#tangent but if you *are* so intent on blaming Saw

[tangents-within-tangents]

Okay I know this is just a joke, sorry to hijack

But fr yall really need to chill out about blaming Saw. He had no idea they were going to do a mission at the same place and time as him, same way the Batch had no idea he would be there. Why would he want to give up his mission for theirs anymore than they would for his? He was not the one who shot the railcar off the track, calm down. And he has no idea Tech died that day.

And Omega? Sees the good in people who don’t see it in themselves Omega? Who forgave Crosshair for all the times he literally tried to kill her? And forgave Ventress for some reason after witnessing her force choke Wrecker and hold Hunter at lightsaber point? Yeah she’s not gonna hold a grudge

No wonder he left

[miumura]

YUJIN HAVING YOU AS A CHILDHOOD CRUSH!

( 제로베이스원 한유진 ) ﹕what it's like for yujin to have you as his childhood crush

𝓹airing yujin x childhood crush gn!reader ⟡ 𝓰enre pining (yujin) ∿ fluff ⟡ 𝔀arnings none in particular, yujin is just cute Realness!!!! wc ( 0.5-0.7k+ ) ⟡ 𝓼oph’s 𝓷otes ⟡ thank you so much for requesting !! i had a lot of fun writing this one so i hope you enjoy this as much as i enjoyed the writing process for yujin >3< !!

CHILDHOOD FRIEND YUJIN who never knew what was it was to like someone romantically until the moment you ran up to him with that radiant smile, extending your hand and said, “i’m y/n, what’s your name?” from that day on, he felt like now he just finally knew.

CHILDHOOD FRIEND YUJIN who found his eyes brightening every time someone brought up your name. his attention would always seem to increase as he actively listened to others talk about how wonderful you were, leaving him nodding in agreement too. it always made him happy to know that others saw in you what he had seen all along.

CHILDHOOD FRIEND YUJIN who would often ask you if you could be partners with him in everything—from games to projects—simply because he wants to spend him with you. he’d pout and argue that, out of everyone, he knew you the longest—so of course, he had the right to choose you first.

CHILDHOOD FRIEND YUJIN who covered for you whenever he felt like you were about to get in trouble. if they don’t buy his explanation, he’d fully take the blame by creating a good explanation (that’s hard to refute) or say he was apart of it, just so you wouldn’t feel alone if you were punished.

CHILDHOOD FRIEND YUJIN who found himself trying to indulge in whatever interested you, just so he could bring it up once and have you ramble on about it. he loves listening to you talk, so you can bet he’d be listening intently, knowing that he gets to hear you while understanding it all.

CHILDHOOD FRIEND YUJIN who often sneaks glances at you whenever he could. he does it just to make sure that you were feeling alright, or simply, just because he wants to.

CHILDHOOD FRIEND YUJIN who finds himself sulk quietly to himself when something or someone gets your attention rather than him. even despite how he’s feeling, he just simply lets it happen, knowing he can’t keep you to himself.

CHILDHOOD FRIEND YUJIN who attempts to make these jokes to make you smile, but only makes himself a fool with his slip ups and him getting embarrassed midway through. regardless, if he still heard you laugh, then his mistakes were suddenly all worth it.

CHILDHOOD FRIEND YUJIN who finally works up the courage to ask you out with the help of his friends. he spends hours rehearsing his confession, pacing back and forth as he mumbles the words under his breath. even with him forgetting his lines and going off on a nervous tangent for too much of his liking, he’s determined to get it just right—because you’re worth every second of his preparation.

CHILDHOOD FRIEND YUJIN who went to your house with a teddy bear and chocolate, his ears turning redder by the minute as he rambled—completely forgetting what he had rehearsed a month prior.

CHILDHOOD FRIEND YUJIN who felt overjoyed when you accepted his confession, finding himself grinning on the way home. that day, all he could think about was your words and especially the kiss he managed to get with the boldness he never knew he had.

CHILDHOOD FRIEND YUJIN who always knew and wanted you to be the one and only for him.

💬 — i don’t know why i didn’t work on this sooner,, this request was soooo 😞🫶

ZB1 PERM TAGLIST ( OPEN ) @dwcljh @ilovewonyo @jiawji @tzyuki @kpoprhia @flamiricky @misokei @lluvjjun @zzzhoonie @margoteboo-blog @lakoya @haolovre

[remove-the-stairs-bitch]

A tangent about myself, corporations, and absolutes, or My Experience.

I am going to speak on my own experience as a now cis white woman, previously a transgender/nb person. I might say things that you won't like, and that's fine. I know that there are people who don't like what I'll say. And that's good. Disliking certain things about people is a great opportunity for growth. It teaches nuance and depth, and there are things about even my closest friends that I don't like and yet see past. I still love them. My best friends are either far left or far right or wholly centrist, and that's okay. Because they're people. And we need to be able to see people as people, instead of just mirrors of our flawed selves.

As a disclaimer, this includes what some might consider transphobia, but I don't. Like parents keeping someone from transitioning bc of their age or someone breaking up with a new trans person. Also includes a death in the family. My own views on topics are heteronormative and based in Christianity, my parents views, my peers views, and the things I've seen and experienced, online and off. Don't discount my views for any of these, and if you do, please explain why.

I'll start with 2020, the year I joined tumblr and started doubting my identity as a woman/girl/female person. It was a rough time for everyone, and my 15 year old egocentrism did not help. At the time, I was dating a man of 16 years. I call him a man because he was wise in many ways, and in my mind he earned the title. But when I started questioning my gender, I told one of my friends about it. Consequently, she told her parents about it. And they told the man I was with about it. Because of my egocentrism, I was blind to how much it hurt him to think that his potential future wife was intent on becoming a man. I would have left him, as it's called, a trans widower. I say would have because there are nuances to this story that I'll explain later on here.

After a while of thinking that I was either a male or something between the genders, I eventually began identifying as a demigirl. The reason I thought I was a man or between the two at the time was my isolation from others, the natural desire to rebel at that age, and the fact that I was seeing so many trans men on YouTube tik tok compilations. On top of these was my stress from school, my stress from switching chores with my younger brother, and the stress of transitioning in itself. I blamed all of my problems on my gender. This did not solve anything. Because it didn't solve anything, I blamed the others around me, growing more and more abrasive towards the people I cared about until my mom pulled me aside and told me that there are people in my life who had it far worse than I did. It was not an actual of transphobia. What she did opened my eyes to the idea that I was not the center of the world, not even the center of my own. She told me that one of my best friends had been the victim of a violent crime, and while I was caught up in my own gender, I completely ignored her pain. I was a worse friend, a worse child, and a worse person, because I was focused solely on my problems and my image. That was when the facade began to break.

I began detransitioning in 2021. It was easy, free, and more freeing than trying to cram who I am into an agender box. I'm very glad that I wasn't able to find hormones at the time, or I'd be suffering the effects to this day. It was an emotional drain for the pressurized bottle I had built up in myself. And it was a struggle. There were times when I'd look in the mirror and think to myself, "I'm very masc presenting today," and then realized that's just how I normally dressed when I was younger. When I completely identified as a girl. It was hard because I saw other people transitioning. And when they finished transitioning, nothing changed. Their circumstances did not get better. Their grades sometimes dropped. Their quality of life went down. Their already strained relationships with their families broke entirely in some cases. It hurt to see.

My ideology then changed. I returned to my religion in August of 2021, and was able to find some peace. It was a great comfort to me, even when tragedy hit. My older brother left the family in pursuit of a narcissist. They were trans as well, but had multiple mental illnesses that made them arguably unfit to take care of another person, much less the polycule they had amassed. This hit my family hard, almost as though my brother had died. (I say this with the experience of losing a parent, not with the intent of coming off as saying "he was dead to us.") He left on a sour note, not telling us that he loved us anymore. I started a D&D campaign in the hopes of having some small connection to him, and it succeeded. Eventually, he was a victim of the very person he left us for, and he came back, traumatized. We have a place for him to this day, and he's at least slightly more comfortable with himself and his gender than he was when he returned to us. He doesn't lie when hardship strikes anymore, and he knows that we love him no matter his choices or his struggles.

In 2022, I got high grades and was nearly able to graduate. I had no need for other curriculum, as I had already met and exceeded the requirements for my state's high school graduates. I was undecided, so I opted to go through the summer of 2023 and see which way the wind blew. Over that summer, my father died. It was during a family trip that we had been planning for a while. It was unexpected, but wasn't as awful as I thought it would be. This may just be because of my religion, as it gives an answer for what goes on after death, and gives anecdotes of folks being brought back to life. I understood that no tears would bring him back. But I also understood that I was his legacy. And that he died proud of himself, his family, and his peers. In all likelihood, he died contentedly.

I quit my part time job and decided to try school again, if for nothing else then for the social security benefits. This proved to be a bad move. The friends I had there promoted unhealthy lifestyles, and although I loved them, I couldn't stay and let them affect me. So I left school, which wasn't something the teachers wanted me to do (I'm sorry Ms. F, I'll come back to show off my sewing projects!), but it was necessary in order to push myself to grow up. That was immediately stifled by a knee surgery (which was prescribed basically the week after my dad's death, bc I dislocated my knee right before going to the hospital to see his cadaver). It is now December, and here I am yapping about my personal life online.

I intended to speak on the near-widower that left me after I came out. We're back together. He still loved me. I just needed to grow up to see that.

There are people out there who might hate you as a trans person. But there's a solid difference between hate, ignorance, and concern. Hate is active oppression. There is oppression, and from what I've seen it's on a systemic and corporate level. But it's not on a personal level. On a personal level there's either ignorance or concern. What I experienced when I was struggling with my gender was concern. There was no ignorance in my case. The people who left me left for the same reason I left my school. It was because they saw the path I was taking and did not want to be shouted over while I was wandering. People can leave people they love because it's better to give a situation to the authorities than it is to try and fix it yourself. If my fiance hadn't left me, my mental and emotional state would have rubbed off on him and hurt him. I could have done more harm if he didn't cut me off when he did. For that, I think I'll forever be grateful. The people who stay stay because they know you need support while you'd still say they're toxic or hateful. That's what I thought of my parents until I was able to see the bigger picture. If your parents are actively beating you or shouting at you or gaslighting you, of course don't stay. But I recommend taking a second to ask about what's happening around you instead of within you. Because of today's culture, I took the notion that the answer was always inside me far too seriously. Sometimes the answer is in the people who care about you.

But this brings me to the second part of my little rant here. I came to the realization that the less people identify with solid and tangible things, the more the corporations in control of our country can manipulate us. There's pridewashing, virtue signalling, deflecting when serious issues are brought up, and we ignore it for the sake of letting these corporations remain the one stable thing in our lives. There are far more tech jobs these days than agriculture, and because of this, we could end up starving while corporations pull an Orwell on us and say there has never been a steady supply of grain. Or that there has always been a poor AQI. Or that we need the new Juicero Pro to do our taxes instead of making juice. I don't feel like America itself is the problem, but the corruption within it. I still rely on a device created with slave labor to share outlandish opinions and borderline radical ideology with you few, but I don't want it and I don't need it. I could just as easily toss this thing against a wall and be fine. (I won't bc my mom would be rather miffed if I did, but you get my point.) I could survive for a good long while without it, and probably be far happier. Same with all the trinkets and plastic I've accumulated, in my bloodstream and otherwise. I have no need nor desire for these things, and yet I keep them.

But there's a need and desire for at least a little tradition, which is expressed by many women who are sick and tired of being lumped into the modern idea of "man, woman, or nonbinary," and just want to be allowed to be tomboys again. Or just want to be allowed to be a wife. There's nothing inherently wrong with desiring a home with a working man and kids. There is something wrong with telling women what they can and can't do, according to modern feminism, and yet the women who want to be homemakers are silenced and shouted down, along with detransitioners among the lgbt. Aren't these people valid too? Isn't their plight just as understandable? But they're pushed to the margins as low statistics that really don't matter in the long run. Along with trans widows/widowers. Is it not wrong that we're ignoring the people who we harm with our movements? Isn't the point that we help the hurt? So why aren't we helping the people we're leaving behind? It's concerning is all. A society based on a single voice is no society at all.

Sorry for the rant. If anything here has resonated with you, feel free to comment about it. Same with anything that has struck a nerve. I miss being able to speak about the things I disagree on in a kind manner. I miss the good that disagreement brings.

[girlwiththegreenhat]

hey stupid post incoming (i don’t usually post theories cuz i’m dum as shit) but my horrible little ADHD brain can't stop thinking about this now what the FUCK does this mean

i thought there was weird emphasis on that symbol in that last episode but that last post made it super obvious, except now im wondering beyond the fact that they're similar. it's pretty common for important families to have some sort of family crest, could this have been the wittebane family crest? or more specifically, something pertaining especially to the brothers - and then, considering that possibility and the rearrangement of some of the elements, really had me wondering. so. hear me out-

this leans on the 'belos is phillip' theory, but the wings represent each of the brothers. the larger pair is phillip, the smaller pair represent this ~ * ~ mystery brother ~ * ~. it's interesting that the brother's wings are on the top in the original symbol, above the pair that would represent phillip. perhaps this brother was more well-regarded than him, more notable, leaving phillip in his shadow? that's sort of even backed up by the position of their statues if you want to look at it that way, with the brother boldly placed in front and phillip in the back, not looking as much of a 'leader type' than his brother

in the coven badge, the larger pair of wings is now on top, and the smaller pair on the bottom - and notably, there is a sword through the bottom pair of wings. this just seems like a cool design choice, but i think it might be a metaphor for the fact that Phillip killed his brother. it's already been said that it’s extremely suspicious there’s no mention of his brother in his journal at all, and it's suspicious that there's a second pair of boot prints leading to Eclipse Lake (but not returning) in his retelling that match his own. Phillip obviously didn’t like his brother very much.

My theory?

The Emperor's Coven badge represents making an example of the first person that opposed the man who would become Belos - his own brother.

What reasons would he have to kill his own brother? I can think of a few possibilities.

1. We know Belos' hatred of wild magic supposedly stems from the fact that it took his family, and we know he himself is cursed under mysterious circumstances. He and Eda have some parallels, could it be that, much like Eda, his own sibling was responsible? Except, he found out about it much sooner than she did, and either lashed out in rage, or lost control of himself and killed him by mistake? In both cases, intentional or not, wild magic caused the death of the brother with Phillip as the catalyst.

2. Could it be that Phillip saw natural dangers to wild magic and thought up the coven system, or a similar way to restrain magic? His brother disagreed, saying magic should be kept the way it is, and eventually causing a fight that would lead to the brother’s death? In this case, it wouldn’t necessarily be wild magic directly that took his family, but rather his family’s attachment to it.

3. The other brother was dabbling openly with magic, but his inexperience or cockiness with it caused the death of friends and family they had made in the demon realm, leaving only the two brothers. (Maybe even also cursing his brother in the process?) Phillip has a damn good and direct reason to hate wild magic now, and kills his brother in revenge.

4. FOURTH IDEA I’M THROWING IN HERE REAL QUICK BEFORE POSTING: A twist on the previous idea, Phillip was also dabbling in wild magic, and it was his own inexperience with it that caused the death of his brother, and he shifted the blame to wild magic as a whole to cope.

To take a quick tangent, if we consider the "Rascal was the other Wittebane brother's palisman" theory - it would be interesting if Rascal's scar was from trying to defend his original witch from Belos in the fight that would ultimately claim his life. It would parallel Hunter’s scars too, or at least the one on his face which is implied to have come from Belos.

None of these theories account for why Belos would bring back his brother as Hunter if he wanted him dead so bad though (unless you take #4, in which his death was truly an accident), or his connection to the titan, or why he wants to get back to the human realm 🤔 (magic doesn’t work all that well in the human realm, it would be Really funny if he was just trying to get here in hopes that his curse would go away once he did asdkfljskldf. “bye losers, i’m off to the realm where magic cancer can’t catch me”) But I keep thinking about Dana’s line from the AMA, that “witch & human lifespans are identical, unless they find a way to extend them...” implying that people have done that before.

Like Phillip.

Except my only problem with that is why the hell did Phillip wait like 350 years before becoming emperor?? What was he doing that whole time, sitting in a cave somewhere?? It’s strange that he doesn’t seem to like wild magic because it took something personal from him, implying he thinks he’s keeping people safe and doing them a favor - but at the same time it’s sort of set up that the real reason they’re restricting magic is to keep people weaker and give more power to the covens, which they apparently need for the “day of unity”. The whole “wild magic killed my family :^(” shtick might be a lie entirely, or a severe twisting of the truth. We know Belos is manipulative as hell, who knows if his fondness of the human realm is even genuine? Something, somewhere about what he says is horse shit, but we don’t have enough pieces yet to figure that out. But I’m getting ahead of myself, I meant to just ramble about the connections between this symbol and the Emperor’s Coven badge asldkfkjldf. There’s more mysteries here obviously and we’ve got a whole half season and a mini-season to go.

tl;dr the symbol from the historical society is very directly connected to the Wittebane brothers, Phillip is Belos, Phillip killed his brother and this fact is represented in the Coven badge as what happened to the first person to truly oppose Belos and also what arguably kicked off the empire in the first place.

It’s 1:30 AM and I can’t wait for the third person to see this post go “oh actually,″ and say something that absolutely disproves everything here lmfao. anyway-

[miraculouscontent]

In ephemeral do you think Marinette should be given flack for tricking CN into giving out his secret identity? I know that she was forced to do by Su-Han but like some people find it unfair that she still done it.

And like some still believe that Marinette should get more flack or salt and are sick of seeing other salt on chars like Alya or Adrien.

Then we just have this back and forth argument with fans claiming its Marinette' fault or its Adrien's fault and it just leads to this huge mess. All in all I just wish they just stop, look at the big picture and think, "why are we following along all of this when we are aware that the writing for this season is utter garbage? Why we following along these characters when we know the writers are making them out of character?"

Sorry for going off tangent there. Reading people thoughts on ML blogs can be all over the place. Personally S4 has been stressful to me as well as waiting forever on the remaining episodes.

Short answer: No, I don’t think she should be given flack though I wouldn’t argue if anyone claimed that any part of my feeling that was because I don’t care about Chat’s feelings.

Long answer: Here’s something that Luka and Marinette have in common, in that they don’t want to cause conflict/hurt feelings if it’s not necessary, and it’s shown in the way they lie about these things related to identities.

It’s not stated outright in dialog because (I imagine) you’re expected to know these characters by now. Luka hates to put stress on Marinette (and you can see that he was right in this decision when he hears that Marinette doesn’t want a holder to know both hers and Chat’s identities; she’s so afraid of knowing Chat’s that she even wants him to reset once she sees it, and she was already stressed out back in “Wishmaker” so it was a bad time all around), just as Marinette wants to avoid conflict with Chat Noir because he’s shown to be very pouty about things when he doesn’t get his way.

Luka even asks Ladybug if she thinks that Chat Noir will agree with it, so clearly he’s skeptical as well. We know how Chat Noir is, so does anyone honestly think that it would’ve gone over well had Ladybug told Chat “I don’t actually want to know, I just need to or else Su-Han will take your miraculous”?

People might say, “oh, just tell him a half truth,” but why bother at that point? The timeline’s going to reset, so why should she hurt his feelings like that and tell him that this is just business? It’s a lie, but it’s a comfortable lie; she’s letting this “temporary Chat Noir” be happy and I don’t see anything wrong with that, especially since she (unlike Adrien in “Chat Blanc”) had no intention on using it to her advantage at the time she told him. It was only when she saw his identity that she lost herself.

Basically, why hurt his feelings or make him worry about what’s going on when she can tell him a comforting lie? She cared enough about a “temporary Chat” to spare his feelings and I think that’s better than going, “I can say whatever because it won’t matter.”

Similar to Luka, it makes me appreciate her more, not less, and I think bashing her for it is unnecessary. Claiming that it’s “Ladybug’s fault” that Ephemeral happened when it was Gabriel hearing Adrien use m’lady that ultimately caused it (and honestly, I don’t blame Adrien either; I think his decision to turn more Chat-like is stupid but that’s a separate issue) is silly and just a way of shifting the blame unnecessarily without even bothering to consider Ladybug’s motive.

The episode already deals Marinette a bad hand by Su-Han snapping at her over things she can’t help (she’d been honoring Fu’s rules), her having her feelings forced through Luka (rather than her figuring them out herself organically), and her having to be the one to figure things out in the end, so to salt on her for making Chat feel good, even if it’s a lie? What’s the point?

(Also, if Aspik revealing to Ladybug in “Desperada” - when he knew she didn’t want to reveal - doesn’t matter to the stans because Aspik reversed time anyway so it “””didn’t happen””” - who knows if he would’ve even bothered reversing had Ladybug not been shot - then it doesn’t matter here either where Ladybug planned on reversing time anyway so nothing she did would’ve mattered.)

[sarcophagid]

Uhh what’s your favorite TR arc and why??

BLACK DRAGONS CHRISTMAS MURDER ARC

i think ive talked abt this b4 but it just has so much stuff i like in it. its my favorite in terms of storytelling i'm not deep i like easily recognizable gimmicks for babies idc. theres a bunch of reasons i like it so:

the kisaki-hanma-chifuyu-takemichi teamup i love their begrudging cooperation and their hostility...i miss them every day... when will C4U/KillemAll/The Hanmas come back from the war... i see them in every group of 4... the wiggles, teletubbies, tmnt... it was a team born to die but what a beautiful birth...

i think the tenuous dynamics between the gangs at the time was fun the suspense was good. baji just died, kisaki and hanma still in toman, black dragons about to go warring with everyone, no one likes each other it was a great spawning ground for drama

yuzuha was one of my favorite main characters of the arc... no one else understands this... her sigma philosphy of killing taiju. i talked about this more in an older ask but in summary: i like the “inescapable violence” theme in the christmas arc. yuzuha kills taiju to protect hakkai, hakkai takes the blame to protect yuzuha and becomes BD leader to end up just as corrupt as taiju, cycle of doom. neither yuzuha and hakkai had any bad intention they had the same ‘desire to protect, to do good’ that got pushed to the point of doing bad things. even taiju seems to have his version of good will but theres just something up with that guy dawg.

i really wish they’d say smth abt yuzuha in the future of the manga bcz what is she even doing while her little brothers in the middle of the chaos but also the plot has expanded so much by now that unfortunately she probably won’t make another major appearance -_-

on the other side, taiju was my favorite antagonist, i never draw him but he has one of my favorite designs in the series even though every panel of his jumpscares you. takemichi saw him once and immediately started getting night terrors

going off on a tangent though, i'm... iffy about the 'redemption'. i like taiju but this is on the level of him being an imaginary dude with a big role in a story. the point of the story is that you dont like him, hes still a huge douchewagon... i don’t think the main cast (including hakkai) would still be cool with him even though its been 2 years it’s not something that just ‘gets better with time’. taiju didn’t even really say he was gonna be a better person (im pretty sure he said smth the opposite lmfao but i don;t remember well). in the timeskip, it could be interpreted that he did make an effort to improve given how seriously he took grieving hakkais death, but thats 10+ years after the affair, and even then it’s only an implication! that sketch of taiju with mana and luna never sat right with me why does mitsuya trust him sm all of a sudden...in my opinion they really didnt need him to return?? there are better candidates to nearly castrate sanzu for threatening takemichi, fight the living legends, etc. (what happened to the rest of toman, or just ask anyone here they’ll nominate their little boyfriend ran haitani or smth) i could talk about this a lot but TLDR i think it’d be fine if he just went away lol you dont need to have them make up it doesnt make sense

honorable mention! tenjiku arc was fun i liked getting to see the stories of the side cast (esp kawata brothers, mucho, emma)

[plutoswrath]

I saw that you had an ask where someone was talking about 8th house overlays for platonic relationships and I’ve never seen anyone talk about platonic 8th house before. So I decided to talk with my sister because we actually have a mutual 8th house Mars in synastry. It was insightful as hell and we recognized a pattern because she and I have been surrounded by people with Mars in Pisces, all of which place in my sisters 8th. So we know that 8th house should make you possessive and we would always have to read 8th house synastry and try to interpret it platonically because people always sexualize it. It always talked about being obsessed with each other and being jealous and possessive. For context, my sister is the least jealous, possessive, and obsessive person I know. She has an Aquarius Mars, a lot of 10th house, and she just doesn’t ever feel that way. We both have Pluto in 5th and she only ever obsesses over her interests. BUT we noticed a pattern with every single person who’s Mars placed in her 8th and then other Pisces Mars’ who didn’t. With every 8th house overlay, she was extremely judgmental of who they surrounded themselves with. So with me, if she ever hated my friends that I would introduce to her, she would get mad that I stuck near them. But not because she was jealous, it was because she has her own dislike towards them and she lives by the ‘guilty by association’ saying. And with friends it was the same. She would zone in on who her 8th house overlay friends would hang out with and then if she didn’t approve of them, she’d ditch them. So if her friend hung out with bigoted kids who say racial slurs, sexist comments, etc. then she would immediately judge that friend. My sister said she would talk about certain people and why they weren’t good to surround yourself with and when that friend decided to conform to the bigoted friend group, she would finally cut the friendship off. We also have a mutual Mars in Pisces friend who she does the same thing with, except it’s more innocent. She will judge his friends immediately and they basically have to pass a morale/vibe check lmao. She’s very particular about certain things when it comes to people’s behavior so people rarely ever pass and it’s rather hilarious and light hearted but she will insult them if they do something dumb or are cringe in any way. For more context, my sister is a gifted ADHD Autistic kid so she can be very particular over behavior others will overlook even if they are bothered by them. My sister applies this to other people and we were excited to finally break down how our 8th house synastry and composite manifested because we always hear the worst things about it. We’ve noticed that 8th house is not for the undeveloped and when we see people trash talk it then we begin to raise our eyebrows at the ones who hate it. It may be rather mean of me to say but if people can’t handle 8th house then I think the the problem lies within the individual. My sister enjoys astrology but hates when patterns don’t line up so we basically wanted to thank you for the ask that prompted our deep dive into our 8th house that helped us finally connect and recognize the pattern. We’ve come to love 8th house synastry. On another note you can probably see our 8th house synastry just off of how much I’ve brought her up and love her lol. We have a lot of mutual respect for one another and we noticed that when she was younger she wanted everyone to know I was her sister which may be another little 8th house note. But we have a lot 10th house synastry too so it could just be that mutual respect. Sorry for the tangent but I was excited to share. I hope you’re doing well and I wish you the best.

Disclaimer: long post, continue to read under the cut!

Thank you for sharing your in depth experience and observation. As someone who has two sisters as well and is very very close to them I can understand where you’re coming from. I too share with each of them a strong 8th house synastry and they do so with me too.  I agree that 8th house snyastry doesn’t have to be about jealousy, possession and obsession in the sense that most people think. Peopl assume it’s this dramatic burst of emotions that makes you go ‘oh your are mine’, but one way it can play out is defenitely in the protectivness you get over this person. This protectivness inclines this ‘possessivness/obessesion/jealousy’ if you will. 8th house synastry, especially when placed in personal planets can make two people merge so close together, the bond they share is build on ultimate vulnerability. If something happens or threatens to destroy this bond it’s going to hurt as hell, naturally. We not only have protection of the other person and the bond you share here, but 8th house in synastry talks about merging together and sharing your inner ressources - that’s why this overlay can feel so incredibly empowering (and can become possibly addictive, not being able to cut ties, in worst case scenarios). You are so much in the other persons mind and soul (as you tend to try to figure out the other person, especially the 8th house person), that you naturally care for their well being. You fact check the new people coming in their life, because you exactly know about your friends/partner/sibling vulnerable and raw side and as we all know about the archetype Scorpio: it will sting and even poison you if you try to hurt it. 

That can definitely be one of the 8th house effect. Even if you are not possessive and jealous by nature, the 8th house synastry touches so many sensitive spots, it will awake classic Scorpionic traits in people, sucha scanning for real intentions, waiting to let ones guard down, etc. You might as well just call it serious concern if the situation calls for it that is (!!!), I have not only strong 8th house synastry with my siblings but with a lot of close friends of mine and none of us are possessive, jealous, or any of that sort, but we’re pretty much naturally very much in each others life because we want it like that. We really, really feel  the benefit of this deep bond, because it impowers us and makes us feel safe, because we’re able to and can trust and let go in front of/with the other!  And I will agree with you, 8th house synastry requires individuals who can handle it, or have Scorpio/8th house/Pluto in their own chart and know how to handle it.  I am not excusing and pushing blame on anyone who went through bad experiences here by the way, but I will state that 8th house synastry can be pretty much a blessing, but it does require the ability to either learn or to have knowledge, and the experience, as well as inner ressources on how to deal with it because it is a house that is meant to trigger. This doesn’t mean it is supposed to hurt all the time but chances are you will share very vulnerable moments of any kind with the person you have 8th house synastry with and thus leads to the intimate connection. 

Thank you again for opening this in depth conversation, and I think it’s absolutely sweet how you talk about the connection you have with your sister!! I do bring up my sibling a lot as well, they are my soulmates, so this really warms my heart!! <3 Thank you so much for the kind words as well, I hope you two are doing great as well and wish you only the best! xx

[rjhpandapaws]

Hankcon in canonverse, birthdays??

I would love to see clueless Connor learning how humans celebrate birthdays (can be hank's birthday or his own activation date).

//I love this!!

Connor’s fascination with birthdays actually started with Gavin’s birthday, it was the first one he saw celebrated at the station. If you could count Officer Chen smashing Gavin’s face into a cupcake a celebration, but it had made him curious. “Lieutenant?” Hank hmmed his response, “Why did Officer Chen just shove a cupcake into Detective Reed’s face like that?” “Ah, that’s because it’s the little shit’s birthday.” Hank responded, “It’s like a whole tradition, you bring cake, get them something they might like if you’re friends. Celebrate them making it another year.” “I suppose it is quite a feat for Gavin to have made it this long.” Connor said looking back toward Gavin who was wiping the colored frosting out of his face, but snapped his attention back to Hank when he heard him start coughing. “God Connor,” Hank groaned when he got his breath back, “You can’t say things like that when a man is drinking his coffee. I almost choked.” Hank was grinning, apparently he had found Connor’s remark to have been amusing, though that hadn’t been his intention. It had been a simple observation. While Gavin was a decent detective, his other like skills appeared to be a bit lacking. “But you don’t celebrate yours?” Connor asked. Hank shook his head, “There isn’t much to celebrate. I doubt there is anyone that isn’t waiting for the day I finally bite it.” Hank seemed to realize that was the wrong thing to say and back tracked, “What about you? Do androids celebrate their... uh days?” “Some of them celebrate the day the deviated.” Connor stated. “Do you celebrate yours?” Hank asked. “I haven’t really thought about it. Do I celebrate the day my line became active or the day I was activated? The first time I deviated or the time that it stuck?” He could see the red of his LED in the reflection of his monitor and tried to collect himself.

“We’ll figure it out.” Hank had said and they had left it at that. Well, sort of. Hank noticed Connor had marked station birthdays on the paper calendar Hank had gotten him. He had even marked Hank’s down much to the Lieutenant’s displeasure. Connor seemed to be fascinated with the idea of celebrating these days, though he still didn’t seem to have come up with one for himself. He never went so far as to shove a cupcake in someone’s face, thank god, but he would get them things, ranging from cards to small trinkets for their desks. Gavin had simply been left a sticky note suggesting he try decaf, which then got blamed on Nines. Hank had done research on his own time about the RK line to see when they had gone active, publicly it had been August 15th. That had been 51, this Connor was 54, there was a little too much disconnect Hank to be comfortable with. So then he had gone back through the case, if it could really be called that and found 54′s date, he didn’t like that one either. Mostly because it was a reminder of how Connor had been treated and that wasn’t something he wanted to remind Connor of. He knew he was probably putting too much thought into this, but after everything he had been through Connor deserved to celebrate something. He deserved to be celebrated, though that was a little more personal. He didn’t know what day this Connor had deviated, or when it had stuck for that matter, but the first time Connor had actively told an albeit horrible joke, and meant it, had been in the spring.

“How do you feel about March seventeenth?” Hank asked out of the blue, and he figured from the rapid blinking of Connor’s LED that he probably should have lead in with something, “For your birthday, I mean.”  Connor blinked a couple of times, “But-” “You like celebrating other people’s and I know androids aren’t born before you go down that tangent.” Hank cut him off sensing an incoming lecture on the origin of androids, “And the dates you give all have something bad about them so I picked a date around the time you first intentionally cracked a joke.” Connor smiled, it still looked pretty awkward, but it was better than the ones that came in his code because Hank knew it was real, “Then I like it for my birthday Hank.”

Once again it was more or less left alone after that, at least between the two of them. Hank on the other hand was making plans for a very important date in March. He would show Connor just how great birthdays could be.

@six-video-game-peaches

[zirkkun]

Yo you have every right to be upset about things! You're still a person with your own feelings and deserve to be treated kindly. No one should come at you for making things you enjoy or for misunderstandings. I hope things get better for you even if I wasn't here for when all the drama happened (or maybe I was and just wasn't aware of it? I tend to avoid drama as much as possible tbh)

I didn't really post about it much. I think I answered about 4 asks about it (three of them in the same post because i was sure it was the same anon due to the similar string of seemingly continued messages) and the rest I just deleted as soon as they came in, but I got... A lot. A lot of mean things said too. Kinda hurts when you wanted to make something because you knew this work was highly criticized and wanted to let people give it a second chance only to be shot down by the people you were hoping to defend lol

In short, and a lot of it I missed because I was blocked by a lot of people so my friend sent me screencaps; someone took I believe only the old ask box post I had for ULR, which at the time was called "Underlust Rewrite," and was disgusted at the fact that everything was revamped and "made for kids" (because it's not 18+ explicit content, but as I've said before, it's just cause I'm too scared to be horny on main, and I've literally made a whole different biological system for ULR so I can write the necessary story ""sex scenes"" without it being human-like sex or otherwise uncomfortable or too explicit for me to draw, but I still consider it a mature story overall), so they blocked me instantly here and on twitter and then made a callout post on twitter itself. People were telling me originally to stop calling the AU Underlust, and I didn't really get it at first, because like, what's the difference between my spinoff and, say, Underlust Gold, Swapfell Indigo, TS!Underswap, you know, names that have add-ons from the original title to differentiate it but still connect it to the source. So that's what I said, as well as if I removed the Underlust name, it would be considered stealing to me, because I'd be disconnecting it from the source. But apparently, instead, what had been the concern was that it was just being called "Underlust" and the "Rewrite" aspect was implying I was replacing the original story, which like, had never been my intention and I've made a bunch of things with both the ULR and UL cast together and love the idea of Lust and Ace meeting up and just being a disaster duo of not working together at all. I just adore Underlust like it's in my pinned FAQ, Lust's been in my banner for months now, and he's practically my staple pfp character on every account but here atm.

It took like 3 days for it to actually click what was going on, because once I finally got the chance to have a conversation with someone where they weren't telling me I was the scum of the Earth -- which, honestly, bless the three people I talked to, they were so sweet (which actually included someone from the Japanese side of the fandom whose art I loved too... yeah it got pretty far. Once I sent them a message though it was cleared up quickly and they did post a clarification post about ULR and me, so that was nice to see.) -- I finally got the chance to realize that this was a misunderstanding from the beginning, from both sides, where people coming at me were saying I was doing all of the stuff above and probably more but those stuck the most, while I was confused as to where this information and accusations were coming from and what they were referring to in the first place. They probably never explained it in the anon asks because, well, they probably assumed I knew what I was doing, but when they came at me about something I didn't do with vague context of something I did do, I was very confused, and got really defensive really quickly, and really honestly snapped pretty hard. After my first initial explanation post and people were still trying to tell me to stop ULR/don't call it Underlust/whatever else there was, I just got tired and told people to block me if they didn't like it. But that didn't really stop anyone and honestly made it worse because that's when I started getting really nasty messages. I like... Specifically remember one where someone called me a lowlife and a thief, and that one stuck the most, but I tended to not read through them before deleting them for my own sanity. I actually did this to one of the people who'd later talked to me calmly about it at first too, because I had just woken up, and really didn't want to read an essay lecture on everything everyone's been telling me at the crack of 7am when I was borderline ready to delete my account and start over lol

Some people I do remember were accusing me of trying to censor nsfw content or erase it as well because ULR isn't 18+, and I'm out here on my horny ass like "wh. What are they talking about, where did you get that idea, have you SEEN my ao3 recommended list," /j but in all seriousness I really didn't understand that accusation at all because I've never been against nsfw content in the slightest and lowkey? This is very dumb -- but like, you know how they say when you get hate mail, you know you've made it? Well, for me, my thought has always been, "When there's 18+ fancontent of my OC's, I'll have finally made it." This is... Not a joke, some of my friends think its very weird LMAO oh well. I've been on the internet for far too long at this point -- like, definitely since I was far too young, probably, and being with a family of the next youngest being 12 years older than me, I really dove into stuff pretty quickly I definitely shouldn't have, but hey that's life -- I'm really unfazed by mostly anything now. Hell, me making ULR was honestly half motivated by me wanting to make others more comfortable with this kind of media, discussing sexuality and otherwise sexual-considered topics, without really being embarrassed or bothered by it. Because, people talk about death and killing and whatever other gorey stuff just fine, but the moment sex comes up, people just gasp in awe, y'know? I kind of grew up that way myself but like... ironically, in being more comfortable with my asexuality, I realized that it's honestly not that big of a deal. Sure, we don't need to hear the details of everything. We don't need to hear the details of a murder either. But I will never understand how murder is always the lowest on the "morally wrong list of things to not to" to so many people and that it's fine to mention, but even consider bringing up anything else and it's like, a sin and you're a bad person. Even racism is like, higher up on there for a lot of people, which it's like... this is an issue that needs to be discussed, or it can never be solved. You can't just kick that away and hope it goes away on its own, that's never how it works.

Ah, well, now I've gone off tangent lol. Sorry to make you read a blob of text lmao but having things in a cohesive format of what I've been thinking does feel a bit better. Thank you for the support regardless, and I do want to keep making what I really enjoy, because frankly, I really want to make things that make people take a step back and think for a moment, y'know? Things that invoke like a realization in yourself about something you didn't even know. That's how fiction's always been for me, so I want to give back by making it that way too. ... maybe my horny content is exempt from this however. That's just. Self indulgence LMAO.

Probably helps that I'm actually talking this all out for once, too, since before any of this I tried to keep as much of the situation contained to myself as possible in hopes I could clean it up before it got too bad. That was, in hindsight, probably a terrible idea lol. But I didn't want to be a source of stress for anyone following me or become the new creator-to-defend that like, 50% of people hate and 50% of people love and that you're either on one side or the other and there's no where in between. (I feel like Arin Hanson comes to mind for me every time I think of someone like this.) I know I can't please everyone and I knew internet hate would come eventually, but like, didn't expect it to be over a name or tag choice. I thought that would be a simple enough DM or clearable thing but apparently not, especially since I saw someone a few weeks ago delete their blog over a similar thing (though, the opposite, in a way: posting nsfw in a sfw tag by mistake). It wasn't in the UT fandom so y'all probably weren't following them (tbf I wasn't either, I just witnessed it happen from start to finish), but it was still disheartening.

Anyway, thank you, and sorry to make ya read all of that (if you actually did vahdbs don't blame you if you don't it's a lot of thought dump lmao)💕💕

[diosefm]

FROM THE DESK OF DIOSE VALEY II

when: all of these letters were written during the dawn of day two of the train hijack where: written in her train car, all letters were left on people’s rooms in the morning of day two. for those in train one, letters should be delivered the next time everyone sees each other triggers: mentions of death, threats of violence, paranoia mentions: cabil, mommy pista, @pista-clearmark , @givcnup , @cinnc, @swannscngs  , @blythefm​ , @sinksand & tiberius who is still dead

CABIL,

I know that after your conversation you probably do not wish to hear of me again, and I understand. After everything that has happened and what has been done to you, I don’t think that us Capitol people really deserve people’s pity. I don’t intend to ask you for that, nor do I want to ask for your forgiveness. I just needed to write you this and thank you for not coddling me. 

I deserved it. And not because I want to victimize myself. I’ve never been a victim, more like a victimizer. I am seeing that now. It’s almost astounding what you can realize when those you have hurt have the opportunity to tell you what they really think about you in your face. And you might have not done that outright, but your message was very clear to me.

I won’t bore you with my inner conflicts. I am writing this because Pista mentioned something to me, something about you having someone waiting for you back home. And again, I know that this really isn’t any of my business but this is something I really want to do and would be honored if you say yes.

In the event that you were to marry your girlfriend, I would love to pay for everything and offer my services as a designer. You don’t have to say yes. All I ask is that you keep this letter and if one day you are able to forgive me, my offer will still stand.

Best wishes, Diose Valey.

HELENA,

I apologize for subjecting you to this. I can only imagine how awkward it must be to receive a letter from a complete stranger, especially one that is so deeply personal and filled with apologies.

But, I feel the need to apologize for putting your son in danger. It was easy for me to just involve Pista because I vaguely knew of him and his knowledge of trains and that was the only thing that mattered to me. It wasn’t until I saw the way you looked at him that something stirred inside of me. It made me think of my own mother, made me wonder if she had ever looked at me with such love and devotion. I’m scared of finding the answer. 

I don’t want to talk about you. My intention is to tell you how sorry I am that I involved Pista in my plans. They worked, yes, but we were lucky. No, more than that. Your son refused to leave me when things god bad. I wanted to make him promise that he wouldn’t because I kept thinking of you and I couldn’t let something happen to him and hurt you. But he shot me down. And not only that, but showed me the empathy I never expected to receive given who I am. That’s what made me see what an amazing job you did raising him. I can only hope that if life ever gives me the chance of being a mother, I can be like you.

Once again, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for dumping this on you and for almost taking Pista away from you.

PISTA,

It wasn’t until I was able to lie down in bed that I remembered you. Your face was familiar, of course. I’d catch glances of you every year at the Capitol, but I couldn’t quite place you until I was left alone with my thoughts. At first I only remembered you due to Slate mentioning you during our conversations. It’s what made me come to you for help. My head just told you knew trains, having always being a hard worker who never got into trouble. But of course, Slate never mentioned your games. I remembered those on my own.

I was just a teenager so the memories are fuzzy at best. And of course, I didn’t pay attention. I was self absorbed, just saw a sobbing boy I foolishly thought had a lot of growing up to do. But there is always more than meets the eye. It’s curious, really. I would have never thought that decades later you would be the one actually helping me mature. 

You didn’t have to help me. You could’ve just left me to my own devices and stayed with your people. I keep thinking about your mother, about how I wouldn’t forgive myself if you didn’t come back to her because of my doing. It’s why I begged for you to not wait for me. Slate never taught me anything. I just couldn’t bear the thought of being the one that left a mother without her child. Which is stupid, really. That is something I have been doing for decades, just dressing up children before they’re sent to their deaths. And I know that many of the parents do want their children there, but I refuse to use that to justify my actions. Maybe that worked in the past, but not anymore.

I don’t think I really understood what empathy was until who had some for me despite of who I am. And yes, I am aware of how awful that sounds now. I wasn’t lying to you when I said I was working on dealing with all of this. I’ll keep trying. 

GRIFFIN,

Thank you. 

I could say more. Go on a tangent and talk about how much I dislike you, but that is unnecessary right now. All that you told me did bother me, but it was all because none of the things you mentioned were a lie. I guess that’s what I needed. And I hope you enjoyed it, because it is not happening again. Not because I cannot bear the thought of you having the upper hand, but because I hope that after everything that has happened, we can see eye to eye. 

You might not know this, but I was very close to Nelly once. And despite everything and the years I spent away from her, i still trust her judgement. And if she likes you and has taken care of you for years, it must be because you are worth it. I just pray you don’t ruin anymore of my dresses. Hating you is pointless, especially over something to silly. And now that we are seeing eye to eye now, well, I’ve taken it upon me to ensure you don’t hurt that woman.

You are a good man, Griffin Cripes. I apologize for not seeing it until now.

CINNA,

This is obvious to everyone, but it still has to be said. I need to confront these feelings if I truly want to be be able to seek repentance. 

I tried to sabotage you. I screamed and complained for what seems like hours, angry that someone had dared to overshadow me. I blamed you for whatever minuscule thing that happened to ruin my day when you first started working for the games. I made plans, swore I would find a way to ensure you would not get any more work after what had been done to me. I thought you were personally trying to ruin my reputation, but it was just my paranoia and Tiberius encouragement making it all worse. 

I feel like the past few days my mind has come up with a million excuses that would attempt to paint me as the victim, but I swear that is never my intention. I have a lot to work on, just like I have so many people I need to apologize to. And you’re one of them, hence this letter. 

It is an awful attempt at it, I know. I keep repeating this to myself and others, but I am trying. I promise I will have something better once we see each other face to face again. I just need time to properly deal with my own conflicting emotions, but I am sure you understand.

SWANN,

My behavior in the past was not the best. Not towards you, and especially not towards Virgo. 

I was possessive and overprotective, that I am ready to accept now. Paranoid too. With so many people whispering into my ears, I was led to believe you had ulterior motives and did not truly care about my sibling. But it was far from it, wasn’t it? I certainly could have brought this up during our conversation, give you a better apology but... Maybe I am a coward. Destroying lives and relationships is easy, but building them is what I seem to struggle with. 

Even after our meeting, I  left your train car and still asked myself if I had done enough to apologize. After a few hours, I realized I hadn’t. So you get this stupid, sentimental letter that is still not gonna feel like enough. Virgo would be much better at all of this, but I don’t have them with me right now. But on their behalf, I owe you not only several apologies, but a big thank you. 

They are not like me. It has its pros and its cons. They’re their own person, and many of what they’ve accomplished is also because of you. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you this.

--- 

TIBERIUS,

With your connections, I am sure that by the time you read this you will know what I have done.

I don’t regret anything, Tiberius. If I am writing you one last letter before I put an end to our correspondence for good is because I need you to understand how much I’ve learned to despise you these past few weeks. I almost can’t believe that at one point I dared to think that I ha— No, I’m not doing this.

If I see you lurking around me, my sibling, or Slate I swear that all the things I’ve done to people throughout the years (so many of them for your own benefit) will seem like mere child’s play compared to what will happen if you force me to unleash my rage upon you. The bullshit about everyone that isn’t us being an enemy is over. I know who the real enemy is now.

I’m not scared of you. Never was, and never will. Fuck you.

BLYTHE,

I don’t know the truth. Virgo won’t talk to me, but they’re also absolutely terrible at keeping things hidden. I’ve seen the letters and the paintings, so I can only assume that something is going on between you two. And it did bother me. First because I didn’t think you were enough. I told myself that was the only reason, that I was just looking out for them but now I’ve realized I was tricking myself into not accepting that for the first time in my life, I was jealous of them. 

You probably won’t care about this. In fact, I am sure that before I finish this sentence this letter will already be destroyed. But I need to put this somewhere not only for my own sake, but for Virgo. If there is someone that does not deserve to suffer because of me, it’s them. 

They had a proper childhood, I did not. They are now able to experience something I have only heard about due to those corny TV dramas they love so much. And it hurts. I kept it to myself. Showing vulnerability is something I have never allowed myself to do, but when it involves love and caring, I had to bury my feelings somewhere. Except I buried my worries and let my anger and jealousy affect them. It’s not happening again. Regardless of these feelings still being present, I cannot continue hurting them just because for once, they’re thriving at something I am not.

If you are still reading, this letter is a plea for you to take care of them. And a threat as well. Because if you dare to hurt them in any way, I can promise you that all those feelings I’ve buried will come out and you will learn what dealing with what I am capable of doing when I am upset.

AVEN

I loved Desmond. Friendships don’t come easy to me, but he was talented enough to change that and earn a place in my inner circle. His last name helped, yes, but at the end of the day that was not why we remained closed.

After he was gone, blaming you was easy. Spreading rumors gave me a purpose, made me believe I had the upper hand, that I still knew better. But what I made others whispers behind your back wasn’t the only information we had. Many of us just refused to listen to it. At the end it benefitted no one but Snow. 

I’m sorry you lost your husband. That was what you deserved to hear years ago instead of our complaints and unfounded grievances. I have no way of fixing the damage I caused. I will not attempt to excuse it. It happened and you suffered deeply for it. That is what matters. 

Maybe one day you will allow me to not only explain myself, but apologize. I still have a lot to do in regards to facing all the horrible things I did and what the Capitol’s indoctrination did to my psyche, but I hope that by the time we have a chance to see each other, I will have more to offer you than an I’m sorry.

[ceealaina]

Title: Who’s Gonna Pick You Up? Collaborator Name: ceealaina Card Number: 3088 Link: AO3 Square Filled: T4 - First Date Ship: WinterIron Rating: Teen Major Tags: Alternate universe - no powers Summary: In a world where Tony is less playboy and more awkward nerd, he's mostly bored and lonely now that he's graduated from MIT and Rhodey's off on his Air Force adventures. Agreeing to a blind date with Ty Stone doesn't turn out to be his best plan, but luckily Nat's there to save to day. (And even more luckily, she's got a cute brother and Tony is just his type.) Word Count: 5200

All Natasha had wanted was a cup of coffee, and an hour to herself.

Bucky and Clint and Sam had been driving her crazy all day, starting when she had woken up and gone downstairs only to find dregs in the coffee pot and Clint’s dirty underwear on the kitchen counter. 

The morning went downhill from there. She loved her adopted brother and the two dumb idiots they lived with, but sometimes the three of them could get on her last nerve. This was one of those times. So after narrowly avoiding getting shot in the foot with an arrow (long story) she had grabbed a book and headed for the coffee shop on the corner for some peace and quiet. 

And for about fifteen minutes, she’d had it. 

Which, of course, was when Smarmy Assholes 1 and 2 had walked in. 

Natasha read people. She couldn’t help it; it was just something she did. So as soon as they passed through the door, she couldn’t help cataloguing them. And when they snagged a table near her, she couldn’t help eyeing them over the top of her book, keeping an ear out for what they had to say. It was somehow even grosser than she’d expected. 

“It’s not like I want to,” the taller guy was saying. “But he’s Tony Stark. I get in with him and I’ll have business connections for the next few decades -- not that I’d even have to work, with all the money I’d be getting out of him. I just have to suck it up for a bit, turn on the charm, make him fall in love with me. It’s not like it will be hard.”

“Still,” his friend said. “You’ve seen him, Ty. All quiet and shy and… Weird. Seems all needy, too. I’ve heard he’s only got like, one friend, and he’s off with the Navy or something. He’ll be following you around like a lost puppy.” 

“Can't be worse than you, Justin,” Ty retorted, making Justin flush and look away. “Anyway,” he continued. “Needy can be good.” He smirked then, a look that Nat knew entirely too well, and her fists clenched as she fought the urge to punch him in the face. “It’ll be so easy to talk him into anything I want. And he’ll be so busy falling over himself trying to please me, he probably won’t even care who else I’m screwing on the side.”

Justin was smirking too now. “Get some good blackmail pics and you’ve got him for good.”

Natasha quietly seethed. These two chucklefucks were practically twirling moustaches they were so gross. It was a little ridiculous, like they’d gone to the same school of cartoon villainy, but she was having none of it. She was just considering the best way the traumatize them for life when the bell over the door rang, catching her attention. She looked over to see a slight man walk in, about twenty years old. His hair was a mess of dark curls that he kept pushing out of his face, and he was just a little too dressed up for a cafe -- fitted pants offset with a Van Halen tee and a sports jacket. There was a streak of grease or engine oil on his forearm that he apparently hadn’t noticed, and he was looking around for someone, a little nervous but mostly looking pleased and hopeful in a way that made Natasha’s heart clench. 

A quick glance over showed that Justin and Ty were still plotting to kick puppies or whatever, and, making a split second decision, Nat hopped to her feet and headed for the door. 

“Tony?” she asked, carefully aligning herself to block him from their view. When he turned at the sound of her voice, she gave him a bright, disarming smile. “Hi! I’m Tasha. I think you’re here to meet me?”

“T-Tasha?” he repeated, looking confused for a minute. “I... But Obie said... I thought...” He stammered a minute, looking flustered, and Natasha waited patiently. 

“Is everything okay?”

He seemed to get a hold of himself again, giving her a bright smile, hopeful like before. “Yes, sorry. I think I got your... name wrong. I was a bit distracted when Obie was telling me about you.” He held out his hand. “I’m Tony... but then, I guess you already know that.” He laughed a little, a self deprecating note in it as his cheeks flushed a little. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Natasha adored him already. 

“You too,” she told him, returning his handshake and then shifting to give him a kiss on the cheek. His blush deepened and he gave her a shy look from under ridiculously thick eyelashes. “Come on,” she told him. “I’ve got a table by the window.” Nat wasn’t a tall woman, but even in her heeled boots Tony was barely a couple inches taller than her. She put her arm around him, steering him towards her table and carefully keeping him out of sight of Ty and Justin as she did. 

Tony winced as he pulled his chair without a loud screech, giving a nervous little laugh.. “Sorry,” he mumbled, casting a quick glance around to see if anyone had noticed. 

Natasha just shrugged and grinned at him. “Happens to me all the time,” she assured him, lying through her teeth.

He gave her a dry look. “Somehow I doubt that,” he said, catching her eye with a wry grin. “You look like you’ve never been embarrassed a day in your life.” 

Natasha straightened a little. He had spark; she liked that. 

They made small talk for a few minutes, Tony getting himself a black coffee and sighing happily at his first sip. He made vague mentions of the project he was working on without giving any real details. The way he spoke suggested that Ty already knew what he did for a living, and so Tasha played along, smiling encouragingly when he went off on a tangent. 

“Sorry,” he flushed when he realized he had been talking about robotics for ten minutes, chewing at his lip as he looked at her with soft eyes. 

“It’s alright,” Natasha told him genuinely. “I mean, I only understood about half of what you said, but you obviously love it. Your entire face lit up. It’s a good look on you.” 

Tony grinned wide, flushing again. “Thanks,” he mumbled, ducking his head toward the table. “And, um. Thanks for doing this.” He looked up at her again from under his eyelashes, scratching awkwardly at the back of his neck. “I don’t really do this a lot,” he admitted. “I was really, uh. I was glad, when Obie said you wanted to meet me. This is... I’ve been having a fun time.” 

Natasha arched an eyebrow at him. “Come on,” she teased. “You’re gorgeous. I don’t believe you don’t have all the boys and girls lining up around the block to take you out.” 

Tony rolled his eyes, fighting back the pleased smile creeping over his face. “Well. I‘m also a giant nerd with the unfortunate habit of talking about engineering and math for way too long.” He bit his lip as he gave her a grin. “Most kids go through the awkward dating stage at fourteen, but I guess I gotta do it now, since I was kind of busy studying at MIT then.” 

“Fourteen?” Natasha repeated, incredulous, and realized her mistake when Tony frowned, like he’d expected her to know that. “Sorry,” she said quickly. “I just... didn’t realize it was quite that young.” 

“Oh. Yeah.” Tony flushed again, dropping his gaze to the table and picking at his napkin for a moment. “That’s not a problem, is it?” he asked making eye contact for a brief moment before his gaze skittered over to the corner. “Sometimes it freaks people out,” he added in a mumble, and Natasha felt like punching something at the hurt in his voice.

“Not a problem at all,” she assured him, curling her hand over his on the table. Tony positively beamed, his entire face lighting up, and it was at that moment that Nat noticed Ty out of the corner of her eye, frowning at them speculatively. “Shit,” she muttered under her breath, watching as he leaned over and said something to Justin, who turned to face them too. 

Tony’s smile flickered. “Is something wrong?”

“No, I just...” Natasha trailed off, weighing her options. 

Ty was absolutely the type to make a scene, and if he embarrassed Tony in front of the entire cafe, she would definitely kick his ass. But ideally, she would get Tony out of here before it had the chance to get that far. Which left her with two options: She could give him a sweet brush off, let him think it was her — but she’d known Tony for less than an hour, and already knew he would blame himself for it — or she could confess. 

Hoping she wasn’t making a mistake, she drew in a slow breath. “I need to tell you something.” 

Mirroring her body language, Tony leaned in close over the table. “Okay,” he told her. “Is everything alright? Is there something I can help with?” 

“No,” she admitted. “The thing is, you didn’t have my name wrong. I’m not actually your date.” 

Tony’s eyebrows drew into a confused frown, head tilting to the side. “I don’t understand.”

Natasha made a face. “You were expecting to meet a dude, right? Named Ty?” At Tony’s slow nod, she tilted her chin to the far corner. “He’s over there — don’t look!” she added sharply. 

“I don’t understand,” Tony repeated. “Is this like... Did he send you here to make sure I was legit or something? Because... I mean, he knows Obie. Ty is the one who asked to go out with me?” 

“No, I know. Tony... Ty is a complete dillweed, and you can do so much better. I overheard him talking about you before you got here. He’s an asshole. He just wants to use you, and...” She watched as Tony sank back in his seat, eyes shuttering. “When you came in, I put it together that you were his date and so I intervened before he could see you,” she finished softly. 

“Oh,” Tony said softly. He wasn’t looking at her at all now, focusing intently on the coffee menu over Nat’s shoulder. There was a red tinge to his cheeks, and Natasha saw his jaw working as he clenched his teeth before chewing on the skin around his thumb. “Okay,” he said, and she could hear the hitch in his voice. He offered a weak smile, still not looking at her. “I guess I should have known. Cute guy wanting to go out with me? Probably should have been suspicious when he hadn’t even met me yet.” 

“Tony...”

He met her eyes for a minute, his own shimmering slightly. “Anyway, I should go,” he mumbled, moving to collect his wallet. 

“No, you don’t have to,” Natasha told him quickly, curling her hand over his wrist again. “Or well, we should probably leave before he comes over, but... you don’t have to go. We can hang out somewhere else.” 

Tony yanked his hand away from her. “Thanks for looking out for me, or whatever,  but I don’t need your pity date,” he told her, and it sounded harsh but she could still hear the hurt in his voice. 

Natasha arched an eyebrow at him, leaning back and folding her arms across her chest. “Do I look like a woman who does pity?” she asked dryly, and Tony stopped at that because, well... No, she didn’t. “Yes, okay, I wanted to rescue you from the worst first date ever. But I wouldn’t have stayed if i didn’t genuinely enjoy talking to you, Tony. You’re hilarious, and brilliant, and adorable to boot. And believe me, if I wasn’t a fully committed lesbian, I’d probably be trying to lure you to my bed as I speak.” 

Tony snorted despite himself at that. “Lesbian, huh?” he asked, finally meeting her eyes again. 

“Yup,” Natasha drawled. “But don’t worry, it’s not you, it’s me.” 

Tony rolled his eyes at that, a hint of a smile curling across his face. 

“Look, it’s about time I head home anyway, before someone burns down the house. Why don’t you come home with me? You can meet all my friends... They’re gonna love you, I know it.” 

“Home with you?” Tony repeated. He arched an eyebrow. “That sounds... unsavory. Thought you were supposed to be a lesbian.” 

He was tempted though, Nat could see it, and she grinned. “I am. But don’t worry, if you wanna be unsavored, I’ve got a brother, and you’re just his type.”

Tony giggled at that, and Nat grinned back at him, easy and bright. 

“Come on, Tony. I’m sorry about Ty, but he’s an absolute asshole, and you’re much better off without him. Come meet some real friends.” 

He scrubbed at the back of his neck. “Yeah, alright,” he agreed, giving her a soft smile. “Why not? I’d like to meet your friends.” 

Natasha’s smile grew. “Outstanding,” she declared. “Do you want to grab a coffee to - oh, for fuck’s sake.” 

“What?” Tony asked. “What’s-?” He cut himself off as two men approached the table, and the look on Nat’s face made it pretty obvious who they were. 

“Tony?” Ty demanded. 

“Uh, yeah?” 

Ty looked back and forth between Tony and Natasha, his eyes narrowing. “It’s me. Ty.” 

Tony caught Natasha’s eye and then blinked up at Ty blankly. “Ty who?” 

Ty looked like he was seething now. “Ty Stone.” He gave Natasha a dirty look. “Your date.” 

Tony just gave him a bland smile. “Sorry, never heard of you,” he said, before turning back to Natasha. 

“What do you mean, you’ve never heard of me? Our fathers worked together! Obadiah Stane set up this date.” 

There was a heavy sigh from Tony, who didn’t bother looking back up at Ty. “Darling,” he said to Natasha, and oh boy he was laying it on thick but Ty didn’t seem to have noticed. “Shall we go?” 

Natasha beamed back at him, taking the hand he held out to her and letting him help her to her feet. “Of course,” she agreed, moving around the table. “Excuse me,” she added, when Ty blocked her path. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” Ty asked. “There’s clearly been some kind of misunderstanding” 

“No misunderstanding,” Tony told him. “Obviously you’ve made some kind of mistake.” He made a show of looking Ty up and down. “But I’m definitely not here to see you,” he added, and Nat could have applauded. 

Ty looked like he wasn’t giving up though, and so there was nothing else for Natasha to do except to pretend to trip against him and gracefully slam her fist into his stomach. 

“Darling,” she said to Tony, letting him take her arm and lead her out the door while Ty was still trying to recover his breath. 

They made it around the corner before Tony burst out laughing, almost doubling up with the force of it. “Okay, that was kind of fun,” he admitted, and Nat grinned back at him.

“What was that you were saying about having no social skills?” she teased. “You can bullshit with the best of them, so you’re already halfway there. And that means you’re going to fit in with us wonderfully. Now come on, before he decides to follow us.” 

Tony hesitated a minute. “You don’t, I mean... this more than made up for the shitty first date I would have had. You don’t actually have to make all your friends meet me. I’m kind of a lot for most people.” 

Natasha just rolled her eyes, grabbing his wrist in a surprisingly strong grip and pulling him down the street behind her. “You haven’t met ‘a lot’ until you’ve met these assholes,” she told him. “They’re going to love you, I promise. Besides,” she added over her shoulder. “I wasn’t kidding about my brother. James would never forgive me if I told him about you and didn’t bring you home for him to meet.” 

Tony flushed pink at that, but didn’t argue further.

It started to rain when they were almost there, a sudden surprise downpour, and they ran the last block to Nat’s house. Tony was laughing, apparently not bothered, which was good because they weren’t fast enough to avoid getting completely soaked. 

“Hey, assholes!” Natasha hollered loudly as they passed through the front door, making a face as she peeled off her drenched jacket. “I’m home! And I brought a friend!” 

Tony grinned to himself at that, flushing a little when he caught Nat’s eye. “Um. I’m kind of dripping on your floor,” he pointed out, holding his leather jacket open to reveal his now-transparent white t-shirt. Natasha just shrugged. 

“They’ve seen worse,” she promised him. “But we’ll find you something dry to wear. Hello? Anybody home?”

“Jesus Tasha,” as masculine voice answered. “You get lost on your way to the kitchen? What the hell are you screaming… for...” 

Tony had been distracted by his t-shirt, pulling it away with his chest with a wet squelching sound, and looked up as the voice trailed off. He blinked at the man coming out of a room a few feet down the hall, all sharp blue eyes and broad chest and thighs. He was quite possibly the hottest person Tony had ever seen, and Tony gave him a tentative wave and a smile. “Hi,” he offered. 

“Hey,” the newcomer replied, still staring at Tony before he promptly walked into a wall. 

“Oh shit!” Tony cried, instinctively moving toward him while Natasha snorted with laughter. “Are you alright?” 

“Yeah, yeah.” The stranger waved him off gruffly. “I’m fine.” 

“Tony,” Natasha interrupted, giggling from the stairs. “This is my brother, James.” 

“Oh,” Tony said, and then clued in to what she had said and his eyes widened. “Oh!” He rubbed at the back of his neck, shy and adorable. “Um, hi James. I’m Tony.” 

He offered his hand out tentatively, and James took it with a quirk to his lips, and a grip that made Tony a little weak in the knees. 

“Bucky,” he told him. “Everyone calls me Bucky, it’s just Tasha who refuses to.” 

“Because it’s a stupid nickname,” Natasha replied easily. It sounded like an argument they’d had a million times over, and Tony grinned as he listened to their easy banter, missing Rhodey like crazy for a minute. 

Before he could get too bummed out, there were footsteps clomping down the stairs, and a blond man with ridiculously large arms (seriously, Tony was going to start getting a complex if he stayed here too long) slid past Natasha. He arched an eyebrow at Tony. 

“Oh hey!” he said, his voice just a little too loud. “Another puppy!” 

Without waiting for a response, he headed down the hall to the kitchen while Tony blinked at him. “I”m not a puppy,” he protested, getting a laugh from Bucky. The newcomer ignored him, and Tony frowned a little, because that seemed unnecessarily rude. 

“Ignore him,” Bucky told him warmly. “He’s deaf. He’s…” He grabbed a tennis ball off the side table and launched it down the hall, hitting Blondie square in the back. 

“Ow!” he hollered, turning to stare at them. "What the fuck?” 

“Hey asshole!” Bucky retorted, enunciating a little more clearly so he could read his lips. “Where are your hearing aids?” 

Blondie made a face. “They broke again. Cheap Hammertech.” 

Tony looked horrified. “HammerTech? No wonder they're broken.” Bucky snorted at that, and Tony gave him a quick smile before following his lead and turning back to the other man so he could read his lips. “Let me see them? I bet I can make them better.” 

“What?” He looked at Tony like he was nuts. “I’m not giving you my aids to play with, no way. You’ll break them, and they’re my only pair.” 

He moved off down the hall toward the kitchen, leaving Tony spluttering after him. “I wouldn’t break them!” he protested. “And they’re already broken!!” 

“Ignore him,” a new voice said, repeating Bucky’s instructions. “Clint’s just pissed I beat him at MarioKart.” 

Tony turned to face the newcomer who smiled at him warmly, and actually moved to shake Tony’s hand. “I’m Sam, nice to meet you.” 

“Tony,” he answered, beaming wide. Sam grinned back, and then looked over at Natasha. 

“New puppy, huh?” he asked. 

Tony stared at him and, although he probably wasn’t aware of it, actually pouted, folding his arms across his chest. “I’m not a puppy!” He glared at Natasha. “I thought you said your friends were nice.” 

“I said they’d like you, not that they were nice,” Natasha offered with a smirk. 

“Don’t take it personal,” Sam assured him, patting him on the shoulder. 

“Tasha’s always bringing home strays,” Clint added from the kitchen doorway, his hearing aids apparently working again. “Starting with Bucky and including all of us.” He frowned then, poking at his left ear. “Aww, hearing aids,” he whined, pulling them out again. 

“Okay, seriously.” Tony set off down the hall after him, apparently over his shyness in the face of potential engineering. “Give them to me. I can fix them, I promise.” 

Natasha, Bucky, and Sam all watched him go. “Where’d you find him?” Sam asked when they’d disappeared, grinning as they heard the echoes of Tony trying to convince Clint to let him fix his hearing aids. 

“At the coffee shop,” Natasha offered primly. “What?” she added, at the look Sam and Bucky shared. “I can’t make friends?” She rolled her eyes at them. “He was heading into the worst date ever, so I rescued him. Don’t look at me like that.” 

They all looked down the hall as they heard Tony’s voice raise again, Clint’s following suit, and Bucky grinned. “I like him,” he declared, before narrowing his eyes at the smirk on Natasha’s face. 

“Yeah,” she said dryly. “Thought you might.” She and Sam waggled their eyebrows at him ridiculously, and Bucky huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“And I hate you. Both of you,” he informed them, stomping off down the hall. 

Sam snorted as he watched him go, glancing over at Nat. “You are a menace.” 

“I do my best,” she told him with a wink, dashing up the stairs to change into some dry clothes. When she returned to the kitchen, it was to find that Tony had, in fact talked Clint into letting him tinker with the hearing aids in question. He was sitting at their rickety kitchen table poking at them with a screwdriver that he'd apparently pulled from his pocket. Tony was completely focused on the machinery in his hands, tongue poking out between his teeth as he concentrated while Clint sat across from him, staring with a critical eye. Sam was watching the whole scene with amusement, and Bucky had pulled some bread from the fridge and was making toast, pretending not to be sneaking little glances at Tony every three seconds.

“Hey, Tony,” she said, snapping him out of his stupor. “You must be frozen, huh?” 

“Oh.” Tony glanced down at his arms and blinked, apparently just now noticing the goosebumps on his arms. “Uh, yeah. I guess.” 

Natasha beamed and moved over to Bucky, bumping her hip against his and raising her eyebrows. “Hey James, why don’t you lend Tony some clothes, hmm? Then we can pop his clothes in the dryer. Don’t want him catching cold.” 

Bucky’s eyes widened and he glanced over at Tony, since Natasha wasn’t even trying to be subtle, but the other man had already delved back into working on the hearing aids. “I hate you,” he muttered, abandoning his toast and stomping off to get Tony some clothes. Natasha caught Sam’s eye over the table and shared a grin with him.

He returned just as Tony was sliding the hearing aids back across the table to Clint, looking all pleased and fidgeting in expectation. “Go on. Try them!”

Still looking suspicious, Clint positioned them in his ears. “Okay, what’s the big--” He cut himself off at the sound of his own voice. “Holy shit. What the…” He pointed wildly at Sam, across the room. “Say something!” 

Sam raised his hands helplessly. “What do you want me to say?” 

“Holy shit!” Clint said again. He stared at Tony incredulously. “How did you… These aren’t just fixed, they’re like ten times better than they were.” 

Tony beamed, looking absolutely delighted. “It’s just kind of… What I do.” Then he yelped as Clint hauled him out of his seat, physically lifting him off the ground and wrapping him in a back-cracking bear hug. 

“Thank you,” he told him sincerely, and Tony flushed as he planted a kiss square on his cheek. Then he was depositing him on the ground and heading off down the hall. 

“Hey,” Bucky yelped as Clint practically shoved him into the shower in his haste. “Where the hell are you going?” 

“Outside!” Clint hollered back over his shoulder. “Gonna go listen to some birds!”

Bucky shook his head. “Weirdo,” he muttered affectionately, catching Tony’s eye and getting a grin out of him. 

“Cute and useful,” Sam teased, “We should keep him, huh Buck? Wanna do our microwave next? Hasn’t been the same since Bucky and Clint got drunk and tried to make s’mores in it.” 

“Jesus,” Bucky muttered, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Okay, I don’t think Tony is here to fix our shit.” 

“Aww,” Natasha teased, voice dry. “Look at you, coming to his rescue.” 

“I don’t mind,” Tony added, looking back and forth between them with eyes that were just a little too sharp. “Seriously, I love this shit. And it’s a microwave, it’s not like it’s hard.” 

Bucky stared at him, a little awed; he’d always been a sucker for intelligent men. “Still,” he muttered. Shifting when he realized he was still staring, Bucky held out the t-shirt and sweatpants he’d wrangled. “Here,” he offered. “If you wanna change.” 

Tony’s lips twitched, as he took the clothes in question, giving Bucky a quick once over. “I don’t know how well they’re going to fit, but thanks.”

When Tony had disappeared down the hall to the bathroom to change, Bucky whirled on Nat and Sam. “Stop,” he hissed, cautious of his voice carrying. “You two are about as subtle as a freight train. You’re gonna freak him out.” 

Nat and Sam shared another look, and gave him identical grins, which was just creepy. 

“No idea what you’re talking about,” Natasha told him sweetly, sliding past him to the sink. “Coffee, anyone?” 

“I mean it, Tasha! Stop trying to meddle in my love life.” 

“Oh ho ho.” This was Sam, arms folded across his chest as he waggled his eyebrows at Bucky. “So you admit there is some romance happening here.”

“I didn’t say that!” Bucky insisted. “Also, stop doing that with your eyebrows, you look fucking stupid.” Sam didn’t stop, and Bucky groaned, slumping down in a chair at the table. “I’m moving out.” 

“Why would you want to move out?” Tony asked suddenly from behind him. “This place is awesome.” 

Bucky turned around to say… something, but his brain shorted out at the sight of Tony in his clothes. They were a little loose on him but fit better than expected, and he looked adorable as shit, especially with one wayward curl ignoring all his attempts to brush it out of his eye. 

“Ignore him,” Sam told him, smirking at Bucky knowingly. “He threatens to move out every other day, and yet we’re still stuck with him, so I wouldn’t take him seriously.” He kicked out the chair opposite to Bucky. “Now come sit down, have some coffee, tell us about yourself. What’s your favourite colour, favourite food… favourite movie?” 

Tony looked amused as he settled into the offered seat, grinning wide when Natasha slid a fresh mug of coffee across the table to him. “Uhh. Red, cheeseburgers, and.. Right now, probably Repo Man?” 

“No shit,” Sam drawled, sharing another look with Nat when Tony closed his eyes in delight at the first sip of his coffee. “That’s Buck’s favourite movie too. Won’t shut up about it. Watches it every week.”

“I…” Bucky sent him a murderous glare. “I don’t watch it every week,” he protested in a mutter. “It’s just…”

“Ridiculous, right?” Tony offered, “But also like you can’t look away from it?” 

Bucky grinned at him. “You know, Fox Harris couldn’t drive a car, and the first day of filming he drove into a bridge?” 

Tony’s eyes lit up at this factoid, and then they were sharing weird facts about the movie, and then sci fi movies in general. Neither of them noticed Sam and Nat slipping out of the room, Sam setting some strategic lighting on his way out. The longer they talked the more Tony seemed to loosen up, alternating between leaning back in his chair and then shifting forward again, unconsciously moving into Bucky’s space. He was a mouthy little shit too, once he got going, dry and sarcastic, and pointing triumphantly to accentuate his point. His whole face lit up when he got started on something, and Bucky kind of couldn’t stop staring at him. 

Their coffee was almost gone before Bucky looked up, frowning when he took in the empty kitchen. “Where did Sam and Nat go?” 

Tony blinked, following his gaze, and then they met each other’s eyes, coming to a realization at the same time. 

“Is this…” Tony ducked his head a little, momentarily slipping back into shyness and giving Bucky a soft little smile. Bucky’s heart skipped a beat. “Did they set us up on a coffee date?”

Bucky glanced down at the almost empty mug. “Guess so,” he admitted. “I’m gonna kill them,” he added without any real heat, grinning ruefully.

Tony shrugged. “I don’t know,” he told. He drew in a deep breath, cheeks flushing a little. “As first dates go, it wasn’t so bad. Beat my last one, definitely.” 

“Yeah?” Bucky caught his eye, watched the way Tony swallowed at the heated look he was giving him. Bucky couldn’t stop himself from leaning, curling his hands around Tony’s neck. Tony blinked up at him, eyes wide, and Bucky closed the distance between them, kissing him gently. 

For all his shyness, Tony was a good kisser and though it stayed relatively chaste, there was a soft brush of Tony’s tongue against his lips that sent little shivers of heat up Bucky’s spine. He pulled back, stroking his thumb over the thrum of Tony’s pulse in his neck, and Tony grinned back at him, open and wide and happy. 

“Then how would you feel about getting out of here and having a real date, where those assholes can’t spy on us?”

Tony laughed at that, eyes sparking in delight. “Can we make out a little more?” 

“Absolutely. Whatever you want, sweetheart.” 

“Then what the hell are we waiting for?”

@tonystarkbingo

[winterknight1087]

Flower from the Fae (ch 1)

Chapter Title: Mushrooms Were Not the Plant I Was Looking For

Summary: Virgil likes plants, but when he goes to investigate a plant his friend Remy tells him about, he doesn’t exactly check out the plant. Little does he know that the handsome man he meets there is a fairy who is about to challenge the world Virgil knows.

Word Count: 1647

Chapter Warnings: cursing, poisonous mushrooms (no harm from though), death mention, anxiety attack, sympathetic deceit

Pairings: Eventual Romantic LAMP; Analogical

AO3 Link     My Writing

A/N: Yeah, I’m not sure how this one happened, but writing this story has been fun. I have a couple other chapters in need of editing, so if you like this bit, be prepared for Virgil and Pat’s interaction. 

Bzzt.

[Trenta4Sandman]: So? New trend or stale coffee? [sent at 1642]

Virgil rolled his eyes at the message before responding.

[Anx’sWitch]: you literally told me less than five min ago. I can’t just Apparate like you when you run out of coffee. [sent at 1643]

[Trenta4Sandman]: bitch u aint tryin hard enough then [sent at 1643]

[Anx’sWitch]: y don’t u go flirt w/ ur SO? [sent at 1644]

[HissHissMFs]: plz. I can’t concentrate on my work with u blowing my phone up. [sent at 1645]

The purple-haired man sighed as he pocketed his phone. There were more vibrations, telling him that the conversation was far from over, but he knew it wasn’t anything important. Remy and Dee could go back and forth for hours about nothing. Virgil could always check his phone later and see which he needed to visit later. Right now, he really only cared about finding the plant Remy told him about and seeing if it were something worth his time.

Of course, the hill Remy told him the plant was located on was almost three miles from the center of town. How he even stumbled upon it was beyond Virgil, not that he would bother questioning it either. What Virgil did know was that of his friend group, Remy had the best eye for finding him new and often times endangered plants. So, he struggled out of his house and on this disgusting walk to see whatever plant it was that Remy had seen.

The top of the hill had a giant sequoia tree, tall grass, and mushrooms. Virgil set his bag down under the tree before beginning to look over the plants, reveling in the silence. First, he looked at the mushrooms, duly noting that they appeared to be a poisonous species. Next, he started looking intently at the grass.

“How peculiar. Rare to find someone so intent on staring at grass.” A voice commented.

Terror ran through Virgil, but he pushed it deep down as he turned to look. Oh, great. There goes his poor little gay heart, he supposed. The voice belonged to some other-worldly man. He had well-kept black hair so dark it almost shone a dark blue. The eyes behind rectangular glasses were a brilliant blue that put even Virgil’s prized Black and Blue Sage plants to shame.

Remy is going to lose his shit when he finds out I died because I was too gay. Virgil thought dully.

“I apologize. I appear to have startled you.” The man commented.

“I…uhh…it’s… umm… well…”

The man raised an eyebrow to the gay mess. “Very eloquently put.”

“I… uhh… sorry… anxiety…” and you are too hot to be talking to me.

The man simply nodded. “I apologize again then. Do you require any assistance in lowering your adrenaline levels?”

What. “Ah, no, it’s alright… I’ll get over it.”

The man tilted his head looking over the scene of the poor man’s to-be death scene. “You appear to be searching for something. Might I inquire what you are searching for? I may be of some help in locating it.”

He really is trying to kill me; hot and nice? “Well… uh… a friend told me he… well, you’ll think it’s weird. I mean most people think I’m weird in general so that isn’t saying anything. It’s just not what most people would expect someone like me to be doing with their life, you know? Most people just don’t understand that it works and I enjoy it you know? But I can’t really blame them for thinking it’s weird.”

The man watched as Virgil began to spiral before kneeling and telling him to follow his breathing. He had never had to deal with what the other was undergoing, but he did enjoy research and anxiety was such a common thing among the human population that it was just a useful thing to understand. For that, he was glad as he helped the man control his breathing.

“Now, let’s try this again, without the down-spiral.” He commented to the purple-haired man. “Would you like me to help you find whatever it is you are looking for? If so, what would it be?”

“Well, my friend told me that there was a rare plant up here. Something with purple flowers.” Virgil answered awkwardly. “I’m a botanist who studies plants and from his description of it, it sounds to be an endangered plant.”

The man pursed his lips, thinking. Of course, he knew exactly which plant the human was speaking about, it was only a few feet from his hand. Yet, did he trust this random human not to harm one of the few of its species? Humans usually aren’t interested in plants just for the plants. Yet, this one did not appear to be lying to him. He’d heard of these botanists before, but this was his first meeting with one.

“Pardon this question, as I am not fully aware of what botanists do. What do you plan to do with it, if it is what you think it to be?”

“Oh… umm… well, first I tend to study new plants in their native environment. If it is the one I believe it to be, I would begin a process with the government to bring the specimen back to my greenhouse for conservation efforts where I can control threats, maintain a healthy environment, and breed it with other specimens. Botanists study plants and most attempt to promote their health.”

“So if you find this plant, it’ll be safe?”

“Great, you’re hot, kind, and care for plants,” Virgil muttered, to which the other man decided to pretend he did not hear, though he couldn’t stop the tint to his cheeks. “Yes, I do my best to ensure the safety and survival.”

The man still looked uncertain, and Virgil realized just how much this man seemed to care about the plant they were discussing. He thought before moving over to his bag to pull out his gloves. The man watched, now curious as to what the human was doing as Virgil moved towards a small bunch of mushrooms.

“Here, I can show you what it is I do,” Virgil said, with a fake confidence that he only had in his knowledge.

The other considered this before moving over. He glanced at the mushrooms, knowing exactly what type they were before looking at the human. Virgil nodded as he carefully maneuvered the fungi, double-checking what he had observed earlier.

“There are roughly four kinds of fungi here. These two are an invasive species that appear to be losing the battle for water, so they are less interesting for this partial study. My assumption is that a bird or another animal accidentally transported these here from their normal habitats. They are not remotely endangered, so I am content to let nature do what it will with them. These salmon pink ones are called marasius oreades or the Scotch bonnet. They are relatively safe and edible. These are traditionally arranged in a large circle and are the most commonly associated mushroom with the fairy circle folklore. On the other hand, these ones here are clitocybe rivulosa, or fool’s funnel, which are poisonous due to having deadly levels of muscarine.”

The other man sat there listening as Virgil went on one of his normal plant tangents, finding it easy to do so with the curious but intent look in the other’s eyes. Oh yes, Remy is going to lose it when he finds out later. Virgil found himself talking about the various mushrooms, one plant he really hasn’t been interested in before, while the man beside him began to ask different questions.

Neither was aware of the sun slowly setting until it became a bit too dark. If there’d been more light, the other would have noticed the blush on each cheek, but they pretended not to feel the flames on their faces.

“I apologize for taking so much of your time. I had intended to show you the plant I believe you to be looking for, but I became enthralled in your knowledge.” The man commented.

Stop being a useless gay mess, Virgil! “No, no. I should be the one apologizing. You probably weren’t looking for a long lecture on plants, much less on mushrooms of all things.”

“While I admit that it was not what I had intended on doing today, it was pleasurable listening to your knowledge.” The man paused before deciding on something. “I can tell you that if you come back before sunrise, you will be able to find the plant easily. One of my partners will probably be here as well if you would like to meet him. I am sure he will be thrilled to meet you… uh?”

“Oh… sorry. You can just call me Anx, he/him pronouns. Everyone does.” Virgil answered.

There is no way this human already knows who he was dealing with… was there? “Well, people refer to me as Logic, though my partners call me Lo.”

“Do you have a preference?”

The man looked over the purple-haired man. “You can call me Lo if you wish.”

“And do you have pronoun preferences? I forgot to ask earlier.”

“I am not particular. He/him work well enough.”

“Well, Lo. It was a pleasure to meet you.” Virgil said, with a small smile.

“Pleasure to meet your acquaintance as well, Anx.”

Virgil went to pick up his bag and turned back to ask if Lo wanted to walk back to town with him. Yet, the man was gone, without a sound to announce his departure. That took Virgil aback, but he did basically say goodbye, so maybe the other took it as his queue to leave. Oh well. Virgil pulled out his phone and saw that he had over two hundred messages, meaning Remy and Dee had really gotten into their fight.

Next Chapter

[arkus-rhapsode]

My Hero Academia Chapter 217 Review

So, it’s been a while since I did a review of this, eh? Yah, sorry. And next week is a hiatus so, lets dive in

We open up on Bakugou and Deku fighting, well more training. As Bakugou is trying to force the Black Whip to activate. All Might has to tell Bakugou that this is about testing Deku and making sure he doesn’t release the Black Whip unintentionally.

We get a flashback revealing that now that Bakugou is in on the One for All secret, he now gets to be meeting with Deku and All Might. I can’t help but imagine Bakugou being at least a little giddy on the inside considering he now gets to hang out with his favorite hero. Though he’s spending it with Deku so maybe it balances out.

Anyway, we get confirmation here that All Might did not know of these multiple quirks and likely Nana didn’t either. So this makes Deku the first of all the users to complete one for all.

Also, we see Bakugou’s addition this duo’s dynamic, he is master of cutting straight to the point. Already, asking questions to move the conversation forward. And when Deku suggests that this was possibly was caused through external means, Bakugou is the one who suggests that this was thanks to All for One.

Bakugou compares the quirks of All for One and One for All, as well as being the one who puts forward the fact that the quirk of One for All originated from All for One.

We cut back to the present where Bakugou’s trying to force out the black whip, but All Might needs to reel him back a little. Deku says that the quirk will only activate when with his feelings. My guess is from what the Hell Boy looking guy said, the feeling Deku needs to have to awaken Black Whip isn’t danger, but rather, feeling of grabbing or catching something or something. So maybe we should get Iida and start a chase or something?

Okay, make up your mind already Hori! Look I appreciate that Horikoshi had seemed to make it out as Deku needed to master the percentage portion of All for One to withstand the physical taxation of quirks like Black Whip. But now it seems like its implying that Deku should start figuring out how to unlock it instead of waiting till the fiiture like he had said 2 weeks ago.

I guess what this could be implying is that Deku should learn what “feeling” activates his other quirk, but he shouldn’t use it until he’s mastered the strength portion of the quirk. Now that would be fine if that were the case. Its also a possibility that this is a transnational issue and I might just be misinterpreting it.

Also, Deku is a little hung up on the comparison to All for One. And likely the fact if this was caused by him, its very likely All for One might be able to do other things to his body.

We cut away to the best part of the chapter.

All of class 1-a and class 1-b hanging out and enjoying dinner together.

We see Kirishima and Tetsutetsu discussing quirks, and it highlights what I said about them during the team Todoroki vs team Honenuki fight. That Tetsutetsu and Kirishima, while almost a joke on how similar they are, are fundamentally different people. As Kirishima suffers from a lack of confidence while Tetsutetsu suffers from overconfidence. I know its pretty much a foot note in the grand scheme of things, but I do appreciate that Hori does go the extra mile with these characters when he could’ve just made it the simple joke of, “their the same person basically.”

Also, Tetsutetsu brings up that while he can become iron, its only so hard. But Kirishima, he can keep hardening. I bet in his unbreakable mode, Kirishima is so much harder than Tetsutetsu that he could potentially crack his iron. But as iron, Tetsutetsu doesn’t have to worry about fire or other extreme weather cause his skin is metal. Kirishima will have to worry though, as while he is hard, he’s still made of flesh which can burn or freeze.

Also we have Momo and Kendou catching up with eachother. Then, my personal favorite, Tokoyami getting asked by Komori if he has photos of Hawks from off duty.

And yes, Mineta is locked in a clockwork orange chair. Actually that’s kinda brilliant.

I wish we could do more, but we gotta get to plot.

Wow... Now that Todoroki mentions how when they fought during the sports fest, Deku told him to come at him with everything he had and yet Deku wasn’t truly giving everything he had. Now to be fair, as Deku tries to say, this power just started to manifest, so its not like that was intentional. But you get what I mean here, that really awesome moment has been a bit cheapened in hindsight.

Well, I’m still glad someone is trying to press Deku about the two quirk thing cause last week everyon kinda dropped it. Though Todoroki now is dropping it so...

Well that all aside, Todoroki has actually texted back endeavor. Though its mainly to learn about the flashfire, but hey, baby steps.

Oh you just know Endeavor has been checking his phone every other goddamn minute.

We cut to the UA teachers meeting and they pretty much are done discussing where Shindou will be going.

We see Mic finally say what the fandom has kinda been saying for a while now, Aizawa sees some of himself in Shinsou. Which... Yeah, a super powerful quirk that could be totally used for evil, but you still have something on the inside that makes want to do good. Also, you’re really both pretty surly.

But Mic also asks if SHinsou reminds him of Shirakumo, likely the flame haired guy in Aizawa’s flashback last chapter. And can I take a minute to say I love how Hori likes to foreshadow new character? Because he often doesn’t just drop them in as an individual, but he tends to show them with characters that have already established. Like when Gentle was going through famous villains he mention All for One and Stain, but then mentioned two other guys who will potentially be related to other obstacles. Or like with Overhaul’s gang who first appear during a Twice focused chapter.

Anyway, we cut to Eri who is naturally a little scared of Monoma.

So Monoma was brought here to copy Eri’s quirk, but considering his... everything (I love that line) It might be best that Mirio and Deku be here to.

Monoma explains that he can’t use quirks that accumulates power through converting it, then its basically a dud. Same with Eri here.

Mirio asks why then was Monoma even brought here.

Aizawa says that having Monoma copy it would’ve helped Eri with control and here we go again. Adorable Eri moments.

I wanna take this moment to say Eri’s however, don’t feel like a cheap gimmick to pull at the audience’s heartstrings like other daughteru characters. She actually lived a life of physical and psychological torment and is still haunted it by it. Its not like we have one arc, boom, your cured from depression and can now exist just to do cute shit. So while Eri let go of Overhaul’s psychological grasps, she is still likely holding a lot of self loathing for her powers and what its done to people. So I wanna say that Eri is a great example of the cute young child character with a tragic backstory to make the audience care about protecting her, because she actually really needs it.

I know, kinda a wierd tangent, but with some recent shit in other series, some child characters just seem to exist to be cute after their “tragic” backstory and it bugs me.

And our chapter ends, with Deku giving a vote of confidence that she will one day control her powers and he to vows he’ll do the same.

Post Chapter Follow Up: This chapter was great. Last week I had some issues, mainly because this recent arc kinda has the same problem as the Overhaul arc. Namely, it starts off really strong, has a contender for one of the greatest moments in the series, then a twist out of left field happens and the entire few chapters become a total cluster fuck. Which while last week, we were all happy for Shinsou and Uraraka, but how that arc concluded was still a bit of a disappointment when you saw how it was going before.

This chapter however, was a perfect little epilogue.

Positives are all of the character work from Todoroki and Endeavor, to Deku and All Might’s dynamic shift with the introduction of Bakugou, to Eri and Deku etc. I also wanna say this chapter is full of content, yet it is paced wonderfully.

Nothing feels too long, nothing feels too short. It also manages to start setting some stuff for the future. But nothing so obvious that its like, “This is what the next arc will be about!” no this was a self contained little chapter and I really enjoyed that.

I have no negatives for this chapter. Any that I could think of, I might blame that on more just what came before this chapter, but its nothing that it could fix or change right now.

Final Verdict: 10/10

While I have issues with the last third of the joint exercise arc, this chapter on its own is still a great epilogue to it

Great bits of character

Great bits of development

Hints of foreshadowing

Just all around good

[arofili]

Fornication and Relationships among the Eldar

[FaRE]: A Meta Analysis of LaCE

AO3 version of this can be found HERE!

I've been wanting to write this since like. 2016. and i finally got around to it thanks to the B2MeM prompt for "The universality of Laws and Customs among the Eldar" (O73) on the Silm Fanon Inversion card & @absynthe--minded‘s encouragement! thanks y'all!

Disclaimer right at the top: I may have gotten a few details here and there wrong. Blame fanon for that - this is as much an exploration of the fanon around LaCE as it is the actual document Tolkien wrote.

This meta can be shortened to "FaRE," mirroring the acronym "LaCE," but my roommate @berbss suggested the alternate title "Flaws and Customs among the Eldar" which is VERY funny and I needed to mention it.

CWs: lots of cursing, frank discussions of sex and sexuality, brief mention of rape, frequent insults to JRRT, obstinate queerness on the part of OP

Okay, so LaCE can be fun for plot reasons, and I want to preface this by saying that everyone's interpretations of this document are valid and I don't mean to shit on your headcanons, but let's be real! The whole idea that sex=marriage for elves is some real Catholic bullshit and Tolkien should be ashamed of himself.

The thing about LaCE, for me, isn't just "that's stupid and I want to write about elves that fuck" (though that is also true and valid). LaCE is is buckwild in a lot of ways, and doesn't make a whole lot of sense historically or culturally.

First of all, this is a Law and/or Custom of the Eldar. Who set down that law? When? Why? If it's a custom, does that mean it's not hard and fast for everyone? And it says /right there/ that it's a law/custom of the ELDAR, which leaves out the Avari entirely.

After all, another part of this law/custom is that marriage includes vows before Manwë, Varda, and Eru, none of whom are holy to the Avari. But the Avari are still elves; does that make them heathens in Tolkien's eyes? I mean, yes, definitely, but still! The Avari have no reason to follow this particular custom and were probably doing whatever the hell they wanted with their bodies and relationships.

But back to the Eldar. This rule stinks of the Valar to me. Eru was never that direct about what he wanted, and the Valar messed up all the time, especially when it came to elves. The Ainur don't need to procreate, after all, so why would they understand sex? Defining it in ways that they could divide into "right" and "wrong" is very much in character for them. And if it's a rule set down by the Valar and followed obediently by the Calaquendi...that raises a whole lot of questions about the Exiles.

Sure, maybe they followed that rule in Valinor, and the elves who live there might still follow it as well. If this law includes the "only one spouse" rules, we have good evidence that Finwë and his generation, at the least, were subject to it. But Fëanor and the other Noldorin Exiles forsook the Valar by returning to Middle-earth. Why would they keep this law if they are abandoning so many others?

Fëanor hated Indis, though, and might have wanted to cling to this law because of that. Or maybe not, and whatever he thought about marriage laws, his kin blamed the Valar for most of their troubles and this is another way to defy them. If you're partial to Russingon, Maedhros was already up to some illicit shit, and you can't tell me that ALL the Fëanorians were celibate in Beleriand. Like, c'mon, you know that Celegorm got some. (Or maybe not, your headcanons are VALID!)

The Arafinwëans and Nolofinwëans are direct results of a second marriage and the ~bending~ of marriage laws, if not their breaking. I wouldn't be surprised if they were willing to overlook this... though maybe Galadriel, at least, stuck to the rule and passed it onto her subjects in Lothlórien later. (Or not...this one's for you, Galadriel/Melian shippers. Also, tangent: do you really think MELIAN really stuck to this law? Come on, she married an elf! She doesn't give two shits about the Valar and their laws about Ainur not having kids or whatever the fuck!)

We've established that the Vanyar and the other Valinorian elves were all about this law, questioned whether the Noldorin exiles would stick to it, and determined that the Avari had no reason to ever start following this custom. But what about the Silvan and Sindar elves who started the journey to Valinor, but never finished?

We know elves had familial relationships in Cuiviénen; Elwë and Olwë were brothers, for some reason. But the first elves just kind of...HAPPENED. Did this first generation of elves just not know to procreate until the Valar set down laws for them? Sounds fake. Maybe Elwë and Olwë weren't first generation, but literal blood brothers, and just happened to be among the most important leaders later. Or not, who really knows.

Elves had to figure this shit out on their own before Oromë stumbled across them. Maybe the Eldar adopted the laws along the way, having sex and children along their long journey to Valinor. In that case, the Silvan and Sindar elves didn't have much of a reason to stop following the custom, because they never outright rebelled, just kind of drifted away. To me, this seems like the most plausible reason that the law endured.

But over the Ages and Ages of time separated from the beings who set down the law, I can't believe that no one questioned it. What happens if elves have sex but don't want to be married? What happens if they have sex and do want to be married, but don't say the vows? Does it not count, then? Maybe not in the eyes of the Valar, but how fussed are the Silvan and the Sindar about conforming to the Valar's every whim? ESPECIALLY the Silvan, who never saw the Valar's power firsthand in the War of Wrath.

And what about the Sindar elves who followed Oropher to Eryn Galen? If the Silvan elves there had long since abandoned the tradition, would this custom get lost in Mirkwood when Oropher's people assimilated (mostly) into Silvan culture?

And this is all assuming the custom developed while on the journey to Valinor! If it didn't get set down until they arrived in Aman, only the Calaquendi ever followed this practice. How, then, would the rest of the elves learn of it? Noldorin colonialism? (Looking at you, Galadriel.) Or would they not even bother with it, whatever they think of the Valar in general?

I've written a lot already, but you know what? Let's go deeper.

What about elvish interactions with other species? There are canon elf-mortal relationships, but you can't tell me that the ONLY elf-fuckers were Tuor, Beren, and Aragorn. Sure, maybe we only KNOW about the high and mighty elf princesses and their scandalous affairs, but the Noldor were more than their princes. There were normal people there, too! Fantasy Classism dictates that only the famous relationships got written down, with whispers of others like Aegnor/Andreth and Mithrellas/Imrazôr, but come on. There were more that happened, and more peredhel than just Elrond and his family. And y'all know I'm a slut for elf/dwarf relationships! Tauriel/Kíli may be a PJ Original but like this is NOT a new idea...it's got to have happened, right?

How do these interspecies marriages work? Mortals can fuck an elf and not be married. Would the elf be married to them, but not the other way around? (I know I've seen a Gigolas post about that...) That doesn't sound legit. This whole idea is full of holes.

Besides, who says the Valar kept this law? Aside from cultural drift, it's such a normative way of looking at relationships. I'd like to think the Valar can learn and grow, especially given the disastrous rebellion of Fëanor. Let's talk polyamory for a bit: so many problems could have been solved if Finwë/Míriel/Indis could have been allowed! With the Finwëan fiasco, you think the Valar would reassess what they did wrong there!

What counts as "sex" for the purposes of sex being the same thing as marriage? Just PIV? There's a lot of sexual acts outside of that narrow definition. Is penetration the key? Because there's ways around that. Or is it orgasm? Because that doesn't necessarily require another person. If it is just PIV, I guess that would make gay elves unable to marry, but like... come on! That's some real bullshit, even for Tolkien!

What about asexual elves? Sex-repulsed elves? I've seen people claim that all Tolkien elves are demisexual, which...I have issues with, but there definitely elves with complicated relationships to sex! Are sexless marriages not valid? Even if they include vows? Consummation laws are not great, y'all...

And what about aromantic elves? Elves who have nonromantic sexual relations? Is that unholy and evil? I know Tolkien wanted his Favorite Special Perfect Species to not have any lust or sexual sin, but this is just unrealistic. Besides, Tolkien wrote flawed and fallen heroes all the time, just look at Túrin and Maedhros and Fëanor! Even IF LaCE was meant to be taken as literally as we sometimes take it, his own world and characters break his rules frequently.

What about nonromantic and nonsexual relationships? Those get brushed over a lot irl, but Tolkien's works are full of them. Just look at Frodo & Sam, probably what he intended Maedhros & Fingon to be, Legolas & Gimli, etc... Some of those people will want their relationship formalized, maybe through calling it marriage. Does that not count? Is Tolkien really going to say that these relationships he writes, often at the core of his stories, are suddenly lesser?

I can tell this is just veering into my politics around relationships in general, so let's get back on track:

The important part of this whole custom should be the love and intent behind the vows, not the act of sex. Elves can get married if they're on the run, if need be, so it's not the actual ceremony that they value. What the people involved want should be enough to make it formal in the eyes of each other and of the Valar, if that's something they care about.

When it comes down to it, sex equaling marriage is a custom and/or a law, like it says in the title of LaCE. It's not an inherently biological trait...which makes the whole thing about how elves can "see" if someone has gotten married SUPER weird. Maybe what they can really see is the marriage-bond, visible through some funky kind of magic - I could buy that, and I've played with the idea in fic before.

But I maintain that sex CANNOT equal marriage, even by Tolkien's standards. Rape is clearly not marriage, as we see in the case of Celebrían. Elvish marriage has intent and ritual behind it, certainly; that is what makes it a custom. To me, this whole idea feels like a mistranslation or misconception that occurred when mortal scholars tried to understand elvish customs.

At least, that's the in-universe explanation. The out-of-universe explanation is just that Tolkien is a fucking coward.

[dani-luminae]

⭐

YAY A STAR

There’s a few pieces I would like to talk about, so if you’ll indulge me in more than a couple tangents below the cut.

From “Blue Fire”:

The Cerberus animatronic was moving again. And this time, it was fully moving. All three heads, all four legs, and one tail. The metal joints still creaked and moaned with every movement, but the dog rose to its four feet, its three heads swiveling. What remained of it's latex noses sniffed the air like a predator scenting prey. Its movements were far too fluid and smooth to be the work of decade-old mechanics suddenly working again. It moved lightly on its metal feet. It had very, very long claws.

Then the Cerberus snapped all three of its heads in Haley's direction. Its six glowing red eyes focused on her, and she was instantly certain of two things: one, that some mystical power had brought the animatronic to life; and two, that whoever or whatever had brought the animatronic to life, it wanted her dead.

There was a shrill, grating noise like growling. A cacophony of clanking and creaking and sputtering was audible as the ruined animatronic, the three-headed dog, entered the garden, skulking out of the shadows and prowling around the far edge of the reflection pond. The Cerberus still looked as ghastly and horrible as ever, with chunks of fur missing, grimy metal joints, and six glowing red eyes - but now its three mouths were each full of massive, brand-new razor sharp teeth. Haley took one glance at it. "You brought that to life, didn't you? You sent it after me to hurt me," she accused, turning back to Nemesis. The Cerberus stopped at the end of the bridge over the pool, blocking Haley's easiest escape route.

"Of course I did." Nemesis sounded bored and a little impatient.

--

Alright so. For context, “Blue Fire” is a Descendants/Sky High crossover. My OC, Haley, is a daughter of Hades, who has no idea of her parentage and studies at Sky High to be a hero. These two scenes above take place in two different chapters. While exploring Phaedra’s Park, an abandoned theme park, Haley comes across a destroyed animatronic of Cerberus, the three-headed guard dog of the Underworld. Said animatronic is brought to life to chase Haley with the intention of killing her (because Nemesis wants Haley dead.) I found a bit of cruel irony in Nemesis using an image of Cerberus to chase down and try to kill Haley, Princess of the Underworld herself. And given that other lines of conversation in this fight are what forces Haley to confront her suspicions of her origins, this irony is all the more cruel.

-- -- -- -- --

From “Rewrite the Stars”:

Lia ignored Harry's remark, but she saw the way that Ben's eyes flickered in Harry's direction with a bit of wariness. Immediately, Lia felt immensely guilty for all the trouble she felt she'd caused him. "I should have told you, and I'm sorry," Lia said to Ben, looking into his hazel eyes, trying to convince him of the sincerity of the words. "You have every reason to be angry at me, Ben."

"Damn right I do!" Ben exclaimed, making Lia jump slightly. "Do you have any idea how it felt to be told that you and Uma had run off to the Isle?"

[...] He turned back to Lia, "I thought... I thought..."

Lia looked into Ben's eyes and she saw his fear and his anger. She guessed at what he had been thinking. "You thought that Mal was right. That I meant trouble for Auradon. That I was a traitor."

"No," Ben replied, and there was something different in his voice. He sounded like a hurt child. "I thought you were leaving me, like Mal did."

--

Now, I have talked about this again and again, but I hated Mal and Ben’s relationship in D2 (and it wasn’t any better in D3, but I digress.) Ben’s feelings about everything are never addressed as anything but in the wrong, and that just didn’t sit well with me at all. The boy just had the love of his life run away and he blames himself and the narrative... paints it as his fault. No. No thank you. For that reason, it was especially important to me to establish that when a misunderstanding causes something like a repeat of the situation for Ben and Lia, there is actual, thoughtful understanding on both parts. Lia doesn’t invalidate Ben’s feelings, she accepts them and helps to calm him down rather than just turning him away with a harsh little “you’re wrong, now leave me alone” rather like Mal did in D2. And when Ben concedes that he may have overreacted, Lia doesn’t hold it against him.

-- -- -- -- --

From “Heroes and Villains”:

The beam of magic reached Royal, but it didn't strike her. It hit [...] her father's golden ring with the crest of Auradon. The beam of light bounced, reflected, off of the golden ring. The necklace chain broke, the ring fell, and Royal instantly reached out to grab it. She felt her fingers close around the golden band, as if for the first time. The beam of light flew back the way it came [...]

Wary, Royal slipped her father's ring onto her hand [...]

“I didn't save Auradon. Mom's spell hit your ring and bounced back at her." She held up her hand, and [he] saw the ring, the golden ring with the crest of Auradon - the ring that had once been his - on Royal's hand. It looked like it belonged there. Because it did belong there.

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All the talk and mention about Royal’s father’s ring is no coincidence. Even from the beginning, when she first gets it, it’s a symbol of her father’s presence in her life. From being inspired by the family motto on it to piecing together her father’s true identity, it’s her link to him. In Auradon, it becomes a physical symbol of her secret. And in the fight with Maleficent, it’s the crucial weapon, in a way - Maleficent destroys Royal’s council medal, but she can’t destroy the ring. It’s after this that Royal truly wears the ring for the first time, and it fits her perfectly. The ring, and Royal’s treatment of it, are indicative of her acceptance of her family and her secret. It goes from being kept in the pocket of her jacket on the island, to being hung on a chain around her neck in Auradon, to being worn on her hand after her secret is exposed. 

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Thank you for the ask, and congratulations if you made it this far and read everything. Even more congrats if you actually understood any of my rambling whatsoever!

[darkpoisonouslove]

GriffinxCodatorta (I've seen fanart of them before and got curious on your opinions) FaragondaxSaladin GriffinxValtor (even though I'm sure I know) (:

1. Griffin x Codatorta - ????? I have seen that as an idea, too but just… ????? That’s my brain’s reaction. XD I just don’t know how to react to it. Now a big part of that might be because [SPOILERS] Griffin x Valtor is my OTP. But I ship Griffin well enough with other characters so… I guess it’s not that. I wish we knew more about Codatorta so I could make up my mind. But I guess I’ll just have to work with no info at all… again… always! Anyway…

So from what we’ve seen (which is nothing, but I digress) Codatorta doesn’t seem to have a problem with dark magic which I feel is an important thing to consider. Although there was that sort of argument in the first season in the 4kids dub where he might have leaned towards the idea that Griffin knew the Trix were descendants of the Ancestral Witches and let them into Cloud Tower even despite the fact that that was forbidden. … Aaaaand shit, now I’m getting a story idea instead of analyzing.

Okay, real quick (it won’t be) going on a tangent here. That could be a starting point for a relationship between them. He realizes his mistake of even thinking that when he sees how much the whole thing with the Trix affected her and how guilty she felt and he goes out of his way to apologize to her. He says that his opinion got influenced by all those horrible things the Council is trying to blame on her (I’m going off of strictly what you told me about that because I still haven’t read the comics myself) and he’s sorry. And he wants to get to know her better since they’re colleagues and he doesn’t want to make the mistake of misjudging her again. And one thing leads to another and boom, you have a relationship! (Well, that wasn’t so long)

Back to analyzing. Again, we don’t know much about Codatorta and from what I’ve seen the writers couldn’t make up their mind about him either. On the one hand, you have that time when he defeated Saladin at that board game (and Saladin is supposed to be the “wise” one though I feel like the writers kinda forgot that at times, too, but I’m rambling again). And on the other, you have the fight against Kerborg where he was being obstinate and ridiculous by insisting he could handle Kerborg on his own when that obviously wasn’t the case. So I don’t know what to think about it tbh. I feel like he could be a good partner for her to play chess with and maybe someone she can discuss strategies with (though I feel like Faragonda is better suited for that) but we should probably leave it at that.

This got so out of control that it requires a cut. Join me below for even more thoughts:

2. Faragonda and Saladin - you managed to give me the two ships that I’m completely clueless as to how I feel about! XD Guess we’ll figure that out together! Bettter strap in cause it’s story time!

So I was completely shooketh when I read (on Wiki) that Saladin dated both Griffin and Faragonda. And that doesn’t make any sense because I knew that. And I remembered it (not like with Daphne’s existence which I had completely forgotten about tbh). But just… ?!?!?!?!?! My only reaction to that info is… I can’t unsee it. And I know I had an idea about that a few years back but it went down the drain since I wrote down exactly five sentences about it and everything else just got away from me. Which I’m totally okay with btw because it made no sense at all and my portrayal of Faragonda was… inaccurate to say the least (meaning terrible and completely OOC). Spoilers, he ended up with Griffin in that idea but now I’m just ????????? How? What do you mean? That he dated them both?!?!? WHAT?!?!?! So my brain can’t really comprehend that. Like, at all. So bear that in mind for the rest of this.

Now I feel like the different dubs disagree on what exactly happened (whether he was two-timing them or not) and I’m going with what I feel happened. I can’t really see him two-timing them so I think he first dated one (Griffin) and then the other (Faragonda)… which is still so weird considering the relationship they have in the present but whatever. Now I have some headcanons about what exactly happened there but it comes up in one of my fics and so I’m not going to spoil it.

Anyway, on the topic of the ship itself *sigh* I’m still not any closer to figuring out how I feel about it. I feel like they’re good just being friends and WHY DID THE WRITERS HAVE TO BRING THAT UP?! You know, I don’t really see it. (That whole block of text for me to reach that conclusion. Amazing!)

I feel like Saladin isn’t characterized at all for me to be able to draw conclusions about his relationships with anyone really. I have to make up an entire personality for him in order to get invested in his relationships with other characters. And I feel like that’s exactly the problem when it comes to why I’m so detached from him. Like, Griffin and Faragonda have a history together, they have banter and they play off of each other. And even if we didn’t see a lot of their dynamic, we still saw enough in order to be able to draw conclusions about it. We saw them actually react to one another and express opinions about each other and even do convergence (which, I have to admit, is one of my favorite things on the show as it speaks volumes about their friendship). And Saladin is sort of the third wheel in that friendship. There was some mild involvement on his part in season 1 where he apparently acted as a buffer between the two since they weren’t speaking to each other but even then it was just too little to actually tell you anything about his relationship with either one of them. I, personally, like to imagine that he is protective of both of them and cares equally about them and tried to subtly nudge them towards each other (hence why he’d seated them together at that celebration) so that they would finally make up (whatever happened between them because nobody tells you shit about that). Please excuse my rambling but I just had feelings about this so I hope you’ll indulge me on this one and overlook the fact that I veered completely off-topic.

3. Griffin x Valtor - now we’re talking! YES! That’s my ship! It’s my OTP! I will go down with it!

Just like you said, there’s a lot of story there and also a lot of conflict and those are my two favorite things to work with when it comes to writing relationships. So how deep do you want me to go because I’m prepared to take a dive! XD Let’s just start and I’ll stop when I get tired of typing.

So I have a lot of feelings about this so what should we start with? Let’s go with magic because I feel like that was the beginning for them.

They were obviously brought together by magic since they were partners first in that but while the show stops there, I have no such intentions. Since they were partners, I am guessing they did convergence (and it was suggested by the show the way they were drawn in that flashback in 3x10), but not only that. I think they went deeper than that to the point where their magic was so entangled that they had to relearn to do magic on their own after their separation. And that kind of bond can only be accomplished with great trust between them which already resonates in how devastating the fallout was. I feel like Valtor felt betrayed on all levels because she didn’t only leave him as a partner whose magic she knew as well as her own but as a lover whose soul she knew as well as her own. And that means rejection. She saw his darkest parts and left him because of that. And Valtor is totally not one to deal well with rejection. But I feel like the arrogance and anger only cover up how much she actually hurt him. Add on top of that Griffin fighting against him and possibly doing convergence with Faragonda and he’s ready to murder them both out of pure rage and jealousy. Why should Faragonda accept Griffin’s darkness, the darkness he knows is there since he’s seen her soul when Griffin didn’t accept his?

I feel like this also plays in his other insecurities. He was created by the Ancestral Witches to be a monster. He was never given the chance to be anything else. He was supposed to be the most powerful monster that would bring his mothers victory. And when it looked like someone was finally willing to give him the chance to be something else, to love and to be loved, she took back the hand she offered him, confirming that he was a demon undeserving of love and that only pushed him further into the mindset of gaining power and causing destruction. If it is a monster she can’t handle, then a monster he’ll give her.

And then we have Griffin’s PoV on things which is where it gets even more complicated. The choices in that relationship were only hers. Valtor had made his choices a long time ago. He only wanted power and her (which might seem like two things, but the way things were, it was really one thing with two faces. His power drew Griffin to him and she helped him gain more power so the two were inseparable in his mind). I don’t really know where I’m going with this so, please, bear with me! XD I feel like there was this judgment from Griffin towards herself because she was the one to find fault in their relationship. Valtor had settled for what they had, he wanted her which is more than she could have hoped for knowing him. Yet, she is the one that sees an issue, she is the one that is sinking their ship (I couldn’t resist!). And so there’s that additional guilt that she can’t shake off because she was forced to make the hard call. She feels bad enough for betraying him but she knows that was necessary. The universe wouldn’t have survived otherwise. But there was also the guilt of betraying her own heart and, going even further back, of allowing herself to fall in love with him. And yet, she can’t make herself regret that or stop loving him which just brings about more guilt and it’s a never-ending vicious circle. And Faragonda’s understanding and acceptance really doesn’t help (it does help knowing she has support but it only makes her feel worse for choosing to go against him. She abandoned him. How can she accept unconditional support when she wasn’t ready to give it?)

Then we have those seventeen years that are just loaded with quiet, insidious angst that hides deep down. Just imagine Griffin catching herself yearning to see his face again and then her brain turns on and she remembers that he would probably kill her slowly and painfully if he ever escaped from Omega. Or she gets lost into a what-if scenario and then just wants to die because it will hurt less than what she’s doing to herself. And the worst part is she can’t really tell any of that to Ediltrude and Zarathustra. She’s scared of disappointing them. And she’s scared of not disappointing them enough. And again, Faragonda’s acceptance helps as much as it frustrates her because she shouldn’t be having these thoughts. He hates her. He will destroy her. And the entire universe. Why is she still in love with him? (Sidenote: I feel like crying now.)

And on Valtor’s end… Oh, I’m so mad that Valtor’s side of the story wasn’t discussed on the show at all. Not even in regards to Griffin’s betrayal. I just wanted some acknowledgement of what he went through. He was frozen in a fucking block of ice for seventeen years while completely conscious, not to mention full of rage and hatred and desire for vengeance. Like, that shit is traumatic no matter who you are. And add into that that his element is the Dragon Fire. They should’ve said something about that but all we got was a throwaway line that just brushed it off because he’s a villain and, for god’s sake, how can you even think of sympathizing with him?! He’s EVIL, dammit! EVIL, I TELL YOU! And what also gets me is that no after effects were shown either. Like, he hasn’t moved for seventeen damn years! His muscles should be atrophied and moving should hurt like hell until he gets reaccustomed to the feeling. But nope! We don’t get any of that because he might just become sympathetic and likable.

And one last thing before I end this since it got out of control like two hours ago. I got a review on one of my fics saying that Valtor locking Griffin up in a cell wasn’t a good enough revenge which I’ve had thoughts on and now seems like a good moment to share since this ask derailed a long time ago and the point is lost somewhere in the blocks of text where no one will find it so what the hell, let’s just throw some more text on top, right? XD

Now as my first point, it’s a cartoon. They couldn’t really do much more than that. They can’t have him kill her or torture her and any more personalized revenge would’ve required more insight when it came to their backstory so that was out of the question! (can you feel the angry?!) But when you actually think about it, I do think that it made sense. She ran away and betrayed him because she wanted to protect the universe and that led to him being imprisoned. So imprisoning her is getting back at her directly but it’s also a kind of torture on its own. She is trapped and can’t do anything to help anyone which was exactly the reason why she betrayed him. In addition, he left her the only one in Cloud Tower not wearing his mark which was very deliberate. If he was doing all of that just for the power of the Cloud Tower residents so that he could use them as minions, it made sense to put her under his control, too, since she’s the headmistress and, therefore, the most powerful person there. But he didn’t. He left her in control of her own thoughts and actions, and conscious so that she could feel the horror of his revenge, knowing that she can’t even help those she was supposed to protect and guide. Hell, she can’t even protect herself. And that was the only reason he even took over Cloud Tower. After Griffin was rescued by Winx, he just got up and left, releasing the witches from his control since, if you really look at it well, he didn’t really need them for his plans. Only for his revenge against Griffin. So that was actually a good example of great but too subtle writing that the show pulls off plenty of times. And then you have the disastrous writing from my previous point. I don’t wanna be salty, but why is the writing so inconsistent?!

I’m just gonna leave it off here because my brain will stop working and I think this got long enough already. So yeah, in conclusion, I have a lot of feelings on the matter.