#these two are literally so important to me. they are everything

[ohnoitstbskyen]

asking sincerely. do you see a romance between jayce and viktor? do you think they ended up being something romantic at the end?

With apologies I am going to only half talk about the thing you are asking me, since I have something else on my mind and you happened to hit the button that makes me vomit it into words.

Coming at this from an aromantic perspective, I obviously don't experience the state of absurd obsessive delusion that you bizarre romantic freaks fetishize so feverishly*, but I am often annoyed by the idea that friendship and romance are either opposites or mutually exclusive. From my perspective, the boundary between the two is at best thin, and more realistically not actually a boundary at all except by cultural construction.

*i am taking an excessively hostile, crass tone for my own amusement i do not mean this seriously please be normal at me, weird allo freaks

I won't get into my full feelings about the end of Arcane, but it seems perfectly plain to me that the script, the imagery and the animation presents Jayce and Viktor as two halves of a whole, not opposing forces but alike to yin and yang: opposites which each contain the other. And at the climax of the show, the greatest peril to life and peace in the narrative is resolved by these two men literally joining their bodies and souls together, and going into eternity holding one another for comfort and strength. They are quite literally soulmates, quite literally the most important people in one another's lives.

I don't think that that kind of intimate emotional connection between men must necessarily be either romantic or sexual - I am aromantic, and plenty of ace people exist, and there is nothing in our natures excluding us from intense connections of love with other people of any gender.

I also think it is willfully ignorant (and genuinely homophobic) to act as though these deep connections are mutually exclusive with sex and romance. As though if Viktor and Jayce fucked nasty and made out sloppy style, suddenly their intimacy is less pure or valid, or tainted somehow.

"If these two men who are emotionally close to one another also fuck or get romantically involved, then friendship is dead, murdered on the floor by a dick-shaped knife; vile sexuality corrupts and debases the true, pure and virtuous love of ✨friendship✨" <- This shit is homophobic at a baseline, queerphobic in general, and frankly as an aromantic man I find it pretty fucking insulting as well.

What, are my friendships with other men just inherently more pure and divine, more meaningful and true than a gay man's can ever be, because I will never suffer the vile temptation of adding romance to my affection? Is that how I should think of myself? And is an aroace man more pure than me still, the only source of TRUE male friendship that a man can ever experience, free from the pustulant corruption of sexuality and romantic desire?

You get this pathetic defensiveness (especially from men, but other genders aren't immune) wherein sex and sexuality and romance between men is perceived as a threat to men's right and ability to experience deep connection to each other. But the emotional castration of men comes not from people imagining sex and romance as a component of our relationships - it comes from people who insist that our emotional lives must be ruled by strict binaries. Sex and romance, OR ELSE friendship. Deep romantic connection OR ELSE deep platonic connection. Pick one and do not dare to imagine both, nor act as though the boundary between them is something that we built by cultural fiat, and which can be dismantled just the same.

And yes, yes, yes, I know there are cultural forces literally illuminati-style conspiring to systemically erase the entire existence of explicitly romantic, sexual male love from media, and I know that homophobic puritanism is on the rise and there are material concerns and a real necessity for explicit representation in fiction, yes I know. Everything is more complicated than a tumblr post can cover, I am not trying to Solve Rainbow Capitalism™ over here, I am trying to express frustration as an aromantic man that this stupid fucking binary keeps getting culturally reinforced by both my enemies and my well-meaning allies, when I think the binary is what's fucking killing us in the first place.

So anyway. My position is that Viktor and Jayce can be entirely aromantic no-homo friends, and they can fuck nasty in the throes of mutual need and obsession, and I refuse to entertain the idea that there is an irresolvable contradiction between those things. Each of those can contain the other, or become the other given time and circumstance.

What the imagery, storytelling and script of Arcane makes clear is that Viktor and Jayce love each other more than life itself. To say that that love must be shoved into the box of either "platonic" or "romantic" is to miss out on almost everything that is beautiful about love. It can be both and neither! It can be a secret third, ninth or fifteenth thing that they haven't invented a tag for on Ao3 yet.

They are giving each other whatever the spiritual mind-ghost equivalent of sloppy backshots are on the ethereal plain forever, they are the most romantic lovers in the cosmos, and they are also the most chaste and platonic life-partner friends you have ever seen, effortlessly intimate and unashamedly tender. They are men who love one another, in every way that love matters.

You can pick whichever interpretation brings you joy, and resonates with what your heart needs, the text of the show is eminently and explicity open to it, and anyone who says otherwise either failed to pay attention, or refused to pay attention on purpose.

[misswynters]

𓏲 ˖. ♡ Ekko as your bf

having the boy who shattered time as your bf

warnings. none, just all fluff (truly need it after act iii)

How You Got Together.

• It started with a deep friendship. You were someone who always stuck by him through thick and thin, whether it was sneaking into Zaun’s alleys to watch him race or sitting on rooftops together while he talked about his plans to make Zaun a better place.

• Ekko didn’t realize his feelings right away, but every time he saw you cheering him on or patching up his wounds after another risky stunt, something in his chest warmed.

• One day, during a quiet moment after a long day of running with the Firelights, he blurted it out. “You know, you’re the only person who keeps me sane around here. I think I’m in love with you.”

• You were stunned for a second, but when you smiled and told him you felt the same way, he grinned so wide his face hurt. “Guess we’re stuck with each other, huh, Firefly?”

Nicknames He Gives You.

• Firefly — His favorite. You’re his little spark of light in Zaun’s darkness.

• Shorty/Tallie — Depending on your height, he’ll playfully tease you about it.

• Gearhead — If you have any interest in tinkering or helping him fix things, this becomes a fond nickname.

• Starling — For when he’s feeling extra soft and poetic.

• Babe — When he’s feeling casual or playful.

Love Languages.

• Acts of Service: Ekko loves taking care of you in small, thoughtful ways: tinkering with gadgets to make your life easier, fixing anything you need, or walking you home to make sure you’re safe.

• Physical Touch: He’s touch-starved, and it shows. He thrives on hand-holding, cuddling, and casual touches like ruffling your hair or resting his hand on your knee during meetings.

• Quality Time: Ekko values the moments when it’s just the two of you. Whether you’re hanging out in the hideout or watching the stars from the rooftops, he treasures your company.

How He Shows Affection.

• He has this way of looking at you like you’re his entire world, especially when you’re laughing or talking about something you’re passionate about.

• He’s a sucker for forehead kisses: quick, soft, and full of love.

• Ekko likes to surprise you with little gifts he makes himself, like a glowing trinket to wear or a gadget that makes your life easier.

• When he’s feeling especially bold, he’ll pull you close by the waist and murmur something sweet in your ear just to see you blush.

What He’s Like in a Relationship.

• He’s fiercely loyal and protective, always making sure you’re safe and cared for.

• Ekko is a mix of playful and serious. he’ll joke around to make you laugh, but when it comes to your happiness or well-being, he’s all locked in.

• He listens to you like it’s the most important thing in the world, always giving you his full attention. He’s like completely mesmerized with the way you speak to him. like it could literally be you just yapping about the stupidest thing and you will still have his full attention. Ekko would be all smiley and smitten he just loves hearing you talk about your interests.

Dates with Him.

• Rooftop stargazing is one of his favorites. He’ll bring a blanket and snacks, and you’ll spend hours lying side by side, talking about anything and everything.

• Late-night walks through Zaun, where he shows you hidden spots he loves, like graffiti walls he painted or quiet corners with the best views of the Undercity lights.

• He loves taking you everywhere with him. Anywhere, that would allow him to proudly show you off to his crew.

• Sometimes, dates are simple. Fixing things together, cooking (well, attempting to), or dancing to music in the hideout.

• Taking you to do inventions. Whether it’s with heimerdinger or not he will not mind having you around while he does his nerdy stuff. Encourages you while you try to do something while failing miserably.

What He Loves About You the Most.

• Your unwavering support. He’s always carrying the weight of Zaun’s struggles, and you’re the one person who makes him feel like it’s okay to lean on someone else for a while.

• Your laughter. It’s his favorite sound, and he’ll do anything to hear it.

• Your determination. Whether you’re helping him with the Firelights or pursuing your own goals, he admires your drive and tenacity.

• The way you care for others. It reminds him of why he fights so hard to protect Zaun.

Arguments with Him.

• Ekko HATES arguing, especially with you. He’ll try to keep his cool, but sometimes his frustration slips out.

• He’s quick to apologize if he’s in the wrong. He doesn’t like going to bed angry, so he’ll do whatever it takes to make things right before the night ends.

• If you’re upset, he’ll give you space if you need it, but he’ll always check in to make sure you’re okay. “Look, I’m sorry. I just… I hate fighting with you. Can we talk about this?”

• Arguments never last long because both of you care too much to stay mad.

Little Things He Does for You.

• He always checks in on you, whether it’s through quick messages or showing up to see you in person.

• He’ll steal your snacks but always makes sure to bring extras so you don’t actually lose out.

• Ekko loves playing with your hair, whether it’s braiding it, twirling it around his finger, or just running his hands through it absentmindedly.

• When you’re stressed, he’ll pull you into a hug and whisper, “You got this, Firefly. I believe in you.”

• If he notices you shivering, he’ll shrug off his jacket and wrap it around you without a second thought.

Moments That Make Him Soft.

• When you fall asleep on his shoulder after a long day. He’ll sit perfectly still so he doesn’t wake you, his heart melting at how peaceful you look.

• The way you light up when you see him, like he’s the only person in the world that matters.

• When you cheer him on during one of his missions. Your belief in him gives him strength like nothing else.

• Watching you interact with Scraps or other animals. He loves seeing your gentle, caring side.

Overall in my opinion.

Ekko as your boyfriend is a mix of excitement, warmth, and unwavering devotion. He’s someone who will always have your back, someone who will fight for you and with you, and someone who will treasure every moment you spend together. With him, life in Zaun feels a little brighter, a little safer, and a whole lot more full of love.

note. just my opinion :3

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banner. @anitalenia

[ddarker-dreams]

lock's otome game recs

i received some asks indicating an interest in a compilation of my favorite otome games, so i decided to go for it!! i've played about fourteen otome games, but of those fourteen, only these six left a lasting impression on me. there are still some that i intend to check out, so the rankings may update in the future. i'll give a very general overview of each game and how i'd score the categories that i find the most important in an otome game — the heroine, story, art, enjoyability, along with the characters i liked the most.

number 6 - piofiore fated memories.

heroine: 6/10 story: 6.5/10 characters: 7/10 art: 10/10 enjoyability: 8/10 favorite characters: dante (ishikawa kaito), nicola (kimura ryouhei) and yang (okamoto nobuhiko)

this game centers around the heroine, with the default name liliana adornato, who finds herself entangled in the politics of the region's three most prominent crime organizations. the game has an italian backdrop and iirc, takes place in the 1930s.

the overarching narrative, while it has its fair share of intrigue, isn't the game's strongest point. it's the interactions with the characters themselves that made the game feel worthwhile. each love interest has more to them than what meets the eye, so it's satisfying to watch the relationship between them and the heroine develop.

the heroine takes a passive role throughout much of the game, events sorta just happen to her. still, she has a kind disposition that makes her likable and doesn't make stupid decisions that has you wanting to fling your console across the room. her characterization changes slightly depending on the route. for instance, without getting into spoilers, she's more assertive throughout yang's route. the resulting dynamic made yang's route the most memorable, even if he's my third favorite character from the bunch.

what feels unique to this game is the effort put into the bad endings. in most visual novels, bad endings can feel like gimmicks. you make one or two wrong decisions and you're rewarded with a few paragraphs. the downward spiral of the characters in the bad endings are decently fleshed out and you can see how they arrived at this 'worst' version of themselves. they're suitably dark and it shouldn't come as a surprise that i enjoyed them because of that 😭

then there's the art. it's stunning, the details in each CG are mindboggling. the heroine gets to wear a variety of pretty outfits which is something i like to see. even in the story's weaker moments, a stunning CG would pop up that had me forgiving everything. i still glance through the gallery to this day.

number five - cupid parasite.

heroine: 9.5/10 story: 7/10 characters: 7/10 art: 9/10 enjoyability: 9/10 favorite characters: ryuki keisaiin (junya enoki) & gill lovecraft (kimura ryouhei)

iconic. showstopping. a little bit camp.

cupid parasite stars one of my favorite heroines, lynette. she works as a bridal advisor whose ambition is to ensure everyone finds their soulmate. in actuality, she's the goddess cupid, who left her post in celestia to better understand humanity and create lasting pairs. she's a delight to play as.

this game's presentation and overall aesthetic is the most distinct from any otome game i've played. aside from the presentation, the story itself is unlike any of the others on this list. when it comes to romance, i typically prefer them to be dark and mature. this game opts for a more lighthearted approach. it vacillates between being a romcom and dipping into the absurdist genre. there were times i was literally left speechless (glances at gill's route)... but it makes for an entertaining experience. the game's plenty funny as well.

personally, i enjoyed the more grounded moments when the mythological elements remained in the background. because of this, the true ending doesn't do it for me as much as they do in other games. as with anything, this is a personal preference though. i liked all of the routes and found the game handles the development of each love interest well. we're introduced to these men at their most pathetic and get to help them become a little more well-adjusted. lowering the cringe meter, if you will. it makes their growth all the most satisfying as the narrative progresses.

number four - even if tempest.

heroine: 9/10 story: 8.5/10 characters: 8/10 art: 6/10 enjoyability: 9/10 favorite characters: the heroine herself, tyril i lister (noriaki sugiyama), crius castlerock (makoto furukawa) and lucien neuschburn (kaito ishikawa)

right from the get-go, this game's premise had me hooked. it features the heroine, anastasia (<3!), who leads an incredibly tragic life. she's bestowed the ability to reverse time following each of her deaths and uses this to unravel a mess of mysteries the world's setting is tangled in.

this game is absolutely anastasia's story. without spoiling anything, i loved the approach they took with the time rewinding ability. how it's incorporated is unique to an otome game, which they take full advantage of to amplify the tragic romances. on that note, the romance itself occasionally takes a backseat to the narrative as a whole. personally, i didn't mind this in the moment, since i found the story so interesting. in retrospect, i do wish that we got more moments between the heroine and each love interest, especially in the true ending.

there are more gameplay elements here as well. you have to conduct investigations, gather evidence, and apply what you've learned during these trial segments. when i first read about this, i thought it'd be a gimmick, but i liked playing through them. it incentivizes you to pay extra close attention to the world.

while i liked the narrative as a whole, i do wish we got more worldbuilding. there are hints of political subterfuge and religious oligarchy that, while touched upon, could've been leaned into more to give the setting a distinct feeling.

number three - olympia soiree

heroine: 8/10 story: 8/10 characters: 8/10 art: 10/10 enjoyability: 10/10 favorite characters: akaza (yoshitsugu matsuoka), himuka (shun horie), and yosuga (yuma uchida)

in olympia soirée, the eponymous heroine, olympia, lives in a society divided into castes based on colors. she is the last surviving member of a clan that can perform rituals to keep the sun aglow. this game is a lengthier title, i believe i clocked in around 25 ish hours (i don't use auto-play so that sheds some time). the story benefits from this, as olympia has rich worldbuilding and lore that's revealed throughout the route's progression.

we get to see the consequences of this caste system and olympia's growth as she becomes determined to realize a better future for the islands. this makes the heroine someone that you want to root for. personally, i'm a sucker for stories that center around a sheltered individual being forced to face the harsh realities of the world and maturing in their own way. this, paired with the struggles specific to this setting, make for a gripping backdrop for the character's routes. all the love interests have problems of their own that they need to address.

this is certainly a mature title, there's plenty of steamy scenes featuring gorgeous artwork. seriously... all the pretty CGs are absolute eye candy. i enjoyed the balance between the main narrative and the development of the romantic relationships, i don't remember ever feeling bored.

ironically enough, i think this is the darkest game from the bunch listed here, surpassing the game with actual horror elements. there's a whole litany of trigger warnings to be mindful of when going through the game's bad ends. they are, as the term suggests, Bad. not light or humorous in the slightest. the poor heroine goes through it. please be mindful of these more touchy subjects.

number two - 9 r.i.p

heroine: 8/10 story: 8/10 characters: 9/10 art: 10/10 enjoyability: 10/10 favorite characters: minami (nobuhiko okamoto), hibiki (shunichi toki), kureha (toshiki masuda), and koyo (ryota suzuki)

i was looking forward to the english localization of this game before it was even announced ... i'd been wanting an otome game with this vibe for ages. and it didn't disappoint! there are four different overarching story sections, with two characters each having their routes fall under them. this makes it difficult to give a summary since each route has a vastly different feel. some routes lean heavy into supernatural horror (such as hibiki and kureha), whereas others are just... supernatural (like with yukimaro and koharu).

the basic premise is that the main character, misa, is a high school girl burdened with her career survey. she's uncertain what she wants for the future and is being pressured by his mother to pursue a career in medicine. in one way or another, depending on the story section, she comes into contact with the afterlife and those who inhabit it.

i loved this game, i couldn't put it down. the routes that leaned heavy into horror were my favorites, which shouldn't be a surprise lol. i do feel some love interests were given preferential treatment of others, i wanted more from sena's storyline in particular, since he's voiced by one of my favorite VAs (tetsuya kakihara, the voice of scaramouche) 😭... apparently this game is receiving a fandisc, so hopefully they'll remedy that in the future.

minami stole the show for me. from what i've gauged online, he's a divisive character, you either find him grating or love him (like i do). i'm biased but i do think he has the most interesting and well-written story out of the love interests, i've played through it three times already. i just adored the dynamic between him and the heroine. he's petulant, selfish, and a bit immature, yet he goes to extremes for her as he realizes his unhinged feelings.

hibiki is a close second. the most yandere-coded of the bunch, he's soft-spoken and polite, but that exterior hides a creepy personality. like all of the characters in this game, there's a tragic element to him. i was worried about the role the heroine would play in helping him 'overcome' this, but i think they handled it well. it doesn't feel like the heroine's fixing him so much as she's helping him have a different perspective on certain events.

yeah i'm not normal about this game, i cannot recommend it enough. it would've taken the top slot if some of the routes were a bit more polished. i didn't care for yukimaro's at all, for example. routes like minami's, hibiki's, and koyo's more than make up for it though.

number one - collar x malice

heroine: 10/10 story: 10/10 characters: 10/10 art: 10/10 enjoyability: 10/10 favorite characters: takeru sasazuka (daisuke namikawa), kei okazaki (yuki kaji), and aiji yanagi (masakazu morita)

the holy grail. the otome games that died for our sins. this isn't just a good otome game, it's an excellent story, with a very human cast, commentary on issues like the nature of crime, and you're left wanting to solve the various mysterious as much as the heroine does. speaking of the heroine, miss hoshino ichika is my all-time favorite heroine. she's clever, resolute, compassionate, and you can't help but fall in love with her a little yourself 😭😭

i'm not sure if this makes sense, but the world feels very... full? you get this sense that ichika exists outside just interacting with the love interests. she has her career, friends, and her younger brother that act as more than passing NPCs. the writers ensured all the characters with portraits are given some level of depth. i left caring about more characters than the heroine and love interests.

each route is dedicated to working through a certain case, which keeps the story intriguing as you progress. finally, all of the little hints that have been littered throughout coalesce into the 'true' route, where questions you've had since the first chapter are given satisfactory conclusions. at the same time, you're left wondering about a few things, such as the complete philosophy of the main antagonist.

ichika's relationship with each of the love interests develops alongside the case they're investigating, which almost always have connections or parallels to the LI's past. this helped ground them in reality and flesh them out into dynamic characters. you come to care deeply about them alongside ichika. the romance feels earned and doesn't come on too fast, which some otome games suffer from.

if you like otome games and haven't played collar x malice yet, i fully recommend it!!!!!!!! it's the strongest title from what i've played so far.

[marauder-misprint]

'You were important'

Sirius Black x Fem!Slytherin!reader

9.5k words

cw: Minor use of y/n, fluff, swearing, mentions of Walburga’s great parenting, hurt/comfort, swearing 

You’re not exactly sure when you first met Sirius. You both came from unhappy homes. His was just empty of love in general; his parents, cold and disconnected, held impossible expectations of him. Yours was a broken love; parents that had onced loved each other but only stayed together out of obligation to you. You knew your parents tried to hide their growing distaste for each other from you, but they were bad at it. Their arguments filled the house almost nightly.

Your friendship with Sirius was born out of literal escapism. You had taken to going to the park near your house whenever you couldn’t take being in the house anymore. At one point, the curly haired boy started showing up and you’d sit on the swings together. It wasn’t until a while later that you actually talked to him. And the two of you became friends, disparaging your parents together. 

“Some people just shouldn’t be parents,” you had said to him once. 

He agreed. The two of you made your own fun as two unsupervised kids did: he liked to break things and you liked to set things on fire. You weren’t always causing trouble, sometimes opting to go exploring down every alley within the surrounding neighborhoods. But at the end of the day, you’d always go back to your own homes. You could easily be described as best friends, despite not knowing his last name and he yours. 

Your friendship hit what you thought would be a minor bump at the end of the summer after you both turned eleven. You were hanging out at your usual park, chatting at the swings like you always did. He told you that he had been enrolled in a boarding school. You stared at him, silent for a beat, but then you told him that you had been too. 

“So… I’ll see you at Christmas?” he asked.

“Yeah. Don’t go forgetting about me.”

“It’s just school. I won’t forget you.”

Little did you know that you would be going to the same school as him. You had managed to not see him on the platform, on the train nor on the boats. You didn’t see him at all prior to the sorting ceremony. 

“Sirius Black.”

The dark curls you were all too familiar with walked up the steps to the tri-legged stool and the sorting hat was placed on his head. 

After a few moments, it shouted, “GRYFFINDOR!”

The table of crimson and gold erupted into the cheers while the rest of the hall seemed to fill with whispers of uncertainty. You understood their whispers. You would have to have been a muggle to not know about the Black family. As you waited for your turn to be sorted, your mind spun with questions to ask him when you had the chance. How had he never mentioned his last name? How had there been no accidental magic between the two of you? Was everything he said about his parents true? What about the rumors about him? How come you had never seen his brother?

You were ripped out of your thoughts at the call of your name. You climbed the steps and took a seat on the stool for your sorting. You glanced over at him. He was staring at you with a white face. You were only given a singular moment of eye contact before the hat made its decision.

“SLYTHERIN!”

As you made your way to the green and silver table, you tried to find his eyes again, but he wouldn’t look your way. And it stayed that way. For the whole first week, he wouldn’t look at you and always made a point to not be near you, which wasn’t difficult as he surrounded himself with his fellow Gryffindors. You didn’t speak until he approached you in the library. 

“How are you here?” he whispered, pretending to look for a book in the same section as you. His voice made you jump.

“I could ask you the same thing,” you hissed back at him. “Never mentioned you’re a wizard.”

“You didn’t either.”

“Technically, I’m a witch. You never said your last name.”

“Some muggles know my family.”

Silence. 

“We’re going to pretend we don’t know each other,” he said. 

“What?” you asked, turning to face him despite him still not looking at you. 

“You don’t know me. I don’t know you.”

Then he grabbed a random book from the shelf and walked away. You watched him walk away in utter shock. How were you supposed to pretend you didn’t know him?

Sirius took what he said to you very seriously. You were just another Slytherin to him, someone as bad as the rest of his pure-blood-obsessed family. You weren’t friends anymore. Despite making your own friends, the semester felt lonely.

You had hope that over Christmas break he’d come to the park. The promise of seeing each other at Christmas was a spark of hope that lingered in your chest. A spark that was extinguished when he didn’t appear at the park; you were there almost every day for several hours. It was then that you gave up on those years of friendship. You’d have to learn to survive your parents without his company. 

---

You wonder if he thought about you as much as you thought about him. You weren’t friends anymore. You hadn’t spoken in years except for minor interactions.

“Excuse me.”

“Can you pass the frog warts?”

“Here.” 

“Can I get through?”

“Thanks.”

Yet Sirius still haunted your mind. You weren’t friends. But you cared for him. And caring for him was a distraction from your own home life. You just couldn’t show how much you cared for him in the normal ways, but it seemed as if fate knew that and gave you Regulus. Another boy who lived in the same house as Sirius with the same parents. You made it your mission to befriend him, letting him tell you details about his life and hiding how much you knew from Sirius. He didn’t tell you much, nor did he ask much about you. You had a quiet mutual understanding with Regulus, and that was enough for you. It was that understanding that made you two best friends. His walls slowly came down when he was around you. You were easily the one he trusted the most at Hogwarts and he became yours. It was an easy friendship. You treasured that, even if it sometimes reminded you of what you had had with Sirius. 

---

You had gotten used to being at the park by yourself. Sirius was never there anymore. You did a double take when you saw a boy with dark curly hair sitting on the swing. For a moment, you thought it was Sirius, but the hair was too short and not curly enough. His frame was thinner. Then it hit you. Regulus. 

You sprinted up to him and stood in front of him. He was silently crying. You had known him long enough to recognize the signs without actually seeing his face; he was an expert at hiding it. You knew he’d rather die than have anyone see him cry. 

“Regulus,” you breathe, kneeling down in front of him.

You hear his breath hitch and he looks up from his lap. The expression on his face makes you want to cry. It makes you want to hold him, using your grip to put his broken pieces back together. It hurts your soul to see him like this. The look changes from extreme hurt and sadness to confusion.

“How are… how are you here?” he asks.

You reach out to hold his hands. He doesn’t pull them away.

“Doesn’t matter right now. What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Sirius,” Regulus says, his voice tight. “He ran away. I don’t think he’s coming back.”

You press your lips into a thin line. Even based on what Regulus has told you, which didn’t measure up to everything Sirius had ever told you, you know that him being alone in that house wasn’t a good thing. You give his hands a squeeze, hoping it offers some kind of comfort.

“You’re going to be okay.” Maybe if you speak it into existence, it will be true. “You’re strong. You’re resilient. You’ve done all you can to make your parents proud. They can’t…”

He shakes his head before cutting you off. “They don’t have to be upset with me to be upset at me.”

“Do… do you know where he went?”

“I’m assuming the Potters.”

“Do you have somewhere to go?”

He blinks at you, emotion slowly draining from his face.

“I can’t leave.” It’s a firm statement.

“Regulus,” you say, almost pleading, but he just shakes his head again.

“I have to stay. I can’t leave. I don’t expect you to understand.”

“Regulus.” Your voice is softer, but your grip on his hands is stronger. “What if you had somewhere to go?”

He shakes his head again. “I told you. I have to stay… I should be getting back soon. Mother won’t be happy I’ve been gone so long…”

“Regulus Arcturus Black,” you say, trying to hold his attention. He looks into your eyes and you can see all the pain he’s holding in. “I don’t live far from here. My home’s not much, but it’s better. Safer.”

“Better? Safer?” he scoffs. 

“I come here often. I’ll be here if you change your mind,” you say, knowing he won’t. He was too proud and too determined to survive without Sirius. 

“I’ll see you at school.”

You watch as he walks away and you just know that you’re going to have to piece him back together when the fall comes. From what you know Sirius endured, you know he’ll need a careful hand. 

---

Come the fall, you find you were right. Regulus was numb to the world. He was silent and emotionless as the rest of his friends greeted him, pulling him into the compartment where you were. 

“Regulus,” you say as he sits next to you.

His back is pin-straight, like he couldn’t even think about slouching. You reach out to touch his arm when he doesn’t acknowledge you. When your hand touches his bicep, he turns to look at you and you see the sadness creep up into his face. You adjust how you’re sitting so you can pull him into you. He falls into your chest, not bothering to say anything and certainly not attempting to resist your touch. 

“I should have listened,” he mumbles into your arm that’s wrapped tightly around him.

“I know,” you whisper. 

He stays in your arms for most of the ride to Hogwarts, getting more comfortable as time passes and he shifts to periodically participate in the conversation with Dorcas, Pandora, Evan and Barty. The more time he spends with the group, the more life gets breathed back into him. It’s not much, but it’s something. By the time the train pulls into Hogsmeade Station, he’s laughed once and there’s a hint of a small spark of life in his eyes again. He throws an arm around your shoulder and pulls you into his side as you walk toward the carriages.

“Thank you,” he whispers, his breath hot on your ear.

You turn to look up at him. “Don’t be thanking me just yet, Reg.”

He chuckles softly.

“Love, you were somehow there when he left. That in itself is enough for me to be showering you in gratitude.”

“Going soft on me, are you?” you laugh, leaning more into his side. 

He rolls his eyes, a sign his old self is still there. 

“I care for you. And I’ll be damned if I ever let you forget that.”

He presses a kiss to the top of your head. “I don’t think I can.”

“Good.” 

You stay by his side all through dinner and all evening in the common room. You didn’t let the boy out of your sight until you walked him to his dorm and he bid you goodnight. Once the door closes between you, you let your cheerful mask fall. You had tried to catch Sirius’ eyes during dinner but he seemed to look everywhere but the Slytherin table. It soured your mood, but you wouldn’t let Regulus see that. You had to be strong and gentle for Regulus. For the Black that wouldn’t fully push you out of his life. Not that you would give Regulus the option to do that. 

You could feel Dorcas and Pandora’s eyes on you as you stalk across the common room towards your dorm. You had been positively beaming when you walked away with Regulus and now, without him, you were scowling. They corner you in your dorm as you brush your hair, preparing for bed.

“So, you and Black?” Pandora asks, her tone light.

“What do you mean, Dory?” you respond, looking at her in the mirror’s reflection. 

“Seemed cozy. Close. Almost like Evan and Junior,” Dorcas says. 

You snort a laugh. “God forbid a girl has a male friend. He had a rough summer and you know he trusts me.” 

“He put his arm around you after you held him the entire way here,” Dorcas points out and Pandora nods in agreement. “That’s something.”

“I assure you, it’s not.” 

---

With each passing day, you and Regulus spend every spare second together, as you had in previous years. Only this time, you’re making sure that he is okay and present. It’s  obvious to you every time he disappears into his mind. His eyes gloss over and any expression on his face dissipates into the numb expression he had when his parents dropped him off at Kings Cross. When you see him in passing, he has the look on his face and he’s more rigid than you had ever seen him previously. You know he’s just getting through the day and will relax once he’s back in the common room or library with you. 

When he’s with you, you see his old self coming back, but there are still the effects of the summer without Sirius. He’s more jumpy and paranoid. You catch him glancing over his shoulder, and your shoulder, periodically, like someone is going to walk up and attack them. He flinches when people raise their voices or a room gets too loud. You do your best to tell people to quiet down or find a believable excuse for you and Regulus to leave. It works well enough and Regulus always gives you a grateful smile. 

You’re not sure what possesses to check on Regulus a month or so into the term. You put on your robe before heading down to the common room. A hunched-over form scribbling away at one of the tables tells you that you don’t need to go to the dorms to find Regulus. He’s already up. You walk over to him, ensuring your steps make noise and going to sit across from him.

“What are you working on?” you whisper.

He still jumps at the sound of your voice. 

“Reworking a Charms essay.”

“Didn’t I already proofread that for you? I thought it was done,” you ask, narrowing your eyes at the parchment. 

“Uh, yeah. It was finished. But it can be better. It needs to be better. I don’t want to settle for an E. I want an O. Mother wants an O.” 

He looks back down at his essay and continues to write until you reach over the table to put your hand on his wrist.

“Regulus, you’re supposed to be sleeping. And the essay you already wrote was O material.”

“I won’t be able to sleep until it’s perfect.”

“It is perfect.”

“Then more than perfect. It has to be better.”

“Regulus, look at me.”

He raises his eyes to look into yours. His grey eyes are bloodshot and his face pale. 

“You need to sleep. It’s three in the morning.”

He shakes his head. “I won’t be able to sleep.”

“The essay is-” you start to say.

“It’s not the essay,” he cuts you off and then sighs. “I dream of home when I sleep.”

“Oh.”

There’s silence, except for the occasional crack or pop from the dying fire. Regulus stopped working on his essay. You try to think of a solution.

“What if… I stayed with you until you fell asleep?”

“You should be sleeping too, though.”

“I’ve gotten a few hours already,” you remind him. 

“What if I dream of there again?” You can hear the fear in his voice and it breaks your heart.

“I can stay until morning, if you think your dormmates won’t mind,” you suggest. “I don’t think Junior would mind, but I don’t know about the others.”

At your offer, his eyes start pleading for you to do so.

“Please stay.”

You nod, stand up and hold out your hand to him.

“Come on then. Let’s get you to bed.”

He quickly collects his items from the table and takes your hand. You lead him back to his own dorm. Regulus lights a small light before he gets ready for bed. The curtains of the other beds in the room are pulled closed, giving the boys their own privacy. You sat on the edge of the only empty bed, obviously Regulus’ with all of the House of Black monogrammed items. You didn’t crawl under the covers until Regulus did. You let him get comfortable first before wrapping yourself around him. 

“Just focus on my breathing, yeah?”

“And you won’t leave?”

“I’m not leaving until morning.”

Your presence in Regulus’ dorm becomes more common. He would let you know when he needed you there. Enchanted notes would fly into your dorm and wake you up if he woke up from a particularly horrid dream. You would be there in an instant, helping lull him back to sleep. Dorcas and Pandora said “I told you so” when rumors of you and Regulus dating circled briefly. You shut them down quickly. Whether anyone actually believed you wasn’t the point; it was that no one was talking about it. You did take pride in being scary when you needed to. You knew you had to split your focus between Regulus and lessons, not silly rumors. 

Some days were better than others for Regulus. You knew it wasn’t going to be all sunshine and roses, but it was nice when those days came along. And you made sure to be there when a day just went to shit. Things had been trending upward the further you got into the semester. You had been able to become less attached at the hip with Regulus. He had spent some evenings with Junior and Evan and some others that you didn’t particularly care for. But he was opening up again to his other friends and that was good. 

Then one of his enchanted notes flutters into your Potions class. Luckily, you are working in the back near the door so Slughorn doesn’t notice the parchment fly in and land in front of you. You quickly read over the note and raise your hand. 

“Professor, may I use the loo?”

Slughorn looks a bit shocked at your interruption.

“Yes. Go. Be quick if you can.”

You nod and hurry out of the room. You find Regulus in the alcove he had described. He’s hugging his knees to his chest and visibility shaking. His face is hidden, but you know he’s been crying. You crouch next to him.

“Hey,” you say softly.

He flinches but then lifts his head. You were right; tears were streaming down his face. 

“What happened?” 

“I-I don’t kn-know. There was a n-noise a-a-and something hit me. I c-couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see. I-I just ran.”

You wrap your arms around him. You hold him for a few minutes in silence, except for his ragged breathing and sniffles. You rub circles on his back and arm where your hands rest. 

“Thank you for the note,” you whisper. 

He nods. He doesn’t know why you’re thanking him for it, but who else was he supposed to send for? Sirius? 

After the rest of classes, you decide to skip dinner. While you’re sure that Regulus would’ve benefitted from your presence, you needed to clear your head. You pace around the castle, corridor after corridor, floor after floor. You come across a door you’re unfamiliar with and you peer inside the room. Your face lights up at the piles of old broken crates. The room looked abandoned and you’re fairly certain you’ve never come across this room before. You crack your neck and launch spells at the crates, making them explode and catch fire. There must be some sort of enchantment on the room because the piles of crates never end. You are able to go through what must’ve been hundreds of crates until you are tired. Your system feels momentarily cleared. 

---

Regulus sending for you during class set something off in you. While you had been mad at Sirius for leaving Regulus alone, now you are furious. You know part of your anger is fueled by what Sirius did to you, just casually ending a years-old friendship and never truly acknowledging you again. You waited for the right time, rage boiling inside of you. You hid it from Regulus and the girls, but it was there. You knew it was there. 

When the moment presented itself, you approached Sirius and his friends. They had claimed a shady area by the Black Lake and were lounging around. It was secluded enough that you felt no shame in the scene you knew you were about to throw. You had decided that Sirius’ decision that you weren’t to acknowledge each other was done. 

“What do you want?” Peter asks with a sharp tone. He is the first one to notice you.

At his question, the rest of the boys look up to see who was walking up to them. You notice a brief look of warning cross Sirius’ face. 

“You left him alone,” you say, trying to be firm and steady but it comes out accusingly. You’re only looking at Sirius. You don’t care for the rest of them right now. 

Sirius blinks at you. His expression is unreadable, not giving you anything to go off of.

“You two know each other?” Remus asks, sensing the tension you’re giving off. 

“How could you leave him alone? In that house with them?”

“Padfoot, what’s she on about?” Peter asks. He’s giving you a wary look. 

You know Sirius understands exactly what you’re getting at. 

“This isn’t the place,” he says coolly. 

“You left him behind and went to hide at the Potters,” you continue. You look at James briefly. “Full offense by the way.”

“Oi, what?” James gasps. 

“Padfoot, is she talking about-?” Remus starts to ask.

“Regulus? Yeah, I am.” You shoot Remus a soft smile before turning back to Sirius with the anger bubbling up within you. “After everything, I know they were horrible to you, but how could you leave him there alone? Did you see him when they dropped him off?” A dry laugh escapes your lips and your voice rises. “Wait, of course not! You weren’t there for him. I know you stood between them and him for years but suddenly disappearing? That’s so fucking cowardly, you dipshit. He wasn’t prepared. He wasn’t ready.”

“Regulus is an open book, isn’t he?” Peter mumbles. “Airing the Blacks’ dirty laundry?”

You turn to Peter with a much more harsh look on your face. “I forgot that you all don’t know.” You don’t need to see Sirius’ face to know he’s giving you his own furious look of warning. One that says ‘Don’t you dare.’ “Sirius and I go way back. At least we did until he became the family disgrace and I wasn’t in the same house.”

“Sod. Off,” Sirius says. All calmness that had been in his voice previously was gone. “This isn’t about you.”

“It’s fucking about me when I’m the one putting him back together. When I was the one who found him. When I was the one who offered him somewhere safe. All because you left him.” 

“He’s their golden boy. How bad could it be?” Peter asks, leaning back on his elbows as he stretches out.

“Wormtail, you stay out of it,” Sirius warns. 

“You called him that.”

“Black, you could learn a thing or two about loyalty. You got a wicked case of abandoning people who care for you. Boys,” you cast a glance around the group, “just know it’s only a matter of time before he leaves you for dead because something better for him came up. Consider yourself warned.”

The boys watch as you stalk off toward the castle. You leave a thick silence in your wake. Once you are a safe distance away, the boys turn their glances to Sirius, who is fuming. 

“So Sirius?” Remus asks, his words cutting through the silence. 

He didn’t say anything, still staring in the direction you had gone.

“Padfoot,” James tries, “care to explain what that was? Or even, who?”

When Sirius still doesn’t say anything, Remus answers part of James’ question. “Y/N. She’s one of Regulus’ friends, I think. I see them around each other a lot. Slytherin, obviously.” 

“Okay, but she said she goes ‘way back’ with Pads, not Regulus,” Peter points out.

“Yeah, because we do and they don’t,” Sirius finally speaks up. “We live… lived near each other. Met at a park when we were small. When being at home was too much.”

The others wait for him to say more. He doesn’t, at least not willingly. 

“And?” Remus pries. “What was all of that?” He gestures to the space where you had berated him. 

“Suppose the result of mixing my moving in with James and her friendship with my brother.”

“Okay, and the bit of about loyalty?” James asks. “Like, what was that?” He lets out an awkward laugh. 

“I may or may not have told her we weren’t friends like a week into first year,” Sirius mumbles, not meeting any of their eyes. 

The boys exchange confused looks with each other, not fully understanding.

“Why?” James follows up. 

“I… don’t know. Some mix of betrayal of not knowing she was going to be here and her being a Slytherin, I guess. It felt like a connection to my family that I was able to separate myself from by being a Gryffindor, you know?”

Remus shakes his head. “But, mate, if you were friends before Hogwarts-”

Sirius cuts him off. “Try my closest confidant.”

“That’s even worse,” Remus continues. “I’d imagine she was pretty pissed when you left her. Coming here and you see a familiar face that tells you to fuck off?”

“I mean, I was pleasant to her. We just aren’t friends anymore! And we didn’t see each other at home anymore either.”

“I’m willing to bet that’s your doing though,” Peter says. 

Sirius sighs and nods. 

“Padfoot, Padfoot, Padfoot…” Remus breathes. 

“Should you be concerned about Regulus though?” Peter asks, his voice small as he knows talking about his family isn’t Sirius’ favorite thing. “She seemed pretty stressed ‘bout it.”

“Mildly,” Sirius says shortly. “He’s stronger than she knows.” 

Remus gives Sirius an unsure look. Remus has seen how often you hang around Regulus and assumes you two were probably as close as the Marauders were. Only differences being you didn’t share a dorm and were in different years. Sirius didn’t see Remus’ look. He didn’t want to feel the judgment of his friends right now. Not when he had been yelled at by his oldest friends, one who knew of his home life better than the Marauders did. You had been there when he was subjected to his parents’ moods and opinions year round as compared to only having to survive a few months with them. 

Sirius didn’t sleep well that night. He kept tossing and turning but ultimately failed at becoming comfortable and falling asleep. He tried to just rest with his eyes closed. It didn’t help that his mind was endlessly spinning and replaying your words, your concern for Regulus and fury at him for leaving Regulus behind, rather than being happy for him finally escaping his tormentors. 

The next day, he makes a point to find you after class. Being exhausted in class wasn’t conducive to paying attention, nor was still having you on his mind. His friends could tell he wasn’t in it; they mostly left him alone and tried to keep the professor’s attention off of him. Remus had made comments to James and Peter about thinking your intrusion had affected Sirius more than he would admit to them. Afterall, Sirius liked to keep his personal emotions close to his chest. 

He finds you in the library with Pandora and Dorcas. He looks around nervously for Regulus, or Barty and Evan. He was more nervous about Regulus, but seeing Barty and  Evan wasn’t my favorite scenario either. Luckily for him, it was just the girls. Dorcas and Pandora noticed him right away as he started to approach the table. You had continued working, not looking up. 

“Uh, hey, Y/N,” he says awkwardly. 

Dorcas and Pandora give him annoyed glares. You look up slowly.

“What, Black?” you all but spit at him. Had he not gotten enough of an earful yesterday?

“Can, uh, can we talk?”

Pandora cocks her head to the side as Dorcas glances quickly from Sirius to you and back. You blink at Sirius, as if bored. The girls next to you have never seen Sirius so unsure of himself, except maybe when he was walking up to be sorted, when the possibility of being a Slytherin still hung in the air. 

“I guess,” you say with a sigh. “I’ll be back shortly,” you assure the girls as you follow Sirius into the depth of the shelves. 

“How bad is he?” Sirius asks once you’re out of earshot of the girls. 

You scoff. “Oh, so now you care.”

“I always cared. It’s just not something I talk about with the guys. He’s my brother.”

“He was wrecked when you left. Rightfully so, if you ask me. And he was ruined when he came back to school. You left him alone with them.” You were trying to keep your voice steady and low, not wanting to start a shouting match with him in the library. 

Sirius sighs and runs a hand through his hair. 

“Is that all you needed?” you ask. “Pretty sure I told you that yesterday.”

“How is he… now?”

You bite the inside of your cheek before answering. “He’s not the same, if that’s what you’re asking. Barely okay some days. It’s hit and miss, but overall, better the longer he isn’t there, I think. I’m worried about when he inevitably goes back. Christmas? Summer? All of our work this semester is going to go down the drain.”

“Our work?”

You roll your eyes. “Me, Dory, Dorcas, Evan, Junior. You know, the people that care about him.”

“I care about him.”

“The people that care about him enough to be around.”

“Being in that house was killing me. You know that. I had to get out.”

“It never would’ve killed you, Sirius. Drive you mad, yes. But not kill. Even on the worst days, you were never as bad as he is.”

“It’s not my fault he doesn’t have the common sense to get out.”

“He feels like he has to stay. I offered-”

“I know. You said yesterday. So he didn’t take you up on it and you still feel the responsibility to fix him?”

“It’s not a responsibility. It’s because he’s important to me. That’s why I helped fix you. You were important to me.”

Were echoes in his brain. Sirius shakes his head in slight disbelief.

“Still. He turned you away and you’re doing more than he’s asking of you. Why?”

You blink at him slowly and take a deep breath. What you wouldn’t give for it to be appropriate to smack him upside the head, but you needed to keep your composure.

“He came back to me. He’s opened up to me. He didn’t lock me out forever. Like you did.”

You feel like you need to scream.

“Excuse me.”

You turn and leave Sirius alone in the shelves. Pandora and Dorcas give you concerned looks as you take your seat again. They only look away from you when Sirius emerges from the shelves where you had left him. Their eyes follow him all the way out of the library before looking back at you and then refocusing on their own homework. You know they want to ask you what Sirius wanted but your demeanor says you aren’t talking about it now, and maybe never. 

---

“What did you yell at my brother about?” Regulus asks you as you sit down next to him at dinner. 

“Hm?” 

“People are saying you yelled at Sirius and his friends yesterday. I think you scared a first year.”

“Reminded him that he’s a piece of shit.”

“What did he do this time?” 

You give Regulus an intrigued look. “Why are you so interested?”

“My best friend chewing my own flesh and blood a new one? You’re kidding, right?”

“He came and talked to her in the library earlier,” Pandora adds, leaning forward.

Regulus turns fully toward you. 

“First you yell at him and now he’s coming to talk to you? Darling?”

“Toldhimoffforleavingyou.” You have never spoken more quickly and quietly in your life. 

“You did what?” Regulus gasps. Of course he understood you. 

“He shouldn’t’ve and you know it,” you say, pointing your fork at Regulus before going to stab another piece of food. “Someone had to let him know and you obviously weren’t going to do it.”

“Because it was his choice.” 

“Exactly. He chose to leave. He didn’t have to. He should’ve known better.”

“So you told him off. For me.”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t have to…” You see Regulus’ gaze drift over to where Sirius was sitting at the Gryffindor table and he frowns. “Maybe you shouldn’t have.”

You bite the inside of your bottom lip. It was easy to hide behind Regulus being your best friend as the sole reason, but yelling at Sirius had been cathartic. You finally got some sense of revenge for him abandoning you in first year. It felt so good to get that off your chest, at least in front of Sirius’ friends. 

“It wasn’t just for you,” you mumble, half hoping that Regulus didn’t hear you.

“Then for who else?” Pandora asks.

Regulus turns back to you. He waits for your answer.

“For me.”

“For you?” Regulus repeats.

“I, uh, I was his friend before I was yours.”

Dorcas snorts from next to Pandora. “Bitch, when? You could barely look at him in first year and then Regulus was here.”

“Before Hogwarts. We live near each other.”

“He never mentioned a friend,” Regulus says softly.

“Okay, but then what happened? You’ve talked more in the past twenty four hours than the past six years,” Dorcas says.

“He said we weren’t friends anymore and yeah, that was that.”

Your friends all stare at you, each with a different expression on their face. 

“Excuse me, what?” Dorcas asks. 

You shrug. There wasn’t anything more to say; you could’ve mentioned that Sirius told you all about life at home, but you felt that was implied enough for Regulus. 

“And you never talk?” Pandora adds.

“Huh,” is all Regulus says. 

“So yelling at him was a little for me too. But the purpose was for you, Reg. He knows he shouldn’t’ve left.”

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” Regulus asks.

“I didn’t think it really mattered. The Sirius I was friends with wasn’t Sirius Black. He was just Sirius and I was just Y/N. We weren’t wizards. We were just kids at a park. And then everything changed and the past was the past.”

“Kids at a park…” Regulus mutters, putting two and two together. “The one you said you visit often?”

You nod. 

“I suppose… that makes sense…” He’s speaking slowly as he is still processing the fact that you knew Sirius and were friends before he had even met you. “And he was the one who left you?”

You nod again. He hums and puts his arm around your shoulder, pulling you closer to him.

“That’s his loss and my gain, I guess.”

You sigh in relief. Some part of you had thought Regulus would be furious that you hadn’t disclosed your previous friendship with his brother. Although, in your defense, like you had said, the Sirius you knew wasn’t Regulus’ brother. That Sirius had been an only child and a muggle. And if you could have had your way six years ago, you would’ve had both Black brothers as your friends. 

---

Once again, what you had said kept Sirius up at night. 

Were. Were. Were.

You were important to me.

He knew he was the reason he no longer was important to you. He had been the one to push you away. He had never found himself regretting it until now. As he goes through the next day’s classes, he wonders how he managed six years of ignoring you. You’re in almost every class he has. Your voice and laughter draw his attention. He never realized how much he missed hearing both, and even more so, being the cause of the laugh. 

The rest of the Marauders aren’t oblivious to Sirius watching you, but they don’t say anything to him. They don’t understand how close the two of you had been before he ruined it. And they don’t understand that your yelling had really got in his head. That you coming to him, instead of listening to his command, forced him to realize how much he missed you and your friendship. He missed you and needed to fix it. He saw that he made a dire mistake pushing you away. 

It takes him time to wrap his head around everything. After a week of trying to dissect your words in his head on his own, he swallows his pride and asks for help.

“What does it mean if someone says you were important to them?” Sirius asks, laying on his bed and staring at the ceiling. 

“You need a grammar lesson? Okay.” Remus says. “Were. Used to be. Past tense. No longer important.”

“Is it a lost cause though?”

“Is what a lost cause?”

“Can you re-become important to someone?”

“I suppose it depends on what happened to make you unimportant to them.” Remus pauses, looking over Sirius. “Is this about Y/N?” 

Sirius nods. He knows that Remus would be looking at him to see it.

“‘Fraid I don’t know enough about that to really say, Pads. She sounded beyond pissed at you.”

“How do I get her to see that I had to leave and taking Regulus with me wasn’t really an option?”

“You think James’ parents wouldn’t have taken him in too?”

“No, they would have. I don’t think Reg would have come with. Certainly not easily.”

“Did you ask him?”

“No. What if he told Mum what I was going to do? I was able to get out because I had surprise on my side.”

Remus thinks for a moment before responding. “When did y/n say that?”

“Last week, after she yelled at me. I went back to ask about Reg.”

Remus doesn’t say anything. Once again, he needs more information. 

“She said Regulus is important to her. And I was.”

“And you want to change that?”

“The part about me, yes. I don’t mind that she cares for Reg. It’s… good he has someone. That he has her, of all people.”

Remus shakes his head and tries to stifle a laugh. Sirius looks over at him when he hears. 

“What?”

“Padfoot, it’s really quite simple. I think you need to talk to her. Apologize for being an idiot. Maybe a bit of groveling. See if she has ideas on how you can help Regulus,” he says. “Girls like it when guys admit they were wrong. And you were wrong. Very. Extremely.”

“Shut up, Moony. I know. I know I was wrong.” He takes a breath. “And it’s hit me how much I miss her. I don’t know how I managed six years without her.”

“Tell her that. While you’re groveling on your knees. Begging.”

“Don’t make it sound so pathetic.”

“Can I come with to watch? I think it is going to be pathetic and that’s something I need to witness.”

“So you can tell everyone?”

“So I can tell everyone.”

---

Sirius corners you in the library. Well, not quite corners you. He finds you at a table alone. He sits next to you and turns your chair so you’re facing him.

“I was working,” you hiss at him. 

“I need to talk to you.”

“Again?”

“Yes, again.”

“You only have a few minutes. Regulus is meeting me here after Quidditch practice. You need to be gone when he gets here.”

“Actually, I need to talk to him too. But you’re first.”

You narrow your eyes at him and cross your arms. You wait for him to talk. 

“Okay. This is long overdue. I’m sorry.”

You scoff. “Sorry for what?”

“I wasn’t finished,” he says. “I’m sorry for pushing you away when we were first years. And for never talking to you. Never going back to the park. I was selfish and stupid. I still am stupid. The biggest idiot you’ve ever met.”

“I could’ve told you that, Black.”

He briefly purses his lips together at his last name.

“Continuing my idiocy, this is going to sound even more stupid. I didn’t realize how much I actually missed you until you yelled at me. I haven’t been able to get you out of my head. I don’t know how I survived the last six years without you. I need you in my life.”

You raise your eyebrows in surprise. “You missed me? Bit too late to be confessing that, don’t you think?”

“Yes, I know it is. That’s how stupid I am! Six years and being called a dipshit to get my head out of my arse.”

Your glare softens ever so slightly.

“So I’m sorry. I’m so, so, so sorry.”

“Okay.” 

“Can I try to explain something? Do I have time?”

You sigh and lean backwards to see the clock. 

“You have time.”

He smiles before his expression becomes serious again.

“I thought the only way to escape them was to leave on my own. To disappear out of the blue. If they had an inkling that I would actually leave, they might’ve stopped me. That’s why I didn’t say anything to Regulus. I wasn’t sure he’d want to come with, especially to the Potters’. I know I need to talk to Regulus on my own. But I want to try to fix it. I need to work on fixing my relationships with the Slytherins I never should’ve let leave my life.”

“I don’t think he would’ve said anything. Probably wouldn’t’ve gone with you, but he wouldn’t’ve been so goddamn blindsided.” You pause. “I don’t know if you can fix these relationships.”

“I need to try. Please. Let me try.” He got out of his chair and on his knees, as Remus suggested. “Please, Y/N. You were my first friend. The best friend I’ve ever had and I ruined it. Please, let me try to fix it.”

You’re looking down at him with wide eyes as Regulus approaches the table.

“What the actual fuck?” he asks. 

Sirius immediately stands up, turning towards his brother.

“Regulus.”

“Sirius.”

“I’m sorry.”

Regulus put his bag down on the table, not breaking eye contact with his brother. 

“Are you now?”

“I should have told you.”

“You should have stayed.”

“I couldn’t.”

Regulus sits down and looks away from his brother and at you. 

“Regulus, I had to leave. I think for the same reasons you feel you need to stay. I know I was the one who left, but I don’t want to lose my brother.”

“You have James.”

“He’s not blood.” You knew it was hard for Sirius to say that. “You always have a place at the Potters’ if you want to leave. It’s okay to leave.”

“My invitation still stands too,” you say, speaking for the first time since Regulus joined you. 

Regulus looks back at his brother and then to you again. He shakes his head.

“What is this?”

“I, uh, I am trying to start mending the bridges I burned with my idiocy,” Sirius says as he slowly sinks back into his chair. He looks at you. “Does he know about us?”

“About what?” Regulus spits. 

“We were friends before Hogwarts. When I would disappear, I was usually with Y/N,” Sirius clarifies and Regulus’ face relaxes.

“Oh, that. Yes, I’m aware.”

You laugh, earning a sharp look from the librarian.

“Reg! Do you really think I’d be dating him without telling you?”

You were important. Sirius feels his face grow hot. 

“Anyways!” Sirius says. “I want a second chance, even though I probably don’t deserve one from either of you.”

You look at Regulus, trying to read his expression. Sirius’ apology to you certainly felt more heartfelt than his to his own brother. Maybe there was a dynamic you weren’t familiar with between them, but you wanted Regulus to answer first. Your loyalty would be to him first. His face is stoney as he looks his brother up and down.

“Will you be better?” Regulus asks after a few seconds.

“I’m going to try. Whatever you need of me, except moving back in.”

“Of course there’s a caveat,” you sigh.

“No, no,” Regulus says, giving you a soft smile. “I wouldn’t ask you to move back in. But write? Keep me in the loop? Don’t prank me?”

“What about a friendly prank? Like something I would do to James, Peter, them.”

“Maybe.”

“And I will write. Daily, if you want. And even if you don’t stay, you’re welcome to visit the Potters’ or we can spend a day in the city or whatever.”

There is so much desperation in Sirius’ voice as he talks to Regulus that you almost feel bad for him. His apology could have used work, but he seems genuinely wanting to reconnect with Regulus outside of their parents’ grasp. 

“And for you?” Sirius asks, turning his attention to you once Regulus seemed satisfied with him.

“What?”

“What will it take for a second chance?”

You look at Regulus, only to find him actively watching you. You can’t tell if he’s encouraging you to give him one or if he’s curious at what you’d require from him. You look back at Sirius with a grim face.

“I don’t know. I was never friends with Sirius Black.”

Sirius gives you a confused and hurt look. “But the park…”

“I was friends with a young boy named Sirius. He didn’t have a last name. He didn’t have a brother at home.” You sigh before continuing. “I suppose if Sirius Black wants to try to be friends, he can try and we’ll go from there.”

“Thank you. Thank you both. I promise I won’t blow it.” A wide smile is adorning his face as he stands up. “I’ll let you two study, but thank you.”

You both watch Sirius leave the library in silence. 

“You think you’ll be able to forgive him?” Regulus asks you as he opens his bag and takes out his homework. 

“We’ll see. That first year was hard. Guess we’ll see how much effort he really puts in. You?”

“If he keeps his word. We can be pleasant then, I think.”

You smile across the table at the younger boy. “You’re kinder to him than I am.”

“Family, you know.”

You roll your eyes. “You damn well know you don’t have to love family.”

“Then I’m choosing to. He’s Sirius. Something about him is loveable.”

You didn’t want to admit it, but you knew he was right.

---

It’s the little things. Sirius started making a point to say hi to you, and to Regulus. Pranks seemed to avoid you. He would approach you in the corridors and the library to chat. You could tell Sirius watched and cheered Regulus on the Quidditch pitch, when Slytherin wasn’t playing Gryffindor. He was taking the baby steps he needed to. 

As much as you tried to hang onto your anger, you couldn’t. It didn’t wash away in one go, but it melted like an ice sculpture without a permafrost enchantment. It probably helped that over Christmas Regulus received the letters he was promised. Both Regulus and Sirius wrote to you, which the latter was more unexpected. They both told you about an adventure into the city that went well, only a few minor tense moments that passed almost as quickly as they appeared. You spent time with Regulus at the park, apparently at Sirius’ suggestion. So when the spring term was starting up and Regulus wasn’t a shell of himself as he had been at the start of the fall term, you really noticed how much effort Sirius had been putting in. He was really trying to not mess up his second chances. 

Sirius finds you sitting in a window seat, reading a book you had gotten for Christmas. He leans against the wall and watches you for a moment. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy seeing you so focused and lost in the pages. 

“Hey,” he says finally,

You look up. The shock of seeing him evident on your face, but you mark your spot and put the book down. 

“Hi.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah. What’s up, Sirius?”

You cross your legs so Sirius can sit at the other end of the window seat. 

“If I had invited you to the Potters for a day over break, would you have come?”

You’re taken back by the question. It was unexpected and it felt loaded. 

“I just… I almost invited you. I need to know if I should be kicking myself for chickening out,” he adds when you don’t respond. 

“Honestly, probably not. I don’t know your friends, especially not the Potters. I don’t think James is too fond of me.”

“He’s come around a bit,” Sirius says. You can tell he’s trying to not look too hurt at your denial. “And how will they learn to love you if you don’t come around?”

“Love? Let’s work on simple friends, or acquaintances at school first.”

“Then Hogsmeade? Next weekend? Would you consider coming with us?”

You hesitate. A full day with Sirius and his friends is daunting. You were just beginning to be friends with Sirius. Jumping into his friend group felt like too much. Again, Sirius talks more when you don’t say anything.

“What if it was just me?”

“I’d consider just you.”

“Then I’ll tell the boys I won’t be going with them!” Sirius exclaims happily, jumping up from the seat.

“I said consider!” you call after him, but he’s sprinting down the corridor. 

You did consider it. You thought about it during class and meals. You even talked about it with Regulus, who supported your reformed friendship with Sirius. He said something about the day in London with Sirius was more fun than he’d admit to Sirius so if he has a London day with him, you need a Hogsmeade day. And then you considered it and thought about it more. 

You kept doing so until you hadn’t said no and were waiting for Sirius by the ground gates to walk to Hogsmeade. It was cold and snowing and Sirius was a little late. You pull your cloak tighter around your body. You can’t help but smile when you catch a glimpse of Sirius running toward you while attempting to tie his scarf.

“I’m late, I know! Please don’t hold it against me!”

You laugh at him as he huffs.

“Oh, just let me,” you say, grabbing his scarf that wasn’t remotely tied in a way to keep him warm. 

You tie it for him and tuck the ends into his cloak so they won’t fly in the wind. 

“There. Now let’s go! I’m thinking you owe me a butterbeer for making me wait.”

“If that’s the cost of being late, I can handle that. As much butterbeer as you want.”

Your day with Sirius goes smoothly. Conversations don’t run dry. The camaraderie is just like when you were younger. It’s fun and relaxing. After the Three Broomsticks, he follows you around a bookstore and then you follow him around Zonkos. You end up back in the pub for more butterbeer to warm you up before your walk back to Hogwarts. 

“Did your friends even come to Hogsmeade today? I’m surprised we didn’t run into them,” you say, pulling on your coat. 

“No. Said something about giving us privacy?”

“Do we need privacy?”

“I mean, I did explain that you weren’t ready to be thrown into a day with the Marauders?” 

“Which is true. You have to admit, your group can be a bit much.”

Sirius laughs and holds open the pub door for you as you exit into the cold.

“We can be. I think Zonkos both cringes and celebrates when all four of us walk in. They make sales, but at what cost?”

“That’s the bookstore when I go in with Reg!” you say with a laugh. 

“You know his book collection well?”

You nod. “We’re our own little book club, the two of us. And possibly edging on a library. If you ever take up reading, we got you.”

You lightly run into Sirius with your shoulder. 

“Maybe I’ll have to. Sure would make Remus’ day to see a book in my hands.”

“If you need recommendations, you know where to find me and Regulus.”

You walk for a little bit without talking. Snow is still falling, flakes getting caught in your hair and on your eyelashes. You’re too busy watching where you’re walking to see Sirius sending sideways glances your way every few steps. You’re about halfway back to the castle when he puts his arm out in front of you to stop you.

“Why we stopping?” you ask, a shiver running up your spine as a gust of wind chills you. 

“I’m going to risk my second chance with you.”

It happens before you can process anything. Sirius grabs your face and pulls it closer to his. He presses his lips to yours. He couldn’t help himself. In rekindling your friendship, he realized that something else was caught on fire inside of him. With each letter he sent you, he could only anticipate your response. He had hoped you wouldn’t want to go to Hogsmeade with all of his friends but would accept going with just him. He had been so nervous this morning that it made him late, but you had laughed and fixed his scarf. And then you just looked so beautiful with the white snowflakes in your hair. He couldn’t help himself. 

His eyes search yours for a reaction when he pulls away. You don’t seem angry or upset. 

“Darling?” he asks softly.

“How long?” you ask.

“A few seconds, maybe?”

“Not the kiss. How long have you liked me?”

“Oh. Sometime after you said you’d give Sirius Black a chance. But I think it would’ve been longer if I had never pushed you away.”

You nod, suddenly unable to form words. Your thoughts are running a hundred miles an hour. Sirius had been one of your first and best friends. Today had been a testament to how easy it was to fall back into the friendship with him. It wasn’t like you had ever truly stopped caring for him, nor that you have never imagined what might’ve happened between you if he had stayed. For Regulus’ sake, you always kept your thoughts about Sirius to yourself. You didn’t dare mention anything to Dorcas or Pandora in case someone overheard or they didn’t keep their mouths shut. Now, here you are, with Sirius in front of you, searching for a proper response after he kissed you. A Sirius who begged for forgiveness after being an idiot for six years. A Sirius who said he was going to risk his second chance.

You lean up and give him a quick peck on the lips. He stares at you. 

“We’re lucky I gave you that second chance,” you say with a smile.

“We?” he breathes, leaning forward to rest his forehead against yours.

“We.” 

Sirius kisses you again and is smiling so widely that you think his jaw must hurt.

“I guess I need to tell Reg,” you sigh as you reach to hold Sirius’ hand. 

[philosophicalparadox]

Got a Japanese grocery store near me. It IS kept very meticulously neat and orderly, but in a completely different way than what we usually see in the US — the “flow” of foods breaks up differently I guess.

Even so, despite now living on the East coast where literally anything from Japan is easily three to six times the cost as it was in California, many foods are still much cheaper.

And there’s WAY more variety. If you ever wanted to know about 21 different types of edible seaweed, and how to use them, that’s the place to go, and they WONT bankrupt you like a health food store.

The exception is some snack foods and other imports — but largely, the produce in that store actually comes from California; it often says so right on the boxes.

You see, the US has very weird food standards aesthetically, so we import a huge quantity of produce, and export the stuff that’s Ugly or that we just aren’t interested in.

But some of it stays here — and goes principally to markets aimed at minorities.

SO if you actually want to support US agriculture AND get cheap groceries, do absolutely find an Asian or even Hispanic / pretty much any minority market/store. I grew up next to the latter, with a similar butcher shop across the street. It was often times the only way we even could afford produce and meat; neither store was pretty by US standards, but it was INFINITELY better than relying on the quite literally rotten food that came in the food boxes. At some point FREE just gets used as a convenient excuse to dump waste somewhere and make it someone else’s problem; and while we did need to rely on those boxes at times, you bet your ass we nickel and dimed our way into those produce markets and learned to make preserves, because nobody should have to eat f-ing rotting food. But that is another story for another day.

Point is you are doing a lot more good for a lot more people shopping in a store like that than feeding the corporate overlords.

(And for the record, when I say cheaper, which is not a term most Americans associate with Japanese anything, I mean it — a bushel - that is about two pounds- of apples at Acme/safeway is like 4-6 bucks, so 2-3$ a pound. At this particular Japanese and sometimes Korean market, THE SAME APPLES are like 50c- 1.00 a pound, because They’re From The US and often are just not as pretty as ones you’d buy elsewhere. Yeah, you’ll have to cut around some nicks and bruises on that pear (and OMG do they have pears! Like 6 varieties!) but it’s perfectly edible and delicious.

Same goes for herbs. Whole Foods is a freaking rip off selling fresh mint for 2 dollars for like 12 stems. The Japanese market? You can get an entire damn mint plant for that price. Dried spices are sold in bulk like at Winco, from hoppers with bags. You pay by weight, not brand. So you can in fact get more than 6 stamens of Saffron for the 9$ that freakin’ McCormic sells that stuff. (You pay for the glass bottle more than anything).

The ONLY thing that makes this market unappealing to people: They put just about everything they can in Metric. Weights are sold by mg and kilo first; there are numbers that correlate to the respective pound /ounce on some things, and others are just in US imperial like the apples. But if you weigh the spices or pasta or anything like that, you’ll be charged for the metric conversion. Which apparently upsets dumb people who don’t understand that a gram is far more precise than an ounce, and that it keeps them from losing stock too fast since they’re pretty small fish — it’s owned by two people, and staffed by maybe 7 at a time. They don’t get priority on restock.

Anyway, small business grocery = best place to buy food

How to Shop at an Asian (or other ethnic) Grocery Store

Do you live in or near a city in the US?

Need to save some money on groceries?

Might I introduce you to... shopping at the local Asian grocery?

Asian grocery stores aimed at an Asian-American customer base almost always beat the prices of their western (or for-western) counterparts. Often by a significant amount, especially in categories like produce, meat, rice, and spices. Plus in addition to lower prices, you get the satisfaction of supporting a small, local business instead of a larger chain store.

(Note that a lot of this information applies to other ethnic grocery stores as well, but we're using Asian because they're common in many cities, and have particularly good prices on produce.)

But it can be a little bit of a learning curve when you first start to shop at them. This post will give you the information you need to navigate them.

So how do you find a good Asian grocery store?

First, go on google maps and search "grocery".

Note that you are NOT googling "Asian Grocery" or "Cheap Grocery". If you search "Asian Grocery" you will get results for Asian stores marketing toward a western audience, and because of this, will be neat, shiny, and very pricey. If you search "Cheap Grocery" you will get stores marketing themselves as cheap, which generally are only slightly less expensive than their "expensive" counterparts (think Aldi). Okay in a pinch, but you can do better.

Second, look at the pictures of all the stores you can easily get to.

Here's what you want: not a lot of printed ads, pictures of hand-written signs (especially in languages other than English), food in cardboard bins, and you want it to look kind of "junky". Bonus points if you can see prices listed in the pictures or the people shopping there are mostly older, ethnic women.

Third, If you couldn't find anything like this, go on your city's subreddit.

Search "cheap", "cheap grocery" and "expensive grocery". Why "expensive grocery"? Because you want to find people complaining about grocery prices, and you want to see the advice they get. Many times, that advice is Asian or ethnic grocery stores.

If you're still not getting anything, google "[city name] cheap grocery" and "[city name] expensive grocery" (see above). Scroll until you get to FORUMS discussing groceries in your city. You DO NOT want blogs or articles. Again, you're looking at the advice people are given when they complain about grocery prices.

One of the first questions people ask upon walking into an Asian grocery store of the type discussed in this post is:

"Is the food I'm getting here safe to eat?"

The answer is just as safe as anywhere else you might shop.

You're probably used to very clean, pretty, well-lit, well-organized stores. This will probably not be that, but it will be regulated by the same health department that regulates those stores. They are held to the same standards.

It's a lot of work to keep a store looking like a western consumer expects. It's a lot less work (and thus less money) to keep a store looking like an ethnic career housewife or grandmother expects. That is largely where the savings comes from.

What's a good deal at an Asian grocery?

Produce. You're probably used to things like onions and carrots being the cheapest per pound. Here it's going to be greens, apples, pears, radish, cabbage and maybe squash and sweet potatoes. Check unit prices and prepare to try some new things. Also a pound of greens is a LOT of greens. Keep that in mind. Also keep in mind that you might see a few pieces of produce that are bruised or have mold on them. That's okay. Just don't buy those pieces. The rest of the batch is probably fine. Wash produce when you get home if you're concerned, though you should be doing that anyway.

Rice and dry beans. If you like to buy in bulk, you're in luck. Don't expect to walk away with a pound or two of these. They come in 40lb packages. But if you tailor most of your meals around them, those meals will be cheap af. There are also lots of different types of specialty rice if you want to make your own sushi or mochi. Learn how to soak and sprout beans.

Tofu. Tofu is expensive when you buy it at a health food store. It is not when you buy it at an Asian grocery. It probably won't be in pretty packages, but again, cheap is not going to be super pretty.

Meat and fish. Meat is generally going to be cheaper here, though maybe not by as much as the produce is. Pork will probably be your cheapest option. You may also see cuts you don't normally see, like tongue, intestine, liver, kidneys, blood, etc... "Weird," however, does not automatically mean cheap in this context. Check unit prices and prepare to be adventurous. If you don't know what else to do with them, dried fish and animal organs make fantastic stock when boiled.

Spices. Again with the extremely large quantities here. But very inexpensive compared with their western counterparts.

Candy. This makes a great inexpensive gift if you need one, since the candy sold at these stores is fairly exotic for a western audience.

What isn't a good deal at an Asian grocery?

Dairy. This includes fresh milk, butter, cheese, etc... If they have it, it will be very expensive. Consider buying elsewhere.

Eggs. Again, this will probably be as expensive or more than the eggs you could get at a western supermarket.

Snacks. Pre-made items will be expensive in general, even though they may be tempting because they are different from what you are used to and you don't need to learn to cook a new thing. Do your best to avoid these and make your own if you can. If you can't, frozen pork or vegetable dumplings are probably your best bet for a quick meal.

Bread. It's pricey. A lot of Asian cuisines use rice, noodles, or buns for their starch instead of western-style bread. So if you can find it it will often be a novelty item.

What else do I need to know?

It's okay to be overwhelmed by new ingredients. Look up some YouTube videos on how to cook certain ingredients if you're not familiar with them.

These are not supermarkets. They sell food and sometimes the kitchenware (steamers, woks, chopsticks, etc...) needed to cook it. You will probably need to get your soap and household items somewhere else.

Pay in cash if you can. Most of these are very small businesses and paying them cash makes it so they don't need to pay credit card fees. At the very least, make the minimum purchase before paying with a card.

[aayakashii]

Helloo Aya love your content as always and I have a request if you want to do it😊

Could you write "how would the Vagastrom and Jabberwock ghouls(+jin cause he's the only one I care about from frostheim lmao😭) propose to you/mc"😩

Anyways either way I love your fics and headcanons pls never die❤️

I love when ppl say "pls never die" to someone and now I feel elated that I'm on the receiving end of that too LMAO thank you for enjoying what I write <3 and thank you for helping me get out of my writing slump holy crap 😭

Warnings: none. Just tooth-rotting fluff, I might need a shot of insulin after writing this.

proposal headcanons

Jin

It depends on you, first and foremost.

If you're introverted, he'll make sure it'll be just the two of you, in the dim light of candles, with a dinner catered entirely to you.

Gentle music will be playing in the background as you two talk, and he tries to calm down his nerves by holding your hand tightly throughout the night.

You barely feel when he slips the ring into your finger, only noticing it when a precious gemstone glints brightly as he kisses your ring finger and murmurs the question into your trembling hand.

If you're extroverted, he'll throw a party just for the occasion. Whatever theme you like, you can consider it done.

You'll have the prettiest dress, the tastiest foods, the most delicious drinks with all the people you love surrounding you, despite you not knowing what warranted such a grand celebration.

Laughter and happy conversation suddenly quiet down as Jin brings you to the center of the room and gets down on one knee and the guests swoon over your fairytale romance.

Either way you prefer will be more than perfect for him, as long as your answer to his question is "yes".

Alan

Oh, he's so nervous. Almost can't look at you in the eye for an entire week before he gets the ring ready.

However, Alan isn't the type of guy who would prepare a special event for the proposal (but if you love him, you know this would never be his type of thing).

He does, however, want privacy to say whatever he needs to, if his heart finally decides to pour out of his mouth.

So, he takes you to a small hike.

Once you two can't hear anything besides the sound of leaves crunching under your feet and birds singing, he holds your hand tightly and turns towards you.

It's quick but soft and brimming with emotion: Alan only needs to tell you, through stutters and endearing mumbles, that you mean everything to him and that he wants to spend a lifetime with you.

He doesn't even need to ask whether or not you'd marry him. You're already hugging him so tight that you vanquish all of his anxieties in a fell swoop.

His heart thumps loudly in his chest, right under your ear, and he buries his face in your hair. You stay like this for a while, grounded and almost merged into each other.

You two only let go only when he finally remembers to slip the ring in your finger.

Leo

It's a show for the ages. It's not surprising at all that Leo would plan the fanciest, flashiest, trendiest proposal.

It will all be going straight to his TikTok right away.

But you already knew that. You know all the things that come with dating Leo. You know that his online career is way too important for him. You're fine with letting millions of fans ogle at him as he winks and vlogs and dances for them.

Because they will never see what you see.

They'll never really see how Leo's eyes look brimming with tears, nor how his hands tremble a little bit as he puts a ring on your finger.

They can't hear the little crack on his voice as he rests his forehead on yours and quietly asks you to marry him.

And when he turns to the camera, internet persona covering the tender little parts of him that he only lets you see, a smug smile on his face after you said yes, you know that you're the only one who truly knows him.

You're the only one who will marry him.

Sho

You're in for a ride, quite literally.

You don't suspect anything when he invites you to ride his motorcycle with him – Bonnie is his baby and you're his favorite person, it's more than common for him to get the two of you together.

Sho, however, can barely hide his anxiety. The dark blue band in the ring box feels like it weighs a ton, tucked deep in his pockets.

You notice his uneasiness. Of course you do. Your mind races with awful thoughts, and, as you two get off Bonnie, you immediately hold his hands, begging him to please let you know if you did anything to make him upset.

Sho feels like a dumbass. He thought he was hiding his emotions well, but it was silly of him to expect that you, of all people, wouldn't see straight into him.

But it's such a pretty day, and the air feels crisp, and the sunset paints you with orange rays of sunlight, and you look prettier than ever in his eyes.

He sighs and pulls the ring box out his pocket, putting it on your hand. His face burns with embarrassment as he says the words out loud, squashing any doubt you could ever have about the strength of your relationship with him.

You say yes as tears of relief escape your eyes, and you bury your face in the crook of his neck, a small laugh bubbling out of your mouth as you feel how warm his skin is.

Haru

From the moment he saw you holding Peekaboo in your arms, Haru knew what he wanted.

He waited and waited, wondering when it could be considered socially acceptable to ask you to marry him.

Oh, if only Bahnti could make him run fast through time as well.

He tells you so once he finally decides to propose, holding the ring box he had bought right after meeting you. It was now old and muddied after all those long, agonizing months in which he kept it hidden inside his pockets.

He tells you of all the times he thought of buying other rings, one exponentially different than the other, because it was so hard not to think of you whenever he saw anything bright and pretty.

It's easy for him to see his future with you, and he promises to also make it easy for you to live with him.

He doesn't expect you to tend to his wounds nor work like he does. No, he would never even think of having you break a sweat for him.

Haru only wishes to be on the receiving end of your caring hands as well.

When you accept his proposal, you pull him onto your lap, fingers threading into his hair, and he sleeps, knowing he would wait it out all over again if it always meant you'd be his.

Towa

It doesn't take long for Towa to propose. In fact, he probably proposes every single day ever since you two got together.

But it's always light-hearted, like another way for him to say "I love you" without actually saying it.

He's given you countless rings made of flower stems, which you keep tucked safely inside a box, despite all of them withering way too soon.

When he's serious about it, however, you know.

There's not playfulness nor mirth in his eyes – just deep, infinite adoration. A seriousness on his face that shakes you to your core.

When he slips yet another ring in your finger, you notice: this one was made to look like a flower stem, but it was made of a silvery, hard band.

"This one will never wither," he says under the night sky you two had been watching. "It's a proof that I want to be with you forever".

His proposal is more of a statement than a question. You will marry him, he knows and you know as well.

And you couldn't be happier.

Ren

He hates the idea of proposals. Hates how much attention is drawn to a couple during marriage, hates the huge parties, the self-importance of couples who think the world should clap for them for just being together.

Therefore, he really doesn't expect to have marriage popping up in his mind every time he looks at you, a little into your relationship with him.

It's more of a reassurance than a romantic gesture to him.

Whenever you laugh at his jokes, spend time watching his awful horror movies, listen to his ramblings about games–

Whenever you look at him, kiss him and say his name–

Whenever you exist next to him, he wants, needs the reassurance that you won't simply go away in the blink of an eye. You won't leave him behind, back into a solitude he doesn't think he can handle anymore. Not after you.

So when he asks you after a binge of awful movies, if you'd like to spend the rest of your life with him, he does it out of desperation.

If he likes it, he needs to put a ring on it, right? Or whatever it is that someone said some time ago.

Your smile when you say you do is almost blinding. He nods and looks away, noticing his reflection on his notebook's screen seems awfully flustered.

"We'll go out to buy rings tomorrow, then." He murmurs. You lean onto his shoulder, agreeing and he sighs.

It will definitely feel good to see the proof that you're his right there, glinting on your finger.

[kittymizuki]

there's so much around lion that's so wildly compelling about sisterhood, family, and identity, etc. but one of the things that make me crazy is the idea of lion as a fictional construct made by readers who want to see sayo with love, but also being unable to wholly decide what would most make sayo happy bc so many parts of herself are rooted in pain. lion is literally someone who exists to show sayo that she deserved better, deserved comfort, love, everything else - that it wasn't her fault, and that even in this "perfect" world, terrible things happen. the parents are still greedy and cruel. kinzo is still a terrible person. ep7 in this context truly feels like it's written by ppl on the outside of the story who actually chose to engage and understand, and a love letter to real life readers who did so.

a big thing i consider with lion is not having to have the 'pressure' of needing to specify and that creating a 'better' dynamic in the family, but they also still have to use the name given to them by kinzo. further considering that there's a major point of the care and love will shows for lion that is blatantly intended to transcend any idea of 'gender' or 'cisheteronormativity' makes it obvious to me! lion is essentially "this is a version of sayo who never had to 'choose' which is both a good and a bad thing, as within that context, this is a 'nuclear family' kind of set-up. by being denied the option/potential of fully exploring gender identity, they take on the role of the 'ideal child', which itself is rather tragic."

i think it's also meaningful to consider that lion is still androgynous and disconnected from the idea of 'masculine gender' without any of their 'tragedy' having happened. when given the option, they choose to live outside of 'maleness', outside of that specific idea, wanting to live without the struggle of having to specify or be assumed bc of how crushing and stressful that could be.

i really feel like it's relevant to consider that they were lying to sayo when they said it was only due to the 'incident' that she experienced that they had to perform the gender reassignment surgery? to me it would make a lot more sense that the reality of this intersex child would be easier to hide! if she was already intersex, then it's genuinely easy to consider. i think, broadly, lion was given to natsuhi as a 'baby boy' before everything happened. since she tried to kill the baby so young, it's so simple to see how these realities could have been ignored, but even then, what if natsuhi did realize this child was 'improper' or had a 'broken body'? what if, for so many things.

the idea of maleness and malehood is strangling to sayo. yes, she wants to 'fit in', but she also always truly wanted to see herself as a girl. she envisioned so many versions of herself that were the 'women' she wanted to be or wanted to grow up to be. she was never a 'proper' girl, even when she was a tiny child. she was always bad at cleaning, bad at cooking, bad at succeeding, too small, too 'stupid' according to all the girls around her. kanon exists as her dysphoria - dysphoria that in ep6 is 'killed' for the sake of saving loved ones. letting go of the mask of kanon bc her self-loathinh isn't who she wishes to be. i think further, it's important to think about how kanon exists bc sayo feels she has no 'right' to her own dysphoria unless she makes herself a 'male' alter ego to shove that into, to have some slight justification for how broken her body makes her feel. lion truly feels like an intersex child negotiating acceptable gender presentation bc being a boy is too painful and they can't assert their identity as a girl, so they opt for this middle ground that feels like a compromise between the two.

sayo has always 'been' a girl and 'seen herself' as a girl! but she is now portrayed as a failure of a girl bc of her 'broken' body and i think the intersex and trans girl readings can be interwoven into one very strong narrative. her being trans is amplified with the idea of her having intersex subtext bc she was raised thinking it could be possible, maybe, for her to live as a girl, before realizing she can only be a girl in this bird cage. now that she's a teenager, it's obvious that she's not a proper girl. if she leaves rokkenjima, the spell of her womanhood is broken and she'll have nothing. what matters is the present in which she exists and that her body 'fails' to meet the ideals of womanhood. this is vital in the context of natsuhi as well - natsuhi isn't a trans woman, but we can also see this sense of how womanhood and being degendered for her failures within that are important to her narrative and also sayo's! and in this context, sayo has always been 'out' and 'accepted', so her issue is less 'i'll never be a girl'. rather, her struggle is about how she's being taught that to be a girl is suffering and that she's doomed to tragedy for wanting. constantly realizing and thinking about all the things about the girls that people want and think of them, and realizing there was something about her body that denied her what she wanted.

i think it's a vital reality that intersex people are inherently connected with trans women, as the issue (at the end of the day) is having a body that 'fails' to meet the expectations of cissexist and bioessentialist dynamics so i love to think about this...

[webanglikethat]

things ram and devi have done and said without even saying they’re in love / being in a relationship because they drive me insane:

Ram defied orders from the LITERAL goddess because he didn’t want Devi to die, thus ignoring his duties

-> like …. he willingly let another woman DIE in Devi’s place and !!!! this act had been committed five years ago, when the affection between the two had BARELY begun blossoming

-> “Why bother when the goddess herself allows you to decide people’s fate?” had been Devi’s question to him, but little did she know, he already defied every rule for her, going against literal fate

he saved Devi during the arson, putting her before his own BROTHER

he went after Devi when she took off on an horse during the attack, and carried her in his arms back to safety (which he realllyy didn’t have to do 🤭)

it’s revealed he would purposefully change his route to catch a glimpse of Devi

-> Ram’s wishful desire was to see her at every service; just hoping to catch her smile along the hallowed halls where once they met

he “noticed an unfamiliar feeling rising inside him” when he met her again

Ram always found an excuse to touch Deviya — holding her hand to lead her somewhere, brushing his fingers over her cheek to calm her, cupping her face, putting a hand on her waist, trapping her against the wall, his finger on her lips, holding her hands tighter as if it could heal her holding her waist as she straddled him

he said he “missed her smiling at him”

he kissed her neck (quite literally marking her) while thinking of how De Clare would react, not realizing the jealousy that was growing in his heart at the thought of losing her to him

-> which he then said (in season 2) he’d do it on her wedding day too !!

-> in the same episode he tried to pretend he doesn’t care about their engagement 💀, mission failed my dude 🤭

“That. The way he felt when she was near him. The reason he always looked for her in the crowd and couldn’t stop teasing her”

ram always thought of marriage as a transaction, a duty to be fulfilled, something he simply had to do. and love? love wasn’t a necessary equation. that’s what his family line looked like — alliances, partnership, all devoid of tenderness. but Deviya awakened something in Ram — and for the first time, he was confused and lost

“It’s ironic that even with all the knowledge and wisdom of the world at my disposal, I still can’t figure this out on my own. I’m almost thirty, and for all of my life I have denied myself what I wanted because the greater good was more important. And in all this time… no one has ever been able to enchant me as much as…”

Ram talked Devi through her anger at the reception so she wouldn’t make a mistake in front of her guests and lose the position she had so long worked for (he helps her see the bigger picture)

Ram told her their connection wasn’t for nothing. they were fated for a reason

the less often he saw her, the more he wanted to see her

-> and if she didn’t came, he would wait for her

he noticed everything she did — be it the way she shifted from foot to foot when she was nervous or how she looked at him in fear (from the subtlest of things to the most obvious, he noticed it always)

he teased her about how much she liked him but then said:

“such a rakhasi cannot possibly die. I need her”

admitting, even if it was meant as a tease, that he could no longer exist in a world in which her presence didn’t fill his heart’s pages

he comforted her on the day of her death, quickly realizing that:

“/ wish this had happened to me instead... hasn't she been dealt enough pain already, in her life?”

“when Ram realized how sincere his desire to take all Deviya's troubles for himself was, it quickly became clear that their secret relationship had taken on a new meaning … growing into something profound”.

what started as a perhaps meaningless, fleeting, teasing affair quickly turned into something more — something he couldn’t put a name to, but he could feel encompassing his body every single second

he could no longer pretend it was just for fun or a distraction

so he finally mustered up the courage to ask Devi to be with him (but not officially 😔) even if it was in secret — for he would rather have her in secret, than lose her be it to death or another man. 

noticing how distressed she was, he closed his eyes and then slowly began kissing her fingers. Devi noticed that his eyelashes were trembling. “he’s nervous as well, but once again he tries to reassure me first, even though he could use some support himself."

he always put her before himself, over and over again. this isn’t something he was taught, like I mentioned before. for him, marriage or love was based on children, mutual respect and the husband’s views. yet he interminably put himself in the background, just to help Devi shine

“they kissed each other gently and yet desperately at the same time, as only doomed lovers can kiss.”

“he was with her right at that moment. sharing her pain and fear... would that have been possible if what they had was fleeting? he always chose her, no matter what.”

Ram: “I'll be with you. no matter what.” Devi: “I know”

he fought for her, allowing her to escape

and her thoughts led to him, even as she bled out

“the very thought of losing him was unbearable. and just as things were beginning to blossom between them.” “dying would be a little easier if you were holding my hand right now”

"I'm with him in my thoughts, heart, and soul." // "even if it doesn't make any real sense, it does for me. l feel calmer this way."

being away from her, when she was in a coma, made Ram feel like he was dying too // the thought of losing him (as she actively died) felt even worse than death

-> his biggest dream was being able to touch her again, to gaze into her eyes, to see his affection being mirrored in hers. to hear her laughter again was all he could hope for

they risked MULTIPLE times to be caught just to bask in each other’s presence — even if it was only for a few moments because the risk was worth it — they are worth it to each other

his face “instantly lost colour” when she mentioned her wedding

he tried pretending it didn’t hurt him — that he could accept it, that he could have a part of her and let it be enough, but they both knew the truth

so she laid out her future: her married to De Clare, visiting India from time to time, meeting Ram’s wife — but not him because he would still remain a coward who couldn’t voice what he wanted

so he finally let his feelings free and kissed her, marking her neck (in the middle of the hall where everyone could’ve caught them)

he touched her under the table — at dinner, where again, anyone could’ve seen them !!!

the moment Devi’s smile faded, Ram noticed immediately and shifted his tone, asking softly, “is something wrong?” -> he is SO attuned to her emotions, so skilled at noticing even the slightest change — which is especially important since Ram isn’t portrayed as someone who does this for just anyone

they know each other well enough to play off each other’s words without malice — their banter is so much fun (especially on passion route)

he fingers her in the library 🤭 he’s SO careful with her even though it’s obvious they’re both overwhelmed by the connection — he’s letting her set the pace and the fact that Ram doesn't push, but instead allows her to slowly move at her own pace, amplifies her vulnerability and makes her every move feel more significant. she’s still confused on what she wants and he lets her explore it on her own, and she knows he will wait for her

he wanted to dance with her despite not knowing how to — and in front of everyone too !! he was ready to embarrass himself for her

-> he is so caught up in her that he’s willing to push past his own comfort zone, even if it means embarrassing himself a little; as long as he can witness her smile

now she is the one who takes the power and kisses him, marking HIS neck — and so they imagine each other naked, finally taking the next step and ….

he finally admits it to himself.

He wanted to finally understand what it meant to connect with the woman he loved with all his heart.

Ram Doobay is in love with Deviya Sharma.

[naamahdarling]

So, the other night in an effort to show a friend that LLMs can produce very credible fiction and relatively inventive ideas, I played with ChatGPT for about 10 minutes I was able to make my point flawlessly. Don't get up my ass about this, that's juvenile.

ChatGPT has watched enough Dropout to be able to reasonably (and genuinely amusingly) impersonate Brennan Lee Mulligan and, to a lesser extent, Sam Reich. It's successfully produced a script for Game Changer where the show was entirely about cats and Brennan couldn't win, and parts of it were actually funny. It also produced an AITA post from the point of view of Brennan Lee Mulligan AS DM OF DIMENSION 20 that was in places absolutely hilarious.

It is able to very successfully postulate a set of G1 my little ponies that do not actually exist, complete with colors, cutie marks, and back card stories. It had a little trouble with G1 versus G4 due to the sheer glut of content, but its ideas were genuinely appealing because the source material it was drawing on was designed to be appealing.

It generated a list of birthday party themes that would terrify an arachnophobe, two or three of which were really good. A request for it to generate a list of queer pride birthday ideas didn't produce anything particularly original, but it was all appropriate and convincing.

It produced a short script where Johnny Sims from the Magnus archives receives birthday gifts from his coworkers, and one of those was a knife-wielding tentacle. This script was in places a little less sharp than the actual writing, but it absolutely nailed the speech patterns, and each gift was appropriate to the character giving it. It was genuinely funny. In places it was clever. It actually made me laugh.

I have most of these saved if anybody wants to see them instead of playing with it themselves.

It really isn't a question of what has been dumped into the data set. We can just assume it has been dumped in there somehow.

We can't undo what has been done and we're never going to be able to name all of the people whose work has been used to train these datasets.

I have both positive and negative feelings, strong ones on both sides, about this technology. If someone wants to use this technology to create a script for a movie in the Predator franchise, or a sequel to their favorite book, or whatever, that is a neutral act. Profiting from that is highly questionable, passing it off as the real thing is completely indefensible, using this technology to replace writers and artists and real people doing ANY work where there is no benefit to humans (like identifying cancer cells -- "AI" does that) is the second worst thing that can be done with it.

That's what worries me about this. It could produce infinite Simpsons episodes without the need for a single writer. Eventually it will be able to animate them so accurately you could ask it to make it look like it had been recorded on a video cassette and it would be completely convincing. It would be able to imitate the voice actors perfectly.

We do not want corporations to have that power. Worker protections are critical. It isn't that AI produces art that is bad or soulless or whatever. Those are completely spurious arguments and irrelevant to any true discussion of whether or not it is ethical.

What matter is is that we keep this shit out of the hands people who want to delete us from the workforce. They aren't going to delete the data. We need to protect workers.

P.S. Artists, Disney and Adobe do not have your best interests at heart. Copyright issues are more complicated than they are being presented, and if you find yourself on the side of one of these companies in any capacity, re-examine literally everything you think immediately. Unions. You want unions.

For reference, because I think it's really important to bring this up as often as possible, the worst application of this technology I can think of would be deliberately or accidentally misapplying data that could be used to affect things like a person's medical care, criminal record, and credit score, all of which are actually currently things that a single company can do, APPRISS, now owned by Equifax, yes that Equifax, and fucking nobody, none of y'all, are freaking out about that even though it's the single most frightening thing I have seen in 20 years. I cannot overstate its potential to utterly destroy the lives of literally anyone who comes into contact with the system that uses it, and those are unbelievably common. They are currently selling their product to law enforcement so that cops and businesses can use it to predict who will engage in criminal behavior, I'm literally not kidding about that, they come right out and say it. It is being trained on existing data and refined constantly.

Enjoy breaking your leg and needing painkillers, which get you flagged in a medical database that will try to prevent you from accessing them in the future (already happening), and also entering you into a law enforcement database that knows you have taken them. Then add in whatever eldritch fuckery bringing credit bureaus into it would cause.

We aren't fucked, I'm not a doomer who insists that all people are terrible and that we have no future and we might as well let things burn, I do actually care about the world we live in and the people who populate it and I consider humans a delight rather than a plague, but we need to start seriously resisting the use of this shit by entities more powerful than us. They are already way ahead.

“I can now say with absolute confidence that many AI systems have been trained on TV and film writers’ work. Not just on The Godfather and Alf, but on more than 53,000 other movies and 85,000 other TV episodes: Dialogue from all of it is included in an AI-training data set that has been used by Apple, Anthropic, Meta, Nvidia, Salesforce, Bloomberg, and other companies. I recently downloaded this data set, which I saw referenced in papers about the development of various large language models (or LLMs). It includes writing from every film nominated for Best Picture from 1950 to 2016, at least 616 episodes of The Simpsons, 170 episodes of Seinfeld, 45 episodes of Twin Peaks, and every episode of The Wire, The Sopranos, and Breaking Bad.”

😡

[derww]

DEVOTIONS WEEK DAY 5: ANGER/WOUNDS

CW Violence, death

He wakes up in a puddle of blood. The blood is his own. It's something new. He quickly finds that it was a well-aimed shot at point-blank range from the arrow cannon. It failed to kill him. Thrice.

All of his armor is broken, but he doesn't care – he already broke the only chestplate that was really important. The blood is his own, it feels like a whole liter, at first he literally squeezes out his clothes – and tries to rub it off, but it refuses to, and he cannot bring himself to care about it. He gets up. He gets to work.

He destroys any traces that they have ever been here from the spawn. He breaks down the path, burns down houses and covers up any traces of human presence with red sand. Like a respectful tourist, he cleans up the trash before leaving, because he knows that the end is coming soon.

His enemies, of course, come, and they poke at him with their blades, and they stitch him up with arrows, and they blow him up over and over again, but it only ruins his clothes. They are annoying flies, and he has to distract himself to stab them with his blade again and again and again, and they stay away, but do not leave, pestering him with idiotic conversations. He doesn't listen to them – he puts down sand, again and again, as now dead hands used to do. It takes a god to stop them and he eventually comes.

Wemmbu, the god chosen by himself, is looking – staring – at him. It seems that he sees more than Mapixx. Bigger, deeper, through – his brain, his insides, his eyes. He has a shiny netherite sword in his hand, which he threatens PBJ with, and they are forced to retreat in the end, knowing that the field is too unequal.

Wemmbu is chatting with him, smiling easily, laughing strangely and talking about the policy he will introduce this Saturday. It is a smart policy. His multiple eyes, making him resemble a spider, stare at Mapicc. Wemmbu never mentions his immortality again. Call me if they bother you, he says, as if they were teammates, and disappears in a sandstorm. Mapicc stares after him for too long for the norm before going back to work.

Mapicc learns that he is still immortal when his skull splits in two and immediately comes back together. It still hurts, but he's alive. With the attention of the soldier, he can mark a specific moment when the damage from crashing into the ground on the elytra became so serious that the hearts dropped to zero – and instantly began to regen back, as if nothing had happened. In a matter of moments, not even a trace of what was supposed to send him after his friends remains on his head.

He still feels like his arm has been cut off. With dead Bacon, with dead Zam – he is so used to relying on them that he continues to forget that they no longer exist: turn to the air, turn around, expecting to see familiar figures, start typing messages on his communicator and discover that a player with that name does not exist. Twice he almost kills himself, expecting someone to be behind him. It really happens once. His fractured rib cage converges back almost instantly.

It has to be easy, really: just end the server and everything will be fine again. Like, actually. He and Clown and Ro train together, but neither of them is prepared for it, and Ro constantly separates from the group, Mapicc expects Zam to cover his back every time, and the Clown, even if he hardly shows it, but clearly still sees Leo and Minute by his sides. It takes an absurdly long time, but these are habits that have been formed over the entire season, pressed through blood and sweat, and they just exhale and try again.

Mapicc doesn't want to. He knows that Ro made a mistake and is glad that Clown is with them, but he does not want to work with them instead of his day 1 and partner. It makes his teeth ache to think that that damn day was the last time they saw each other as part of the same team. He doesn't look Ro in the eyes.

He must destroy this world – this is his goal and their posthumous desire, and he smells of grave earth, and his cramped fingers are clutching a sword.

They come for Wemmbu, depriving him of his blessing and stabbing him again and again while he pathetically dies with the almost crushed spyglass in his hand. For some reason, they never come for Mapicc. He doesn't know why. Maybe they can't.

[lemonlyre]

I'd argue, in the context of the show and other characters this makes sense. Now, hear me out pls I spent a long time on this. :3

There's a larger core message in the show that is invariably accepting of disability, race, etc. and totally against eugenicist thinking. Viktor's whole deal, as a journey to accepting human difference and literally searching for a 'glorious final evolution' where the human race itself is replaced by robots without disability, without 'flaws', only to have his realization be that that mindset is so wrong and has caused so much pain over the course of the show.

Also, I noticed the show celebrates diversity and especially props up discriminated groups as rich in character and value as a person. Most characters attain or have some disability - seen or unseen - which doesn't denote them but is framed as a natural physical consequence to war or just a part of them. Jinx's mental health, losing a finger, Sevika's arm, Viktor's illness, etc; the show celebrates the use of mobility aids, prosthetics etc and claims in the climax "you aren't broken, your imperfections make you who you are" to the eugenicist/disabled and impoverished character. I'd argue the show is pretty fundamentally against eugenecism, esp. given the core principle of unity and acceptance.

Some misc. Examples: Zaun deserves to be equal to Piltover, Jinx finding acceptance helps her heal, shimmer and corruption blamed for addiction in the under city, never some intrinsic part of this group of people. Eg; Bush administrations' push that black communities are intrinsically criminal and drug-afflicted to justify racism, while at the same time fueling the war on drugs through opium deals in America. Not to mention the vast array of identities of all the characters are given spotlight, their own stories, flaws and strengths, etc. CaitxVi isn't originally canon to the game, yet here their queerness is celebrated, not shunned as disgusting or making them lesser than. Same with Lest and her transness; Mel, Ekko, Ambessa with their blackness. Multiculturalism and acceptance of identities is celebrated as a core Principle of Arcane.

Especially like with Viktor's arc, this show is alll about duality; "two sides of the same coin" and I believe Singed reaching a "happy ending" is sadly par for the course in life. Bad people win, Viktor still killed all those people, Caitlyn still used police brutality for her personal revenge scheme, Singed still won after everything he's done. He's made to be a foil (contrasting character) to Viktor, highlighting how eugenicist beliefs can be adopted as a manipulation of insecurity and how Singed is his mentor and a piece of shit.

I believe his surviving is pretty plot relevant, as his daughter seems like she'll be important in future media (idk if she's a legend in-game?) yet Ambessa, Jayce adn Viktor are pretty evidently gone so idk this show plays with lore to suit a comprehensive, layered and complex story but Singed is an open plot point. Who knows, maybe he'll get brutally and thematically murdered by his own creations in the next installment, I'd like that.

The more I think about it, the more I question Arcane S2's politics and themes, which were so foundational to S1. Like, a tiny example [SPOILERS AHEAD]:

Singed wins. He gets exactly what he wants in the end. All his "efforts" are rewarded. What does that say about people who share his ideology of eugenics? He is the source of nearly every horrible thing and conflict that happened (Shimmer, the factory deaths, Jinx, Vander as Warwick, the corruption of Viktor), and he gets a happier ending than any other character. Not even a 'he got what he wanted but he has become completely unrecognizable/monstrous to his daughter' tag at the end. You can say they're setting him up and need to open his daughter to future shows, but the way you end a character's story says something about what you think about that character. What does it say when the eugenicist war criminal gets the happy ending he doesn't deserve?

[sergeifyodorov]

I know 4 nations is still a couple of months away but if you specifically were the gm choosing the roster right now, what would your team Canada look like? (I am also curious about the other teams but don’t want to overwhelm you) I always love hearing your hockey thoughts!

ooh sarahhhh LOVE this q... also lowkey thank u for only asking about Canada b/c i have not thought about the other rosters at all. to be honest

ok lets get into it

(13 F, 7 D, 3 G)

Forwards:

Already named to the roster: Sidney Crosby, Nathan MacKinnon, Brad Marchand, Connor McDavid, Brayden Point

I'm not entirely sure if I had complete control I would pick Marchand, who is both a) pretty far past his prime (even if he is one of those guys who doesn't really age like other players do) and b), not entirely That guy, but I digress. Eight more forwards to name.

Mitch Marner: Easily the best Canadian player not on this list. Since there's no salary cap for the roster and you can go wild by just picking Everyone Good, the most important note of roster construction in my mind is special teams; on any given team you should have ~2 units each of PP and PK, so eight-ish PP forwards and four-ish PK forwards. Some guys don't really do either, so it's always an extra asset to find a guy who is good at both. Mitch Marner is good at both. (And also good at basically everything else.)

Sam Reinhart: I don't like saying it, but I will

Mark Schiefele: I also don't like saying it

Dylan Strome: Here's where it gets interesting. No, I promise this is not a purely narrative choice, although I understand why one might think that. I shrimply love me a smart playmaking centre (yes his points totals are probably inflated by the Caps' really high oish% for him, but he is firmly Very Good and, even as a 4C, should be firmly considered for the 4N.)

Travis Konecny: Legitimately one of the best penalty killers in the league, and also just an all-around threat. Also also a lot of the guys who tend to be picked for 4N are natural centres (e.g. Sidney, NateMac, CMD, Pointer, Reinhart, Schiefele, and Strome are all centres) so it's nice to not have to worry in his case about if he's going to have to move to wing or not.

Connor Bedard: Oh my god I want to see what this kid can do with offensive deployment on wing and actual good teammates

John Tavares: Departing from my usual "don't pick players who are floating into their mid-thirties if you can possibly avoid it" to say that Guys. Johnnifer is still Good. Like, still really good. Chugging along at a point a game and very, very good in the faceoff dot (58%) type of good.

Seth Jarvis: Also firmly underrated IMHO; just because he is a little guy and a bit of a dork doesn't mean we shouldn't, like, remember that He's Good. Because he is.

Reserves: Steven Stamkos (always a power-play threat), Mat Barzal (competent teammates question part 2), Claude Giroux (we all know what his deal is)

Defencemen:

Already named to the roster: Cale Makar

Oh, boy, are we not great at this whole "developing defencemen" thing. Let's see who we can put together.

Josh Morrissey: Basically Morgan Rielly but a little better, I think? Solid shooter, Of-D, etc etc.

Thomas Chabot: Severely undernoticed considering that the Sens have been shit and ass the entire time he's played there. Not his fault, though. Also there's no other Francophones on this list I feel so we should really fix that. What IS Quebec Doing?

Brandt Clarke: Okay, we can have a little "developing defencemen." As a treat.

Evan Bouchard: Why are you booing me? I'm right.

Chris Tanev: Chris Tanev

Brandon Montour: There are probably one or two better options but I like him more TO BE HONEST. Picking the forwards is like a careful examination of PK ability and faceoff percentages and primary points per minute. Picking defencemen has been entirely vibes. I'm very, very sure the L and R balance is just Not There.

Reserves: Maveric Lamoureux (queb AND developing. dual threat), Devon Toews (considering literally everyone will beg for the makar-toews pairing), Shea Theodore (I guess)

Goaltenders:

Lol and Lmao, even

Logan Thompson: The man is the Capitals' starter, helped win Vegas a Cup, and is also lowkey hot sexy and hot and sexy. Starter!

Joey Daccord: Swiss, Canadian, and American, so I'm sure we could convince him to come to the dark side. (Especially since the USA has holy-fuck level goalie depth. Jake Oettinger is a third-stringer.)

Marc-Andre Fleury: Look, this forward core is good enough that it can win us a game 7-6 if we really need it to. I just think he's fun.

[k9punkout]

Luka for ask game?

OUUUUGHHH LUKA IS SO SO INTERESTING

1. Why I like them

i like how realistic he is in terms of portraying traumatic household situations/grooming.

he's been taught that love equates to violence and that human beings are objects of no importance other than to please the segyein, and he exhibits that behavior when he interacts with others, which in turn harms them.

he believes that his torture is for his own benefit. it is the greatest love he has ever known, and i find that so so sad and it makes for such an interesting character.

his design is also very beautiful.

2. Why I don't

this connects a lot to why i DO like him. i love the way his character developed due to his trauma, but the things that it led him to do are unforgivable, to put it mildly.

3. Favorite lyric

"make me your god, I can give you everything."

4. Favorite frame/screenshot

this one literally infuriates me because i can FEEL the condescension just OOZING from him. not only that, but despite his face being rather expressive here, whatever emotion that's being portrayed feels fabricated and mocking, and it's mainly due to the fact that his eyes are just. dead.

he puts on a whole show, commands the audience and all the like but he's really just a corpse-like puppet on strings most of the time.

honorable mention to this one:

because i feel like this is the most alive he's ever felt.

5. Favorite outfit

luka fits always go hard but i particularly love this one

6. Favorite official art

this one is so unnerving; the way heperu looms over luka, the sense of powerlessness, the monotone adding an underlying sense of misery that luka couldn't explain if he tried,,,, GHHH

honorable mention to this one:

i dont even NEED to explain all the ways this makes me nauseous. the shadow. the red collar. he's just a kid. i hate it but i love it BECAUSE i hate it. the art does its job very well.

7. Favorite canon fact

urrgghh literally everything we know about him is sad. maybe the fact that he just falls asleep randomly, anywhere. pretty sad when you think about it too hard but like. imagine ur engaging in conversation with him and then you turn away for TWO SECONDS and he's just out cold 💀

8. Favorite straight-up-not-canon headcanon

actor au luka gets rlly nervous around actor au hyuna and has the most wholesome crush on her.

9. Favorite song/cover

the way he sounded in Blink Gone scratched my brain so good RAHHH

10. Song I want them to cover

hear me out on cure with hyuna and luka. hear me out on it guys

[lactose-intolerant-egg]

image ID: a drawing of two dragons from the video game 'Petz'. they are both green with white fur on their backs and cheeks, white horns, and a white heart shape on their noses. they both have white scales on their bellies. they each have two white antlers and two long whiskers on their face. the dragon on the left has black legs and white toes. the dragon on the right has white legs and toes. the dragon on the left is larger than the one on the right, and they are looking at each other. end ID

my Animals, Misko (black socks) and Bonzai (white socks)!! two of my oldest and most beloved Petz

(screenshots, sketch, and download link for the dragon hexie under the cut)

image ID: a screenshot of Misko and Bonzai from the video game 'Petz'. Bonzai is licking Misko's face. they are in the toy room. they are large enough to fill most of the room. a goldfish bowl is sitting on an armchair in the background. two frisbees and a cat dancer are laying on the floor. end ID

image ID: another screenshot of Misko and Bonzai in the toy room. Bonzai is partially off-screen so that his face cannot be seen. Misko is glaring at him and meowing. end ID

And just for proof that they were, in fact, small at one point...

image ID: another screenshot of Misko and Bonzai, this time as babies. They are much smaller than in the other screenshots, and are the same size. Misko is carrying a leprechaun plushie that is about one-third her size. Bonzai is looking at her with a sad expression. end ID

image ID: the original sketch for the drawing. the lines are softer and less precise, and there is no colour. end ID

there are two dragon files, Misko is 'giant' and Bonzai is 'medium'. the first two screenshots show their adult size

[beef-brisket]

Levi: Alright. Those are very valid concerns and issues, Adam. Relationships need work from both parties. It's not only damaging to your relationship with each other, but also with your daughter.

Lucifer listened. She's only six months old, how much damage could he really do?

Levi: Now, Lucifer. Why sex?

Lucifer blinked, not understanding the question.

Lucifer: Uh... why sex? I mean... look at him.

Lucifer didn't know what else to say. But he knew it wasn't a good answer when Adam rolled his eyes.

Levi glanced at Adam, then back at Lucifer, her hand, and he gave hardening.

Levi: What do you mean by that?

Lucifer: ...He's the first man. He's literally perfection. Who wouldn't want a night with him?

Levi: So... let me get this straight. You value the sex you have with Adam, the first man, over the marriage you have with Adam, the father or your child?

Lucifer tensed: ...That's not what I meant.

Levi: What did you mean, then?

Lucifer: I-I mean... he's amazing. I love him, why wouldn't I want sex with him? And I don't see a difference between Adam and the first man- he's both. Their both perfect and important to me- it's the same person! Adam IS Adam!

Lucifer chuckles and leans back, he smiles at Adam but it drops when he's not even looking at him.

Levi hums and writes a quick note: Lucifer. I'm sure you of all people know what kind of weight titles have. Do you think there's a difference between the king of Hell and Lucifer?

Lucifer: ...I mean... I'm Lucifer... who's also the king of Hell. Is... is there a difference?

Levi: Do you always feel like the king of Hell?

Lucifer: No. Sometimes... I feel empty and cold. Then, when I'm doing work, I feel stressed and fake.

Levi: Fake?

Lucifer: Like it's an act. I'm not put together or even slightly functioning. I'm just... a mess most of the time. I've never felt like a king. Not for thousands of years. I feel like a fraud. A lie. I demand respect, but I don't deserve it. There's no difference between the king of Hell and Lucifer. Their both pathetic. Both a lie.

Lucifer shrugs: I gave up trying to change that. There's no point.

Levi: There is a point. Your daughter. Both of them.

Lucifer froze and glanced to Adam. He was now looking at him, he looked sad but desperate.

Lucifer: I...

Levi: It's not just you, Lucifer. It's never been just you. Charlie is over two hundred years old, but she still needs you. Does she deserve the best version of you?

Lucifer nodded, looking at Levi: Yeah, she does.

Levi: Does Avery deserve you at your best?

Lucifer: Yes. Yes she does.

Levi: Does Adam? Not, Adam, the first man. But Adam. Your husband. The father of your child.

Lucifer: looked at Adam: Yes, he does.

Levi: Then. It sounds like the king of Hell and Lucifer needs to change. For the better. And it's not just them you need to better yourself for.

Lucifer turned to Levi. He really hopes this isn't another pregnancy announcement.

Levi: You deserve it, too. Probably more than anyone.

That was even worse than a pregnancy announcement.

Lucifer: I... what? I don't... I've done... I deserve nothing. I don't even deserve Adam or Avery! Fuck- I don't deserve Charlie!

Levi: ...you deserve love, Lucifer. And compassion and devotion. Both of you do. But Lucifer. You can't change for them, if you don't change for you, first.

Lucifer glared: T-Then I might as well just throw everything away! Because I've done some horrible shit, Lizzy! Hell torments me every damn day! I deserve it! I can't change! How can I!? I deserve no happiness or love! I'm the Devil! The most hated fucking being in existence! Adam even said so!

Adam: Fuck you, Lucifer- that was years ago! Don't you think my opinion of you has changed!?

Lucifer glared at him: Obviously not, if we're here.

Levi: Lucifer. You're attacking him. And yourself. Enough.

Lucifer looked away. He was beyond annoyed and confused.

Levi: You have a lot of work, Lucifer. Not just kingly duties, but personal ones. I'm going to book you in for personal counseling.

Lucifer raised an eyebrow and eyed her: I'm doing personal counseling-.

Adam: Counseling from someone that's not your daughter, dumbass.

Levi: Adam, please. No name calling in my office. I know you're mad. But please try and keep it civil.

Adam rolled his eyes and looked away.

Lucifer: I... don't need counseling-.

Levi: That's what everyone that needs counseling says. Stay behind after this session, so I can organize it for you.

Lucifer felt that there was no way to fight this, so he nods.

When Lucifer and Adam exited Dr Levi's office, they waited for her in the lobby.

Lucifer: ...Great session, huh? I sure learned a lot! It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be!

Lucifer laughed awkwardly after a few seconds of Adam not speaking. Eventually, Levi walked out and got the payment ready. Lucifer watched as Adam paid and headed for the door.

Lucifer: I'll be there in a second, dove! Don't leave without me, haha!

Lucifer organized a few personal sessions, and Levi did a few for Adam to. She handed him three cards with their individual and group session dates.

He thanked her and walked outside. He looked around, and his heart dropped when he saw Adam had left.

Separation Trial

@beef-brisket @things-arent-what-they-seem66

Adam tapped his fingers against the table in a distracted manner. He had been there at the restaurant for a while now. Waiting for his...waiting for Lucifer. He needed to talk with Lucifer, he wanted to talk to him at home about it, in private. However, when he asked about meeting him, Lucifer simply nodded his head and said they could meet at this restaurant.

He didn't even take Adam’s idea at eating at home into consideration. Although the place Adam sat currently was upscale and nice it wasn’t what he wanted to do. This wasn’t where he wanted to have…the conversation. He sighed to himself as he saw Lucifer approach. He barely even said hello before Lucifer kissed him on the cheek before seating himself.

Lucifer: Hello my dearest, what’s going on? Why’d you want to talk at a restaurant? You know we could have talked over the phone. You made it sound so urgent.

Adam took a moment to keep his anger in check. Once again Lucifer wasn’t listening.

Adam: What I wanted to talk to you about couldn’t be said over the phone. It had to be in person. Lucifer we have been married for three whole years now.

Lucifer: Yeah I know, last week was our anniversary. Don’t you remember Addie?

Adam felt his breath hitch and he struggled to not cry then and there. Their third anniversary had been a disaster, he didn’t want to go into it. But Adam had would forever hate that day. It was what made him bring this meeting with Lucifer.

Adam: I do remember, and so should you.

Lucifer: But I literally just said that I

Adam: No, I’m talking about what happened that day. Can you please tell me what happened?

Lucifer was nervous at his husband’s harsh tone but answered him.

Lucifer: Well, I do remember that both of us were so busy, I with handling a fortis problem, then Charlie called and she needed some help with the hotel, and I didn’t get back till late at night. Oh and you had that concert of yours, by the way how was it? I don’t think I asked before.

Adam felt his eye twitch.

Adam: It was not JUST a concert Lucifer.

Lucifer: …Did something happen at the concert?

Adam: More like what didn’t happen.

Lucifer: Did no one applaud you? Were they booing you? Honey don’t worry your a great singer, you’ll bounce back.

Adam: No, there were no applause nor cheers. Because my audience wasn’t there.

Lucifer: Oh, Adam I’m so sorry.

Adam: You weren’t there Lucifer.

Lucifer: What?

Adam: You were not at my concert Lucifer, You were supposed to be there. Because you were meant to be my audience. Because that concert was going to be dedicated to you! It was supposed to be my wedding anniversary present to you!

Lucifer: But, but, but it’s not my fault if you don’t tell me in advance!

Adam: Lucifer I told you weeks prior about it. And you always said that you’d be there. But of course you lied.

Lucifer: I didn’t lie! Shit came up Adam this isn’t my fault. If anything you should have told me before I left that day! On top of that what did you expect me to do? Not do my duty as king. Tell the goetia to handle it themselves!? Say no to my own daughter, your own daughter, I shouldn’t have helped her at all?! Geez you can be selfish sometimes.

Adam’s eyes widened at that statement. He was shocked to his seat still. Then slowly he nodded his head in understanding. He was an idiot for ever even considering giving Lucifer a second chance. Taking a deep breath, Adam looked directly into Lucifer’s yellow, red eyes and said,

Adam: Lucifer, I want a divorce

[space-sheep08]

Actually so tired that people mainly focus on the bdsm when they talk about La Pianiste when we literally have this dynamic right here. Like, that's insane.

What if you were a little girl in her 40's who couldn't grow up because of your mother-wife who made you sleep in her bed and forced you to repress every sexual desires and thoughts of becoming your own person just to keep you close to her ? What if you fought back and yearned for dangerous things out of her reach ? But also, what if you let her because it's all you've ever known and been taught to want ?