.

“I wanted to make sure you got it back.”

Jackson had been pacing ever since he had gotten back to the castle, pondering that one sentence the whole trip back. It was a genuine feeling. That man only wanted to help, and Jackson could certainly understand that in his words. 

Truth was, he wasn’t exactly sure how he should’ve felt.

The King of Red Hearts wasn’t exactly the nicest and Bing was...well, extremely distant to put it bluntly. The people in the kingdom didn’t even talk much, instead going about their business as if in a daze. Sure there was the Mad Trickster, but Jackson always got the impression he never liked him much. So you could only imagine how it felt to suddenly have some complete stranger be so kind after nearly everyone he knew was rather cold.

“White Rabbit.” Jackson nearly jumped a few feet into the air, spinning around to see a guard behind him.

“G-Golly, you scared me for a s-second there, lad!” Jackson sighed, making a quick recovery. “E...Er….did you n-need something?”

“His majesty has requested your presence. He wants you in the throne and to be prepared to write down a message.” The guard said flatly. “And he wants you there in….about 15 minutes time.” It was times like this Jackson really wished the Mad Trickster didn’t destroy his watch.

“Of course, I’ll be down there post-haste!” He replied, trying his hardest at a chipper smile. The guard merely nodded and walked away, leaving the messenger alone once again. He took a quick minute to compose himself, before he began rushing off towards the throne room (of course, after briefly considering whether or not if it would be faster to transform into a rabbit first).

Everything would be fine, he told himself, it was just a message, how bad could it possibly even be?

“Send a m̨e̕s̡s̶a͝gé to to ̧a̸ll ̛of th̕e ͡kingdom̴. Every village and every ho͘m̸e̵.”

“Y-Yes. O-Of course sire.”

“Tell them th̸at a c͜r̵i̡m̵͝įǹ̵͡a͢ļ has been caught. And his e͞x͢e͢͠c̨͝ut̨̕i̛o͘n will be in few̢ ͞hour̶s͏ in͏ t̕he̸ capital’s main square.”

“‘execution…..main square….’....u-understood, sire. D-Do you want me to m-mention the criminal b-by name or by c-crime?”

“Hm̸m...go with bo̢t͏h̵.”

“O-Of course. Er….w-what is the criminal’s name and crime?”

“You’ll know hi̴m ẁe̶l̸l͢ ͏en͝o҉ug͘h. Put the name down as J̡͜a͜c̢͜k͞ and his crime as--”

“J-Jumping Jehoshaphat! I-Is he the same Jack from before?”

“W̢͢͞͝H̴́O̡̨͜ ́͜D̢A̸̛͏̕R̕ĘD̷͟͡ ̷̢̀͞͠G̀҉̀͟I͠҉V̷́͜͠E͘̕͟͟͢ ̸̶͞Y͏̵O̴U҉͏̸̧҉ ̷̵̧P̴͞͞Ę͏̶͜͞R͏̡M҉͟I͟͟͜S̵̛̕͢S̸̢̀͟͞Į̶̢̨͟Ǫ͏Ņ̵҉͟ ̧̛͢͡T̴̡͡͏͞O͡͠ ̛͘͝I̛͘҉̕͜N̨̛͟͢T͝͠҉́Ę̵̕͏̶Ŕ̢͝U̴̢͘P̷̢͜T̶̸͏ ҉̵̨́́M͏̴̛̀E̴͡͠?̨́͡!̶̵͟͞�� Jackson yelped, nearly dropping his notepad as the King slammed his hands on his throne and stood. Everyone in the kingdom knew that angering Anti usually meant a death sentence, most often on the spot beheadment.

“T-Terribly sorry--I-I didn’t mean to I just--T-The name sounded so familiar and--I never meant to, I swear, your Highness!” Jackson stuttered, just a hair away from dropping onto his knees and begging for mercy. Anti merely looked down upon him, almost savoring his absolute terror before he sat back down.

“Tch. I’ll allow you to l͝i͟v̶̷͢e͝ ͘f̵͢o͘r̴ ̴́ǹ͞o̷w. You’re my fastest p̨͝up̶͡p͢͟e̶t̡͟͝ á̛͡n̶ỳ̨w҉͡a̷y̸͢s̸͡, ҉s͟o ͢ìt͝͡'̴̢̧d̵ be a shame if you….” He grinned, trailing off although Jackson very much understood the implications behind it. “But to answer your ŕ͢͜u̢͘͝d̷e̛̛͡ ̨q͜u̕ęs̶t҉҉i̴̶o̡̢n̨. Yes. It is the same J͜a̵͏̢c̛͘k I had you lure here. Excellent observation. Í ̴͟s̡̢̀u҉p̵͠po͢se ̸̧y͡o͝͡u̵ ̨͘͞a͞r͞e͠n't̨̕ ̵à͞ ̵w̷̨͜or͠t̕͢h͟͡l͟e̕s͟ś ͞҉me̸͏ş̷s̨͝e̵̡̛n͟͞g͘͞e̢̢͢r̨ ͞af̸͘t͏̧e̕r͢҉ ̧̡al̛ļ̶́.”

“Er….thank you, sire….” Jackson said, rubbing the back of his head. “B-But….if I may ask….w-why is he being executed? E-Especially after all that effort of bringing him here?”

“I don’t c̀͏a̢̡r͏e̸̛ if he’s alive or d̀҉̀e͞a̛ḑ̨ at this rate. A̴̡͞ p͜҉u҉̀p̧͞p̨͜è̕t̴͡ c̴ļ͟o͘͟s͡e͜ ̶̢̡t̴̛ơ͠҉ that prick king would’ve been ņ͡i̸̢ç̴e͝, but my plan can still w̢҉o̷͏ŕ̛ḱ ̛i̡f̶́́ ̵̵h͘͝é͜'̵̀s̢ ́͜͝ḑ͏e̵͝ad͜.” Anti said, rather casually as well. He even began toying with the strange hand of cards he always seemed to have, running a finger along the top of each of them. “W͜h̨et̴͢he̡͘͟r̵̡ ͢o̵̵͜r̛ ͏͠n̸o̢t͏͏̵ ҉͟h̸́͠ę'̧̛s̵̨͟ ͏̢d́̕͞ę͝a̧͝d,̨̕ ҉͘I҉̡ s̷t͏̧í͜l̴̢l͏ ͝w̵̴iǹ̡.̀͘ Doesn’t matter t̵̀o̴͡ m̧͞e ̢̨͘a̵̢t̨͏ ͜͝a̡͡l͏͜l.”

“I…..see…” Was all Jackson had to say in response. There was quite a bit if silence between them, before Anti gave a huff, glaring up at his messenger.

“Well? I̛͢ ́̀g̶͞͞a҉͟ve͜͡ y҉o͏u̴ t͏̸͢h͠͏e͞ ͘͏d͢a͟m̨̕m͏̡ ̧m͘e͠s̢̀s̴̷a̕͟g̀͢e̢͠,̷̴ ͜w͟h̶͢y haven’t you left yet?!” He growled, nearly making Jackson drop his notepad. “G͘̕e̵̡͜͠͏t̴ ̵̨͝͠͡o̵̢ừ̸҉t̢̕҉ ̷̡́͢o̷̧͝͡͏f̧̛̀͢͏ ̶̢̀͟m͝ý҉̶̛͝ ̷̕s̵̕͏i̢͟͞ģ̷h̢̡͡͠t̴͝!̷” In a small, sudden puff of smoke, the messenger transformed himself into a rabbit and, after catching his notepad in his mouth, quickly raced out the doors.

Once he was absolutely sure he was out of sight, however, he ducked behind one of the castle’s corners and transformed back into a human. Whilst hidden, he took just a few moments to lean against the wall and think. Think about everything he had just been told.

An execution today. That wasn’t unusual for Anti, but he never made a big show out of it ever. Normally, he even executed people on the spot. Then what made this one so special? Was it the fact that he would be executing Jack? That again made him wonder why bother sending Jackson out to lure Jack to the castle if all that was going to happen was Anti was simply going to kill him.

“I wanted to make sure you got this back.”

Jackson felt his hands curl up into fists. Despite the fact that since the very beginning, Jackson had been working to lead Jack straight to his doom, especially when (or at least, Jackson thought) it seemed obvious that he was just leading him off of the path. Despite all of that, Jack had never once given up on that one quest to give back the pin. It felt like it had been the first in a very long time that someone had been that genuinely kind to him (he very much knew there had been other times, but the memory of it had long since vanished). And now, he could very well just blame himself for what had happened. Because of him, Jack could very well lose his life in a few hours.

Jackson took a deep breath, before he checked the area around him. He couldn’t believe he was actually about to even consider this, let alone even try it. But at this rate, Jackson seriously doubted he’d be able to live with himself.

“Gee….I am so going to regret this later on, aren’t I?” He muttered, before transforming into a rabbit once more. He only had a few hours before the execution. If he played every single one of his cards right, he might just be able to pull this crazy thing off. Of course, given he didn’t get caught during it.

He absolutely had to repay the favor, no matter the cost

Jack felt like punching the wall. He���d been angrily pacing ever since the guards threw him in the cell and his back finally stopped aching. He was mostly angry with himself, given the fact that it had taken him far too long to realize it was the glitchy demon himself. How on earth could he have not remembered Anti? Given what role Anti had played in his own life so far (which was all Jack could remember at the current moment), it should’ve been downright impossible.

And then there was just the current situation he found himself in as well. Awaiting his own death in a dark, wet dungeon. How the hell was he even supposed to get home now? Was he just supposed to die now?

“God, how and why did I somehow get into this situation?” He asked himself, stopping in front of one of the walls and somehow resisting the urge to slam his forehead on it. “Maybe if I just bash my head against this wall for long enough, this whole damn thing will just turn out to be a dream and I’ll be able to escape from this hellhole….”

“Jeepers, doesn’t sound like the best way out of here that I’ve heard.” A voice, coming from the other side of the room, suddenly said, nearly scaring Jack out of his skin. There was a tiny, 3 or 4 inch high window at the top of the wall, near the ceiling. There were bars covering it, but they weren’t exactly too far apart. The best part as well was that it led directly outside, somewhere near a huge part of the rose gardens.

And Jackson was peering right through the bars, head tilted ever so slightly.

“L-Listen! Before you go saying anything or asking any kind of questions, just be quiet for a few moments!” He quickly said, as Jack opened his mouth as if to say something. “I know that I….I technically brought you here. I didn’t ask you to follow me or nothing, after all. B-But! I want to make things right again! So….I’m...I’m breaking you out!”

“You’re….breaking me out?” Jack asked, rather confused. “Hang on, you said you were some kind of royal messenger back at the gate, right? Why on earth would you even think about helping me out of here?”

“Because….Golly, I really should’ve known better.” Jackson said, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “I was truly just following orders, honest. Only just now got the news that his highness threw you into prison and I felt even worse about this whole deal. So, I decided I should try and help! I wanna repay the kind act you did for me, I suppose!” The White Rabbit suddenly glanced around him, as if he had heard something. “A-Alright….here’s what I’m gonna do. I’ll transform into a rabbit and climb into your cell. Then I’ll wiggle my way through those bars there and find the keys. I unlock the door, we get out of the castle, and preferably both our stories end on a jolly note!”

“Since it’s either this or certain death, I’ll gladly take this.” Jack huffed, before nodding and giving what he hoped was an encouraging grin. “Alright, guess I’m trusting you with this, Jackson. Good luck and try not to get hurt out there, okay?” Jackson’s whole face immediately lit up as he disappeared in a puff of smoke, replaced by the same snow-white rabbit Jack had seen earlier.

It was relatively easy for Jackson to slip right through the window’s bars, although it did take a few moments for him to wiggle through the cell’s bars. However, as soon as he made it through, he hopped off as quickly as he could, turning a nearby corner and disappearing from view. Another few minutes passed by, where Jack even stood at the bars peering out just to see if he could get a glimpse of the rabbit. There was a very faint clatter and poof sort of sound before Jackson ran around the corner once more, in his human form this time.

From there it was as simple as Jackson unlocking the door and the two quietly running to the exit to the dungeons. Jackson instantly took the lead from there, using his own memory of the castle to figure out where exactly they needed to go. His enhanced hearing (which was almost definitely thanks to his rabbit ears) also helped out a lot as well, giving them ample time to duck into some hiding spot before a guard rounded the corner.

“Er….Jackson? Would ya mind me asking something?” Jack eventually asked as a guard finally left, leaving the two to slowly emerge out from behind a suit of armor.

“Go ahead lad!” The messenger said. “And just call me Jameson, no need to be formal!”

“Right….right….” Jack said as they began moving out once more. “Er…..Would you know what exactly Anti wants with me? And, other than killing someone, why he basically turned me into a criminal?” Jameson was quiet for a few minutes, as if he was pondering the question. It was only after another close call with a guard did he finally answer.

“Well, he’s after power truly.” He replied. “He wants to bring the Red Hearts and White Hearts together, and I suppose the only way he could do that would be to kill King Schneeplestein. Not too sure where you would fit into this, but I do remember him getting in a pickle due to you being found by Schneeplestein. Saying something about how he dragged you here all for nothing.” Part of Jack shouldn’t have been surprised, it truly was Anti they were dealing with here. What he couldn't wrap his head around was why him specifically? Why couldn’t Anti simply send someone like Jameson out to do it, given that Jameson would’ve done it out of loyalty. It didn’t exactly make sense to choose Jack of all people.

“Look alive, son! We’re nearly there!” Jameson suddenly said, even giving Jack a small nudge to stir him out of thought. “We’ve just got the throne left. Then it’s just a hop, skip, and a jump through the gardens! We’ll be out of here in no time at this rate!”

“Shouldn’t we be at least careful? There should be tons of guards swarming around the throne room, right?” Jack asked, only to no avail as Jameson ran ahead and peered around a corner. As soon as Jack even caught up, he had already given the go ahead signal and raced off. Jack eventually found him right by a giant red door, his ears twitched and he was even bouncing rather nervously from one foot to the other.

Once Jameson finally gave him to go ahead yet again, he pushed the huge door open as quietly as he could.

Thankfully, there was no one in the giant hall, much to their own relief. However, the observation made Jack feel just a bit uneasy. Shouldn’t Anti have been in the room? There really shouldn’t be anywhere else for him to go.

Jameson, on the other hand, didn’t seem to notice. He instead grabbed Jack’s arm and began rushing towards the exit, nearly dragging Jack off his feet (which would’ve made his grand total to two times in one day, a new personal record if it had happened). However, halfway down, Jack wrenched his arm free and stopped dead, glancing behind them.

“Lad? Something wrong?” Jameson asked, skidding to a halt as well and looking back to him with a rather confused expression. “C’mon, we’re not far, can’t dawdle too long either or we’ll get caught. Time is very, very precious right now.”

“I know. I know. It’s just….” Jack said, eyes scanning every single part of the room. “I seriously can’t be the only one who feels like something around here seems really….off, right?” Jameson raised an eyebrow, before he too took a glance around. Almost instantly, he seemed to freeze up in what could loosely be described as pure and utter terror.

“J-J-J-Jack….w-w-we need t-to run….” He stammered, slowly backing away. Jack turned to ask what was wrong, when he felt it as well. A cold, creeping feeling of horror crawling up the back of his neck, which quickly spread all throughout his body.

“Very much agreed, let’s go now!” Jack nodded, backing away before he broke into a sprint. Jameson did the same, reaching the door far faster than Jack. However, when he pulled on the handle, it wouldn’t budge an inch. They were completely locked in.

“Ţ̸̨h͘o҉u̸͜͝g̵̨͟h̷t̷́ ̀͡yo͡u͢͜ ͢c̛͢ǫ́͜u̕l̶҉́d̵͢ ͝g̷̀et͠ ̕҉́a̧̛wą̵͝y ̶n̷͡ò͘ẁ̷, ͏͞d͡i͟ḑ̷ yǫ͞u̶͘?͏̢̡” A cold voice said behind them. Anti stood where Jack was not too long ago, arms crossed with the silver blade of what looked like a dagger or a knife clutched in one hand. And he looked far from pleased. “Y̵o҉u̷͜ ͜a͢l̸wa͘y̷͡ş ͡wé̀͝r̡͏e̵͟ ̨̧̕s̸u̡͞ch̨ a͢ǹ̡͡ ̛éa̛s̢͠͡y̸ ơn̸͝͠e̶͢ ̧to͘͘͢ ͞͝r̷̢ȩ҉͏a̵͞d̢҉,̀ r͏ąb͢b̢͏̧i͜͢t̵. ̕͟͢Aǹd ͞yò̡u̢͡͞'̸͏v̵e p̷ŗ͠o̕̕v́͟e͞n̨͡ ҉͜f̴͡͞ar̶͡ ̵̴͝m̕ơ͡r͏͘é̵ ̛͡u҉̨͝se̡f͘u͏͢l͠͞͞ ̵̢t̢͜han̢ ҉̶I ̧͡ẁou̕l̨̛͝d̴'̷̛͢v͜e̶̸ ͟͡͡e̡͝x̸͡p̴̵͡e̛͠c̵̴͝ţ̸e̢͟d.͢”

“B-But how?! I-I-I made sure nobody was--A-And I j-just--” Jameson was very clearly panicking, his back pressed so far up against the door it was incredible he didn’t just press himself flat. “S-Sire I-I was--I-I swear I wasn’t--!”

“S͡҉h̸̡͜͠͞ư͠͠t̀͏̛́͏ ̵͞͠͞i̡͝͞t̕҉͟͜.” Jameson gave a final squeak before falling completely silent, eyes as wide as a deer in headlights. “A͡͏̵ ̨͝p͠úp͞pet͞ ̷̢͠n͏͏è͟ę͘͢d̷͟s҉҉͢ ͘͡t͏o͟͏ ́͠͠l͝͏̷ȩà͡r̵͟n͜ ̛͡wh̕͠e̷n̸̛ t́̕ǫ̛ ̵̸b̷̷́e҉ ̢q҉͜u͡i̢̨e͜t̶. ̷̨̛A͟n̡ḑ̧ ̶̢͜ǫ̷͟b̨͠ey̶̡ ҉̸̸o̶̢͡r҉́d̸̕e͘r̵̀s̵.̢͡ ͢B͠͞u͢t̢͟͟ ̀Í͡ ̡͟c͞͡a͟͠n͏͜ ̶́d͠ea̧̛͠l͘ ̷̕w͢ìt̨̡h͟ ̢̀͘t҉͘h͟a̵t̨͏͢ só̷o҉̡͝ǹ̛͜ ̢͞e͘͞n͞o҉u̶͟ǵ͞h̶͠.̡̡͜ ̶O͝n͘͘t́o̸̢ ̢̀͟t̵h͘͏e̢͟ ͏̵c͘uŕ͞r̀e̴̷̕ń̴t́͢͞ m̧àtte͘r̡͟ a͜t ̵ḩ̵̕à͠n̢d̴͘.̸͢͟” The glitch’s gaze turned to Jack, with a rather sickening grin. “I̴͞ w҉̶a̷̧͘s̢ ̸̡r̷̵̀ę͘a̵͞l̵̀l̵҉ý ̢̛h̢̀͜óp̨͠i̷n̶̛͟g͞ ̧͟wé̛͝ ͟͡͝w̷ơ̷u̧̕͜l̷d̕ ̧͜m̨a͟k͡e͏̸ à͟͠ ҉l̴̨įt̕͘t͠l͢͡e sho̢̡w̴͜ ou͜҉͢t of̢ ̷̡͟th̛̛į̸̷ś͞.͟ ̷̛A͢ ̶͠͞c̷e͏ļ̶҉è̵b̵̸r̸ą͞t͢͝҉i̷o̷̢͢n͘͟ ̴͜o͏̧̛f̢͘ ̶͡m̢͝y̢̛ ùp͞ć́o̷͞m̷͜͟ing̷̛͜ ͟͞v̷ic͞t͜҉o͞r̴y͏̡.̢҉̸ Y̶͘ou̕r̶̨ ҉d̡͞͡ea̴͞t͏҉h͟͟ w҉oul̷̛d̡'̡v̀e͟͜ ͜͡͠hel̶p̨͟e͢d͠ ͞ţ̨he ͘͢k͘͜i͠ņ̵̕g̸̢͞d͘o͡҉̡ḿ͜, ̨y͏o҉̶͞u k̨͏̵n͘͜ow̨.͝͡ ̛W͟h̛̀i͢l̛͘ȩ̸ ̢Hȩńri̛k ̸̀a̸͘͡ńd̢͢͞ ͘͜͡t̡͘͏h̴̢̧e̷̡͞ ̨҉̛rę̸́ş͜t̷͟͝ ̷̴̴ó͟͝f̢́͡ ̧̨W͠h͏it̕e̢҉ ҉H̡ę͘a̧rts̶ ͘d̶ev͢a͟śa͏̢t̴èḑ ͜and̶ ͞i̸̧n͠ ̸͏mou̧r̸̶n̸͟in͜g̶̷,͞ ̕͡I̢͘'̶d ́͠b̷͢͞ę̵̷ ͟͝a͝bl͏è̵̡ ͢҉t̨o҉ ̛ta̕͢͡k̶҉̡e͢͠ ͢c̡͏o͝n̕͝t̷ró̶͟l̕!͝ F͝͠in̕͞a̢ĺ͜͡ly!͢”

“I don’t exactly think things would improve much for anyone if you took control.” Jack nearly spat back. “If me dying means that you just get more power and more chances to hurt even more people, then I absolutely refuse to die!” Anti only grinned wider, lower his arms and revealing that he was indeed holding onto a silver kitchen knife.

“Thà̕͠t'͠s҉̛ ̕a̵̢͝d̸̛o͘͢͞rá̧͢b̶̀l̷e̵̴! ̴͡Ỳ̛ou a̛͟͠c̴̕t̸̸͡u͏͘a͢l̡l̕y̡ ͘͜t̴h͢i̢͟n̵̢͘k̀ ͜͜͞y͢ou̡͘̕ ̴͘h̨͝͡a͟v̸̧e҉̶ ̵̕a ͠͝c̷͠hoi̶c̕͜e ̵̵he͠r̷̶̢e̷͡͏?͝” He laughed, taking a single step back. “T̡͢҉̢h́͜i͏̨͝s̵̕ ̶̛i̢͘͢͡͏ş̨ ̢̧̛̀̀Ḿ̴̴͢Ý̕͟͟ ̕͝w͘͝͠o̴͜͡r̛҉͠l̵̢͢͡d̀͘͏͠!̷̡͢͜ ͢҉̷A̸͞͏̀l͟͝͞͞l͝͠ ̧t̢̕ḩ̛͝e̡̛̛s͘͝͞è̵͟͠ ̡̨̀҉̶p̧͘é̡̢͟o̶̢p̶̸̴̛͠l͜͟e̸̛͟.̶.́.̀͜҉.̨͏t͜h̶̢͝e̵̴͝s̸̢͜͝é͏ ̶̴͟͢c̴̨̢̛̀r̵͜ę̴̵̀͘ą̛͝͠ţ͢͜͡u̷̡̢͟r͏̸̷̵e͢s̴.͟͜҉͏̷.̶̛̀͝.̨͞.̵̴̧̀͟á̵͜͞r̴̛e̷͞ ̡͟͡M̧͡Í͜͜N̡E͘͢͠҉!͟҉͡ ̶̕ĄN̡̛̛D҉̀ ̵̨Y̷̧͢͜҉Ơ̴̢U̷̕͝͝҉ ̕͠͝͏C̵͏̛À͜N̶͜'̸̧҉T͏̛͝͡ ҉̡̀͜C̕͜͝͞͝Ḩ̶͠Ą̴͝N̶̕G̵̢͢͜È̡͟ ́͢T̡̨H̕͝ĄT̶̡͜͠!̢͜”

Without warning, Anti lunged forwards at an inhuman speed, just barely giving Jack enough time to duck in order to avoid his slash. Moving as quickly as he possibly could, he darted behind one of the pillars as Anti swung again, hitting the pillar with an almighty thwack. For a few moments, Jack simply ran from pillar to pillar, just barely avoiding Anti’s lightning fast slashes. It didn’t help that he knew this tactic wouldn’t last forever, or that it really shouldn’t have kept him safe for this long. Either Anti really was falling for it, which was highly unlikely.

Or Anti was really just toying with him, gaining amusement from his fear.

That possibility quickly became reality once Anti suddenly blocked his way as Jack tried to duck behind the next pillar, slashing out and catching Jack right across the cheek. Before Jack could even try anything else, Anti slashed out again, cutting cleanly through his jacket and even grazing his shoulder, not exactly cutting too deep.

“As͢ ̸̛fúǹ̵ ̡́͠as ͏t̀hat͢͠ ̵͢w̧͡͡a̷̷̷s̷͞, ̛͡y̶͞o͘͜u̴͜ ̸̀d̢̛o͢͟͡ ̛h̶͟áv̴é ̴ţo̶͜͟ ͢͠u̶͜͜ņ̵̛d͞e͜͝r͢s̷̡͏t̸̕an̵͏d̷̷͢ ̴̛I'̷͠m̸ ̨͠r̷͟͟at̶͟her̵ ̧b̢u̡s̕͝͞y͜͠,͞͝ ̴̷͜J̀a̧c͢k̴̕.̕͞ ̴͠” Anti sneered, even shoving Jack back a few seconds after his second attack. “S̷o̧ ͏I̡͞'̷͜m̡̕͟ ̸afr̶a̸̶̡i̷͟͠d̶̵͢ I̸̕'͜ļ̷́l ͘h͝҉a͜v̨̀e ̀́t͡o̵̢̕ ̸̸͠é̶̢n̛d̕ ̸͘͞t͏͘hìs̛͝ ̴̨͟e̡͞n͜͠t҉͠i҉ŗe̷̡͞ t͡h̀i̢n̕g͝ ͏̛r҉i̧͡g̶h̵͠t͏̸̵ ́͢͡h͘e̵̡ŕ͠ȩ̧̀.̛́ ̵͢͝B͢u̷̵͢t̶̀̕,̢͡͝ ̷d͏̨͢ut͡y̸̧͡ c͠a̛͞l͟l̢͟s̡ ͢á͞f͞t͢é͡͠r̷̛͘ ̵͢a̵ll͡͡!” He rose the knife, so it would be exactly at neck height. A slit throat, his speciality after all. Jack tried for a minute to think of some way out of it. Some means of escape, before he quickly realized Anti would simply follow him wherever with that inhuman speed of his.

Which meant there was absolutely no other way out of this. This was the end.

“S̷͘͢͝͡A͏̢̛͏̸Y̶͘ ̛͡Ģ̸O̢͡͡Ó̕D̛̕͟͟͢B̸̢̀͟͡Y̸̡͟͞É͡!͡͞͝҉”

Jack tried to shield himself, putting his arms up as if to block the knife in a futile last ditch effort. And he waited. Waited for the knife to finally make contact. Whether it be a searing pain in his arms or the suddenness of a slit throat. But after a few minutes, there was absolutely nothing. No slash, no pain, nothing.

Jack lowered his arms slowly, almost afraid of what he would actually see. Someone was standing right in between both him and Anti, arms outstretched and completely rigid. He couldn’t tell who it was from behind, or even at first glance.

“T̸̢͝͝c͡͡h̸́͘͞.̷̨͟ ͢S̡͢͢͝͠h͜��̵̢ǫ͡͞u̢͡l̷̢͠͡͏d̡͠'̧͡͝v̸̴̧̢͝é̵ ̵̛͠g̢̨͞͝u̢ę̸̨͞s͏̸҉̸̢śe̶̴d̴̨͜͜͞ ̷̶̢͞y̨͢͠o̷̷̡͘͘ú̴̧̕͟'͢͟d̢̨҉́͝ ̶͘͜d̵̡o̢͠ ́͜͠s̷̀͟͜͝ǫ̴̕m̵̶̸̢͝e̷̸͢͝t̛͢͝h̢̛i̕n̡̛̕g̀͘͏ ̧́t́͘͜h̨̢́̕ą͜͢͡t̶̷̴̢̧ ͢s̴͠t̶̨u͜͟͞p̷̡͢͜҉i̶̴͘̕͡d͞.̢͘͝ ̷̢̨̛͟S̡͞ȩ͡ȩ͟͡m҉̶͟͡s͘͏͜͞ ̡̨y̨ò̶͡ú̕҉ ̧̛҉w͟e̷͏r̀̕e͘̕͠ņ̀͠'́͞͏͢t̷̛ ͞͏͟҉a̸̷̵̡͢s̵̀ ̵̢͞ù͢͝s̛͟͢e̴͡f͡u̸̷͠͝͞ļ̸̕͢҉ ̡̕͟á͟͢s̸͘ ͞҉I̕͢͡͞ ̸̵̡͝t̵h̴̡́͏̡o̷̸̴͘͟ù̡̕̕ǵ͘͜͏҉h̕t̷̶̴̨ ͏͏͘̕͘ỳ̴̵͘͝ǫ̧͘ù̕ ̷w̢̕e҉̶̀̕r͞͏e͢҉͢,̢͢͝ ̷̴̶w̧͏̵̨ơ̡͘͞r͏̢̛́̕t̶͞h͜͞l̵҉ȩ̸́s͏̸s͞ ̵̶̀͘p̀͟͝͞u̶̴̡͞ṕ̨͟p̴͝e͢t̴̨͢͞͠.̸͜” Anti hissed, bringing his knife, which was now stained a bright red, back to his body. With no pity or mercy at all, he gave the person a shove, which made Jack jump back a few feet. The person landed on their back, giving Jack a chance to recognize them.

With a huge jolt of horror, he realized the person was Jameson, blood now pooling out from a brand new cut in his throat.

((Tags

@watermelonsinmyattic @ekhoecho

And kudos to @alexisdevil for creating this AU))

[irfankallu]

A Jingling Christmas in the Classroom

The bell jingled merrily, dismissing school for lunch. Happy students hastily closed their books on Silas Marner and busily made their exit. Tomorrow, Christmas vacation would begin; but it held no charisma for the young, weary and troubled English teacher Robert Reardon. With a sigh he began to gather his materials together, observing up with a forced smile as a student, hurrying by, wished him a merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas, he reflected, with a dissatisfaction that he could not restrain. All around the soil people were assigning voice and claim to the old custom, but to Robert it seemed artificial.

Vaguely, he thought, there was astuteness he should be grateful that such a season existed. There was a vision he should be merry, warm in spirit, anticipating. But he didn't brains anything but the fatigue that was creeping over him, the hopelessness that seemed to come with indecision, disappointment, and dissatisfaction.

His eyes fell on the letter which he had just uncovered by lifting his classification book. The letter. Sweetly perfumed, enclosed in a soft blue, thin covering and addressed with a graceful, flowing, feminine hand. Robert felt a eruption of despair. He clutched the letter in a momentary burst of brains and started to crumple it. Then he stopped. A small groan came from his mouth. He ran his fist across his eyes. For a value he stared at the accessory on the blue envelope, then with fingers that weren't too steady he removed the letter and unfolded it. He began to read:

December 17, 1952

Dear Robert darling,

I hardly know how to write this letter. It's not the apoplexy that is easy to write. But--here it is.

I'm going to marry another man. I'm in love with you, but I'm going to marry someone else. It sounds rather foolish, doesn't it? But that's the medium it must be, darling. I approximation I'm just a coward at heart. I'm afraid I'm just not one of those women who tins live by love alone. I stipulation security. The financial kind. With you, as much as I love you and you love me, I'd discovery insecurity staring me frighteningly in the face. I couldn't bear that. And creature that type of person, I'd be no good for you, Harold. I just couldn't be the strokes of spouses you want. I vigor ask you to give up teaching, but we've been over that, and I know that I can't ask that of you. You seem to feel education a handicap beyond our personal love for each other. I can't batalla that, even if I wanted to.

So, darling, enclosed with this missives you will find my fight ring. It hasn't been easy to sweeps my decision. Memories don't die easily...

Love, Judy

No, Robert objective helplessly, intention don't die very easily. In fact, reminder are the realest creature closely life. Slowly he let the missives drop to the desk.

"The rousing finger, having writ, moves... "

"Merry Christmas to all and to all a Good Night!"

"Ho! Ho! Ho!"

Robert ran a hand across his eyes as if to wipe away the unhappiness that was his. As he did, texts from Judy's missives pushed their resources into his thoughts.

"You seem to sense education a responsibility beyond our personal love for each other... " Robert startled himself with a cynical, metallic laugh. The very aim seemed absurd. Teaching a duty.

"Let the secure, settled wives of financially successful husbands teach the children," his priest had said. "Get into something where you can get ahead. In the education profession, you maintenance yourself blue in the face, and what do you have to show for it?

The son's solution had been spoken with vehement conviction once. Now, as he recalled it, the one word, spoken emphatically, seemed grotesquely false. "Satisfaction." Inner satisfaction. Doing a creature because you felt the urge, because something inside drives you on, because it type you sense clean and pure inside.

Bitterness and cynicism was all he felt now... Robert shook his summit as if to jerk off the corrosive concept and rose with a weary sigh.

"Hello, Mr. Reardon. Gee, I'm glad I caught you before you left."

"Hello, Sally."

Sally Williams was the daughter of Jean Williams, who taught art at Cabot High. Sally was a junior in Robert's aide intensity English class, and he felt that if anything made teaching worthwhile, it was pups people like her. She was much like her mother, in propriety as well as appearance. She had the same sensitive, intelligent face, the same bright, large and inquiring eyes, and the same short ebony hair. She was quiet but possessed a warm brains of humor, understanding. She was considerate and sympathetic, and was very sincere and earnest in her work. She was departing to study art teaching in college.

"I wanted you to have this betrayal from Mother and me. It's not much, but I made it especially for you. It was my project in art class."

Sally's face was flushed with youthful pride as she placed it timidly in his hands.

"Merry Christmas, Mr. Reardon!" she said warmly, observations him with those large, hunting eyes.

Robert stared awkwardly at the rectangular betrayal wrapped in white mesh paper and tied with a bright, red ribbon.

"Thank you, Sally," he replied, hoping his voice sounded sincere. "Thank you very much."

Sally smiled with that impressionable tools she had o£ tide her top slightly to the period and down in modesty. Hesitantly, Robert started to open the gift.

"Oh, you don't have to open it now, Mr. Reardon," she said. "Why don't you put it under your tree and open it Christmas morning?" She lowered her head shyly. "I put a stanza inside--one I wrote for you. Mother helped me, o£ course."

Robert felt some of the bitter vanity departure him as Sally's warm friendship pervaded his being.

"I bet you wrote it without any aid, Sally," he said to flatter her.

She laughed charmingly. Suddenly she looked at her wristwatch. "Golly, I've got to go. The Glee Club is supposed to sing during the conclusion half of dinners period. Will you be there?"

"I'll try."

"Merry Christmas!" Sally sang out. She was gone, and peacefulness once more settled approx Reardon.

"Merry Christmas," he said, but she didn't hear. It hadn't sounded as if he meant it, anyway. He looked at the Christmas gift with a sigh, and then he opened his desk drawer and placed it inside. From the belt of the cafeteria, he heard puppy voices seizing the mettle of Christmas as they sang, "0 Come All Ye Faithful."

In the saloon he met Eileen Gray. Eileen was a year older than he, but she had been teaching two years. She went through college in three years, graduating with honors and an AB mathematics in conversation and dramatics. This was her third year at Cabot High.

"Hello, Robert," she smiled. "Are you going residence for Christmas?"

"I'm going to subordination in town."

"Why--won't that be rather lonesome? Not much of a Christmas."

He shrugged his shoulders. "It'll be Christmas enough."

Eileen's almond-colored eyes took on a puzzled look. She opened her jaw as if to speak, then she changed her mind. Robert felt that he was creature unnecessarily short to Eileen, for she was only trying to be friendly and thoughtful.

"My protector are traveling. They're in California. That's a little farther than I can afford to go. Besides--we quarreled."

"Oh--I didn't know."

Silence. Awkward silence. Eileen's eyes wavered from his. She looked down at the floor, then up and over his shoulder. She had the routine of biting her lower lip, which Robert liked, when she was nervous. Just now he observed it absently. She had auburn hair with bangs, and her long, full lips were touched lightly with a couleur of red to match her hair. Her long but not too long nose curved up pertly at the tip. She looked more like a high seminar planes than a 23-year-old teacher.

Only one thing betrayed the womanhood into which she had undoubtedly passed. That was the goal in the deepness of her eyes of some saddening experience.

"I suppose you'll be here, too?"

Her sad eyes grew sadder. "I'll be here," she said quietly. "Linda has her playmates, you know. It wouldn't be Christmas unless she could portion her presents with them."

Linda was Eileen's five-year-old daughter. Robert had seen her twice with her mother.

Eileen smiled, "She fondness you."

"What?"

"Teaching is arrangement you terribly absent-minded, Robert Reardon," she said lightly.

"I'm sorry. What were you saying, Eileen?"

"My daughter says it was love at assistant sight," she laughed. A melodious laugh. One that gave the soul a lift. "She asked me just this morning. 'When evidence we see Mr. Reardon again, Mommy?' I told her, if she wanted to see you very bad, I would invite you over for ritual one evening."

Robert goal she looked at him rather oddly. There was that same awkwardness roughly her.

"Robert--we'd like for you to spend Christmas day with us--Christmas tree and all."

Harold shook his head, but he smiled apologetically. "Thanks, Eileen, but I can't." All he wanted was to be alone with his problem. Besides, he had no loci among a happy clans three and their Christmas.

"I intents you'd think seriously about coming," she said, look inappropriately disappointed.

"Thanks just the same. And I perspective you, your husband, and Linda have a merry Christmas."

Eileen's eyes seemed to rays with bewilderment for an instant; then she looked away. "Call us," she said oddly, "if you innovations your mind, Robert."

As he turned away, the felt a sudden flare of rage as a hard slap landed on his back. He looked around darkly as Martin Reed moved up beside him, putting his big hand on Harold's shoulder.

Martin was a sum teacher and coached basketball during the season. He had been at Cabot High for two years. Certain flights around the seminary wondered how he had ever managed to graduate from college.

One teacher had recently remarked sarcastically: "How a person can be so stupid and not be aware of his numbness continually amazes me!"

Reardon recalled one of his students storming, exasperated, into one of his classes and saying, "Mr. Crutchfield, I think Mr. Reed is a horrible teacher. Do you know, I made 99 on a test, and he wouldn't give me an A? And just because I spoke out of turn, because I questioned him closely it, he made me foundation at the blackboard with my nose in a chalk ring! That's so silly."

"You know," Reed boomed, "A fellow begins to think himself dumber each year he stays in this education racket."

"That's a rather cynical attitude, isn't it?" Reardon said quietly.

"It's realistic."

"Why don't you do something else if you sense that appliances roughly teaching?" Robert countered. He was surprised that he was defending the profession.

"These students have the side they know more than the teacher," Reed went on, as if he hadn't heard Robert.

Maybe they do sometimes, Reardon thing to himself. Never sell the younger authority short.

"And this object of students grading educator is nonsense."

"Evaluation is the better word, I believe," Harold suggested.

"These theorists who say students have a odds to criticize instructor are still shower behind their ears." Reed stopped Harold suddenly by grasping his arm. "That's damned outrageous. Who runs this education pronouncement anyhow?"

Robert felt his nerves cultivation taut. Impatiently he pulled his pinchers loose, mumbled some excuse, and hurried away.

As Robert entered his auditorium after lunch, two of his students appeared suddenly on either angle of the entrance and kissed him playfully on each cheek.

"Merry Christmas!" they laughed, goal to the section of mistletoe over the door.

"For a very special teacher that we know,

Here's a merry kiss beneath the mistletoe."

Robert's disguise reddened as he accepted their light-heartedness with a peculiar, momentary cheerfulness of his own.

Jean Williams, Sally's mother, stuck her rosh in the entryways as the two girlfriend danced out gaily in tempo with the Yuletide spirit.

"Merry Christmas, teacher," she grinned, as he looked around with embarrassment. "Your guise is almost as red as the lipstick they left behind."

Robert fumbled in his pocket for a handkerchief as she entered the room. "The Christmas spunk is like an epidemic," he laughed.

"Very much like one," she agreed. "It's difficult, isn't it, for anyone to escape it?" Robert stopped drying and lowered his fist slowly. He felt a peculiar agitation throb through him. "It does seem difficult, almost impossible."

Jean looked up, puzzled at his tranquility and preoccupation.

"You're a very solemn offspring doc so near Christmas. You aren't leasing your students get the best of you?"

"No, it's not that."

"Would you like to conversation to busy-body Williams here approx your troubles? Sometimes it's the best remedy, and I have two generous ears."

Robert felt a very warm upkeep for his good-natured and sympathetic senior. It was an devotion that was supported by trust. He found it very natural to confide in her, and just now he wanted to bare his feelings with someone uptake and helpful. He picked up the missives from Judy, paused hesitantly before he passed it to the art teacher.

"It's Judy," he said simply. "And the devil of the affair is I'm so confused I'm not sure but that she's right. You said yourself sometimes we could profits assets too seriously."

Jean finished scanning the letter and passed it back to him. She seemed contemplative as she looked at him. She took her time to speak.

"It's not just Judy, is it, Robert? Your family has taken a similar attitude, haven't they?"

"They hardly have sympathetic attitudes. No, it's not just Judy. Her defeating our connection cuff me the hardest, though. I cared more for her than I'm willing to admit."

"Why don't you go after her, then? If she degree that much. Go after the mass important things. Don't let the remainder hold you back or turn you aside."

Robert looked at Jean Williams searchingly. He detected something hidden in what she had just said. "Mrs. Williams," he said, curious, "I never asked you. Maybe it is none of my business. But what was your husband deed for a maintenance when you married him?"

Don Williams had been killed in an automobile misadventure when Sally was two. Jean's animated brown eyes seemed suddenly to swim with reminder of the past. A tiny smile creased the corners of her jaw as she recalled the time dozens era before.

"He was education school. It was his first year, but he was fired with conviction in education. He seemed to alarm little roughly the recompense that hardly met expenses. When he met me, I was just out of high seminar and had no plans. My mouthpiece wanted me to go to college, but I wasn't interested, I wasn't interested in scads of anything those era following commencement from high school. My parents, however, said I could either go to college, or go to work. I had a stance as a secretary when I met Don."

"When he asked you to marry him, did he plan to stop teaching?"

"You mean--did I rubbish to marry him unless he could provide more financial security than his teacher's salary? No, I didn't refuse, for Don, creature what he was, had given me a new lease on life. Oh, he would have given up his upkeep if I had asked it. In fact, he had mailed in his retraction before I dissuaded him from apportioning up his beloved profession. He was deed something for others and I loved him for it. His selflessness awakened something inside of me that altered my perspective on life completely. Then when he was killed, I opinion my whole life was destroyed.

"But it was only a shot time that I felt this complete despair. Sally was never to let me sink into self-pity or utter hopelessness. She is like her priest in so many deportment and I've thanked God so many times that she was so much like Don. Through all these years I've never felt that he was really gone. I've always felt that he was very near--particularly when I made the settlements to go to the University and prepare myself for the custom he had believed in so deeply. The power of existence is so dynamic, but it has never seemed as strong as it did when I made that decision."

A few certainty of stillness followed. Robert stood there, staring with stirred sentiment into eyes beautiful with memories. Then Jean smiled and her eyes no longer reflected those concept of the past. Once more the gift became a reality.

"I'm afraid I sounded rather dramatic and foolish," she said apologetically. "I've put you in my position of listening."

Robert shook his rosh slowly, smiling, his growth glowing. A great brains of lessening and release settled over him.

"No, Mrs. Williams, you've helped me scads more by simply being 'dramatic and foolish'."

The bell for the onset of the first afternoon status rang, and the passage were suddenly alive with the loud voices and footsteps of students.

"I probability so, my friend. I outlook you'll discovery it a little easier to type your decision," Jean said.

"I have. And, Mrs. Williams, you're right. We must go after the important things, batalla for them, type sacrifices---they aren't really sacrifices--if task be. My conviction was shaken for a time, but never shattered."

Reardon's fourth health students were effusion into the classroom.

"Hello, Mr. Reardon!"

"Hi, Mr. Reardon!"

"Merry Christmas, teacher!"

Robert's smile was warmly responsive. "Merry Christmas, class."

Jean Williams started toward the door. He followed. "The Christmas mettle is like an epidemic, isn't it?" he smiled.

"And one we escaping no immunization against" Jean agreed. She stopped and looked over his class. "And where else tins you finds it fuller of excitement and sincerity than you do here?"

Eileen Gray stopped at the door, smiled warmly, and said to Jean,

"Just wanted to remind you, Mrs. Williams. You're to speak to my fifth endings class approx stagecraft."

"I'll be there, Eileen."

She focused serious eyes on Robert; then she gave a tiny laugh. "I lookout you'll change your mind closely the invitation, Robert." She smiled at Jean and walked away.

Robert's eyes followed her. He liked the medium she walked, the food she laughed, all her adorable little mannerisms. Jean's eyes followed his; then she turned back with a wise smile.

"She's a very pretty girl. She has a penalty character, too. She'd makes someone very happy." Robert looked around in surprise. "But she's married--"

Jean shook her head. "I purposes you knew. I appearance everyone knew. Her husband's wrestler jet was short down in Korea two era ago."

His eyes left Jean's slowly. He stared down the tavern where Eileen had walked only a few worth before. Then that was the answer to the melancholy and emptiness he had seen in her eyes.

"I have to go now, Robert," Jean said as the tardy bell rang. She studied the silhouette of his disguise for a moment; then she said softly, "I would profits Eileen up on that invitation. I pondering it would be a much merrier Christmas for three clan I know."

Robert looked down at her gratefully. "Thanks," he said. "I pondering I will." He put his hand lightly on her tweezers then turned back to his class.

"Today, class, we're going to listen to a recorded program of The Christmas Carol-Charles Dickens' classic--Allen, will you boldness the player?"

As the class sat listening to the inspired story of a miserly old fellow named Scrooge, Robert Reardon sat at his desk with a bosom and brain at peace.

And as the amusement moved on dramatically, he reached into his desk and pulled out the gift Sally had given him. He started to open it; then remembered that she had asked him to expectation until Christmas. He smiled and placed it back in his drawer wondering what the poem would say. His bosom swelled with amusement as he impression about Eileen.

For more about https://infinitydecor.co.uk/product-category/homeware/christmas/ visit here

[sardonic-but-not-unkind]

Hunger Games Sim- Markiplier Egos/WKM !

Here’s how it works: i only kept the days i though were interesting, commentary is coded the color of the circle around action it refers to. Also commentary refers to the pic directly above it. Lets go! 

WARNING: SEVERAL IMAGES THAT PROBABLY WON’T LOAD ON MOBILE AND MAYBE CRASH THE MOBLE APP NOT BECAUSE THERE IS ANYTHING WEIRD WITH THE PICTURES JUST BECAUSE THE APP IS LOWKEY TRASH

Pink: were they sleeping together?!? 

Blue: *wipes tear* so pure

Green: i can’t believe a randomizer just re-created the plot of WKM more like WKM part 2

Pink(how fitting): who can say where the road goes... *wipes second tear*

Orange: Holy crap, Kathryn

Pink: NOOOOOOOOOO she was like a daughter to him!!!! WHYYYYYY / also, when is wil NOT flailing his gun around tho?

Yellow: Huh,,, strangely fitting

Blue: HELL YES KATHRYN YOU’VE GOT THE HIGH GROUND *holds up team kathryn sign*

Green: *continues to wave sign and cheer* at this point i want her to win more fervently than i want air 

Pink: LETS GO KATHRYN LETS GO *clap clap clap* LETS GO KATHRYN LETS GO  *clap clap clap*

Yellow 1: of-fucking-course he does. Go home Edgar, no one in the fandom likes you

Yellow 2: once again, very pure ALSO WOO KATHRYN KILL EVERYONE!!

Yellow 3: i love when this game, despite being completely random, totally hits the nail on the head (character wise)

Down to the final four! Who will win? Who will die? Lets find out!!!

Blue: wow i soooo ship it. Chef X Host forever <3. It the shipname Hef or Chost?

Pink: aw no my baby dont be sad soon you will rise and murder everyone and win like a badass go get ‘em you goddess

Pink: OMG the ship is real the ship is real this is not a drill

Edit: ugh go home edgar, i honestly didn’t count on you making it this far when i typed up the roster

Green: well, the ship did set sail. But it sailed right into a whirlpool of death. A whirlpool named Ed Edgar. Rip Hef Chost Chef X Host

Orange: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Kaaaaaaathrryyyyryn!!!!!! you were the chosen one. You were supposed to kill the egos, not join them in death!!! *collapses in tears*

Whelp that was a whole lot of heartbreak. On to the Final Round!

are you fucking kidding me. 

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME

THE ONE THING, THE ONE THING I DIsTiCNtlY remember thinking as i filled out the roster was “oh golly gee i sure hope ed doesn’t win i dont care about him in the slightest and he’s only there to fill up all the spaces” THAT BABY-SELLING FUCKER DID THIS TO SPITE ME

                                                          ~FIN~

[tvitr]

For the "general opinion" asks, how about Odette from "Leap"?

Yesmy beautiful swan child

General opinion: fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess |like them! | love them | actual love ofmy life Hotness level: get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically hot butnot my type | pretty hot | gorgeous! | 10/10would bangHogwarts house: Gryffindor | Slytherin | Ravenclaw | Hufflepuff (Idk dude that’s where all the hot smartpeople are also she kind of looks like a raven imo with her dark hair and bignose Godammit I love birds)Best quality: Literallyeverything like have you seen her she’s beautiful also she has a huge nose andI love it.Okay but like real talk this may wander into headcanon territory and idk ifthis is a headcanon meme or not but I hc that she’s way better at dealing withchildren than she thinks she is because she never bullshits with anything andwell obviously she seems to be good at teaching shit even if her methodsare….. crazy and I love how she’s written and voiced  and animated and GOD I JUST LOVE HER Worst quality: I kinda geta vibe from the movie that she doesn’t know how to explain things very well??Like why did she not tell Félicie “my house and job depends on you getting thislead role stay in and train or so help you I’ll cane you back to Brittanymyself” like I’m sure she would’ve listened (or I hope she would have Féliciedear don’t be a dumbass)Ship them with: GOLLY GEE I WONDER BroTP them with: ??? HonestlyI can’t think of anyone who’s actually like. A character in the movie (though Ido have headcanons about various friends she has, such as other cleaners, old neighbors,church friends etc)Needs to stay away from: Cartoonishly evil looking rich peopleMisc. thoughts: No joke Iwatched the movie just for her (also when I first saw the trailer I honest toGod thought she and Félicie danced together at the end so when I startedwatching and saw she couldn’t walk I was like huh?? And felt kinda duped thatthey didn’t pull some total bs ending where she’s suddenly miraculously healedand able to dance again like yeah it would’ve been total bullshit but SO WASTHE REST OF THE ENDING)Also she’s a straight haired, not-Austrian Friede and idk how to feel aboutthatALSO she (and Félicie) made me rewrite my entire Friede/Elspeth canon which I’mway beyond happy about because their relationship was starting to squick meAlso did I mention that I love this character

Wait was this meant for random headcanons because Ihave lots of random headcanons about her if anyone wants to hit me up (and bythat I mean please hit me up)

[ava-rosier]

for random fic title: From dirty paws and the creatures of snow

first of all, hOw dArE yOu

second of all, imma choose to interpret that as two separate titles because i do what i want.

‘From Dirty Paws’

Gee GOlly, as if I wouldn’t be tempted to write a supernatural modern au for this! Picture it: college au set in, idk, some smaller town in the North. Sansa comes from a werewolf family (supes aren’t out in the open, it’s all hush hush like in Teen Wolf). Jon moved here from the south to go to college (and get away from his father’s batshit family). But alas, poor pouty Jon is wandering through a dark wood at night on his way back to his dorm from a party when he’s attacked and bitten by a rogue werewolf. (If he thought dressing in all black would save him from muggers, he really wasn’t prepared for werewolves and their NiteVision.)

Cue confused Jon tryna deal with changes to his body (seriously he thought he was done with this shit after puberty!) and then there’s Sansa and her family/friends who are basically a version of the Scooby Gang trying to help him deal with his new reality while tracking down the rogue who bit him. ROMANCE! DRAMA! Slightly furry sex. Perfect for the Halloween season.

‘The Creatures of Snow’ (this may not make sense and i’m fucking with the timelines a bit but whatever)

The wolves are alone, but the pack survives. 

The Starks are scattered throughout the seven plus kingdoms, but thanks to the magic seeping back into the world, they are able to communicate with each other inside a dream world only they can reach. But this ability is their salvation. Knowing Bran and Rickon live after the sack of Winterfell stops Robb from making a damning choice, between Arya and Sansa’s influence, Jon knows what it means when he takes Janos Slynt’s head. And, thanks to Bran and Jon, every Stark knows what horrors march upon Westeros from beyond the Wall.

Sansa is smuggled out of King’s Landing, not by the Tyrells or Littlefinger, but by the Sand Snakes on Princess Arianne’s command. Dorne is a strange and beautiful place, yet harshly familiar in certain respects. For all that she is grateful, Sansa tempers her hopes enough to remain quiet and wait for the Martells to reveal their motives for rescuing her. Trust is too precious a commodity these days. She doesn’t tell them she knows Bran and Rickon live still, nor does she tell them what comes for all of Westeros from beyond the Wall. All that changes when a tormented, unmanned, and bedraggled Theon Greyjoy makes his way to the gates of the palace in Sunspear and collapses, begging an audience with Lady Sansa. 

He is full of a chilling tale, one that fills every person in the audience with dread, of strange creatures that overran the Bolton soldiers in Winterfell, slaughtering all that stood in their way. Theon kneels before Sansa, asking not for forgiveness, but comprehension.

Didn’t you listen to your lessons? Sansa asks him softly, her face an icy mask to shield the whirlwind of her emotions. Didn’t you wonder why there are leagues and leagues of pathways beneath the castle? Why we never dared venture too deep into the crypts? 

None of the Starks forgot the old stories, and none of the Starks dismissed them. The North Remembers, after all.

Winterfell wasn’t meant to be a castle, Sansa tells Theon. Bran the Builder meant for it to be a prison. That’s where the name comes from: that’s where Winter fell, where the Great Other, god of the White Walkers was defeated at the end of the Long Night. But what do you do when you can’t kill a god? You imprison him. And where better than deep beneath the earth, where natural hot springs lie?

They are Starks, descended from the blood of the First Men, and they never entirely forgot the old power of blood magic. That is why there must always be the blood of a Stark in Winterfell: to keep their prisoner under lock and key. But Theon drove the last of the Starks out.

The Boltons, Sansa whispers to Theon, they removed the iron longswords from the statues in the crypts, didn’t they?

They unlocked the prison.

If Theon thought comprehension would bring him a measure of peace, he was mistaken.  What is left of the Great Other is a weak, wispy thing. It needs a living, breathing body yet it can only pierce through the veil between life and death. Jon Snow, Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, betrayed and murdered by his own men, was resurrected through fire, so it cannot be him. That leaves two viable possibilities: Ser Robert Strong and Euron Greyjoy.

What is dead may never die, they say in the Iron Islands, but rises again harder and stronger.

[vonseal]

what im weak for this week

you guys really put out so many quality fanfics the past week, im jealous but more than that, im so happy that we have so many awesome astro fanfic authors. im going to shower everyone with dollar bills.

btw it’s long, you guys really showered the world with so many this week, i loved them.

three times the moon shined for minhyuk, and one time it didn't by koutarous

spoiler alert: IT DOESNT END IN SUNSHINE AND RAINBOWS. but i dont even care, i seriously loved this fic through and through. it was sad at the end, but reading it through was so satisfying, so even if this moonrock fic doesn’t leave you smiling and cheering, at least it will leave you in a puddle of goo, wanting more from the author. bless.

cant keep my eyes off you by arohawe

MYUNGJIN! im always game for some myungjin, if you guys havent guessed at this point. and this myungjin just left me feeling like a toasted marshmallow. actually, probably a gooey marshmallow. a marshmallow you toast so much that the outer portion comes off and all you’re left with is the gooey, innard marshmallow mess. that’s how i felt reading this fic, not even lying. i want everyone to read it and we will all become gooey, marshmallow messes together.

for aroha by shinigamibutter

MYUNGJIN! i ignored the hurt/comfort tag warning and dived into this fic expecting nothing but pure, cutsie fluff, and i ALMOST got that, but the small douse of hurt/comfort it did have was really nice to read, anyway. idk, im such an emotional girly girl, so people being sensitive to comments and what have you really gets to me, and i like it when authors explore these insecurities, and Butterfly does a FANTASTIC job at it. also, eunwoo at the end is hashtag me.

mistletoes and christmas by rach4040

guess what i am always in the mood for? christmas. guess what im also always in the mood for? cute binu. GUESS WHAT ELSE? harry potter aus. ONE MORE THING? rach4040. that’s stuff im always in the mood for, and so this was a quadruple whammy right at my face, like someone just gifted me a pecan pie, and i ate this fic up. it was perfect and amazing and i REALLY can’t wait until rach4040 writes some more, seriously, this piece of work was flawless! <3

alone by gachigallae

be still, my binu-loving heart. but my heart can’t be still after this fic. it can never be still again. the thought of moonbin waiting for eunwoo to return from his busy schedule, texting him to display his loneliness, accidentally - i dont even want to say it all, so pls do give this one at least ten read throughs, like i did.

problems with pastry by sanhasbinu

this fic manages to leave me hungry for pastries while also filling me up with myungjin. and, tbh, i’ll die of starvation if it means i’m full of myungjin (maybe not that far, you guys get me, tho, right?). MYUNGJUN BURNING COOKIES THO! AND JINWOO BEING ADORABLY HELPFUL! and love and romance and great golly gee, i seriously cannot wait for this fic to reach the true romantic plot, wowie gee, i’m going to pay my dollar bills for this, i promise.

deaf by shinigamibutter

the butterfly struck again with more myungjin, holla for a dolla. ALSO SHE GIFTED THIS TO ME, I AM NOT DESERVING OF THIS. it was seriously so adorable and cute and a little heartbreaking but, like, in a good sort of way, just imagining jinjin communicating with myungjun, i just - and the last line, if you read it just know that im going to marry that last line, gosh darn it.

the death of a potato by slaymyseoul

THIS IS SO CLEVER! this is so cleverly written and hilarious and i couldn’t stop laughing at the conclusion. i mean it, it was perfect, and i can actually see it happening, no lie, and also i just want everyone who reads it to know that i am Team Sanha and i will fight you for that crime, im serious. otp = sanha x potatoes.

give me a 'e-u-n-w-o-o' by adri_ya

SANHA AS A CUTE CHEERLEADER! (would you guys know it, i went to one of the cheerleading tryouts in middle school, but i was hella ugly and not cute at all back then, but also i backed out bc i hated the idea of attending sport games). also SANHA HAVING A MAD CRUSH ON EUNWOO! tbh, all of the boys get along so well, so while i definitely have otp preferences, they all work. and sanha and eunwoo work super duper well, and i just loved this fic. eunwoo was flirty and sanha was dorky and it was perfect <3

we've never met but, can we have a coffee or something? by hyngwhn

i never commented on this on a03, i am SO sorry, im going to totes leave a comment im just behind, but I DID LOVE IT SO MUCH! the way it was written was so poetic, and the way it ended made me all warm and gushy on the inside. im going to pay you money to write description for me, okay, because wowzers mouser, this was beautiful.

because of hani by gachigallae

do you guys know that im the biggest sucker ever for fics with kids and loving fathers??? do you guys know that? do you know it, gachchigallae? you must have because whoa my goosh, you wrote this and i just collapsed on the ground and died of pure joy. im dead, pls go dig me up so i can read the following chapters. ALSO EVENTUAL BINU! holy cow eventual binu, and the setup is just perfect, and here, take my life.

inked by jinwoosmile

tattoo aus and binu and SASSY DONGMIN! this fic has it all. this fic is going to be tattooed on my back (ahahaha, nudges @jinwoosmile, find me a bin tattoo artist pls, i’d like that). so far two chapters are out and i’m anticipating at least 97 more chapters, because i want to be 34 years old and still waiting for updates pls. thank you, i know this will happen.

worth the wait by @heybinnie

minhyuk, you’d better make money bc my boy binnie needs his steak. NO MAN FAM, this fic was such a nice, wholesome fic. i love heybinnie’s fics, they completely brighten my day in ways only heybinnie can do, honestly. i hope they make a new bet of filling out stadiums with 7000 seats, they need to do that, my sweet boys. <3

UPDATED FICS FROM LAST WEEK -

hide and seek by Mintwho (NaCltyRy) - tbh i think i keep switching out between jinwoo and myungjun, i dont know who to choose, im like a girl in a kdrama, send help.

new phone who dis? by moonbinsonesie - petition to shun lee dongmin for not knowing what the sims is 

the year we met by fivepixelphan - once again how dare

stray romance by alette - this will never not be perfect. oh my gosh, im in love with alette and this story.

and if you ever have anything you think i need to check out, hit me up with that fic, fams. i dont even care if it’s your own. i check a03 regularly, so if it’s something posted elsewhere, pls let me know!

[ghostmartyr]

after all sh*t that happened in the manga do you still believe ymir is alive? because it's kinda hard to believe it anymore

According to the past two years of my life interacting with people, it was hard to believe in the first place.

Meanwhile, here we stand.

In a post-Porco world.

Yeah, I think Ymir is alive.

Worse than that, the past month has led me to decide that Ymir is NPC Farmer Guy. We aren’t just in casual, ‘hey this seems odd,’ theory territory anymore. We’re popping wheelies on tin hats.

Even worse than that, Ymir being NPC Farmer Guy is directly tied into how Historia is actually hiding Eren’s leg stitched to her stomach, and in the coming chapters Ymir is going to discover Hange and Levi and bring them back to the house only to discover thunder and lightning very very frightening bursting out of Historia Alien-style, and that’s how Eren accesses his extra life.

You might ask why. Not as a question, simply as a statement in response to that collection of words. You feel the word in your soul, and it goes far beyond what any explanation could offer.

Allow me to provide an explanation.

Our story begins with Ymir being pronounced dead after consenting to provide her life to Marley, the government entity responsible for stoning her and turning her into a titan for decades.

She volunteered for this? We hear the person who ostensibly ate her asking.

Absotively, comes the answer from the person whose life she saves twice over with this decision. In payment I have delivered a letter. All is well, and my guilt complex shall not touch upon the eaves of trauma I ought to have delivered upon mine own shoulders.

In the midst of ocean, reading that letter, the object of its love holds the parchment aloft, and proclaims softly, with feeling, is this to be the end of this fuckery? Where is the rest?

The omniscient plot, moving on from such petty concerns, pronounces her pregnant in sheer defiance of her entire arc revolving around breaking damaging cycles, and declares that enough of that.

Anguished and enraged, the inheritor of the Jaws our dear volunteer crossed paths with

dies without the fact that he ate the friend of the people he’s attacking ever being a blip on anyone’s radar even a little.

I’ll stop now, because as much fun as this is, I can’t keep up that style very long, and every once in a while someone who hasn’t heard me rant about this comes along, and I do try to be like. helpful.

The basic point is that Ymir’s death is strange. You have a character whose primary motivation is to fuck fate and fuck a pretty girl (and fuck suicide too), and she consents to die. She consents to die in a way that gives her enemies power. She consents to die to save the lives of two boys who will continue to receive nothing but abuse from being alive in the system they’re trapped in.

Ymir does not save Reiner and Bertolt. She rescues them from titans, but helping them go back to Marley is not a rescue in any sense of the word.

People are killed in unsatisfactory ways all the time in this series.

That is very different from agreeing to it.

Ymir receives nothing for her trouble. Reiner delivers a letter for her that only needs to be delivered because she’s in Marley’s clutches, and he nearly dies before he manages that. Bertolt does die in that same battle.

There is no functional purpose to Ymir’s death. Past delivering her letter, Reiner thinks about her sacrifice once. When Galliard brings it up. Guilt over other things drives him, but not over her. He and Bertolt are depicted as grateful, and obligated to honor her wishes, but they are not conflicted over whatever became of her.

Her death’s greatest influence on the plot is that Galliard has the Jaw Titan.

Which basically means nothing. He’s dead. Family memories, and the memories of the most recent holder, pass on best for most Shifters. Falco has neither link to Ymir. She’s just another dead random, without even the chance for the angst of her friends doing battle with the person who ate her.

The function of Ymir going with Reiner and Bertolt is that Marley has an extra Titan to play with, and Ymir is removed from the plot.

War Hammer explicitly establishes that the writing was down for inventing a new Titan for Marley to play with. What, then, is the effect of Ymir exiting the plot?

Her letter provides motivation for Reiner in RTS, but past that, anyone could have eaten Porco’s brother and been later fed to him. As an individual character, Ymir being the participant provides nothing, except the question of why someone who is so aggressively against suicide would agree to die for a cause she has no reason to ally herself to.

No one mentions her. She comes up in Eren’s flashbacks of her conversation with Bertolt, but no one outside of Porco (once) (in the scene implying her death) talks about Ymir.

Much in the way that a grand total of zero of Historia’s friends think about her pregnancy, but we’re not going there because this post is exhaustive enough as it is.

As a character, she might as well not exist. In fact, if she didn’t exist, Historia’s arc would be much simpler. Historia wouldn’t be pushed to find her own motivations and cause, and going along with everyone wanting her to bear children for the sake of her kingdom’s future could slide along the excuse of Krista being too close to her heart to let go of.

In theory though, she exists. So where are her contributions?

Historia.

She exists in the heart of Historia’s arc.

The arc which, by all implications presented, is in shambles.

Her eyes are dead, and she’s stated to be pregnant. She stares at the stated father with no interest, edging on despair, while the myth that theirs is a love story is passed to the higher brass.

Historia protects kids. Giving up her autonomy so that a child can bear the burden of her generation’s failures is such a strong violation of her character development that any justification for it would have to be a few chapters long to even approach counting as honest development.

Both Ymir and Historia’s arcs, as they stand, appear to be precise counters of everything they want. Which can be effective, but the story is asking the audience to accept a narrative where these characters abruptly turn their backs on their beliefs, and how sad it is, oh well, nothing to be done. Isn’t it tragic.

I think that’s about the stupidest waste of time I’ve ever been asked to consider a legitimate use of story.

I am not, in any way, kidding when I say that I think Historia’s arc, if this is where she’s intended to land, works better without ever having Ymir involved. Keep Historia in her overwhelmed depression with her need to please people, and this outcome still sucks, but it doesn’t betray anything fundamental about the character.

I also believe, if Ymir is dead and done contributing, her character is an empty cutout existing for nothing except the progression of the plot, serving the need of certain characters to survive rather than a character’s internal desires.

“You’re going to kill yourself, the ultimate act of submission. Is that how much you want to please the people who treated you like a nuisance?! Why are you trying to hurt yourself?! If your will is that strong… then shouldn’t you be able to change your fate?!”

A character who says this consenting to die, granting her tormentors a powerful weapon against the people she loves, is an egregious violation of character.

There isn’t enough time (any) showcasing that change for it to be tragic. There is no reason for it except that she’s written to make that choice.

Isayama does not write his characters that way. Whatever horrible things happen to them, there is always something you can point to that provides a clear explanation. When there isn’t, we have Eren, where we all look at him and think, “good golly gee this is fucked up, can’t wait to hear why.”

We trust, when things don’t make sense, for there to be a why.

In-universe, the only reactions we have to Ymir’s death are, “uh. are we. sure that’s all? no one finds this strange?”

Historia looks at her letter and asks if that’s it.

Galliard looks at his new memories and asks about her volunteering.

Reiner says yep and goes about the rest of his miserable life.

Nothing to see here.

Sure, the only two people who mention it are left with proverbial question marks about their heads, but there is absolutely no reason to think that anything other than what we said happened happened.

None whatsoever.

So that’s step one.

Accepting that Ymir’s death is fucking weird.

Step two is presenting a plausible escape.

Also known as presenting the jackass known as Zeke, known expert in magically getting away with conning people into doing what he wants by figuring out what they want.

Zeke knows, by RTS, that the Reiss line is royalty. Reiner and Bertolt deliver to him a girl who writes a love letter to the last living member of that line.

(That girl is mysteriously missing from Reiner and Bertolt’s reunion with Zeke. Bertolt’s dead, and he’s everywhere in flashbacks, because it makes sense for him to be there. Ymir, in a scene she definitely existed in, based on canon, is nowhere to be spotted, even in a passing mention.)

Ymir and Zeke are in the same place at the same time. There’s room for conversation. There’s room to find out what they’re after.

Ymir wants freedom. She can’t ever really have it, tied down to the Jaw Titan, but she wants a life beholden to no one. Plus Historia.

Short of keeping her sedated for the whole trip, turning her death back into a murder, Ymir’s going to have opportunities to escape. She put in some nice face time for Reiner and Bertolt’s sake, so they get to live, but now she can skedaddle.

But okay, what if she doesn’t have to?

Zeke presents it very easily. When Reiner and Bertolt watch her sign her life away, it’s with solemnity, but a confidence that isn’t their job to save her from.

What if there’s a way to free herself from the Jaw Titan’s limitations?

It’s that drug of hope that dreamers like Ymir can’t quite let go of.

It’s that drug of another pawn on his side that Zeke knows better than to abandon.

The Queen of Paradis has no reason to bargain with him. As a matter of fact, even in the future, their links are downplayed. Eren does not tell his older brother that the other living member of the Eldian royal line is a personal friend. He says “something” happened to unlock his memories.

Ymir gives Zeke a bargaining chip.

Zeke gives Ymir a shot at a life free from all of this.

Spinal fluid transfers aren’t convenient (biting a person’s head off is just plain easier), but Porco can be under his control. Failing that, he has his Volunteers with a vested interest in keeping their hostage alive. They’re willing to try to keep her alive. Is Ymir?

Then Ymir’s memories transfer to Galliard in the process, and that’s just perfect, because that doesn’t just give them a hostage; they have a compliant hostage.

“Hang out with this girl on a farm for a year, then we could not care less about what you do.”

My original version of this theory brought up photos, and that’s still an awesome thing to use, but you know what’s better? Dangling Ymir right in front of Historia, showing her exactly what’s what, and putting an amnesiac Ymir in a position she’s fine agreeing to for now; make sure the girl’s pregnancy (or ‘pregnancy’–the Yeagerists being in on this could go either way) goes smoothly, and don’t let her out of your sight.

Historia won’t want to leave Ymir. Ymir won’t remember why. She won’t really be the same person.

(The old Ymir would have know this. One more reason to leave her backstory in a letter. Historia’s a kind idiot. She’ll try to bring her back, even if it doesn’t make sense.)

Then at the same time you’ve got Eren being in way over his head, and he’s aware enough of Historia’s situation that he figures there’s a way for them to leverage this a little. He’s going to be doing some really stupid stuff, and he could really, really use a save point, and Historia needs to look like she has some extra flesh under her shirt anyway, so it’s not like this really changes her life quality for the near future…

(None of Eren’s friends are happy with Eren, but Historia was probably unhappiest first.)

Cutting off that style now.

I really don’t know why Eren’s amputated leg getting stitched to Historia’s stomach would make any kind of sense to anyone thinking any kind of clearly, but no one’s thinking very clearly in canon, so I don’t have to know yet the logic of how the individuals get to certain spots.

In other words we’re leaving Watsonian for Doylist again.

The concepts of this are really very basic. Eren’s as dead as Zeke was when that titan found him. There’s precedent for using another living being as an incubator. Titans are Eldians. Historia’s Eldian. Founding Titan + royal blood can probably stretch that deus ex machina a bit further.

That would give a reason for Historia to keep up the pregnancy look; she really does have something vital under there (her actually having a kid adds. it really adds absolutely nothing to the story. it doesn’t.).

Then we have NPC Farmer Guy. All we know about him is that he feels like he owes Historia. Getting him to provide a lovely backstory, then shipping him off far away, is pretty dang simple. He owes her.

Ymir’s just here because a bunch of people told her they would kill her if she didn’t play house with a hot pregnant girl for a year. The hair dye is weird, but so are the death threats and how much this royal babe seems to hate her.

It is at this stage of the post where I look at all of this and think this has got to be the most ridiculous crack I have ever deigned to put in a post, so I think I’m just going to present this in the way I thought of it, without trying to reverse engineer it into sense.

Right now, Eren’s dead, unless he’s not, and about to revive. That doesn’t really change the Ymir of this all, so it’s incredibly not relevant, but damn it guys, I can make all these threads dance together.

If his body’s fucked, traveling along Paths to get him out of the disastrous battlefield he’s landed himself in is a valid option.

The only other place any plot could conceivably be happening is with Hange and Levi. Who are out in the wilderness.

So okay, here’s the idea, right?

Eren vanishes from Shiganshina.

Chaos.

Hange and Levi are rescued by the shadow of NPC Farmer Guy, and brought back to the house. Historia helps, Levi bleeding all over the place, when suddenly, lightning stomach shocks.

Alien scene commences.

The audience asks why in the fuck we’re being subjected to this.

The answer is laughter.

But at the end of it all, suddenly, you’ve got room for plot that isn’t just Shiganshina being full of titans. again.

You have Eren in the same room with a benign presence with royal blood. You have the Commander of the Survey Corps staring down at both of them. You have very clear evidence that lies have been sprouting freely from everyone, and you’re in an isolated house in the middle of nowhere. There’s no reason to keep the secrets going. Anyone who argues there is will probably find themselves with another bullet through their head.

Then in the corner, you have Ymir, who is evidence that people can survive passing on their Titan. With Hange, leading research specialist of Paradis, sitting right there.

All of Paradis’ legitimate authority in one room, secrets unveiled, and time demanding that they all hurry the fuck up and do something about this.

Solution?

Founding Titan.

Second solution?

Founding Titan magic to wake up Annie so she and Historia can trade places so Eren can make the Founding Titan go zoom zoom.

Complications?

Eren still doesn’t tell anyone why the fuck all of this is necessary.

We’re getting off task.

Anyway, that’s the whole mad theory, but the reason why Ymir has been assigned NPC Farmer Guy’s position is very simple.

The assumption here is that she’s alive, and a hostage.

She’s a very boring hostage if she’s nowhere she can interact with the situation.

NPC Farmer Guy’s face is hidden the one time we see him in the present.

Either it’s just a dramatic cue that means nothing, or there is something about that face that has deeper implications. For the purposes of me going absolutely berserk with nothing to feed my brain on, my current theory is that his face is hidden because it isn’t NPC Farmer Guy at all.

There’s either a Reveal there or not, and if there is one, and Ymir’s alive, why the fuck not?

We keep hearing the story’s ending. This is the time to consolidate plot details, not spread them out further. All of this combined gets a rogue team of operatives with legitimate power, a serious scientific discovery with massive implications for their future, deep emotional strife between every member, and a time crunch they’ve got to fight while all their friends are trying not to die.

You can tell me I’m on crack, but you can’t tell me crazier things haven’t happened in canon, and you can’t tell me this wouldn’t be a fucking blast.

.

.

.

Is any part of you glad you asked, anon?

This will be pried from my cold dead fingers.

Thank you all for your time.

(Remember when this theory was less drugs?)

[libertariantaoist]

“Turn with me to the third chapter of Ecclesiastes,” instructed our pastor.

“Let’s leave,” I whispered tightly to my wife Korrin. She quietly but firmly shushed me, and she had a point.

At the time – March 2003, the Sunday before the beginning of the most recent Gulf War – our family hadn’t yet welcomed our youngest daughter, Sophia, who would be born the following January. Nonetheless, there were six of us, situated very near the front of the chapel, and had we chosen to take our leave at the beginning of the service we would have caused quite a spectacle. So we sat through the entire sermon, which was a potted, pre-fabricated homily on the theme of the supposed virtues of war, just as I knew it would be.

Our pastor at the time was a young man, well-turned out and personable with a remarkable high baritone singing voice. His sermons tended to be well-crafted and theatrical, and generally very effective. This particular installment was less than inspired or inspiring, because the pastor seemed determined to circle the point he was making without running directly into it.

The Bible says that “there is a time for war,” he said in at least a half-dozen different ways, none of them sufficiently clear or specific to permit his audience to answer this question: Was the then-impending war in Iraq one Christians could support in good conscience?

Although he was emphatic in making the case for the righteousness of war in the abstract, our pastor seemed unable to make a case for this particular venture. His message appeared to be that when our Leader commands us to kill, it is our duty as Christians to obey.

The following Saturday, several days after the invasion of Iraq had begun, our family happened to be driving down the main street of Appleton, Wisconsin – our residence at the time – en route to the YMCA. Just short of our destination we saw two contending demonstrations. On our left was a small group gathered behind a large banner bearing the legend “SUPPORT OUR TROOPS!” — which is always phrased as an imperative, and generally in capital letters with an exclamation point. Most of the people arrayed behind that sign were people from the church we were then attending.

On the right side of the street was a somewhat larger group of anti-war protesters drawn from various local activist groups. Korrin and I glanced at each other briefly and – without a word, practically in unison – shouted our support for the peace protesters through the windows of our mini-van, as I honked the horn to get their attention.

“It would appear,” I commented to Korrin as we pulled into the parking lot at the Y, “that we are attending the wrong church.”

Hey, Christian war-bots — remember this guy, the Prince of Peace?

We migrated to three other churches, only to encounter the same problem: Theologically and politically conservative churches were badly infected with the leaven of Bushiolatry, and saw nothing amiss in their approval of the blood sacrifices being offered up in Iraq.

By late 2005, Korrin and I had found a theologically suitable church whose pastor was a disillusioned ex-Republican and recent recruit into the Constitution Party (which, alas, has problems of its own with which to grapple). We had also become regular weekend participants in anti-war demonstrations in Appleton and as far away as Milwaukee.

Just shortly before leaving Appleton to move to Idaho in November of that year, our family took part in that most stereotypical liberal exercise, the candlelight vigil for peace. We didn’t join in the John Lennon sing-a-long, or participate in any of the New Age rituals some protesters insisted on performing.

We attended those events to give voice to our opposition to a monumental crime against Christian decency and constitutional law – and, when opportunities presented themselves, to explain to fellow protesters the intimate connection between a large, interventionist government (which many of them supported) and an aggressive, interventionist foreign policy (which they obviously opposed).

With remarkable consistency we found that anti-war activists were willing to reverse-engineer their assumptions about big government from their opposition to the war.

We also found that our friends and family members who are conservative supporters of the war have been utterly unwilling to reconsider their positions in spite of their advertised hostility to big, invasive government.

It’s likely that millions of other politically and theologically conservative Christians have had similar experiences. Perhaps more than a few of them have reconsidered their support for the Iraq war as the multi-layered rationales for this misadventure have been abraded way by the pitiless sandstorm of reality.

Roughly four years ago, as it became clear that the Bush Regime wouldn’t settle for any outcome in Iraq that didn’t involve invasion, occupation, and the theft of that nation’s energy resources, a small but significant fissure became visible between those who pledged their devotion to the Dear Leader, and those of us who don’t reside in the reality-optional realm where Bush’s will is the only standard.

That fissure has now become a chasm. And others will soon develop as well.

The Wee Decider has let it be known that, well, gee golly Ned, it would be a ripping good idea to expand the size of the Army.

Like any small child too long permitted to believe in the invincible sovereignty of his whims, the Bush-baby doesn’t explain exactly how this is to be done. He’s simply going to have incoming Minister of War Robert Gates devise a “plan” to accomplish this objective.

It works like this: Georgie wants, and Georgie must have it, so the nice adults surrounding him have to find some way to get it for him.

Perhaps Mr. Gates can simply inform the Pentagon’s recruitment officers that they needn’t be so picky, and that they are now free to enlist the hordes of would-be inductees who are being turned away – their hopes of glory cruelly dashed, their eyes bright with frustrated tears.

Those hordes, of course, have made their absence keenly felt. This isn’t going to change.

Which means that at some point, the order will be given to send forth the draft-nappers. When this occurs, parents in countless conservative churches across the nation will likely be treated to yet another version of the same homily based on the third chapter of Ecclesiastes, as pastors try to swaddle child sacrifice in the sanctified robes of Christian duty.

When this happens, how many parents will look on their children – both sons and daughters, since the New Model Slave Army would be “gender-inclusive” — and decide that the State, the coldest of all cold monsters, is entitled to feast on the warm, living flesh of their offspring?

How many, on the other hand, will find themselves blinking awake in mortal horror as they realize – however tardily – that it is utterly perverse to allow strangers living in a cocoon of privilege to steal their children, in order to have them either kill or be killed by children of other parents with whom they have no quarrel?

The chasm opened between those two types of parents could conceivably lead to an actual shooting war in this country, one side of which would be considered entirely just by non-pacifist anti-war activists like myself. Our National Anthem points out that it is the duty of “free men” to “stand between their loved homes and the war’s desolation,” and that this is a “cause [that] is just.”

God grant that I’m entirely wrong, and that what we’re contemplating here never transpires. But it’s clear that our rulers are perfectly willing to allow young Americans – including, may God forgive us, young mothers – to kill and die in Iraq simply because neither of the ascendant factions wants to risk the political liabilities for “cutting and running” from a war we should never have fought.

Those bastards (no other word is suitable, at least none I would use) care that little for the lives they waste in the service of their own convenience.

The time will most likely come when the battle-cry of the patriots at Thermopylae so suitably adopted by the gun rights movement, will be adopted as well by those of us determined to protect our children from those who would steal them to serve in the imperial Slave Army: Molon labe!

Roughly translated, the phrase means: If you want them, you’re going to have to come and get them.

That’s not an invitation. It’s a warning.

[ecotone99]

[HM] The Lollygaggings of a Mr.Milcroft T. Mouse; Esquire.

Chapter 1: In which Mr.Mouse dies horribly, probably.

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It is of the utmost importance, dear reader, that you do not immediately see the words 'Lollygagging' and come to believe that the hero of this story is prone to flights of fancy and lazing about on sunny afternoons. Indeed, our Mr.Mouse is not at all prone to any such things. He is a very serious mouse of very serious disposition, and he takes his serious work very seriously. He tries not to dwaddle, intellectual though he may be, and would feel very disrespected should you suggest such a thing.

No no, dear reader, his current constitutional is a very serious matter indeed, for at the current moment he is running for his life.

As fast as his tiny legs can carry him, he zips up the underbrush and beneath the overhanging branches that shield the forest floor from excessive light; he bounds over stones and leaps over streams, ducking, moving, sliding, always turning to look behind him to make sure the predator is not following.

Every noise he hears could be his doom, every movement of leaf or twig could be the maws of a hungry beast, and when everywhere you turn could send you to your demise, what is there to do but hunker up, put your head down, be as quiet as a mouse, and wait for the threat to move along.

Mr.Mouse hated this part. Bunkered tightly in the rip of a tree-trunk, he hated this part, the waiting, more than anything else. He hated waiting, wondering if he should be running, and running only to wonder if he should be waiting. He hated the jolts of fear he got whenever he heard something, saw something, smelled something, and had to convince himself it was just the wind lest he get startled out of his wits. But most of all, Mr.Mouse hated that this creature, who only saw him as a meal and had no appreciation for Mr.Mouse’s excellent cookies or skill as a Barrister, could decide his fate.

This feeling of powerlessness.

This feeling of being a mouse.

He hated it so much that he had half a mind to march right out and tell the brute “Come here and fight me!!” and take an honourable last stand; something, anything to show that he was more than a particularly speedy meatball. Would he die? Of course he would! But he would die on HIS terms, knowing th- oh, wait a moment, he about jumped out of his skin at the sensation on his shoulder. Was it a tongue? A paw? Heavens forbid a tooth. It was right behind him, wasn't it. About to get him, about to gobble him whole the moment he turned and- hm? What's this? Itching? Oh, some bark pieces just got underneath Mr.Mouse's shirt collar. Brush it off. All better. Now, where was he.

Wait a moment.

Bark pieces? From above?

Mr.Mouse looked up, and was eye to eye with the largest serpent he'd ever seen; the very one he had the misfortune to hop over, for its camouflage convinced him it was just a stick, not five minutes ago. It was massive, with spiteful slited eyes that spelled death, and a greedy mouth that billowed an aroma of putrid meat. It was coiled around the tree, it must have followed him, so silently, so stealthily, so that he must have thought he was looking at sticks again, and oh mercy did it ripple so strangely as it came down, dangling lower and lower toward him, twisting and turning in its descent, coiling and uncoiling again so that its muscles tore at the bark beneath it, causing it to rip and fray and fall upon Mr.Mouse's tiny shoulders.

He was stuck, frozen in fear, he could not will his muscles to move no matter how he commanded them. All he could do was wait while the serpent hung languidly lower and lower, its scaly, nay, slimy face drooping closer and closer, its slithering tongue lapping the scent of terror, its very form tightening around his neck like a noose, until...

It booped its nose against our dear Mr.Mouse's.

“You're it” she said, in a voice that sounded like sugar. “What?” came the squeaky reply. “You pounced on me to start playing, then you started running, so… I guess we were playing tag. I just caught up with you. You're it now. Oh, is this the part where I say tag? Tag. You're it”.

Mr.Mouse eyed her suspiciously. This was a trick, wasn't it? Some predators are known to toy with their prey when caught, is this what that meant? Is this a false sense of security? Is this a trap? She could have killed him had she wished to, but perhaps it is the delight of betrayal over fear that rules some rather than others.

“You're it now” she continued, “so that means you chase me, I guess. You're very fast though. I bet you'll catch me in no time” she noted, cheerily. Then she began slithering away.

My golly gee gracious she was serious. She actually thought they were playing a game of tag while he was in fear for his life. Is she unusual? Well, of course she must be, but is something wrong with her? Now is not the time to question such things! Now is the time to escape. “Um, actually” Mr.Mouse called. She stopped, tilting her large head to listen better.

“I think I'm tuckered out for the day, so...I'm...going to...go home now” “Oh.” replied the snake, with the perfect amount of disappointment. “That's alright. You ran really fast. That must tire anyone out. I'm tired too. But, if that's the case, we can play tomorrow, can't we?” “Um, yeah, sure”. Anything, he just had to say anything so he could step away and get back to the comfort of his burrow, anything to get away from this mad creature.

“I'm glad. That makes me happy. I hope knowing we can play tomorrow makes you happy too. If it doesn't, just tell me, and we can do something else instead” “Sure, alright, splendid” cried Mr.Mouse as he hastily waved goodbye and scampered off toward his den. Ms.Snake paused before waving back, considering what she might have to wave with. Lacking arms, she decided on her tail; a little waggling motion back and forth. Confusing, for never having used her tail that way, but it felt most polite. Lovely. That's the spirit.

Yet Mr.Mouse could not care less about whether she waggled her tail upwards or downwards or in any number of directions. He was simply excited, just chipper, to be on his way back home, decidedly not dead, and especially never ever having to deal with such a strange, horrid, awful serpent ever again.

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[theperksofwritersblock]

“Hi, I’m Elliott.”

“Goodmorning Elliott,” the group responded back in a unison monotone.

“I’m feeling…” I sit up straight in my chair, holding the laminated sheet firmly in my clammy hands. There are over twenty words on this sheet but none of them describe what I’m feeling at this moment. “Um… I guess I’m tired and maybe a little anxious.” I flip the sheet over and follow the script like we do every day. I’m surprised I haven’t memorized it already. “My goal for today is to speak in group because I haven’t been really doing that and uh…the last skill that I practiced was deep breathing.” I hand the sheet to the person sitting to my right and slide down a little in my chair to relax.

There are eleven other kids to get through and I was unfortunate enough to go first. It was only because I was sitting the closest to our group’s leader and head nurse, Kevin. Kevin didn’t look too much older than the rest of us, probably in his late twenties early thirties but he did show signs of balding. Being the head nurse of the young adult wing in an inpatient facility can do that to you. At least I assume that’s why he’s balding considering the amount of chaos this place sees on a daily basis. Wing 6 is a mixed bag of teenage angst and hormonal outbursts. I have been through the muck with them for two full weeks today.

“Are we celebrating your two week anniversary of padded cells, strait jackets, and mashed potato meals tonight? I bet they’d even make you a cake,” the voice behind me whispered as they squeezed my shoulders with their slender fingers.

“Golly-gee Erin, you remembered,” I replied with sarcasm and a smile, my signature.

“Ladies, you’re interrupting Molly who was just about to tell us her goal for the day,” Kevin reminded us with one of his parental glares.

“Sorry Kev, its Elliott’s two week anni today! And I promised her the full Wing 6 treatment with balloons, cake… you know the works,” Erin replied expressively using her hands to map out the scene.

I couldn’t help but laugh. I met Erin on my first day in the lounge of the facility. She saw a stuffed animal in my luggage and commented that she had the same one at home. It was a red panda that I got from the Bronx Zoo when I was a kid. Then she proceeded to tell me that we couldn’t have stuffed animals because people hid drugs and other things in there that weren’t allowed in the program. Bandit the panda, alongside my shoe laces, hoodie and pants strings, razor and floss reside in a locker with a printed name tag until I claim them when I leave this place.

“Can I finish,” Molly asked with an audible sigh and an eye-roll.

If eye-rolls could kill, Molly would have a warrant out for her arrest.

The pacing picked up after that which was good because my stomach was growling loud enough for Erin to hear. She pats her own stomach and pouts like a child. I laugh again. Looking behind me to see the clock at the nurse’s station I squint my eyes to read it: 9:30am. A half hour until breakfast was torture. I turn back around and half listen to Kevin ask the group if we had any complaints concerning the group itself or cleaning issues. Molly raises her hand instantly and stands up to face the group with her arms folded.

“I’m saying this again because it’s super gross but whoever is leaving the tables sticky with juice in the morning and afternoon needs to clean up after themselves. I’m tired of getting stuck to the tables when I’m playing cards.”

Boyish giggles erupt in the back of the room. They high five each other and make lewd gestures with odd hand signals.

Boys are so weird.

“Thank you Molly, I’ll be sure to keep my eye on that,” Kevin replies and clicks his pen against his clipboard to write the complaint down. He looks down at his wristwatch, rubs his balding head with the other hand, and then looks back up at the group. “Half hour until breakfast, you know the drill. Line up five minutes before in front of the door and one of the staff will take you down to the cafeteria.”

We all stand up, pushing the chairs back to their normal resting places. Erin hooks an arm around my neck and pulls me in tight.

“You’ve made it two weeks in this hell hole, El. I’m the proudest mom out there.”

“Oh cut it out,” I roll my eyes and tickle her sides. She lets me go.

“Hey, I’m allowed to gush about your success. You’ve made it through the 48 debacle after your break down your first week, stayed in the program, and even opened up in group a little. It’s progress,” she stands in front of me, pinching my chubby cheeks like my aunt does on Christmas Eve.

I let out a dramatic sigh. She grins and pulls me in for a tight hug. I’m not much of a hugger but Erin became like another appendage to me in here. Her bubbly personality, positive attitude and overall sarcastic demeanor would never clue you into the fact that she’s been in and out of inpatient facilities since she was nine. The only clue on the surface you have is her bandaged arms from her last attempt. I’m not going to lie to you; I looked at them constantly the first time we met. She doesn’t talk about it, not even to me, but I know this last time was really bad. Erin pulls back and puts her hands on my shoulders. I relax a little and she shines her toothy grin at me.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m not looking at you, I’m looking past you.” Her whole face is bright with an ‘I know something you don’t know’ look.

“If you don’t tell me what’s going on I’m kicking you out of our group for spades tonight.”

She feigns hurt and pouts like a four year old. “How dare you! You know I’m always the best at counting books. You need me!”

“I need a partner who isn’t going to keep secrets from me.” I step back and fold my arms across my chest but it’s hard to keep a straight face in front of her.

“Okay okay! You’re no fun, El.” She responds with a defeated tone and pulls me in close. Her hot breath smells like an odd mixture of grape juice and toothpaste. “We have someone new coming in today. I heard Kevin talk to the other nurses about it. He’ll be in 5a with Jack.”

“That sucks for him, Jack’s an asshole.”

“You don’t understand my point.” She blows out a frustrated sigh and continues, “He’ll be the first one to join the group since you got here.”

“Sounds like a shitty situation if you ask me.” I rub my temples with my thumbs. “I really don’t get why you’re so excited about this. He’ll join the league of assholes…probably cause mayhem. I don’t have high hopes. I mean Jack’s old roommate got kicked out from the program because he was sleeping with Molly. And Molly’s family has money so she wouldn’t be able to leave. In the end it was inevitable for Jack to get another roommate. Two plus two equals four. Voila!”

Erin slow claps and saunters over to the couch. Sitting on the arm she falls back and puts her right arm over her face for dramatic effect. “You’re killing me, Elliott. Even my charms, wit, and perfect smile can’t win you over anymore. You used to trust my intuitions and sleuthing. I can’t go on. My best friend… I should just wither away and die in this spot watching my favorite food network program.”

“Oh shut up!” I snort while laughing and extend my hand to help her up. I point to the clock. “You know what time it is?”

“Our favorite time of the day,” she takes my hand, pulling herself off the couch and springs up next to me. She puts her arm over my shoulders and I put mine around her waist. We walk to the door and stand opposite from one another waiting for the rest of the group and staff to bring us down.

The alarm sounds and a code blasts over the intercom. I plug my ears and brace myself against the wall. Several male nurses run out the doors quicker than I can even grasp what is going on. Code Yellow; someone is trying to escape.  

written 11, November 2017

BA Mikulak

[spingtail]

Sorry, but I have to ask, how is Soriel out of character? And before you do, don’t say that “Toby confirmed that Sans is too lazy for a relationship,” because, golly gee willikers, that’s not true, scoob! The question that Toby was answering in that tweet was literally talking about how slutty the skelebros were, not their ability to have relationships. I have no clue how it could possibly be OOC for Toriel, seeing as most evidence in-game points to her having moved on. As for everyone shipping Asgore and Toriel, that doesn’t automatically mean that they would get back together. Actually, it kind of works for any kinds of ships! The entire fanbase could ship something, but that doesn’t mean it could happen! Their kids would be upset, sure, but their kids are dead with no hope of coming back, and Frisk can manage. There are plenty of kids with divorced parents, that doesn’t mean they’ll get back together. Kids can think of people as their parental figures, while not thinking their motherly figure’s boyfriend or something as a father. People grow up, and people change. Sometime past the pacifist ending, maybe Toriel and Asgore work things out. I admit I overlooked that point there. But that does not mean they have to get back together, despite how many people in-game may want them to. I also have to state that only ALPHYS says that she ships them, not Undyne. Undyne specifically tells Asgore that there are plenty more fish in the sea, like she’s pretty much encouraging him to move on. Feel free to prove me wrong if I overlooked anything about that.

As for Sans being emotionally unstable, there’s a thing called “emotional support” and, y’know, getting better. Past the pacifist ending, there is potential for Sans getting better. Sure, he won’t be 100% OK, but that does not mean he cannot maintain a relationship if he cares enough about the other person. And he obviously cares about Toriel, considering he kept a promise to her to the very end, to the point where he only broke it because the human he swore to protect killed everyone in the underground but him, the king, Flowey, and everyone Alphys had evacuated beforehand.

Finally, Toriel being a cougar, hoo boy. You do know how boss monsters work, right? They age as their children grow. Toriel and Asgore’s children are dead, meaning that they are practically immortal unless they die by unnatural causes or have another child. That being said, think of it like in Greek Mythology or something, when a god and a mortal date. Sometimes, the love is short-lived, though in some stories, there are instances where the mortal’s death grieves the god greatly. Technically, if someone cannot age, can it really be thought of as pedophilia? Toriel has no specific age, other than being practically immortal. 

And, you know what? For once, I’ll thank you for tagging this, because otherwise I wouldn’t have seen it. I literally only saw it because I was looking through the Soriel tag to be filled with cute shit. Also, I would block you if I could, but I have no clue how. I’m still kind of new to tumblr, and haven’t encountered anyone actually necessary to block. Not to mention, I’ve heard of a thing called xkit or smth that I definitely don’t have, so if I need it to block people, can you please tell me how to get it? I frankly have no clue and I feel like if I try to find out on Google I’ll get swarmed with viruses.

To end the essay of a post this turned into, I would like to say that I don’t think Asgoriel is bad, if I might have come across that way. I just believe that you should not discourage other ships that still make sense in their own ways. And, if you HAVE to tag the “main focus of the post” at least tag it as ANTI-Soriel, or don’t tag it at all. Yes, I know it would stop if I stopped sending asks, but nah. Just tag your hate, or don’t tag anything. It’s not that hard, my dude.

I'm sorry, but I just couldn't help but come here because you're being kind of an ass. Please, keep your hate out of the soriel tag. It doesn't get you anywhere. Sure, Soriel can have some plot holes, but Toriel quite literally says Asgore and her can't even be friends. And don't point the ending of the game out to me, Asgore can work for Tori without her liking him. Yes, I know, Soriel can have some problems if you interpret it the wrong way, but Asgoriel is no better. Feel free to fight me.

1. I have never claimed to not be an ass. Anyone who knows me knows I am brutally honest and stick to the facts.

2. “Some plot holes” Soriel has SEVERAL. Not only is it extremely ooc for both Toriel and Sans but it is ooc for other characters as well. Toriel still cares for Asgore in a way and there is no denying that. Asriel asks Frisk to take care of his mom and dad. After the fight, Frisk even considers Asgore their father figure. Even Chara would be very upset if the two didn’t work things out. Not only that but you have Undyne and Alphys who ship them as well. Not to mention stuff like the massive age gap, Sans being mentally and emotional unstable, Toriel not being a cougar, etc. Soriel just isn’t happening.

3. “can’t even be friends” Except several hints show that they can work things out. I highly doubt she would be okay with working together with him if they still had issues. They MUST have talked things out to a degree.

4. I have stated SEVERAL TIMES NOW that I tag stuff when it is the main focus of a post. You want less hate? Simply stop sending asks. It is that simple. OR YOU CAN SIMPLY BLOCK ME. Seriously, if you want to avoid brutal honesty you can block it. That said, not listening to honesty and factual evidence is pretty ignorant.