#this is a thank you for folks who want to participate in a rare ship event ! 💕

[kakaitaweek]

[ KAKAITA Art Raffle ]

🐾 Win a Kakashi, Itachi or Kakalta centric drawing

🍡 LIKE & REBLOG to enter

📚 Entry ends February 14

Twitter | Prompt List | Ask Box

[bllkrarepairweek]

Our #BLLKRPW 2024 Round Up is here!

A million thanks to everyone who participated this year, our second year of BLLK Rare Pair Week! 🫶 This year was even bigger than our first, both in number of days and in terms of submissions! In addition to some familiar faces from last year, we also got a ton of new folks joining us and together, you all created 59 works and 5 new rarepair tags on AO3!!! 🥳

Our poly ships also got some love this year which was great to see! ❤️

With more rarepairs than ever, we've put together a little survey just to get a sense of what's working for everyone in terms of prompts, event structure and ofc to gauge general availability for next year's event! The survey will be open for a week so please fill out as soon as you can!

Additionally, if you want to keep up with events in the BLLK fandom (some really great ones coming up!) go follow our Event Hub @bllkeventshub (you can also follow us on twt)

Now onto the round-up!!! (Added under 'read more' for length - please let us know if any links are broken/wrong)**

**Please note that many authors on this list have their fics locked to registered users so this will affect how the collection looks to anyone not logged in. If anyone wants to make an AO3 acct and needs an invitation, please feel free to reach out to us, mods have a number of invitations! Now go and give our rarepair creators all the love! 🥰

Day 1 (Roommates/Cooking + Baking/"You talk in your sleep.")

Art: 'bbq date' by @sid3buns - Barou/Isagi [twt] [tumblr}

Fic: 'the same (but kinda different)' by @kae-karo - Nanase/Rin

Fic: 'fortnight' by @tsukkinoneko - Kaiser/Rin

Fic: 'when in Rome' by Not_who_u_think - Otoya/Karasu

Fic: 'Used to it' by yuzuwakano - Kiyora/Niko

Fic: 'i think i saw you in my sleep' by luxxxio - Shidou/Chigiri

Fic: 'a taste of sweetness' by xynzel - Hiori/Nanase/Isagi

Fic: 'Random Roommates and Coffee' by RyleeWyatt - Barou/Chigiri

Fic: 'i'm in the mood to pay attention to you' by HiShark - Kaiser/Raichi

Fic: 'Bad Taste' by tangerinelighter - Karasu/Shidou

Fic: 'curry hearts' by @takeunknownroadnow - Rin/Isagi/Bachira

Art: 'baking' by mymeadowismade - Raichi/Isagi [twt]

Day 2 (Merfolk + Pirates/Beach Episode/"Seeing you in a wet T-shirt is its own reward.")

Fic: 'you slipped away into my prominence' by tsukkinoneko - Kaiser/Rin

Fic: 'the most important part of boat ownership' by kae_karo - Karasu/Shidou

Fic: 'Shark Teeth' by yuzuwakano - Kiyora/Kurona

Art: 'pirates&mermaids' by sid3buns - Barou/Isagi [twt] [tumblr}

Art: 'wet t-shirt' by useless_donut - Raichi/Aiku [twt]

Fic: 'Crimson' by RyleeWyatt - Barou/Chigiri

Fic: 'let us randezvous' by xynzel - Hiori/Kurona

Art: 'beach day for the boys' by @getosugurusbangs - Hiori/Reo [tumblr}

Day 3 (Academia/Meet Cute + Meet Ugly/"How much will it take for you to kiss me?")

Fic: 'Wicked Game' by tsukkinoneko - Kaiser/Rin

Fic: 'come the white wine, bitter sunlight' by tsukkinoneko - Kaiser/Reo

Art: 'academia' by sid3buns - Barou/Isagi [twt] [tumblr}

Fic: 'kids say the darnedest things' by kae_karo - Bachira/Kunigami

Fic: 'November' by RyleeWyatt - Barou/Chigiri

Art: 'Rinness Attack' by @nieznajomy-na-bagnie [tumblr} - Rin/Ness

Fic: 'tongues tongues tongues' by tangerinedarker - Karasu/Kiyora

Day 4 (Cowboys + Western/Secret Identity/"There are easier ways of getting my attention.")

Fic: 'sterling reputation for gold' by kae_karo - Shidou/Reo

Fic: 'Lazy Night' by tsukkinoneko - Kaiser/Rin

Fic: 'endless sky to dive into' by bluemoonjupiter - Chigiri/Karasu

Art: 'Cowboys' by sid3buns - Barou/Isagi [twt] [tumblr}

Fic: 'Cats and Missing Persons' by RyleeWyatt - Barou/Chigiri

Fic: 'The Masked Bandit of Blue Loch' by tangerinedarker - Kunigami/Chigiri/Reo

Fic: 'i wasn't watching (and neither were you)' by starsquared - Kiyora/Himizu

Day 5 (Bodyguard/Reunions/"For you, anything.")

Fic: 'Let the Games Begin' by smallweirdo - Bachira/Ness

Fic: 'what were YOU doing at the underground fight club?' by kae-karo - Aiku/Barou

Fic: 'from a star on hallowed ground' by tsukkinoneko - Kaiser/Rin

Art: 'Bodyguard' by sid3buns - Barou/Isagi [twt] [tumblr}

Day 6 (E-Sports + Streamers/Social Media Interactions/"You weren't supposed to see that.")

Fic: 'Bleed the Past' by @blobbyfics - Barou/Kunigami

Art: 'you weren't supposed to see that' by MissSleepless12 (collab w kae-karo)- Barou/Chigiri [twt] [tumblr}

Fic: 'How to Ship Hazardous Materials' by kae-karo (collab w MissSleepless12) - Barou/Chigiri

Fic: 'an offline event gone right' by tsukkinoneko - Hiori/Shidou

Fic: 'Hanging by a Thread' by sid3buns - Barou/Isagi

Fic: 'rosy maple' by strawberrylemonade1225 - Shidou/Bachira

Day 7 (Pacific Rim + Drifting/Didn't Know They Were Dating/"I don't want to do this without you.")

Art: 'didn't know they were dating' by MissSleepless12 (collab w kae-karo) - Karasu/Kaiser [twt] [tumblr}

Fic: 'in the interim' by kae-karo (collab w MissSleepless12) - Karasu/Kaiser

Fic: 'how hard I tried to breathe through the trees of loneliness' by tsukkinoneko - Chigiri/Rin

Day 8 (Free Day + Past Prompts)

Fic: 'Well At Least He's Easy (to break up with)' by useless_donut - Aiku/Raichi

Art: 'chp 2 sneak peek' (NSFW) by useless_donut - Aiku/Raichi [twt]

Fic: 'Besame, estoy abburido' (Spanish) // 'Kiss me, I'm bored' (English) by BilingualShipper - Otoya/Himizu

Fic: 'getting tipsy' by aikusagist - Aiku/Isagi

Fic: 'the first who ever did' by aikusagist - Aiku/Isagi

Fic: 'paging nurse yoichi' by Not_who_u_think - Aiku/Isagi

Fic: 'i can't help it, your taste so seductive' by tsukkinoneko - Kaiser/Rin

Fic: 'Card-Carrying Member of the "Fuck Isagi Yoichi" Club' by kae-karo - Kaiser/Kira

Fic: 'Three is a Charm' by MissSleepless12 - Rin/Isagi/Bachira

Fic: 'pull me closer (and kiss me harder)' by takeunknownroadnow - Barou/Nagi

Fic: 'fashion-forward' by bluemoonjupiter - Barou/Chigiri

[maribatserver]

Tag Team Tournament 2024

We're back for another year of good old fashioned fandom fun! This year the Tag Team Tournament will take place from Sunday, July 28th - Saturday, August 3rd, so make sure to save the date and get started on your projects early!

We've got some fun things planned this year, but we're also making some changes to how we're running the event this year! For the full rules and guidelines, check out our Event Guide Document, now newly revised for 2024! The short version is that we've changed some of our scoring to remove certain exploitable flaws that were exposed last year, clarified submission guidelines, added new ways to earn bonus points, and changed our team lineup!

Now, last year we had a very popular Shipping Bracket to determine who our eighth team would be, but this year we decided that we wanted out lead up event to better help you all prepare for this year's event. Also, @nottesilhouette asked really, really nicely for last year's runner up ship to get a chance in the Tournament, and how could we tell them no?

This year, our teams are:

Seamless Spin - Cassandra Cain x Marinette Dupain-Cheng

3's Company - Any Poly Ship

Rare Flair - Any Ship Without A Team

Lucky Shot - Roy Harper x Marinette Dupain-Cheng

Spandex Flex - Dick Grayson x Marinette Dupain-Cheng

Art Couple - Damian Wayne x Marinette Dupain-Cheng

Java Junkies - Tim Drake x Marinette Dupain-Cheng

Book Design - Jason Todd x Marinette Dupain-Cheng

We are super excited for this year's Tag Team Tournament, and we hope that you're excited too! To help you get in the creative spirit, and to hopefully inspire you with ideas, @newdog14 assembled playlists for each of our teams, which will be published one by one over the next few months. She got the idea for this after assisting with this year's Jasonette July Calendar Playlist, organized by @mochegato & @izanae, which we also encourage you to participate in.

Oh, and one more thing. We have heard that for some folks, particularly those who are responsible for small humans, the summertime is apparently not filled with an abundance for free time. So we thought we'd go ahead and give you all a little more to go on for your prep work this year, and as such we'll be publishing all of our prompts early this year, so be sure to keep an eye on our blog on Sundays going forward.

Many thanks to @newdog14, @nottesilhouette, and @izanae for their hard work in preparing this event. From brainstorming prompts to designing team logos to coding spreadsheets to tolerating certain people's tyrannical playlist standards, there's a lot of work that goes into an event this big! And thank you to everyone who has participated in this event, and to those who plan to participate this year. We could never pull this off without you!

[danpuff-ao3]

Krissy, our sweet sugareey (@sugareey-makes-stuff) is one of the loveliest humans in fandom, I promise. Genuinely, such a sweetheart.

Also...quite the busy bean! A jellybean. To stay on the "sugary sweet" theme. A busy jellybean, our Krissy! She runs the Wizarding Creator's Den server, and never fails to do bi-monthly check-ins about what folks are up to, which I always look forward to! How are my monthly goals?? Why thank you for asking! It's a good place to hangout with fellow creators, and I've found so much support and comfort not only about creative subjects, but others as well. During my worst fandom experience, that's the place I went. And there I found the strength to get out of a bad situation. I am very grateful for that place, and to Krissy for running it, and being there, and being such an active and caring mod.

Krissy also runs various challenges. @wood-you-rather-challenge and @hp-flowers, at least! And let me tell you, I am thrilled HP Flowers exists! Combining my love of HP and flowers?? Yes please and thank you. In fact, these challenges inspired the little graphic I made for her! I thought "I need wood...and also flowers." So: ta da! (I think it turned out pretty cute, not to toot my own horn or anything.)

She was also one of those special souls that helped me stay sane when writing Contempt last year. In my hour of need, with that most desperate cry for help, Krissy was one of those who answered the call! I don't know what I would have done without her and my other beloved cheer readers. Contempt might not exist today!

Krissy is also a lady of varied and excellent taste. But also varies and excellent skill. I so admire her creativity and enthusiasm for fandom. Her love shines so brightly, I couldn't help but be intrigued by what Krissy was doing, and what she was loving. Perciver?? Not a ship I usually look for on its own, but boy did Krissy sell me on them! Her trip into the Teen Wolf fandom has me pretty tempted, too, not gonna lie. Which is pretty big, because I so rarely watch shows!

Not to mention just how unique and incredible Krissy's art is. I'd know her work from a mile away! It's so different and cool and there's so much feeling in every piece! I'm forever blown away by her talent.

Anyway, enough of my jabbering...you're here for the Krissy goods, aren't you? I've selected a few of my favorites, so here they are! (Under a cut cuz wow can I talk!)

Art

Blooming

Neville. Tattoos. Flowers. Rated G.

It's a fascinating surprise when people find out the owner of Asclepius’ Apothecary: Purveyors of Fine Teas and Herbs is none other than Neville Longbottom.

Practice Makes Perfect

Cho/Ginny. Rated E.

When class is over at the local yoga studio and the room empties out, Cho has Ginny show her some moves. Ginny obliges by demonstrating her own modified version of the Puppy Pose.

Stay Close to Me

Marcus/Oliver. Rated T. Biting. Morning cuddles.

When they wake up in the morning, their first instinct is to press their bodies against each other and savour the feeling.

You Should See Me In a Crown

Hermione/Pansy. Rated T.

When they decided to participate in a game of Truth and Dare at a themed house party, Hermione and Pansy didn't expect things to get this interesting (or to be this attracted to each other).

Fics:

So Little Time

Hermione/Pansy. Rated: E. Words: 200. Boss/Employee. Semi-public sex.

Hermione uses her break between meetings to let her secretary take care of her.

Things I Never Knew

Marcus/Oliver. Rated: E. Words: 1,500. Enemies to lovers. UST. Clubbing. Quickies. Wood You Rather 2022.

Oliver knew he should have walked away the moment their eyes met. He didn’t want or need anything from Marcus Flint.

Yet, he couldn’t explain how (or why) he found himself currently pressed up against the door of a cramped stall in the men’s loo.

Trails of Heat

Ginny/Luna. Rated: E. Words: 143. Waxplay. Friends to lovers. Shipuary 2022.

Luna lets Ginny stimulate and decorate her in a new way.

for an explanation about Mutuals March, or to figure out why i wrote you a thing, please check out this post.

[leisurelevin884]

Where can i buy a gaming chair in canada

Leading 22 Esports Blogs To Study Inked Gaming

Enthusiast Gaming is a media and technologies organization creating the biggest community of genuine gamers. Thank you for this entertaining post. This info can be useful for any one who desires to play the very best games. But in addition to my comment I would like to refer one particular website - They have been giving gaming merchandise to both residential and industrial consumers. I just enjoy to buy from this internet site as they have a substantial collection of bubble hockey game and utilised arcade games. Check out the newest new arrivals and pre-order these days.

The multitude of gaming news internet websites continues to develop as gaming emerges as something larger and more worthwhile than merely a hobby. It would be an understatement to confine the function and purpose of these sites to news and reviews broadcasting for every day, the legion of geeks and gamers is strengthened by these extremely gaming news web sites. In midst of this competition, there are numerous websites like Virteract which are emerging to the scene and putting in some truly good efforts to offer you with good quality content.

The X Rocker Pro H3 Audio Gaming Chair can be rightfully deemed as a significant gamer's one and only gaming lounger. It comes totally integrated with 4 potent speakers to give you a sensational game play. And if that is not enough of the ideal gift for a gamer, its equally wonderful subwoofer can turn even the slightest hint of bass into a thunderous boom, additional enhancing your general gaming expertise. Enhancing your immersive game play are vibration motors that can be completely synchronized with the diverse bass tones in your game, delivering you with shocks, jolts, and minute vibrations quite substantially like the tactile feedback of vibration-enabled game controllers.

If you never have a huge gaming group, you have likely noticed that two-player games are difficult to obtain, and truly fantastic ones that are just as wonderful for https://heihachi.site/ two players are even far more rare. I've wracked my memory (and pestered my pals) to come up with a bunch of tabletop games that are a blast for two— not just technically playable with no additional.

Does GAMING Sometimes Be You Feel Stupid?

In the ‘90s, televisions got larger, and gaming consoles got much more powerful. Nintendo and Sega fought for the top spot with the Super Nintendo Entertainment Program, and the Sega Genesis, respectively. You are going to find all the retro games for SNES and Genesis you loved back in the day in one particular convenient spot. From Golden Axe to Mega Man X, all your favorite 16-bit titles are readily available at the Retro games shop.

Game makers can assistance very simple leaderboards quickly by working with DynamoDB. 1 such use case is the capacity to display major scores for a game. If a gaming company already stores players' game state in DynamoDB, like players' leading scores, the capability to get top rated scores can be implemented by utilizing a worldwide secondary index.

Bit factors continue to grow up and platform was changed differently. Google and Apple changed their algorithms couple of time and this shake entire App search final results. Platforms fixes their early issues and if you try to remember Balmer's joke "Who's gonna obtain $500 telephone? folks start out to bought $500 phones. Also stable platform bring "BigGuys" there like EA, GameLoft in gaming market place or Adobe, Autocad in graphic apps. This happens about 2011-2012.

The benefits of this cloud model for gaming? The newest gaming hardware does not come low-cost: hundreds of pounds for a console or thousands for a tricked-out Computer, plus the games themselves - and with gaming technology constantly evolving, upgrading hardware each handful of years is mandatory to love the newest titles at their greatest. By connecting to devices in the cloud, fees are lowered to a subscription fee, and the provider takes on all the responsibilities of keeping higher-end gaming systems. With no have to have for on-web site hardware, cloud gaming also saves space in the home and eliminates the noise and heat generated by gaming machines.

In March 2017, Green Man Gaming launched its first local language eCommerce internet site in Germany, 33 providing its shoppers the capacity to shop in German making use of their preferred payment techniques. The business also launched its brand new Neighborhood platform in March 2017, 34 providing gamers a new neighborhood to connect with every single other, view their gameplay stats, get the newest news and watch well-liked Twitch streamers - all in a single location.

In order to make all the content of your gaming site appear excellent on smaller sized screen sizes, you have to have to make positive that your on the web project is mobile-friendly. A single of the finest techniques to construct a responsive internet site is picking out a Bootstrap-primarily based web theme as its foundation. Operating with a mobile-friendly website template, you may possibly neglect about the need to have to adjust your content material to all devices manually.

Functioning in partnership with Vox Media, Polygon brings its community original content material on video games and their creators. Persons interested in the gaming culture verify up on Polygon many times throughout the day for the most current and reliable news, evaluations, previews, and videos viral in the gaming globe. Their eclectic Forum houses wide-ranging discussions and opinions on games and gaming trends.

This (Weblog) is exactly where you can study almost everything I know. Discover about the finest board games for game nights in original evaluations, get recommendations on every thing from organizing to snack and drinks, and read up on inclusivity and diversity in gaming communities. There's stuff here for person players trying to chip in on game night, to hosts who want to (ahem) up their game, to organizations interested in hosting typical board game nights.

Some like it wireless. Some choose to go old-school with wires. If you take place to belong to the latter group, you may possibly want to give the Havit HV -MS672 Wired Mouse It may not have a incredibly exceptional optical sensor that can run in the 16,000s, but its maximum of three,200 DPI should be enough to offer you with an exceptional gaming knowledge. Its DPI settings can also be adjusted to three other levels with the lowest at 800 DPI. The Havit Mouse also comes with breathing LED light effects including 7 circular LED light effects to set the mood in your game.

Green Man Gaming needs that you have a registered account ahead of you can use a coupon code. If you already have an account, merely log in just before you commence purchasing or ahead of checking out. If you do not have an account, you should enter an email address, password and user name. The web site will email you a hyperlink that you click on to confirm that your email account is valid. You are going to then see a Vouchers area close to the button of your buying cart. A large white box, which you can see in the image beneath, is where you enter your code. This box will not develop into readily available till you make an account or log into your existing account. You can then click on the proceed to payment web page to pay for your games. Green Man Gaming will preserve your shipping and billing particulars on file unless you opt out. Obtaining that data saved in your account makes it simpler to check out and get the games that you want rapid.

In reality, in the realm of mobile gaming, ladies are much more probably to be avid participants than guys! According to a 2017 Google Play and NewZoo survey , 65% of U.S. girls ages 10-65 play mobile games - and that is a big audience. What's additional, according to the identical survey, girls make up practically half - 49% - of all mobile gamers, and they tend to play a lot more frequently than their male gamer counterparts, making them a lot more probably to come to be habitual (and consequently lucrative) players.

[austenmarriage]

New Post has been published on Austen Marriage

New Post has been published on http://austenmarriage.com/austens-words-soothe-soldiers-home-folks/

Austen's Words Soothe Soldiers, Home Folks

This year of 2020 is the seventy-fifth anniversary of the end of World War II. It is fitting, thus, to remember that Britain’s bulldog leader once benefitted from the soothing words of Jane Austen during the world’s largest military conflagration.

Churchill wrote of the comfort he got from listening to his daughter read him Pride and Prejudice during WWII. (Letter at Jane Austen’s House, Chawton.)

Winston Churchill lay abed with the flu during the middle of the war. His doctors told him: “Don’t work, don’t worry.” In a letter now at Jane Austen’s House in Chawton, Churchill wrote that he had long ago read Austen’s Sense and Sensibility and decided to try Pride and Prejudice. He had always thought it would be “better than its rival.” His daughter Sarah read it to him, which she did “beautifully from the foot of the bed.”

Speaking of Pride and Prejudice, and no doubt contemplating the burdens of his own position leading the war effort, Churchill remarked in his letter: “What calm lives they had those people. No worries about the French Revolution or the crashing struggle of the Napoleonic Wars. Only manners controlling natural passion so far as they could, together with cultured explanations of any mischances.”

The prime minister’s observations, of course, were true of the characters in the novel, but not the readers. British military strength totaled about 350,000 during the Napoleonic Wars, and at least as many more were volunteers to be called in case of invasion. Citizens read of the battles, they kept abreast of the casualties, and they observed the thousands of wounded veterans begging for bread in the streets. They knew war as well as their descendants in later titanic battles across the Channel.

Churchill was by no means the only warrior to find solace from the words of Austen during the world wars. A Rudyard Kipling story describes a soldier who served in an artillery battery in World War I. Imagining the existence of a secret society of “Janeites” because the officers keep talking of her, he comes to read her novels. After being wounded in a barrage that wiped out the rest of his unit, the artilleryman is stymied by a wordy nurse, who tells him there is no room for him on the hospital train. “Make Miss Bates there, stop talkin’ or I’ll die,” he complains. Catching the educated reference to Emma, the head nurse finds a place for him on the train to safety.

Janine Barchas’s recent book, The Lost Books of Jane Austen, reproduces the beautifully grim illustrations of Kipling’s story from Hearst’s International Magazine in May 1924. Barchas also has an image of a combined printing of Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey, which was one of 1.4 million books donated to the War Service Library in World War I.

In this program, the American Library Association (ALA) raised $1.7 million, purchased another 300,000 books, and shipped 109,403 books overseas. The ALA placed 117 librarians in the field, erected 36 libraries across 464 camps, and also distributed 5 million magazines to military personnel. Britain had a similar program of collecting books and magazines for the troops during World War I. Details of the British program have proven difficult to uncover, however.

Barchas found that the cheap editions of Austen’s novels helped develop Jane’s reputation during the 1800s. She found several rare copies of the war paperbacks and included them in her book. The image of Northanger Abbey, above by the headline, is from The Lost Books of Jane Austen and used with permission.

Cheap books—in this case, free—may have had the same effect on modern writers whose books were handed out to soldiers in WWI or WWII. Scribner’s produced only 25,000 copies of The Great Gatsby from 1925 to 1942, but 155,000 were given to the army and navy overseas during the war. Not coincidentally, F. Scott Fitzgerald enjoyed a boom in popularity after the war. The book is now considered a classic.

Military readers often expressed their thanks to authors in writing. Some authors received hundreds of thank-yous, with soldiers saying the books were the first they had ever read through in one sitting—or possibly read at all.

Austen’s stories of ordinary life in quiet country villages proved a respite to readers of the crashing struggle around them in Austen’s time. Her novels also reminded soldiers, then and later, of the life they were fighting for.

The novels might be said to have participated in the war directly. Some of Virginia Woolf’s copies of Austen’s books were reported to have been damaged during the Blitz, and a book dealer in London offered a first edition of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion at a discounted price “because it and other rare books had been water-damaged by firefighters battling an incendiary bomb.” The latter instance is recounted by Annette M. LeClair in the article “In and Out of the Foxholes: Talking of Jane Austen During and after World War II,” in the periodical Persuasions (issue 39). LeClair, who was investigating reader responses to Austen during WWII, concluded that she provided solace to the home folks as well as to the troops.

As much as the military owes Austen, though, the World War II anniversary should remind Janeites of all we owe the military. Jane Austen’s House, the most popular Austen site in the world, exists because of the sacrifice of Lt. Philip John Carpenter. He died at the age of twenty-two leading an attack in Italy in 1944. The Carpenter family purchased the cottage and gave it in trust to “all lovers of Jane Austen.” They had no deep connection to the author. But they were from Hampshire and wanted to honor their offspring. Philip is commemorated on a plaque near the entry.

One of the country’s many fallen sons gave rise to a sanctuary for one of the nation’s most beloved daughters.

—

The Marriage of Miss Jane Austen, which traces love from a charming courtship through the richness and complexity of marriage and concludes with a test of the heroine’s courage and moral convictions, is now complete and available from Amazon and Jane Austen Books.

[calamitysshatteredson]

HOW I RUN MY BLOG

SPEED: Slow.  The slowest slow.  I am a glacier... or I am what our understanding of glaciers used to be in that they moved very slowly.  Between work, chronic health stuff and overall new and different types of exhaustion (yaaaay), I haven’t been able to get to nearly as many responses as I’ve wanted to.  Rest assured I want to and for the most part the slowness is because I want everyone’s response to feel like I put effort into it.  Because I did and I don’t want to drop laziness on anyone even if there are the “the hell with it, I’m finishing this no matter what happens” times.  Some days/weeks/months are better than others and I am technically an adult-like cryptid with things to do.  It’s annoying.

REPLIES: I make every effort to match length.  Sometimes there’s just a spill of words from nowhere, though.  (Partners are never expected to match length of word waterfalls, by the way.)  There are times when responses are shorter, but usually for some kind of impact.

STARTERS: I... should make more opens.  What prevents me from doing so is usually the whole time/energy/wanting to be available for interaction in the relatively near future thing, which I can never promise.  ...I will randomly leap out and reply to starters anyway at times.  Sometimes the muse takes the wheel, what can I say.

INBOX: Everyone’s always welcome, anon or IC.  I might also take forever with these, but sometimes a random ask really serves to kickstart an idea that we can all regret together.

SELECTIVITY: I’m accidentally selective.  As in, I kind of don’t mean to be.  One, I have to be a little careful about following back because I have remarkably limited time to browse the dash (why yes this does suck), and two it always depends on what tugs on inspiration.  Some folks very accidentally have to wait a lot longer for interaction, and I know “it’s nothing personal” doesn’t exactly ease the sting.  You are dealing with a mun who is confused by time.

WISHLIST: There’ve already been so many delights.  ...I always say I want Seph to have more happiness, more found family and learning to human, but it’s kinda rare I actually give him that, huh.  ...Well, it can’t all be angst, but there is plenty of fluff-angst too.  Still up for former General Safay Roth escaping with a drop ship full of clones and MTs in various stages of having been “rejected”, with or without having maybe become accidentally married to Ravus.  ...And Seph and Prompto somehow connecting because come on.

HONEST NOTE: You are all amazing and astonishing for putting up with whatever this blog has become.  I’ve been (frustratingly) doing a lot more reading than writing of late and let me assure all of you, I enjoy what I see.  But I must add, for the purpose of full disclosure, I’m an internet old from LiveJournal in the days before Strikethrough.  I have written a lot of “problematic content”.  I have participated in challenges to (here’s your date check) squick myself, and have definitely succeeded.  Ain’t got no time for the thought police or purity culture, but I also don’t look kindly upon folks who belittle others for wanting appropriate content warnings for their own comfort.  We’re playing haphazardly with fictional characters, but I’d like to think we’re also trying to make sure everyone has the ability to feel safe in the RP sandbox.  If that doesn’t gel with you, no hard feelings, but good-bye and good luck.  And while I’m sure I sound like a broken record at this point, if there’s ever anything I need to tag but haven’t for whatever reason, let me know.  Tumblr is a barely-evolving trash fire but the least we can do is try to be decent to each other.

TAGGED BY: @cinderella-gurei (Thank you!) TAGGING: Do you think this is a neat and informative thing to do for your followers/partners?  Then you have been tagged, have a blast.

[7deadlycinderellas]

If the summer of our lives could just come again, ch 17

AO3 link

 King’s Landing

Robert hasn’t even been dead two days before Joffrey dismisses Ned, and Sansa and him are turned out. The snow has barely had a chance to settle on the ground.

They are given a day to pack their things.

A tiny part of Sansa’s heart is sad. There are fond goodbyes of course, Tommen hugs her as tightly as though he were her own brother.

Tyrion is even more despondent. Joffrey’s selection for his replacement hand is, of course, Tywin Lannister.

“Couldn’t you convince him to send you back to Casterly Rock? I mean, if he dislikes having you around so much…”

“I’m afraid he distrusts me possibly taking control of Casterly Rock more than he dislikes my face.”

Sansa gets lost in thought at that. She’s unsure who even would have ended up warden of the west had the dead stayed dead. She knows there are Lannisters scattered about the whole region, one she’s never heard of likely.

She pauses a bit before her next line.

“Why don’t you ever leave? You’re a clever man, there’s a whole world outside Westeros where no one knows you as Tywin Lannister’s son.”

Tyrion exhales noisily, and sets down his glass.

“No one may now me as that, but the whole world will still take one look at me and see a fool or a toy.”

She thinks her next words over, thoroughly.

“We have a mutual friend,” she tells him, “A friend with a great many legs. One who considers his greatest loyalty to the whole realm. You should ask him about our friend overseas. She needed your help before.”

Tyrion actually looks confused for a moment.

“You got shipped there is a crate before, hiding in disgrace. That might not be necessary. You could sail away a free man.”

Her next words are grim.

“There’s enough horrors to come to Westeros that I would flee if I could.”

Throughout the rest of their goodbye, a sweet ache forms deep in Sansa’s chest.

“I…I’m going to miss you. Promise me something?”

“Anything,” he tells her, his voice nearly breathy. It’s an odd sound coming from him. He was always good at playing things off, but not this.

“If you hear tell of monsters coming from the north, run.”

She reaches into one of her pockets, pulling out the roll of paper she’d scribbled hastily that morning.

“Dragonglass can kill them. Valyrian steel too. There’s a blacksmith in Flea Bottom named Mott, there’s instructions in here, he can follow, but…”

There’s tears pricking at the back of her eyes, and her words are stumbling.  It’s not just because if the others reach this far south, it means the north has fallen, fallen so far she can scarcely imagine.

Before Tyrion can react, she reaches out and grasps the fingers of his right hand, raising his knuckles and pressing her lips to each of them in turn, much as he had once before.

The act calms her enough, that when she rises to her feet, her words are more steady.

“You never caught my words for their meaning. My father did, but you didn’t. I said Tysha was your first wife, you never asked me who your second was.”

She turns and leaves, without stopping to look at his face. An errant tear creeps down her cheek. She wipes it off.

Whatever feelings the encounter stirred inside her are pushed down by what happens later that morning.

Sansa and Ned are waiting near where their horses are being packed, when they approached by a flustered looking Brienne and Shireen.

“Have either of you seen Lord Stannis?”

“He left yesterday after supper,” Sansa tells, “To retrieve his men and head for the Wall to aid the Night’s Watch.”

Brienne curses. Sansa’s never heard her do that before, and it shocks her.

“Renly’s rushed off. There’s reports of Ironborn ships attacking Shipbreaker’s Bay. Some of them men have swum ashore and are attempting to lay siege to Storm’s End.”

Sansa is astonished.

“What are they stupid? That could garrison a whole army in that hold, and withstand siege for at least a year. And if the storm’s don’t take it out, raiders certainly can’t!”

She’s heard tell that the Kingsmoot ritual involves drowning the participant for a time. Perhaps that ritual has done a number on their brains.

Brienne shakes her head.

“I know. But Lord Renly didn’t want Shireen anywhere near it, I was going to take her back to her father-”

Ned interrupts,

“They left by ship, there’s no way you’ll catch them in the winter weather, and the Wall is no place for a girl.”

Brienne looks lost for a moment, before Ned continues.

“Come with us. We can put the two of you up in Winterfell for a time. It’s a hard season, but we manage every winter, and we’ll be closer to her father than she is if she stays here. We’ll send a raven a head once we leave.”

He regards Brienne,

“You are the girl’s sworn shield correct?”

Brienne nods, solemn.

“Then you should know that this is likely the safest route we can take.”

And after a time, Brienne agrees.

When her and Ned begin to work out the logistics, Sansa moves and takes Shireen’s hand. The girl is quiet, but her hands are shaking.

This is going to be harder than she imagines.

 Winterfell

Blizzards drive them inside.

Northerners can still work in snow, they know the snow, the landscape. But a true blizzard, with thick snow and fog and wind and deep,deep darkness will drive even the most hardy of them cowering for shelter.

It was in one of these deep blizzards that Robb drew up his letters to their bannermen.

Davos had returned some moons before, with a ship full of evacuees and a  nightmare.

He has a flashback to something Osha had asked them when they were ferrying the first ship full south.

“Do you have a family, Davos?”

She never called him ser, but he never minded truly.

“A wife and seven sons.”

“And you’re fine with being here with all of this, instead of with them?”

Davos had shaken his head.

“Of course I’m not. I miss all of them every day. But my wife is one of those rare women who is content being by herself, and my eldest is old enough to have his own family. I’m filling a need here, helping these people stay with their own families, and trying to protect my own from afar.”

That had been the first of the four voyages he had made, expertly avoiding the Night Watch partrolled waters, hold full of refugees. He never let them off in the same spot twice. A few he expected, even tried to sail off on their own, into the open sea.

He told them the story of an entire Free Folk coastal settlement completely overrun by the others. How the wights had piled up upon each other until they could climb the walls of the city, with no care that they were getting crushed under each other and just kept coming.

They didn’t have to be told about it. Jojen had woken up screaming that morning, with a vision he couldn’t tell from a nightmare. They weren’t sure if it had been Hardhorne, but it had sounded just like it.

“And we still don’t know what’s become of Jon,” Arya tells him, hugging herself, “He hasn’t been at Castle Black in years.”

“He wasn’t there,” Davos tells her grimly, “If he had been I’d have sought him out. It was chaos, no one leading, no one guiding. I just shoved as many as I could on the ship, thanked every god I could think of that they can’t swim and fled.”

“We’ll start sending weapons to other keeps,” Robb tells him grimly, “Along with orders that every able man, woman and child to be trained in their use. Take some of the free folk with you to help begin the training.”

“Tell them,” Bran adds, “To make up lists. Add the names of anyone too old, young or sick to train.”

“We’ll start planning, see if we can identify safe places to evacuate them to if the wall is breached.”

Bear Island has become a possibility, since Davos has reminded them that the dead do not swim. After the death of Jeor Mormont in the mutiny at the wall, Dacey and Alysane Mormont had come to Winterfell to seek acknowledgement of their mother’s continued rule.

They had met no resistance at this, but when given the same instructions that the Stark’s other sworn house’s had been given about dealing with fleeing wildlings, they had been met with mirth.

“Wildlings used to try to raid our island, “ Dacey had said, “Now even the Iron born know better. We can do what you say, but I don’t any of them are still foolish enough to try fleeing to our little island.”

“You may be surprised,” Robb tells them grimly, “Most of them seem to be fleeing to whatever’s south of where they currently are.”

Arya watches the two of them from the side of the room, wondering if Lyanna would have resembled them when she grew up. She knew both Alysane and Dacey had been killed at the red wedding. Neither them or their mother had husbands, they all swore their children had been sired by bears.

And with a sudden spark, Arya wonders if she could ask one of them if one of these bears had had red hair and a long beard.

The blizzards also stopper news. Even Bran can’t guide his ravens through them. They have no idea what’s occurred in the capital since Robert’s death. This is one of the few times in his second life that Bran has missed the ability to see through the weirwoods.

And with the onset of winter, Arya is suddenly quite grateful for her mother’s insistence that she marry.

She occasionally will grumble will Gendry wraps her in her arms, his head over hers and his legs bracketing hers.

“Why do you always get to be the big spoon?”

“Cause if I let you be the big spoon I’ll end up missing a limb one of these mornings.”

Her childhood bed is slightly too small for the two of them, but in winter the crowding is welcome.

One morning, when they rise, Gendry spies a fairly dark mark she’d left on his shoulder the night before. It’s not the first- a few weeks prior Robb had leaned in close to examine a pink love bite on his neck, and then backed away, horrified, when he’d recognized it for what it was, but something about it niggles at him.

“I think you can see teeth here…Something bothering you?”

At her bewildered look he clarified,

“I know they call you a she-wolf, but your teeth don’t usually come out unless you’re upset or scared.”

In the old days, so long ago it seemed, she had put up a tough facade, but then melted atop of him. It had been fun to discover that Arya, who fought so hard to keep her outside cold, loved to be held and kissed gently. But when the dead had kept rising and people had kept dying, her kisses got harder, her hands gripping tighter, often leaving him increasingly black and blue. He hadn’t minded, not particularly, except for what it made him think of her mental state.

She sighs, and moves to kiss the mark, trying to soothe it away.

“I didn’t realize that having everyone I loved back would leave me even more scared of losing them again.”

Gendry throws an arm across her back, running his fingers through the hair at the nape of her neck.

“What was that thing in High Valyrian? That thing that weird red and white haired fucker said when he got us out of Harrenhal?”

Arya laughs, “Valar Morghulis. All men must die.”

“Seems a bit morbid to me, but that’s the point I guess. We’re all going to have to die eventually. But you have us all here again.”

Arya’s face looks unconvinced, but she steps back to pull off her shift and begins dressing without another word.

When the blizzard finally passes, everyone in Winterfell has gone stir crazy. Enough for even Gendry to ask to join some of the others to go with Meera and Jojen to go forage for mushrooms.

It’s a bright clear day, and the sun is high in the sky when they’re turning over logs and digging out tree trunks to look for growths to examine and see if they looked edible.

Gendry had never known there were so many kinds of mushrooms, looking through his sack at all the different sizes and shapes. Though, he thinks as Jojen finds a small, spotted one, looks at it and shakes his head, he never really realized how deadly the wrong ones could be either. It wasn’t something that ever came up in King’s Landing, and when on the road, it had never occurred to him to even bother with mushrooms.

They’ve all been out maybe an hour, when Jojen stops suddenly.

When he falls over into the snow, it’s Arya who reaches him first. She rolls him over, runs a hand over his mouth and nose, and then under his chin.

“He’s breathing,” she assures Meera. The other girl’s face has gone ashen, and she’s standing stiff, pulled tight like a lute’s string.

“Rickon, run back to the keep, have them bring Maester Luwin down to meet us,” she says, in a single breath.

Before Gendry can move, and before Rickon’s even out of sight, she moves and grabs Jojen under his arms,

“Gendry, help me,”

He finally snaps out of his haze, and goes to help, and between the three of them, they manage to life Jojen, who remains motionless. He’s not too heavy, but he’s long, and his boots make his feet harder to handle.

It takes doing, but they weren’t too far out, so they get back to Winterfell quickly enough. When the guards Rickon has alerted come out and take Jojen from the three of them, Gendry feels his muscles burn as they go slack.

Arya grabs his hand quietly as they step aside. Meera stands at the end where they had dropped him and she looks frozen to her spot, and like she might fall over herself.

Bran hadn’t gone with them, for obvious reasons, but having been drawn out of the keep by the ruckus, he awkwardly makes his way to join them.

He approaches Meera quietly, and when he reaches out to gingerly touches her hands, she heaves and presses her face into his neck.

Gendry feels Arya pull his hand, and whisper, “leave them be.”

Her voice when she speaks again is incensed, but her face has that same faraway look it had the morning he’d questioned her biting him.

“Jojen better be pretty sick if he scared us that bad,”

“Are you going to yell at him when he wakes up,”

She shakes his head,

“I’m going to set Mother on him.”

The next time they see Jojen is the next day when Meera goes to bring him his supper. Maester Luwin tells them he has a fever and a bad chest infection, and shouldn’t have gone outside. He plies him with ointments to ease the cough he wakes with and makes him a tea to help the fever.

He also still looks suitably terrified by whatever it was Lady Catelyn said to him.

It’s a few weeks later, when Gendry’s by himself in the forge, when Jojen asks if he can come in and sit for a while.

Even this long after, his cough is lingering, so Gendry tells him,

“Sure, but you should stay by the door away from the smoke.”

He sits quietly for a while, reading a book he’s brought with him.

“You’re from the capital right?”

Gendry nods, “Grew up in Flea Bottom, Biggest slum in the whole place.”

“Someplace with that many people, is there anywhere you would go if you got sick?”

Gendry laughs wryly.

“Barely. If you were lucky you might know an old woman who knew about healing or someone at a tavern who was used to sewing up brawl wounds. Mostly if you got sick enough you just died.”

Jojen’s face at this point looks an awful lot like what Arya’s occasionally has.

“After Lady Catelyn scolded me…throughly, I asked her how the maesters learned all they did about helping the sick.”

He’s never met one before Luwin, but even Gendry knew about the citadel. He also knows that no maester would bother himself with the problems of the common folk.

“It’s a big undertaking,” Gendry says, “You basically have to give up your whole life to become one.”

“And that’s stupid,” Jojen replies, forcefully, “Why should they keep all the knowledge just for themselves? People get sick everywhere. Lords have to pay to receive one at their castles, that’s why we don’t have one at Greywater Watch.”

He’s quiet for a bit longer, then admits.

“It didn’t surprise me at all when Meera told me I died young. I always thought I would. In the swamp, it’s much the same. You get sick enough and you just die.”

Gendry thinks long on his next words, before saying.

“Valar Morghulis,”

Jojen nods, having learned enough High Valyrian to know the saying.

“Sounds like an excuse if you ask me.”

 Over the Wall

The boy is walking steadily, pointing and babbling when Gilly finally decides on a name for him.

Jon had told her about his friends at Castle Black, and she had liked the sound of the name Aemon. It makes Jon’s heart twinge, wondering if one of his only remaining relatives was still living, but happy to know he would be remembered if not.

“It’s not so bad,” she tells him, “Lots of us don’t name our babes until they walk. They die too easily when they’re small.”

The cave really isn’t a good place for a young child, but it’s safer than above ground. And when Aemon begins to talk, he begins to whisper the same words Jon does.

These are the words Rowan has begun teaching him. Maester Luwin had taught all of the Stark children High Valyrian, but Jon doesn’t believe it ever sounded like this coming from him. He recalls his words sounded stiff, practiced. Luwin had waved them all on, saying that reading it was more important. The words the trees speak are different. It’s like they speak in all the senses.

Ygritte had listened to them one day, and said they didn’t even sound like words.

“Almost sounds like you’re singing.”

Sometimes Jon sits and listens to the wind outside the caves, blowing through the trees that dot the hillside. Singing seems an appropriate word, he hopes that what he sounds like.

Gilly and the other’s don’t always make it back for supper, their map-making taking time, though their paths through the caves are unobstructed. Sometimes Ygritte leaves and hunts something to roast. The moss Rowan seems to favor doesn’t seem to do much to bolster a human’s strength. She dries some, and sends them with Henneh and Petra, Gilly’s youngest sisters. When she gives it to them, sometimes they’re gone overnight.

Jon still feels overwhelmed, and one day, he finally asks Rowan,

“So, what’s the endgame for this? What is it all for?”

Rowan looks contemplative, and reaches out to touch his hands.

“What brought you over the wall Jon Snow?”

He is confused,

“Duty? Following my commander’s lead?”

Rowan smiles, almost amused.

“Why specifically?”

Jon pauses for a long time.

“We were hoping to find my uncle Benjen and the other rangers who’d gone missing. And to find out why the wildlings were fleeing their villages.”

Rowan nods. She reaches out and touches the root of the dead tree.

“All of the trees speak the same language, and they all speak to one another. Perhaps you could ask them if they had seen your uncle?”

The question should be bizarre, but it’s become almost normal.

“This one’s dead, will it be able to answer?”

Rowan shakes her head.

“But I can take you to one that will.”

The journey isn’t far, it’s down one of the close caverns Gilly has already mapped. The little weirwood is barely larger than the one Rowan had rooted, maybe a few years. Its trunk is skinny, and it’s only maybe ten or twelve feet tall.

When he realizes he must look apprehensive, Rowan touches him.

“Go ahead. It’s not a person, it can’t take offense.”

Jon’s words whisper his memories of his uncle. His height, build, his long hair. Who his parents were, his siblings. These words become his image, his voice giving shape to his very self.

Jon is so shocked when the tree responds he nearly falls over. Listening he finds, is easier than speaking. Maybe it always was.

He doesn’t see it, not really, not in the way he’d heard Bran speak of his visions. It’s like he was there, and he’s remembering it.

He remembers seeing Benjen being surrounded by the others. He recognizes their piercing blue eyes without a word. He remembers them pierce his heart. He remembers him fleeing, beginning to turn blue himself. He remembers Rowan, as clear as she is standing beside him right now. He remembers seeing her take him by the hand, to one of her caves.

When Jon pulls himself out, he asks her,

“He’s still alive.”

“For want of a better word. He is not whole, but he is still himself.”

Jon feels a weight lift off his chest as the two of them make their way back to the main cave.

They make more journeys out to the weirwood, sometimes day after day in a row, when Rowan feels Jon needs to work on his speech, or she remembers something she feels he needs to see more than others.

He spies Gilly and the others carrying rough crosses.

“Iron and dragonglass,” Rowan acknowledges, “I buried one far north. They are doing the same south towards the wall. If we get them in the ground before they manage to breach it, then they shouldn’t be able to keep rising. The long dead should stay down.”

Before? Jon thinks, more than a little alarmed.

One night, he returns from his lessons to only a fire and Ygritte.

“No one else back yet?”

Ygritte shakes her head. She’s holding a sword.

Jon feels the back of his neck prickling.

“Where’d you find that?”

“One of these caverns. Rowan said it belonged to the tree-man who lived here before. More fun than the axe.”

Brynden Rivers, Jon recalls, is what she had said was the original name of the man who became the Three-Eyed Raven. A bastard, just like him.

He goes to take a look at the handle, and something about the blade catches his eye.

“May I?”

She shrugs.

The weight gives it up.

“This is Valyrian steel,” he tells her, astonished, “Like Longclaw. There’s less than a dozen of these left in Westeros.”

“So a good find?”

He recalls his siblings telling him to hold tightly to Longclaw, because it could destroy Others.

“Hold onto this,” he tells her, passing the sword back. She raises an eyebrow.

“Sure I’m not going to lob any important bits off in your sleep now?”

He laughs.

“You would have done it by now if you were.”

Maybe it’s the peace of the moment, or the joy of finding the sword, or maybe it’s the firelight catching her hair.

“Can I kiss you?”

Ygritte’s face turns contemptuous. He can feel the mocking in her words before they even start. Whatever despair her memories had brought to her, there is no sign of.

“All these years throwing myself at you and all you’re going to do is kiss me?”

He snorts.

“I know nothing remember, I have to learn.”

And before she can get in a retort, he leans over and follows through.

He kisses quite a lot of her that night, and though she isn’t quiet the whole time, none of her words are complaints.

[mithrilwren]

Blueberry Cupcakes

jester x the bakery girl. because this ship is something that deserves to exist in this world. also on ao3!

The thing is, she really doesn’t get new customers.

The Softer Stone Forge is something of a family business, which is not to say that her family owns the bakery – she owns the bakery, and proud of it  – but rather that the same families frequent it year after year. Folks know her for her skill and pay as often in fresh ingredients as in coin, when there’s enough produce to be bought from peddlers who trade in warmer lands down south. In that way, the pastries she makes are a community effort, and that community rarely changes.

She’s just gotten a new crop of blueberries in from the Squiresword’s son, and flash frozen too, bound to keep fresh for the rest of the winter. She’s very happy about that.

“Hello, beautiful!”

The unfamiliar voice tinkles on the air, light as snowdrops, and she looks up to find a strange girl in the middle of her shop, with her arms outstretched and twirling slowly on the spot as she takes in the rows of shelves like it were a palace of jewels.

The girl’s blue hair falls loosely against her shoulders, and beneath the wind-blown bangs she spots the hint of violet irises set amidst a sea of freckles. Stranger still, the tips of pointed horns peek out above her ears. The girl’s dress is unlike anything she’s ever seen, even among the southern merchants: layers of dark fabric cut into angular pleats and held together at the waist by a thick embroidered scarf. She’s so caught up in staring at all the different facets of peculiarity that it takes a long moment for the girl’s words to register, and by the time she begins to wonder if they were directed at her, the cheerful voice resumes. She prepares herself to deliver a professional, if bemused, spiel about her wares.

The girl not from the city, not that that was ever in question, but it’s soon clear her new customer isn’t even from the region at all.

“Have you never had black moss before?” The girl’s eyes go wide as she hands over the first of the batch, and she can’t help but smile back as the girl’s grin spreads from ear to ear. She learns that her new customer likes sweet things, but not savoury, and isn’t particular beyond that preference, and that she tips.

Nobody in this town tips.    

“Thank you for your patronage,” she says, and despite the fact that she’s been up for five hours and on her feet for most of that, the farewell isn’t as perfunctory as she usually gives.

An honest conclusion to an odd encounter, one that’s not likely to be repeated, but definitely something worth gossiping over at the bar when she’s finally closed up for the night.

She turns to bid her goodbye, and finds the girl watching her with a look of absolute rapture.

“This… was worth the entire trip.”

Badump.

The girl stares after her with eyes entirely too honest, still wiping away the remnant of black crumbs from her lips, and she’s lit from behind by the glow of the hearthlight, and she’s...

Well, she’s gone, with a box of pastries and a promise to return, and without leaving her name.

She debates the merits of running out onto the street and asking, but as she looks down at her reflection in the polished metal, she notices the smear of frosting on her cheek. Cursing, she scrubs it away with a thumb, and by then the strange girl has disappeared somewhere down the length of the street.

The girl promised to come back tomorrow. Even so, she sets aside an assortment of the pastries before the freshest are sold, just in case.

---

Jester. The girl’s name is Jester.

She learns this the next morning, when the girl bounds up dutifully to the counter just past opening, this time dragging another girl at her hip. She finds she’s oddly disappointed, that the girl isn’t alone. The other is interesting in her own right – humans are not so rare as tieflings, but certainly not common in these parts – but while Jester still coos over every display, pointing out each little detail (and yes, she is proud of the new stamp she crafted to decorate the pheasant pies), the new girl slouches in the corner, unenthused and unwilling to participate in the decision making process. As such, she addresses her words to Jester alone. Politeness breeds the like, and all that.

“Yes, could I please have six more of those moss thingies from yesterday, and oh, as many of the blueberry ones are you can sell me!”

“Well, how many can you carry?” she half-asks, half-teases as she searches below the counter for a box and comes back up to find Jester with her sleeves rolled up to her shoulders, flexing the sizable girth of her biceps.

“Oh, I don’t know, a lot.” Jester leans in and whispers, “I’m really strong, you know.”

Badump.

It’s not that she’s unaccustomed to well-built girls. They’re a silver a dozen in a place like this, where half the town works the mines and the other forges what’s extracted. She could find herself a handful of blacksmith’s daughters stumbling into any given alleyway.

Which is why the blush that’s rapidly creeping up her cheeks is so… disconcerting.

“I can see that,” she forces out, and Jester grins, all bubbles and warmth, and takes the offered box.

“Thanks for this!” Her skirts do a little whirl as she turns. Which is only mesmerising because she still can’t place the style of the dress, and nothing at all to do with the way it makes the girl look like a dancer in motion as she steps lightly towards the door.

“Later,” drawls the second girl, tilting her head in farewell. She barely hear her, too busy staring off after the swish of skirts and the glint of torchlight against blue hair.

Beautiful.

When she finishes shaking her head of that unbidden echo, the shop is once again empty.

---

She learns a little more about the expedition Jester belongs to as the days go on, both from Jester herself and the whispers of the folks at the Broken Stool. They’re here looking for materials to reforge a sword, and not having much luck of it.

She’s not sure which is worse – the prospect that they’ll find what they need, or that they don’t. Either way, it doesn’t end with Jester still in town. Either way, it means an end to the little fascination that she’s begrudgingly permitted herself to entertain.

It’s not that she thinks Jester means anything by the flirtations, not really. She’s been unlucky in love often enough to be wary of supposing anything that’s not explicit. But it doesn’t mean she can’t daydream about what would it be like, to be the kind of girl that a beautiful, mysterious stranger falls for. Like something out of a song: to be swept away from this mundane life into a life of adventure, give me only your word, and I will follow you to the end of the world. Or even a tale less fantastical: a soft hand slipped into hers, a secret meeting in the shadows of the eave, a kiss by firelight and gone by morning.

She certainly won’t be the one to ask, but if it was offered… well, she wouldn’t say no.

One day, Jester comes in and asks to see how the baking’s done. It’s a process very near and dear to her heart. It’s also all already done for the day. There’s no dough left to bake. Jester only smiles brighter at this.

“Then let’s make some!”

“It’ll take time to rise.”

“I can wait!”

Jester hops up on the counter, thigh landing just inches from where her hand rests on a stack of delivery forms. A few inches closer, and her pinky would brush the edge of Jester’s pleated skirt.

Badump.

She takes a step back and wipes her hands on her apron, though they’re perfectly clean.

“Right, let’s get started then.”

Jester is a willing, if absentminded student. She eats more than her fair share of the blueberries before they can make it into the filling, which she wants to be annoyed about – they were expensive, after all – but every time she tries to muster the frustration she’s supposed to be feeling, Jester makes a pleased little hum in the back of her mouth as she pops another in, and the chastisement fades into a sort of fondness she knows it’s much too soon to feel.

There’s frosting on her face again by the time they’re done, and Jester brushes it away with her knuckles then pops her fingers in her mouth, and oh, that is… not helping.

“Still sweet,” Jester crows by way of explanation.

“Do you like sweet things?” she asks stupidly, to prevent herself from doing something even more stupid. Jester looks at her like she’s gone mad.

“Of course, I told you that, silly.”

“If you like sweet things… then close your eyes.”

She doesn’t know where this sudden bravery came from, but once she’s said the words she can’t call them back, and Jester’s eyelids are already fluttering closed. Swallowing, she turns around to the workbench and grabs a palmful of course sugar, then a blueberry from the bowl of water where they’d been defrosting. A quick squeeze leaves the berry encrusted in a coat of shimmering crystals. She hastily brushes the rest of the sugar into the sink and turns back to Jester.

“Open your mouth.”

Jester’s lips quirk, but she opens them dutifully. Before she can think better of it, she reaches out and places the berry on her tongue. The lips close, catching the edge of her thumb before she can pull away, and just that brush of moisture and heat is enough to send a shiver all the way down to her toes.

Jester sighs around the berry as she chews, and without opening her eyes, she murmurs, “Sweet.”

“Yeah,” she replies faintly.

Jester’s eyes open. They’re less than a foot apart. Any closer and their knees would be touching.

Jester’s cheeks aren’t pink like hers, but it’s darker than they were before.

“You’re looking like you’re about to kiss me,” Jester teases, laughing lightly.

“Yes,” she says, and Jester’s smile falters. It’s the first time she’s seen her off balance, and well, In for one, in for a dozen. “Can I?”

Jester opens her mouth, then closes it again, sugar crystals glistening on her chin.

She doesn’t move, not before getting permission.

Jester does.

The lips that meet hers are soft – hesitant, unsure – and she tastes of blueberry and sugar and clean, smokeless air – more confident now, and open, and pressing back – and she never wants to taste anything else again in her life, if it means keeping this moment on her tongue.

They come apart spit-shined and mussed, nervous and bright-eyed, just slightly bruised. Neither of them knows much about kissing, it turns out.

The second attempt is a little cleaner.

By the third, they’ve really got the hang of it.

---

The cupcakes burn. Jester still eats three.

---

It can’t last forever. She never expected that it would. There comes a day when Jester steps into the bakery and her eyes are a little less bright than usual.

“So, we’re leaving today,” Jester explains, regret thick in her voice.

“Oh,” she says. “Ok.”

“…I don’t know the right thing to say. This isn’t how the stories usually go.”

No. The stories end in forevers or in tragedy, but never in the inbetween. How do you say goodbye when you mean, thank you? When what you had wasn’t an epic tale of eternal romance, but it meant something, all the same?

“Here,” she says, pulling a cupcake off the rack and walking around the end of the counter, walking until they stand toe to toe. “For the road.”

Jester takes it, then throws her arms around her shoulders. There’ll be frosting in her hair when she checks later. “I’ll come back and see you again.”

She doesn’t think that Jester will, in the end, but that’s alright. It seems silly to regret the sweetness, even if it’s brief.

“Goodbye, beautiful,” she says, and rises up to her tiptoes so she can plant a kiss on Jester’s temple. “Think of me sometime.”

Jester’s smile is a little watery, but she nods and waves goodbye, but pauses in the doorframe to shove the whole cupcake into her mouth. She breaks into a laugh, and Jester gives her a thumbs up through the window.

She can’t think of a better image to remember her by.

[hinaegifestival]

To everyone that participated in this event:

All of you who have or are still planning to submit fanworks, all of you who have been commenting, liking, and reblogging or retweeting those fanworks, all of the people who have sent in prompt suggestions, all of you who have voted on the polls, all of you who have reblogged and spread the word for this event,

Everyone one of you who has supported this event in one way or another,

I am so extremely thankful for all of you! This event would not have been such a success without all of you! When I was planning HiNaegi Festival, I could never have imagined this amount of support! Shippers of HiNaegi and Kamuegi always seemed so rare. There really hadn’t been that much content of it being made, especially on this side of the fandom, and so I’d honestly not expected even half the amount of participation that we’ve seen this week!

And everyone who submitted fanworks did a really spectacular job! You are all extremely talented folks, and I hope that you will continue to create art, whether it is for Hinaegi/Kamuegi, Danganronpa, another fandom, or something completely your own! I have something planned for all of you, so expect something in the coming weeks! ;)

Thank you so much for celebrating these wonderful ships with me! Thank you for showing me, and everyone else, that Hinaegi and Kamuegi deserve to be celebrated, and that these three boys deserve to be loved! It was such a blast running this event, and I’m so happy that it was this well received! I was incredibly happy to see other people excited for this event, and finally letting their love for these pairings show!

I hope that this isn’t the end though! I hope that you will continue to unashamedly show your love for Hinaegi, Kamuegi, or any other rarepair out there! If it makes you happy, then why hold yourself back? Go for it. Enjoy your ships, and have fun! That’s what this week meant to me, and it’s really the one thing I was hoping for, that we could all have fun at this HiNaegi Festival! And I’m glad that it seems like we’ve accomplished that ^^

Although the final day of Hinaegi Festival has come and gone, I know there are still people that want more time to finish off their pieces, or may want to start their own entries, but didn’t have the time to do so this week, and I am more than willing to give you as much time as you need! I will do my best to reblog your fanwork here as soon as I can!

For late submitters

Those that are ready to post within this day, I will continue to be checking the tags and also my mentions/notes! However, from July 21-28, I’ll be unlikely to be able to do so. Because of this, I ask that all late submitters message this blog a link to your entry! Then I’ll be actively checking again until August 24. After that, I ask that you message or tag me on my personal account that is currently @kimmysfandomblog​ (however, I will be changing my username to hajimehinata-kun once I get back from vacation!)

Also Hinaegi Festival has a discord server, which you can join here! You can talk to other people who ship Hinaegi/Kamuegi, and so far we are all pretty chill! I’ll add a channel for if you want to send a link to an entry/your art/fic of Hinaegi/Kamuegi that you want me to share on the blog as well!

What happens after

The fate of this blog will probably continue to depend on you! I’m always willing to discuss headcanons, and once I get back from vacation, I’ll officially open up pixel requests! I might get another mod to track down HiNaegi/Kamuegi fanart from before this event, or create content for it occasionally! Feel free to submit your Hinaegi Fanworks (unrelated to the Festival even!), ask questions, share headcanons, or whatever else you can think of involving Hinaegi/Kamuegi!

As of right now, I know that I would like to rerun this event again, but I’m not completely sure when would be the best time. Next year, I will be very busy, so most likely I will not be quite as involved as it was this year, I’m sorry to say. Still, you should know that I will absolutely do my best next year as well! I may add in more mods to run that event, but as far as that goes, it is too early to ask for them. Check this blog around March, and I might start planning the second event by then!

Thank you once more for helping make HiNaegi Festival an overwhelming success!!!

~Mod Kimmy

[samsuelu]

I recently took a cruise aboard Royal Caribbean’s Grandeur of the Seas to the lovely Bermuda.  I thought I would give a little review of my experience on the high seas.  I’ve been on several cruises, one of which was on this very same ship, so I thought my perspective may be helpful to some. Or maybe it won’t be, but I’m going to do it anyway!

I went on the Grandeur of the Seas a loooong time ago. I was still in high school it was at least ten years ago.  I remember the experience being amazing, so much so that I was depressed when it was time to disembark.  Seriously, I was ready to chain myself to a railing or something so I wouldn’t have to leave. Unfortunately I did not have the same experience this time.  Bermuda was amazing, I’ve been there before and it’s one of my favorite places on planet Earth. I have no complaints about the Bermuda experience and would gladly go there a thousand more times. Or a million. Or I could move there.  The actual cruise ship experience itself proved to be a bit disappointing. This is crazy to me and not what I expected at all. I’ve never felt “disappointed” with any cruise, which is why I decided to write this. It wasn’t entirely negative, not at all.  It just did not live up to the cruises I’ve taken in the past. When you take into consideration how much money you spend, they should all be incredible.

One of the things that bothered me the most was how most of the activities seemed to be a ploy to get you to spend more money. I’ve already spent a ton of money to get on here, I don’t want to pay for a bunch of stuff that should have been included. When you think of a cruise, you think all inclusive for the most part, right? Me too. And that has pretty much been my experience in the past. Now let’s clarify, I’m not talking about shore excursions and soda and things like that. This isn’t my first rodeo. I knew those would be extra. I’m talking about activities like jewelry making. You would think that could be included, right? You’d be wrong. Cost extra. Making your own sushi? Cost extra. It goes on and on. Though the group that went to the make your own sushi class did say it was tons of fun and the staff teaching it were fab.

The stuff that was free was often geared towards getting you to buy something, like spa treatments or fitness consultations. I just wanted to do something without being accosted for more money. Oh, and if you book a spa treatment you better be sure you actually want it. My sister found out the hard way that if you make an appointment and cancel less than 24 hours ahead of time then you still have to pay half of the cost. This was not communicated to her at any point when she booked. She also booked the appointment on the first day for that same night, so how she was supposed to cancel 24 hours ahead of time I don’t know.  She went to the salon (connected to the spa) to get her hair done later in the trip for formal night and said she saw a small, out of the way sign posted about this policy. Seems a little fishy to me.

Four of us actually ended up getting our hair done at the salon for fancy night and let me tell you, it was really nice. The people working in the salon were super sweet and personable and we were all pleased with the finished product.  My sister and I both have mega thick hair that can be hard to work with but they were total pros.

There were some fun, legitimately free things to do. The movies they played on the top deck were awesome.  It was a cool atmosphere to kick back, have a fancy drink, and watch relatively new movies. They even played the second Guardians of the Galaxy! The rock wall was super cool but it was only open for about two hours a day, if at all.  They had shows every night but I never made it to any of them, for one reason or another. Most of the time the reason was that the shows were at 7:00pm so if you wanted to go you would have to eat crazy early or crazy late because dinner in the dining room took quite a while (but was totally worth it). They had a really fun dance party with a DJ at the club on board. It may have been all the alcohol in my system but I thought the fella played a great mix of music and everyone seemed pretty hyped.  My sister participated in a cute “Finish the Lyric” game put on by the Cruise Director which had the whole audience into it (see my upcoming vlog for this).  We missed the Newlywed Game when they did it but it was recorded and played on the TVs in our rooms. Watching cruise guests play this classic made for fun viewing!

You could also turn to the pools for some free fun. The issue was that they were very often filled to the brim with kids and the adults only pool was rarely open.  They did all this advertising for this adults only oasis, that was legitimately beautiful, but it was a real crap shoot to catch the pool open. Kids weren’t supposed to be allowed in the hot tubs anywhere on the ship either, but the lifeguards didn’t enforce this. My aunt had to ask lifeguards twice to say something because the hot tubs were full of kiddos.  On one of these occasions, the lifeguard’s first response was to ask what she wanted him to do about it. Um…your job, perhaps?

The bar situation proved to be a challenge at times, as well. Listen, I like to drink sometimes and I feel like it’s not unreasonable to want a buzz from time to time on vacation. I think many people are of that mindset. But jeez, the bars frequently closed at like 10:00pm or 11:00pm. When you want to let loose on your vacay and are at the mercy of the bar staff on the ship, this presents a problem. Then there were the drink packages. My Aunt and Mom usually get some kind of wine package for the trip so they can save a bit. They planned to do the same on this trip until they found out that the wine package only provided like three options for wine. It also felt like the only advertised packages were the ones they wanted you to get.  I found out about a package on like the second to last day of the trip, ten drinks for $80, that I would have totally purchased if I had known about it earlier on. Yet they were still advertising drinks out of pineapples when they were out of pineapples at all the bars. That’s right folks, all the bars. It’s okay though, the dining room staff saved the day by giving us a pineapple to physically walk to a bar to get that drink.

The night we docked overnight in Bermuda, my group boarded the ship after spending some time on the island and we were looking for something to do. It wasn’t that late but the bars on the ship were closed, of course. There were staff cleaning in a lot of places, which I totally get needs to happen, but some of them acted as if we were in the way as we tried to navigate around the ship.  That’s a bit problematic when we effectively live on the boat, are on vacation, and it’s like 11:00pm.

Let’s talk about something positive. That food! So amazing! The dining room service was on point.  I definitely recommend doing the formal dining room and not the stuff on the top deck. I feel like this is where most of us were able to get our money’s worth.   We ate like kings and queens every night. The menu included a wide selection of dishes from beef, to chicken, to fish, to vegetarian. The dining room staff worked so hard and tried to give us everything we wanted. Want two entrees? No problem. Three appetizers? They didn’t even bat an eyelash. Here I found that incredible customer service I had grown to expect from cruise vacations. Lunch in the dining room was fantastic as well. That salad bar they had, I dream about it.  We also ordered room service for breakfast one morning and the person who brought us the food was so sweet that it added some positivity to an early morning.

There were a few things here and there that were a bit questionable. For instance, there was a crab dish one night that had some imitation crab meat in it. It didn’t bother me so much, I had two, but for the money we all spent I can see where that would be a problem. There was also no bar staff allowed in the dining room for some reason, so if we wanted a drink at dinner we had to bother our already busy wait staff with it. No fellas carrying around drinks of the day or shooters for us. I would have also loved to go a day without being hounded about making a reservation at a special restaurant that, of course, cost extra. I’ll stick with the mountains of free food, thanks.

I felt like the dress code wasn’t enforced enough in the dining room.  Now I realize this makes me sound like a snob, but they have a classy vibe going on in there. I don’t particularly like to dress up myself but I do it because it’s what’s appropriate and it’s kind of nice for vacation. If most of us can follow the rules and look presentable, why can’t you? I get the first night when everyone’s luggage might not have been delivered on time or maybe you’re new to cruising and didn’t know. After that, I feel like it’s disrespectful to come into the dining room in your cutoff shorts and tank tops.

Our second day docked on the island, the dining room was closed for lunch. Everyone had to be back aboard about midday as we were pulling out. This meant we all went to the top deck to eat at the same time and it was miserable. We had to awkwardly hover and monitor tables so we could pounce when someone got up.  The lines for the buffet style food were insane and slow moving. I just feel like this was something they should have anticipated and prepared for. I don’t understand why the dining room was closed when reason would say there would be a flood of people looking to get their grub on all at the same time.

Our room attendant was great, especially having to deal with how messy our room was. I have no complaints about the room situation. I knew it was going to be small and cramped. Like I said, I’ve done this before. I actually felt like there was a good amount of storage space for how small it was. The other folks in our group also told me they had good experiences with the room attendant and that he was very attentive.

We had a very helpful and informative shopping expert who did seminars and information sessions on the shopping on Bermuda. She had lots of good info on where to go and lots of deals for money off or free stuff when you got there. She was frequently in the stores on the island and was very present around the ship.  The stores on board the ship also had a great selection of stuff. They did free alcohol tastings and there ain’t nothing wrong with some duty free shopping.

We all enjoyed our shore excursions, mostly because we were in Bermuda (duh).  There was a good range of excursions to choose from by activity and by price.  I always feel safer when I’m doing something that’s affiliated with the cruise line and I don’t have to worry about getting lost or being late to the ship.  I felt especially good about this when we went to book our excursion the first day and they told us the one we had chosen had been removed as it no longer met their standards. Whether it was a safety thing or an issue with it not being worth the money being charged, I appreciated that the activities were scrutinized in this way.

A lot of the problems we had came from little things that kind of added up. I just feel like every time I’ve been on a cruise the level of customer service has been impeccable. On this trip I often felt like I was a bother or that things were just falling through the cracks. For instance, we paid $80 for birthday decorations and cake for my cousin in our room.  Though I had chosen chocolate cake for her, they brought vanilla. I know that’s not a huge deal but dang, that setup was expensive so to get it wrong is a bit frustrating. There was also stuff like cups, plates, trash, etc. being left all over the ship without being picked up.  Now keep in mind that there aren’t trash cans anywhere that guests can get to so we can’t throw stuff away ourselves. It seemed to just sit around and accumulate. One night a gentleman was cleaning the top deck by hosing it down, sending the cups and garbage flying all over the place. Super swank.

I certainly don’t want to give the impression that I had no fun at all. That’s simply not true. We all definitely enjoyed ourselves. I’ve just never been on a cruise before where I felt the customer service was so lacking in certain areas and that they were after my wallet so hard. I wonder if maybe the Grandeur is a training ship now or if Royal Caribbean is putting more money and effort into their newer, megaships. Maybe they were short staffed or something. My previous trip on the Grandeur went so differently that I have to wonder what changed. I personally feel that the experience shouldn’t suffer because I can’t afford to cruise on one of their floating cities.

At the end of the day, I believe a lot of the experience will be what you make it. My family, friends, and I had tons of fun despite these issues and it hasn’t changed my outlook on cruising. What is has done is taught me to do research and read recent reviews before booking.

Keep your eyes out for my cruise vlog and pics, they’re coming soon! Also, check out my previous blog post where I talk about 10 things you absolutely need to pack for a cruise vacation (“Essentials to Pack on a Cruise”).

Thanks for visiting! Don’t forget to subscribe!

#gallery-0-6 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-6 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-0-6 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-6 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

Getting ready to board

Docked in Bermuda!

That waterrr!

    Cruise Review: Royal Caribbean Grandeur of the Seas to Bermuda I recently took a cruise aboard Royal Caribbean's Grandeur of the Seas to the lovely Bermuda.  I thought I would give a little review of my experience on the high seas. 

[thegirlwholied]

Hiya! Since you're my go-to lover of SW Extended Universe, I was wondering if you had any recs for where to start reading within the EU and/or what some of your favorites are?

I legitimately have Star Wars: The Essential Reader’s Companion on my coffee table at the moment (since on May the 4th I grabbed a pile of visual-guides etc. from my library to rapidly study for a bar’s Star Wars trivia night) so this is inevitably going to be one of those My Time Has Come!!! posts.

Short answer is YES and there will be Choose Your Adventure Options.

Big Caveat, though, aka the cream & sugar with which to take this answer:

- Most of my Star Wars reading took place between ages 9-14 & the limited rereading I’ve done has mostly been post Rogue One & mostly skimming; this also means we’re talking Ye Olde EU here & at that mostly pre-2004 EU.

Also? A thing to know about the EU?

A lot of the “entry points” are kickoffs of 9-book series… or a 19-book series…or trilogies, including one with a sequel duology. So do you want:

Standalone?

Series Starter?

Short Stories?

Comics Instead?

Total Random Sampler if you want to go In Media Res to the nth degree?

All right, let’s go. ;D

Standalone.

Han/Leia focus?

For solid Leia characterization as well as banter-romance, some finding-out-Shmi-Skywalker-exists prequels shenanigans, & a plot about art from Alderaan (and secret Rebel codes), Tatooine Ghost.

For a Glorious Hot Mess… okay no probably don’t read Courtship of Princess Leia, but please do read this article on it.

Other focus?

Truce at Bakura - very sci-fi-y, very Imperial v. Rebel bidding for planetary political support plot-y, immediately after Return of the Jedi. Bonus for Anakin’s Force ghost visiting Leia… but I forgot more than I remember of this one so can’t vouch for much without a reread.  

Series Starter.

For ladies with lightsabers, villains who like art, and crazy clone stuff before anybody knew what the clone wars were supposed to be:

Heir to the Empire, 1st in the Thrawn Trilogy: the “It is Known” of the EU.

It was the real-life kickstarter of the main books, & the classic answer to your question. And it is hyped for reasons; while half of them are Zahn’s original creations (Talon Karrde, Mara Jade, Thrawn himself, Pellaeon, plus just New Republic & politics), a lot of it is just solidly managing a Han&Leia&Luke who feel and talk like their movie selves.

(Also, you’ve probably heard of Mara as Luke’s wife and pretty importantly? Very much not so in this trilogy, which is not to say the tension isn’t there. You could time jump the 10 years right to the Hand of Thrawn duology where the romantic tension is more Overtly There, since the in-between 10 years can be more or less handwaved as ‘New Republic & Jedi Academy Adventures Occurred’).

But my personal series pick:

X-Wing: Rogue Squadron. A 9-book series (+ a recent 10th follow-up feauring. one of Wedge’s daughters, which is on my to-read list since Allston, who wote 4 of the 9, may be my favorite EU writer).

The first 4 books are one Rogue Squadron arc; the second 3 are a separate trilogy (Wraith Squadron); next two are follow-ups but also kind of standalone adventures & I think the last, Starfighters of Adumar, may be the best beloved.

I’m a big judge-novels-by-their-first-sentence person, and the EU novels are…rarely great by that measurement. But Rogue Squadron starts with You’re good, Corran, but you’re no Luke Skywalker, which really is an excellent introduction to how this tie-in material is going to roll and to a brand-new Star Wars character (particularly as Corran’s reaction to that statement from Wedge tells us most of what we need to know about him & his biggest flaws on p. 1.)

Yes, lots of space battles; yes, almost all totally new characters aside from Wedge Antilles (but the “cameos” are great, when Luke & Leia etc. do show up); has its boys’ club feeling moments (most of our main ladies are love interests for one of the main pilots; even my beloved Wraith Squadron has The Girl™ syndrome). But the plots are about as good as the EU gets, and I have badly wanted this to be a TV series since I was small.

+, by book 2 of the X-Wing series you get 3 Star Wars ladies all in the same room talking to each other: Mirax Terrik (smuggler), Iella Wessiri (basically a detective who became an Intelligence officer), & Winter (many things, including Leia’s original BFF, but mainly undercover operative). And there’s 4 other plot-significant female characters I can think of in that book alone (2 on the good side, 2 less so), as well as a really excellent Leia cameo scene.

Alternate starting point: Just go with X-Wing #5, Wraith Squadron, as you don’t really need the first 4 to follow, & it laces much more humor in with the action, with added focus on 2 pilots from the original trilogy (Hobbie & Wes Janson, & this is why everyone loves Janson) as well as Wedge. Fewer ladies, although Tyria Sarkin is pretty darn great.  

Controversial starting point: From what I’ve seen of EU fandom, folks either love the New Jedi Order or hate it, and while (like most Star Wars books) it has Certain Things I take issue with… I mostly loved it, and Vector Prime, which kicks off the 19-book-series, was part of why.

Of the Solo kids, Jacen & Jaina had their own series (Young Jedi Knights) and Anakin had his own (Junior Jedi Knights); in the adult books, they’d mostly been little and played minor roles either a) being adorable or b) being kidnapped. Here is where they’re suddenly part of Real Galactic Shenanigans and the crisis of their generation kicks in.

It also marked the end of all’s well that end’s well era in Star Wars books, for, as Han puts it (thank you, Goodreads quotes):

“I had built this bubble around us. Around all of us-you, me, Chewie, the kids, Luke, Mara, even Lando. Heck, even the stupid droids. We were all in it, you know. In it and safe, a cozy family. Nothing could hurt us—could really hurt us.”

Also feat. Jaina Solo being the best damn up-and-coming pilot in the galaxy able to fly circles around her brothers.

Short Stories

Good option if you want a taste of the Primary EU authors’ styles without committing, and if you like shorts in general. (There’s a huge new short story anthology coming & I’m cautiously interested, since I remember these as fun):

Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina, Tales from Jabba’s Palace (you can meet Mara Jade here if you don’t want to commit to the Thrawn trilogy), Tales from the New Republic (includes the novella-length “Interlude at Darkknell” briefly feat. Bail Organa’s personal messenger “Aach” and more finding-out-about-the-Death-Star-plans shenanigans)      

Comics Instead

Rogue Squadron had a comic series too, completely separate from the novels/set earlier, & while I never read all (outlet mall had a bunch of the graphic novels for $2 and I swooped them up when I was 12), I’ve reread the ones I have, plenty. Would definitely recommend.

(Rogue One feels, with this comics quote, from the best lady pilot of the comic series: “Sometimes the only way evil can be defeated is by the selfless, sacrificial efforts of good people. We can only hope that when our time comes, the cause is as noble and the need as great.”)

And I remember liking the Mara Jade: By the Emperor’s Hand graphic novel.

Crazy Sampler Option

Where *I* started: Junior Jedi Knights: Vader’s Fortress, 9th birthday gift.

Surprise to me, Star Wars books exist! Surprise, Han and Leia have kids and one of them is Anakin Solo, age eleven, with the weight of being named after the ‘good man who was’ Anakin Skywalker on his shoulders & also ice blue eyes; surprise, he is now the love of my nine-year-old life.

Surprise, this is actually the 5th book in the ongoing Junior Jedi Knight series but the in media res did not phase me (helped by 90s-style reintroductions).

…in fact it made me like it better than I might have starting from the top. Maybe because I love mysteries, maybe because I’ve always gotten my books from libraries first & foremost & so would just grab whatever was available, I have started many a series, both accidentally and on purpose, with a book that was Very Much Not the First In the Series; if I like it, I usually backtrack.  

Absolutely No One suggests Junior Jedi Knights as a starting point… But. Adult!Me still gives an approving nod to some Really Nice Things here:

-this was my intro to the Luke’s Jedi Academy on Yavin 4, and I will forever love the aesthetic of his Jedi Academy being in the temple from A New Hope

-the best pseudo-Yoda-figure in the EU, with huggable Muppet-ready design.

-Immediately passes the Bechdel test thanks to conversation between Jedi instructor Tionne & Anakin’s BFF Tahiri (the Childhood Friend Romance Trope is strong in this series)

-Tionne herself, who names her ship Lore Seeker because she’s all about history and bought said ship “for a song” (traded an ancient song about the ‘very first Randoni merchants and the vaults where they hid their wealth’).

-I totally don’t still have this book and have it open in front of me at all what no

-You know how in Harry Potter Dumbledore writes a very nice letter back to Petunia explaining why she can’t come to Hogwarts? Luke… is not Dumbledore. Luke deals with Uldir, teenage son-of-two-cargo-pilots & stowaway who shows up on Yavin 4, desperate to become a Jedi despite zero Force talent, by letting him stay & participate in what training he could.  

-the plot: Vader kept Kenobi’s lightsaber (because of course) and they go to retrieve it at Vader’s Fortress.

- no lava because Mustafar wasn’t in-canon yet but yes otherwise it could basically be Vader’s Fortress from Rogue One exactly. Same aesthetic! You could consider this his Other Castle. The summer cottage.

-Anakin Solo finding Vader’s “bedroom” aka creepy sleeping cylinder, complete with tiny hologram of Luke Skywalker

So yes my randomly-ordered suggested-just-dive-the-heck-in sample pack, based more on “here are my favorite Star Wars book people and why I love them”, would include:

- Junior Jedi Knights: Vader’s Fortress

- Young Jedi Knights: Lightsabers (aka pay attention to what you’re doing kids or you might get your arm cut off or worse be the one to cut off the arm of the girl you like)

- the Mara comic if you’re not quite feeling All of the Thrawn 

- Rogue Squadron: Blood & Honor comic (because it is the one place you’ll get the full storyline on ‘who are these Fel people who keep coming up?’, meet Corran & Iella in their CorSec days, & Plourr gets to be great.)

- “Interlude at Darkknell” - it’s Stackpole (X-Wing writer) AND Zahn (Thrawn) co-writing, so you get a feel for them both, AND it’s short (…+ ”Aach”

X-Wing: Starfighters of Adumar, if you’re only going to read one of the nine

New Jedi Order was By No Means designed for any to be read as standalones and so I think delving in out of context would be an Experience but… If I Had to Pick One… 

I would cheat like a scoundrel & pick 2 and say the Enemy Lines duology, for both plot & dialogue & the best take on the Old Guard of the Rebel Alliance At War Again, but especially the dialogue (as quotable & memorable throughout as the EU gets).

[travelworldnetwork]

Jem Cresswell

Stretching along 1,400 miles of Australia’s eastern coast, the Great Barrier Reef is one of the greatest natural wonders of the world. Its coral shoals and atolls hold astonishing attractions like the Blue Hole and rare geological formations found few other places, not to mention a profusion of water-based wildlife.

Although the Reef remains on many travelers’ bucket lists, in recent years, scientists have raised concerned about damage wreaked on this water wonderland by climate change, including widespread coral bleaching. The good news is, eco-conscious tourism might be one way to help save the Reef. There are other aquatic adventures to be had around the rest of Australia where visitors can get close to the unique wildlife without the worry of overcrowding or environmental degradation.

Here are a few places where you can swim with Australia’s marine inhabitants without the many tourists you might encounter along the Great Barrier Reef.

Sea lions in Boston Bay, South Australia

Jem Cresswell

Swimming with sea lions has to be, hands down, one of the most delightful wildlife experiences in the world. The folks who run Adventure Bay Charters out of Port Lincoln on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula call them “the puppies of the sea,” and it is easy to see why. When the charter boat pulls up to the shallow waters of Seal Cove after a two-hour cruise, the animals practically leap off the beach and into the water, beckoning for the humans onboard to join them. What follows is an hour of swimming, diving, jumping, flipping and general merriment as the sea lions play around and with visitors. This is the exact experience waterproof GoPros were made for. Adult swims start at $205 AUD ($155) per person.

When to go: Depending on the charter company you go with, tours tend to operate between September and early June.

What else to do: Port Lincoln is a 50-minute flight west of Adelaide on either Rex or Qantas. The town itself is small, but has a lively dining scene with restaurants like Del Giorno’s for fresh seafood and gourmet Line and Label at Peter Teakle Wines, not to mention a craft brewery, Beer Garden Brewing, and upscale accommodations at the Port Lincoln Hotel.

Whale sharks at Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia

James D. Morgan/Getty Images

Growing up to 40 feet in length and weighing over 20 tons, whale sharks are the largest fish in the world. Though these gentle giants do have teeth, they are filter feeders who migrate through Western Australia’s UNESCO-listed Ningaloo Reef each year to feed in the plankton-rich waters. Only a handful of charter boat companies, including Ocean Eco Adventures and Live Ningaloo, have licenses to take visitors out to swim with the whale sharks and only 10 people are allowed in the water at a time per shark, so there are no jam-packed tourist boats or crowds of snap-happy sightseers. Once the sharks are located (usually with the aid of spotter planes flying overhead), snorkelers get into the water with guides and swim alongside these languid leviathans. The experience is both awe-inspiring and exhilarating. During the rest of the day trip, you might also spot manta rays, dolphins, turtles and humpback whales, so the whale sharks are just the start.

When to go: The whale sharks tend to migrate in through area from mid-April through mid-September, though the best sightings tend to occur May-July.

What else to do: The gateway to Ningaloo Reef is the town of Exmouth, about a two-hour flight north of Perth. Many folks stay in town at hotels like the Manta Rays Ningaloo Beach Resort and Exmouth Escape Resort. However, travelers on a bigger budget can book into Sal Salis, a low-impact, safari-style luxury camp right in Cape Range National Park along the coast. On land, folks can hike the dramatic canyons Yardie Creek and the rugged Mandu Mandu Gorge looking for wildlife like black-footed rock wallabies, red kangaroos, dingos, echidnas and emus.

Humpback whales on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland

Courtesy of Migration Media – Underwater Imaging

To the south of the Great Barrier Reef along Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, Sunreef has been offering humpback whale swims from its base in Mooloolaba since 2014. The company tries to take as low-impact an approach as possible as part of its self-imposed code of practice. Only 20 guests are allowed per cruise. The ship avoids mother-calf pairs, maintains a distance of at least 100 meters from the animals, assesses the whale’s behavior for any safety concerns and drops swimmers in the water at a slight remove from the whale, leaving it up to the animal whether to approach or not. Despite the hands-off tactics, the company estimates around 70% of excursions result in in-water interactions between humans and whales. Rates start at $149 AUD ($112) per person.

When to go: Humpbacks tend to pass by on their 7,000-mile journey to Antarctica during the Australian winter, with whale-swim charters departing July 6 through October 22 this year.

What else to do: The Sunshine coast is about 60 miles north of Brisbane, which makes Australia’s third-largest city the ideal base for a day trip up to see the whales. Brisbane’s art scene has been thriving in recent years thanks to the development of the South Bank cultural district with mainstays like the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art. In the Spring Hill neighborhood, The Johnson hotel is named after and displays the works of Michael Johnson, one of Australia’s most acclaimed contemporary artists. Be sure to book a table at cookbook author and chef Philip Johnson’s E’cco Bistro in the trendy new Skyring Terrace area, where the multi-course tasting menus incorporate seasonal produce from Queensland’s farms and seafood from its waters.

Sea turtles on Lord Howe Island, New South Wales

Getty Images

World Heritage-listed Lord Howe Island is one of Australia’s best-kept secrets. This tiny paradise is all that remains of an ancient volcanic crater, its forest-covered peaks rising dramatically from the ocean floor of the Tasman Sea about midway between Australia and New Zealand. Only 400 visitors at a time are allowed here, so it’s not long before everyone in town knows your name. The island is also home to hundreds of thousands of seabirds, 500 species of fish, 90 types of coral and enormous green sea turtles and endangered hawksbill turtles with whom you can simply hop in the water and snorkel alongside thanks to tour operators like Islander Cruises and Marine Adventures. Snorkeling cruises cost $50-$60 AUD ($38-$45) per person.

When to go: Lord Howe Island’s sub-tropical climate is temperate all year round, but the best time to see the turtles is November through April.

What else to do: Lord Howe Island is about a two-hour flight from either Sydney or Brisbane on Qantas. Arajilla Retreat has just 12 suites dotted around its lush, tropical gardens while the luxurious Capella Lodge is set off by itself on the island’s quieter south side. The island offers a plethora of hikes ranging from easy walks to challenging climbs, after which you can enjoy a DIY beach barbecue at Ned’s Beach.

Wild dolphins in Rockingham, Western Australia

Courtesy of Rockingham Wild Encounters

Waterparks offering “swimming with dolphins” are a dime a dozen in vacation destinations around the world. What sets this excursion apart, though, is the fact that participants get to visit wild dolphins on their own terms. Rockingham Wild Encounters has been providing these tours since 1989, so they actually know many of the 200 bottlenose dolphins who live in the area by name, and the focus is firmly on education and conservation as guides provide insight into the dolphins’ behavior, life cycle and the environment issues that impact them. But let’s not undersell the fun. While snorkelers are in the water, the dolphins tend to swim and play, hunt fish and even mate. Best of all, the company has a 99% success rate of locating and getting people in the water with the wild dolphins on any given day.

When to go: Rockingham Wild Encounters offers these tours from September through early June with prices starting at $205 AUD ($155) per person.

What else to do: Rockingham is a 45-minute drive south of Perth, which has recently seen the debut of myriad new hotels including the luxurious COMO The Treasury, the bohemian Tribe Perth and the just-opened Westin Perth. The city’s riverfront Elizabeth Quay has undergone a huge redevelopment with restaurants, bars and shops, while the Northbridge neighborhood has become the city’s arts hubs thanks to institutions like the State Theatre Centre, the Perth Cultural Centre and the Art Gallery of WA.

Great white sharks in the Neptune Islands, South Australia

Jem Cresswell

Want to swim with some of the Earth’s most fearsome predators? The Neptune Islands off South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula are one of the only places in the country where you can go cage diving with great white sharks. You might also be lucky enough to see some of the other types of sharks that frequent the area, like hammerheads, bronze whalers and makos as well as dolphins, orcas and more. Long-running operators include Calypso Star Charters for day tours and Rodney Fox Shark Expeditions for multi-day sea safaris with the option of staying in either a surface cage or scuba diving in one that descends to the ocean floor.

When to go: Tours run year-round.

What else to do: Port Lincoln will be your base for this one as well. Plan to stay a few extra days so you can spend time with bespoke tour operators like Goin’ Off Safaris and Australian Wildlife Adventures who can arrange activities like scenic helicopter flights over the dramatic coastline, beach fishing and picnics, and an oyster bed tour and tasting with Pure Coffin Bay Oysters.

from travelandleisure.com

The post You Don’t Have to Go to the Great Barrier Reef to Swim With Australia’s Wildest Animals appeared first on Travel World Network.

[yahooin-travel-inspirations]

You don’t have to go to the Great Barrier Reef to swim with Australia’s wildest animals

Stretching along 1,400 miles of Australia’s eastern coast, the Great Barrier Reef is one of the greatest natural wonders of the world. Its coral shoals and atolls hold astonishing attractions like the Blue Hole and rare geological formations found few other places, not to mention a profusion of water-based wildlife.

Although the Reef remains on many travelers’ bucket lists, in recent years, scientists have raised concerned about damage wreaked on this water wonderland by climate change, including widespread coral bleaching. The good news is, eco-conscious tourism might be one way to help save the Reef. There are other aquatic adventures to be had around the rest of Australia where visitors can get close to the unique wildlife without the worry of overcrowding or environmental degradation.

Here are a few places where you can swim with Australia’s marine inhabitants without the many tourists you might encounter along the Great Barrier Reef.

Sea lions in Boston Bay, South Australia

Swimming with sea lions has to be, hands down, one of the most delightful wildlife experiences in the world. The folks who run Adventure Bay Charters out of Port Lincoln on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula call them “the puppies of the sea,” and it is easy to see why. When the charter boat pulls up to the shallow waters of Seal Cove after a two-hour cruise, the animals practically leap off the beach and into the water, beckoning for the humans onboard to join them. What follows is an hour of swimming, diving, jumping, flipping and general merriment as the sea lions play around and with visitors. This is the exact experience waterproof GoPros were made for. Adult swims start at $205 AUD ($155) per person.

When to go: Depending on the charter company you go with, tours tend to operate between September and early June.

What else to do: Port Lincoln is a 50-minute flight west of Adelaide on either Rex or Qantas. The town itself is small, but has a lively dining scene with restaurants like Del Giorno’s for fresh seafood and gourmet Line and Label at Peter Teakle Wines, not to mention a craft brewery, Beer Garden Brewing, and upscale accommodations at the Port Lincoln Hotel.

Whale sharks at Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia

Growing up to 40 feet in length and weighing over 20 tons, whale sharks are the largest fish in the world. Though these gentle giants do have teeth, they are filter feeders who migrate through Western Australia’s UNESCO-listed Ningaloo Reef each year to feed in the plankton-rich waters. Only a handful of charter boat companies, including Ocean Eco Adventures and Live Ningaloo, have licenses to take visitors out to swim with the whale sharks and only 10 people are allowed in the water at a time per shark, so there are no jam-packed tourist boats or crowds of snap-happy sightseers. Once the sharks are located (usually with the aid of spotter planes flying overhead), snorkelers get into the water with guides and swim alongside these languid leviathans. The experience is both awe-inspiring and exhilarating. During the rest of the day trip, you might also spot manta rays, dolphins, turtles and humpback whales, so the whale sharks are just the start.

When to go: The whale sharks tend to migrate in through area from mid-April through mid-September, though the best sightings tend to occur May-July.

What else to do: The gateway to Ningaloo Reef is the town of Exmouth, about a two-hour flight north of Perth. Many folks stay in town at hotels like the Manta Rays Ningaloo Beach Resort and Exmouth Escape Resort. However, travelers on a bigger budget can book into Sal Salis, a low-impact, safari-style luxury camp right in Cape Range National Park along the coast. On land, folks can hike the dramatic canyons Yardie Creek and the rugged Mandu Mandu Gorge looking for wildlife like black-footed rock wallabies, red kangaroos, dingos, echidnas and emus.

Humpback whales on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland

To the south of the Great Barrier Reef along Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, Sunreef has been offering humpback whale swims from its base in Mooloolaba since 2014. The company tries to take as low-impact an approach as possible as part of its self-imposed code of practice. Only 20 guests are allowed per cruise. The ship avoids mother-calf pairs, maintains a distance of at least 100 meters from the animals, assesses the whale’s behavior for any safety concerns and drops swimmers in the water at a slight remove from the whale, leaving it up to the animal whether to approach or not. Despite the hands-off tactics, the company estimates around 70% of excursions result in in-water interactions between humans and whales. Rates start at $149 AUD ($112) per person.

When to go: Humpbacks tend to pass by on their 7,000-mile journey to Antarctica during the Australian winter, with whale-swim charters departing July 6 through October 22 this year.

What else to do: The Sunshine coast is about 60 miles north of Brisbane, which makes Australia’s third-largest city the ideal base for a day trip up to see the whales. Brisbane’s art scene has been thriving in recent years thanks to the development of the South Bank cultural district with mainstays like the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art. In the Spring Hill neighborhood, The Johnson hotel is named after and displays the works of Michael Johnson, one of Australia’s most acclaimed contemporary artists. Be sure to book a table at cookbook author and chef Philip Johnson’s E’cco Bistro in the trendy new Skyring Terrace area, where the multi-course tasting menus incorporate seasonal produce from Queensland’s farms and seafood from its waters.

Sea turtles on Lord Howe Island, New South Wales

World Heritage-listed Lord Howe Island is one of Australia’s best-kept secrets. This tiny paradise is all that remains of an ancient volcanic crater, its forest-covered peaks rising dramatically from the ocean floor of the Tasman Sea about midway between Australia and New Zealand. Only 400 visitors at a time are allowed here, so it’s not long before everyone in town knows your name. The island is also home to hundreds of thousands of seabirds, 500 species of fish, 90 types of coral and enormous green sea turtles and endangered hawksbill turtles with whom you can simply hop in the water and snorkel alongside thanks to tour operators like Islander Cruises and Marine Adventures. Snorkeling cruises cost $50-$60 AUD ($38-$45) per person.

When to go: Lord Howe Island’s sub-tropical climate is temperate all year round, but the best time to see the turtles is November through April.

What else to do: Lord Howe Island is about a two-hour flight from either Sydney or Brisbane on Qantas. Arajilla Retreat has just 12 suites dotted around its lush, tropical gardens while the luxurious Capella Lodge is set off by itself on the island’s quieter south side. The island offers a plethora of hikes ranging from easy walks to challenging climbs, after which you can enjoy a DIY beach barbecue at Ned’s Beach.

Wild dolphins in Rockingham, Western Australia

Waterparks offering “swimming with dolphins” are a dime a dozen in vacation destinations around the world. What sets this excursion apart, though, is the fact that participants get to visit wild dolphins on their own terms. Rockingham Wild Encounters has been providing these tours since 1989, so they actually know many of the 200 bottlenose dolphins who live in the area by name, and the focus is firmly on education and conservation as guides provide insight into the dolphins’ behavior, life cycle and the environment issues that impact them. But let’s not undersell the fun. While snorkelers are in the water, the dolphins tend to swim and play, hunt fish and even mate. Best of all, the company has a 99% success rate of locating and getting people in the water with the wild dolphins on any given day.

When to go: Rockingham Wild Encounters offers these tours from September through early June with prices starting at $205 AUD ($155) per person.

What else to do: Rockingham is a 45-minute drive south of Perth, which has recently seen the debut of myriad new hotels including the luxurious COMO The Treasury, the bohemian Tribe Perth and the just-opened Westin Perth. The city’s riverfront Elizabeth Quay has undergone a huge redevelopment with restaurants, bars and shops, while the Northbridge neighborhood has become the city’s arts hubs thanks to institutions like the State Theatre Centre, the Perth Cultural Centre and the Art Gallery of WA.

Great white sharks in the Neptune Islands, South Australia

%image1

Want to swim with some of the Earth’s most fearsome predators? The Neptune Islands off South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula are one of the only places in the country where you can go cage diving with great white sharks. You might also be lucky enough to see some of the other types of sharks that frequent the area, like hammerheads, bronze whalers and makos as well as dolphins, orcas and more. Long-running operators include Calypso Star Charters for day tours and Rodney Fox Shark Expeditions for multi-day sea safaris with the option of staying in either a surface cage or scuba diving in one that descends to the ocean floor.

When to go: Tours run year-round.

What else to do: Port Lincoln will be your base for this one as well. Plan to stay a few extra days so you can spend time with bespoke tour operators like Goin’ Off Safaris and Australian Wildlife Adventures who can arrange activities like scenic helicopter flights over the dramatic coastline, beach fishing and picnics, and an oyster bed tour and tasting with Pure Coffin Bay Oysters.