#so now I might need to watch them

[chibinightowl]

"Okay, hear me out..." Jason says earnestly, nudging the paper-lined basket of his newest creation across the bar to his partner. "They're really good."

"That's sacrilege." Tim doesn't sound convinced in the slightest and glares at the unoffending plate between them. "You put cheese in them!"

"Yeah, I did. Havarti, which goes really good with dill, which is why those are dill pickles."

Tim makes a face. "And what did you do to the aioli?"

"Sriracha ranch."

Down the way, Colin glances over and snickers just loud enough for Jason to hear. "I even had Colin try them since you were out of town forever."

It's a low blow since Tim really hated being gone as long as he was, but that's what happens when you're running a biotech company. "What about Roy?"

"Roy has the palate of a college frat boy so nice try. He inhales everything."

"They're really good, Tim," Colin says. "Would Jason lead you wrong?"

"No," Tim replies slowly, though he's still giving the pickle spear deep fried in a wonton wrapper the evil eye. "It just feels like sacrilege."

"One bite," Jason encourages. "Just one bite and if you don't like 'em, you'll never see 'em again."

Gingerly, Tim picks up the new version of his favorite deep fried pickle and dabs it in the sauce. Then, looking like he's been asked to spend time with Damian, he takes a small bite.

He chews. Swallows.

Jason waits, then grins from ear to ear as Tim goes in for a second, much larger, bite. "Told ya," he laughs.

"Shut up." Tim takes a third and final bite, then pouts when he realizes he's only been given one pickle. "Do you have any more?"

[kb-jank]

so I've been rewatching Static Shock because of @bearsspace 's Duke and Virgil art, and I'm not even a season in and its already so clear how good they'd get along.

Like Virgil's story focuses on not only actual racism and systemic issues, but the allegory of race within the bang babies/metahumans. Duke's story also does this with We Are Robin and Robin War; the robins are a group of mostly disenfranchised kids who rise up to protect themselves and their communities while being targeted by cops. WAR also makes direct comparisons to racism/systemic issues.

Besides their stories having some similar themes, they're also similar in the way they interact with their communities directly. (Let me mention here that Duke's mom and Virgil's dad are both social workers). Both Duke and Virgil are able to talk and connect with the people they're saving, and this includes the "villains" they encounter who really just need help (ohoho! another part of their stories connected to systemic issues).

Of course a lot of heroes do this but it's special for Virgil and Duke. Virgil's able to connect and help his foes not only because he's a bang baby, but because the standing he already has in his community. Like he spends a lot of time at the community centre and it means a lot to him. One of the things I really love about Virgil is that if he wants to get info on someone he starts knocking on doors and talking to people. It's special for Duke because not only does a big part of his story centre around bringing a community together to protect itself, but in contrast to the rest of the bats, his whole thing is LITERALLY being in the daylight. Like the whole premise of his character is being a beacon, Duke will always have a connection with the public the rest of the bats can't.

I also think it's really funny how both of them almost immediately become superheroes the first chance they got. Like Virgil's bestfriend is like, "You could be a superhero!" and he agrees instantaneously and does it. Duke's kinda just like, "Ugh, I GUESS I'll join this group of vigilantes if you REALLY want me to!" and "What? You want ME to lead this vigilante group? Aw shucks well SOMEONES gotta do it!" and "Not like being a vigilante is important to me or anything but I will literally let nothing including Batman's trained sidekicks stop me." then he jumps out of a moving cop car off a bridge.

[acourtofquestions]

Kingdom of Ash Chapter 61

Chapter; Highlights (okay the entire chapter is a highlight)🤣

As requested @mysterylilycheeta I NEED TO SQUEAL IN WYVERN FANGIRL WITH YOU NOW CAUSE OH M GOODNESS THIS CHAPTER ON SO MANY LEVELS I JUST AHAKWIHUHFEJLZXBKEKA

Agony was a song in Lorcan's blood, his bones, his breath.

Every step of the horse, every leap she made over body and debris, sent it ringing afresh. There was no end, no mercy from it. It was all he could do to keep in the saddle, to cling to consciousness.

To keep his arm around Elide.

She had come for him. Had found him, somehow, on this endless battlefield.

His name on her lips had been a summons he could never deny, even when death had held him so gently, nestled beneath all those he'd felled, I, and waited for his last breaths.

And now, charging toward that too-distant keep, so far behind the droves of soldiers and riders racing for the gates, he wondered if these minutes would be his last. Her last.

She had come for him.

Lorcan managed to glance toward the dam on their right. Toward the ruk rider signaling that it was only a matter of minutes until it unleashed hell over the plain.

He didn't know how it had become weakened. Didn't care.

Still Elide kept urging the horse onward, kept them on as straight a path toward the distant keep as possible.

No ruk would come to sweep them up. No, his luck had been spent in surviving this long, in her finding him. His power would do nothing against that water.

The farthest lines of panicked soldiers appeared, and Farasha charged past them.

Elide let out a sob, and he followed the line of her sight.

To the keep gate, still open.

"Faster, Farasha!" She didn't hide the raw terror in her voice, the desperation.

Once the dam broke, it would take less than a minute for the tidal wave to reach them.

She had come for him. She had found him.

The world went quiet. The pain in his body faded into nothing. Into something secondary.

Lorcan slid his other arm around Elide, bringing his mouth close to her ear as he said, "You have to let me go."

Each word was gravelly, his voice strained nearly to the point of uselessness.

Elide didn't shift her focus from the keep ahead. "No."

That gentle quiet flowed around him, clearing the fog of pain and battle. "You have to. You have to, Elide. I'm too heavy-and without my weight, you might make it to the keep in time."

"No." The salt of her tears filled his nose.

Lorcan brushed his mouth over her damp cheek, ignoring the roaring pain in his body. The horse galloped and galloped, as if she might outrace death itself.

"I love you," he whispered in Elide's ear. "I have loved you from the moment you picked up that axe to slay the ilken." Her tears flowed past him in the wind. "And I will be with you ..." His voice broke, but he made himself say the words, the truth in his heart. "I will be with you always."

He was not frightened of what would come for him once he tumbled off the horse. He was not frightened at all, if it meant her reaching the keep.

So Lorcan kissed Elide's cheek again, allowed himself to breathe in her scent one last time. "I love you," he repeated, and began to withdraw his arms from around her waist.

Elide slapped a hand onto his forearm. Dug in her nails, right into his skin, fierce as any ruk.

"No."

There were no tears in her voice. Nothing but solid, unwavering steel.

"No," she said again. The voice of the Lady of Perranth.

Lorcan tried to move his arm, but her grip would not be dislodged.

If he tumbled off the horse, she would go with him.

Together. They would either outrun this or die together.

"Elide-"

But Elide slammed her heels into the horse's sides.

Slammed her heels into the dark flank and screamed, "FLY, FARASHA." She cracked the reins. "FLY, FLY, FLY!"

And gods help her, that horse did.

As if the god that had crafted her filled the mare's lungs with his own breath, Farasha gave a surge of speed.

Faster than the wind. Faster than death.

Farasha cleared the first of the fleeing Darghan cavalry. Passed desperate horses and riders at an all-out gallop for the gates.

Her mighty heart did not falter, even when Lorcan knew it was raging to the point of bursting.

Less than a mile stood between them and the keep.

But a thunderous, groaning crack cleaved the world, echoing off the lake, the mountains.

There was nothing he could do, nothing that brave, unfaltering horse could do, as the dam ruptured.

Rowan made himself stand there, to watch the last moments of the Lady of Perranth and his former commander. It was all he could offer: witnessing their deaths, so he might tell the story to those he encountered. So they would not be forgotten.

The roaring of the oncoming wave became deafening, even from miles away.

Still Elide and Lorcan raced, Farasha passing horse after horse after horse.

Even up here, would they escape the wave's reach? Rowan dared to survey the battlements, to assess if he needed to get the others, needed to get Aelin, to higher ground.

But Aelin was not at his side.

She was not on the battlement at all.

Rowan's heart halted. Simply stopped beating as a ruddy-brown ruk dropped from the skies, spearing for the center of the plain.

Arcas, Borte's ruk. A golden-haired woman dangling from his talons.

Aelin. Aelin was—

Arcas neared the earth, talons splaying.

Aelin hit the ground, rolling, rolling, until she uncoiled to her feet.

Right in the path of that wave.

"Oh gods," Fenrys breathed, seeing her, too.

They all saw her.

The queen on the plain.

The endless wall of water surging for her.

The keep stones began shuddering. Rowan threw out a hand to brace himself, fear like nothing he had known ripping through him as Aelin lifted her arms above her head.

A pillar of fire shot up around her, lifting her hair with it.

The wave roared and roared for her, for the army behind her.

The shaking in the keep was not from the wave.

It was not from that wall of water at all.

Cracks formed in the earth, splintering across it. Spiderwebbing from Aelin.

"The hot springs," Chaol breathed. "The valley floor is full of veins into the earth itself."

Into the burning heart of the world.

The keep shook, more violently this time.

The pillar of fire sucked back into Aelin.

She held out a hand before her, her fist closed.

As if it would halt the wave in its tracks.

He knew then. Either as her mate or carranam, he knew.

"Three months," Rowan breathed.

The others stilled.

"Three months," he said again, his knees wobbling. "She's been making the descent into her power for three months."

Every day she had been with Maeve, bound in iron, she had gone deeper. And she had not tapped too far into that power since they'd freed her because she had kept making the plunge.

To gather up the full might of her magic.

Not for the Lock, not for Erawan.

But for Maeve's death blow.

A few weeks of descent had taken her powers to devastating levels. Three months of it

…

Holy gods. Holy rutting gods.

And when her fire hit the wall of water now towering over her, when they collided —

"GET DOWN!" Rowan bellowed, over the screaming waters. "GET DOWN NOW!"

His companions dropped to the stones, any within earshot doing the same.

Rowan plummeted into his power. Plummeted into it fast and hard, ripping out any remaining shred of magic.

Elide and Lorcan were still too far from the gates. Thousands of soldiers were still too far from the gates as the wave crested above them.

As Aelin opened her hand toward it.

Fire erupted.

Cobalt fire. The raging soul of a flame.

A tidal wave of it.

Taller than the raging waters, it blasted from her, flaring wide.

The wave slammed into it. And where water met a wall of fire, where a thousand years of confinement met three months of it, the world exploded.

Blistering steam, capable of melting flesh from bone, shot across the plain.

With a roar, Rowan threw all that remained of his magic toward the onslaught of steam, a wall of wind that shoved it toward the lake, the mountains.

Still the waters came, breaking against the flames that did not so much as yield an inch.

Maeve's death blow. Spent here, to save the army that might mean Terrasen's salvation. To spare the lives on the plain.

Rowan gritted his teeth, panting against his fraying power. A burnout lurked, deadly close.

The raging wave threw itself over and over and over into the wall of flame.

Rowan didn't see if Elide and Lorcan made it into the keep. If the other soldiers and riders on the plain stopped to gape.

Princess Hasar said, rising beside him, "That power is no blessing."

"Tell that to your soldiers," Fenrys snarled, standing, too.

"I did not mean it that way," Hasar snipped, and awe was indeed stark on her face.

Rowan leaned against the battlements, panting hard as he fought to keep the lethal steam from flowing toward the army. As he cooled and sent it whisking away.

Solid hands slid under his arms, and then Fenrys and Gavriel were there, propping him up between them.

A minute passed. Then another.

The wave began to lower. Still the fire burned.

Rowan's head pounded, his mouth going dry.

Time slipped from him. A coppery tang filled his mouth.

The wave lowered farther, raging waters quieting. Then roaring turned to lapping, rapids into eddies.

Until the wall of flame began to lower, too. Tracking the waters down and down and down. Letting them seep into the cracks of the earth.

Rowan's knees buckled, but he held on to his magic long enough for the steam to lessen.

For it, too, to be calmed.

It filled the plain, turning the world into drifting mist. Blocking the view of the queen in its center.

Then silence. Utter silence.

Fire flickered through the mist, blue turning to gold and red. A muted, throbbing glow.

Rowan spat blood onto the battlement stones, his breath like shards of glass in his throat.

The glowing flames shrank, steam rippling past. Until there was only a slim pillar of fire, veiled in the mist-shrouded plain.

Not a pillar of fire.

But Aelin.

Glowing white-hot. As if she had given herself so wholly to the flame that she had become fire herself.

The Fire-Bringer someone whispered down the battlements.

The mist rippled and billowed, casting her into nothing but a glowing effigy.

The silence turned reverent.

A gentle wind from the north swept down. The veil of mist pulled back, and there she was.

She glowed from within. Glowed golden, tendrils of her hair floating on a phantom wind.

"Mala's Heir," Yrene breathed.

Down on the plain, Elide and Lorcan had halted.

The wind pushed away more of the drifting mist, clearing the land beyond Aelin.

And where that mighty, lethal wave had loomed, where death had charged toward them, nothing remained at all.

For three months, she had sung to the darkness and the flame, and they had sung back.

For three months, she had burrowed so deep inside her power that she had plundered undiscovered depths. While Maeve and Cairn had worked on her, she had delved. Never letting them know what she mined, what she gathered to her, day by day by day.

A death blow. One to wipe a dark queen from the earth forever.

She'd kept that power coiled in herself even after she'd been freed from the irons. Had struggled to keep it down these weeks, the strain enormous. Some days, it had been easier to barely speak. Some days, swaggering arrogance had been her key to ignoring it.

Yet when she had seen that wave, when she had seen Elide and Lorcan choosing death together, when she had seen the army that might save Terrasen, she'd known. She'd felt the fire sleeping under this city, and knew they had come here for a reason.

She had come here for this reason.

A river still flowed from the dam, harmless and small, wending toward the lake.

Nothing more.

Aelin lifted a glowing hand before her as blessed, cooling emptiness filled her at last.

Slowly, starting from her fingertips, the glow faded.

As if she were forged anew, forged back into her body.

Back into Aelin.

Clarity, sharp and crystal clear, filled its wake. As if she could see again, breathe again.

Inch by inch, the golden glow faded into skin and bone. Into a woman once more.

Already, a white-tailed hawk launched skyward.

But as the last of the glow faded, disappearing out through her toes, Aelin fell to her knees.

Fell to her knees in the utter silence of the world, and curled onto her side.

She had the vague sense of strong, familiar arms scooping her up. Of being carried onto a broad feathery back, still in those arms.

Of soaring through the skies, the last of the mist rippling away into the afternoon sun.

And then sweet darkness.

[thedreadvampy]

sometimes I forget that my experience has been. um. not 'your experiences are not universal' vibes but more like 'your experiences are EXTREMELY atypical'

[valzhangism]

i know i said i was happy about how mel's story went, but the more i think about it the less i'm sure about that. this is very much connected to how the themes of classism and wealth disappeared in s2, but mel in the beginning was the epitome of piltover. she wanted to advance piltover to prove herself to her mother. to "put piltover—" and by extension herself, "—on the map."

she wanted wealth just to have it. and i'm not blaming her for anything that happened, especially with hextech! she, just like jayce and viktor, could not have known what it would lead to. i mean yeah heimerdinger said so but who the hell listens to heimerdinger? but anyway i think mel changed throughout s1, much in thanks to jayce. by the end she's become more cognisant of the mistreatment of zaunites. she's the first to vote for their peace. she was a good person all along but now she knows how to act on it. it's also seen more in s2 act 1. when she covers her painting with gold, it's symbolic—she won't act according to what her mother might think. she won't let her desire for approval dictate her anymore.

so somehow i wish those themes were. continued, somehow? like again they were dropped not just with mel but the whole show and it makes her story a off to me. there's no meaningful commentary on war or classism or how her ideology stands opposite to her mother's. like some people have said, it feels like she doesn't have much agency, even if she is really cool. and that to me is a shame because agency felt like her thing. "to shape your own destiny" as she says to jayce in s1. i know her collaborating with the black rose (but not fully joining them) and learning magic is supposed to represent becoming independent from her mother, taking her own path, but some other aspects of her character were thrown away... the more i think about it the more i'm thinking they kind of #girlboss-ed her a little bit. maybe to sell another champion. i can't help but feel like even though i enjoyed seeing her on screen, the payoff didn't feel proportionally satisfying compared to her setup in s1.

[quicklyandrogynousfox-blog]

(x)

[karamell-sweetz]

you know what guys. after this whole thing goes down, i hope we get the ACTUAL kamiyama school festival and it is a very good comparison to the first one. where we can see clearly how much mizuki has grown since that first event in january 2021, since that first school festival in middle school.

and i hope mizuki gets to have fun with her friends and can hang out with ena. and i hope ena has fun too. i hope she gets to tease akito, forge bonds with her classmates at the fried squid stall, and hopefully get roped into a dumb show with the oddballs 1 2. i hope this is ena’s pandemonium. i hope we all can have a little bit of joy and whimsy while getting to see how much the gang’s lives have changed at this point.

and i hope rui is a little worried for mizuki — i sincerely hope he is somewhere in mizu5, quietly waiting by the rooftop like he always has for her. but by the end of the schoolfes event he can look at mizuki, her whole face bright as all eight students in our little kamikou main cast gang come down from the rooftop (for one last time maybe, but we don’t talk about graduation in front of rui… unless ofc we bring it up this event) and he can say “you’ve come such a long way, haven’t you, mizuki? i’m happy for you.”

[bumblingbabooshka]

It's impossible to write a TOS x Any other Series crossover [for me] without having to think about whose lens it's going to primarily be from because the vibe of TOS is so distinct and I think quite different from all series that follow it. The way the characters speak and are presented is so theatrical and of course steeped in the past that I find myself considering if this is, say, Janeway meeting Kirk (through a VOY perspective) or if I should write Janeway as she would appear if she stepped through a portal and was in TOS' universe.

[luna-the-cretar]

I NEED the Krew to actually TALK about what happened in episode 46. (Spoilers under the cut)

And I don’t mean them mentioning that it happened but “it’s all fine now because they’re alive!” Because I imagine that shit scarred all of them, one way or another. Frost especially.

I don’t care HOW the conversation happens, but it does need to happen. They each need to have that closure, rather than letting those thoughts and feelings swirl in their minds for all eternity. And I don’t just mean in fanfic or whatever. No, it needs to happen sometime in canon, when they have a moment to talk about it in-depth (so probably post-canon, all things considered).

I just…I need Frost to tell them how it felt, watching as all his friends fall around him, and how he couldn’t do anything. I imagine he still gets nightmares about it, especially for the first few nights after the fact, and I imagine he wakes up from those nightmares and probably goes and cuddles up next to Gricko (after making sure he’s breathing. Even if, logically, Frost KNOWS that Gricko is alive and breathing—he’s snoring, shifting around, whatever—he still needs to check. Just in case), as if to confirm to himself that, yes, they’re here. Theyre alive. He’s not alone.

I need Torbek to talk about how he feels like he’s not good enough in battle. How he kicks himself for not being able to control the Witchlight better, for not being able to bring out the Other. Because maybe, just maybe, if he was somehow able to bring out the Other in that fight, maybe they would’ve had a chance (they still wouldn’t, it would still end the same, and Torbek knows it deep down, but he kicks himself all the same)

I need Gricko to lament about how he thinks he’s not a good enough healer. He’s supposed to keep his friends from dying, and he couldn’t even do that right. Maybe if he had gotten to Gideon sooner, maybe if he had realized that Gideon was already long gone before he pumped his last spell slot into him. How he regrets that Hootsie wasn’t spared. Maybe if he had told her to run sooner, faster, maybe, just maybe, she would’ve made it out alive. Maybe. Or, at the very least, he wouldn’t have had to hear her yelps right before he fell unconscious himself. He’s supposed to be her father, he’s supposed to protect her. But he didn’t. Couldn’t. Just like he couldn’t protect his friends.

I need Kremy to tell Gideon how it felt to watch his best friend, his husband, get ripped apart before his very eyes, and being unable to stop it. Unable to help in any way. How he couldn’t imagine ever living in a world without Gid. After all, what’s the point of living when your reason for waking up each day is long gone? Someone else could pay his debt, surely.

I want Gideon to lament about just how useless he feels. With the mixture of being unable to help Twig in episode 41, turning into a stupid useless dancing mushroom (where he was the slowest because he traded the rhythm in his step away, and his friends had to help push him along), losing some of his fire (sure, he gained it back, but for several hours he felt colder. Weaker.), and then being the first one down during the Jabberwock fight? He’s supposed to be the strong one, the fighter, yet time and time again his friends are the ones protecting him. Keeping him alive while he keeps throwing himself into danger. He could’ve killed the Jabberwock, surely. With the help of Torbek, sure, but it would’ve died! It just got the jump on him, is all.

I just…I need them to talk, when they get the chance to. They deserve that much. To reassure themselves and their friends that everything is okay. They’re alive, and they’re not going to just abandon each other. Not again. Even if they feel weak, or useless, or like they could be so much more if they were just better. They all know now what it feels like to lose their family, their best friend, the love of their life, their everything. And I don’t think they’ll ever let themselves or each other experience that again. Not for a very long time, at least.

[kaurwreck]

oh, i figured out aya's skill.

[breadboylovin]

i have to manifest this image in my mind every time i think about going on the hivemind subreddit because i know ill get on there and see something stupid that makes me mad

[fictional-worlds-are-exquisite]

help i just witnessed a caesarean birth i'm going to throw myself out a window what do you mean they cut into you and then pull AN ENTIRE BABY OUT OF YOU THERE IS AN ENTIRE CHILD IN THERE THAT LOOKS LIKE SOMETHING OUT OF A HORROR FILM I HAVE NEVER BEEN QUITE THIS TRAUMATISED BY HORROR BEFORE THIS IS WORSE THERE ARE TEARS FALLING FROM MY EYES RIGHT NOW MY JAW IS HURTING FROM HOW WIDE I HAVE IT OPEN IN A SILENT SCREAM THAT IS A HORRIFIC PROCESS I THINK WE SHOULD OUTLAW BIRTH I'VE NEVER REALLY LIKED BABIES VERY MUCH BUT NOW THAT I KNOW HOW THEY CAN COME OUT I THINK I'LL BACK AWAY IN FEAR YOU'RE TELLING ME THAT'S NATURAL??? IT'S NATURAL THAT WE GROW. THAT? THAT INSIDE US? AND IT COMES OUT? AND STARTS CRYING? BITCH I SHOULD BE THE ONE CRYING. GO BACK IN THERE. BETTER YET, VANISH. NEVER DO THAT AGAIN. I HATE IT HERE. I WOULD SOONER DIE THAN HAVE A BABY IN ME. THAT IS. PURE HORROR. I'M SO UNCOMFORTABLE. CAN I GET RID OF MY UTERUS? IS THAT AN OPTION? I DON'T WANT IT ANYMORE. I REALLY REALLY REALLY WANT IT OUT OF ME SO THERE'S NO CHANCE OF AN ALIEN TYPE EVENT HAPPENING. I FEEL NAUSEOUS. I CAN'T DEAL WITH THIS. MY LIMIT HAS BEEN CROSSED. CAN SOMEONE HIT ME REALLY HARD IN THE HEAD SO I FORGET THE LAST 10 MINUTES. PLEASE.

[bookmark-extraordinaire]

I recently had a conversation with a friend that made me realise that (maybe) people might not know that the Italian mafia still exists and actively operates all over Italy. Like, the general international public has this old-timey idea of the mafia that stops at the 1950s, with Al Capone, seedy bars, car chases with tommy guns etc. etc. or at least that seems to be the case for the people who don’t live in Europe, or otherwise close to Italy.

So, I made this poll. DISCLAIMER: this poll is NOT so i could judge people in any way. I can’t really fault anyone for not knowing about a problem so tied to Italian soil and culture, I was just curious.

NOTE: I’m not making a distinction between the actual Mafia, Camorra, Ndrangheta etc. etc. just pretend that all Italian organized crime is one big thing for the sake of this poll.

[orangedogsquad]

Whyyy do people have their dogs on flexi leads in a vet. It’s unnecessary 😭

Waiting for Henry’s appointment this evening and two terriers came barrelling out of the consult room on flexis, very much not controlled by the owners, and swarmed Henry and me in the waiting room. Poor boy was spooked and couldn’t get away since he was backed into the corner. I asked them to give us space because he doesn’t like other dogs in his face and one of the owners commented ‘Awh, sorry, didn’t see you there’ while they did nothing to pull their dogs away??

Thankfully Henry recovered alright and was happy taking treats from me/ignoring the terrier Staring and crying at him, but my god why are people so clueless. They finally pulled that one back, but while the other owner was paying, their one ran straight back up to us :))

Henry did really well though and felt brave enough to go up to it and sniff it before they got it away again. But then the first one started saying ‘oh do you want to say hi too??’ to their dog. Like, my guy, I told you he’s shy/doesn’t like dogs in his face. Do Not push it. I got Henry doing ‘paws up’ on the bench, and they finally gave up.

Note to self, Henry goes up on the bench to start with next time…

[quietlyblooms]

on a separate but related note, i wanna point out that part of chiyo’s journey is supposed to be finding love. it’s that thing of loving someone else is easier than loving herself, but in that love, she grows. she learns to not be so hard on herself. she learns that where she sees an ugly, overgrown garden, others see flourishing flowers. now!! that isn’t to say that platonic and familial love isn’t super important — it is!! so very much!! that’s why i want to try and build up the people around her so that i can think about how those relationships help her grow too. if not for them, chiyo would be so much worse off. there’s a lot about herself that she would always hide and stress about if not for her friends and family. she would hide away from the world itself if not for them.

but i just wanted to explain why sometimes i focus so much on romance as a concept with chiyo. i mean, i do just really enjoy shipping bc of the build up of that relationship. the development and journey is very rewarding bc it isn’t a smooth ride with chiyo 90% of the time. but pls know you are never obligated to ship with me, nor do i go in thinking you will automatically want to ship together. if i feel chemistry? yeah i may eventually say something or test the waters with a meme. but just as there’s no pressure if you want to ship, there’s no pressure if you don’t want to ship. i’m excited to write together no matter the kind of dynamic we decide on 💜