#that could literally all have been avoided if a single person involved said the right thing at the right time

[mumblesplash]

still fully cannot comprehend haters of fictional misunderstandings. i love that shit so much it makes me look stupid. i will read fics about tropes i can’t stand in fandoms i’ve never even heard of just to see some guys with the combined emotional intelligence of a rock fuck up a conversation so bad they wish they were dead

[growinguparo]

Thinking once again about the intersection of being aro / perpetually single and the Housing Issue. It is without a doubt the biggest issue I face as an aro person, particularly in fucking Canada.

In my province we have rent control on almost all rental units by default. Annual rent increases are capped at 2.5%, and though I have had landlords in the past try to break that law, they back down when you say "that's literally not legal lmao try again".

In my province we also have a type of lease called a group lease, where multiple people sign on as a group. This is the standard type of lease used in properties with more than one bedroom.

If one person wishes to remove themself from a group lease, that terminates the lease for all of the other tenants in the group. Therefore, in order to continue living in the unit they are already in and may have been in for years, the landlord can choose to force the remaining tenants to reapply, and upon signing a "new lease" they can increase the rent by however much they want. Forget 2.5%, they could double rent with no consequences and still get tenants because that's how desperate people are in Canada.

Seeing as that's fucking insane, I talked to multiple lawyers about it the last time this happened to me, and they all said yeah no, if someone wants to be removed from the lease then the landlord can choose to deny a takeover and force a new lease. You can prevent the issues that come with a new lease if everyone remains on the old lease even if they no longer live there, but that is rather precarious for everyone involved and also makes your landlord hate your guts.

Anytime a new lease is signed, landlords can increase by whatever they want, so renovictions are very common (I've been renovicted as well). With all these easy-to-access loopholes, "rent control" is a joke.

It is New Year's Day and I have received yet another email informing me that since one of my roommates decided to leave at the end of the lease period, our lease will be terminating and showings will begin next week. If any one of us wants to stay, we have to reapply at market rates with a replacement person already in the group ready to sign a new lease, or we have to all remain on the old lease.

I left my parents' home in 2016, and since then I have moved 15-17 times, depending what you count as a move, and lived in 12-13 different places. That's due to a bunch of forced circumstances, including co-op placements and illegal evictions, but many of those moves were because the roommates I was living with decided to move on with their lives, and I had no choice but to move as well.

When I tell people I've moved 15 times in 7 years, they are always shocked. I'm like, how have you NOT though? Having had this conversation many times, I start to ponder what makes me vulnerable to this type of exploitation, and what makes my friends able to avoid some of it.

#1. As a low-income disabled person, I am unable to afford "market rates". This means I'm always tryna get units that are below market rate, and those landlords are invariably very interested in removing their tenants to bring their busted-ass units up to market rate.

#2. I am SINGLE bro. No one is planning their life around living with me. Every time a roommate leaves, I get forced out too. I did have a long-term roommate for a couple years who bounced around 4 places with me, but eventually she moved city - as is her right - and I was forced out again.

Couples also have more options when it comes to affordable housing, particularly if they are willing to share a room. Sharing a room cuts your rent in half. It’s pretty rare to see just one person living in a 1bed because it’s just ludicrously expensive, but for couples it’s a decent option. During the searching stage as well, if you already have someone to live with it’s a lot easier to find places than if you also have to find new roommates (this part is especially brutal for me as a trans person). It is certainly still difficult for couples in the market, I know couples who have ended up homeless as well, but being alone makes you more vulnerable.

The housing crisis is a broad issue affecting literally everyone, but single people are one of the groups that is systematically disadvantaged, making it a significant issue for aros imo. It is the combination of being single and low-income that has made me so vulnerable to housing instability.

Edited with minor corrections

[not-goldy]

Whoever says jimin got scammed is stupid because he didn't get scammed or anything. He lent Money to someone he knows, he made sure to have done all the documenting process in case it'll be needed. And since he has written it on papers he can right now file a case against the guy and demand his money the next day if he wants. He lent money and what the other person does with his money is their choice it has nothing to do with jm. He donates 100M won every few months so it ain't a big deal for him, he might have not even expected the guy to return, he himself said it return it in 10 years lol. He doesn't expect much from the guy. The guy might have said he needs money for medical treatment for xyz so like who would not want to lend money if you have? Literally every celebrity gets taken advantage of because they're rich and famous it ain't a big deal that everyone is making out to be calling him naive and all. He's got more brain than all of you combined so let's not give advice to HIM who's surviving in that industry for a decade. He knows better than to you all.

Jimin didn't get scammed??

Didn't BigHit confirm that this happened to Jimin?

He wasn't scammed? Oh I'm sorry your highness what preferred term would you prefer to be used to describe what happened to him?

What descriptor will make you more comfortable?

Jimin hear you so-called stans- you weren't scammed. You weren't deceived, no one lied to you, disguised their motives to sell you a sob story to take advantage of your kindness, it didn't happen because of it did it will make you human and your so called stans are uncomfortable with you being human.

So you're invalidating his painful experiences because you can't accept that he has been scammed?? That makes you uncomfortable?

You are equally dumb and naive if you think there's anything he could have done to avoid that situation besides keeping his wallet closed.

What you are saying is like saying a victim of rape couldn't have been raped because she was smart enough to wear jeans instead of short skirts

Wearing Jeans won't prevent the outcome just as having that shit written on paper did nothing from the person accessing his money.

Whether he was smart naive a a cyborg- they got his money and used it to gamble. Whether you want to call that a scam robbery deception lending borrowing doesn't matter

I won't let you invalidate his experience are you mad??

the only thing he could have done to avoid getting scammed was to NOT GIVE HIS MONEY OUT.

Add something useful to the conversation. Show someone how to avoid being a victim of this scam.

even the charities he is donating to can turn out to be a scam. What then??

What dont you coconut heads get?

Your problem is what I keep saying y'all have, your inability to accept that Jimin is very very human too

When I tell y'all these people will crash out hard when they find out Jimin is actually queer and or involved with Jungkook frfr.

You are the reason he struggled with perfectionism. Always doing mental gymnastics over the very human things he does

All because you can't hold space for him to be human and flawed too. HE MADE A MISTAKE. ITS OKAY TO ADMIT THAT.

LIKE HE SAID HE HAS MADE MISTAKES OF TRUSTING THE WRONG PEOPLE IN HIS LIFE AND HE IS LEARNING HOW TO PROTECT HIMSELF

YOU DO NOT HELP THE SITUATION WHEN YOU CAN'T EVEN ACCEPT THAT HE MAKES THESE MISTAKES.

NOW LOOK AT YOU. YOU CANT can't even accept something horrible happened to him because he made a mistake BECAUSE THAT MAKES YOU UNCOMFORTABLE TO FACE??

we all make mistakes. He made one. Big deal

And fuck every single one of you

In case I haven't told you this lately,

I hate you so much

SET JIMIN FREE FROM YOUR WEIRD ASS OBJECTIFICATION OF HIM

HE IS HUMAN TOO

Fuck off

[lalalian]

i don’t remember if you said you’d elaborate on this or not, but can we get some more information on eudora’s government system?

HI SO I FORGOT TO POST THIS 😭😭😭 I looked over this and I’m pretty sure it’s bc of the grammar mistakes.. I went through it again to edit them out!

Again I’m rlly sorry I didn’t upload this sooner 😭😭

(Hello hello, I’ve edited some of the names back to what they were originally in my brainstorming document, the names were changed in this post *in it’s first form* because I couldn’t find the info abt this part of the gov in my brainstorming document, I completely forgot that I included them in the filled script! Names should now line up with the quote in my filled script… sorry about that yall!)

hihi!

I don't know if I did or not either, but I'm happy to do so!

Eudora has a unique government in comparison to other kingdoms and empires. Why? It’s because Eudora has a three-court system (sound familiar?) rather than a monarchy. Why choose this court system over a monarchy? Well, the monarch would literally have to make the final say on everything in a monarchy. This would be completely unreasonable for an Empire as large as Eudora.

Not only that, but Eudora shifted to this system due to three founding values, fairness, transparency, and strength.

Fairness

Similar to our government, Eudora's three court system foundation represents the virtues of the people. You may have seen that there's a noble etiquette class, but isn't the existence of nobles the definition of unfair...? Nobles were perceived differently than other kingdoms and empires; the traditional sentiment was that nobles were there to serve the common people. Everybody has a role, and everyone's role is important. Nobles could not function if the lower class refused to work. Nobles received a lot of money because ruling over land isn’t necessarily a simple task; a duke would have to be meticulously trained to be able to manage their land to avoid mistakes. Mistakes with this kind of job can lead to devastating tragedies.

In the present day, many nobles strive to embody this ideology, but do they really believe in such sentiments? Or do they want to appear as if they do?

I did mention that dragon riders are sacred, right? Well, only higher-tiered riders are. Even S-ranked riders born non-noble are often disrespected in newspapers and balls.

Transparency

Eudora has faced many issues with transparency. Former monarchs ordered for many of the Empire's major libraries to be burned to the ground simply for slander or even criticism of innocuous ideologies that contrasted with their own; another monarch encouraged the high nobles to hide the ingredients to the antidote of a fatal disease from the poor during a plague… I'm sure you'd know the aftermath of that kind of bullshit...; one of the earliest monarchs lied about the nature of magic to benefit from the power of the poor (similar to the book A Court so Cruel and Lovely).

All of these events led to a strong desire for transparency between the government and its civilians.

How was this quality implemented? Way more people are involved in court; having so many people in the government means more mouths, and there's bound to be at least one person with loose lips. These political gatherings are oftentimes (not always) public. Journalists often attend these meetings (anyone can attend).

In the last few decades, the western border has been relentlessly attacked by creatures no one's ever seen before. The government has been investigating this dilemma for quite a while now, but not a single detail has ever really been revealed to the public. Are the courts still upholding this virtue?

Strength

A large population comes with an increased chance of having dragon riders born in the empire. Dragon riders are an extremely valuable asset-- more dragon riders usually always make an army stronger. Over the years, Eudora cultivated the most prestigious dragon rider academies. This is where the fairness quality comes in (once again). Eudora passed a law around 40 years ago that allowed for riders from other kingdoms and empires to attend their rider academies if they had a scholarship. There are two ways of obtaining a scholarship, one is to be rich and buy one, and the other is to pass a series of trials. This is also why parents are desperate to have their children learn how to fight in some kind of way early on in childhood.

Riders have become the symbol of strength, and an abundance of riders comes with the value of power. With the continuous attacks degrading the Western Front, is power still going to be associated with Eudora in the future?

Now that we've gotten the probably really unnecessary values of the government system and its hypocrisy aside, let's get into the more interesting parts. The Courts.

The Court of Scales

The Court of Scales, also known as the Court of the Blindfolded, is Eudora's justice court. The Court of Scales can be broken down further into two types of courts, the Court of Crimson and the Court of Amaranth. A Crimson Court hears criminal cases and an Amaranth Court hears civil cases; there are plenty of these courts scattered around the empire. You can apply for your case to be re-heard once to a different court, but it needs to be approved for a second hearing beforehand. The Court of Scales acts as the Supreme Court, except more precautions are made. You affirm to the High Justice (the judge hearing the trial) and Themis, an artifact in the shape of a woman wearing a blindfold and holding a scale, that you will only speak the truth.

This artifact has the power to tell whether someone is lying or not and is usually used to verify if a witness is lying. If they do lie, the scale closest to the person tips down, symbolizing the heavy weight of a lie.

(Does that make sense...? If a person situated to the right of the room lies, the right side of the scale tips down.

Breaking the oath results reduces the validity of the witness's statement, but the trial still goes on. Sometimes, the judge will decide to hide the statue, but there will be a person that supervises the statue the entire time to document any lies.

The Court of the Olive Branch

Known as the Court of Pillars in the northern regions of Eudora.

The High Sovereign and the ruling family are apart of this court. The High Sovereign is a hereditary position. Similar to a king, the current High Sovereign chooses who will become the next High Sovereign. The heir to the throne is almost always direct offspring.

The High Sovereign has the right to declare war (needs to be approved by the Court of the Olive Branch beforehand), attends ceremonial events, appoints the head of other courts (including the court of thorns, I’ll talk about this court in another post), and is part of the consul. Should the High Sovereign die, if an heir hasn’t been officially chosen, the next oldest sibling of the High Sovereign will assume the throne.

The Court of the Quill

Law making court, it’s also known as the Court of the Public in the northern regions of Eudora.

All dukes are apart of this court.

This court is mostly public, but all consul meetings are private. Consul meetings only consist of all the dukes in the Eudora Empire. They make their most important decisions in the Room of Consuls, and are (likewise) referred to as consuls. Why the room-specific title change? The idea is to take the power away from the dukes, and to decide on things without the pressure of each other’s titles. Despite the fact that everyone is supposed to be on the same playing field in this room, there’s still that power struggle between every consul member, including the High Sovereign (who is essentially the ‘president’). But aren’t most of the members dukes? Yeah, they are. But dukes with more land or more wealth tend to hold more power. Disputes between other consuls can lead to inner turmoil within the empire, including refusing trade with each other and even war. There is always an odd number of consuls; if another kingdom joins the Empire, they’d have to split their land in half. Two dukes would join as a result of the spilt, keeping the number of members odd.

The member count is always odd to make in-voting easier.

Consul only meetings are always private, but meetings with other people including consuls are often public.

Each ducal household tends to uphold a way of thinking, creating two ‘parties’. I wouldn’t really say they’re parties honestly, but it’s similar. In Eudora, these two sides are called factions.

One side is prefers to uphold the empire’s founding values. This side is referred to as The Traditionalists.

The other wants to veer away from it. This side is referred to as The Radicals.

It’s important to note that the members in each faction do not all support the same principles, but they do tend to have a similar central value.

For example, Miaene’s father is apart of this court. He is part of the Traditionalist faction.

More on this in another ask abt government!

[ohkate]

Thanks to @gallawitchxx for tagging me!

name: Kate

your... uhm.. scAaAary age: I'm in it right now. 45. I feel like 44 was the last age where you could be a single woman and not get looked at like you're sad and you're going to die a tragic lonely death.

🎥🔪🩸 do you like scary movies? I'm OBSESSED with horror movies. I'm a horror movie snob. I can and have written essays about my annoyance with how many films are listed as horror when they aren't so. I also think it's a crime that the Exorcist is still the movie listed as the scariest of all time on just about every scary movie list and we haven't been able to top that in 51 fucking years.

if so, what's your favorite scary movie? I just...I couldn't choose. My favorite scary movie right now is a Polish movie called Hellhole. You can watch it dubbed on Netflix. The movie appears at first to be super low budget. It's gruesome and gross at times but I just loved it! It's not jump-scare scary. But it's ominous and the end is just ::chef's kiss::. Religious scary movies are the best kind. It's the last real unknown. I'm not afraid of a clown or an evil doll. I'm afraid of the mailman bringing bills an bad news. Religious stuff is the only thing left that still scares me a little.

if you were trapped in a slasher film, would you survive? if not; how & when would you die? I would absolutely survive any scenario unless it involved running. I cannot run. I would just have to go ahead and die.

now that we got the scary questions out of the way. let's get a little more light hearted! 💕

what is your greatest fear? Wasting time. I'm the person who, the second I'm done with work, I'm out the door. I don't want to 'hang out or 'chill'. I'm not chill. I want to know what we're doing because if it's not better than being by myself then I don't want to do it. Also... I love the ocean, but I'm petrified of being in it higher than my knees. I'm afraid of little creatures biting me. I can hold snakes, mice and any kind of bug without freaking out. I don't panic if a spider lands in front of me. As long as I know it's there and I can see it ahead of time I'm fine. But not in the water.

what is your favorite supernatural creature? Not sure if this counts but Johnny 5 from Short Circuit. Just wanted input. Could have taken over the world but only wanted to make friends and be alive. When he learned all he could, he just wanted to dance and listen to music. The meanest he got was to tell someone 'your mother was a snowblower!' Imbued with a soul from some mystical accident and of course everyone wanted to kill him.

ever had a paranormal encounter? Not sure if it counts but in my whole life, I've been in 3 car accidents- all minor and always as a passenger- and I've had dreams the night before about getting into a random car accident for all of them. Call that whatever you want. I literally called out sick to work one day after I had a bad car accident dream the night before. I always wonder if I avoided some horrific death by not going that day.

in a high stress situation; do you fight or are you more of a flight person? I'm a fighter with my mouth. I can argue my way out of anything. That being said, a few years ago I got to the point where arguing with stupid just became tedious. If you think the Earth is flat...fine. Congrats. I'm not going to argue with your stupid ass. So now I'm a little more flight than fight.

what is your favorite part about halloween? That it pisses of religious zealots.

bonus question: what is your credit card number?

(I watch Lost Boys every Halloween.)

tagging the last few people who commented on my shit: @badassfetish @atthedugouts @lookiloveyou @guinguin1984 @arcadia-wildfire @iandarling @energievie @suzy-queued @catgrassplantdad

[lvrboy-inc]

I Lost My Mind in the Sakura Flowers ꫂ ၴႅ

“She Knows” — J.C.

꒰: Précis | A first person POV, dipping into the mind of a melancholic young man who is just a bit..off. Is he really above all of the chaos that is his life? Or is it all just another façade in which he’s also fooled himself this time..

꒰: Disclaimer(s) | This act contains strong language, hinting at sexual activities, hinting at su!c!de, violence, blood. Tread very carefully~!!

꒰: Word Count ; 4.8k

꒰: Sakura Flowers—All Acts ; Here

Act 8

Well..no one said that meant we actually had to stop seeing one another. 

We both had come to the conclusion after 4 days of being stubborn idiots, just acting like strangers in the halls and whatnot, just to end up in the back of his car whispering how much we hate each other while fogging up the windows.

Truth was, he broke the no-contact on the fifth day and simply showed up to my house again with no shame. 

And from then on, it was a common occurrence. Varying from different excuses for our parents to let us see each other, to ditching class in the bathrooms. As much as I didn’t want to admit in the slightest that my life got increasingly harder to manage with Marko becoming wildly more involved in my everyday life; it was. And frankly? I don’t know if I like or hate what’s going on between us now.

Lying face up on my bed, skin sweat-slick and body buried halfway under the plush of my comforter set, I was listening to that familiar flick, flick, flick of his lighter failing. Along with the low hiss when it finally managed to light the end of his cigarette.

He was just leaning back on the headboard, acting as if nothing happened. Maybe I liked that—not having to deal with the actual depth of what we were doing and never talking about—so I didn’t remind myself. Remind myself of the malice that still threatened to burn me alive every single time I saw him. The way just him being here was going against what I stood for and had actively fought so hard to dispel.

“Spray something when you’re done. My mother and father get back from their little date in a few hours.” A low rumbling complaint fell from my lips as I reached over to the nightstand, unscrewing the cap of a plastic water bottle. Reveling in the quenching of my thirst, trying to ignore the smell of tobacco that was becoming more and more familiar in my room. 

Marko rolled his eyes as if I’d said something to offend him. We’d had the same petty argument almost every time he sparked up in front of me. And apparently, a million and one is never too much.

Taking a dragging inhale, he blew the rest directly down onto my face. My nose scrunched as I swatted it away. “Then that’s your problem, right?” Marko chimed back, his voice still that oh-so condescending purr as he smirked down at me. 

It was moments like these where I really started to wonder if he was actually into me or wanted to tear down everything I was. He wasn’t making it very obvious which one..neither of us were. One moment he’d be fucking me stupid, only saying sweet things while my mind hung on by a thread. Then right in the next, he could be completely silent, literally just taking care of an itch we both needed to scratch.

He was gradually starting to get on my nerves once again—as if he’d ever gotten off them—and I couldn’t help but wonder what his end goal really was. But I dusted those more existential inquiries off for later.

“You are my problem.” My immediate retort shot off as I sat up. “By the time you’re 30, your lungs are gonna be blacker than the ash you flick off those things.”

Leaning in closer, he ghosted his lips over mine in a mockery of a kiss as he lightly nudged my mouth open. “You never stop talking..” He murmured to himself, breathing in the burning leaves and effectively shotgunning it into my mouth.

The scent I’d been trying to avoid even smelling was now painting my tongue before he sealed the gray smoke between us with a heated kiss. It was infuriating to know he had such little regard for me even when I was actually just concerned about my own needs.

When he finally did pull back, he caught my bottom lip between his teeth and just glared down at me. “If you’ve got an issue with the smell, stop inviting me over. You can do that, right?” He asked, clearly just trying to sport around the fact I did ring him up to come over that night.

“If I did, you’d throw a damn fit. ‘Oh, Azura, my dick’s craving you’, ‘Ignoring me won’t work every time’, and finally, you’d just say ‘fuck it’ and show up anyways. You. Are. My. Problem.” I strongly reiterated.

There was an eye contact held for longer than a while between us before I broke it off with a disgruntled scoff. 

“And if I did stop coming over, from your point of view, you’d start staring at me in the halls, giving me the silent treatment and not even answering my calls or texts. You’re quite literally the only contact on my phone that I have a track record of calling whenever I need some damn weight taken off my shoulders..” Marko huffed, keeping his eyes on me as he went on.

Even whilst he spoke, I couldn’t help but notice how he looked; arms flexing and relaxing with each movement he made, his stoic features that were offset by his messy, slightly damp head of curls. And somehow I was back to thinking how pretty he is when he doesn’t speak.

“But it’s counterproductive. I come over, deal with you, fuck out some stress and end up leaving with several earfuls of even more. So, tell me, Azura,” The gradual matter-of-fact tone to his voice was evident and I already knew where he was headed with it. “Why do you think I keep on coming back, huh? You think I’d rather deal with your smartass mouth or pretend like we don’t know each other? Go on.”

Touché.

Carding my slim fingers through my hair, I grumbled something under my breath before getting a soft ping from my phone. “Hold that thought.” I gave back, sort of relieved for whoever was interrupting the moment—until I saw the contact name.

“Allison..” The name left my lips as if I was whispering a ghost’s. Swiping open the screen, I saw the messages she’d left for me.

Allison: I’ll be over in 20. Do you have my stuff?

There had been a 10 minute break between that and the next.

Allison: Ignoring me still???

             You’re such a child. I’m coming over either        way.

             I know you’re probably busy with whoever you’re laying but just have my things ready by the time I get there. 

And finally, the last.

Allison: I’m in the driveway.

My heart sank and I got washed over with an inordinate feeling of having to tell myself, ‘I don’t hit women’.

Kidding..mostly.

Marko saw the shift in my demeanor and as if on queue, there were four sharp knocks at the front door. The causality that had graced the room before was called to a screeching halt as I flipped the sheets back and started to tug bits and pieces of clothing onto my body. 

Stumbling to the door of my room a bit, I yanked my shirt down over my head and turned back to him with a deathly glare. “Do not by any means leave this room. Don’t make a sound, hell, if you can stop breathing until she leaves, that’s perfect.” My words were rushed but no less urgent as I left and shut the door tightly behind myself.

The knocking had grown into an incessant ringing of the doorbell and I barked out an, “I’m coming!” which prompted a stop to the overzealous ringing.

I took a few breaths before drawing a long one in. 

Moving my fingers to unlock the knob and slide the chain back, I opened the door and sure enough, there she was. All pouty with her endlessly symmetrical eyebrows furrowing down. To top it all off, an impatient tapping of her foot.

“Hey, Ali.” I groaned slightly, just barely masking my overall agitation with her mere presence in the moment.

She instantly placed both hands on her hips and swung them slightly before snapping back. “Don’t ‘Hey, Ali’ me. Give me my stuff. Or I’ll just come right in and get it myself.”

A sharp roll of my eyes ensued and my tongue kissed the backs of my teeth. “You’re real confident, you know that?”

“And what is that supposed to mean, huh?” She retorted with an arching of her brow. “Are you seriously going to try and tear down my self-esteem even more than you already have? Well I’d love to see you try.”

A dry laugh fell from my lips, completely devoid of humor. “I mean that you’ve shown up, completely unannounced—”

“I said I was coming.” 

“—And now you’re demanding shit all over the place,” I finished dryly, not at all fond of being interrupted. “The fact you think that I have the time or energy to waste on you is cute. Real fucking cute.”

With a crossing of her arms, I saw the widening of her eyes and the slight crimson that graced her face from the mild embarrassment. She was back on it in a moment though, not wasting any time to get back to the subject at hand.

“What-the-fuck-ever, Azura! I’m not here to listen to you be a prick all over again. I just want to get my things and never come within a 20 mile radius of this godforsaken household again.”

I was getting ready to make another comment, but instead, I just shrugged. “Fine, wait here.” 

With that, I purposely slammed the door on her and grumbled out some incoherent insults under my breath, ascending the steps to my room again. Marko was now up at more attention, having put on his jeans and what I could only assume to be eavesdropping.

“Nosy much?” I hissed, brushing past him to get into my closet and grab the box that lay on the floor of it, labeled ‘Junk’. It wasn’t junk though—well, not in Allison’s eyes I suppose—but rather her precious belongings that she had been hounding me for.

Among the contents were old anniversary gifts, shirts, bracelets, love letters..bra straps, and the like. All of it held no meaning when they were gifted to me and much less now. 

Marko watched with bated breath as I moved across the room, getting ready to head back downstairs. Deciding to finally break up the silence, he started up. “Who is it?” He asked, rather stupidly.

“Someone who probably hates me a fuck ton more than you, that’s for sure.” I grumbled out in response. 

It was like I could see the lightbulb go off in his head when I said that and his expression of lingering concern and worry had shifted back to the smugness in an instant. “Ah, Ms. Yasan? That’s what all that animosity was I heard downstairs?”

“Yeah, it was.” 

He looked over at the box in my hands and must’ve pieced everything together quite nicely. I thought he was lingering on me for a bit too long and I was right, as he finally said, “Your shirt’s inside-out.” He couldn’t help but laugh at the predicament whilst I looked down and saw the inside seams of my collar on full display.

But..I guess I had taken too long to actually get back to her.

In an instant, the room fell silent as the door to the room, my room began to creak open. And all I heard was Allison’s voice. “You forgot to lock the door, how long does it take to—”

Like deer in headlights, we all froze. 

She looked at me and I looked at her. Then her eyes went to Marko and finally, all eyes fell on me. 

My grip on the box instantaneously tightened as the room fell into a deafening quietude. 

God, I know I’ve done a lot of fucked up shit, but please, please, please let this ground open up. 

“Oh..uh..hey, Marko..?” Allison managed to get out. I could see the puzzle pieces that were trying to fit together in her head. All Marko did was give an awkward wave from where he was leaning onto my desk. Acting quickly, I shoved the box into her arms and stepped in between their lines of sight, trying to do the least bit of damage control. 

I tried to usher her out but she refused to move. “Wait a sec, I thought you hated this guy—what is he doing here?” She inquired, staring me down all suspicious-like.

“School project—”

“Studying.” 

Both of our answers were out of sync and casting a slight glare his way, I turned back to Allison to reiterate. “We’re studying for a school project. Now if you’re done interrupting that then—”

“Bullshit.” 

My eyes widened and the small tweaking of my right was a dead giveaway of the way my own mind was trying to scream at me to not hurt this girl right now. What the hell was she so damn curious for? Could she not just take the answer and get the ever loving fuck out of my house? “Pardon?”

She gave a little sly smirk as she peered over my shoulder back at Marko. “I said bullshit. You’re lying. Both of you.” 

Oh, but she couldn’t have been this insightful and taken a hint when I ignored her texts? Okay. 

“First of all, his fly is unzipped,” I watched as she gestured over to him, moving to rest the box of her belongings under her arm and above her hip. “Secondly, he doesn’t have a shirt on—I doubt this is some new studying method. And third-” Taking one last glance, this time roaming over me and finally resting on my eyes with a cocky smile, she said, “Your shirt’s inside out.”

A bright red tinged my ears as I simply just turned her around and pushed her out of my room, then gaining an iron grip on her arm as I led her down the flights of stairs. 

As we went, I kept my silence, up until I—almost..practically—threw her out the front door. In a literal sense, I didn’t. But with how hard I shoved her, I might as well have. 

Standing in front of the door, my eyes were deadly cold and narrowed into thin slits. 

God, I fucking hate dogs.

“Listen up.” I said in a harsh whisper. “There is nothing and I mean nothing going on between me and that asshole upstairs. As cliché as it may sound, it was not what it looked like.”

This was already bad enough as is. My damage control skills were nothing like they used to be.

“So, with the little morsel of fucks I have left to give to you, I’ll say this once: Stay. Out. Of it.” She looked like she was about to open her mouth to say something again and at that moment, I just could not. Cutting her off—or what was soon to be a cutoff—I loomed in closer, glowering down at her with every hint of intimidation I had. “If I hear anything, if I see anything, if I get the slightest inkling that you’ve run your mouth—I will fucking bury you. Are we clear?”

Her expression had long-since shifted from that of triumphant to an almost shaking fear. Maybe not fear, but she was much more than shaken up. I’d never gotten physical with her before..not like I did now, just got a bit..rough. And the fact that I threatened her so effortlessly drew out a long-standing silence between us.

In a slow motion, I gripped her face between my fingers, dropping my voice to a calm vibration. “Are. We. Clear?”

I felt the way she swallowed down thickly, the way her breathing faltered when my hand had made contact with her face..then finally, that small nod of affirmation that brought a smile to my face. “Crystal..” she breathed out. The tension that was stressing her shoulders and the grip she held tightly now on the box of bad memories was obvious. She still managed to look pretty when she was so scared.

“Good girl. Now go home.” I hummed, placing a chaste kiss to her cheek before letting go of her face and walking back into the house, this time, closing the door softly.

Locking it behind me.

There was a good while where I simply stared down the door. Unmoving, just..staring. I believe that was when the moment of realization actually hit.

My everything was riding on the sole thread of Allison and the little bit of control that I still held over her. She hadn’t made any effort to hold her tongue when we broke up and given how she felt about me now there was no way in Hell she would keep this little fiasco under wraps.

The next thing I did was storm upstairs, immediately flinging the door to my room open.

“Fuck, Marko!” I yelled, kicking the door closed behind me as I began to pace back and forth. “If I told you to shut the fuck up then why did you talk, huh? A school project? Are you fucking kidding me? Do you know how astronomically you have screwed me over!?”

At that point, that thin line of patience that had been stretched to wits end—snapped.

I strode over to him, getting up in his face as I shoved him back into the desk which he couldn’t go much further onto. “You have got to be the most insufferable, god awfully nauseating person I’ve ever met. There isn’t a single thought running through that pretty fucking head of yours and it makes me want to put a bullet right through it.” Pulling back a bit, I could see the bored expression on his face as he listened to my voice droning.

He didn’t even move to say anything or leave, just looked at me as if I was the stupid one.

“When are you ever going to wake up, Azura?” He asked dryly, rolling his neck to the side a bit. Moving his hands down into his pockets, he stared daggers into my eyes. “When are you ever going to get it through your brain that everything you’re experiencing—every inconvenience, every nulled emotion, every ounce of hatred you feel—is your fault? Huh?”

Taking a step back, I scoffed harshly at his cocky questions. “I don’t fucking need this shit,” I dismissed, only to be dragged right back by the hinges of my jaw.

“No, you do need this shit. Because ever since I’ve gotten involved with this shit show you call a life, mine has only gotten infinitely more complex,” he said in a harsh whisper. “You think that everyone wants to be the bane of your existence? No. You force them to be.”

It was everything in me and the sheer will of God that I didn’t swing right then and there. Was he trying to fucking psychoanalyze me right now? 

If anything he should’ve been thankful. Thankful for me not outting his whore of a mother. Grateful that I didn’t tell anyone about the fact that someone who started up those ignorantly homophobic rumors was screwing the guy he made them up about.

And among that thought track..there came the second. Had they really been rumors? Just something spoken into existence? Whichever it was..I guarantee I meant every word I’m about to say.

“You mean I force you to be?” My question was sharp as I returned his gaze with an equal leveling of hate. “We argue all the fucking time, Marko. Not all of them are started by me either. I don’t force you to do shit. I didn’t force you to try and ruin my life, I didn’t force you to be in my life.”

I straightened up a bit, both of our eyes locked on the other as if wishing we could kill each other just by doing so. “This is about you. Because you couldn’t get over the loss of your Kurt Cobain of a father, because you couldn’t place your anger in the right fucking place, because you made the abhorrently detrimental choice to love me.”

A fit of heavy breathing enclosed to two of us. 

I could see the emotions that fluttered and flicked across his face with each and every word that spilled from my mouth. They shifted gradually from petty anger, initial shock and finally..pure, unadulterated painful disappointment.

“You gave me your heart when all I ever wanted was to erase you from my fucking memory,” The icy chill that layered over my words was clear enough to where he had let my face go..his features twitching into a look I hadn’t wanted to see on his face of all others. “You were the one who fell for me. Remember that? Yeah. You were the one who broke the no-contact after I told you we could be nothing more. You’re fucking obsessed.”

Marko shoved me back harshly, apparently reaching his breaking point for the conversation. The force sent me to the ground with a loud thud where I watched him saunter closer, finally doing what he wanted to that first day at the park.

The first hit landed directly to the right side of my face, effectively snapping my head in the direction of his hand’s trajectory. It was an immediate sting and then a flash of white-hot pain seared through my skin. He wasted no time in delivering the second, straight into my nose where the sound of cartilage grinding was louder than the real impact. 

It didn’t take long for my head to fall back down into the floor. I could taste my own blood in my throat, like a sickening taste of every emotion sent in gushing bursts of dark crimson. 

In an instant, Marko was straddling me, and I felt his hands digging into my neck, lacing together in a twisted web of death as it managed to catch on the back ends of my hair. 

And then, in another second, all of my attention was pulled directly into him as he started applying pressure. My eyes immediately moved to his. I was expecting to see some sort of emotion flashing across there but the way he stared down at me was nothing short of bottomless. 

He wasn’t just squeezing his fingers but he was pressing his weight directly down onto my windpipe. 

My eyes fluttered as I began to choke on the disgusting blood from my nose that poured down my trachea, he only got closer and closer, each centimeter inching me further and further into a limbo of consciousness.

“Say. Another. Fucking. Word.” An array of threat and genuine coaxing dripped off of each punctuated word. My fingers came to scratch at his wrists as my feet scrambled back and forth against the bedroom floor. “Say another goddamn thing so I can have full permission to fucking kill you. Right here, right now.”

He peered in closer, his breathing steady despite the death grip he held on my throat. My eyes were getting hazy, muddling the sounds and lights a bit. I couldn’t breathe and every atom I did get, burned like hell. “Let me end both of our suffering. I’m telling you genuinely, to let one more whiny complaint come from your lips, Azura.” 

I could barely hear what he was saying and yet all of it was creating a throbbing pain in my temples as I sputtered slightly, my nails now leaving dragging claw marks into his wrists. He didn’t move, he didn’t stop, only dipped further down, taking more air from my lungs. 

I can’t fucking breathe. The only thought that swam through my head as I stared up at him with tears pricking my asphyxiated eyes. 

“Is this what you fucking wanted? You want me to act like I hate you? You want some reason, a realistic significant reason to hate my very existence? Here you fucking go.” He sat down fully on my abdomen and I was starting to writhe a bit. This didn’t feel good. This isn’t what his love was supposed to feel like... “If you want to resent me? So be it. But I’ll be damned if you get to utter a single word about my father when you can’t even comprehend what love even is.”

Devoid of any sort of wavering in emotions, he gave a final squeeze that sent my lights fading out. And in that last..split second before the world started to dim down, I felt his lips on mine. His grip on my neck had significantly decreased and he started to give me mouth to mouth. Not just kissing me but breathing air back into my lungs.

It still felt like I was drowning. Only now, the world was fading back in as I gasped for oxygen through the breaks in our kisses. His hand moved to hold me up by the roots of my hair as he continued the methodical breathing pattern between us.

The mix of my blood danced in between our mouths as it dripped down into them. All I could think of was how good it felt to breathe. To breathe again and be brought back down to Earth only by his permission. 

In. One, two, three, four. 

Out. One, two, three, four.

Square breathing. 

Within a few cycles of this, I had slowed my breathing down just enough to begin crying. The salt trickling down my cheeks silently before I pulled away to let the reality of it all sink in. “You’re not good for me, Marko..” I said simply, shaking my head shakily as I shuddered in every breath I took.

I watched as he leaned in, licking a stripe under my nose. “You don’t want what’s good for you, Azura,” He said back in a deadpan whisper. “Because you don’t think you fucking deserve it.”

“That’s why you keep me around,” He breathed against my lips, just decimeters away from being pressed together again. His lean fingers sleuthed through my hair..not tugging or anything, just holding me there. “You can’t stand being alone, but you push everyone who wants to love you away. Allison loved you and look now; she wishes you were dead.” 

Mild twitches of irritation and teary-eyed anger riddled my features as I listened. I didn’t have any choice but to listen..for once. “You keep me around because you can’t handle love that’s healthy. You can’t handle someone loving you without the pain of it..it’s all you know,” He leaned in, turning my head to the side as he pressed his lips directly over my ear. “And you know that I can be just as fucked up as you, if not more.”

“Amorcito, I promise I can be that sweet purgatory of heartbreak and utter salvation that your twisted mind craves,” With a final leaning back, he let go and..smiled. “Your heart without a key is just a lock to bleed and I will be the cause of every cut and scar.”

Running a hand through his hair, I could see clearly the drips of my blood that had accumulated on his knuckles as he did. The pain in my face was still burning like hell, now coupled with the feeling of his hands on my neck, still lingering like a phantom’s touch.

Marko stood up in silence, moving to throw back on his shirt and hoodie. 

Speaking up finally, I called out, “What am I supposed to do about Allison? She’s not going to keep quiet, I guarantee that.”

As he zipped up his fly, he narrowed his eyes at me, turning to tie his acorn curls in a low ponytail before finally facing my way. 

“That’s your problem, Azura. I’m not the one who’s got his life on the line here.” His response was casual and aloof as he slid his belt back through the loops of his pants, adjusting it before giving it a soft click into place. “So figure it out. Because if not, I guess that means our time together would come to an end.”

The air was so heavy..maybe it was just me. Finality was draped all over his voice and it brought me to an ultimatum. 

Only the sound of him stuffing his keys into his pockets was heard for a long while before he was slipping his boots on and making way for the door. “I’ll love you for as long as you let me, Azura. And I think that the window for that is coming to a close.” Giving one more glance over his shoulder, he let out his final words as if he didn’t even know they were true. “I’ll see you later.”

And the deafening white noise that came after the first door softly clicked closed and after the front door had been pulled to a creaking close.

That moment..stirring in my own solitude was when it sunk in; he really was going to be my ruin.

A/N: Everyone is allll over the place. Gosh, do you think Allison has yapper in her blood..? Maybe Azura's hold over her isn't as fragile as perceived..who knows. Marko got hands, lmao. Stay tuned. 🥀

[tuiyla]

does finchel ever affect your feelings for Rachel? cause i've been thinking on how much Rachel kind of annoys me in S3-4 and I think it's a LOT to do with her looking the other way when it comes to what a jackass her bf is. I feel like it may even be something the writers were conscious of because she's sort of conveniently missing/silent during things like Finn freaking out during S3 prom or when Finn outs Santana. It's like some part of them must KNOW he's wrong, or at least that an in-character Rachel would likely be horrified, so they just kind of avoid the issue.

i mean, Finchel also sucks just for being generally co-dependent and boring as hell in S3-4, but that mostly just made me dislike them as a pairing, not actually side-eye Rachel as an individual character. Whomst amongst us hasn't been hung up on a loser at some point in time? Being hung up on a guy who has deliberately hurt multiple people you consider your friends though? I have less empathy.

You know, that is an excellent question. And the answer is... kinda, yeah.

Funnily enough I'd say it was more annoying to me when rewatching seasons 1 and 2 rather than 3 and 4. I'm pretty sure I have it in my rewatch notes somewhere that it's a pain whenever Rachel goes from having her own scenes to Finchel ones because I love her but then I have to suffer through... all that. I think that blind pursuit of Finn despite him being SO far below her league annoys me much more than the two having that more established dynamic in later seasons. The story itself doesn't see any wrong in what Finn does so how could I single out Rachel for it. It's all on Finn as far as I'm concerned.

That said, I sometimes think about what a realistic Rachel reaction to either The Outing or his hissy fit during prom would have been. Sure is convenient she was absent. Rachel is a fundamentally compassionate person and it REALLY pisses me off that the show LIES to us and says Finn is a better person. Laughable. The Rachel I stan would not have condoned Finn outing someone much less do it herself and she most definitely would not have stood for Finn wrestling a disabled Quinn out of her wheelchair. But that does sour the magical romance doesn't it. Ugh, Finn.

Codependency isn't a turn off for me, I mean, helloooo, Brittana lol, but when Finchel do it it's gross. Hope that helps. I just think Finn is this status symbol for Rachel but she should have realized in season 2, tops, that she's way too good for him and that's that. I often think about how Rachel's too good for Finn, to the point that I get mad about it lmao. And so it hurts to see her simp after him, of all people. And it does get annoying, and it does affect my perception of her at times. Oh I know what I have in my rewatch notes, that Finchel bring out the worst in each other. And I think that is true even if only partially so. Rachel certainly is at her most single-minded and blind to other people when Finn is involved. But yeah you're right Anon, having an "in love with the supposed stud guy who's actually a huge loser" era is not that bad. Understandable for Rachel, really. And when it comes to Finn's crimes it's really just that the show doesn't see them, so why would Rachel.

In that respect, my views of Rachel are not effected because if I started blaming people other than Finn for IKAG I would literally hate this whole cast. Almost all ND members were being biiig flops there just by agreeing to the condescending charade. And I don't think it's Rachel's responsibility that her bf is an ass. That said, it's unfortunate that she keeps pursuing this asshole and I think most of my leats favourite Rachel moments are tied to Finchel. Because of course. So yeah Finchel affects my Rachel feelings but mostly as an annoyance, more than anything, God, she just deserves so much better.

[legends-of-time]

The Journey of Living at Downton

Chapter 1: April to Summer 1912

Masterlist

A/N: This woman does not know what happens in the show as in this world Downton is real and she has simply travelled back in time. So no, I'm not going to stop things happening to a character because I know that it'll stop them having this horrible storyline unless she's somehow naturally involved through circumstance.

——

Emma's life was normal but then one day that all changed and things got more complicated. She was born in 2002 and grew up in England but that all changed in 2021 when she was 19 years old when she woke up in the past, more specifically Yorkshire1909. It was a mild day (what else) in the grounds of an estate called Downton Abbey. After literally falling onto the floor right in front of said owners of the estate, the Earl and Countess of Grantham, Robert and Cora Crawley. They took pity on her as they could see that she was in quite a state and since she played the role of pretending that she had no memory of her past as Emma quickly realised that they may deem her a lunatic if she started babbling about time travel. They let her have a job as a maid in the household cause to them she seemed too lowly as well as nowhere to go and since she had no other options and could see that this was the safest option for her so she took it.

In the next three years things go well for Emma. She settled into her role as a maid, learning the different chores that fitted her role and additionally learning about the strict hierarchy of this new world she was in. Just kept her head down and got by. Part of this was trying to make sure not too many modern sayings were spoken and quietly laughing at everybody else's reaction.

Emma knows who to avoid, Miss O'Brien, and who she can rely on, Mrs Hughes the housekeeper and sometimes Mr Carson the butler if it is not too much for him and does not go against his morals. The family is kind to her but as she is only a maid, they largely ignore her. Many of the staff do not mind her as she does not step on any of their toes and does her job but Emma could see that they sometimes observed her oddly as she is still a mystery to them considering how she arrived.

Emma made friends while she was there, such as fellow maids Anna, Gemma and Gwen, and funnily enough Thomas, a footman who arrived a year after she did but obviously not in the same way. His suit wasworse for wearand a bit too short on the legs and he had turned up all sweaty, tired and dishevelled after getting lost in the grounds. Emma had taken pity on him, got him a cup of tea and essentially gave him the low down on all the gossip going on. They'd been close ever since.

——

On one morning in April 1912, Emma is deep asleep in a little single bed in her little room in the very unimpressive servant quarters. She had gone to sleep restlessly the night before and every night since the 14th, waiting for the news about the Titanic.

Emma's sleep is abruptly interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Six o'clock!" Calls Daisy the Kitchen maid.

Emma groans sitting up. "All right Daisy." She turns to her roommate Gemma. "Gemma." She calls to her.

Gemma groans loudly. "Uuuhh! I'm up!" Emma sniggers at her reaction. Ironically Gemma has never been a morning person.

They get up and get dressed in their lovely maid outfits and meet with Gwen and Anna in the corridor. They head towards the ground floor of the main house to make it all look nice and proper for the family before they can have their breakfast. To be honest Emma thinks that is what she hates most about this job, the odd times they have their meals and the lack of snacks throughout the day as well as variety in food.

——

Emma is in the Library with multiple other maids dusting, plumping up cushions and opening curtains etc. When she sees Daisy hurry through carrying a bucket of firewood.

"Now hurry up," Emma calls to her as she walks out of the Library into the Great Hall and begins tidying the table by the stairs.

Thomas walks past with a silver tray with two drinks. He collects two more at the table she's at.

"Any sign of William?" He asks.

"No." She tells him. He huffs as he walks past. Sometimes he's too harsh on William; he shouldn't push his own displeasure with his own lot on others.

——

Anna and Gwen open the windows of the Drawing room while Gemma and Emma begin to fluff the pillows on one of the seats.

They then spot Daisy crouching by the fireplace doing the fire. She'd clearly been doing this in the dark.

"Daisy? Whatever are you doing there crouching in the dark?" Anna asks as she walks towards the pillows along with Gwen to help out with the fluffing.

"You weren't here and I didn't want to touch the curtains with my dirty hands." Daisy answers.

"And quite right, too," Gwen says.

"You do know you can put the lights on?" Emma asks her sarcastically.

Daisy looks nervous at the idea. "I daren't."

"Well, it's electricity, not the devil's handiwork," Gwen says.

Gemma nods in agreement. "You'll have to get used to it sooner or later."

"Skelton Park have even got it in the kitchens," Anna says.

"What for?" Daisy asks. Emma has to hold in her snigger. Oh, they have no idea.

After a while, Mrs Hughes walks through on her rounds to see if they are doing everything right. "Is the Library tidy?"

"Yes, Mrs Hughes," Anna says.

"Good. I want the Dining room given a proper going over today. You can do it when they've finished their breakfast." She then spots Daisy doing God knows what to the fireplace. "Oh, heavens, girl! You're building a fire, not inventing it. How many have you done?"

"This is my last till they come downstairs."

"Very well. Now, get back down to the Kitchen before anyone sees you." Mrs Hughes walks off.

——

Soon they can head down to the Servants' Hall so that they can quickly eat before the family wakes up and gets them moving again.

It is not long before the bell for the Queen Caroline room rings as they are eating breakfast.

"And they're off," Thomas mutters irritably as he eats a spoon full of porridge.

"No rest for the wicked." Mrs Hughes remarks.

Mrs Patmore, the cook, walks in and looks at the bells. "Lady Mary. Are the tea trays ready?"

Anna gets up from the table, Emma follows as she assists her with the three girls. "All ready, Mrs Patmore, if the water's boiled," Anna says.

"Could you give us a hand to take the other two up?" Emma asks Miss O'Brien despite knowing the answer.

"I've got Her Ladyship's to carry." Says the resident witch, though Emma would never say that to her face.

"I'll help," Gwen says getting up and following them as they leave the room to collect the trays. Emma hears another bell ring.

"Back door." Mrs Hughes says.

"Newspapers at last. William." Mr Carson says. Emma does not hear the rest of the conversation as Gwen, Anna and Emma collect the trays of tea from the Kitchen.

Before going upstairs, they are stopped by the whispering of the news of the 'shocking' sinking of the Titanic. Emma fakes a look of shock as the three of them by the stairs share looks with each other. Naturally, they inform the girls as they go between them, getting them ready in the first of many outfits of the day.

——

After the girls go down, Gwen, Anna, Gemma and Emma begin going through the girls' rooms making the beds. They are in Lady Mary's room when Miss O'Brien finds them.

She holds a white cloth as she tells of what she heard from the conversation she heard between the Earl and Countess this morning. ""Neither of them were picked up," that's what he said." Oh no.

"Mr Crawley and Mr Patrick?" Anna asks in shock.

"That's what he said. Her Ladyship was the colour of this cloth." O'Brien gestures to the cloth in her hand.

"Well, it's a terrible shame if it's true," Gwen says.

"It's worse than a shame. It's a complication." O'Brien leaves and they follow her down the servants' staircase.

"Well, what do you mean?" Gemma asks.

"What do you think? Mr Crawley was His Lordship's cousin and heir to the title." O'Brien answers snippy.

"Well, but I thought Lady Mary was the heir," Gwen says equally confused.

"Girls can't inherit I'm afraid," Emma answers her kindly before O'Brien can snap at her.

"But now Mr Crawley's dead, and Mr Patrick was his only son. So, what happens next?" O'Brien continues.

"It's a dreadful thing," Anna says. They reach the bottom of the stairs and find a man around Lord Grantham's age with a cane and travel bag.

"Hello." He greets with a friendly smile. "I've been waiting at the back door. I knocked, but no one came."

"So, you pushed in?" O'Brien says rudely.

"I'm John Bates, the new valet."

"The new valet?"

"That's right." O'Brien obviously looks down at Bates's cane. The rest of them awkwardly stand behind her.

"You're early."

"Came on the milk train, thought I'd use the day to get to know the place, start tonight."

There is a lull in the conversation before Anna pipes up. "I'm Anna, the head housemaid." She shifts the sheets and candle in her arms to shake his hand.

"How do you do?" Bates reaches to shake O'Brien's hand, but she doesn't take it.

"And I'm Miss O'Brien, Her Ladyship's maid. You better come along with us." O'Brien walks off, with Gwen and Gemma following, expecting him to follow. Emma sees Anna and Mr Bates exchange a smile. Well, something seems to be there.

Emma decides that it is only polite to introduce the rest of them as they walk along. "My name is Emma one of the maids." Emma reaches her hand forward and shakes Mr Bates' hand. Then she gestures to Gwen and Gemma ahead. "And that is Gwen and Gemma, the other maids."

"It is nice to meet you." Mr Bates says kindly.

——

Emma stands awkwardly next to Anna as awkward introductions are made in the Kitchen.

"But how can you manage?" Mrs Hughes asks almost embarrassed by her own question. Mr Bates' cane seemed to have set everyone on an awkward edge.

"Don't worry about that. I can manage."

"Because we've all got our own work to do." Mrs Patmore pipes up. My god Mrs Patmore he's not an imbecile.

"I can manage." Mr Bates insists.

Mr Carson then enters. "All right, Mrs Hughes, I'll take over, thank you. Good morning, Mr Bates. Welcome. I hope your journey was satisfactory." Emma can definitely tell the moment he notices the cane.

Mr Bates is clearly used to it and shows no reaction. "It was fine, thank you."

One thing about Mr Carson is that he can easily cover up his emotions. "I am the butler at Downton. My name is Carson."

"How do you do, Mr Carson?"

"This is Thomas, first footman." Mr Carson gestures to Thomas who had been sulking at the side. "He's been looking after His Lordship since Mr Watson left. It'll be a relief to get back to normal, won't it, Thomas?" Thomas gives a short, insincere smile.

Mr Carson turns to Mrs Hughes. "I assume that everything is ready for Mr Bates's arrival?"

"I put him in Mr Watson's old room. Though he left it in quite a state, I can tell you."

Mrs Patmore does not let it go. "But what about all them stairs?"

"I keep telling you... I can manage."

"Of course, you can," Anna says. They exchange friendly smiles.

"Thomas, take Mr Bates to his room and show him where he'll be working." Thomas and Bates leave.

"Thank you, everyone." Trying to end the gathering.

"Well, I can't see that lasting long." But we can always rely on O'Brien to make a comment.

"Thank you, Miss O'Brien." And rely on Mr Carson on ignoring her insulting comments. Carson leaves effectively ending it.

——

In the Servants' Hall, they are all gathered to eat their 'luncheon'. Daisy carries a pitcher around.

Mr Carson walks around the table. "Downton is a great house, Mr Bates, and the Crawleys are a great family. We live by certain standards and those standards can at first seem daunting."

"Of course."

"If you find yourself tongue-tied in the presence of His Lordship, I can only assure you that his manners and grace will soon help you to perform your duties to the best of your ability."

"I know."

Suddenly they hear Lord Grantham speak. "Bates!" All of them immediately stand. "My dear fellow. I do apologise, I should have realised you'd all be at luncheon." He walks into the Hall.

"Not at all, My Lord." Mr Carson is ever a pleaser.

Grantham walks around the table to Bates. "Please, sit. Sit, everyone." Some of them sit. "I just want to say a quick hello to my old comrade in arms. Bates, my dear man, welcome to Downton." They shake hands. Emma gapes in surprise and she can hear everyone showing similar feelings of shock.

"Thank you, Sir."

"I'm so sorry to have disturbed you all. Please forgive me." Grantham leaves and the ones who seated themselves rise slightly in their chairs. They turn their surprised looks on Mr Bates.

He shrugs. "You never asked." Fair enough. Thomas and O'Brien look more displeased than before if that were possible.

——

On another day it is time for the family to have their luncheon, which naturally causes a massive scurry downstairs to have it done before the family and their guests return from the memorial for Mr Crawley and Mr Patrick. Life at Downton seems always to be a graceful swan above and its frantic legs below.

As Emma runs about, Daisy suddenly emerges from the Kitchen with a bowl and grabs her arm. "Oh, God! Help me! Please, God, help me!"

"Daisy? You all right?"

"Just run upstairs to the Dining room and find William, I beg you!" Daisy looks like she is one step from falling to her knees to begin begging.

"I can't do that right now," Emma says. She has enough on her plate.

"You've got to. I'll be hanged if you don't." Heh?

"You what?"

"Daisy, is that you?" William comes down the stairs with the bowl in his hand. "Is it the chicken in a sauce or the plain chicken with sliced oranges?"

Thankfully the desperate look on Daisy's face falls and is flooded with relief. "Oh, thank you blessed and merciful Lord! Thank you!" Daisy swaps she's holding the dish with the one that William's holding. "It's the chicken in the sauce. I'll never do anything sinful again, I swear it, not till I die!" Emma stares after Daisy in confusion as she rushes back to the Kitchen.

She later learns that Mr Murray, Lord Grantham's lawyer, does not stay so all that work Gwen and Emma had done of putting clean sheets on the blue room bed but thankfully Mrs Hughes suggests the racy idea of leaving it for the next guest. This likely irritated Lady Grantham and Lord Grantham's mother the Dowager as they really want to break the entail preventing Lady Mary from getting her mother's money and the house now that she won't get it through marrying Mr Patrick.

——

By that evening, Emma realises that Miss O'Brien has already begun her work of trying to get rid of Mr Bates when she and Anna help the girls get dressed for dinner.

Ladies Edith and Sybil are both ready so all that is left is Anna doing Lady Mary's hair at said lady's dressing table as Emma tidies away dresses etc. that had been discarded.

"Perhaps she misunderstood," Anna says.

"No, it was quite plain. O'Brien told her Bates can't do the job properly. Why was he taken on?"

"He was Lord Grantham's batman when he was fighting the Boers My Lady," Emma says as she goes to Lady Mary's wardrobe to put some things away.

"I know that, but even so."

"I think it's romantic." Lady Sybil sighs from her seat on the edge of Lady Mary's bed. She clearly does not know a thing about war.

"I don't." Lady Mary snips. "How can a valet do his work if he's lame?" Ah Lady Snob, the highlight of my day.

"He's not very lame." Says the one who has a crush on said man.

Anna finishes Mary's hair. "There. Anything else before we go down?"

"No, that's it. Thank you." Lady Mary stands and looks at herself in the full mirror as they exit. Emma thinks of all the snide comments Ladies Edith and Mary were likely going to be saying to each other now.

——

Once Emma is downstairs, she can hear Thomas complaining to Mr Carson.

"I just think you should know it's not working, Mr Carson."

"Do you mean Mr Bates is lazy?" Neither seems to realise they are being listened to.

"Not lazy... exactly. But he just can't carry. He can hardly manage His Lordship's cases. You saw how it was when they went out to London for the memorial. He can't help with the guest luggage either, and as for waiting a table, we can forget that." O'Brien and Thomas' plan seems to be plant the seed of doubt.

"And what do you want me to do?"

"Well, it's not for me to say. But is it fair on William to have all the extra work? I don't believe you'd like to think the house was falling below the way things ought to be."

"I would not." Mr Carson snaps.

"That's all I'm saying."

——

Some of them are in the Servants' Hall while those that are needed to serve the family their dinner are elsewhere.

"Does anyone else keep dreaming about the Titanic? I can't get it out of my mind." Daisy whines. Emma loves daisy but she can be annoying when she puts her mind to it.

"Not again. Give it a rest." Gwen seems to share Emma's irritation.

"Daisy, it's time to let it go," Anna says.

Daisy doesn't listen. "But all them people freezing to death in midnight icy water."

"Oh, you sound like a penny dreadful," O'Brien mutters.

"I expect you saw worse things in South Africa, eh Mr Bates?" Gwen says.

"Not worse, but pretty bad." The man says.

"Did you enjoy the war?" Daisy asks.

"What kind of question is that Daisy?" Emma snaps despite trying to contain her irritation. Daisy looks down meekly.

"I don't think anyone enjoys war, but there are some good memories, too." Mr Bates placates.

"I'm sure there are," Anna says.

"Mr Bates, could you hand me that tray?" Gwen interrupts calling over the table.

Mr Bates gets up to grab it, but his knee twinges and he spills the whole contents on the floor as he grabs his knee. Anna gets up quickly.

"I'll do it." She speaks. Gwen clearly feels awkward.

Mr Carson walks in. "Ladies are out. We've given them coffee. His Lordship's taken his port to the Library. Anna, Gwen, Emma, go up and help clear away." They scurry out of the uncomfortable atmosphere. "Er, Daisy, tell Mrs Patmore we'll eat in 15 minutes."

——

They work clearing the table.

"I keep forgetting, does this go next door or back to the Kitchen?" Gwen asks.

"Those go back, but the dessert service and all the glasses stay in the upstairs Pantry," Thomas tells her.

"Put it on here," William says. Gwen sets the dish down on the tray offered.

Anna leaves after a while and Emma follows soon after to the Antechamber to place the last pieces away and find O'Brien standing there as if they had been plotting.

"Having fun?" Emma says sarcastically before leaving them to go down for her dinner.

——

When the family moved out mourning to colours, some duke, who had invited himself to stay, arrived soon after. The general feeling was that since Lady Mary was no longer going to marry Mr Patrick, her options were open.

All the servants are gathered by the stairs leading up out of the servants' downstairs section as Mr Carson gives them a talk and observes whether they look worthy enough to meet a duke.

"You all ready?" Mr Carson inspects William's uniform. "Very well. We shall go out to greet them."

"And me, Mr Carson?" Daisy says excitedly.

"No, Daisy, not you." Daisy's expression comedically falls.

"Can you manage, Mr Bates, or would you rather wait here?" Mr Carson asks clearly still being judgemental of the cane.

"I want to go, Mr Carson."

"There's no obligation for the whole staff to be present."

"I'd like to be there." Mr Bates insists.

"Well, it's certainly a great day for Downton to welcome a duke under our roof." Mr Carson says puffing up his chest.

They all begin to move. Thomas turns to William. "Remember to help me with the luggage. Don't go running off."

Mr Bates calls from his position on the stairs. "I'll give you a hand."

"Oh, I couldn't ask that, Mr Bates, not in your condition," Thomas responds sarcastically.

——

The servants line up and the family exits the house as a car arrives at the front of the house. William opens the car door for the Duke and Lord Grantham.

Lord Grantham speaks. "Welcome to Downton." Mrs Hughes and the housemaids curtsy and the men bow their heads.

The Duke smiles. "Lady Grantham, this is so kind of you." He clasps her hand.

"Not at all, Duke." Lady Grantham says. "I'm delighted you could spare the time. You know my daughter, Mary, of course."

"Of course, Lady Mary." Said woman bobs her head.

"And Edith, but I don't believe you've met my youngest, Sybil."

"Ah, Lady Sybil." The Duke says. They step forward to shake hands.

"How do you do?" Lady Sybil greets.

"Come on in, you must be worn out." The family begin to walk towards the door but the Duke stops them.

"Oh, Lady Grantham, I have a confession to make, which I hope won't cause too much bother. My man was taken ill just as I was leaving, so..." Emma couldn't help but wrinkle her nose. Does he not realise the more work he has created? Also, does he actually feel sorry? Doubt it.

"Oh, well, that won't be a problem, will it Carson?" Lord Grantham speaks.

"Certainly not. I shall look after His Grace myself." Mr Carson says somehow puffing up his chest even more.

"Oh, no, I wouldn't dream of being such a nuisance, surely a footman..." The Duke looks at Thomas. "I remember this man. Didn't you serve me when I dined with Lady Grantham in London?"

"I did, Your Grace," Thomas says.

"Ah, there we are. We shall do very well together, won't we...?" Emma cannot help but think that he is just faking this.

"Er, Thomas, Your Grace."

"...Thomas."

"Good." Lady Grantham says clearly wanting to get on with it. The family heads inside. "I hope you had a pleasant journey."

Suddenly Mr Bates falls face first onto the ground causing the family to pause and look while the rest of them awkwardly stand there.

"Bates, are you all right?" Lord Grantham asks.

"Perfectly, My Lord. I apologise." Mr Bates says from the ground.

The family continues inside and Emma sees Mr Bates look up at Miss O'Brien, who gives him a look before leaving to the Servants' Entrance round the side where everyone else had gone. Emma knows then that his fall was not an accident.

Anna crouches down to help Mr Bates. "Mr Bates." Emma follows her.

William closes the front door and Anna and Emma help Mr Bates to his feet.

"There that's better," Emma speaks.

"Please, don't feel sorry for me." He speaks.

——

Later after dressing his Lordship for dinner, Mr Bates comes downstairs looking very sullen.

"Mr Bates?" Emma calls to him as he enters the Servants' Hall. He looks up at her. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine thank you." He speaks. "But it seems I will not be staying."

"Oh..." Emma says awkwardly, recently she seems to be feeling continuously awkward. "I'm sorry?" Was there a certain response in this period that Emma was supposed to say?

He simply smiles. "It's fine." He says before settling into a seat by the fireplace.

——

Later on, they sit about waiting in the Servants' Hall until they can clean the Dining room then eat.

"How long do you think they'll be? I'm starving." Thomas complains.

"Have you settled the ladies?" Mr Carson asks from his seat at the head of the table.

"Yes, Mr Carson."

"Then it won't be long once they go through."

"Do you think he'll speak out? Do you think we'll have a duchess to wait on? Imagine that!" Daisy natters.

Mrs Patmore then dashes her dreams. "You won't be waiting on her, whatever happens."

"There is no reason why the eldest daughter and heiress of the Earl of Grantham should not wear a duchess's coronet with honour." Mr Carson says. He'd always seemed to have a soft spot for Lady Mary.

"Heiress, Mr Carson? Has it been decided?" Mrs Hughes questions.

"It will be if there's any justice in the world." If this was about anyone else, Mr Carson likely would not care less.

"Well, we'll know soon enough." Mrs Hughes often did not seem to understand Mr Carson's fascination with Lady Mary.

Anna puts a plate down on a tray.

"What you doing, Anna?" Mrs Patmore questions.

"I thought I'd take something up to Mr Bates, him not being well enough to come down. You don't mind, do you, Mrs Hughes?" Anna asks. There was a clear strict rule that the male and female servants are to be kept separate, which is why there is a clear divide between quarters.

"I don't mind, not this once." Mrs Hughes concedes.

"Take him whatever he might need." Mr Carson says. Anna leaves with the tray.

Mr Carson then addresses the room, "Mr Bates is leaving without a stain on his character. I hope you all observe that in the manner of your parting."

"Well, I don't see why he has to go," William speaks. "I don't mind doing a bit of extra work."

"It's not up to you. I'll take care of His Lordship, shall I Mr Carson?" Thomas quickly pipes up. Emma is starting to get annoyed with Thomas' campaign against Mr Bates just because he happened to get the job he wanted.

"Not while you're looking after the Duke, you won't. I'll see to His Lordship myself." Mr Carson orders.

——

"It seems the Duke of Crowborough retired to bed early." Lady Sybil says as she sat at her dressing table as Emma prepares her hair for bed.

"He did My Lady?" Emma says raising her eyebrows in surprise. "I believed that he was showing some interest in Lady Mary? We all did." Emma begins to plait her hair, which is a hairstyle from this time period that she actually already knew how to do.

"Well, perhaps we will see more of him tomorrow." Lady Sybil replies.

At this point, Emma has finished her hair and she stands up. "Is that all My Lady?"

Sybil gives her a grateful smile. "Yes, thank you." It was always nice to help Lady Sybil as she is genuinely a kind person to everyone.

Emma is walking from Lady Sybil's room when she comes across a sad looking Thomas standing with a hand covering some of his face.

"Thomas?" Emma asks. He looks at her but does not say anything. She hugs him not asking what is wrong.

——

Turns out there is no chance of Lady Mary becoming a duchess as the Duke is off on the nine o'clock train the next morning. Not that I was sorry to see him leave. Though the good news is that Mr Bates is not actually leaving after all.

Just got to wait for the unknown cousin, who gets the title, money and house, to arrive at some point as well as the Dowager Countess and the current one's fight for Lady Mary's right to it, living in this place will never be dull.

——

A/N: Let me know if this is any good 😅

[thequietmanno1]

Thelreads, Vigilantes 80, Replies Part 1

1) “Christ, that one was disappointing, but at least Koichi is on the scene, and apparently Endeavor is already with his aim set on him. Hopefully not over the actual super-powered villain wreaking havoc around, but we`ll see. “- Again, Nomura’s doing his best to stay in back background for now. The actors are on stage, but he’s the one setting up all the props to properly ‘script’ their dramatic confrontation.

2) “…

And you lost me

Are those fucking sidekicks coming to cool down endeavor after he threw a single fire move?

Are you shitting me Furuhashi”- One big fire move that required a lot of precise control to avoid being too destructive. But yeah, this is very clearly just a means of making sure Koichi has the chance to confront Pop one-on-one without Endeavour rushing in there, whilst also giving a time limitation for their fight before the pros step in. I do sorta like the ‘ticking clock’ aspect to having to outrun the heroes’ interference, but it could have been handled better perhaps- or at least not by making Endeavour rashly pushing himself into overheating to reach this situation. 3) “After a single bullshit move that wasn`t even that much considering what Endeavor did in the main series, he`s already woobly and in need of being cooled down

are you fucking shitting me

THAT WAS LESS THAN ONE PAGE FURUHASHI, AND YOU ALREADY FUCKED UP”- This was several years ago- maybe Endeavour increased his ability to tolerate heat more and more throughout the years? But yeah, it’s 100% mainly a contrived way of benching a pro hero from directly intervening when Koichi’s nowhere near ready to face him. 4) “Where, Phelps? I don`t see Endeavor around here, I`m not sure who you`re calling. We only have a jackass that has fire powers, but definitely no Endeavor around.”- It is somewhat hilarious how you’re still on board the ‘Endeavour’s a terrible person’ train, but you’re so offended by the rash incompetence on display you’re actually defending his character in the main series. “This is not my Endevour”.

5) “Phelps, are you really saying that the number two hero, the guy that solves the most cases in the whole country, needs to pull back because of a single teenager villain?

Like, it`s not even funny, it`s absurd to think that this is really being said to a pro hero.”- I think Phelps was more concerned with the less-capable supporters around Endeavour being in the line of fire, such as the police under his direct supervision and the volunteers trying to corral her. If Endeavour can’t step in instantly, then there’s a risk to them from the blasts whilst he’s recuperating. 6) “OH HEY, YOU KNOW, WHY AREN`T ENDEAVOR SIDEKICKS DOING THAT THEN?

THEY ARE TRAINED, THEY KNOW HOW TO FIGHT ON THEIR OWN, AND THEY HAVE A LOT OF EXPERIENCE, THEY DON`T JUST SOUND SIRENS AND SIT AROUND, THEY ACTUALLY KNOW HOW TO PULL THEIR WEIGHT

WHY AREN`T THEM GOING AFTER THE VILLAIN, INSTEAD OF ONLY SOUNDING A SIREN TELLING OTHER HEROES TO DO THAT?”- So that when Nomura kills some ‘heroes’ on the scene to make Pop look bad, it’s both those who are unskilled enough to dodge a surprise attack from the side that bite it as well as protecting any of them that are guaranteed to make it to the main series, without them also having the chance to realise there’s a third party involved from any guaranteed-to-fail sniping. 7) “Would love to know how you expect to do that Compass, not without dying that is.”-He’s literally got insta-GPS for finding the ‘villain’. Shame about his lack of combat prowess… 8) “Oh wow, that was only a joke from my part, wasn`t expecting it to actually happen right now.

Alright, sorry Compass, you had a good- well, you had a run. Time to hit the hay. Permanently, that is.”- Koichi saved him from the obvious threat, but missed the explosive standing in plain sight right next to him. 9) “BOOOOO-

KOICHI LET HIM DIE IN PEACE, DON`T BLOW THIS FOR US”- Well, he dies in pieces anyway, so Koichi didn’t fully blow it. “Not much of a problem when the target isn`t a person, right Koichi? Damn, want to play Counter Strike professionally? I Think you`d do fine in it.”- Koichi’s lethality against non-humanoid targets cannot be understated here. If the boy had some means of actually hitting an opponent to knock them out without boring a hole in them, he’d be unstoppable to the low-level mooks he’s been tangling with all series. 10) “Also, now that I think about it, weren`t you close enough that Endeavor could see you Koichi? What the fuck are you doing here? It was less than 50 meters from Endeavor to Pop, you just decided to circle around the block or something?”- He’s following Pop, who is literally hopping all around the neighbourhood, via the rooftops, whilst he’s presently sticking to road-level, so yes, he is actually circling the block and double-ing back on himself to keep her in sight, whilst also drive-by shooting every bee in the swarm that he sees. 11) “Koichi you`re going too fast, the artist can`t even keep up long enough to draw you in the panel”- Koichi has taken after his master. He has become the Speed. He is…The Spider-Flash! 12) “Yeah, now that`s the kinda of shit I wanted to see ya doing my boi, just shame it wasn`t under better circumstances.”- Regardless of the situation, I really enjoyed seeing Koichi’s growth throughout this battle and the training leading up to it. 13) “Look at how good you got with your gun, you make your american parents ameriproud of you. But I`d like to know if you really just took a detour to handle the bees out of nowhere, because that`s certainly not the vibe I got from last chapter. “- If Pop is swarming the heroes trying to surround her with the bees, then all Koichi needs to do is follow her and blast any bees that are menacing the heroes or the buildings nearby, and eventually, the damage dealt to the whole will force them to try and concentrate on dealing with him first, allowing him to move into the next phase. 14) “Not like the swarms would even be able to get to him if he tried. Koichi at his regular speed can outrun them in the blink of an eye, but what is even going on with the geometry of this place, he was right there, now he`s far away, it`s like we`ve entered a non-euclidean corner of the neighborhood.”- In addition to his Quirk allowing him to master environmental movement, Koichi also turns out to have a secondary Quirk that subtly warps the environment itself around him to suit his needs. 15) “Koichi, you can destroy that. Just trust your GUN and unleash the spirit of freedom unto those bees. The power of tiny kong grants thee power against this enemy “- The smoke bomb is a better means of distracting Pop’s ‘ammo’ whilst Koichi saves his energy for actually catching up to her. He doesn’t have to shoot every bee to stop her, and if he did, it might make the parasite desperate enough for another suicide attack with the host. 16) “Oh, good thing we escalated from gun to bomb, this almost seems like the sort of thing that Knuckles would`ve done if he was here.”- Soga and Koichi are following in his footsteps. Unfortunately, whilst Koichi can perform the moves, he doesn’t have the mind to make these kind of plans himself for the moment, so that falls under Soga purview as his ‘guy in the chair’, meaning we still need him to stick around for now. 17) “And hop goes the crawler~

Yeah, you guys really had a chance of stopping him, keep believing that as he goes in and solves this whole mess single-handedly”- If circumstances were different, this would be a really excellent demonstration of Koichi’s skills as a hero to those watching. Shame it’s just putting him on the wanted list as a competent vigilante instead. @thelreads

[sugarstarlights]

nameless-brand​:

Your first priority as a god is to take care of yourself first. And yes that includes mortal self-care: sleeping, going out to eat, doing boring things like watch the grass grow, washing up, and just doing unrelated things.

Yes, it sounds selfish, but no one wins when the wielder of phenomenal cosmic powers makes a bad decision out of stress that could have otherwise been avoided.

You can’t help everyone. Not without rewriting reality in some manner. And that is a bad idea in all of its forms! Do not automate the task! - I guarantee that will end up badly for everyone involved!

And if it helps, as your aspect is Second Chances, like you mentioned, a Second Chance is something like a lucky opportunity. If it is guaranteed, it’s not really a “Second Chance” anymore, that beautiful fortuitous moment to change your life. It instead just becomes a safety net for people to go “oh I can fuck up once.”

If they’re in trouble when you were undergoing much needed mental rest, it was just simply meant to be.

Okay I’m ranting a little.

You are already doing a lot of good. You’ve probably done more than most so-called gods do in any world. Let’s say mortal concepts of good and evil still apply to those of the deity level: you are a good god by that perspective.

I’d offer you a break and the opportunity to rest like a normal person. The World Boundary gets exponentially more restrictive the more powerful you are - and since you’re a god now, most of your abilities will be sealed. You’ll probably be weaker than when you normally come here, but I figure I’ll offer a place of reprieve if things get too stressful.

–

One more thing 🐡!

You are a god now. You do not have responsibilities or obligations to anyone or anything beyond those that you wish to keep.

The world is your oyster.

Help people because you have fun doing it, not because you feel obligated to do it.

I’m 90% sure I can’t physically sleep but I was never very good at doing that in the first place. You’re right though..it’s slightly better to not get involved than to overwhelm myself and make things worse, and definitely better than just making everything happen all the time without precision or thought. And that /is/ what I’ve said before, that it’s a lucky opportunity, I’ve just never been very exclusive with who I believe deserves 1 of those, and excluding someone through no fault of their own just feels wrong.. But, it isn’t like they know I should be there, or are expecting me to come. So there’s no valid disappointment to be had..I just can’t stand leaving people out when I’m trying to help as en masse as possible.

I appreciate that a lot though. Bare minimum I’m a benevolent god, or I’m trying at least. Getting everything sealed up kind of freaks me out in concept but I might take you up on that in an emergency; 

I’m not sure if you literally edited that on after posting but the last-second encouragement helps, heh. That’s something I’m definitely going to have to extricate from itself, the feeling of free-willed enjoyment mashed together with the satisfaction of accomplishing what I’m supposed to, but so far I’ve enjoyed every single opportunity, just..started having retroactively anxious second thoughts the moment I paused to doubt. I know I’m incredibly free at the moment, but sudden unrestricted existence like this isn’t natural for me; it’s pretty intimidating and easy to feel like I’m fucking it up. But I’m definitely trying..would probably help not to dwell on the empty spots over what I accomplished, which was still a lot. It was. Plenty. It was enough. For me. I think.

[qqueenofhades]

The Green Knight and Medieval Metatextuality: An Essay

Right, so. Finally watched it last night, and I’ve been thinking about it literally ever since, except for the part where I was asleep. As I said to fellow medievalist and admirer of Dev Patel @oldshrewsburyian, it’s possibly the most fascinating piece of medieval-inspired media that I’ve seen in ages, and how refreshing to have something in this genre that actually rewards critical thought and deep analysis, rather than me just fulminating fruitlessly about how popular media thinks that slapping blood, filth, and misogyny onto some swords and castles is “historically accurate.” I read a review of TGK somewhere that described it as the anti-Game of Thrones, and I’m inclined to think that’s accurate. I didn’t agree with all of the film’s tonal, thematic, or interpretative choices, but I found them consistently stylish, compelling, and subversive in ways both small and large, and I’m gonna have to write about it or I’ll go crazy. So. Brace yourselves.

(Note: My PhD is in medieval history, not medieval literature, and I haven’t worked on SGGK specifically, but I am familiar with it, its general cultural context, and the historical influences, images, and debates that both the poem and the film referenced and drew upon, so that’s where this meta is coming from.)

First, obviously, while the film is not a straight-up text-to-screen version of the poem (though it is by and large relatively faithful), it is a multi-layered meta-text that comments on the original Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the archetypes of chivalric literature as a whole, modern expectations for medieval films, the hero’s journey, the requirements of being an “honorable knight,” and the nature of death, fate, magic, and religion, just to name a few. Given that the Arthurian legendarium, otherwise known as the Matter of Britain, was written and rewritten over several centuries by countless authors, drawing on and changing and hybridizing interpretations that sometimes challenged or outright contradicted earlier versions, it makes sense for the film to chart its own path and make its own adaptational decisions as part of this multivalent, multivocal literary canon. Sir Gawain himself is a canonically and textually inconsistent figure; in the movie, the characters merrily pronounce his name in several different ways, most notably as Sean Harris/King Arthur’s somewhat inexplicable “Garr-win.” He might be a man without a consistent identity, but that’s pointed out within the film itself. What has he done to define himself, aside from being the king’s nephew? Is his quixotic quest for the Green Knight actually going to resolve the question of his identity and his honor – and if so, is it even going to matter, given that successful completion of the “game” seemingly equates with death?

Likewise, as the anti-Game of Thrones, the film is deliberately and sometimes maddeningly non-commercial. For an adaptation coming from a studio known primarily for horror, it almost completely eschews the cliché that gory bloodshed equals authentic medievalism; the only graphic scene is the Green Knight’s original beheading. The violence is only hinted at, subtextual, suspenseful; it is kept out of sight, around the corner, never entirely played out or resolved. In other words, if anyone came in thinking that they were going to watch Dev Patel luridly swashbuckle his way through some CGI monsters like bad Beowulf adaptations of yore, they were swiftly disappointed. In fact, he seems to spend most of his time being wet, sad, and failing to meet the moment at hand (with a few important exceptions).

The film unhurriedly evokes a medieval setting that is both surreal and defiantly non-historical. We travel (in roughly chronological order) from Anglo-Saxon huts to Romanesque halls to high-Gothic cathedrals to Tudor villages and half-timbered houses, culminating in the eerie neo-Renaissance splendor of the Lord and Lady’s hall, before returning to the ancient trees of the Green Chapel and its immortal occupant: everything that has come before has now returned to dust. We have been removed even from imagined time and place and into a moment where it ceases to function altogether. We move forward, backward, and sideways, as Gawain experiences past, present, and future in unison. He is dislocated from his own sense of himself, just as we, the viewers, are dislocated from our sense of what is the “true” reality or filmic narrative; what we think is real turns out not to be the case at all. If, of course, such a thing even exists at all.

This visual evocation of the entire medieval era also creates a setting that, unlike GOT, takes pride in rejecting absolutely all political context or Machiavellian maneuvering. The film acknowledges its own cultural ubiquity and the question of whether we really need yet another King Arthur adaptation: none of the characters aside from Gawain himself are credited by name. We all know it’s Arthur, but he’s listed only as “king.” We know the spooky druid-like old man with the white beard is Merlin, but it’s never required to spell it out. The film gestures at our pre-existing understanding; it relies on us to fill in the gaps, cuing us to collaboratively produce the story with it, positioning us as listeners as if we were gathered to hear the original poem. Just like fanfiction, it knows that it doesn’t need to waste time introducing every single character or filling in ultimately unnecessary background knowledge, when the audience can be relied upon to bring their own.

As for that, the film explicitly frames itself as a “filmed adaptation of the chivalric romance” in its opening credits, and continues to play with textual referents and cues throughout: telling us where we are, what’s happening, or what’s coming next, rather like the rubrics or headings within a medieval manuscript. As noted, its historical/architectural references span the entire medieval European world, as does its costume design. I was particularly struck by the fact that Arthur and Guinevere’s crowns resemble those from illuminated monastic manuscripts or Eastern Orthodox iconography: they are both crown and halo, they confer an air of both secular kingship and religious sanctity. The question in the film’s imagined epilogue thus becomes one familiar to Shakespeare’s Henry V: heavy is the head that wears the crown. Does Gawain want to earn his uncle’s crown, take over his place as king, bear the fate of Camelot, become a great ruler, a husband and father in ways that even Arthur never did, only to see it all brought to dust by his cowardice, his reliance on unscrupulous sorcery, and his unfulfilled promise to the Green Knight? Is it better to have that entire life and then lose it, or to make the right choice now, even if it means death?

Likewise, Arthur’s kingly mantle is Byzantine in inspiration, as is the icon of the Virgin Mary-as-Theotokos painted on Gawain’s shield (which we see broken apart during the attack by the scavengers). The film only glances at its religious themes rather than harping on them explicitly; we do have the cliché scene of the male churchmen praying for Gawain’s safety, opposite Gawain’s mother and her female attendants working witchcraft to protect him. (When oh when will I get my film that treats medieval magic and medieval religion as the complementary and co-existing epistemological systems that they were, rather than portraying them as diametrically binary and disparagingly gendered opposites?) But despite the interim setbacks borne from the failure of Christian icons, the overall resolution of the film could serve as the culmination of a medieval Christian morality tale: Gawain can buy himself a great future in the short term if he relies on the protection of the enchanted green belt to avoid the Green Knight’s killing stroke, but then he will have to watch it all crumble until he is sitting alone in his own hall, his children dead and his kingdom destroyed, as a headless corpse who only now has been brave enough to accept his proper fate. By removing the belt from his person in the film’s Inception-like final scene, he relinquishes the taint of black magic and regains his religious honor, even at the likely cost of death. That, the medieval Christian morality tale would agree, is the correct course of action.

Gawain’s encounter with St. Winifred likewise presents a more subtle vision of medieval Christianity. Winifred was an eighth-century Welsh saint known for being beheaded, after which (by the power of another saint) her head was miraculously restored to her body and she went on to live a long and holy life. It doesn’t quite work that way in TGK. (St Winifred’s Well is mentioned in the original SGGK, but as far as I recall, Gawain doesn’t meet the saint in person.) In the film, Gawain encounters Winifred’s lifelike apparition, who begs him to dive into the mere and retrieve her head (despite appearances, she warns him, it is not attached to her body). This fits into the pattern of medieval ghost stories, where the dead often return to entreat the living to help them finish their business; they must be heeded, but when they are encountered in places they shouldn’t be, they must be put back into their proper physical space and reminded of their real fate. Gawain doesn’t follow William of Newburgh’s practical recommendation to just fetch some brawny young men with shovels to beat the wandering corpse back into its grave. Instead, in one of his few moments of unqualified heroism, he dives into the dark water and retrieves Winifred’s skull from the bottom of the lake. Then when he returns to the house, he finds the rest of her skeleton lying in the bed where he was earlier sleeping, and carefully reunites the skull with its body, finally allowing it to rest in peace.

However, Gawain’s involvement with Winifred doesn’t end there. The fox that he sees on the bank after emerging with her skull, who then accompanies him for the rest of the film, is strongly implied to be her spirit, or at least a companion that she has sent for him. Gawain has handled a saint’s holy bones; her relics, which were well known to grant protection in the medieval world. He has done the saint a service, and in return, she extends her favor to him. At the end of the film, the fox finally speaks in a human voice, warning him not to proceed to the fateful final encounter with the Green Knight; it will mean his death. The symbolism of having a beheaded saint serve as Gawain’s guide and protector is obvious, since it is the fate that may or may not lie in store for him. As I said, the ending is Inception-like in that it steadfastly refuses to tell you if the hero is alive (or will live) or dead (or will die). In the original SGGK, of course, the Green Knight and the Lord turn out to be the same person, Gawain survives, it was all just a test of chivalric will and honor, and a trap put together by Morgan Le Fay in an attempt to frighten Guinevere. It’s essentially able to be laughed off: a game, an adventure, not real. TGK takes this paradigm and flips it (to speak…) on its head.

Gawain’s rescue of Winifred’s head also rewards him in more immediate terms: his/the Green Knight’s axe, stolen by the scavengers, is miraculously restored to him in her cottage, immediately and concretely demonstrating the virtue of his actions. This is one of the points where the film most stubbornly resists modern storytelling conventions: it simply refuses to add in any kind of “rational” or “empirical” explanation of how else it got there, aside from the grace and intercession of the saint. This is indeed how it works in medieval hagiography: things simply reappear, are returned, reattached, repaired, made whole again, and Gawain’s lost weapon is thus restored, symbolizing that he has passed the test and is worthy to continue with the quest. The film’s narrative is not modernizing its underlying medieval logic here, and it doesn’t particularly care if a modern audience finds it “convincing” or not. As noted, the film never makes any attempt to temporalize or localize itself; it exists in a determinedly surrealist and ahistorical landscape, where naked female giants who look suspiciously like Tilda Swinton roam across the wild with no necessary explanation. While this might be frustrating for some people, I actually found it a huge relief that a clearly fantastic and fictional literary adaptation was not acting like it was qualified to teach “real history” to its audience. Nobody would come out of TGK thinking that they had seen the “actual” medieval world, and since we have enough of a problem with that sort of thing thanks to GOT, I for one welcome the creation of a medieval imaginative space that embraces its eccentric and unrealistic elements, rather than trying to fit them into the Real Life box.

This plays into the fact that the film, like a reused medieval manuscript containing more than one text, is a palimpsest: for one, it audaciously rewrites the entire Arthurian canon in the wordless vision of Gawain’s life after escaping the Green Knight (I could write another meta on that dream-epilogue alone). It moves fluidly through time and creates alternate universes in at least two major points: one, the scene where Gawain is tied up and abandoned by the scavengers and that long circling shot reveals his skeletal corpse rotting on the sward, only to return to our original universe as Gawain decides that he doesn’t want that fate, and two, Gawain as King. In this alternate ending, Arthur doesn’t die in battle with Mordred, but peaceably in bed, having anointed his worthy nephew as his heir. Gawain becomes king, has children, gets married, governs Camelot, becomes a ruler surpassing even Arthur, but then watches his son get killed in battle, his subjects turn on him, and his family vanish into the dust of his broken hall before he himself, in despair, pulls the enchanted scarf out of his clothing and succumbs to his fate.

In this version, Gawain takes on the responsibility for the fall of Camelot, not Arthur. This is the hero’s burden, but he’s obtained it dishonorably, by cheating. It is a vivid but mimetic future which Gawain (to all appearances) ultimately rejects, returning the film to the realm of traditional Arthurian canon – but not quite. After all, if Gawain does get beheaded after that final fade to black, it would represent a significant alteration from the poem and the character’s usual arc. Are we back in traditional canon or aren’t we? Did Gawain reject that future or didn’t he? Do all these alterities still exist within the visual medium of the meta-text, and have any of them been definitely foreclosed?

Furthermore, the film interrogates itself and its own tropes in explicit and overt ways. In Gawain’s conversation with the Lord, the Lord poses the question that many members of the audience might have: is Gawain going to carry out this potentially pointless and suicidal quest and then be an honorable hero, just like that? What is he actually getting by staggering through assorted Irish bogs and seeming to reject, rather than embrace, the paradigms of a proper quest and that of an honorable knight? He lies about being a knight to the scavengers, clearly out of fear, and ends up cravenly bound and robbed rather than fighting back. He denies knowing anything about love to the Lady (played by Alicia Vikander, who also plays his lover at the start of the film with a decidedly ropey Yorkshire accent, sorry to say). He seems to shrink from the responsibility thrust on him, rather than rise to meet it (his only honorable act, retrieving Winifred’s head, is discussed above) and yet here he still is, plugging away. Why is he doing this? What does he really stand to gain, other than accepting a choice and its consequences (somewhat?) The film raises these questions, but it has no plans to answer them. It’s going to leave you to think about them for yourself, and it isn’t going to spoon-feed you any ultimate moral or neat resolution. In this interchange, it’s easy to see both the echoes of a formal dialogue between two speakers (a favored medieval didactic tactic) and the broader purpose of chivalric literature: to interrogate what it actually means to be a knight, how personal honor is generated, acquired, and increased, and whether engaging in these pointless and bloody “war games” is actually any kind of real path to lasting glory.

The film’s treatment of race, gender, and queerness obviously also merits comment. By casting Dev Patel, an Indian-born actor, as an Arthurian hero, the film is… actually being quite accurate to the original legends, doubtless much to the disappointment of assorted internet racists. The thirteenth-century Arthurian romance Parzival (Percival) by the German poet Wolfram von Eschenbach notably features the character of Percival’s mixed-race half-brother, Feirefiz, son of their father by his first marriage to a Muslim princess. Feirefiz is just as heroic as Percival (Gawaine, for the record, also plays a major role in the story) and assists in the quest for the Holy Grail, though it takes his conversion to Christianity for him to properly behold it.

By introducing Patel (and Sarita Chowdhury as Morgause) to the visual representation of Arthuriana, the film quietly does away with the “white Middle Ages” cliché that I have complained about ad nauseam; we see background Asian and black members of Camelot, who just exist there without having to conjure up some complicated rationale to explain their presence. The Lady also uses a camera obscura to make Gawain’s portrait. Contrary to those who might howl about anachronism, this technique was known in China as early as the fourth century BCE and the tenth/eleventh century Islamic scholar Ibn al-Haytham was probably the best-known medieval authority to write on it extensively; Latin translations of his work inspired European scientists from Roger Bacon to Leonardo da Vinci. Aside from the symbolism of an upside-down Gawain (and when he sees the portrait again during the ‘fall of Camelot’, it is right-side-up, representing that Gawain himself is in an upside-down world), this presents a subtle challenge to the prevailing Eurocentric imagination of the medieval world, and draws on other global influences.

As for gender, we have briefly touched on it above; in the original SGGK, Gawain’s entire journey is revealed to be just a cruel trick of Morgan Le Fay, simply trying to destabilize Arthur’s court and upset his queen. (Morgan is the old blindfolded woman who appears in the Lord and Lady’s castle and briefly approaches Gawain, but her identity is never explicitly spelled out.) This is, obviously, an implicitly misogynistic setup: an evil woman plays a trick on honorable men for the purpose of upsetting another woman, the honorable men overcome it, the hero survives, and everyone presumably lives happily ever after (at least until Mordred arrives).

Instead, by plunging the outcome into doubt and the hero into a much darker and more fallible moral universe, TGK shifts the blame for Gawain’s adventure and ultimate fate from Morgan to Gawain himself. Likewise, Guinevere is not the passive recipient of an evil deception but in a way, the catalyst for the whole thing. She breaks the seal on the Green Knight’s message with a weighty snap; she becomes the oracle who reads it out, she is alarming rather than alarmed, she disrupts the complacency of the court and silently shows up all the other knights who refuse to step forward and answer the Green Knight’s challenge. Gawain is not given the ontological reassurance that it’s just a practical joke and he’s going to be fine (and thanks to the unresolved ending, neither are we). The film instead takes the concept at face value in order to push the envelope and ask the simple question: if a man was going to be actually-for-real beheaded in a year, why would he set out on a suicidal quest? Would you, in Gawain’s place, make the same decision to cast aside the enchanted belt and accept your fate? Has he made his name, will he be remembered well? What is his legacy?

Indeed, if there is any hint of feminine connivance and manipulation, it arrives in the form of the implication that Gawain’s mother has deliberately summoned the Green Knight to test her son, prove his worth, and position him as his childless uncle’s heir; she gives him the protective belt to make sure he won’t actually die, and her intention all along was for the future shown in the epilogue to truly play out (minus the collapse of Camelot). Only Gawain loses the belt thanks to his cowardice in the encounter with the scavengers, regains it in a somewhat underhanded and morally questionable way when the Lady is attempting to seduce him, and by ultimately rejecting it altogether and submitting to his uncertain fate, totally mucks up his mother’s painstaking dynastic plans for his future. In this reading, Gawain could be king, and his mother’s efforts are meant to achieve that goal, rather than thwart it. He is thus required to shoulder his own responsibility for this outcome, rather than conveniently pawning it off on an “evil woman,” and by extension, the film asks the question: What would the world be like if men, especially those who make war on others as a way of life, were actually forced to face the consequences of their reckless and violent actions? Is it actually a “game” in any sense of the word, especially when chivalric literature is constantly preoccupied with the question of how much glorious violence is too much glorious violence? If you structure social prestige for the king and the noble male elite entirely around winning battles and existing in a state of perpetual war, when does that begin to backfire and devour the knightly class – and the rest of society – instead?

This leads into the central theme of Gawain’s relationships with the Lord and Lady, and how they’re treated in the film. The poem has been repeatedly studied in terms of its latent (and sometimes… less than latent) queer subtext: when the Lord asks Gawain to pay back to him whatever he should receive from his wife, does he already know what this involves; i.e. a physical and romantic encounter? When the Lady gives kisses to Gawain, which he is then obliged to return to the Lord as a condition of the agreement, is this all part of a dastardly plot to seduce him into a kinky green-themed threesome with a probably-not-human married couple looking to spice up their sex life? Why do we read the Lady’s kisses to Gawain as romantic but Gawain’s kisses to the Lord as filial, fraternal, or the standard “kiss of peace” exchanged between a liege lord and his vassal? Is Gawain simply being a dutiful guest by honoring the bargain with his host, actually just kissing the Lady again via the proxy of her husband, or somewhat more into this whole thing with the Lord than he (or the poet) would like to admit? Is the homosocial turning homoerotic, and how is Gawain going to navigate this tension and temptation?

If the question is never resolved: well, welcome to one of the central medieval anxieties about chivalry, knighthood, and male bonds! As I have written about before, medieval society needed to simultaneously exalt this as the most honored and noble form of love, and make sure it didn’t accidentally turn sexual (once again: how much male love is too much male love?). Does the poem raise the possibility of serious disruption to the dominant heteronormative paradigm, only to solve the problem by interpreting the Gawain/Lady male/female kisses as romantic and sexual and the Gawain/Lord male/male kisses as chaste and formal? In other words, acknowledging the underlying anxiety of possible homoeroticism but ultimately reasserting the heterosexual norm? The answer: Probably?!?! Maybe?!?! Hell if we know??! To say the least, this has been argued over to no end, and if you locked a lot of medieval history/literature scholars into a room and told them that they couldn’t come out until they decided on one clear answer, they would be in there for a very long time. The poem seemingly invokes the possibility of a queer reading only to reject it – but once again, as in the question of which canon we end up in at the film’s end, does it?

In some lights, the film’s treatment of this potential queer reading comes off like a cop-out: there is only one kiss between Gawain and the Lord, and it is something that the Lord has to initiate after Gawain has already fled the hall. Gawain himself appears to reject it; he tells the Lord to let go of him and runs off into the wilderness, rather than deal with or accept whatever has been suggested to him. However, this fits with film!Gawain’s pattern of rejecting that which fundamentally makes him who he is; like Peter in the Bible, he has now denied the truth three times. With the scavengers he denies being a knight; with the Lady he denies knowing about courtly love; with the Lord he denies the central bond of brotherhood with his fellows, whether homosocial or homoerotic in nature. I would go so far as to argue that if Gawain does die at the end of the film, it is this rejected kiss which truly seals his fate. In the poem, the Lord and the Green Knight are revealed to be the same person; in the film, it’s not clear if that’s the case, or they are separate characters, even if thematically interrelated. If we assume, however, that the Lord is in fact still the human form of the Green Knight, then Gawain has rejected both his kiss of peace (the standard gesture of protection offered from lord to vassal) and any deeper emotional bond that it can be read to signify. The Green Knight could decide to spare Gawain in recognition of the courage he has shown in relinquishing the enchanted belt – or he could just as easily decide to kill him, which he is legally free to do since Gawain has symbolically rejected the offer of brotherhood, vassalage, or knight-bonding by his unwise denial of the Lord’s freely given kiss. Once again, the film raises the overall thematic and moral question and then doesn’t give one straight (ahem) answer. As with the medieval anxieties and chivalric texts that it is based on, it invokes the specter of queerness and then doesn’t neatly resolve it. As a modern audience, we find this unsatisfying, but once again, the film is refusing to conform to our expectations.

As has been said before, there is so much kissing between men in medieval contexts, both ceremonial and otherwise, that we’re left to wonder: “is it gay or is it feudalism?” Is there an overtly erotic element in Gawain and the Green Knight’s mutual “beheading” of each other (especially since in the original version, this frees the Lord from his curse, functioning like a true love’s kiss in a fairytale). While it is certainly possible to argue that the film has “straightwashed” its subject material by removing the entire sequence of kisses between Gawain and the Lord and the unresolved motives for their existence, it is a fairly accurate, if condensed, representation of the anxieties around medieval knightly bonds and whether, as Carolyn Dinshaw put it, a (male/male) “kiss is just a kiss.” After all, the kiss between Gawain and the Lady is uncomplicatedly read as sexual/romantic, and that context doesn’t go away when Gawain is kissing the Lord instead. Just as with its multiple futurities, the film leaves the question open-ended. Is it that third and final denial that seals Gawain’s fate, and if so, is it asking us to reflect on why, specifically, he does so?

The film could play with both this question and its overall tone quite a bit more: it sometimes comes off as a grim, wooden, over-directed Shakespearean tragedy, rather than incorporating the lively and irreverent tone that the poem often takes. It’s almost totally devoid of humor, which is unfortunate, and the Grim Middle Ages aesthetic is in definite evidence. Nonetheless, because of the comprehensive de-historicizing and the obvious lack of effort to claim the film as any sort of authentic representation of the medieval past, it works. We are not meant to understand this as a historical document, and so we have to treat it on its terms, by its own logic, and by its own frames of reference. In some ways, its consistent opacity and its refusal to abide by modern rules and common narrative conventions is deliberately meant to challenge us: as before, when we recognize Arthur, Merlin, the Round Table, and the other stock characters because we know them already and not because the film tells us so, we have to fill in the gaps ourselves. We are watching the film not because it tells us a simple adventure story – there is, as noted, shockingly little action overall – but because we have to piece together the metatext independently and ponder the philosophical questions that it leaves us with. What conclusion do we reach? What canon do we settle in? What future or resolution is ultimately made real? That, the film says, it can’t decide for us. As ever, it is up to future generations to carry on the story, and decide how, if at all, it is going to survive.

(And to close, I desperately want them to make my much-coveted Bisclavret adaptation now in more or less the same style, albeit with some tweaks. Please.)

Further Reading

Ailes, Marianne J. ‘The Medieval Male Couple and the Language of Homosociality’, in Masculinity in Medieval Europe, ed. by Dawn M. Hadley (Harlow: Longman, 1999), pp. 214–37.

Ashton, Gail. ‘The Perverse Dynamics of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Arthuriana 15 (2005), 51–74.

Boyd, David L. ‘Sodomy, Misogyny, and Displacement: Occluding Queer Desire in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Arthuriana 8 (1998), 77–113.

Busse, Peter. ‘The Poet as Spouse of his Patron: Homoerotic Love in Medieval Welsh and Irish Poetry?’, Studi Celtici 2 (2003), 175–92.

Dinshaw, Carolyn. ‘A Kiss Is Just a Kiss: Heterosexuality and Its Consolations in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Diacritics 24 (1994), 205–226.

Kocher, Suzanne. ‘Gay Knights in Medieval French Fiction: Constructs of Queerness and Non-Transgression’, Mediaevalia 29 (2008), 51–66.

Karras, Ruth Mazo. ‘Knighthood, Compulsory Heterosexuality, and Sodomy’ in The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, ed. Matthew Kuefler (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), pp. 273–86.

Kuefler, Matthew. ‘Male Friendship and the Suspicion of Sodomy in Twelfth-Century France’, in The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, ed. Matthew Kuefler (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), pp. 179–214.

McVitty, E. Amanda, ‘False Knights and True Men: Contesting Chivalric Masculinity in English Treason Trials, 1388–1415,’ Journal of Medieval History 40 (2014), 458–77.

Mieszkowski, Gretchen. ‘The Prose Lancelot's Galehot, Malory's Lavain, and the Queering of Late Medieval Literature’, Arthuriana 5 (1995), 21–51.

Moss, Rachel E. ‘ “And much more I am soryat for my good knyghts’ ”: Fainting, Homosociality, and Elite Male Culture in Middle English Romance’, Historical Reflections / Réflexions historiques 42 (2016), 101–13.

Zeikowitz, Richard E. ‘Befriending the Medieval Queer: A Pedagogy for Literature Classes’, College English 65 (2002), 67–80.

[oh-holy-slut]

Bloodlust

Pairing: Damon Salvatore x fem!reader

Warnings: smut, explicit language, blood sharing, mentions of death, oral sex

Word Count: 2,6k

Summary: Stefan forced Damon to try his animal diet. Damon hated it, but didn't had a choice... until Reader makes a suggestion. Suddenly things get steamy.

Being with Damon was complicated. Him and Y/N have seen each other a lot in the past weeks. The two of them had a lot of fun; saw a lot of movies. Actually, Y/N was sure Damon secretly hated many of those. However, anytime Y/N suggested another dramatic, romantic cliché movie like "Last Song" - the vampire groaned, put his arm around her shoulder, let her head rest on his chest and endured every single second of the movie of her choice.

Damon even flirted and teased Y/N here and there, but didn't lead to anything more intimate so far.

Today was another of those days. Y/N stuck around at the Salvatore boarding house, brought a few of Damon's favorite groceries and a bunch of movies, of which she thought that they will suit his taste. Even if they were a little to bloody and brutal in her opinion.

"Pick one!", she demanded, holding all three Blu-ray sleeves in front of him. Damon just shrugged, not bothering to even look.

"Don't be a killjoy, Damon Salvatore!" Y/N sighed.

"Tell me what's wrong or pick a movie. You've got no choice. And besides that... Which number of drink is this?" Y/N frowned, pointing at the liquor in her friends hand. Damon usually consumed his beloved bourbon with pleasure.

But the man on the couch didn't seem pleasured at all. His facial features totally hardened and a look in his eyes like he was ready to rip someone's heart out.

You put the disc's back in your handbag, closing the zipper and put the bag on the floor.

"Fine. No movie night today. Who are we going to kill?"

A small smirk appeared on Damon's lips, finally looking towards Y/N.

"Stefan and his hero hair. He made me go vegetarian... well, for a vampire... and I can't get myself to eat one of those chipmunks, bunnies or bambis." He shook himself with disgust.

"And why did he count you in? You clearly aren't excited about the changing... So, why did you agree?"

"He said, he would kill me, which is kinda funny. But-" Damon made a wide gesture "he stole my daylight ring. And he wouldn't give it back until I stop feeding on innocent people - and kill them."

"So, you truly let your younger brother blackmail you like that?! Wow... I don't know how to feel about your dieting or your new path. Or whatever this is supposed to be."

"You don't like me killing people either", Damon maintained, while taking another sip of bourbon.

"Well, I don't", Y/N agreed, took a step forward, stole the glass from the vampires hand and put it on a small table nearby. "But I don't believe in forcing as a method to get people to change their minds. I believe that change for the better must be an intrinsic motivation," she added quickly, giving the vampire an innocent smile.

Damon's lineaments suddenly turned from annoyed to curious. "Any suggestions, little one?" The vampire raised an eyebrow and a little smirk showed up on his lips. On the one hand, Y/N blushed over the nickname, Damon called her.  On the other hand she felt skittish looking forward to making a deal with him. Not only a deal. It's far more than a simple agreement.

It's Y/N, actually giving Damon a part of her. The red elixir of life. She was about to give him total control of her body and she not even for a heartbeat doubt that Damon will use it against her.

"Actually... Yeah. There's something on my mind." Y/N said chewing on your lip. "I could open up a vein for you. I mean, you could feed on me. And since you have my permission, there's nothing for anybody to have objection about."

Damon frowned and gave her an incredulous look. "You would do that for me?" The vampire couldn't believe, he understood correctly. Why would Y/N want to get involved with him feeding on her? What's in it for her? Damon tried hard to connect the dots, but he wasn't able to. It all seemed to make no sense. Y/N wouldn't have an advantage of that. The vampire hesitated, pinning his dangerously blue eyes on the girl in front of him.

"Is it so suspicious of me, that I'm trying to help my closest friend?" It pierced Y/N's heart, realizing, Damon's trust in her was rather fragile. "Never mind", she waved the pain away and forced herself to keep her composure. "I only had a hasty idea; you really don't need to fee-"

Suddenly Damon appeared behind Y/N, using his vampirism. "Shhhh", he whispered softly. "I never said, that I don't want your blood. I'm thinking about if we are going to cross a line? Blood sharing can be very personal..."

"It can be? It is personal already. Believe it or not - I'm not gonna offer my veins to all the vampires of Mystic Falls." Y/N rolled her eyes, her arms folded on her chest to point out the indignation she felt right now.

"Kinda sensitive today, huh?" Damon gently stroke a strand of hair behind her ear, Y/N could hear this smug smirk through his words. It was a true 'Damon thing' to do. "I didn't mean it like that, princess." He sighed; unsure if he should agree or not. Damon didn't want to act selfish towards Y/N. He compelled a lot of girls for the purpose of drinking blood in the past. He literally used them as long as they weren't too annoying - and then he acted like they have never met. Damon Salvatore couldn't imagine this scenario with Y/N. They've been so close, the vampire couldn't stand loosing her. The offer was risky, but it also could bring each other even closer.

Damon tried hard to avoid any serious attraction between Y/N and him, afraid of messing up. Indeed, he found himself thinking, and even dreaming, about Y/N more than he wanted to admit. She was smart and had this special sense of humor, the vampire adored so much. She was the only one, who could make him feel good no matter what. Needless to say she had that glimmer in her eyes, when she did something she truly loved. In these moments she was even more pretty. Y/N was hard to resist.

And maybe now he could have her like nobody else. At least the vampire gave in. He wanted her blood. He wanted her.

Y/N flinched by the feeling of Damon brushing her neck with his lips.  "Oh, Damon", she gasped. "Bite me." Y/N almost begged for the vampire's teeth breaking through her skin. Damon loved the sound of her husky voice. In less than a heartbeat he turned into his vampire shape. "If you insist", he grinned devilishly, ready to place his teeth on to her skin.

Suddenly Y/N made a slight move forward with the intention to interrupt her friend. "Did you change your mind?" Damon was close to switching back to human, overwhelmed by a mix of emotions. Mostly a lack of understanding, but also a little of disappointment and even anger. Was Y/N playing games on him? While Damon Salvatore was sorting feelings, Y/N turned around, standing now in front of him.

She was so close, not even a piece of paper would fit between them.

Y/N slightly exhaled breath, her eyes darting between the vampires eyes and lips. It was the first time Y/N saw him like this. The icy blue of his eyes, she loved so much, has turned darker. Purple veins appeared under his eyes; Y/N couldn't help herself. Damon's appearance fully intoxicated every fibre of her being. Her fingertips found their way gently brushing over his dark purple veins. She felt heat and softness, while tracing one of them.  It took her a few seconds to get out of trance, realizing what she had done. "Sorry", she murmured with a voice barely audible. "Don't apologize, little one." Damon tilted his head, his lips curled up in a self-assured grin, exposing a perfectly white vampire fang. "I never saw you like this before, you loo-"

"... look like a monster?"

Y/N shook her head. It was nothing like that. Yes, he did look unfamiliar. And she should be scared under normal conditions. Instead, his look hit her in an unexpected way. He looked hotter as a vampire, if it was even possible. 

Y/N cleared her throat, looking up at Damon. "I feel... attracted to you."

"So nothing's changed", Damon teased, raising his eyebrows. The girl in front of him softly slapped him on his shoulder; which was only possible because the vampire permitted. "You are always so full of yourself." She smirked, feeling more confident being to something, they have had been so many times before. Granted, he was terrifying accurate, but she wouldn't serve her feelings on a silver platter.

"I'm still into it. You can bite me; feed on me. I only needed to see you before..." 

A shockwave of electricity flowed through her body the second Damon took her hand and pulled her close.

"I'll be careful", he promised, nuzzling his head into the nap of her neck. Damon once again placed his lips on her soft skin. 

Suddenly a harsh pain made Y/N feel like in a kind of haze. She flinched and let out a groan at the same time, unintentionally biting her lower lip. 

During Damon embedded his fang deeper and deeper, she started feeling dizzy. Her hands searched for the vampires upper body, finally wrapped around his neck. She needed him to lean on. A narrow trickle of blood flowed down her neck. Let Damon feed on her felt like flames licking up every fiber of her body. 

With every passing second Y/N could feel her control slip away. Her body was now firmly pressed against Damon's, like she would want to merge them into one.

Damon noticed her staggering, wrapped his arms around her waist, supporting her.

Bloodlust already messed up the vampires mind, so he continued feeding on Y/N.

A tempting moan escaped her lips, but she didn't care to cover up. Y/N's heart was racing, her eyes flattering. It was almost as if he was about to push her over the edge, but in a different way. "Mmm, this...this… feels soo weird... and so good...", she whispered under a shallow breath.

As soon as Damon heard her fading voice, he abruptly

quitted drinking from her.

"Fuck!" He rapidly laid her on his lap and checked Y/N's vital signs, to make sure she was okay. Instinctively he bit his wrist, pressed it against Y/N's mouth. He knew his blood would heal her, but it wasn't going fast enough. A few seconds passed through, to him they felt like centuries. Y/N finally blinked and Damon was relieved. He cupped her cheeks, his gaze never leaving hers. "I thought, I'd gone-" Damon cleaned his throat. "I'm so glad, you are doing well", he whispered, while trailing her lips with his fingertips. "So, fuckin' glad..." The vampire exhaled a deep breath. 

"It... You made me feel good. Strange, but good", Y/N appeased and flushed over the memory. "Maybe you got a little carried away, but I don't mind. I wouldn't trade the feeling for anything."

Y/N quickly interrupted herself, before she could reveal too much.

However, Damon used his vampire skills, noticing that Y/N was hiding something from him. "Isn't there anything else you want me to know?", Damon asked without taking his eyes off her. Y/N shifted and flushed even more. "It's unfair. You use your vampirism to get everything out of me."

"Well, if that were the case, I could easily compel you." Damon shrugged and found back to his smugly self. "Tell me, what you are hiding". He said in a seductive voice.

"I wanted to get lost in you."

Her confession sent shivers all over the vampires body. At first he could not decide, how to handle this. "Are you sure that's what you want? I could really hurt you..." Y/N hummed.

In the next split second, Damon pinned Y/N against a wall, smashing his lips on hers, kissing her with all the passion he had to give. The vampire devoured Y/N with a new kind of hunger. He didn't know he could crave someone so much.

"Fuck me, Damon..."

The vampire felt him getting hard, only by hearing those little three words out of her mouth.

"Say it louder. Tell me, what you want me to do."

Y/N pulled him closer, gently biting his earlobe.

"Fuck... me, Damon." It took her a second to focus and forming the words again. After she was near to climax earlier, it wasn't a long way getting to the edge once more. "Make me cum... You almost had me there..."

A deep moan got over the vampires lips, once he understood, what Y/N was trying to tell him.

With the next blink Y/N found herself in Damon's bedroom, lying on his bed.

From now on there weren't many words needed. Damon's hand's found their way under her shirt, cupping her breasts and make her moan over and over again.

He closely listened to the rhythm of her heart, making sure he would be able to delay her climax to the point he needed her to.

"Don't cum yet... I want to taste your little pussy first."

Y/N grabbed the vampires head, running her fingers through his dark hair - pushing him down, since she was unable to form a single word.

As Damon got down, he didn't take his eyes off Y/N.

He used a hand pushing up her skirt and lightly stroking over her panties with his fingertips.

"My girl is so wet", he praised in a low husky voice."-and I barely touched you."

His dirty words in combination with his touch lead to another moan, almost turned into a scream.

Damon pushed the fabric aside, leaving sloppy kisses on the inside of her thighs.

Y/N's eyes fluttered, when his soft lips reached her middle.

Damon's tongue licking around her entrance was driving her nuts.

"...so delicious..." were the only words she was able to catch up. Damon knew, he couldn't thrill her forever, so he got back to her. He spit on his palms, stroking his hand over his crotch. In under a second Y/N finally felt this releasing pressure of his cock. It was like a switch went off in her brain and she braced herself for the hard thrusts that would follow.

Damon dimmed the whining noises Y/N made with a passionate, hungry kiss.

He cheated with his vampirism to give it to her deeper and faster, knocking out all the air of her lungs while Y/N screamed out Damon's name. Her walls clenched around him and made him twitch. It was like her pussy massaged his dick the best way possible.

Every time he hit her harder and rougher he was making sure he hit her spot with every thrust.

Damon gathered speed one last time and pushed her over the edge until she was a moaning whimpering mess.

With her last contraction around his shaft, Damon was cumming inside her.

"You are so tight, little one", he whispered under his breath. "We should make arrangements more often."

Please like or/and reblog if you enjoyed reading or/and want me to write more stories about Damon.

Thanks guys ❤️

[absolutepokemontrash]

MC is Half Demon and They’re- Oh Crap They’re Barbatos’ Kid!

This is the second part of that one request I answered for Dia and Barb’s possible kids. Sorry this took so long! Writer’s block, y’know? Anyhoo~ enjoy, everyone!

This story didn’t start on the first day of the exchange program, it started five days before in Barbatos’ room at three in the morning with the poor butler waking up in a cold sweat.

Oh dear, it appeared the exchange program would be up in a bit of a tizzy. He had… a child? Oh my… Barbatos hoped the young master wouldn’t be too miffed about the student not being a totally normal human.

On the day of the exchange program, Barbatos insisted he had to be present for the event, he carefully pushed a cushioned sofa in the drop zone before opening the portal. The child fell right out of the sky and landed perfectly on the couch, they were already wearing a helmet and looked quite shocked by the cushioned fall.

Well, it was a big shock to the assembled crowd, but the child gave everyone a lopsided smile and removed their helmet.

“So, I assume I’m here for the exchange program?”

Dadbatos

Well, this child was incredibly… what was the word the kids were using? chill? They were quite chill considering the situation, and was surprisingly prepared for the sudden drop into hell.

“Oh, I had a dream that this was going to happen, and I dream about the future n’stuff. I thought I’d come prepared.” “Ah, that’s very sensible.”

Diavolo recovered quickly from his shock and was positively delighted to meet this little munchkin. He insisted that they had to stay with their dad.

MC was polite, if not a bit overly calm about a lot of things. They didn’t run off to start trouble, and they didn’t seem very impressed by the Devildom itself. It was sort of like this child had a very low maximum level of excitement. Barbatos was glad his child wasn’t some little hellraiser.

He was never a child himself, so he’s a bit clueless about what children actually enjoy. Here child, have a… have an old torture weapon. Don’t use it on anyone who doesn’t deserve it :)

(I’m kidding, Barbatos is too responsible to give one of his instruments of torture to a child. That’s for when they’re older.)

“MC,” Barbatos knocked on his child’s door. “Have you done your homework?”

MC answered the door with a grin on their face. “Yep, done this week’s and next week’s. I’m getting a head start on the potions project due next week.”

Barbatos almost breathed a small sigh of relief. Thank the stars his child was responsible, it already took a big chunk of his energy to make sure Diavolo didn’t get distracted from his paperwork. Though, his stress levels did rise a tad when he got a glimpse at the mess in MC’s room.

“Are you going to clean that?”

“Nah,” MC shrugged. “It’s whatever. I know where everything is and nothing’s a fall risk. See you at dinner, father.”

And with that, MC shut the door. Well… no child was perfect.

As much as MC’s lack of cleanliness bothers Barbatos, he knows his kid isn’t being maliciously lazy, just for the love of the Demon King please stop leaving cups on the coffee tables without a coaster!

Oh yeah, Luke has a big sib. Sorry- little sib, because Luke isn’t some chihuahua child, he’s a totally mature grown-up Angel.

Barbatos is the type of father who will let his child go off and have whatever kind of fun they want as long as they don’t slack on their important duties.

Barbs also has a goddamn torture dungeon so we here at Stupid Headcanons inc. do NOT recommend trying to eat MC. Doing so may result in you wishing you were dead.

Don’t fuck with the butler.

Lucifer

…out of literally everyone in the room, the last person Lucifer expected to have a secret scandal baby… had a scandal baby. Damn.

At least the human wouldn’t have to live with him and his brothers. The last thing Lucifer wanted was for Barbatos to be even more aware of the chaos that went down in that house every single day.

MC and Lucifer have a healthy level of respect for one another, but Lucifer just can’t shake the feeling that this kid is messing with him somehow.

Just, little things… MC offering him fruit and loudly assuring him that it was just blackberries and nothing poisonous, asking if the RAD uniform suits his tastes, proclaiming that the dirt was high quality-

SOMEONE TOLD MC ABOUT LUCIFER’S FIRST VISIT TO THE DEVILDOM!

MC wasn’t exactly visibly goading him, they said everything with an innocent smile on their face.

When MC starts getting nosy with the attic, he’s not terribly sure how to deal with it. He was going up against a child that could at least partially tell the future. After the first time Lucifer told them to scram, they never went back to the steps… at least not when Lucifer was there to guard it…

After everything goes down, Lucifer is glad that MC wasn’t hurt or anything. He’d come to like the child and it’d be awful to lose the only person who could get his more hyperactive brothers to calm down.

Mammon

Mammon wasn’t present for the meeting, but when he was informed later, the news was met with an eloquent: “the fuck? Huh, wild.”

He isn’t too interested in MC at first. At least until the little runt saved him from getting busted for skipping class. Mammon was just eating his lunch in the courtyard when MC passed by and calmly told him that if he skipped class he should not hang out in the west staircase because Lucifer was going to walk down those steps during third period.

At first Mammon tried to brush off the warning, but ended up listening to the kid anyway, and what do ya know! He didn’t get caught by Lucifer!

That’s when it clicked that MC could see the future, right? Right?! Ya know what Mammon could use that for?! Right?!

Gambling! Scams! Schemes! General shennaniganery!

MC wasn’t terribly enthused about the entire situation, so they may have messed with Mammon a little. Just a bit.

It’s not like Mammon ever listened when MC told him to cut his losses and leave the casino anyway 🙄

Leviathan

First reaction? Thank the anime gods that there wouldn’t be another normie living in the house with him…

Reaction upon hearing that the MC was Barb’s kid? Really? Barbatos? Wow… well, to be fair Levi totally understood why someone would be attracted to Barbatos, I mean, Levi’s watched plenty of anime involving butlers, but Barbatos actually having a living breathing child? Damn.

But still, Levi wasn’t going to hang out with some normie brat. He had better and nerdier things to devote his time to.

Whenever MC visited, Levi was up in his room. But once MC decided to poke their head in the door while Levi was in the middle of gamer raging.

They calmly sat Levi down and explained to him that he could be upset about whatever happened in his game, but lashing out wasn’t going to fix anything or make him better at the actual game.

…damn it… they were right.

Slowly but surely Levi and MC built up a friendship, and the brothers rejoiced at the lack of rage related Lotan summons.

Satan

Out of everything Satan could have possibly expected from the second exchange student, this was not one of them.

Satan began to wonder exactly how MC’s powers worked, he didn’t exactly have any concrete data to compare them to because Barbatos was so mysterious

Hm, how very interesting. Satan decided that it was up to him to satiate his own curiosity and began to study MC. To be honest, MC wasn’t being terribly interesting.

They were a pretty normal kid all things considered. MC went to class, made friends, did their work, very very normal. Well, except for the fact that they seemed to dodge practically every unfortunate thing that could have happened to them.

They’d stop at the perfect time to avoid something accidentally being spilled on them, they always had pencils ready, and they always seemed to know exactly when a teacher was coming… mad sus.

Satan eventually confronted MC about this, and they just shrugged and explained that they tend to dream about what was most likely to happen the next day and would adjust their actions accordingly.

It may have been anticlimactic, but MC did inform Satan that there would be a cat in the courtyard in fifteen minutes.

HE NEEDED TO GO!

Asmodeus

Asmo had genuinely been looking forward to the new exchange program, he was excited to have a new face around the house to shake things up! He loves his dear brothers but spending thousands of years with them makes their shenanigans become a bit… well, a bit boring.

But my oh my, the new face was being obscured by that tacky bicycle helmet… the new face looked an awful lot like Barbatos…

Once Asmo registered what was going on, he was positively enchanted with the little half human. They were just so cute! They looked like a baby Barbatos with those adorably chubby cheeks!

Oh Barbatos~ he just had to let Asmo babysit!

When Asmo managed to sweep MC away for a fun day with shifty uncle Solomon, he was reminded of all the shenanigans that he, Barbatos, and Solomon used to get up to.

*sigh, Barbie was always so busy… no time for a fun night of torture, chaos, and revelry

Anyhoodles~ MC was always such a relaxed little thing. They let Asmo vent whenever any awful tragedies occur, like when Asmo finds a sweater that isn’t in his size… *sniffle*

Beelzebub

A child of Barbatos? The best cook in the three realms Barbatos?! …hey kid want to hang out with cool uncle Beel?

Beel tried everything in his power to get MC to make him food. I mean, the genetic disposition for making good food has to have been passed down from father to child!

When MC finally made Beel food, he was ecstatic!

…Until the food touched Beel’s tongue and he realized it wasn’t good, it was just… okay. Average. Passable.

Aw man… but the kid looked so excited to have made something for Beel…

Beel really hammed up his reaction to make MC feel better. Beel was like “Wow. So good. Amazing.” “Thanks Beel.”

Very sweet child, they don’t mind being used in place as a dumbell.

Belphegor

Damn, and here Belphie was, thinking Barbatos has standards. Apparently not!

When MC went and walked up the attic steps, Belphie was almost bouncing on his toes in anticipation. This human had been a pain in the rear to call up, so he was excited to finally get a good look at them. And lo and behold, a half demon child of Lord Diavolo’s butler.

MC grinned and greeted Belphie first, using his name and asking why the Avatar of Sloth was stuck up in the attic of his own home when he was supposed to be in the human world. Belphie was flabbergasted and didn’t exactly know how to respond.

He came up with a new plan quickly. Belphie didn’t exactly know how this kid’s powers worked, so he’d continue with trying to trick them into opening the attic door. Allowing Belphie to end their miserable little life and thus ruining the exchange program.

The child continued to visit Belphie up in the attic, relaying the events of what was going on, and Belphie continued to play the part of prisoner. Until one day in particular…

MC appeared in front of the door, looking a tad more unkempt than normal, they weren’t smiling their usual carefree smile either. Their eyes bore holes into Belphegor’s skull as they flared at him.

“How long have you been planning on killing me?”

MC had seen the future where they died at Belphie’s hand, and they sure as hell were not going to let him out of the attic after that. Though, they did tell Belphie about Lilith’s true fate before they left, and assured Belphie they had no reason to lie to him about something he wasn’t directly involved in.

So, Belphie did get let out of the attic eventually, and even though MC smiled and welcomed him back all the same, there would always a barrier between the two. Broken trust wasn’t easy to mend, after all.

[chiruba]

JJK BOYS' BEING SCARED TO CONFESS !

an. thank u for 100 + followers!! <3 holy fuck inumaki’s was hard to write bc of the letter LOL also heres to hopin my tags actu work for this post

ft. gojo, inumaki x gn!reader

wc. 1.2k

genre. fluff, angst if u squint in gojo's

► MASTERLIST ► TAGLIST ►

GOJO SATORU ►

— OK so usually i wouldn't imagine him as being scared to confess

— but,

— if he really likes you, i think his hidden insecurities will start comin out

— yes, gojo is the strongest sorcerer

— but even the strongest sorcerer can't save everyone

— he knows you'll be targeted if you're openly with him

— so gojo represses his feelings as best as he can

— which for some reason involves him -

— flirting with you one day

— and then completely ignoring your existence the next

— eventually you just get tired of it

"satoru!" you yell, surprising yourself from the sheer volume of your voice. it's clear he knew you were coming, but you still see the way his shoulders tense when you call his name. gojo at least has the decency to stop, and you're unsure if it's because he doesn't want to risk making you angrier, or if this is one of the days' he'll actually talk to you. you huff in anger before gripping his wrist to spin him around, and you can tell he's avoiding your eyes despite the black blindfold around his eyes.

"well?" you ask, tone cold and straightforward. gojo decides to take a glance at you, and sees you standing there with crossed arms, looking at him like a disappointed parent. "are you going to stop giving me the cold shoulder and tell me what's going on? i'm not in the mood to play some childish game, gojo." the use of his family name coming from you makes his heart ache, and he panics at the thought of you being genuinely angry and upset at him rather than mildly annoyed.

"i'm not playing some game," he says, and you feel yourself straighten up at the seriousness in his voice. your eyebrows furrow together in concern as you try to think of your last few interactions with gojo. he hadn't been acting this way with anyone else but you (you know because you'd asked nanami, and nanami knew all), and if this wasn't some game he was playing, had you done something to make him upset? the thought makes you feel guilty, remembering how you'd scolded him like a child just moments earlier. was it the joke about his forehead? surely he'd know you hadn't meant it, no matter how true it was-

"i love you-"

"your forehead isn't that small-"

...what?

you blinked at him once, then twice, then thrice, and then a fourth just to make sure you really weren't dreaming right now. your best friend of years, with his cocky attitude, cute dumb jokes and flirty remarks that made your face heat and heart race was in love with you? gojo lifted his blindfold suddenly, cocking an eyebrow up at you.

"hey! what about my forehead?-"

"i like you, too." you breathed out, voice shaky with either excitement or nervousness, you couldn't choose. gojo stared at you with those ocean coloured eyes of his, and then broke out into a grin.

"hmm?" you braced yourself, already knowing gojo's incessable adorable teasing was coming, "i don't exactly think i said like, did i?"

INUMAKI TOGE ►

— i def see inumaki being more scared to confess

— 1. because he can't think of a proper way to tell you his feelings

— a text just doesn't feel personal enough or embed his true feelings

— which leaves inumaki in a dilemma

— obviously, panda is quick to catch onto inumaki's feelings

— when he learns about inumaki's dilemma, he just bursts out laughing

— panda offers him the very simple solution - write a damn letter

— inumaki was so caught up in his feelings he literally just did not Think of it.

— spends hours writing the letter and tearing up it several times while also rehearsing how and where he would give it to you

— until the moment actually came, and all inumaki could do was shove the letter into your hands, yell tuna mayo, and run away.

— … yeah

your early sunday mornings had started consisting of heading down to the field every tokyo jujutsu school student used as early as your first week as a first-year, causing you to quickly develop a routine - get changed into your gym clothes, head down to the field earlier on to relax before maki kicked your ass, and then rush back to the dorms for a shower. except this time, you were pleasantly surprised to see that halfway through your routine, you were met with the familiar cute face of a fellow student, cursed speech user inumaki toge.

"inumaki?" you say, giving him a smile before slowing down your own steps to allow him time to catch up, watching as he sped to you. "you're up early for once," you teased, knowing how grumpy he can get without his allocated sleeping time. once inumaki catches up to you, you continue walking on, fully expecting inumaki to just continue alongside you. only for him to catch you off guard completely, gently spinning you around to face him once more.

seeing inumaki up close, you quickly take notice of the flush of red on his cheeks, popping out from under his collar, along with the sudden dark eye circles. inumaki's breathing is muffled, but loud enough for you to hear he's panting, the rapid rising and falling of his chest confirming it. you furrow your eyebrows in concern, also noting the way inumaki had practically sprinted to you moments before for no reason, along with the absence of his usual cheery - "kelp!"- greeting.

"inumaki?" you say once more, your tone both obviously worried and confused, "are you feeling okay?-" you have to practically plant your feet into the ground to stop from stumbling back when inumaki shoves something into your hand suddenly, only realising its a slip of paper when you feel it crinkle in your palm after an experimental squeeze. you look back at inumaki for even just a hint of an explanation, and instead all you get is -

"tuna mayo!" he yells, and then takes off running. you're left in a daze as you watch inumaki's figure become more and more distant, and only when you can no longer see him do you remember the paper currently crinkled up in your hands. the first thing you notice are the little onigiris drawn on the top of the paper, an inumaki staple as you'd like to call it. this time, the onigiris have blush streaks on their 'cheeks' as they hold hands, a single heart bouncing off their heads.

to you,

toge here! obviously i know it's not february anymore, as you (probably? lolol dumbas) know, but panda i'm tired of letting my chances slip past me.

there are so many things i want to say to you every day, but now that i'm here i don't even know where to start, so i'm just going to say it properly. i like you like a shitton. i wish i could say this to you properly, if i had the confidence if i could, i would scream my love for you to the world. i may not be your first date, kiss or love, but i want to be your last, just as i hope you'll be mine.

there are thousands of other things i want to say to you, but i'll save it until i get your reply. please don't feel pressured to accept me, no matter what, you'll always have a special place in my heart, my first love.

from hopefully yours,

toge inumaki. 🍙

ill give u a kiss goodnight if u reblog <3 

©  2021 sinrinyoku — please do not repost, translate, modify or plagiarize my work! i will beat the shit out of u (maybe)

[talesofsonicasura]

Me: *Trying to avoid saturating my blog with more LMK stuff and add more content*

Lego Monkie Kid: Hey buddy...

Me: Dang it!

Yeah. That's how I'm feeling at the moment. 😂

Anyway, hello guys! For today, why not we focus on a certain six eared monkey and what he apparently got himself into but also my interpretation on his past with Sun Wukong.

Now let's begin with the demon skull monkeys in the room. They clearly have a huge connection to Macaque than just LBD. I mean, they look similar and have his freaking logo. We can all agree that the six eared monkey was in deep shit after Shadow Play since he got captured by Fake Mayor.

I have two theories about how these guys are made and I have to warn you...none of them are pretty.

Scenario 1: Macaque is being used as a Clone Factory. LBD is twisting his magic and being to make these red skull monkeys. In a sense, they are him but not under his control. She needed a template to steal Sun Wukong's magic so Macaque easily fit the bill for such a feat.

One, he and the Monkey King are two of four Mystical Monkeys, so their magic should have a link of sorts. Two, other than MK, Macaque is the only one who can become the Monkey King which instead of a title might be a much more powerful entity. We all know Sun Wukong is capable of tearing apart the Celestial Realm at full strength with only Buddha, a very powerful god, being able to stop him.

I can also add that the Monkey King's magic might be mixed in the clones, making them more solid but also dangerous. If this is correct, then Macaque would need to be removed from the equation unless the group ends up with something much worse created.

Scenario 2: The clones are Macaque. A TMNT Return to the Sewers and Sonic Unleashed sort of scenario where Macaque was literally split into countless pieces of magic to form these clones. Every single one is just a fragment of him being manipulated like remote control army.

The only to stop them and maybe save him is by collecting his essence via destroying those clones. A big problem is that this energy needs a vessel to hold it. And since there were hints that MK might go ape shit in Season 3... If they do this, then I have a harsh feeling he'll be the vessel.

MK was capable of containing Sun Wukong's magic and already had a taste of Macaque's with that magic stealing seal. Perfect sucking up the pieces of the fallen shadow demon which is a catalyst for some side effects. Think of the Werehog from Sonic Unleashed, that form was created because of Dark Gaia's power melded inside Sonic. Who knows what would happen if MK sponges up enough of Macaque's essence?

Another thing, not related to the Macaque thing. They showed one of the new builds being a rocket. My guess is that rocket is meant to take them to the moon. In JTTW, a certain rabbit demon is stuck up there thanks to the Monkey King. So they might have some importantance.

Now onto my personal take on Macaque's backstory involving Sun Wukong. This contains elements from both LMK and JTTW.

Macaque and Sun Wukong used to be friends but what if neither knew of the former's Six Eared nature? Macaque's real name is Liu Er Mihou (hope that's spelled right), Macaque/Six Eared Macaque is just his title. So what if his magical nature had been sealed by his real name?

Liu Er could also be the Macaque King, staying on Flower Fruit Mountain once befriended. Anyway, Sun Wukong had a bad habit of leaving his kingdom and said kingdom getting caught in terrible scenarios in his absence. Perfect way to slowly break a friendship.

Doubt begins to form during the Monkey King's first absence within Liu Er. Sun Wukong was practically gone for years before returning back to Flower Fruit Mountain. His people being attacked and hunted by hunters meant none of them were good at defending themselves. Casualties that strengthen said doubt in Liu Er's mind.

Sun Wukong did return and stayed a bit after dealing with those hunters. Sharing company with Liu Er alongside helping his kingdom. Yet, that doubt is still there. His name was removed from the Book of Death so he still becomes immortal.

I believe the breaking point was when the Celestial Realm's soldiers attacked Flower Fruit Mountain and Erlang cowardly set the mountain ablaze. He could've been there, burning alive in the flames unable to die. Watching his immortal and non-immortal simian companions burn with him.

The pain and doubt made his mind focus on one thought. Sun Wukong was responsible. He was responsible for all of the kingdom's suffering. And Liu Er Mihou gone mad. Forsaking his name to full embrace his nature as the Six Eared Macaque.

In his madness, he satisfied his hunger on the burnt corpses of anything he could find, even the monkeys. Anything to ignore the feeling of the fire and harsh burns. He rallied those who held doubts of Sun Wukong's reign and made them his accomplices to overthrow the Monkey King. A tyrant who decided that he should be the one in charge as Sun Wukong doesn't seem suited to rule any longer.

Those 500 years of the Monkey King being trapped can be enough to make preparations and solidify his madness. Seeing Sun Wukong accompanying Tripitaka alongside the other disciples only fueled Macaque's madness induced rage further.

The Monkey King did kill Macaque than just blinding him. Since he forsaken his name, Liu Er Mihou, it could be used as a loophole to seal the nail in the coffin. Macaque died alongside his madness. Death cleared his head but not the hatred nor distaste against Sun Wukong.

He somehow escaped the Underworld and self-exiled himself. Macaque knew that his actions would never be forgiven by residents of Flower Fruit Mountain so there was no point going back. Thus he wandered, figuring out how to defeat Sun Wukong and maybe learn about who he really is.

And that's it! This is all I could think involving our six eared shadow. All of it is speculation and personal headcanons so don't take them super seriously. I will be trying to add more stuff on both blogs that isn't LMK related to give everyone a break of sorts. Everyone on this site isn't part of the fandom.

I do hope that this peaked your interest like the new Lego set did for me. Until next time folks, I'll see you back at Megapolis.

A song that easily sum up Macaque's and Sun Wukong's relationship, whether to each other or MK.

[joaquinwhorres]

Blank Out (Bucky Barnes x Reader)

SUMMARY ››››› Bucky Barnes has a list of names–amends he needs to make. When he gets to yours, he finds the amends process a bit more…difficult than it should be.

WORD COUNT ››››› 1,700-ish

WARNINGS ››››› language

A/N ››››› Oh hey, look at me jumping on that Falcon and the Winter Soldier trend. This is the Y/N version of my OC fic. Exactly the same but for people who prefer Y/N. Lemme know if you want to join the tag list!

Bucky stood outside of the door, staring at the wreath of brightly colored fabric leaves, a small wooden sign hanging in the center with the words Give Thanks looping across it. 

He doubted there was going to be much thankfulness for him on the other side of the door. 

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

This was supposed to be getting easier. Dr. Raynor told him it would get easier. 

But for someone who hated bullshit so much, she really spent far too much time talking out of her ass. Because this wasn't easy. 

Easy would be surreptitiously wiring a million dollars into each of their bank accounts from the HYDRA accounts he still had access to.

Easy would be taking out anyone who had been involved in the decision to give him the order. 

Easy would be breaking the damn rules. 

The rules aren't meant to make your life easy, James. They're meant to disconnect you from the Winter Soldier. That's the whole point of making amends, isn't it? 

He'd give anything to get her damn voice out of his head. 

Bucky propelled himself up the front porch steps before he could change his mind. Like he had last yesterday. 

He rapped on the front door, accidentally knocking the wreath sideways as he went to pull his hand away. Instinctively, he reached out to right it, centering the sign and taking his hands away slowly to avoid a repeat of the situation. Bucky checked over his shoulder, half expecting Sam's stupid little robot to Zoom into view with Sam cackling and making some dumb quip about metal butterfingers. But Redwing wasn't there. The only other person outside was an old man mowing his lawn in a dingy white undershirt and grey sweatshorts. Bucky's lip curled in disgust before turning back to the door--the sound of locks clicking out of place putting him on alert. 

"Hello?" 

Bucky blinked, his eyes meeting those of the woman before him. Her eyes were striking, pinning him to the spot and pushing all semblance of thought out of his head. 

"Can I help you?"

Bucky blinked, nodding at her. Right. He was here for a reason. Not to stand like some teenage boy who'd just seen the girl next door for the first time. 

"I'm looking for Y/N Y/L/N."

"You found her." 

He blanched. "You're Y/N Y/L/N?" 

The look of vague curiosity that had been gracing features markedly shifted into a look of annoyance. "Believe it or not, Y/N’s come in all shapes, sizes, and colors." 

Fuck this. He needed to get out of here. There was no way he could have this conversation now. 

"Still want to talk to me?" She asked, eyebrows arched and arms folded across her chest. 

No. 

Sam's laughter echoed in his head, as if he'd been here to witness the exchange. And that's why he stayed. Out of spite. 

He nodded. "My name is James "Bucky" Barnes and--"

"Wait a second," she held out a hand and raised an eyebrow on him. He did as she asked, stopping mid-sentence with a sinking feeling in his gut. "You're the Bucky Barnes?"

He nodded, resigned to the fact that this was going to be his worst attempt at amends yet. "Yeah." 

"Well," she breathed, dropping her arms. "If I'd known I was meeting an Avenger at my door, I might have put on some pants." 

His eyes ran down from her face, noticing for the first time that she wore a dressing robe that barely swept the tops of her knees. Her bare knees.

His mouth opened as if he had even the faintest clue how to respond to this and then his jaw moved up and down for a new second as if the motion of talking would bring words. While it didn't muster an apology or some other decent thing to say, he did manage to utter a single word: "Shit."

She snorted at the reaction before smiling for the first time and shaking her head. "If you want to come in and wait, I'll go get changed."

He shook his head. "I can wait out here."

She was still smiling. Probably because she realized he was far more pathetic up close. "Suit yourself, but there's eggs inside."

"I'm good," he said, forcing himself to give a tight smile that didn't reach his eyes. She nodded, leaving the door open behind her as she disappeared inside the house--as if he'd change his mind.

He should leave right now. Turn around and come back a different day when he could at least function like a mostly human being. Bucky ran a hand through his hair, scratching the back of his head. 

The quick, sharp sound of pattering bare feet broke his stream of thought, as another girl came to the door, standing before him with her hands on her hips. "We were having breakfast, you know," the girl announced, her voice dripping with sass. "Now we have to wait until she's done talking to you. And I'm starving." 

Bucky raised an eyebrow. "Shouldn't you be….not talking to strangers?"

"Shouldn't you be eating breakfast?" she countered.

"It's ten in the morning; I ate already."

"We were supposed to have breakfast an hour ago. But Ravi--"

"Rocio, leave Bucky Barnes alone," Y/N's voice called from elsewhere. 

Before he could fully process how odd it was for him to use his name, the little girl's hands dropped from her hips and she stared up at him, mouth agape and eyes comically wide. 

"You're Bucky Barnes?" she asked, her small voice awed. 

He nodded with a deep sigh and another forced smile. 

"What happened to your hair?"

"Got a haircut," he shrugged.

She furrowed her brow at him, her little eyes peering intently at his face. He wasn't sure the last time someone had looked him in the eyes this long. Nobody except Steve had looked him in the eyes since he made it out. The corner of his mouth twitched up. She nodded at him, having composed herself so her little face was serious once more. "I like this better."

"Thanks." He couldn't keep the amusement from his voice. He didn't even really try. 

A thought seemed to hit her, lighting up her whole face with excitement. "Wait right here. Don't move. Promise."  He nodded again and she raised her eyebrows at him, giving him a stern look. 

"I promise," he said, clearly stating each word.

She nodded at him. "Ok. Good." And then she turned and ran into the house, her feet making far more sound than they should for someone of her size.

Y/N reappeared shortly thereafter with a faint smile on her lips, dressed in a copper colored sweater and jeans. "Sorry. You're her favorite."

"She's cute." 

What an idiotic thing to say. 

"Wish I could take credit," Y/N said, shaking her head. "She's my sister's. I'm just the babysitter on duty."

There were some more sounds of scampering and Rocio was back at the door wearing a long black satin glove, reaching about halfway up her bicep. There were lines streaked across it in gold marker to make it look like it was made of metal plates. 

"I made an arm like yours!" she announced, almost whacking Y/N in the stomach as she extended her arm out for him to see. 

He couldn't believe what he was seeing. He'd seen Halloween costumes for sale and shirts with one of the sleeves modeled after his arm, and pictures of guys with an arm wrapped in tinfoil. All of them had been with his old arm--his silver one with the red star. The arm that belonged to Him. An arm made to invoke fear. 

This was the arm of a protector. 

She deserved more of a reaction than a small, breathy, "Wow." 

"Will you sign it?" Her eyes got even bigger if possible, and Y/N started to shake her head, bending over to talk to the little girl,  but Bucky stopped her. 

"You got a marker?"

"I'll go find one!" Rocio disappeared again, leaving him and Y/N alone on the doorstep. She was closer this time, and he could hear her talking to herself and rustling through different drawers. 

Y/N turned her attention from her niece back onto Bucky. "So, why is Bucky Barnes on my doorstep?"

"I uh--when does your sister get home?" he asked, eyes focused in the direction of Rocio's sounds. He swallowed, tearing his eyes away and back up to hers. "I should probably tell both of you...together."

The playful amusement that had been on her face disappeared as she stared at him, as if trying to see inside his head. Like she would want to see what was inside of his head. 

"She'll be here around three." 

He nodded, saved from a response by Rocio's re-appearance, waving a silver sharpie in the air. She offered it to him, and he plucked it out of her hand, taking hold of her toothpick of an arm in one hand and signing his name on the inside of her bicep. Where she could hide the signature if she wanted to.

Bucky handed the marker back to her as Rocio held her arm out, trying to catch sight of his name. 

"Rocio," Y/N prodded, gently. 

"Thank you!"  she chirped, before turning and literally skipping back inside. "Ravi--look!"

He liked her.

"That was really kind of you," Y/N said, warmly. "I think you just made her year." 

He shrugged. 

"Although, I have a feeling that this is all she's going to talk about for the next week," Y/N sighed, shaking her head. "Anyway, Lilly will be back around three if you want to come back then and share whatever secret serious news is it that you need to tell us together." Her voice was teasing, and Bucky's mouth lifted into a smirk.

"I'll be back then." 

"Great," she smiled politely. "See you then." 

He nodded, wishing her goodbye before turning down the stairs.

So much for getting easier.