#so she might be going to jail

[cybervom1t]

also sorry if i’ve been kinda distant i’ve been dealing with beaucoup family shit and i’m trying hard not to shut down but that’s the only coping mechanism i know lmaoooo

[shalomniscient]

you’re seven years old and barefoot on the beach of yaoguang shoal with sand between your toes and salt-brushed wind in your hair when ningguang makes her first and only promise to you.

“when we grow up, i’ll marry you.”

the words are big, heavy on her child’s tongue but she speaks them with conviction nonetheless. her hands are laced with yours, your small fingers slotting perfectly with one another. the sunset makes her eyes glow like how you imagine the amber does at jueyun karst. you’re too young, too childish to really understand the weight of her vow—but you nod with a smile, squeezing her hands tighter.

“i’ll wait for you,” you say, hoping she can hear the sincerity in your voice. it’s a foolish hope, because you know that ningguang knows you better than you even know yourself. she returns your smile with one of her own, her hand never leaving yours as you walk back to your village, the sunset at your backs. the light paints ningguang in gold, and you can’t help but think at seven years old that this is how things should be—hand in hand with the girl you know you love before you even knew the meaning of the word, barefoot together in the sand.

you’re seven years old when you learn how things should be, but you’re fifteen years old when you learn how things are.

ningguang leaves for the city. she tells you before she goes, of course, holds you close as you weep selfishly into her shoulder. her hands are gentle as she sifts them through your hair, along your scalp and down the nape of your neck before wrapping around your slim, hunger-carved shoulders. i have to go, she’d said, or else how will i afford our wedding? and you’d wanted to tell her that it didn’t matter at all what kind of wedding you had, as long as she stayed with you—that all the riches in the world are worthless without her. but for as much as she knows you, you know her, and you know that ningguang is not to be deterred once she sets her mind on something, so you send her off with a delicately packed mora meat and a prayer in your heart that she’ll come back soon.

you’re fifteen years old when you learn how things are, and you’re twenty-one years old when you learn how things will be.

it’s been six years since ningguang left. even in the backwater village you call home, tales of ningguang’s exploits reach your ears. how she runs circles around liyue’s businessmen and businesswomen, how she effortlessly finds her place amidst liyue’s social elite, how she’s rising, rising, rising like an unstoppable eclipsing star. she keeps writing to you, always keeping you updated on her progress, and you always write back, filling your letters with the mundanity of your day-to-day life—about the way the glaze lillies have been blooming, or about the way everyone around you says you’d make a fine wife.

my parents are getting restless, you confess in one letter. i’m getting older, and they think i should get married soon.

the reply that returns the next week is simple, but succint. i haven’t forgotten. wait for me, please. and you know she hasn’t, which is why it kills you when your new husband forbids you from ever writing to her again. you weep yourself to sleep on your side of the bed for the next week following your wedding night. the distress of wondering—if ningguang is worried, if she’s upset, or worse, if she’s hurt by you—drives you near insane to the point you worry yourself sick. your husband only tells you to stop holding on to naive childhood promises and perform your duties as a wife. it is the only thing you are good for, now.

you’re twenty-one years old when you learn how things will be, but you’re twenty-nine when you learn that things can change.

in the years you have been married, your husband has grown—not in character, but in wealth. he is rich enough, now, to take you and himself from your village and to the big city to further his business. a small spark flickers to life in your chest that you might see her again, but it fizzles out when your husband makes it clear that you are just to stay at home. you don’t have to worry your pretty little head about anything other than the house, he’d said. i’ll give you everything you need. and you know better than to argue with him, so you resign yourself to staying at home, spending your days gazing up at that palace in the sky and wondering if its lady even remembers you—or if she, like you, has decided to let go of naive childhood promises. after all, she has the world now, can see it from the edges of her floating sanctuary. what need has she of the memory of being barefoot in the sand at seven years old?

(selfishly, you pray she hasn’t forgotten, even if she has no need for remembrance. you pray she chooses to remember.)

change comes when a woman in a white fur jacket and the prettiest emerald eyes you’ve ever seen breaks into your house. it’s certainly a very unorthodox meeting, and you come dangerously close to throwing the knife you were using to finely dice some cabbage at her. the woman only laughs, nimbly prying it from your hands and setting it on the counter. before you can even ask her what in rex lapis’s name she’s doing in your house, she says the words that make your blood run cold.

the tianquan wants to see you.

ningguang wants to see you.

the woman promptly leaves after delivering her message and additionally telling you not to breath a word of it to your husband, leaving you standing in your kitchen reeling from the shock. the mora meat you were working on putting together is forgotten as you swallow your nerves and take the chance you’ve waited nine years for. you’re nearly sick with it by the time you’ve ascended to the jade chamber in all of its opulence, feeling like you stick out like a sore thumb.

but the moment you see ningguang again, everything else fades to white noise. archons, she’s as beautiful as the day you last saw her. she was lovely dressed in commoner’s clothes, and she is just as lovely dressed in finery no doubt worth more than a year’s worth of your rent. she will never be anything other than lovely in your eyes.

“it’s been a while,” she says softly, the first to break the silence. you nearly cry at finally hearing her voice again. instead, you stifle it with a wet chuckle.

“only took fourteen years.”

ningguang manages a small laugh, lips curving upward in a smile you know—you remember—is reserved only for you. she offers you a seat by her desk, and two secretaries file in to place a tea set down by both of you, before disappearing as quickly as they came. and then ningguang is telling you about the real reason she asked to see you; your husband, as you are quite unsurprised, is involved with some sort of fraud, and the prosecution—the tianquan’s office—needs a witness. namely, you. after all, who better than the wife of the man himself? you try not to let your disappointment show, though, and you bite your tongue to stop yourself from asking her if she remembers—or worse, if she missed you. your conversation with her is pure business, and when you descend from the chamber later, it’s only with the taste of sweet tea on your tongue and half your heart; the other half you seem to have left with her, up in the clouds.

your husband, to his displeasure and rage, finds himself in millelith custody the very next day. and the very next week, you, to your pleasure and joy, find yourself lacking a husband. the millelith who take him away politely point you to an office down the street ran by a pink-haired half-adeptus, who takes care of your divorce affairs with a cheery smile in less than four days. you’re both scared and impressed—is this just how people move in the big city…? you don’t have time to dwell on the question, because unfortunately, without your husband you are also without your income, and without your income you are also without your house. which would be a very big problem; were it not for the fact that ningguang once again invites you to the jade chamber, but this time, to stay with her. you nearly decline because of the sheer insanity of the request, but the part of your heart there with her wins out. you relent, and now, you find yourself playing house with the tianquan of the liyue qixing.

it’s almost frightening, how quickly you fall back into old habits. ningguang, you find, hasn’t changed much. she is still whip-smart, still as cunning as she is devious, but she is still just as kind as she was before. something in you aches viscerally when you see the way she speaks with the children, offering them candies and goodies as she goes. (things neither of you had the luxury in indulging as children.) you smile and tell her, you haven’t changed at all. she only looks at you and returns it with, have you? the answer eluded you at the time, but thinking about it more, you would say that yes, i have. but the parts that loved you never did.

(you don’t say this out loud, of course. it’s too early, and the chasm of years between you both yawns achingly large. but by the glint of her eyes, you think she knows. and if she didn’t, the time and care she spent relearning you would have told her as well.)

since you’re not sure how long ningguang will let you stay, you decide to make the most of it. you’re almost thankful for the nine dull years you spent with your former husband—since at the very least, it taught you how to be a half decent wife. it’s all you’re good for now, after all. ningguang’s meals are cooked by you, and you’re the one who brings her tea in the afternoons and evenings. you talk with her over your cups like nothing ever happened, and you walk with her round the perimeter of the jade chamber as the sun sets, her hand close enough to hold. rumors dance in the wind like dandelions about the tianquan’s new companion; some call you an old friend, others, a lover. the answer is somehow both, yet neither. she is everything to you, and more.

(and you are everything to her and more. the infinte she has been searching for her whole life is right there in your eyes. it always has been.)

you’re twenty nine years old when you realise things can change, and you’re thirty years old when you remember how things should be.

ningguang takes a rare day off, and invites you on a little excursion to yaoguang shoal. it’s been a year since you started living with her. a year since you’ve been freed from a man you never loved, and a year since you’ve come to realise that it’s because you’re still in love with ningguang—and that perhaps, you never stopped. it’s not as difficult as an epiphany to come to terms with, but it does make your chest ache every time you look at her. especially now, in this place, where the waves carry salt-brushed wind and memories of a distant time. the sun hangs low in the sky, and ningguang is kicking off her heels, barefoot in the sand. all of a sudden you’re seven years old again, watching her watch the waves and wondering if her eyes glow the same like the amber at jueyun karst. you slip your own footwear off too, standing by her side in the sand, the water lapping at your ankles. she speaks first.

“i still remember,” she murmurs, and your heart catches in your throat. when she looks at you, it’s with all the bare innocence she looked at you with twenty-three years ago. “do you?”

“of course,” you answer, without a beat of hesitation. “how could i forget?” how could i forget you?

ningguang smiles. “then you remember what i promised you here?”

“yes,” you breathe. “i remember.”

the woman before you exhales, the sound nearly drowned out by the sigh of the waves as they crash onto the shore. her geo vision glimmers, and a crystalline box manifests in her hands—her hands that tremble as they open it, revealing a simple golden band inside. “will you forgive me for taking so long?” she whispers, and you clasp your hands over her own, steadying them. you rest your forehead against hers, caught halfway between a sob and a laugh.

“i would have waited for you forever, ningguang.”

she exhales again. catches her breath. “then, will you let me fulfill my promise and marry me?”

you answer her with the only possible answer, catching her lips in a kiss twenty-three years in the making.

yes.

[brionysea]

in act i piltover doesn't care that the people they're threatening war over to get arrested are a group of four children and in act iii piltover doesn't care that jinx is a mentally compromised teenager who sometimes acts even younger than she is due to The Trauma and who needs help not to be locked up in a cell like vi was. i am so on vi's side about piltover's prison system being awful because what the hell is wrong with them

[lottieratworld]

sorry im not voting for any candidate that will happily continue supplying weapons for a genocide. it would go against everything i stand for

[twerkyvulture]

honestly? why don't more celebs put out hits on each other? once your personal assets get past $1 bil it should be free-for-all PVP with all the other God-Dollared fuckers

[softquietsteadylove]

@theshipper47 had this lovely idea and I had to ask you!

tyrant king/Ice Queen AU or secretary AU:

Gil is in prison and Thena needs to get him out 👀

Gil sits down heavily into the seat, hunching himself to lean against the counter as the guards watch them all. He picks up the phone receiver, "hey."

"Hey, Baby."

Gil smiles. Thena has never been one to go crazy with petnames or cutesy couple behaviour. But since he was apprehended by the Korean authorities on their way back to London, she hasn't missed an opportunity to make it clear that she's his partner. "They set a bail number, yet?"

Thena keeps the smile on her face. They're both sure that the guards know at least some of what they're saying in English, so they haven't taken any chances. "Not yet, Yeobo. I keep asking them, though."

What she means is they still don't have any evidence to convict him on anything serious, they just don't want him to slip out of their fingers again.

Gil sighs. He's tried telling her to go home without him--maybe try to make some progress from the English side of things. Even having him expedited from imprisonment in Korea to the UK would be an improvement. They're a little easier to bribe, he thinks.

"Hey," Thena gives him a softer smile this time, tilting her head in the way he thinks is really cute. She presses her hand to the reinforced glass between them, "I miss you."

He presses his hand as close to hers on the glass as possible. "Fuck I miss you, Naekkeo. Sleeping here fucking sucks."

She purses her lips, "I'm sure it's miserable. And just to be clear, sleeping at the airport hotel without you isn't what I'd call enjoyable."

He chuckles. That's more like his Thena--who would normally have a little bit of a tough time expressing how much she misses him, especially around other people. "I'll be with you soon, Gongjunim. If-"

"When," she corrects him freely, and has been doing so everyday when she's allowed to come and see him like this. She raises her brows, "they find out who is framing you for all this."

Gil grins at her. Thena worked for him long enough--she knows who to call, who to trust and who not to. She knows how to fake documents and which ones need to be legit. Hell, she worked for him so long he's still surprised she wasn't brought up in the 'embezzling' charges they had gotten him on.

But that just means that whoever blew the whistle on him was on a personal vendetta, not really out to destroy his 'shipping' business.

Apparently whoever it was didn't know - and still doesn't - what a force of nature his Thena is.

"My poor husband," Thena sighs both loudly and sweetly, putting an extra sweet note into her voice. She flutters her lashes and lets her hair slide off her shoulders, revealing just a little bit of cleavage under her cardigan. "Stuck in this awful place."

Gil raises an eyebrow, leaning closer in a somewhat vane attempt to block the guards' view of her. "Uh, baby?"

But she gives him another smile and taps the glass. It's morse code.

I'm going to pay one of them to give you something for me.

The little minx--his clever snowfox, more like. He snorts, forgoing the coded message and simply drawing a big heart on his side of the glass with his finger. "I know, it's awful. Wait for me?"

She tilts her head at him, "I won't be waiting long, since you'll be with me in no time."

He smiles. She hasn't wavered in that belief even once while visiting him. Even when he's attempted to bring up the flat back home, or his office he still owns here, or any of the other domestic stuff. She won't let him even imply that he won't be back by her side as soon as his trial happens. "Okay, fine, you won't be waiting long. But still...?"

Thena gives him a look he recognises from their earlier days of knowing each other. There's a lot happening behind those eyes of hers. But she would look at him like this sometimes when she was contemplating asking about his business meetings, or that time she had his favourite sundubu delivered to the office when he was sick.

Eventually, her debate with herself ends. It's not denial driving her, rather the drive and belief in whatever she's planning that will get him out of here. She'll do whatever she has to--he believes it too, looking at her.

Thena draws a much smaller, but just as earnest heart on her side of the glass. "I would wait for you until the world burned down around me."

Gil grins, bringing up his hand again to let their fingers press against the glass, as if he could touch the tip of his pointer to hers. It'll have to do. "I promise it won't be that long."

Thena slips her hand away and draws her facade over herself again, clearing her throat and shrugging away any real emotion she had let bleed through. "Indeed--I'm going to go have a meeting with some old associates of yours. I believe they'll hear me out. We had a lovely chat over some tea last we spoke."

Ah, yes, the juniors he had met with whose faces Thena had smashed with a tea tray. They probably would hear Thena out, even if it was just because enemies of Gil's were also enemies of theirs.

"Tell 'em to be on their best behaviour," Gil chuckles. He snarls at the guard waving at him to wrap it up. He sighs, "I gotta go, Princess."

"It's okay," Thena whispers back, her eyes already glassy at having to watch him get led away in handcuffs again. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"I love you, Naekkeo."

"I love you too," she promises, watching as he sets the receiver down, as does she. They hold each other's eyes until he's physically pulled from his seat to be marched back to his cell.

Thena undoes an extra button on her cardigan and stands, making a weepy show of picking up her designer purse.

"Ma'am, if you'll follow me."

Ah, so sweet and innocent seeming. She smiles at the guard--young, probably looking to rise in the ranks. And if he can't do that, then maybe he'll take a payoff from a rich inmate's wife. "Oh, how sweet of you."

She bats her eyelashes at the guard, making light conversation until she's almost out of the building. She looks at the young man without the crocodile tears in her eyes, "here."

He blinks as she slips an old nokia phone and pair of wired earbuds into his hand.

"You give that to him for me and this," she enunciates, slipping a thick stack of won into his pocket, "will be doubled by tomorrow. Can you do that for me?"

The young man gulps, but he doesn't hesitate to accept it, "yes, ma'am."

"Good boy," Thena purrs, watching the poor boy blush as she leaves the same way she came, surrendering her bag to be checked again. Not that anything will be amiss (the money was in the lining of the fake purse and the phone was nestled into her bra). "I'm sure my husband will remember your kindness when all this nasty business is over."

[hauntingblue]

Sanji has adquired top sad wet cat status

[saintlesbian]

not me praying on the downfall of the bensons rn!!! of all the people for Nina to tell, I didn’t think she’d bring Martin into it????

[sharky857]

What if Pierre was dumped into the luau soup and drowned for being a dick

But... But... Pierre is the lowest of the "bad quality food" one could ever dump in the potluck. 🙁 He would completely ruin the soup everyone worked so hard to make tasty. 😔

On the other hand... 🤔

Sam!

Sam might be perfecty capable of dunking Pierre in the soup. They may have banned him forever from dumping anything ever again in the potluck after that anchovies disaster, but nobody couldn't stop him from doing so for Abby's sake, if he ever acted fast enough ('sides, he actually gives zero 💩 about "impressing some old man everyone calls Governor").

[aceonn]

bro the Olympics always activate my pansexuality ESPECIALLY THE TRACK TEAM?? LIKE HELLO?? I SAW SHA’CARRI RICHARDSON IN AN OLAY AD AND MY JAW LEGIT DROPPED. I just stared at the screen for the rest of the ad, imagining the crimes I would commit and the amount of full course meals I would create for ONE SINGULAR CHANCE. Guys I’m too gay to watch the Olympics safely help

[cimeriansparrow]

Sister's therapist called child protective services on my mother!!

[zosonils]

i should take commissions again i have a lot of stuff to spend money on this year

[foldingfittedsheets]

My paternal grandmother was a librarian. I only got to see that set of grandparents once a year as they lived out of state. I fondly remember summers spent at their house watching That Darn Cat and The King and I on loop, hunting for water skippers in the back creek, and reading the entirety of the Peanuts comics.

Because my grandma was a librarian she was delighted to foster my love of reading. We made trips to the library every week. One summer when I was seven or so I got really into this kids series about princesses all named after gemstones, each had a unique magic power.

At the end of each book was a puzzle or some extra bit of lore to decode. All of them were easily copied down in some way. Until I got to Sapphire’s book. At the end of the story Princess Sapphire was in peril! She needed a hero to come save her from a terrible fate. And there, on the last page, was a decoder device. It needed to be cut out and assembled.

I had to help save the Princess!!! In the iron grip of a fever of imagination I immediately found scissors and started carefully cutting the page. The page warned only to use scissors with an adult present and I scoffed to think I needed supervision just for scissors! I was a hero!Her plight called to me from the pages, imaginings of how I would daringly rescue the beautiful sweet Princess Sapphire ran through my little brain-

And about halfway up the page toward my goal I froze. This was a library book. I couldn’t cut a library book! What was I doing?! Even now in my memory it stands as a glaring example of the first time I mastered impulse control. Tragically, too late.

I was distraught. My grandma had a sacred duty to books and I, villain that I was, had defiled a precious tome! I wallowed for some time in abject misery, experiencing the greatest amount of guilt my tiny body had ever previously held. I’d probably go to jail. For a crime as monumental as wielding scissors against a book I wouldn’t even get dessert in jail.

Gradually, I processed my way through the grief of my vile deeds. I couldn’t have the decoder, I slowly accepted. That might be punishment enough. And I had only cut the page halfway. So it was only half a crime... It wasn’t illegal to lie when you’d aborted an evil act, right?

I didn’t know but I didn’t want to face my grandma’s potential wrath. I have no memory of my grandma ever yelling at me. I waited until the next day to approach her.

“Grandma? I finished my book and when I got to the end I saw someone had cut the page! They probably wanted the decoder because I also want that but it was very bad to cut a book, wasn’t it?”

My grandma regarded me benignly. She carefully took the book to observe it and nodded. “It’s good to see that they stopped before they cut it all the way out. Let’s go tape this together, and then I can photocopy the page and we can make you a decoder.”

I was ecstatic. Rewarded for my honesty! I created and cracked codes for the rest of summer with the flimsy paper creation we’d made. I genuinely doubt my grandma believed that I wasn’t the perpetrator, but I loved that she acknowledged that the person responsible stopped.

[real-life-cloud]

:((

[ckameley]

Just had a dream where I was trying to reach my friend in some new lady's art class but sorta had to sneak in. I didn't get caught but I did get close to being clocked but I escaped, made a loop around the halls of the school, then re-entered her class and started working on a portrait piece using her colored pencils and she was impressed by my work

Funny how I was able to illicit a response from her that was a complete 180º once she realized that I actually made good art relative to the rest of the kids in the class

[hauntingblue]

Robin being scary collection

Kinda love how her eyes turn like mihawk's...

Luffy hitting crocodile with his blood will never not be hard af

Luffy ily part 746

Nami is asking Vivi to come with her and see all the world together.... I know it

Luffy and sanji in here.... Dumb of Ass and Kind of Heart (interchangable)