#so the fact that he’s anti s*x at first is not a problem

[theloveinc]

the good thing is that single dad Sakura is way too soggy for you to want to fuck in those first… 3-6 months

[loveindefinitely]

01 — 𝘎𝘖 𝘈𝘏𝘌𝘈𝘋 𝘈𝘕𝘋 𝘊𝘙𝘠, 𝘓𝘐𝘛𝘛𝘓𝘌 𝘎𝘐𝘙𝘓

༊*·˚ LUST FOR LIFE — task force 141 x reader

featuring. simon 'ghost' riley + johnny 'soap' mactavish + kyle 'gaz' garrick + john 'bravo six' price

warnings. nsfw, fem!reader, fmmmm, legal age-gaps, inexperienced reader, virgin reader, corruption kink, slight power imbalance, praise, degradation, light dom/sub, slight daddy kink, oral, vaginal sex, your father's a dick, very minor soapghost, aftercare

series masterlist. read on ao3. fanfic playlist.

// NSFW CONTENT UNDER THE CUT //

Stay in your room, your father had said. Don't bother us tonight, your father had said. They are dangerous men that do dangerous things, your father had said.

Yet, here you were, standing at the bottom step of the stairwell, hiding behind the wall adjoined to the living room, listening in to the men on the other side.

You were bored out of your brains. It was a Friday night, and like hell was your over-protective father going to let you go out or party. And the fact that he wouldn't even introduce you to his only friends? Or let you leave your fucking room?

It had left you pissed off to no end, so.

Here you were.

"Bloody close," you hear a voice grunt, deep and gravelly. It sends heat to your stomach immediately, and it's almost embarrassing.

You hear the sound of a hand slapping a shoulder, and the bark of a laugh. "Aye, still got the cash you're gonna owe me?" This voice has a -- Irish? Scottish, maybe? -- lilt to it, humour and kindness embedded into its layers.

"He'll find a way outta paying," a third voice chimes, laughter in its tone.

Someone else clears their throat. "You're all gonna get yourselves indebted to each other at this rate," a fourth voice says, sounding almost resigned.

"You all need to shut the fuck up before she sticks her nose down 'ere."

Your spine straightens, and fury simmers in your blood. Did he have to be such an asshole? Why was your father so... so anti your existence? Why was he so ashamed of you, yet so overbeating?

"She's not a kid anymore, you really oughtta to lay off," the man with the scottish accent says, slightly stern in his delivery.

"If you met her, you'd understand how fuckin' annoying she is. Always wants me to deal with her emotions, as if they're my fuckin' problem," your father replies venomously. Your stomach has dropped to your feet, you're sure of it.

There's a low whistle in response, and a silence settles behind the wall. An unsettling one, full of animosity. The fact that you can tell that from behind the wall says a lot.

"I'm gonna go out and get some drinks. Maybe some dinner. Needa get out of this fuckin' house for a bit," your father says with a grunt, sounding like he's gotten up from the couch. "Call if you lot need anythin' while I'm out."

A few grunts of agreement, and after a few seconds, the front door opens and slams shut.

You let out a small breath of tense relief, eyes fluttering shut as you deeply exhale. The immediate relief of having your father out of the house is immense.

"I feel bad for her," you hear the third man speak, voice quiet and low. "You hear how he speaks about her -- what's he like with her?"

"Gaz, whatever you're thinkin', drop it," the first speaker grits out, impatient and tight.

"He's right," the scottish one says with a huff, "Poor kid. She's legal and he isn't letting her out on a Friday night? 'Nd he fuckin' wonders why she's upset."

"He must have his... reasons," the fatherly voice of the fourth speaker says, although his tone says otherwise.

You swallow, slowly creeping off of the bottom step and onto the wooden floors. Front pressed to the wall, you move just the slightest bit, to allow yourself a small peak into the loungeroom.

There are four men, like you'd expected, and they're...

They're big. There's no other word that comes to mind, except for big. Tall, broad, packed with muscle. Military-grade men.

Your mouth is suddenly parched of any moisture, and your brain turns to putty.

Selfishly, stupidly, you spend another dangerous moment to admire the four. The couch curves, the four of them seated on it, facing the TV hung on the wall. They're backs are to you.

Or.

One second, they're all blissfully turned the other way, and in the next, one's head turns, and deep brown eyes meet yours.

Your eyes go wide, and you immediately dart for the stairs, heart in your throat.

Rushing up, trying to stay quiet but still hurrying, you make it to your room in record time. You shut the door behind you, chest tight and breaths harried as your back presses to the wood.

Stupid, stupid girl, you think.

They are dangerous men who do dangerous things.

That's what your father had said, wasn't it? So what were you thinking, risking a look? For what purpose?

Then, there's a knock on your door.

Your eyes go impossibly wide, and your lips purse together as you slowly move away from the door. With one breath, you train your face into a pleasant, kind smile as you slowly open the door, only allowing a bit of your room to be shown.

"You're his daughter, ain't ya?"

You have to crane your neck, eyes going up, and up, and up, until you meet the man's eyes.

The skull balaclava shouldn't cause your face to heat, or your breaths to quicken, but they do.

"I -- um, yes, I'm really sorry for eavesdropping," you mumble, eyes flitting to the floor and hand squeezing the door in an anxious gesture.

A hand grabs your chin, forcing your gaze to meet the man's chocolate eyes once more. They're imploring, impossibly so, and your thighs squeeze together against your better judgement.

"Come watch the game with us," he says, and although the sentence isn't a demand, it feels like one.

So, like the good girl you are, you nod, his grip loosening as you do.

You forget that you're in your tiniest sleep shorts and your thinnest tank top as you follow him down the stairs, his large hand resting on your lower back.

This was the most touch you'd ever felt from a man that wasn't in a familial way, and your nerve-endings feel like they've been electrocuted.

Whatever conversation that was happening silences as soon as the two of you walk into the lounge room, your hands squeezing each other painfully tight.

Your anxiety was warranted in this situation, wasn't it? Surely, it was okay to be scared of four men whom you'd never met.

Four sets of eyes are trained to your body, and there's a slight tremble in your hands as you sit in the spot balaclava had gestured towards.

It seats you in the middle of the four of them, and your heart beats impossibly faster as you settle into the leather, feeling so small in comparison to the men surrounding you.

It's a new, albeit not entirely terrible, feeling.

"What's your name, sweetheart?" The man furthest to your left asks, and when you meet his eyes, they're warm and kind. His lower face is mostly covered in a beard, and he's wearing a light brown hat.

You bite at your inner cheek, gaze flicking back to your thighs as you weakly say your name.

Their gazes burn your skin, like a living force, and your hands form nervous fists in your lap. The warm yellow light of the living room lamp creates a warm, safe ambience that doesn't exactly fit the emotions swirling inside of you.

You flinch only slightly when a warm hand moves to rest on your knee, the thumb rubbing comforting circles on it that ease your tight muscles slightly.

When you look to the owner of the hand, it's to see a warm grin and a faux mohawk.

"You're so tense, lass," he says, his mouth quirking into a knowing smirk. "We don't bite."

"Don't speak for all of us, Soap," the man sitting on your close left says with a charming grin, his eyes meeting yours when you turn to him. "I'll ask nicely, love, don't worry."

You nod, slowly, in some sort of trance. This entire situation doesn't feel entirely real, more like a figment of your deepest desires.

Ones you've never let yourself think about, except for the darkest of nights and the dirtiest of feelings.

"Don't scare the girl," the man with the balaclava says, eyes narrowing on the two men beside you.

"Says the one with the fuckin' mask, ya weirdo," the scottish one says with a scoff of a chuckle. Your mouth pulls into a soft grin without you realising, and the hand on your knee tightens ever so slightly.

"I'm Price," the man who you've deemed the most sensible of the group says with a warm smile. His head gestures to each of the other three men respectively. "That's Gaz, Soap, and Ghost."

You can't say that you're all too familiar with the names, nor how...different they are, but you nod nonetheless, reserving the names in your memory.

"Father dearest never talked about us?" Gaz asks, eyebrows softly furrowing in question.

You shake your head, almost apologetic in the movement. "He doesn't like to tell me much, he's, ah... private."

There's a few returning grunts of understanding, and they settle your nerves just a little bit more. For men of their size, they were surprisingly good at keeping you feeling safe and comfortable.

"What're you doin' all alone on a Friday night? Pretty young thing like you, 'nd you're not at a club? A date?" Soap asks, and if you notice that he's moved just the slightest bit closer to you, you don't say a word.

You feel your face heat, and you murmur out your reply. "Never been to either," you admit, pulling at a thread in your sleep shorts with nervous jerks.

Ghost settles further into his chair, legs spread in an almost dominant way. "Surely you've at least had your first kiss?"

If you could get anymore embarrassed, you're sure you'll combust on the spot.

You softly shake your head.

"Aw, love, you're adorable," Gaz says, a hint of a smirk on his features. His dark eyes glimmer in the light, and you lick your bottom lip to wet it.

Price's arms rest on his knees, and his eyes seem trained on you, debating some sort of inner conflict, before they firm with some kind of resolution. "Y'know, we've been training rookies lately," he states, but with a knowing undertone that everyone in the room seems to pick up on except for you.

"That we have," Ghost says, his voice sending shivers down your spine as he nods in agreement with Price.

"How about we train you, bonnie?" Soap asks, his hand moving just the slightest bit higher on your thigh.

You swallow, mouth dry.

"Um. Like, train me... how?" You ask, although there's some part of your brain that knows all too well what area they're thinking of.

Gaz's hand moves to sit at the nape of your neck, stroking in soothing movements that leave your eyes half-closed and glassy. "How about I show you how to kiss, love?"

Your stomach hollows, and your chest rises and falls in heavy beats. Nervously looking around the room, you squeeze your eyes shut as you nod shortly.

Soap's hand tightens around your thigh, a barely hidden warning. "Words, baby, or you're goin' back to your room."

The threat instantly has words flying out of your mouth. "Yes. Please. Just... be gentle?"

All four men seem to huff a laugh at that, but Gaz nods, dimples showing as his smirk deepens. "I can do that."

He pulls you in, and your eyes flutter shut as his lips meet yours.

The feeling leaves you entirely dazed, your nervous system alighting with signals as your thoughts seem to pause, if only for a second. It's nothing like you'd expected, and butterflies erupt in your lower stomach.

He pulls away, not having breached your mouth, and you must look as out of it as you feel because he laughs.

"That good, love?" He asks, teasing and entirely prideful.

You nod, a bit too fast and enthusiastic, before his hand pulls away from your nape. The loss is mourned, briefly, before your attention pulls away from Gaz and instead to Soap.

"Gotta learn from all of us," is all he says, before his lips crush against your own. Where Gaz was tentative and soft, Soap is all energy and desperation.

His hand squeezes your thigh, and when it had moved from your knee to pushing against your tiny shorts, you haven't an idea.

You can't find it in yourself to care, with his relentless attack on your mouth, your lips, your mind.

When he pulls away, you realise it's because Ghost's moved to stand, and his hand is in a tight fist in Soap's hair, pulling his face away from yours.

"Actin' like a fuckin' mutt," Ghost mutters, tone laced with vitriol. It's degrading, and yet Soap doesn't seem phased in the slightest.

You're about to inquire about that when your attention's caught by Price, his knees spread and patting his thigh. "C'mere, sweetheart," he says, and like a dog on a leash, you do.

His unbelievably large hands grab your hips as he seats you in his lap, and with how he's got his legs spread, it forces you to sit over his groin.

It's a compromising position, and the heat that rushes to your core is an entirely unknown feeling.

He doesn't move his hands from your body as his eyes devour it, before they meet your gaze with a warmth to them that has you shivering.

"Show me what the boys have taught you, hm?" He says, and with shut eyes and a stiff movement, you press your lips to his.

He groans, pleased, his thumbs rubbing circles where your skin's been revealed by your tank top. No one's ever touched you there, not in this way, and it has your pussy wet.

When he pulls away, he licks at his lips, as if he's devouring your taste.

"You're so pretty, sweetheart, mm? No wonder your father's got you all locked up," he says, and the reminder of the source of your anger has you wanting to do entirely too reckless things.

Like kissing the four men he warned you about.

Like doing more, maybe.

...Maybe.

His hands force your hips down, and you let out a small whimper when your clit presses against his belt buckle, the action sending pleasure shooting up your spine.

He raises a brow, catching the change in expression and your small sound. "What's wrong, pretty?"

And then, he pulls you down again, deeper this time, and the movement has your breath hitching, core burning with need.

"Oh, you naughty little girl," he says, and the words have your mind turning into some sort of mouldable clay, entirely able to be controlled by whatever these men wanted to make of it. "So needy, ain't ya?"

Someone presses against you from behind, and a belt buckle presses against your lower back.

"My turn to feel those lips, innit?" Ghost says from behind, leaning down to whisper his next words next to your ear. "See what all the fuss 's about."

The idea that you're being passed around, like you're some kind of... of whore has you entirely speechless in the most positive of ways.

You feel filthy, and you love it.

Leaning your head back, you manage to make eye contact with the large man, before his lips press to yours, upside down.

He devours, all encompassing, his tongue slipping into yours without any hesitance. You're clumsy, unsure, but he makes up for it with experience and dominance. The entire act has you woozy, needy for more of them, more of their touch.

You don't expect for Price to start forcibly rotating your hips, forcing you to grind against his lap, but it forces a moan from your mouth, the sound getting devoured by Ghost's overpowering tongue.

"Who knew she'd be such a desperate slut?" Gaz asks, as if you're not there, as if you're just something to be observed. It causes another moan to leave your mouth, and Ghost detaches himself from you with a grunt of his own.

"Think she liked that," Soap says, amused and proud, in a strange sort of way. "Wanna be used, baby? Taken by men nearly twice your age?"

"Yes," you say, on a groan as Price's motions speed up, the pleasure so new and different and good.

Then, he stops, and a whine comes out of you before you can stop it.

Price makes a condescending noise in response. "Poor babygirl needs all the attention, hey? Needs her little pussy played with?"

"She looks like a goddamn mess, cap," Gaz says, his hand coming up to rest on your head. He gives comforting pats, not unlike one would with an obedient puppy.

Ghost's hands come around your waist, and before you even process what he's doing, he rips your sleep shorts in half, leaving you completely bare.

"Didn't think to wear panties, dumb girl?" Ghost asks with an appreciative groan, his large hand cupping your now exposed pussy.

With a whimper, you shake your head, your eyes squeezed shut at the embarrassment and nudity. No one had ever seen it before, and now, four of your father's friends were getting an eyeful.

"Lemme see if she's nice 'n wet for us," Soap murmurs, picking you up from Price's lap in a princess carry.

It doesn't even last two seconds before he's splaying you over the now empty couch, your hands pathetically covering your most private of areas.

"None of that, sweetheart," Price says with a 'tsk', grabbing both of your wrists in one hand and pinning them to the couch above your head, leaving you effectively defenceless to the men.

Soap's hand moves down your stomach, before he pauses for just a moment. "This okay, baby?"

You nod, because yes, this is most definitely okay.

Gaz gives you a stern look, so you quickly fix your mistake. "I -- yes, sir, it's okay."

There's a surrounding sound of approval, and Soap smirks from where he stands beside your hips. "Sir, aye? Like the sound of that."

With that, his finger slides down your pussy, and your eyes shut with a soft moan. His hands are rough, scarred, calloused from years of work on the field, and they're so much larger than your own.

"Think she likes it, sir," Ghost says, taunting Soap, whose eyes are completely transfixed on your glistening pussy.

"Not the only one," Price says with an approving murmur, his hand tightening around your wrists. The sense of powerlessness has you aching with desire.

Soap's finger continues to rub against your slit, not breaching your entrance, instead continuing to tease and amplify his touch. Your eyes are shut, too embarrassed to look at the mess you're likely causing on the fabric, and too nervous to see the expression on the men's faces.

"Do you play with your lil cunt often, princess?" Ghost says, voice darkened with lust.

Your face feels like it's burning, but you nod. "Sometimes. I -- ah," you break off with a moan as Soap's thumb presses against your swollen clit.

"Be a good girl and answer when spoken to, love," Gaz says with a sound of disappointment that has you aching to amend your mistake.

"I'm sorry, sir, I, yes. Sometimes 'm just needing to, um, y'know..." You trail off, trying to preserve any amounts of dignity you had left. You were aware that masturbation was normal, but you'd never discussed it with a single soul, and talking about it felt like laying your soul bare.

Price's other hand moves to gently brush your hair from your face, the gesture so at odds with Soap's sensual movements.

You're about to say something, what, you aren't exactly sure, when Soap's finger roughly enters your soaked pussy. A loud whimper escapes your lips at the sudden intrusion, and the sheer size difference of his finger compared to your own.

"Aww, baby, it's alright," Soap coos, and it's so fucking condescending. It's cruel, almost, as if you're so dumb that you can't even form your own thoughts.

Which is, honestly, more true than you're willing to admit.

"'Atta girl," Ghost groans when your whimpers only increase with every thrust of Soap's finger.

Gaz's hand moves down to replace Soap's thumb on your clit, using the pads of his fingers to roughly circle around it. That sensation, mixed with Soap's intrusion, has your back arching slightly from the couch.

"Think she's close, Cap," Gaz says, conversationally, again treating you like you're not entirely capable of voicing your own feelings or thoughts.

"Mm, that right, sweetheart? Close already?" Price echoes, the hand not around your wrists going to squish your cheeks together, causing your lips to pucker. "What a pathetic girl, hm?"

Those words, those demeaning, humiliating words, only stoke the fire in your stomach, and your eyes burn with unshed tears as you shakily nod.

As soon as you do, however, Gaz pulls away, and Soap's finger leaves your pussy entirely. You groan, eyes opening slightly to see what could've possibly caused them to stop.

"You look so upset, baby," Soap laughs, and his smile is no longer the jovial one it had been mere minutes before -- no, it's been replaced with something much more predatory, something much more dangerous.

Dangerous men.

Ghost moves, then, moving your legs with much more care than you'd expected from the large man, before moving to kneel at the end of the couch where your legs had been. Hooking your knees over his shoulder, he effectively folds you in half.

"W-what are you doing?" You ask, almost frantic, utterly confused at your current state.

He leans down, hooking his balaclava over the tip of his nose, before there's searing wet heat at your core, causing you to throw your head back with a loud moan.

Gaz chuckles, "So dirty, love. Like having the big bad Ghost with his head between your legs, huh? Like having the attention of men with blood on their hands?"

Oh, and the confirmation -- the proper, hard proof, that they killed, that they truly were as dangerous as your father had said --

"Yes, fuck, please, oh my god," you ramble, almost incoherent with your words as you body trembles with the feeling of a mouth at your pussy. "Jesus, don't stop."

You can hear laughter around you, some words being passed between the men, but your focus is entirely on the tongue dipping into your folds, licking at your essence like a man starved. Like you're his only salvation.

Soap's hand is in Ghost's hair, a complete parallel to the kiss the two of you had shared, and he's pushing Ghost further against you, manhandling him like a toy for you to grind against, for you to take advantage of.

"I'm gonna, oh, please, I'm close," you cry out, eyes squeezed shut yet again as Ghost's ministrations only double in enthusiasm.

"Yeah, sweetheart? Gonna cum all over his face? Go on, ride it, there we go," Price eggs you on, his hand patting down your hair, massaging at your scalp as you lose yourself to the pleasure of it all.

You cum with a desperate keen, tears finally spilling down your cheeks as you ride out the high, embracing this moment for the beauty it is.

It doesn't hit you, not at first, the full extent of your actions.

Ghost pulls away after your whimpers turn into ones of overstimulation, pressing a soft kiss to your inner thigh, your twitching pussy, and then your inner knee as he carefully sets your legs back down on the couch.

"Such a good girl, aye?" Soap asks, rubbing at your tense calves with expert strokes and pressure. "Did so well for us, darlin'."

Your head feels like it's been filled with cotton, and your mouth is in a similar state as you nod dazedly.

You're not sure when, but at some point, Price gently moves you to lay your back against the cushion of the couch. "Need you to drink something for us, sweetheart, okay?"

Gods, this part? Them treating you like a princess, like you're something worthy of taking care of, it's almost as good as the orgasm they'd given you.

Gaz comes into view with a glass of water, and when he gently moves your chin to open your mouth, you let him pour it down your throat.

It feels almost like you're entirely too weak to do anything by yourself, like your ability to function has been completely removed by these men. It's intoxicating, the kind of feeling that could be as addictive as the most threatening of drugs.

The water slides down your throat, and it's as if it cools you from the inside out, your heartbeat slowly coming down from the quickened pace it was previously at.

Price picks you up, cradling your head to his chest as he sits down, the other three settling down on the couch as well. Gaz, sitting beside Price, moves your legs to sit over his lap, your feet in Soap's. Ghost sits to Soap's left, his eyes focused on you as you get comfortable, burrowing your head closer to Price.

If you could stay in this moment forever, you think that you'll be a very happy woman.

Closing your eyes, you drift into a space between sleep and awareness, and when they flutter open again, you realise that your previously exposed pussy and legs are now hidden by your sweatpants that had been laid on your bed, ready to be put away.

Price's hand is in your hair, softly playing with the strands. His hand encompasses your entire scalp, almost, and if you weren't completely exhausted, that fact alone would have you ready to get on your knees.

"What're we gonna do?" Gaz whispers, and you realise with a start that they must all think you're still dozing. "I mean, we seriously fucked this up."

"Not yet we haven't," Ghost interrupts, voice still gravelly and low, but with a hint of warmth. "This doesn't change anything."

"This changes everything!" Soap hisses back, incredulous, his hands stilling from where they were rubbing into your feet with practiced movements. Were they all trained masseuses, or something?

No. Trained killers, your mind unhelpfully supplies, and a chill runs down your spine.

Oh god. Oh god. What had you done? Seriously, what the actual fuck had you done? You just.

You just lost your virginity to four of your father's very lethal, very dangerous friends. Friends who are nearly twice your age, at that.

Oh. God.

"Laswell will be expecting correspondence by three," Price mutters in a voice akin to a whisper. "You boys know what we have to do."

What? What were they talking about? Who was Laswell? What did they have to do by three?

Your mind whirrs, like a hamster in a wheel, before the sound of keys jingling on the other side of your front door has your entire body freezing.

Oh god.

Oh. God.

"Shit," Gaz grumbles, and between one thought and the next, you've been bundled up into a warm chest, the movement fluid and shockingly quick. A hand at the base of skull softly pushes your head against a warm neck, and your legs hang over a muscled arm. "I'll take her upstairs. Be quiet and quick."

There's murmurs too quiet between the other three as you're taken up the stairs, two steps at a time, by the man whose fingers had been on your pussy, at most, only an hour ago.

You're aware that you've been taken to your room when the door clicks behind you, the familiar path to it engrained in your memory, even with your eyes closed and in someone else's arms.

The smell of vanilla and caramel is a comforting and familiar one, and you realise that you'd left your candle burning all night.

It's really the least of your worries, but that thought manages to snag at your conscious like an annoying fly.

"I'm so sorry, kid," Gaz whispers, gently laying you down underneath your bedsheets, before pulling them up and over your lazed form. "I'll try my best to talk some sense into 'em."

You're not sure what he could possible mean -- what the fuck was even happening, what your life was even becoming, but his words are nothing if not sincere.

His tone is almost... apologetic, in a way, and you reserve that thought for later. When you're not pretending to be awake, when you're still not slightly out of it from your first orgasm caused by someone else, when you're not in the middle of the worst moral conflict of your life.

Your window's slightly open, allowing a soft breeze to brush over your still slightly heated skin as Gaz presses a soft kiss to your forehead, brushing your hair back.

"Get off me!"

Your father. That's your father's voice, and it sounds panicked, angry -- not unusual, but still, the cause of it was nearly always you.

And those specific words, what --

"Y'know, Laswell found out somethin' pretty interestin' the other day," a voice that you recognise as Ghost's says, tone mocking interest.

Gaz moves away from you, before going to the window and looking out at whatever scene is happening down there. Somehow, he hasn't realised you're not asleep -- you'd kept your breathing pattern the same as it usually was when you're asleep, some youtube video you'd watched months ago finally coming in handy.

You can hear them all clear as day through the small opening of the window, and Gaz can too.

"Aye. Somethin' 'bout some info bein' leaked," Soap continues Ghost's train of thought, and you're so lost it's almost pathetic.

But, you continue to listen, desperate for any source of understanding for whatever the fuck was happening down there.

"You can't possibly think it was me!" Your father yells, his voice full of venom and rage. To have it not be directed at you is a rare moment, and you allow yourself a small breath of reprieve.

"We know it was you," Price says, before sighing loud enough for it to be heard from your room. "The way you spoke about that kid of yours was enough to cement the idea."

"She's a fuckin' waste of space, and where do you get off on caring how I treat my kid? Has nothin' to do with the job!"

Those words hurt. Like an actual, physical wound, almost.

Gaz swears under his breath, and you can feel the tension ooze out of him like a wave. It's... oddly comforting.

There's the sound of a fist hitting a jaw, and it takes everything in you not to race to the window and look at what's going on yourself.

"Jesus fucking christ!" Your father hisses, and you put two and two together. One of the three men down there had punched him -- if you had to take a guess, it was Ghost.

"You've never been one of us, and you'll never be one of us. You sellin' us out was the last straw, mate," Soap snarls. You can hear him spit on the ground, before another sound of fists flying makes your heart race.

There's a moment of silence, until two things happen in the span of five seconds.

First, your father screams, "Please! Don't --"

And then...

A bullet.

The sound of a trigger being pulled.

The sound of a bullet ringing through the air.

The sound of a final breath.

Your eyes fly wide, and you immediately stumble out of bed.

Gaz's gaze meets yours, and there's nothing but apology in them. No guilt, just apology.

He doesn't stop you from looking out the window, where your father's body lays in the grass, blood leaking from the wound now sitting between his eyes.

And when you turn to him, he doesn't stop you as you land a punch to his jaw.

a/n. CROSS-POSTED TO AO3 ummm so did i PLAN for this to become an actual fic? no. not in the slightest. but i was writing the fingering bit and was like. what if her dad died? and there's an actual plot? so uhhh here we are! anyways hope yall enjoyedddd if u guys know me u know polyamory is my SHIT so there will very likely be more poly!tf141 x reader to come. ty for reading mwah mwah mwah

[bomber-grl]

General Nico Di Angelo dating hc ☠︎︎

Pairing(s): Nico Di Angelo x male reader

Nico is anti social and keeps to himself, that’s a known fact

You’d always see him around camp, mostly in the shadows or just looking bored out of his mind

And one day your lives cross paths

Tbh you really don’t remember, just that you met him- he spoke to the amount he needed to, then went on his way

And this happened, day after day

It was only when you approached him with a question or conversation topic do you guys actually speak and this continues to happen

Now you’re friends and ,before you know it, boyfriends

Nico is a pretty closed off guy and isn’t exactly what I’d describe a ray of sunshine

Rightfully so, he’s been through a lot and because of this close off ness miscommunication can happen

Of course this remains a problem only when he decides to be more open and vulnerable does this get resolved

You of course have to be patient and he’s so grateful that you’re handling the conversation well and not taking it to heart.

Nico isn’t exactly physically affectionate

He doesn’t initiate but if you’d want to hold him or hug him, he’s more than welcome to it

Just won’t be the one to make the first move

It isn’t a personal thing it’s just how he is

He’s unsure a lot of the time so knowing you want him by hugging him and stuff makes him feel nice

Ok, so ik I’ve been talking about Nico once he’s used to the relationship but let’s go back to the beginning

He’s so nervous about every little thing, if anything is initiated he’d stiffen up or use mean humor to cover up how he feels

Ofc you resolve this with him but he’s still pretty bashful about being touched

Especially, ESPECIALLY when you two first kiss

He was already evaporating when you hugged him- just imagine this

He’s obviously nervous when you ask and although he takes a while to respond he ultimately agrees

You both have a short and sweet first kiss and you’ve never been more grateful for how dead Nico looks

His usually pale skin suddenly wears this bright red blush and despite how much Nico tries to hide his face you already mentally screenshotted it

Usually besides when you fluster him, Nico is so ruthless 😭

Usually you both tease and have fun with each other and when he forgets to filter what he says he’s literally SO sorry

Like he says the most gruesome shit when your making dark humor jokes and he takes it back so fast

He’s so scrawny so at least you can use that as leverage 😼

Honestly probably doesn’t even care anymore, have you seen him? He’s falling alseep whenever you try and get back at him

Genuinely not trying to be mean but if you take it that way, well he’s glad he got you back

Anyway, Nico is SO protective

He refuses to let anyone tease or be mean to you

If anyone does so then he takes offense, as if they were insulting HIM

😭honestly pretty sweet and he’s disappointed if you don’t defend him in the same way too

If you’ve made it this far you’re probably wondering how Nico shows affection

Which, it’s pretty simple

He protects you and dotes on you in his own way

I mean you’ve never caught him doing this or else he’d commit but he always gazes at you

Sure, you can say it’s creepy but he genuinely does it because he can’t believe someone he likes actually feels the same way and doesn’t hate him just for existing

*CoUgH cOuGh camp halfblood 👀*

Nico is a sweetheart he’s just not the best at showing it

[exo-raskreia]

hi my dear, i have to say i love your blog and how you get over those pitiful ichihime statements

i want to know how will you explain or if you have another post that explains... how time doesn't interfere between ichigo and rukia

bc i always see how ichihime fans say how fucked up their ship is just bc of their age. i mean, we understand that time goes different between both worlds, but it's like they just refuse to understand it

also how it is not so much about age but connection, understanding and equal interests, they also seem to forget isshin and masaki

i'd be glad if you can answer, thank you much for all your posts 😭 it makes it easier to like ichiruki, sometimes ichihime fans just make it so hard, like you're committing a crime

Oh, thank you! ☺️

Antis really think an unrealistic age gap is a problem in a FANTASY or SUPERNATURAL setting? Especially in the Bl3ach universe, where there's already a canon couple with that trope? Doesn't it sound silly?

They act as if Mortal X Immortal ships don't exist, as if they aren't a popular trope/dynamic in many forms of media. They call IR problematic because of it, but turn around & ship pairings like Yato & Hiyori (Noragami), Inuyasha & Kagome, Tomoe & Nanami (Kamisama Kiss), etc. Yet, they cross the line at IR?

They conveniently forget or ignore the fact Ichigo is a product of Isshin & Masaki, a canon couple that the antis support & like to use as "parallels" with their mid ship (even though those of us who can read know IM parallels IR). Isshin was probably way older than Masaki, older than Rukia even, yet once again, the antis cross the line at IR?

Hypocrisy, much? They only bring up the age gap when it's convenient for them. When they want to grasp at straws to invalidate IR. But all their arguments have a counter-argument to them 🤷‍♀️. IR is just that powerful 😌.

Ichigo & Rukia vibed so well right off the bat, getting on a first name basis early on, & often seemed to share the same brain cell 🤣.

Souls in Soul Society age much slower & differently than living humans. Rukia was the equivalent of Ichigo's age, so she was "15" in SS terms when they first met. Antis like to act as if she's some ancient hag or s*x goddess who's going to corrupt poor innocent Ichigo, yet Rukia showed to be quite innocent in many matters, not to mention, she thought kisses were only for greetings in one of the early chapters 💀. Out of the two, I'm pretty sure Ichigo would know more than her in these matters...

(I've also seen this stupid argument against HitsuKarin. They be calling Hitsugaya an "old man"!! Like, seriously?! How is he gonna "corrupt" Karin—by giving her a large stack of paperwork?! He's about 10-11 years old in SS terms, the equivalent of Karin's age, who was 11!! Then they both conveniently aged up to 12-13 after the 17-month timeskip... Just what was Kub0 getting at?!🤦‍♀️)

Not to mention, Ichigo felt very at home in Soul Society & got along so well with all the "ancient geezers & hags" there, even going as far as calling some of them by first name & hanging out with them like old buds (such as Renji). No wonder Ichigo didn't feel like he belonged in the Living World much; he really was born in the wrong generation (or world), lol... 🤪 He always showed to be more in touch with his shinigami side... (no wonder he chose that out of all his hybrid sides in TYBW, & yet... 😮‍💨)

Anyway, don't engage with the antis. Ignore/block/mute them. Follow the age-old fandom rule: just ship & let ship. Don't let the antis ruin your fun. There's so much IR content out there 😄.

[majesticwren]

fallingforyou (MJF x OFC)

following this post this concept is now a fic, sorry not sorry. I'm struggling trust me. (help me)

Trigger Warning/s: slow burn, childhood friends to lovers, depiction of toxic relationships, intimacy and commitment problems, childhood traumas, jealousy, possessiveness, hints of physical and verbal abuse, bullying, hints of anti-semitism, everyone is a walking red flag, angst, fluff, smut.

Masterlist Playlist

Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V

Chapter 1.

Seventeen Years Ago

At only eleven, Stella wasn’t a stranger to walking herself home from school and she already knew what it meant to pick the safest route and be weary of dangerous-looking alleys.

It happened often that she would decide to walk home alone after school. She liked the time she could spend alone, lost in her own thoughts, experiencing the world being no one.

It wasn’t because she despised the bus – well, she did a bit, just like any unpopular, weird kid who would be picked on. Nor it was because of her parents’ neglect. Actually, she had her own personal car and a designated driver taking her to and from school every day. But the fact was simple, she didn’t like that privilege, nor anything about the life she had and the way she was brought up.

Plus, running away gave her an adrenaline rush like no other and she was already addicted to it even when she was so young, and because she was so young, she didn’t care about the consequences.

It was then, in a late September afternoon, as she walked across the main street, that she felt something was out of place.

Just around the corner, into an alley that led to the back of one of the known quirky shops on one side and a bakery on the other, in the heart of town, she saw an abandoned, ripped-open blue backpack. A couple of books and a few sheets of paper were scattered all over the black, dirty pavement.

She could have kept walking. She should have, so it had been taught to her, to be detached and doubtful of anything she didn’t know or understand. She could so clearly hear her mother’s words echo in her mind.

But her curiosity won over her better judgement.

She looked around, to make sure nothing suspicious was happening anywhere else and then, once her surroundings were clear, she moved on tiptoes, as quiet as a cat, getting through the alley.

Inspecting the crime scene, she noticed a couple of broken pencils and ripped pieces of paper bearing the notes of what looked so clearly the messy handwriting of a young boy. And then she heard the noises. Suffocated sobs of one were overpowered by the aggressive groans and laughter of a group, mixed with other noises that sounded like feet dragging on the tarmac and irregular thuds.

Turning slowly to face the end of the alley, her curiosity won over her once more. Her heart was pounding in her chest and the familiar fizz of adrenaline burning through her veins made it impossible for her to backtrack.

Stella lowered herself and, siding a bin, she peaked into the small, deserted area in the back of the shop. There was a group of boys, they seemed older than her and they were kicking something. At first, she thought it was a garbage bag, only after she realised it was another boy.

“Look how the Jew cries,” laughed one of the boys, kicking the one curled up on the ground even harder, “he sure squeals like a pig.” His friends laughed cruelly following his example, calling the boy a pig. No one seemed willing to stop any time soon.

Stella was witnessing something horrendous and scary. Something dark and hateful that she would have never thought of knowing, and yet, even despite being shaking in her boots, she didn’t let her fear make her become indifferent.

She was only eleven and yet she knew already to be a fighter.

She stood up straight, her hand closing around a wooden plank left in the corner by a broken crate. Now branding a weapon, she charged the boys. She felt unafraid and free.

Stella hit the biggest one in the back once, “Stupid nazis,” she hissed in pure spite, not at all comprehending the full meaning of her own words. She hit the boy twice, and then she quickly turned towards the one who tried to stop her and hit him in the stomach.

As the group broke off their assault on the young boy, she stepped over him in a protective pose, ready to attack the moment one of the others got too close to her again.

“The Jew has a girlfriend!” They tried to scorn them, laughing like idiots would to a joke that didn’t make sense nor was funny.

“I will make you bleed,” she hissed, pointing her weapon towards them. Not that she knew what it meant but she had seen it in the movies.

That made them backtrack.

The biggest, clearly the leader of the group, pointed a finger at her. “You’ll regret crossing me. You better hope we won’t find you alone. And you, Jew,” he spat on the ground, “we won’t forget this,” he mocked the oink noise of a pig, “We’ll get you.”

She didn’t lower her weapon or her proud gaze until the group of bullies ran off.

Once alone, she finally moved, looking down. The boy on the ground stayed curled up in a ball, shaking but quiet. Her heart ached. “Hey,” even despite the soft tone of her voice, he still flinched. Stella didn’t let that persuade her to try her best to help the boy, “They’ve left, you are safe now.”

“S-safe?” He finally mumbled, “You must be joking.” He laughed nervously, “They’ll come back.” He got up from the ground doing his best to brush the dirt off his clothes. His hands were shaky. “Tomorrow they’ll catch me and they’ll hurt me more. They’ll hang me to a pole.”

“Better not be alone then.” She still smiled at him, offering him a friendly hand.

She meant it. A promise that would be true from that day onwards, even when both the kids couldn’t know the consequences of their choices made that day.

“I’m Stella.”

“Maxwell.”

Present Day

Stella sat on a bench in Central Park, just by the Bow Bridge. Her gaze crossed the dark lake and over, to the colourful spectacle of the yellow and orange leaves burning bright for her on the other side of the bridge in that grey day.

There was truly nothing like New York in the Fall and she loved to soak it up entirely. The weather getting crisp and the scenery changing. Thrifting clothes, buying used books, and abusing an insane amount of pumpkin spice lattes, candles, sweet cakes, and anything that went with that flavour made her happy. Watching warm and fuzzy old rom-coms, cosying up on the sofa. It was like the line of one of her favourites “Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me wanna buy school supplies”. And Halloween. Was there truly anything else to say? Fall was her favourite season and there was nowhere in the entire world where it could be any prettier.

Her attention had drifted away for a while, as she enjoyed her time alone.

Stella scrunched the paper napkin she held in her hands and threw it in the salad box she just finished and then, she took one last coffee sip before starting to gather her things. However a moment before getting up from the bench, she was distracted by her phone ringing.

“Hello?” She answered distractedly.

“You should really post that selfie you just sent me on Instagram.”

A soft, warm smile spread on her lips as soon as she recognised that familiar voice. “Shall I now, Friedman?” Stella leaned back against the bench, immediately dropping all her plans only to chat with him. “And you called me just to say that?”

“Well, I texted, but you weren’t replying.”

“You are making it sound like a crime, Maxwell.” She chuckled, shaking her head.

“It is a crime! Post it. You look like that nineties hottie that did shit loads of romantic comedies. It’s a crime not sharing it.”

“You gotta be more specific here. C’mon, I want to get the entire compliment,”

“Ok, hold on,” he was quiet for a moment, before gasping victorious. “Meg Ryan! There she is. You look like her.”

Stella gasped, “I was just thinking about her a moment ago!”

“See?”

“I don’t look like Meg Ryan! You are ridiculous!” She giggled shaking her head.

“I say you do. I know a thing or two about hot babes.”

Stella rolled her eyes, gently shaking her head. “Thank you, you know what? I’ll take it, I need it today.”

“Oh yeah? Bad day?”

“Not yet. I’m going to get on my way to drive down to Long Island in a minute.”

“Meeting your sister, right?”

“Yeah-” Stella released a soft, tired sigh. “Don’t get me wrong I want to see Jenna, it’s just-”

“Yeah,” somehow the gentleness of his tone made it sound like he was so much closer to her, instead of on the other line of a phone call. Oh, how she wished it. “Family time. I understand.”

“What about you?” She wondered trying to distract herself. She surely didn’t want to think about her family. “How’s Philly? What are you doing?”

“Just arrived. I’m going to get myself all pretty for my interview.”

Stella smiled, “That won’t take long then.”

“Oh, stop it. You know how I get with compliments,” he chuckled. “By the way, I like the new haircut, it suits you.”

Stella smiled, trying to hide her cheeks blushing as if Max stood right in front of her. “Yeah, you think?”

“Do I ever lie?”

“Yes.”

“Ok, fair enough,” he paused, “But I’m not lying to you.”

“Thank you.”

“Now, to the more pressing matter, how is it that you’re all alone? Weren’t you supposed to meet that loser?”

“Max please, play nice.” And yet, even despite her best efforts, the spite in his voice still made her heart flatter. She didn’t want to, but a selfish smile popped on her lips.

Max never liked any of her partners, and she dreaded the moment that it would change.

She was, in fact, supposed to meet for a quick lunch date with the new guy she had been seeing for the past few weeks, but it turned out he was late. Shame that she got to enjoy having some time to herself. Which, Stella thought, suited her better than the alternative.

She liked being alone. When she was alone, she felt free.

Maybe she should have started to consider the idea of being on her own for a while since her dating life was just miserable. She wondered why she did that to herself. It was always her fault, it’s not like she could be upset at her luck or the heavens, she was quite literally the problem. She would meet someone new, date for a few weeks, and quickly realise she wasn’t interested enough – or she would choose a guy who was as far as possible from her type on purpose, and it would always consequentially end up badly.

“Greg’s late,” she explained, “but I don’t mind.”

“Well, I do. I don’t like to know you’re alone.”

“Max, I’m ok, I promise.”

“That lack of disappointment and annoyance surprises me. You should be kicking off and complaining when it’s me that makes you wait-”

“You never do.”

“But, if I did, I wouldn’t hear the end of it,” he paused shortly, and she could picture him so well, in front of her, trying to read through her words, “You didn’t want to see him, did you?”

She huffed, there was nothing she could hide from him, ever. Unless it was something Max didn’t want to see. “Not entirely.” She cleared her voice, “we argued.”

“Again?”

“Yeah.” It wasn’t news even if they started dating only a few weeks ago. It already happened enough times she knew there was nothing much to salvage in that situationship. And yet, it wasn’t time to break up with him.

“Want to talk about it?”

“No.” There weren’t words that could explain in detail how Greg just wasn’t the man for her. And the fact that she knew it was the problem. Yet she chose to stick with him because she liked to argue. It made her feel something. But not about Greg.

A tranquil silence fell between her and Max as they both just took a moment to enjoy each other company. It was easy to imagine he was sitting just next to her with an arm stretched over her shoulders enjoying the same view she was seeing.

“Stella!”

She gasped and her fantasy shattered as soon as she recognised being called from a short distance. Turning slowly, she saw Greg approaching her and a sad sigh left her chest. She didn’t want to spend time with him. Not really. She wanted to spend some time with the man on the other side of the phone. Though as soon as she realised the kind of thought she just had, Stella stuffed it away, deep inside her chest. “Hold on, Max.” She pushed out a smile. “Hi!”

“I am so sorry! I tried to get here as soon as I could.”

“It’s ok, don’t worry so much.”

“I do! You ate alone. Sorry.”

“Yeah, and,” she got up on her feet, “I will need to make a move in a minute.” Stella held her phone to her ear hooking it up with her shoulder and, although she freed her hands only to grab the trash she left behind on the bench, Greg took it as a hint to get close to her and steal an awkward kiss from her.

Nothing. She felt absolutely nothing as their lips brushed. Trapped between the soft grasp of his hands, as he tried desperately to get on an intimate level with her, Stella was just frozen.

He was an attractive enough guy, just not for her.

Greg’s charm did nothing to her. The way he smiled didn’t make her heart flatter. His scent didn’t drive her insane. She barely wanted to have his attention on her. And she found most of the things he had to say uninteresting. They had almost nothing in common. He often judged her interests, and she didn’t even care if he did it in a mean way or not. It didn’t matter. It was better that way. That’s the way she liked her relationships to be, so she could always be in control and keep people as far away as possible.

If there was nothing to like, she wouldn’t risk falling for them, right?

He was exactly the kind of guy her family would have approved of. And in all honesty, she didn’t even know what twisted thought process got her to the decision of giving him a chance when she was aware to hated everything about him just as much as she hated everything about her family and the world they both so clearly came from. Still, incidentally, that was the reason she didn’t let go. Her sister’s wedding was in a week, and she wanted to show up accompanied by someone she could have rubbed proudly in her parents' faces.

She wanted to think Greg didn’t deserve to be used like that and she knew she was supposed to feel horrible – but part of her wasn’t sure he was entirely a good guy. He was a bit of an ass at times. And he didn’t like Maxwell, so her guilt wasn’t at all scratched by her selfishness.

As to confirm her thoughts, Greg softly brushed his fingers on the edges of her freshly cut nineties-style bob. “I know it’s late to say it now, but you should definitely grow your hair back. This does nothing for you.”

Again, he could have told her the sky was grey and her reaction would have been the same.

The annoyed huff that came from the other side of the line, though, did make her feel something. “Prick.” Maxwell hissed. “I swear to God, I’ll fuck him up.” A small shiver crossed her back, as she realised Max was listening and probably wasn’t too happy about any of it.

“Sorry, one second,” she raised a hand in front of Greg’s face as if she was hinting at him to hold and then she took her phone back into her other hand, “Hey, Max, sorry babes, I need to go, Greg is here.”

“Sure thing, kitten. Call me later?”

“Yeah, I will.”

“You look hot. Don’t listen to him.”

“I won’t. Bye?”

“Bye, baby. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

As she hung up, the small smile she had printed on her lips was immediately wiped off by Greg’s expression. “Max?”

“Yeah,” she frowned investigating his crossed expression. “Why?”

“Didn’t you literally see him this morning?”

A sad sigh left her chest. She did, they met for breakfast just before his departure and her hair appointment, and she already missed him so much.

“I did. Is that a problem?”

“I don’t like that guy.”

Stella rolled her eyes. “Get over it, Greg.”

As she turned to grab her stuff, Greg grabbed her arm, giving her a strong pull so she would look back at him, “I don’t like that you call another man babe, or that you say you love him.”

Guess how he would lose his mind if only he knew about everything else she shared with Max.

“You are hurting me,” she glared at him, pulling herself off his clutch without much success. Her eyes became dangerous as she lifted her chin proudly. “And I do love him.” It was very important for her to specify it. As if it wasn’t already well known how important Maxwell was to her.

Greg’s expression suddenly became harder than ever. He too sent her a dangerous look, shaking his head. “I do not like sharing. If we go official, you will drop him.”

It was an order.

Funny how the longer she dated him the more similarities she found between him and her family. They too never liked Maxwell, not that anyone ever managed to separate them.

Stella stood there for a moment, at first, she seemed to take his words seriously, but then a soft chuckle crossed her lips, and then it became a full-fledged burst of laughter in his face.

Her behaviour seemed to anger Greg even further, but she ignored it. Stella gave him a strong push, freeing herself from his grasp and, not even giving it too much importance, she proceeded to grab her bag and approached the trashcan so she could throw away the empty containers of her lunch.

“Ok, let’s clear two things,” she began, “first, Maxwell is my family, so I’ll drop you before I could ever drop him. You better get acquainted with it because he will always be part of my life.” She smiled dangerously, “Second, I don’t have time for your jealousy right now. Gotta go to be a bridesmaid.”

Before she could move, Greg grabbed her again, this time his hands clutched around both her shoulders as he squeezed her. “I don’t like your attitude.”

“And I don’t like yours,” Stella knew she was challenging him, and clearly Greg didn’t like to be crossed. But she still did it. She was too proud to worry about the consequences.

One of his hands moved to her throat, where he clutched her strongly enough to take her breath away.

Just then Stella got scared.

"When you'll be mine, I won't let him be between us." He made her lift her face to look at him, "I will train you. You will learn."

“Let me go.” She hissed, but Greg was deaf to her words. When his hold on her became tighter, causing her to start choking, pure adrenaline lashed through her veins, bringing her to act out of pure instinct.

She raised a hand to his face and gave him a strong push. Just when her nails pierced through his skin, Greg finally moved, letting her go.

"You little whore," he began, but by then she had already turned and was walking away, fastening her pace.

"Goodbye, Greg."

[katyspersonal]

Sort of continuation of a previous post about SOTE stuff from today gnghvb

1) I really liked it when I've spotted an owl with horns in Abyssal Forest :^)

Horned animals in Shadows Realm drop the horns explaining how here Crucible is stronger and that's why some animals here grow horns even if that doesn't fit their species!

2) Like I said, I asked @jarognieva 's help to defeat Midra and then accidentally defeated him myself while she just needed like 3 minutes to help me 🤡 So instead, I asked her help to defeat that awful Knight in the purple flowers place that from my knowledge was keeping me from finally meeting Trina! But she kept being summoned by random people (🤡🤡🤡) so I FINALLY helped to solve the problem by recommending a set shared password for summons XD Thank you @fantomette22 for this idea, it is always helpful

3) Jara also shared with me that this knight was weak to Holy! I still needed a rebirth after having to change my built for Midra earlier, so I decided to make it Faith instead of Intelligence! I swear every other DLC boss has me figure out how to cleverly change my character.

So I forgot to screenshot our epic encounter (🤡🤡🤡) gghyhgj And we went straight to get our asses kicked XD She also gave me useful advice on eating turtle necks for stamina (that I legit always forget to do) and to alter my Cracked Tear mix! It helped! Then she asked to not attack until she joins (that was with a delay due to arena specifics)... and that ALSO helped! Then she reminded me to use anti-frost items. And she was RIGHT about Holy damage hitting like a tank!

4) It was really hard though, and I was about to give up and drop it again but she told me to shut up and that we got it gfhghhh Bit by bit, our attemps got better, but eventually...

YEEEEES THE BITCH DIED!! It was basically the very last moment too!!!!! I was out of EVERYTHING AAAAA

5) Honestly though, as much as I dread this boss and never want to fight him again, these items are cool:

6) Basically every single advice Jara gives is super useful, girl never underestimate yourself gfhtfhg And separate thanks for encouraging me to not give up xD

7) Like I said, Midra exhausted the culmination for today so I decided to not go meet Trina yet and instead pick remaining items I missed today! I went back to Darklight Catacombs first! Hey remember how I was surprised that it didn't have a Knight of Death, after all? Well,

It actually DID! There is a nook where you can loot the full set from a corpse!! It is on the second "floor" of this place! Remember that odd ladder you saw and strangely a rooftop down in the pit? That area has a tiny crack in the perils on the side where you go to activate the light! Here is ( x ) just the video how to get this set!

So basically, they are like this because they refused to turn on Godwyn just because he died a little and had a bit of rebranding from Electric Knights to Death Knights 😔 Really bittersweet

8) And the next item I've missed was this torch!

They are ACTUALLY committing to making a torch for every type of fire here! I bet there will be one for Messmer's fire too!

This torch became accessible after the lever to move the bookshelf was pulled, as now you can jump ON that bookshelf and access the platform above!

9) It is also actually picked from a distinct corpse of Nanaya herself!!

Someone also placed a note RIGHT on her, so I had to go offline just to take the screenshots 🙄 She has black hair, and suuuuch detailed clothes..

10) Remember the note revealing that Aging Untoucheable CAN, in fact, be touched? It is all to get this item:

And that was a ROYAL PAIN to get

Okay so like... Basically I am SO bad at Soulsborne games that the journalist who couldn't complete the Cuphead tutorial would probably laugh at me -_- That includes the fact that until this day, I honestly had NO idea how TO parry in Elden Ring! This whole time I assumed that parrying just meant attacking right after blocking! After about five minutes of back and forth screaming at @val-of-the-north over how nothing seemed to work we deduced that the shield itself needed to have 'Parry' as it's skill!

So I've learned about a gameplay mechanic crucial for close combat 2 years later after the game got released (🤡), but that wasn't all. It was very, very, VERY hard to catch the window to deflect that enemy's attack! In like 20 attempts only one was successful, but the critical hit that followed didn't KILL it! I complained to VA about it... and learned that I could actually have attacked it for a few more seconds after critical hit! So........ like other 30 attempts followed (🤡)

I basically had to muscle-memorize every single step and move, but I did it as you can see!! No reason in particular, just completionism, but I actually start to love how this DLC makes me overcome my natural weaknesses as a player! It is designed to not let anyone win with the level alone x)

11) Directly you say? :p

How many things that plague the Lands Between originally come from here? Formless Mother, those red Kindred of Rot I've seen earlier probably hint that God of Rot comes from here, now this?

____________

Okay I think the next time I'll go meet Trina and explore other paths which Shadow Keep leads to! At least half of the locations is done by now *cries knowing all my friends already beat or almost-beat the whole DLC days ago*

[emptymanuscript]

You know, as the Democratic Party fundraiser texts are getting into the 1 text per 1 hour range, 1 tph, I have to wonder about the ratio of investment, effort, infrastructure, engagement, and return.

I can’t help but feel that if the Democrats fiddled with those first three - say putting 9/10’s of even that relatively low amount of energy that went into messaging me at 1 tph - they would actually get a much better result on the last two.

If they did something BIG, a progressive accomplishment which everyone could easily see, I suspect that they would get more money at even a significantly reduced tph.

I dare say they might get more dollars $ at .001 tph as a reward for a job well done than they get at 1 tph as a plea to keep trying to stop people from stopping them from doing their job.

That’s just me though.

AND I admit that I am locked in. With my understanding of the world, I can’t, in good conscience, vote for or support anyone but a Democratic candidate for a given post. But this is because I am essentially voting my conscience against the Republican candidate come general election time.

I’m not really voting Blue as much as I am voting anti-Red.

So every text feels like preaching to the choir. I’ve already been sold on the idea that Republicans are dangerous and have to be stopped. I literally changed my party affiliation in 2015 because I realized I had hit the point of anti-Redness that I would Vote Blue No Matter Who, whatever the letter next to my name was, so I might as well leverage that letter instead of maintaining the illusion that I was actually independent.

And anyone who hasn’t seen CCP Grey’s videos on Politics in the Animal Kingdom should really check them out for a fantastic and easy explanation for why that’s a problem. I believe Minority Rule is the first video in the series: https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo?si=Pykn9h6PkkzorMKK

Or I guess you could just insert it, that’s fine too, tumblr.

The problem is that unless there’s a viable alternative in the Democratic Primary for a given position, I’m probably not voting FOR anybody.

Because, yeah, I’m voting Blue strategically. Anti-Red. Because I am so far to the left of the Democrats that me voting for them is just��� yeah, no.

So, whatever, I guess.

I am really kinda feeling the EMOTIONAL appeal of the give up crowd this year. EMOTIONALLY, I hate everybody. I don’t want to vote for or support anyone. Or at least not anyone that I am actually able to vote for.

So it’s become pure LOGICAL calculation. I know I have to support and vote for the Democrat. Or I will get something much worse. LOGICALLY, there’s no contest, it’s downright simple. The debate IS stupid.

That just doesn’t make me FEEL good. It isn’t good for engagement. It is in the category of take your meds to survive.

I will Vote Blue No Matter Who. I will give them time, energy, and money. I will encourage everyone else to do the same. Because that’s what will keep us alive.

I would just appreciate a little bit more sugar to make that bitter pill go down.

And I would like to have a better argument for why we deserve to live than simply because we exist. Like, yeah, that’s enough. But existing, living, and thriving are three very different things. I am really tired of feeling like I’m entirely in that first category.

Hmmph. Depression sucks. And Politics really doesn’t help it. :/ nothing helps that much really :/ but Politics makes it worse, I think. We’re so far down the wrong path that I feel like it’s hard not to feel a little like maybe cutting off life support would be a mercy. I just know that’s my depression talking. I know Imperius (my part X, the part of me that wants to be sick). I know that motherfucker lies. He lies especially when he tells the truth because he is a goddamn expert on quoting the exact facts that will lead me back to him and obscuring those truths that might lead me away. He’s a liar because he is Trumplike - he’ll say whatever, anything, he doesn’t care, he’ll even tell the truth on occasion, as long it serves him. Truth and falsehood and lies are tools for him to manipulate me. He literally doesn’t care. All he cares about is keeping me doing what he wants. The ends justify the means.

And he just loves pointing out that I am making the same calculation when I do anything for Biden just because I am Anti-Trump.

Fuck off, Imperius.

[vidavalor]

Thanks as always for reading & sharing thoughts. 💕

Not only did they cast Michael Sheen but I'd be willing to bet he's who is responsible for making sure that there's some Welsh in the wordplay in the show. I wasn't too surprised in researching The Hoff meta to learn that the pet name Aziraphale is calling Crowley in 1941 means "my beloved" and "my dear" in Welsh. From even just what little I've seen, the man appears to be the country's one-man entire tourism board. 😂

I know you're bringing in the info you have from before with the question responses and I appreciate you providing info but I'm just so beyond caring about what he said. Am still here for Pratchett/the cast & crew reasons and that's honestly why I wound up here in the first place anyway. He has, as the kids say, given me the ick for a lot longer than since the news broke out. I never liked his attitude in some of those responses, especially to ones that seemed from the wording like questions that might have been sent in by young people. I found him off-putting and cold in the interviews I saw and he was, in general, pinging my SA survivor radar something fierce.

A few people on here tried to get me to do more with the fact that he interacted with a few of my posts. I guess I was supposed to reblog them constantly, pointing out in shrieking caps and shocked face and crying emojis that The Oh Holy Lord NG had deigned to bestow his time on my meta. Maybe it's being grown but I was thinking... shouldn't he have shit to do? shouldn't there just be interns monitoring the fanbase, like there is everywhere else? isn't it beyond simple fan engagement and a bit gross the level to which he's getting off on having a worshipful fandom, especially one that includes this many teenagers and young adults?... Anyway, there are reasons beyond the fact that I don't really care about celebrity why I didn't make a thing out of it. They include that, frankly, he was creeping me the fuck out.

I thank you for bringing info into the conversation as I know that you have spent a lot of time compiling it and you are excellent at helping us all make connections between things. I'm just maxing out on 'the rapist said x' responses (in general, not from you) and sticking with just looking at the Pratchettery from here on out.

re: the English-first, English-only colonialism idea. One thing I think the story handles pretty well is the tricky balance of using geopolitical conflict as a metaphor. They go at ideology, which is as it should be. I think there is care there to balance out representation of a country in the metaphor that could be seen as negative with positive elements of that country. The story making villains out of fascists and colonizers and not nations is what works for me.

France is a good example-- really fucking violent revolution but also: romance and crepes. Italy is aligned with Hell-- all that Dante's Inferno, the Italian part of "Bohemian Rhapsody" in one of the darker scenes in the show-- but its food and opera balance it out. I don't know how you feel about it but I think the story gets America entirely and I like how it's used in the story. It doesn't shy away from our problems but it's also more loving and more pro-America than we maybe deserve... especially right now.

Agreed with the anti-colonizing being a whole thing. Like, wonderfully not even subtle with it on the show. Derek Jacobi is doing a wonderful job playing The Big Bad(s?) as basically The British Empire: The Character. The whole thing is about to fall apart for him as a result of America (Gabriel) being like no taxation without representation and solidarity with the British working class (Beez) and then running to get some support and cash from the French (Crowley & Aziraphale) to get a revolution going on.

The show aligning Crowley & Aziraphale with countries that are anti-monarchist or have a history of trying to get there (America, France, Scotland) in keeping with the idea of a sovereign nation under its own rule being symbolic of a person's own independence, autonomy, freedom, peace, etc..

Hi! Hope you’re having a great day! When Crowley said that both he and Aziraphale speak every language in the world, how do you think that would work? Like, do they have the potential to? Or do they just switch to a language by default? Do they kinda have to spend some time around a certain region to speak those languages? Thank you for your answer!

Hello there! Hope you're having a great day yourself. *all the chocolate cake for you* 💕 What a cool question! Sorry it took me awhile to get back to you. I'm flattered to have a bit of a backlog happening here 😳 & I also was taking some time to mull this one over as it's a really fun topic.

What might it mean for Crowley and Aziraphale to "speak every language in the world?" and how might that work?

I've got a couple of ideas that also involve a look at Aziraphale's halo and the "one big avocado" joke while we're at it...

I think that this question contains a bit of chicken-and-the-egg. To show you what I mean by that, I want you to look again at the scene in the gif below but, instead of looking at Muriel, Crowley, and Saraqael in the foreground of it, look at Michael and Uriel in the background:

If you look at the scenes of Crowley and Muriel watching the footage of Gabriel's trial, you'll notice that Heaven's Zoom things-- that are somewhere between a skyscraper and a computer tower in appearance-- are marking information in what are known as ideographs.

An ideograph is a symbol or a picture that stands for a word or a concept. The foundations of every language on Earth are all rooted in different forms of ideographs that, along with some basic sounds, are believed to have evolved towards letters and words and into the modern spoken and written languages we use today. Some of the most well-known ideographs that we know of include things like ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, the Phoenician alphabet, and the runic alphabets.

[I did a post on Crowley's use of "ngk" that talks about its origins relating to the Greek alphabet and touches on ideographs a little, if you're interested in more on this topic.]

These same symbols in the "Heavenly Zoom" screens alongside Michael and Uriel in the Gabriel trial video are also being shown as the timestamp/data markers on the video Crowley and Muriel see of Gabriel riding the lift/elevator down to Earth when he ran. Runes are also part of the markings of the magic circle in the bookshop floor that Aziraphale uses to connect to Heaven.

He and Crowley cover up that foundational circle with a rug decorated with lotus flowers, symbolic of Eastern spiritual influences and trauma recovery, and appear to more commonly use the spot that can be used to contact Heaven as a meditative spot. It's also where they do the Gabriel miracle, seemingly as a way of calming and focusing themselves to be able to perform it.

Visually, the series is using ideographs in the floor & the rug to reflect evolution in Crowley and Aziraphale's life from the runes in the floor evoking Heaven to the lotus flower rug which, while also symbolic in ancient religions like Hinduism and Buddhism, also have more relevant and modern symbolism reflecting the journey towards enlightenment and the persistence and ability to transcend obstacles born from trauma.

It's symbolic of the idea that, in their World of Carpets that they've made together, Crowley and Aziraphale are very much like a lot of people with Christianity-based religious trauma and other issues whose spirituality has gone a bit Buddhist, if at least in using tools like mindfulness in a secular way (see also: the breathing in the sushi and the magic shop scenes, etc..).

The Angel of The Eastern Gate, ya know?

Anyway, the point is that the foundations of all Earthly languages are ideographs and we've seen a few scenes show that Heaven uses those in internal documentation. This, as The Voice of God would say, proves two things:

All of the characters on our show share the same foundation of languages. It all comes from Heaven and the language of the angels. The demons were angels so this is their foundational language, too, and it's the same as many early human languages, which means that, just as the angels and demons pre-dated the humans, the foundations of what we think of as our human languages actually, in the Good Omens universe, come from the angels and demons, and...

Heaven is still sending internal emails and documenting files using this picture stuff from over six thousand fucking years ago. 😂

It's symbolic of how slow evolution in Heaven is and how they do not view evolution as actually a good thing.

Relevant to this is that, in the Ineffable Bureaucracy flashback, Beez and Gabriel sum up one of the big themes of the story really succinctly when they talk about how both the angels and the demons are both living for Armageddon-- "if you can call that living," as Beez puts it.

You can't. Gabriel and Beez agree that it's not.

Like Crowley and Aziraphale, they have seen the truth of things, which is that the ones who are really living are the humans. The angels and demons are socialized to believe that they're superior to the humans-- magical, quasi-immortal, not in need of any of the revolting trappings of humanity, like food and love. Our main four characters, though, have figured out that this isn't true and that the ones who are really living are the humans. Not coincidentally, then...

...Crowley, Aziraphale, Beez, and Gabriel-- the four characters who have made an effort to spend time on Earth during its evolution-- are also the four most linguistically adept supernatural characters on the show.

What we're saying is that, since the angels created Earth, it means that the beginnings of language on Earth in Good Omens actually comes from the angels, which means that all humans, angels and demons share in common the same foundations of languages. This is where human evolution of language comes into play and we can see more then what it might mean to speak all the languages of the world.

Language is not a passive thing. It is constantly evolving. The evolution of language is a collective effort by all of those participating in it by speaking that language. It carries the weight of the past in the history of its words but it also is sometimes how people, consciously or unconsciously, seek to evolve from that past.

We first learn to talk by mirroring the vocabulary and speech patterns of those around us and we keep doing that, in different ways, throughout our lives. Slang becomes popular by people picking it up from one another and spreading it. Words take on new meanings and evolve or fall out of fashion in accordance to the times. Why we say what it is we say and how we came to say it and what these words mean now and used to mean and their relationship to other words is known as the study of etymology and Terry Pratchett's novels, including both Good Omens and the Discworld novels, are love letters to this field of study.

The figurative language of both is developed off of a love of word history-- Aziraphale's discus halo, for example, is the same etymological joke that is why Pratchett's novel series is called Discworld. The word halo was originally not a religious term but a scientific one and described the disk of light visible around objects in the sky. As a result, halo, in its earliest origins, was also a word used to describe many disk-shaped things on Earth-- the discus and the sport named for it chief among them.

Also, disk-shaped platters (the "go on" temptation trays of food in Good Omens and dinner plates). Halo was an early word for some gardens and the original term for what evolved to be knowing as a threshing floor-- a space into which oxen were penned to process grain.

The original halo, as we mentioned, was light *around* an object in the sky, which is different from how it evolved to be light *above* a religious figure in art work when the word was basically stolen from scientific circles by religious people. A visual reference to this is the contrast between Aziraphale's halo in S2 versus the human performance artist dressed as a human-like angel with a halo above her head when Gabriel is jogging in the park in S1.

In Good Omens, the definition evolution is also there in Aziraphale, a religious figure (an angel) with perfectionist issues having the halo around his head and not floating above it. He's a deity in the way that the humans would draw it in art but his halo doesn't reflect perfect, pure, godliness-- it reflects his humanity and the pressures of trying to live up to what others say reflects God but which he doesn't truly believe does. Aziraphale's halo is symbolic of his mental health struggles and the pressures we put on ourselves-- it's crushing his head in and causing the anxiety attack we're seeing him fighting as he takes it off.

Good Omens is a Discworld-adjacent novel and The Discworld?

It is about us and our own halos.

We're all the objects in the sky and we've got a complicated ring of light around us. We're amazing, celestial beings but we're also so very human.

The story is in the etymology: Halo = Discus. Discus = Disc. Us.

Discus is also the root word of what we can do to help us manage our halos-- discuss stuff. Get out of our same daily rounds and talk about our frozen peas. Put on some round records or some compact discs and dance on the heads of our pins. Maybe to some disco, so we won't discorporate.

The other word related to halo and that comes from discus is desca, the origin of the word desk.

It originally just meant any table. If you've got a table or a desk, you've got a mind, you've got a life you're trying to lead. Doesn't matter if you're borrowing it or sharing it or if it's yours or if you've got one or more than one. Doesn't matter if it's clean or cluttered or what's on or in it-- if you're using a table of any kind, you're writing something, making something, eating something, doing something, thinking about something.

You're living life in the Discworld.

In Good Omens, one of Heaven's few material objects are desks because the supernatural characters are members of the Discworld, too-- they just mostly like to pretend that they're not.

Aziraphale's discus halo is both an etymology joke and etymology-based figurative language in one. It's what the Discworld is, in a visual pun. So, what does this all have to do with speaking a language?

Well, for one thing, it shows how language-history-driven a story Good Omens is. It also helps to show that the characters who are the deepest into understanding what it is to be a part of the Discworld are the ones who are letting themselves live.

*cues up the Queen* Ooh, you're making me live...

And what is a big effect of letting yourself live in Good Omens? What is one of the most notable by-products of these characters who do, namely Crowley and Aziraphale?

Their more adept language skills.

It's the humans, by and large, who are living so it's the humans who have evolved language from its Heavenly foundations. Heaven still using the ideographs symbolizes how they have struggled to evolve because evolution isn't seen as positive there. They think themselves superior with nothing to learn and have no curiosity about how their relatives on Earth are living. They think they know everything and should be inflicting their lunacy onto the humans, who are the ones really doing the work of figuring out the Discworld.

Crowley and Aziraphale have been living on Earth since its beginning and so they are basically walking, talking etymological dictionaries. They came into it knowing the foundations of all languages and then they have become a part of its evolution alongside the humans.

Several historically anachronistic scenes also indicate that Crowley and Aziraphale themselves are responsible for contributing various words and phrases throughout history. That alone would be its own meta but part of the enjoyment of language in the series is seeing our main characters use words that were definitely not otherwise in use in the eras in which they are in during any particular scene-- like Aziraphale using "America" in 3400 BC and "restaurant" in ancient Rome and Crowley being "down with" something in 1827 on the same night he's originating the "you say potato" at the heart of a song that wouldn't be written for another century to come. Crowley's first lines in the series in 1.01-- "well, that went down like a lead balloon"-- are historical anachronisms and absolutely hilarious, as here's the first human beings, basically naked and shoeless, just leaving the Garden of Eden, and thousands of years away from understanding concepts like lead and inventing balloons, let alone inventing an idiom connecting them.

When you think about it, Crowley and Aziraphale would be contributors to human language just by living on Earth for so long because that is how language evolves. We pick it up from one another. The popular fan theory that humans began using "angel" as a romantic pet name after hearing Crowley call Aziraphale that is this same sort of thing-- and the show suggested that it's true in S2 by having Nina adopt it for Maggie after hearing Crowley use it to describe Aziraphale. Also seems like an opportunity for my favorite linguistic historical anachronism in the series:

Crowley and Aziraphale's ability to know human language better than the other supernatural characters reflects that they have been living human lives, which the show has argued is what living is.

Basically all of the humor with regards to language in Good Omens comes from where the angels and demons seem to have not been on Earth that much or have not been updating their internal language computers and are therefore confused by ways in which language has evolved.

Everything from Shax's toast/toste to Hastur's ciao/chow confusion... from Gabriel's "keep the status quo static and, uh, quo-y" to Michael's humorless inability to understand Crowley's shuhite/shoes homophonic joke... from "surrender the angle" to "transferred from another human settlement"... are all jokes that reflect that the angels and demons are missing information regarding where humans have taken language.

There's even a joke that is about the supernatural characters struggling to understand language evolution and that's the "one big avocado" joke from both the book and the show. It's a joke about the inability to understand wordplay enough to tell a joke that is actually funny. Part of the humor of this joke is that it is just fucking terrible the way that the characters tell it 😂-- not terrible in a so-bad-it's-good way but just terrible-- but what also makes it funny is that it could have been very funny if only they were able to piece together the elements sitting right there that make it amusing. They are so close to having a decent joke here but they just can't quite get there. Making matters funnier? They lack both the knowledge and the self-awareness to actually see the puns sitting right there in their own conversation.

The humor is that Famine (in the book) and Eric (in the show) are essentially trying to make a pun but they don't quite get wordplay. They can see some potential in the fact that the end of the world is apparently going to happen in a place that also grows avocados. They sense something of note or meaning in that but they don't know what to do with it. They can see that it's all weirdly absurd and they can feel something there but they don't know enough about words to make something out of it. It reflects that they don't know enough about Earth to see that Armageddon is not a foregone conclusion and that it is really about all of them and their own personal Armageddons. The best they can do is just say it with verbal italics-- that Armageddon? It's gonna be one big avocado-- but they're mainly just mimicking a humorous tone here without having the words there to justify the tone and make it actually funny.

They've basically understood the human need to go at life with some dry, absurdist, gallows humor but they aren't sure how to replicate that themselves beyond tone. In the novel, the "one big avocado" joke is a conversation between The Four Horsepeople of the Apocalypse who have gathered to ride but are talking about how they are surprised that Armageddon is taking place in this village called Tadfield. The joke is in none of them actually knowing the etymology of one of the most well-known etymologies of any word on Earth in history-- Armageddon, which is derived from the name of the ancient city of Megiddo. They are The Four Horsepeople of The Apocalypse and they don't know the origins of Armageddon, which is their entire purpose for existence. 😂

Famine gets closest to the etymology by saying that he thinks that Armageddon is "somewhere in Israel" from what he understands but also admits that he "always meant to look it up" and isn't totally sure. Pollution thinks Armageddon is in "Pennsylvania or Massachusetts or one of those places", apparently equating it to places associated with the beginnings of the American Revolution.

[There is, believe it or not considering some of the city names in the United States, not a single town or single city in America named Armageddon. Not just in Massachusetts or Pennsylvania but in the entire country. I know because, unlike Famine, I looked it up when I first read the book.]

Thematically, Pollution is close but no cigar and doesn't have a clue how close they are to getting the themes of freedom and autonomy that are associated with the positive aspects of the complicated old duck that is America running throughout the story, which are reflected in the tv series through things like Gabriel, The Them's "39 flavors of ice cream in America" scene in S1 and, of course, Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death. Pollution ain't smart, though-- and for A Character Who Is Actually A Concept, they're amusingly terrible at, well, getting concepts... which is so to help us better see that by seeing what it is that they aren't understanding.

Both of them are showing that they have no idea what Armageddon means because they don't understand how the word came to be. The joke both suggests that it's important to the story to consider that Armageddon has different meanings in it and that the word choice in the story is very specific and looking at word origin, in general, is key to story comprehension. All of this is obviously true in life outside of Good Omens as well and one of the messages of this story and, I've found, running throughout the novels of Discworld that I've read.

Eventually, Megiddo is brought up and Famine is surprised that Armageddon would be what it was known for (despite Armageddon as a word being literally derived from the city of Megiddo 😂) because he "thought that was where they grew avocados."

Death-- the only one who kinda knows what's up with the words here-- finally chimes in to answer Famine by saying, in response to the avocado-growing place, that that's "MOUNT CARMEL."

Death means Mount Carmel, California, which is known for growing avocados, and which also shares a place name with the mountain range that encompasses Megiddo, the place whose name formed the origin of the word Armageddon. They do grow avocados in Megiddo but if you lined up everyone on Earth and asked them to describe The Velvet Underground tell you a place famous for growing avocados no one-- no one-- would say the fields of Megiddo. One of the top three answers, though, would be the mentioned region of California.

Famine replies to this as Eric does in the show-- that Armageddon then is going to be "one big avocado"-- and the humor, on one level, is in his inability to make a decent joke because he can't understand words enough to pun. On another, though?

If we're a little more word-savvy here and applying these guidelines the story is suggesting to the story as we go? If we get that the story is Armageddon but that Armageddon is really about a person's own mental health crisis and struggles in the Discworld and the whole destruction-of-planet-Earth thing is plot but more metaphorical than anything else? Then, our next question might be what the deal is with involving avocados in the joke about Armageddon's word origins and the inability to play with words being what humorlessness is.

Is there additional humor in that, beyond the actually funny Mount Carmel part of the joke that the characters don't get but that the reader/viewers can? Is there a level of this that is funny in a way where the characters making this terrible joke ironically don't realize that they have, on some level, actually said something funny? There are in a couple of ways...

One is that avocados are sometimes euphemistic in English for balls (in the testicular sense, obviously). It also originally had the alternate names of the alligator pear or the avocado pear, which is homophonic for pair... which is can be used to refer to balls, as in look at the pair on him, etc.. Word-wise, avocados are actually, ironically-- pardon the fruit pun-- perfectly ripe for punning.

Knowing literally any of this would have meant that Famine or Eric could have actually made a very funny, punny, dirty joke out of the avocados simply by referring to two of them instead of the "one big avocado." This is all without even adding in the element of Armageddon and destruction as sexually euphemistic and the innuendo potential there...

If you were talking with Crowley about avocados being grown where Armageddon was scheduled to take place, he could instantly come up with about twelve dirty puns off the top of his head and be grinning within seconds, having fun with Aziraphale being faux-scandalized (and then the angel being just as filthy in response 😂). It's because Crowley canonically loves word history and has a special fondness for homophony, which would be a big part of avocado-related humor ("So I am. Bildad the Shuhite... need any shoes?"). He loves to play with words. So does Aziraphale. They would be flirting about avocados and Armageddon effortlessly whereas characters like The Four Horsepeople, Hastur, and even Eric (who at least appears to be trying) are lacking in living enough on Earth to really be able to develop a sense of humor through understanding language.

The avocados are also obviously tied to the use of pair/pear/pare in Crowley and Aziraphale's private language, too. (And the related appear/disappear being used euphemistically for an orgasm.)

Finally, there's another little joke in there with the avocados-- one that's more for us than anything else. Avocados bringing up pears and pear being homophonic for pair means that Armageddon-- which is the story of Good Omens-- going to be "one big avocado" means that the novel was predicting that Good Omens was likely going to produce "one big pair."

It did and still does: Crowley and Aziraphale.

Those two fruits have spent the last couple of decades being one big avocado, have they not?

So, the story is saying that fluently speaking a language is best reflected by a person's ability to play in it. Crowley and Aziraphale, we have learned, know how to play with words using every language in the world not just because they knew the foundations of those languages but because they have been participating in the evolution of those languages as humans of Earth for the last six thousand years.

To be fair to these supernatural characters who aren't so hip to words, though? Plenty of humans are missing this stuff, too. That's a big part of the joke, as well.

A lot of us don't know what it is we're saying when we choosing the words we're choosing to say or how it came to be that those words exist in the first place. The discovery is part of the process of living. No one's going to know everything, all of the time. The point is to be curious and ask questions. Those who do at least have that going for them because their mind is open to new information.

And, even if you've spent six thousand years steeped in the evolution of human languages with your equally word-horny partner, you're not going to get everything. The two of you could have written some of the most analyzed passages of Shakespeare and poetry and influenced some of the most popular music ever made but you're still never going to know everything. Things are going to slip by you unnoticed, like your hellcat of an old pal, Jane Austen, having written books, or the fact that some English-speaking women have developed this linguistic habit of insisting that they are not crying when they are, in fact, obviously sobbing.

So, how does a supernatural person like those in Good Omens keep up with all the evolution of language? If they originated it back in the days of written language being pictures-meaning-stuff and we're now in the year 2023 in the series? Can you imagine barely being on Earth for thousands of years and just getting like magical equivalent to bad software updates on language and then coming to the planet from time to time and trying to navigate it? You'd be completely and utterly fucked. They're all actually impressive to be able to speak as well as they do.

I kind of don't blame Shax for confusing toste with toast or Hastur for not being able to tell the difference between an Italian greeting and slang for food. They're not doing half-bad with this, in my book, especially when you consider that they have to understand every language on the planet while most of us know far fewer. Most humans struggle to keep up with language evolutions within their own lifetimes just within their primary language or languages, let alone be able to deftly play in every language of the world.

Hastur raising his hand during Crowley's presentation and asking what a computer is? It's one of the funniest punchlines in the series because it emphasizes how clever Crowley is with words to a point that he's absolutely running circles around the other demons, especially with this word-nerdy Odegra presentation... but it's more than that.

It's also showing that Hastur actually has a quality that many of the others do not: he's curious. He is willing to ask questions. It matters more to him to understand what a computer is than it does for him to admit that he doesn't know. That might well be the most (and maybe only? lol) admirable thing about Hastur but he isn't the only one with that promising interest in learning more.

Books are books and they are also, symbolically, people, as Muriel pointed out-- "like people, only portable." We learn language from both reading it and speaking it-- from both literal and figurative books. Not only does Muriel pick up pleasure reading in S2 and all the language (and countless other) benefits that can have but they are one of the examples of how we mirror the language of others around us and are collectively evolving language together.

Music is language, too, as Beez's shows by evolving their and Gabriel's private language to include a song written by a human that they then use to discuss how they feel about one another and which becomes a part of not just their own world but those of the people around them when others later hear them singing it.

Muriel adopting Aziraphale's "jolly good"; Nina taking Crowley's "angel"; Crowley and Aziraphale so mirroring one another's language that the show is incorporating our biological tendency to do so and how that informs language into its storytelling.

Living beings will mirror the languages of those around them, as it's actually how we learn to speak in the first place. You speak to babies so much in order to teach them vocabulary through repetitive connections being made between the physical and the linguistic. As older kids and adults, we still can and do still pick up the words and speech patterns spoken by those around us-- for better or worse-- and some word evolution can happen from hearing them incorrectly or misunderstanding what was said.

One of the funniest jokes in the series is an example of a human doing just that, in a way that shows what a dirtbag he is:

The humor here is coming from both the fact that Glozier hears the name of a company or a product-- Betamax-- as the name of a person-- Peter Max-- because he sees people as something you can buy... but also from the fact that he has been spending so much time with German-born Nazis like Greta and Harmony that he's begun to process all language as if it's coming to him spoken by someone with that accent-- even though both he and Aziraphale are English, so there should not have been an issue. Glozier's gross and also, in his case, treasonous, affiliation with the Nazis in this moment is humorously shown through his de-evolving language skills.

The idea, then, is that while you can have knowledge of the basic tools to speak a language and get through enough to be understood by knowing those tools, it's through engaging with the world around you that you really and truly speak a language.

The angels and demons are so isolated that they might have originated language but they now have huge gaps in their linguistic knowledge because of humans being the ones who are really living. Their repression is shown in their inability to fully and effectively communicate.

What the show does with Crowley and Aziraphale, then, is take two beings who have been on Earth since the beginning and who also happen to both be very into words and show their ability to understand and navigate life on Earth as reflected by their much, much deeper understanding of language by comparison to others around them-- those from Heaven and Hell and, often, from some of the humans of Earth as well. The story also shows how imperfect they are with it, though... reflective of how human these supernatural people are and how imperfect we all are here in the Discworld.

So, the point is that language evolution is reflective of human evolution. We create and evolve words to express ourselves in the current moment and, often, to contrast with what came before, or to be aspirational for the future.

Some words are stubbornly impervious to time; others are almost instantly dated. It's messy and it's organic. It can reflect the worst of humanity and the best of it-- sometimes, in the same damn word. Some words will disappear into other words, forever obsolete. Some words will disappear and then return, riding waves of social change. Words will be warred over between different groups; they can be derided and then reclaimed. They can have intense, divisive histories, or they can have completely batty and silly ones. We're all changing languages every day with the words we are choosing to say. It's humanity's collective project so it's a great choice for reflecting what living is in a story that is really, fundamentally, about the business of living.

The extra-funny part about the mention of Crowley and Aziraphale speaking every language in the world is that they are so adept at language that they are able to play in it and have, as a result, invented a private, hidden language of their own.

One of the founding principles of that hidden language is that the words being spoken are not just the ones on the surface but the words that are hidden within those very intentionally chosen words. Crowley is actually using that language when he says that he and Aziraphale "speak every language in the world." The word he's saying that is not heard on the surface but that is heard as Nightingale Speak to Aziraphale is the word peak.

Peak, as in to excel and reach the top of a field and, also, peak, as in a top, a summit, or a climax.

"You speak every language of the world. We both do." is a statement of fact on the surface. It's also an example of them excelling at language and being word nerds because, in the hidden language they developed not just to mask their speech for safety from outsiders but to romance one another, it's also saying:

"You get off on words. We both do."

[number1mingyustan]

Anti-Romantic ☾ ♡

Genre: friendstolovers!au, best friend kai x reader, smut, comfort, hurt, fluff

Warnings: oral (f.), fingering (f.), unprotected sex, soft sex, mentions of cheating, crying, creampie

Summary: Your best friend has always been there for you, in some ways more than others.

Word Count:

(a/n: so sorry for ghosting you guys but work and school have been kicking my ass. i’m gonna try to be as active as possible considering i can post my masterlist after this, but no guarantees. thank you for being so patient with me!)

Fuck him. The asshole didn’t deserve you in the first place. He’d stood you up so many times when you were together and constantly talked down to you. He was a shitty boyfriend.

So then why does it hurt so much?

Having wasted the last year and a half of your life, you lay sobbing into your best friend’s chest.

Kai never really liked your ex. Matter of fact, he’d warned you multiple times that he sensed something off with the guy. Guess his intuition was correct.

While you’d spent the last year and a half putting your efforts into your relationship, (ex) had been putting his ‘efforts’ into other women.

When he finally admitted he’d been cheating, the asshole said it proudly. He had been anything but faithful from the start of your relationship and you didn’t have the slightest clue.

Were you truly unloveable? Just about every guy you’d been with had screwed you over. You were beginning to think you were some sort of hopeless anti-romantic based off how all your relationships ended up.

Kai hated seeing you cry.

What was so comforting about Kai aside from the much needed hug he embraced you in was his willingness to just be there for you. There was no “i told you so” with him. He simply showed up.

So there you were, in his arms comfortably. His hand soothed your back as you’d finally come down from sobbing.

“S okay,” he cooes.

You’d finally started to pull yourself together thanks to Kai’s comfort. The two of you were seated closely on your couch.

“He’s not worth it,” Kai reminds you softly.

You look up at him with blurry eyes. He wipes your tears away with his thumb, flashing you a comforting smile.

This was exactly what you needed.

You give him a weak nod. “I know, still hurts.”

He places a soft kiss on your forehead. “I understand, but he’s not worth your tears.”

“It’s not just him Kai,” you frown. “It’s all of them. I feel like-like something’s wrong with me. Every time I meet a guy I think I’m doing everything right but they-they always end up screwing me over. I think I’m the problem.”

His eyes dart toward yours. He’s silent for a brief moment before he speaks, gaze boring into yours gravely.

“Hey, you will never be the problem. There’s nothing wrong with you okay? You’ve done everything right and there’s gonna be a guy who can finally recognize that and appreciate you for everything that you are.” he tells you.

“But-”

“No buts,” he cuts you off.

The eye contact remains heavy and you can’t help but notice a sparkle in his eyes. He looks at you in a way you can hardly put into words. It causes warmth to spread from your heart and into the rest of your body.

Kai doesn’t realize it, but his heart is beating faster. Looking at you right now is causing a swarm of butterflies in his stomach.

You remain completely obvious to his unrequited love for you. After years of friendship, Kai recently came to terms with his feelings for you a few months ago.

As much as he didn’t want to admit it, it made perfect sense. The lingering touches, the king of jealousy when you mentioned a different guy, his inability to give his all into a relationship.

He loved you.

And right now you looked more beautiful than ever. Your eyes were still stained red and puffy. Your lips were slightly swollen and you looked up at him with big beady eyes.

You’d never really looked at Kai as more than a friend. But something about the way he was looking at you right now made your heartbeat pick up in pace. Sure thoughts if you and him had popped up in your mind before, but it wasn’t something you ever dwelled on. You never met yourself indulge in the idea.

He was your Kai and you were his Y/n. Best friends since the 7th grade and best friends for the rest of your lives. That’s just how things were.

Until now.

It all happened so fast. His lips were on yours instantly. His hands cupped your cheek as he sucked on the flesh of your lips.

He tasted sweet. Kissing him felt good. He was your comfort, your home.

Your lips molded together in perfect harmony. Every movement was in sync and you swore you could hear fireworks in the background.

The kiss quickly grew needier. Hands began to wander and trace along skin. However it didn’t last.

He slowly pulled away, causing your eyes to flutter open.

“ ‘M sorry,” he rasps.

You sit up, looking directly at him. “Don’t apologize.” your hands finds his. “I liked it.”

“You’re hurting,” he sighs. “It wasn’t fair for me to do that.”

“Kai-”

“I don’t want you to regret this. Don’t wanna end up being some sort of rebound or mistake we made when you were vulnerable. I value our friendship too much to risk that outcome. I’m sorry,” he says getting up from the couch.

You’re quick to pull him back down. “My head has never been as clear as it is now. I want you. I really do, please don’t go.”

He searches your eyes for any hint of doubt or insincerity, only to find none. This time, you initiate the contact, pulling his body into yours and recapturing him into a passionate kiss.

Every touch of his fingertips causes your body to light up. You can feel the blood pumping through your veins in excitement. You didn’t realize how much you wanted this until you had it.

You have him.

Your back meets the couch as his body hovers over yours. You lightly tug on his shirt, indicating that you want it off. He breaks the kiss briefly. “Are you sure?”

You nod eagerly. “Positive.”

He obliges, pulling his shirt over his head before kissing you again. He’s gentle with you. Every touch and movement is soft. So full of love and care.

You’re too caught up in his kisses to notice you’re already half naked. His hands intertwine with your panties, finally stripping you of the remaining fabric. He leaves soft kisses along your inner thighs, mumbling about how beautiful you are.

Your breathing quickens as his lips near your core. You gasp when his tongue comes into contact with your heat.

He licks a long stripe up your core teasingly before wrapping his tongue around your clit. Your back arches and you hiss at the sudden jolt of pleasure. His hands grip your thighs to hold you in place and prevent you from squirming.

You feel him smile against you. He works your core with his tongue skillfully. He pushes it inside of you, nudging his nose against your clit. You cry out in pleasure, panting his name softly.

His grip on your thighs tightens as your squirm. “Oh fuck,” you whine.

The pleasure is too intense for you to handle. You can feel him smiling against you proudly. He replaces his tongue with his fingers effortlessly. You’re dripping wet now, arousal painting his face.

You’re mere seconds away from release. Whimpering and whining as his tongue works absolute wonders on you. Your hands fly to his hair, gripping and tugging on the soft strands.

Your orgasm finally approaches with one last pump of his fingers. Your back arches completely off the couch as you cry out his name. Your eyes are squeezed shut as you allow the orgasm to take over your body.

Once you finally come down from your high, he’s already hovering above you. You look up at him with half lidded eyes as you slowly come back to your senses. His face is shiny, glistening with your arousal.

It’s not until now that you realize he’s also fully nude. He nudged his damp nose against yours, placing a soft kiss along your lips. No words are exchanged, but you know what he’s saying.

You can feel your heart beating out of your chest. “Can I have you?” he asks.

You nod. “Of course.”

That’s all the permission he needs before he’s slipping his length into you. He takes his time, pushing in inch by inch to give you time to adjust. He stretches your walls open, managing to fit you perfectly.

The two of you moan in sync at the feeling. He gives you another moment to adjust before slowly rocking his hips. His pace is steady, gradually picking up.

His groans and moans fill your ears, but they’re nowhere near as loud as yours. You cry out every time he bottoms out inside of you. He’s sure to fill you up, cock stretching out every inch of your walls.

“Fuck Y/n you feel good,” he pants. “So much better than I dreamed.”

You inadvertently clench around him at the sound of his words. He hissed at the sudden tightness, temporarily stilling his hips.

“Shit baby,” he groans. “If you do that I won’t last at all.”

You whine at his statement. He quickly finds his pace again. His face is buried into the crook of your neck as he fucks you. His cock slips in and out of you with ease.

You feel the similar feeling bubbling inside of you. “Fuck me too,” he groans. “Cum with me.”

And that you do. Your orgasms approach simultaneously. You release as he spills his cum inside of you. The two of you moan in sync as he fills you up.

It takes a moment before the two of you fully come down from your highs. He doesn’t pull out, keeping his sweaty body on top of yours. You exchange exhausted smiles, beaming with a post-sex glow.

His goofy grin prompts you to leave a small peck on his lips.

“Promise you won’t regret this tomorrow?” he asks.

“Promise.” you affirm.

Eventually you doze off into his arms. You’re deep asleep when he carrie’s your body into the bathroom, cleaning you up and redressing you so he can tuck you in safely.

You don’t hear when he whispers the words “I love you” into your hair that night. But he’s willing to save that for another time. The right time.

Just being with you was more than enough for him right now.

_______________________________________________

© number1mingyustan - Do not repost without permission.

[scarlet--wiccan]

Avengers #57 was not only failure, but a refusal to represent vital Romani history in spite of the identities-- and stereotypes-- it invoked.

As Jason Aaron’s Avengers expands the history and mythology of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, readers have been introduced to several new characters from several different time periods. Issue #57 introduced us to Sergeant Sebastian Szardos, an American military officer who had a brief tenure as Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme during World War II. Sebastian is a distant relative of Margali Szardos, who most readers will remember as Nightcrawler’s adoptive mother. The Szardos family are, notably, Romani, and like most Romani characters in superhero comics, they have deep ties to witchcraft and mysticism.

Sebastian makes frequent reference to his Romani ancestry, but rather than identifying as Roma, Rom, or even g*psy, he simply claims to have “witch blood.” What’s more, the character is fighting literal German Nazis, but the comic makes no mention of the fact that the Nazis actively attempted to commit genocide against the Romani people during the Holocaust-- something which should color Sebastian’s viewpoints and motives regarding the war.

Why does this matter? For one thing, the Szardos family already have a number of racially charged, problematic elements in their narrative, so doubling down on these exaggerated stereotypes is not a great look. More importantly, however, Holocaust distortion and the erasure of Romani history are serious, ongoing problems in the real world that still cause actual harm today.

Romani people are constantly being written out of Holocaust and WWII history. The European Romani population was targeted for ethnic cleansing, interned, and executed in camps. Families, like mine, were separated and many had to go into hiding. We suffered enormous losses, but you almost never hear about it in history books, memorials, or even present day news coverage. [compare this article vs this one] In the UK, recent legislation has all but outlawed Traveler and Romani ways of life, but the majority population fails to understand that we are a marginalized and oppressed community. History refuses to name and acknowledge anti-Roma racism, and historical narratives refuse to give voice to Roma who were present and suffering during pivotal moments such as the Holocaust.

Margali Szardos, who first appeared in 1980′s X-Men Annual #4, was a single mother who was able to raise three children by working as a fortune teller. She’s also a practicing witch.That, in and of itself, is not an unrealistic story. Fortune telling has, historically, served as a survival-based trade for Romani families, especially women who were unable to seek more conventional jobs. Witchcraft and folk medicine fall into a similar category, and so Romani witch characters like Margali are not necessarily false or offensive. The problem here is that Margali wasn’t written as a Romani woman with an authentic witchcraft background-- she was written as a witch whose Romani background serves only to add exotic flavor to her story. When you add the fact that Margali is often morally bankrupt, and there’s a lot of weird colorism happening with her biological kids, the material poses a lot of problems that no writer has ever really tried to fix.

[silenceofthecookies]

Hello! I'm here for my free pass :) But first of all, congratulations for another big milestone! So happy to see you grow, you deserve all the attention :) May I ask for The Supernovas (I know there are 11 of them, you can yeet Apoo out, for the sake of humanity) with big breasted s/o? Not in a suggestive way, rather you know, the hard daily bread of big tittie committee. The bra odyssey, tiddy ache, BACK ACHE, them getting in the way all the time etc. Thank you :) Let me know, if it's not good.

*pick up boobs and rests them on the table* Okay now we can talk big breasts. Sorry this one took so long Bas, I hope you enjoy these!

Monkey D. Luffy

Luffy has no idea of the struggles that come with big breasts. Sure, Nami and Robin have them too, but they never shared the struggles with him. You’re gonna have to spell everything out to him.

It really doesn’t make sense to him. If your back hurts because of your boobs, shouldn’t you just train your back muscles so they can handle it better? Why don’t your back muscles naturally get strong enough from carrying that weight all day anyway? It’s a mystery.

If you tell him your chests hurts, he also panics and tells you to go see Chopper, worried that your heart might stop. He calms down a little when you tell him it’s your boobs, not your heart, but he still suggests getting Chopper. When you tell him it’s normal for big breasts to get sensitive, he’ll say something along the lines of breasts really being sucky if they hurt you by simply being there.

The thing that probably annoys him the most is the fact that you won’t let him pull you around everywhere all the time. One only runs with one normal bra and two sports bras on, after all. Who has time for bra’s? There are adventures to be had!

Trafalgar Law

Law is aware of the struggles that come with big breasts, so your complaints and problems don’t come as a surprise to him, and he’ll handle them in true gremlin style.

He’ll suggest doing surgery on you to make them smaller, listing you the pro’s and con’s of it in typical boring medical fashion. He likes your breasts though, they’re a great pillow for him to sleep on, but your health and comfort go first. And a reduction doesn’t mean they’re gone anyway.

Law has absolutely no problem in going bra shopping with you, doing proper research on what kind of bra’s give the best support, advising you wherever needed. Of course, this is a great opportunity for him to pick some lingerie for you to wear as well.

Watching you find a good position to sleep in is one of his favourite forms of entertainment when he’s having trouble sleeping. He’ll simply prop his head up on one arm, watching you shift under the covers to finally find a position that’s comfy for you and your ladies.

He’ll do some research with you on proper anti-perspirant deodorant. Underboob sweat is an absolute hell, and the sub gets pretty damn hot.

Eustass Kid

Kid does not get it. I repeat. Kid does not get it.

“So your back hurts because there’s too much weight on your chest? Won’t we fix it if we create some counterweight on your back with a backpack or something?”

The worst part is that his crew agrees with him and his ‘genius solution’.

He has absolutely 0 patience to go bra shopping with you. He doesn’t even want to enter that store. That’s a ladies store, he doesn’t belong there. If you drag him in anyway to help you pick, he’s obviously going to pick everything sexy, with total disregard for the support. When you tell him you need a good, supportive bra, he’s out. He had no idea what is a supportive bra and he has no interest in learning about it either.

He thinks it’s absolutely hilarious though when you need to write something and you put your boobs on the table. The first time you did it he just asked if you were trying to get his attention. He drops that joke once he learns it’s about general comfort, though he still thinks it’s funny.

Bege, Zoro, X Drake, Killer, Hawkins, Bonney and Urouge below the cut!

Capone Bege

Once Bege finds out there are downsides to big breasts as well, he tries to do everything to help you be more comfortable. Even if he doesn’t really understand the struggles himself.

First of all, he’s helping you find alternatives to blouses. He loves a well-dressed lady and blouses look great, but if you have to worry about your buttons every 5 minutes, it’s not worth the effort. It’s either an alternative, or getting you tailor-made blouses, that fit you perfectly and comfortably.

When going bra shopping with you, he asks you what he needs to look out for to help you pick. He may be a little awkward going into a bra shop with you the first time, but he has no problems with helping you.

When the back ache gets too much, he’ll massage your back himself. It’s a little clumsy, but he enjoys making you feel better by his own hands.

Anyone who comments on your breasts when he’s around will be shot on the spot. Doesn’t matter if they’re complimenting you or catcalling you. They should know better than to stare at your chest, and they should certainly know better than to do so when he’s around.

Roronoa Zoro

This meathead has no idea what’s going on and is almost as bad as Luffy. Your back hurts because of the weight? Why not work on your back muscles then to be able to handle the weight?

Contrary to Luffy though, Zoro gets it pretty fast once you explain to him that it doesn’t work like that. Not that he’s really one to argue much, women can get pretty scary when they get mad, certainly when it comes to their breasts, and he wants no angry women.

Zoro absolutely refuses to enter a lingerie shop. He is way too embarrassed to go in and even seeing other men enter the shop will not help. Threatening to ask Sanji to go with you though, that might convince him to enter, but his head will be the colour of a tomato the whole time.

He really does not want you to get surgery though. He loves everything about your breasts and uses them as a pillow on the regular, and he really does not want to be robbed of the best pillow he’s ever rested his head on.

He’ll give you a massage when the back ache gets too bad though. He’s actually pretty good at it and has strong enough hands to apply enough pressure.

X Drake

Dead.

It does not take much on your part to embarrass this guy. Depending on where you are in your relationship with him, he might even cut you off and change the subject when you even mention your boobs. He does not want to think about it, for if he does, he’s going to be as red as a tomato.

If you’re far enough into the relationship for him to be able to handle talking about your breasts, he actually gets really worried. Why does life have to be so hard on you? Why are proper, supporting bra’s so hard to find, and so expensive when you do find them? It makes absolutely no sense to him.

He will gladly give you a massage when you’re in pain. He won’t even question it. You can 100% abuse him on his by saying your back hurts even when it doesn’t just so you can get a massage. He will never know.

Trying to find a good position to sleep in keeps him awake (he’s a very light sleeper, certainly in company) so he tries to help you find a good position. And if that good position requires him to be your pillow, or to lie on the edge of the bed, he’ll do it.

Killer

Killer knows. He 100% refuses to tell you how, but he already knows the breast struggles. You don’t even have to tell him what a well-supporting bra looks like. He knows.

Killer has no trouble going bra shopping with you, and his behaviour in the lingerie store is very similar to him going grocery shopping with you. There is no embarrassment, no awkwardness. You’re there to get something necessary for your daily life, much like food, and that’s how he treats it. He will be blushing a little behind his mask if you ask him his opinion on some sexy lingerie you’re wearing though.

He gives the absolute best massages in case your back is hurting. He knows just what muscles to work on, just how much pressure to apply and just how to make it feel relaxing as well. It’s honestly a blessing.

He does hate how much trouble you have with finding a proper sleeping position. All the tossing and turning keeps him awake as well and getting some rest on the Victoria Punk is a rare luxury he wants to take full advantage of. He won’t say anything about it though, because he knows you can’t help it and that you probably hate it just as much, if not more than him.

Basil Hawkins

Hawkins is a no-nonsense kind of man and his mind is very focussed on solving a problem when one comes up. If you complain about your back hurting to him, he’ll suggest laying down or taking a bath for now, and considering a breast reduction. If you were looking for sympathy, you’ve got the wrong person in Hawkins.

With his casual fortune-telling, he does often warn you your back will hurt extra that day. Of course there’s nothing you can do about it, your fate is set, but giving you a heads up is Hawkins’ way of being considerate about your situation.

He will actually use his fortune-telling skills to help you find a good bra though. Whenever you find a shop he’ll be able to tell you if there’s any use going in there or not. It saves you an awful lot of time and frustrations.

Nothing you can say or do regarding to the big breasts struggles will faze him. He will reply to everything very calmly, very level-headed and very no-nonsense. He takes your pain and struggles seriously, but he won’t let you just whine about to get it off your chest. It’s not that he doesn’t want to listen to you, it’s simply his problem-solving thinking that doesn’t stop to think that maybe, you just need to complain a little.

Jewelry Bonney

Bonney obviously knows what’s up. She’s part of the club herself, she knows the pains, she knows the struggles.

Bra shopping with Bonney is really interesting. She curses a lot, threatens a lot of people, and somehow always manages to get at least one bra that fits and supports. If they don’t have anything, she tends to break something because ‘If they don’t have supporting bra’s, they don’t need a supporting business’. Yes, she gets REALLY salty.

Boobs getting in the way is a seriously annoying thing, and both you and Bonney can curse a lot over it, but Bonney will help you find the pro’s in it as well. Have you ever stopped to think that when you lean back a little in your chair, your chest is a table you can put your snacks on? Or that your cleavage is a perfect cupholder? Add a straw and you don’t even have to take out the cup to drink. Total win.

Bonney has found all of the pillow hacks to easily find a sleeping position and now, you know them too.

Even though she has the same trouble, or maybe just because she has the same trouble, she’ll never underestimate you complaining about pains, being uncomfortable, or whatever. She’ll hear you out, let you rant, and get something to help with the pain.

Urouge

Just like Killer, somehow Urouge already knows about the struggles of being big-breasted. When you ask him about it he just laughs and makes a joke about liking big breasts. He won’t tell you how he really knows though.

With him always smiling, it might be a little hard to know whether Urouge really cares about your struggles or not. He does, actually, but he also thinks it’s a little funny to hear you complain. The best thing for him though is when your boobs are getting in the way of something. He thinks it’s funny, certainly when he watches you trash around in bed next to him because you’re trying to find a comfortable sleeping position.

He’s very helpful with whatever you need help with. Need someone to go bra shopping with you? He’s there, though he will make the stupid ‘these are so expensive, I’ll hold your boobs for free’ joke. He’s pretty good at eyeballing which size you need and which models will support you well.

He generally has some pain killers on hand for when the breast pain gets too bad. If you’re at the ship and he notices you’re in pain, he’ll get you some hot or cold compresses, depending on what you want.

[skyeventide]

my trsb fic has so many notes to the text that they didn’t fit within the ao3 notes’ section character limit lmao, so here is the lengthier version of it. you can consider it a teaser I guess? but either way, I need some place to store these and link them back in the fic.

contents here, cut for length

on the matter of the mother of Gil-Galad

Celebrimbor’s names

shibbolething all over Thauron’s name

actual quotes and canon

On the matter of the mother of Gil-Galad

Meril-i-Turinqi is a Book of Lost Tales character, lady of Tol Eressea, kin of In(g)we but also similar to the Solosimpi, which is to say the Teleri.

The character of "Meril" on the other hand, is a proto-Amarie, Finrod's love interest. In the early draft of Meril's appearance, Finrod is married and is father of Gil-Galad: this draft is obviously discarded and Finrod becomes childless, while Meril transforms into Amarie, who does not join the exile. Gil-Galad is instead transferred to Orodreth, which iirc is Tolkien's last word on the matter (I don't count the Fingon thing as even canon-adjacent, ChrisT was quite clear in admitting the mistake). Now I recall Orodreth is said to be married to a Sinda; why did I discard that? Cause I initally forgot it. Rip to me and Orodreth.

However, what I had was: a proto-Amarie, who is a Vanya, and a BoLT character who is of the family of Ingwe (so a Vanya), but also like the Teleri (so of the third clan, even though not a Sinda). And so Meril-proto-Amarie became Meril-i-Turinqi, wife of Orodreth.

The full headcanon on Meril here would have her as daughter of a Vanya who is kin of Ingwe and of Telerin nobility (or royalty? they're all big on intermarrying between royal families), which fulfills both sides of the coin and also stays true to the statement that Elenwe is the sole full-Vanya to join the exile (I'm gonna assume this excludes any non-royalty followers). Now regarding the parentage of Orodreth, he is here son of Angrod, as I feel that is a better option in almost all respects. This poses some issues with regard to age, as I recall Orodreth-son-of-Angrod and Idril as being named the only two non-adults to do the journey to ME (again... this surely excludes any non-royalty youngsters, but nonetheless). Obviously these issues grow even further if one also includes the matter of Celebrimbor being Aman-born to a wife who doesn't follow Curufin (and therefore the matter of his age at the time of exile), but reconciling these versions is borderline impossible with how the origins of Celebrimbor keep changing throughout the conception of the legendarium.

Long story short, I up the age of Orodreth to be at least old enough to speak softly with Finarfin (here his grandfather) during the flight of the Noldor, but I have him already married though childless. Finduilas is born early into the exile and Gil-Galad is her younger brother.

Meril returns to Aman at the end of the First Age and rules Tol Eressea for the exiles who are stuck there until the Ban is fully lifted.

Celebrimbor's names

FN = father-name, MN = mother-name

I do not claim to have come up with "Tyelperinquar is an epesse", that headcanon, which nonetheless I'm sure happened separately for other people, is one I first read in a fic by Tyelperintal on AO3. That of course means that I could no longer go with the FN Curufinwe MN Tyelperinquar option, and needed another mother-name, which I also borrowed from the same story, and went for Ilvanon, "the perfect". It's pretty, and also speaks of a mix of high expectations and love.

What in this story made me accept the epesse headcanon is the matter of the origin of "T(y)elperinquar" as a name. Vinyar Tengwar (and most recently also NoME) explains how "silver fist" is a name common among the Teleri, famous for their ability to smith silver even among the Noldor, and it is also mentioned how other similar names, such as Tegilbor "calligrapher", are given to people based on their skill. This, however, directly contradicts the fact that elves don't give the same name to more than one person. That statement is problematic in itself (impossible that all elves across all time are aware of all names that ever have been used -- and also of course there's the usual royalty exceptions, that however may well be exceptions because they are royalty), but if it is a common name among the Teleri and we are to keep the duplicate names lore in mind... my only solution is that it's a coveted epesse, given to the very skilled.

Celebrimbor picks it as his chosen and preferred name over FN, already shared by two people and preferred as chosen name by his father, and the potential arrogance of picking his MN with its meaning.

This still led me to problems of both spelling and language choices.

As far as spelling goes, there's several variations. I'm marking with * the one that is not canonically attested, but can be inferred.

Pure Telerin: Telperimpar

Quenya-Telerin compound that maintains the Telerin spelling of silver: Telperinquar

As above, but shortened: Telpinquar

Pure Quenya: *Tyelperinquar

Pure Quenya, shortened: Tyelpinquar

I use all these except the last one at various stages: I decided (though I go back and forth on this) that his household might have used pure Quenya, and his mother sticks to it; the person in Tirion panicks and uses the shortened version Telpinquar, which together with Telperinquar (Telerin spelling maintained) was more common among the Noldor. The Tirion passage exemplifies the uses and applications of these names, how they were given and altered.

This leads me to problems of language and POV, Celebrimbor vs Tyelperinquar. His mother, in her POV, always uses the latter, but Celebrimbor himself uses the former. The true problem here was adapting my feeling that Celebrimbor would be far more used to thinking of himself as Celebrimbor (as opposed to the Quenya name) vs Tolkien's statement that elves do not use names in another language when speaking in X language. This doesn't stay wholly true through the legendarium and the texts, so it's something I've decided to partially ignore when it comes to POV, though I tend to stick to it in first person dialogue. Something that again I try to tackle in the text itself -- when Galadriel tells Celebrimbor which language to speak and which name to use for her.

I am not entirely satisfied with all my choices here and I might revisit them in the future, but for the moment, here we go.

Shibbolething all over Thauron's name

Another language and spelling headache. As I encountered the problem of Sauron, I encountered that of the spelling of his name: the eternal TH/S issue. Were I to have Celebrimbor's mother, and Celebrimbor himself, stick to the Shibboleth? I initially attempted to circumvent this by using Gorthaur, but the issue described just above, about mixing languages, yet again bit me in the ass.

Of course it comes down to characterisation: would Mrs Curufin stick to the Shibboleth, and would Celebrimbor? The matter with Celebrimbor was that I don't believe he spoke Quenya with any real frequency after the Nargothrond business, not as a choice but rather due to circumstances and preferences of those around him. With Ercasse, the conflict is part of the character, and that sadly meant that the TH/S choice became less of a personal choice and more of a political one, as usual.

That got me thinking about the circumstances around her and something interesting came to me: Finarfin spoke Quenya with the Shibboleth, because of the Teleri. And in the Darkening he becomes king in Tirion, and also has to adjust things with the Teleri -- not an easy task, imo, when he turns back only after the pronunciation of the Doom, and not just after the kinslaying occurred. Additionally, the Vanyar spoke preserving TH. Additionally x2, by the Fourth Age, Exilic Quenya (which uses S) is associated with those who rebelled and returned to Aman -- meanwhile any Sindar preserved TH naturally, as it's a sound that never went out of use in Sindarin.

So I chose to take these things and make something of it. If Finarfin maintains TH to keep the Telerin influence; if the Noldor who remain in Aman decide to step closer to the Vanyar in an anti-rebellion reactionary manner and to conform to the speech of the king; if Exilic Quenya gains the lower status of language of the exiles; and considering the canon fact that in later ages the elves are more likely to preserve language rather than change it -- what are our chances that Shibbolething gains opposite connotations as time passes? My conclusion was high chances. So I decided to implement it.

And so Ercasse doesn't have to think about her personal allegiances anymore and has a path built in for herself in these social changes. And Sauron is Thauron. (Unless Galadriel is talking: she doesn't Shibboleth, and uses “Sauron” and “Sindarin”.)

Quotes and canon

Many things I wrote are based on canon snippets. Here I tried to collect them.

On Celebrimbor and the mention of the bath of flames in his speech. It isn't, in fact, a corny lineage reference, but rather a metaphysical or pseudo-physical concept of purification from the Lost Tales:

Yet now the prayers of [their parents] came even to Manwe [the highest Valar], and the Gods had mercy on their unhappy fate, so that those twain Turin and Nienori entered into ... the bath of flame... and so were all their sorrows and stains washed away, and they dwelt as shining Valar among the blessed ones, and now the love of that brother and sister is very fair;

On the naming of Mithril (appears in the upcoming Nature of Middle Earth, as well as already published in Vinyar Tengwar):

[Celebrimbor] was a great silver-smith, and went to Eregion attracted by the rumours of the marvellous metal found in Moria, Moria-silver, to which he gave the name mithril.

On Celebrimbor's ambition and assorted choices, from Letter 131: 

In the first we see a sort of second fall or at least ‘error’ of the Elves. There was nothing wrong essentially in their lingering against counsel, still sadly with the mortal lands of their old heroic deeds. But they wanted to have their cake without eating it. They wanted the peace and bliss and perfect memory of ‘The West’, and yet to remain on the ordinary earth where their prestige as the highest people, above wild Elves, dwarves, and Men, was greater than at the bottom of the hierarchy of Valinor. They thus became obsessed with 'fading’, the mode in which the changes of time (the law of the world under the sun) was perceived by them. They became sad, and their art (shall we say) antiquarian, and their efforts all really a kind of embalming – even though they also retained the old motive of their kind, the adornment of earth, and the healing of its hurts. […] But many of me Elves listened to Sauron. He was still fair in that early time, and his motives and those of the Elves seemed to go partly together: the healing of the desolate lands. Sauron found their weak point in suggesting that, helping one another, they could make Western Middle-earth as beautiful as Valinor. It was really a veiled attack on the gods, an incitement to try and make a separate independent paradise.

Legolas and Aragorn and my choice to use the word love:

"[...]Yet whatever is still to do, I hope to have a part in it, for the honour of the folk of the Lonely Mountain." "And I for the folk of the Great Wood," said Legolas, "and for the love of the Lord of the White Tree [Aragorn]."

Celebrimbor and the Elessar. It must be noted that this Celebrimbor is not Celebrimbor son of Curufin, but I still liked the tidbit of lore. From there my choice to have three different Elessar stones, one made by Feanor, one by Enerdhil of Gondolin, one by Celebrimbor (in the fic redressed to Celebrimbor son of Curufin, and without the romantic love for Galadriel):

But he did not say to Galadriel that he himself was of Gondolin long ago. Therefore he took thought, and began a long delicate labour, and so for Galadriel he made the greatest of his works (save the Three Rings only).And it is said that more subtle and clear was the green gem that he made than that of Enerdhil, but yet its light had less power. For whereas that of Enerdhil was lit by the Sun in its youth, already many years had passed ere Celebrimbor began his work, and nowhere in Middle-earth was the light as clear as it had been, for though Morgoth had been thrust out into the Void and could not enter again, his far shadow lay upon it.Radiant nonetheless was the Elessar of Celebrimbor; and he set it within a great brooch of silver in the likeness of an eagle rising upon outspread wings.

On the vale and the stream where Formenos is located, I utilised this passage from Lost Tales:

[...] here the entire people of the Noldoli are ordered to leave Kor for the rugged dale northwards where the stream Híri plunged underground, and the command to do so seems to have been less a punishment meted out to them by Manwe than a pre-caution and a safeguard. In connection with the place of the banishment of the Noldoli, here called Sirnúmen ('Western Stream') [...]

Relevant LotR quotes about the Eregion passages, used for soil description extrapolations and other elements:

Suddenly Gimli, who had pressed on ahead, called back to them. He was standing on a knoll and pointing to the right. Hurrying up they saw below them a deep and narrow channel. It was empty and silent, and hardly a trickle of water flowed among the brown and redstained stones of its bed; but on the near side there was a path, much broken and decayed, that wound its way among the ruined walls and paving-stones of an ancient highroad. ‘Ah! Here it is at last!’ said Gandalf. ‘This is where the stream ran: Sirannon, the Gate-stream, they used to call it. But what has happened to the water, I cannot guess; it used to be swift and noisy. Come! We must hurry on. We are late.’ [...] "...there is a wholesome air about Hollin. Much evil must befall a country before it wholly forgets the elves, if once they dwelt there." "That is true", said Legolas. "But the Elves of this land were of a race strange to us of the silvan folk, and the trees and the grass do not now remember them: Only I hear the stones lament them: deep they delved us, fair they wrought us, high they builded us; but they are gone. They are gone. They sought the Havens long ago."

More TBA if anything comes to mind.

[hazelcephalopod]

The Great Hunt Ch 5-6

Just so many things happen all over the place. Many of them quite dark.

Disclaimer: this is my first read thru but I’ve watched all of the show thus far and been spoiled on some book things. So… I’m going to lean into that. Enjoy figuring out what I know, and what I think I know, and what I just don’t. Also s/x I add commentary when I edit.

Spoilers for the first and second book and all of season 1 under the cut. Potential spoilers for later books -idk if they’re light spoilers or not.

Ch 5: The Shadow in Shienar

Sun

Ominous title is ominous.

Yup. Stilling is basically gentling. Next!

“Able to sense saidar, the female half of the True Source, but no longer having the ability to touch it. Remembering what was gone forever.” -Tgh on Stilling. Sounds bad

So rare Novices can memorize the names and crimes of every Aes Sedai whose been stilled for 3k years! That’s really rare then

2 Amylins in the 3rd Era have been deposed. Tetsuan, for betraying Menetheren for petty reasons -why did Menetheren get betrayed so much? And Bonwhin for trying to control Artur Hawkwing and nearly destroying TV in the process. So that’s hundreds or thousands of years ago. And Siuan is coming corned her involvement in trying to find the Dragon will get her deposed and probably stilled. Really bad

“Both of the Red, and both replaced by Amyrlin from the Blue. The reason there has not been an Amyrlin chosen from the Red since Bonwhin, and the reason the Red Ajah well take any pretext to pull down an Amyrlin from the Blue…” -Siuan on Tower politics history.

3 -at least- mentions of switchings in 2 pgs

Oh fuck Moiraine you really did cause problems. Like… I get Siuans rxn. They were going to prep him. Moiraine fully YOLO-Ed that

“Yet the world will burn, Siuan, one way or an other, whatever we do.” -(Moiraine) thinking as she talks to Siuan and explaining why she YOLO-Ed it. YWWATWW

“Let whosoever sounds me think not of glory, but only of salvation.” -Moiraine, reciting they Prophecy of the Horn

Once a generation until two years ago and you doubt?!

…oh the actions of gentling. Ok. Fair. You should

“So can Mazrim Taim, the man in Saldaea.” -Siuan mentioning the other fD who can channeld. Also mentioned Logain, whose been gentled

Holy fuck. That’s a lot

That was a seal on the Dark ones prison they broke. And the Amyrlin is the Watcher of the Seals. It’s her job to keep them safe. And none have known where they are for a long time. So not good yea?

See? Should have stayed fully out of sight! Well. Too late. At least she’s on Moiraine’s side

Mm kicking and screaming he might. Good luck!

Few names do

Lol. Safe. Sure

Girl… he needed a little more guidance. The fact he hasn’t bolted yet is kinda a miracle

That approach will scare him more! Maybe try tearing him like a person! A mature-ish person!

Did they not see the Horn?

Also… *shakes head*

Also also, that fucking dagger

“Easier to give up drinking water.” Siuan on not using magic once one has used it.

Still such a flaming… consent!

Yes it’s applicable!

I do wonder if he could just fuck off forever and ignore this shut. Like. Learn to sail and just go. Bye.

…wait… well moving on

Plots within plots!

I’m honestly not convinced that meeting will happen

What is happening? POV change?

Whitecloaks vs boat people?! (I soon learn, regrettably no. Not yet at least)

Bornhold POV? Have we met that guy?

Ok many names. Lord Capt Cmmdr Perrin Niall. Valda. Dain Bornhold.

Well. At least world news is being presented. Caemlyn is on the brink of civil war because of the whole Red vs White (pro queen and TV vs anti queen and TV) situation

Oh the guy with probably half a bit of sense is your best? Nooo /s

… makes the whoel organization more dangerous tho

So stealth mission to Tarabon. Kill anyone who sees them.

“Wild rumors, mainly, about Artur Hawkwing’s armies come back.” -Bornhold to Whitecloak Supreme Niall.

King is a figurehead. Bornhold has three days to leave for the village Alcruna on the Fields or whatever up north-ish(?) form there

Bornhold I can already tell if you had but a handful more brain cells you woulda made a better choice. Like becoming a Warder perhaps. Something actually useful

“Pardon… but who will meet me? Why am I risking war with Tarabon?” -Bornhold. Good question, but honestly the whitecloaks will probably just disavow you if you’re caught. I hope they have that much sense. Not entirely confident they do tho

Uhhuh. Oh well actually checking is nice. I’m not sure you’re any good at that but ok

The bare minimum is not killing innocents tho

Oh lovely. Worse Whitecloaks, Questioners.

Yes I’m sure the torture really makes them confess honestly

Well I’m definitely calling them Questioners then

Fuck, so they likely murdered an entire village of people. So just worse than many Darkfriends I’m sure. (Editors note- we don’t see it but pretty much convinced it happens)

I forgot it was 2k Whitecloaks. Fuck.

Are you fucking kidding me? You’re there to meddle with some townies because you… checks book… don’t like the way they govern themselves. Ok. Assholes

How about you do something useful and go help hold back those strangers instead of this nonsense?

“Taraboners claim the strangers are monsters, creatures of the Dark One. Some say they have Aes Sedai to fight for them.” -a Questioner to Bornhold.

… useless assholes. I’m surprised they recognize Trollocs. They’d take order from a Fade if they spoke their tongue and wore a helmet and swore on the Light they were “good guys”

Maybe you could find better use of that skepticism.

Bornhold is right tho.

Byar?! Nooo. That fucker?

“Stones on a board. But who is moving us? And why?

Seelfish fools I’m sure. Because they want power.

POV change, again!

“Twilight was a troubled time for Liandrin of late, that and dawn. At dawn the day was born, just as twilight gave birth to night, but at dawn, night died, and at twilight, day. The Dark One’s power was rooted in death; he gained power from death, and at those times she thought she could feel his power stirring.” -(Liandrin) uhhh.

Ok books on etiquette. I’d also ignore that tbh

Where is she going with this?

Ok. Information gathering. Hope Amalisa is terrified enough not to tell anyone about this.

Well… really like to dominate huh Liandrin?

Oh looking for the boys. G’luck

Well that usually means they exist.

Liandrin confirming the Black Ajahs existence is a bold move

This is the present right?

Well the boys better get out

And… POV shift! To Fain

… on the last page of the chapter

He got a visitor. But who?

Cliffhanger!

Ch 6

The Dark One. That’s what I’ll call that image

A dream

POV Rand

Really fucked up dream!

His friends fucked up. And Fain, baiaclally normal Fain tho

“Two red-clad Aes Sedai stepped through, bowing their master in. A mask the color of dried blood covered Ba’alzamon’s face…” -(Rand). Still dreaming (editor note: bowing became blowing with spellcheck)

& awakened with terror

Nynaeve!

White morningstars again

I mean that’s just basic respect that one

Make something easier then. But also, the boy you’ve known forever who has a terminal curse will do that

That is so sweet. But she should not be doing that alone

… tbc most of them shouldn’t. Maybe none.

No sweetie half the purpose of servants is to spy on people. Like… Maids are high on the list of doing that sort of thing

Good for her!

Well that was fucking depressing

Oh buddy

Wait does saying his name actually do something? What?!

Idk what to think of that

Nynaeve is great. Like… she’s got the most common sense here. Possibly more than Moiraine rn

Fain free and Egwene in trouble. I’d believe that

Theoretically he is right. She’s been going alone this long why stop now? (I later learn this time in wrong. But she has been going alone)

But that’s not thinking. That’s panic.

Well they found him

Well shit there’s Trollocs in here?! What?!!

Strangely that should make things easier for him

Rand still failing to sword any good

Oh shit. That’s a Fade

Ingtar!

Sneaking. Good approach

Yup. That’s vile. Poor guys

Yea don’t let your name be connected to this

Oh fuck it Liandrin

Well that’s horrible

Wait! Does that count as using the One Power as a weapon? >.>

Oh that’s fucking dark!

Oh she found Mat!

Oh no Mat! Egwene! Well at least they might not be as erm… fucked up

Still not convinced you doing that relates to this

Dancing lights!

Oh, right I honestly stopped imagining all the women in skirts. I may forget again tbh

Hey Fal Dara, maybe you shouldn’t keep your dungeons in darkness huh?

Oh dagger being gone seems, uh, not good

Ingtar!

Oh right Fain escaped. I suppose that’s not a given. So yea reminder, Fain escaped this battle

Is Moiraine doing the ignore Rand so others won’t think he’s important thing too? Like the whole giving him space thing doesn’t feel like the whole of it

What causes madness? Like that sort of those two prisoners… Not Mashadar, not like that. I think? Not the Taint -not for this. Machin Shin might. Or something else

The Fade fled. Huh

Oh noo. The horn is stolen. Oops

Oh… Darkfriends really in here huh?

What the hell? Who had the gates closed then? (I’m betting Amalisa, Koiraine or a Darkfriend)

“You really are going mad if you suspect Ingtar.” -(Rand) thinking to himself. Maybe yea

Lol. I love them but fair

That’s terrifying.

I’m with Rand. Answers!

This feels cruel and manipulative too!

‘Here is 0 advice. Do whatever. Why are you crying potential ~19 yr old Dragon Reborn?’

[theshedding]

Lil Nas X: Country Music, Christianity & Reclaiming HELL

I don’t typically bother myself to follow what Lil Nas X is doing from day to day, or even month to month but I do know that his “Old Town Road” hit became one of the biggest selling/streamed records in Country Music Business history (by a Black Country & Queer artist). “Black” is key because for 75+ years Country music has unsuspiciously evolved into a solidly White-identified genre (despite mixed and Indian & Black roots). Regrettably, Country music is also widely known for anti-black, misogynoir, reliably homophobic (Trans isn’t really a conversation yet), Christian and Hard Right sentiments on the political spectrum. Some other day I will venture into more; there is a whole analysis dying to be done on this exclusive practice in the music industry with its implications on ‘access’ to equity and opportunity for both Black/POC’s and Whites artists/songwriters alike. More commentary on this rigid homogeneous field is needed and how it prohibits certain talent(s) for the sake of perpetuating homogeneity (e.g. “social determinants” of diversity & viable artistic careers). I’ll refrain from discussing that fully here, though suffice it to say that for those reasons X’s “Old Town Road” was monumental and vindicating. 

As for Lil Nas X, I’m not particularly a big fan of his music; but I see him, what he’s doing, his impact on music + culture and I celebrate him using these moments to affirm his Black, Queer self, and lifting up others. Believe it or not, even in the 2020′s, being “out” in the music business is still a costly choice. As an artist it remains much easier to just “play straight”. And despite appearances, the business (particularly Country) has been dragged kicking and screaming into developing, promoting and advancing openly-affirming LGBTQ 🏳️‍🌈 artists in the board room or on-stage. Though things are ‘better’ we have not yet arrived at a place of equity or opportunity for queer artists; for the road of music biz history is littered with stunted careers, bodies and limitations on artists who had no option but to follow conventional ways, fail or never be heard of in the first place. With few exceptions, record labels, radio and press/media have successfully used fear, intimidation, innuendo and coercion to dilute, downplay or erase any hint of queer identity from its performers. This was true even for obvious talents like Little Richard.

(Note: I’m particularly speaking of artists in this regard, not so much the hairstylists, make-up artists, PA’s, etc.)

_____

Which is why...in regard to Lil Nas X, whether you like, hate or love his music, the young brother is a trailblazer. His very existence protests (at least) decades of inequity, oppression and erasure. X aptly critiques a Neo-Christian Fascist Heteropatriarchy; not just in American society but throughout the Music Business and with Black people. That is no small deal. His unapologetic outness holds a mirror up to Christianity at-large, as an institution, theology and practice. The problem is they just don’t like what they see in that mirror.

In actuality, “Call Me By Your Name”, Lil Nas X’s new video, is a twist on classic mythology and religious memes that are less reprehensible or vulgar than the Biblical narratives most of us grew up on vís-a-vís indoctrinating smiles of Sunday school teachers and family prior to the “age of reason”. Think about the narratives blithely describing Satan’s friendly wager with God regarding Job (42:1-6); the horrific “prophecies” in St. John’s Book of Revelation (i.e. skies will rain fire, angels will spit swords, mankind will be forced to retreat into caves for shelter, and we will be harassed by at least three terrifying dragons and beasts. Angels will sound seven trumpets of warning, and later on, seven plagues will be dumped on the world), or Jesus’s own clarifying words of violent intent in Matthew (re: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” 10:34). Whether literal or metaphor, these age old stories pale in comparison to a three minute allegorical rap video. Conservatives: say what you will, I’m pretty confident X doesn’t take himself as seriously as “The true and living God” from the book of Job.

A little known fact as it is, people have debunked the story and evolution of Satan and already offered compelling research showing [he] is more of a literary device than an actual entity or “spirit” (Spoiler: In the Bible, Satan does not take shape as an actual “bad” person until the New Testament). In fact, modern Christianity’s impression of the “Devil” is shaped by conflating Hellenized mythology with a literary tradition rooted in Dante’s Inferno and accompanying spooks and superstitions going back thousands of years. Whether Catholic, Protestant, Mormon, Scientologist, Atheist or Agnostic, we’ve spent a lifetime with these predominant icons and clichés. (Resource: Prof. Bart D. Erhman, “Heaven & Hell”).

So Here’s THE PROBLEM: The current level of fear and outrage is: 

(1) Unjust, imposing and irrational. 

(2) Disproportionate when taken into account a lifetime of harmful Christian propaganda, anti-gay preaching and political advocacy.

(3) Historically inaccurate concerning the existence of “Hell” and who should be scared of going there. 

Think I’m overreacting? 

Examples: 

Institutionalized Homophobia (rhetoric + policy)

Anti-Gay Ministers In Life And Death: Bishop Eddie Long And Rev. Bernice King

Black, gay and Christian, Marylanders struggle with Conflicts

Harlem pastor: 'Obama has released the homo demons on the black man'

Joel Olsteen: Homosexuality is “Not God’s Best”

Bishop Brandon Porter: Gays “Perverted & Lost...The Church of God in Christ Convocation appears like a ‘coming out party’ for members of the gay community.”

Kim Burrell: “That perverted homosexual spirit is a spirit of delusion & confusion and has deceived many men & women, and it has caused a strain on the body of Christ”

Falwell Suggests Gays to Blame for 9-11 Attacks

Pope Francis Blames The Devil For Sexual Abuse By Catholic Church

Pope Francis: Gay People Not Welcome in Clergy

Pope Francis Blames The Devil For Sexual Abuse By Catholic Church

The Pope and Gay People: Nothing’s Changed

The Catholic church silently lobbied against a suicide prevention hotline in the US because it included LGBT resources

Mormon church prohibits Children of LGBT parents to be baptized

Catholic Charity Ends Adoptions Rather Than Place Kid With Same-Sex Couple

I Was a Religious Zealot That Hurt People-Coming Out as Gay: A Former Conversion Therapy Leader Is Apologizing to the LGBTQ Community

The above short list chronicles a consistent, literal, demonization of LGBTQ people, contempt for their gender presentation, objectification of their bodies/sexuality and a coordinated pollution of media and culture over the last 50+ years by clergy since integration and Civil Rights legislation. Basically terrorism. Popes, Bishops, Pastors, Evangelists, Politicians, Television hosts, US Presidents, Camp Leaders, Teachers, Singers & Entertainers, Coaches, Athletes and Christians of all types all around the world have confused and confounded these issues, suppressed dissent, and confidently lied about LGBT people-including fellow Queer Christians with impunity for generations (i.e. “thou shall not bear false witness against they neighbor” Ex. 23:1-3). Christian majority viewpoints about “laws” and “nature” have run the table in discussions about LGBTQ people in society-so much that we collectively must first consider their religious views in all discussions and the specter of Christian approval -at best or Christian condescension -at worst. That is Christian (and straight) privilege. People are tired of this undue deference to religious opinions. 

That is what is so deliciously bothersome about Lil Nas X being loud, proud and “in your face” about his sexuality. If for just a moment, he not only disrupts the American hetero-patriarchy but specifically the Black hetero-patriarchy, the so-called “Black Church Industrial Complex”, Neo-Christian Fascism and a mostly uneducated (and/or miseducated) public concerning Ancient Near East and European history, superstitions-and (by extension) White Supremacy. To round up: people are losing their minds because the victim decided to speak out against his victimizer. 

Additionally, on some level I believe people are mad at him being just twenty years old, out and FREE as a self-assured, affirming & affirmed QUEER Black male entertainer with money and fame in the PRIME of his life. We’ve never, or rarely, seen that before in a Black man in the music business and popular culture. But that’s just too bad for them. With my own eyes I’ve watched straight people, friends, Christians, enjoy their sexuality from their elementary youth to adolescence, up and through college and later marriages, often times independently of their spouses (repeatedly). Meanwhile Queer/Gay/SGL/LGBTQ people are expected to put their lives on hold while the ‘blessed’ straight people run around exploring premarital/post-marital/extra-marital sex, love and affection, unbound & un-convicted by their “sin” or God...only to proudly rebrand themselves later in life as a good, moral “wholesome Christian” via the ‘sacred’ institution of marriage with no questions asked. 

Inequality defined.

For Lil Nas X, everything about the society we've created for him in the last 100+ years (re: links above) has explicitly been designed for his life not to be his own. According to these and other Christians (see above), his identity is essentially supposed to be an endless rat fuck of internal confusion, suicide-ideation, depression, long-suffering, faux masculinity, heterosexism, groveling towards heaven, respectability politics, failed prayer and supplication to a heteronormative earthly and celestial hierarchy unbothered in affording LGBT people like him a healthy, sane human development. It’s almost as if the Conservative establishment (Black included) needs Lil Nas X to be like others before him: “private”, mysteriously single, suicidal, suspiciously straight or worse, dead of HIV/AIDS ...anything but driving down the street enjoying his youth as a Black Queer artist and man. So they mad about that?

Well those days are over.  

-Rogiérs is a writer, international recording artist, performer and indie label manager with 25+ years in the music industry. He also directs Black Nonbelievers of DC, a non-profit org affiliated with the AHA supporting Black skeptics, Atheists, Agnostics & Humanists. He holds a B.A. in Music Business & Mgmt and a M.A. in Global Entertainment & Music Business from Berklee College of Music and Berklee Valencia, Spain. www.FibbyMusic.net Twitter/IG: @Rogiers1

[passable-talent]

ya boi is back with a new niche character played by hayden christensen for yall to enjoy.

CW: blood, wounds, cursing, piercings, tattoos, guns, fighting, deaths of unnamed characters

AJ x gn!reader - Takers (2010). the stupid hat grew on me.

dedicated as always to @haydens-moles and @iscariot-rising for being my friends and for appreciating hayden as much as I do

The story of your life, as you loved to explain it, boiled down to a little math joke. Excited five, you called it, or it’s official terminology- five factorial. Written as “5!”, hence the awful pun.

“Factorials,” you’d say, “for those that don’t remember, are a multiplication of every number up to the one that’s being discussed. As such, five factorial is five, times four, times three, times two, times one.”

Your life, your excited five, was as follows: five major scars, four tattoos, three piercings, two eyebrow slits.

“The one is usually ignored,” you’d say, “as it makes no multiplicative difference. That’s why I don’t have a ‘one’.”

In August, 2009, you got your ‘one’. Its a doozy. But we’re not there yet.

~~~

Five major scars.

December 25, 1983. It’s your first Christmas. Your parents think you’re just being a cranky infant, but something way more serious is going on- they find out the next day that you’ve got RSV, a respiratory virus that’s especially dangerous for infants. You spend the next three years periodically using a ventilator whenever the coughing acts up. You don’t remember much of it, other than the vaguely crayon-looking piece of the machine, but you can’t forget that it happened, due to the pretty white scar over the bridge of your nose. It’s not such a gnarly wound as it is a reminder- not of the ventilator that wore through your skin thanks to frequent use, but of the virus that almost took your life only a few months after it had begun.

July 28, 1993. You’re seven years old, staying at your grandmother’s house with your cousin, who’s six months older than you. You’re playing cops and robbers- he’s the cop. The forest streaks by as you run the length of the property, slightly faster than him, but he catches you and throws you down. You land on your back on a jagged rock, not only painfully impacting your spine but digging deeply into your muscles beside it. It was the first hospital visit you remember, and the dark, long scar halfway between your tailbone and your shoulders reminds you never to fall without controlling it.

January 15, 1998. You’re in sophomore year of high school, and not the most popular. You like to play by the rules, and some asshole junior decides that he doesn’t like the way you won’t let him cheat off of your trigonometry homework, and decides that a knife is the best way to settle the problem. Those homework answers weren’t worth the long white line over all four of the knuckles of your left hand, but it is a pretty little reminder that lowlifes do what they want. And law enforcement, or whatever your school called the ‘anti-bullying league’, does jack shit about it.

October 30, 2002. You’re almost done with your certification to become a cop- thank god. You couldn’t stand the people who were to become your graduate class. They were so ready to become cops just to bully people, just to get to weild an iron fist and hide their bloodlust behind the law. Not you- you’re here to do some real good. That’s what they don’t like about you. And that’s why Fred Young splits open your cheek when just he’s supposed to be practicing his sparring. It’s an ugly scar, needed six stitches, but it’s a reminder that even the cops aren’t always the good guys.

May 14, 2004. You’re a new cop, working under detective Wells. There’s a robbery of a jewelry store a few blocks from where you’re patrolling, and as you’re making your way to the scene, a man in a fedora runs smack into you, taking you both to the ground. Broken glass digs into your shoulder, but he apologizes, and his blue eyes look so genuine. He’s afraid. You’d not realize until a month later that he wasn’t a scared bystander, but in fact one of the thieves. The fifth of your scars matches your first meeting with AJ- who would, by the end of the summer, become one of the most important people in your life.

~~~

Four tattoos.

August 4, 1999- Left wrist, inside knob of the bone. The little symbol had represented something to you when you were sixteen, but it had long lost whatever meaning you’d given it. Now, it was just a pattern to pass your thumb over whenever you got restless.

February 16, 2002- The cap of the right shoulder. It was your bunk number, from when you were training to be a cop. Nothing extravagant, but it was supposed to represent the beginning of the rest of your life- it was supposed to represent your calling.

June 1, 2004- Left arm, the outside of the forearm. Bleeding from your first tattoo was a new one, the largest one on your body. It was geometrical and high contrast, black lines loosely following your veins up toward your elbow, as though that left hand was bringing darkness into your body. It did- you shot with your left hand.

July 17, 2004- Right collarbone. A single, circular monogram, made up of six letters.

T A K E R S.

~~~

Three piercings.

April 7, 1989. Your father took you to get your ears pierced, but insisted upon arrival that it was too expensive to get both done, so you only got your left. The assymetrical style would have to grow on you- at six years old, you hated it.

May 19, 2003. You couldn’t have piercings at the academy, they were unprofessional, they were dangerous. So the night of graduation, you went out and got a hole punched into your nostril- the pain made tears well up, but more than anything, it was the satisfaction of giving a pretty little ‘fuck you’ to your superiors, who you’d never see again.

July 18, 2006. AJ takes you to a fancy beauty salon for an eyebrow bar after hearing maybe once that you’d wanted another piercing. You knew you were in love with him- who else in your life had ever paid such close attention to you?

~~~

Two eyebrow slits.

June 23, 2004. You leave the police force. You tell Wells that it’s because you’re pissed you can’t find the guys that robbed the jewelry store, but that’s not even close to the truth. You’ve found them- hell, you got a good look at one of them on the very day of the robbery. But you’ve done the looking, and didn’t have the heart to bring them in. They had families. They donated ten percent of every heist to a charity. They did more for the community than the police you worked for, and they did it clean- they didn’t hurt anybody, if they didn’t have to. They did what you’d hoped to do, when you joined the force. What you’d never gotten to do. Eyebrow slits were considered extremely unprofessional, so the moment you were free of your two week notice, you split open your right eyebrow. It would give a good balance to the bar piercing you hoped to put through your left someday.

March 4, 2007. You’re cleaning up your slit when AJ walks into the room and stands behind you so that you can see him through the mirror. You keep your eyes on the trimmer you’re so delicately running over your skin, but when he opens up a little felt box with a pretty ring inside, you whirl around with such panic that you make the slit approximately half an inch wider than it should’ve been. Lilli helped you fill in the gap for the engagement photos, but you decided to keep a second slit on the other end of the unfortunate shave- a little reminder of the evening in which he proposed to you.

~~~

“The one is usually ignored,” you’d say, “as it makes no multiplicative difference. That’s why I don’t have a ‘one’.”

On August 27, 2009, you got your ‘one’.

You’d been out of the game for two years, choosing not to take a cut of the winnings. You’d advise, you’d plan, you’d set up, but you did not want to be on site when the heist went down. The boys had it taken care of, and you butted heads with Jesse far too often for anyone’s comfort.

You especially couldn’t work on this project, thanks to a little fucker named Ghost- he didn’t trust you, as a member of the Takers he’d never met, and you didn’t trust him, as a criminal you’d never grown to respect.

You knew that most of them didn’t trust Ghost either, but everything he brought forward checked out- AJ must’ve mumbled the plan thirty times in his sleep in the five days from its suggestion to its fruition. There were no holes. Knowing Gordon and John, they had some ‘insurance’ for Ghost, anyway. In case it went wrong.

Still, you stayed at the Hotel Roosevelt through it all. You were their sitter, keeping the hotel room warm and ready for their arrival. They arrived back one by one- and like usual, AJ got there first. He, Gordon, and John were usually the first to get out, but he always made it back to the room first, because that way he could get some time with you. That way, he could have a private reunion, fresh off of a job.

“Hey, baby,” he said as he closed the door, and you waited for him to turn his eyes to you before you gave him a smile. He threw down his bag onto one of the chairs, and it landed with a heavy thump, but you’d long grown used to the sound of the score. However much he pulled, good for him. You were just happy to slip your arms around his neck and feel him kiss the scar on your cheekbone before sliding his lips to yours.

He always kissed different right after a job- before the boys had all gotten back, before the total was counted. He had a confidence to his movement, but there was fear, insecurity, just a tinge. He wasn’t just a taker, he was a man, who had worries and risks just like every other man.

You were out of the game for a few reasons. They had it taken care of. You butted heads with Jesse. You didn’t trust Ghost. But you knew that you were AJ’s biggest fear- you knew that if you got hurt on a job, he’d never forgive himself.

So he kissed you, he held you close, he reminded himself that you were here, you were fine. His long fingers seems to take up half your back, and his hair was already in his face, as though you’d tugged it there yourself.

With just one more pass of your lips over his, you pulled away.

“How’d it go?” You asked with a soft voice, rolling your first finger through the curls at the back of his neck.

“Could’ve gone better,” he said with a chuckle, “but we got it done.” You heard a knock at the door, and Gordon was the next arrival- then John, then Jake, then Ghost. Jesse came last, and with him, a whole host of new problems.

A bullet splintered the door and caught AJ somewhere under the ribcage. Everyone hit the floor, diving behind couches, and you popped your head up long enough to see AJ launch over the kitchen island. The room shattered into gunfire and feathers from expensive pillows, glass shards littering the ground like raindrops. It all moved so fast, and the air exploded into noise. You could barely track AJ through it all, he was so far away, all the way across the room. And you wanted to keep your eye straight down the barrel of your gun.

“AJ!” Jesse called from beside you, hidden behind a brown leather couch, “You okay?” You looked around the side of it, and saw him ten feet from you, the longest ten feet of your life, behind the kitchen island. He was struggling, on his hands and knees.

“Get up,” you snarled, knowing he’d already taken a hit.

“Out the back!” John ordered from the doorway behind you, and you started to realize the moment, the dangerous, heavy moment. AJ was all the way across the room- he couldn’t cross it. Not with these mobsters holding ground.

“Let’s go!” Gordon shouted, and your eyes connected with AJ’s. He saw the same thing you did.

“Go,” he said, voice calm, and it cut through the chaos of the room, cut through every hardened lesson ever pounded into you, cut through every wall you’d ever built around you, around your heart. “I’m coming.”

AJ was a good liar. But he couldn’t lie to you.

“No,” you growled through gritted teeth, and you made a rash decision.

You’d always been good at gymnastics. You had strong control over the movement of your body, and had, ever since you’d learned from your cousin throwing you down onto that stone that split open your back. You could move and slink and roll and dive in ways that would keep you not only from falling, but even from being noticed.

Using the chaos as your cover, you did a tight diving roll across the room to him, slipping between shelters unscathed. This brought you just a bit closer to the mobsters, but further from the back door exit that Gordon had been trying to guide you toward. You’d chose AJ over your safety any day- the surprise and the fear in his eyes said that he wished you wouldn’t.

Making sure you had enough ammo, you considered your final move- this didn’t end until these mobsters did. There were five of them left, after all this commotion: four in the room, one in the hall. You couldn’t take all five, not with their guns being so much more than yours, but you could take out a few. You could shift attention, you could buy time.

And hopefully, you could stay breathing, too. That’d be nice.

“Stay down,” you hissed, leaving AJ behind the island where he’d be forgotten about, or assumed dead. Then, you rounded the corner and rolled to the feet of the closest mobster. As you came out of the roll you caught his legs in yours, wrenching them from under him and taking him to the ground with one of the first moves you’d learned in basic training. He hit the wall hard, and was unconscious by the time he landed- the same could not be said for his friends.

From your right, you could see Gordon, still firing, still hopeful for your and AJ’s escape. Your shoulders were above the couch, so you knew he saw as you turned your weapon to the second mobster before he could turn to you, and stopped his heart.

Your commotion had caught the attention of the other three who still remained. You whirled around and raised your gun to one of them, but they managed it first.

Gordon had to swallow back his horror as he saw a bullet enter the front of your side profile, and blood explode from the back. He took out the mobster who still had his attention on you- but your shoulders smacked to the ground outside of his view, and he closed the door.

Luckily, their aim was spotty. You now had a useless left arm, but you were still breathing. Not that you’d let the one remaining mobster notice that.

You and AJ played dead, only a few feet from each other, but the kitchen island becoming a thicker wall than any you’d ever been split by. As you stared blankly at the ceiling, taking shallow breaths hidden by the folds of your shirt, you hoped he didn’t think you were dead. You hoped he wasn’t bleeding out.

After what felt like agonizingly long minutes, the shooting finally stopped, and the door opened again. Gordon was the first to enter the room, and rounded the couch to you, grief in his eyes, expecting the worst.

But you could give him a smile.

“Surprise,” you groaned, and he lit up in relief, helping you sit up with your good arm.

“Look at you, playing dirty,” he said with a laugh, “I thought you were gone for sure.”

“AJ,” you heard Jake say from across the room, and finally AJ could sit up from where you’d forced him down. The two of you had both bled straight through your shirts, but there wasn’t any time for sweet reunions- everyone had to get out, and fast.

AJ left his car wherever it was. John gave the two of you a ride to the airstrip where Gordon was going to disappear for a while, and on the way you and AJ attempted to give each other first aid until the personnel on the plane could take care of it.

Eventually, you leaned against his left, and he against your right, your wounds still stinging and sticky with blood, but manageable, for as long as they needed to be.

The night didn’t get any easier, but that didn’t matter- you were home free, they’d managed the job, and Ghost was out of the picture, and neither of you were going to die.

And someday, when you felt brave enough to recount your near-death, near-loss, near-jailed experience, you’d say:

Five major scars, four tattoos, three piercings, two eyebrow slits. And one gun shot wound.

-🦌 Roe

[rainii-reads]

Chateau

DESCRIPTION: After a fateful encounter, you and Yoongi have finally decided to go public with your relationship.

This was inspired by the song Chateau by Tokio Hotel. Bolded dialogue are direct lyrics.

WORD COUNT: 1, 903 PAIRING: Idol!Yoongi x Reader GENRE: Fluff and comfort

Warnings: Implied slut shamming; analogies referencing cuts (there is no self-harming, only references to words hurting.)

Author’s note: This is my first fanfiction for BTS, and my first story in a long, long time. Hope it’s not too bad! You can also read it on AO3.

🌸

Taking up Arms: ARMY Feuds Over SUGA and Y/N

As news of BTS’s SUGA sweeps the kPop world, fans are divided. Many ARMYs citing Y/N as a clout seeker - stealing their Min SUGA. ARMY’s on the offense challenge the perceived ownership of the Bangtan rapper. This brings to question, however, do these fans approve of the relationship or are they simply defending SUGA?

The Next Yoko Ono: Will Y/N be the end of Bangtan Sonyeondan

Silence rings clearer than the stroke of the keyboard. Three weeks have passed since word broke of the famous rapper’s new relationship. The onslaught of hatred continues to poor out in droves, yet silence remains from the musician’s fellow members. Is it possible the six comrades also dislike Y/N?

Anti-Y/N Accounts Take Twitter by Storm

In the last week Twitter has taken action and began removing dozens of accounts dedicated to canceling Y/N. While Twitter works to delete the insults and threats of harm, where is Big Hit? Will they take action to protect BTS’s SUGA and his new sweetheart?

“Sweetheart?” You snapped. “And what’s with the italics – we all know you’re being sarcastic. No need to lay it on thicker.” You fumed for a moment longer, at the snippy report, before you found your laptop being pulled from your grasp. You dared not look up at the sleepy gaze of the man in debate.

“Sweetheart, why are you reading the headlines again?”

It was the truth. Your streak of laziness was something Yoongi often appreciated about you. It resulted any many home dates and working side-by-side in the Genius Lab at all hours of the day. Shared moments you loved. However, you couldn’t handle any more inquires from that man, he had been unyielding for days, and you were slowly breaking.

“Excuse me, are their free refills on black coffee?”You had asked, trying to spare him from the one-sided conversation (if it could even be called that). Yoongi used the moment to escape and take a seat at the table nearest you, waiting for his iconic iced-americano. You remember the sweet smile he gave you as he mouthed ‘thank you’ – the start to your simple chitchat about the shop’s décor and more.

You often giggle as you remember the notes you passed on the plane ride home. The ones kept safe in your nightstand. Had you not looked up, the moment he walked down the cramped isle, Yoongi wouldn’t have shared a smile with you, before taking his seat in first-class.

Within an hour of the flight, a young, excited stewardess had come to your seat handing you a folded sheet of paper. Noticing she was waiting for you to read the note, you unfolded it and struggled to stifle the laugh that emerged. “So, who is your bias?” Yoongi wrote in memory of when your phone rang at the coffee shop, announcing your ARMY status as Converse High played. It was the rare time you had left your sound on.

From time to time, you wondered about the excited flight attendant. You wish you could see her again just so you could tell her thank you for putting up with Yoongi’s archaic flirting. Had she not been so kind and willing, your relationship may not have formed.

These and many more memories were what put you to ease when you sat in a conference room at HYBE Entertainment. It was there where plans were made for the announcement your relationship with the one and only Min Yoongi of BTS. Photos of your not-so-secret dates had progressively found their way onto Tumblr and Twitter, gaining the attention of gossip sites. However, it was more appropriate to call it an interrogation than a planning session.

“Y/N,” you remember the head of PR starting, “Are you sure there are no past scandals that will cause Min Yoongi any problems?” The intention behind ‘scandals’ had not been lost on.

Your usual demeanor was gone as you snipped back. “I’m pretty sure I was too lazy to have any scandals.”

Yoongi snorted as he held back his laugh.

It was the truth. Your streak of laziness was something Yoongi often appreciated about you. It resulted any many home dates and working side-by-side in the Genuis Lab at all hours of the day. Shared moments you loved. However, you couldn’t handle any more inquires from that man, he had been unyielding for days, and you were slowly breaking.

Your sarcasm hadn’t gone unnoticed. “Do you not understand what kind of position you are putting our artist and company in? We need to be prepared for whatever we will need to clean up after you. You need to take this seriously.” Intentions ringing clearly, again.

In your heart, you knew he trying to do right by Yoongi and the company, but the judgement that wove into his words cut. You also took offense to how he made you sound like a disease that clung to Yoongi, bringing him harm.

As you looked back, it was the first of many wounds that told you, you were unworthy of Min Yoongi.

“Y/N is very aware of what implications a public relationship will have.” The man in question spoke, his tone shifting as he said, “She is more than clear of any scandals. Worst we’ll see are malicious lies and rumors – no truth within them – and that is where this discussion will end.” As Yoongi spoke, his few words carried immense weight. For each previously inflicted cut, his words bandaged themselves around to ease the pain.

Heeding the warning, the interrogation ended, and the meeting regained its original focus: preparation for the announcement and aftermath.

Two weeks after the tense convening, the news was released through an official statement form HYBE, confirming the relationship of Min Yoongi and his new girlfriend. The media and social-media platforms were instantly in a frenzy and, as planned, everyone remained silent. It had been decided that everyone would keep silent for a month, to see what would earn a response.

That singular month had been the sharpest cut to your fragile skin.

_______________________

Breaking through your thoughts, Yoongi spoke again, “Y/N.”

You looked up at him, finally, and sighed. “I’m sick, okay? I can’t help but want to see what is being said about me, about us. Did you see they’re calling me Yoko Ono? Will the media ever cease with the constant Beetles comparisons? Don’t they see you guys are tired of responding to the accolades?”

He spared you a look, leaving you to end your rambles. The rambles he knew you were using to deflect from your current, unhealthy obsession.

“I really can’t help it Yoongi,” You sighed. “In less than a week we can finally speak out and I need to know what I’m defending myself against.”

In an almost languid fashion, he placed the laptop down and sat next to you. Pulling you closer as he organized his thoughts. “That’s not really for you to worry about. The company and I will handle that.”

“No, I need to do something. I can’t just hide behind you. People are talking about us and they’re going to watch and critique every little thing we do. I know that isn’t what we discussed, but this anxiety is unlike anything else.”

He reached out and gently ran the tips of his fingers down the sides of your face, smoothing out any traces of stress. The very hand that famously held a tight grasp on a black microphone, was now the source of your ease. The very hand that was adored by many, was saved for you.

“Here’s the thing,” he spoke slowly, “People are gonna talk. So, let them talk; let them talk about us. People are gonna watch. So, let 'em touch, let 'em see, let 'em feel what love is.”

They were simple words, yet, as the always did, they healed the damages from the last three weeks.

Tears overwhelmed your eyes, gliding down to touch the tips of his fingers. “Let it all go, since it finally happened.” He had worried about the brave face you had been parading. “I know they’re going to talk. I know they’re going to watch. Baby, I don’t mind as long as it’s you and I. We’ll just let them see what real love is.”

As you processed the abundance of emotions that had accumulated, Yoongi held you close. Occasionally whispering the right sentiments to soften the anxiety more. While you laid with him, you wondered: Exactly how much had to go right for you to be with him? The gossip columns may say that the two of you were different, too different in fact, but your time together showed you how alike you were. How right you were for each other.

Many more challenges awaited you, but with him you knew it would be fine. You were not coming down from your cloud.

_______________________

Later that evening, as the tears dried and the anxiety eased to rest, you proposed a trip. “Hey, the next time were in California we should stay at the Chateau Marmot.”

“Isn’t that place haunted?” His abundance of quirky knowledge never ceased to amaze you.

After a quick search to confirm, you scratched the plan. “I’ll find another chateau. One free of the paranormal.”

A short moment of silence passed before you asked your next thought, “What did you mean earlier when you said, “let them touch”?

Yoongi looked up from his phone and paused for affect. “Don’t know. It just sounded right in my head – I didn’t mean anything weird by it.” He laughed, exposing his renowned smile.

“Pervert.” You teased, tossing a pillow his way.

In an unexpected fashion, Yoongi lunged forward seeking retaliation. Having not anticipated it, you stumbled off the bed, in an attempt to run away, but he pulled you back before you could escape. In the most cliché of moments, he tickled your sides until the fits of laughter led to you sharing a loving gaze and slow kiss.

“You’re right,” you said as your lips separated, “Let ‘em talk – we’ll show them what real love it.”

_______________________

The Power Couple that is Y/SN

A year has since passed since news of Y/SN occupied our every thought. In celebration of our favorite power couple, we’ve broken down the Top 10 Reasons why we love Y/SN!

Goals: How do we land a relationship like SUGA and Y/N’s?

Recently, photos and videos of a not-so-secret date between SUGA and Y/N made their way onto the internet. As the young couple is seen leaving Chateau de Sureau, they’re hand-in-hand showing signs of laughter. The love between the two is so clear not even an anti-Y/SN could deny it. So, the question remains, how do we get our own fairytale romance?

We’ve been asking, but has SUGA?

The question all fans of Y/SN have been wanting to know: When will SUGA ask the big question? Our sources suggest it may be sooner than you might think. As BTS wraps up their latest world tour, preparing to go back to the studio, rumors of the young rapper ring shopping have bubbled up. Whether this is true or not remains to be seen, but we look forward to the exciting news for our favorite couple.