#was too tired this was all from memory

[arachred]

at what point am i considered a queen historian

[turtleblogatlast]

Don’t think I ever quite said what my LGBTQ+ headcanons are for the boys, so these are my current thoughts! Always changing of course but this is what I feel most strongly right now.

[pseudophan]

gonna be so sad when tonight is the first preshow space with good audio and i'm asleep because i have a psych appointment tomorrow

[princelancey]

Lance is such a let bygones be bygones kind of a guy, we should embrace that energy more often in sports tbh, it's never that serious

[acourtofquestions]

Rowaelin Chapter 41 Kingdom of Ash:

She'd rebuild it—what she had been.

Perhaps one last time, perhaps only for a little while, but she'd do it. If only for Terrasen.

Rowan swooped from the mast, shifting as he reached her side at the rail. He surveyed the night-black sea beyond them. "You should rest." She slid him a glance. "I'm not tired." Not a lie, not in some regards. "Want to spar?" He frowned. "Training can start tomorrow."

"Or tonight." She held his piercing stare, matched his dominance with her own.

"It can wait a few hours, Aelin."

"Every day counts." Against Erawan, even a day of training would count.

Rowan's jaw tightened. "True," he said at last. "But it can still wait. There are ... there are things we need to discuss." The silent words rose in his animal-bright eyes. About you and me.

Her mouth went dry. But Aelin nodded In silence, they strode into their spacious quarters, its only decoration the wall of windows that overlooked the churning sea behind them. A far cry from a queen's chamber, or any she might have purchased as Adarlan's assassin.

At least the bed built into the wall looked clean enough, the sheets crisp and stainless. But Aelin headed for the oak desk anchored to the floor, and leaned against it while Rowan shut the door.

In the dim lantern light, they stared at each other.

She'd endured Maeve and Cairn; she'd endured Endovier and countless other horrors and losses. She could have this conversation with him. The first step toward rebuilding herself.

Aelin knew Rowan could hear her thundering heart as the space between them went taut. She swallowed once. "Elide and Lorcan told you... told you everything that was said on that beach."

A curt nod, wariness flooding his eyes. "Everything that Maeve said." Another nod.

She braced herself. "That I'm-we're mates."

Understanding and something like relief replaced that wariness. "Yes."

"I'm your mate," she said, needing to voice it. "And you are mine."

Rowan crossed the room, but halted a few feet from the desk on which she leaned. "What of it, Aelin?" His question was low, rough.

"Don't you..." She scrubbed at her face. "You know what she did to you, to ..." She couldn't say her name. Lyria. "Because of it."

"I do know."

"And?"

"And what do you wish me to say?"

She pushed off the desk. "I wish you to tell me how you feel about it. If…"

"If what?"

"If you wish it wasn't so."

His brows narrowed. "Why would I ever wish that?"

She shook her head, unable to answer, and stared over her shoulder toward the sea.

It seemed like he would close the distance between them, but he remained where he was.

"Aelin." His voice turned hoarse. "Aelin."

She looked at him then, at the pain in his words.

"Do you know what I wish?" He exposed his palms, one tattooed, the other unmarked. "I wish that you had told me. When you realized it. I wish you had told me then."

She swallowed against the ache in her throat. "I didn't want to hurt you."

"Why would it ever hurt me to know the truth that was already in my heart? The truth I hoped for?"

"I didn't understand it. I didn't understand how it was possible. I thought maybe ... maybe you might be able to have two mates within a lifetime, but even then, I just ….." She blew out a breath. "I didn't want you to be distressed." His eyes softened. "Do I regret that Lyria was dragged into this, that the cost of Maeve's game was her life, and the life of the child we might have had? Yes. I regret that, and I wish it had never happened." He would bear the tattoo to remember it for the rest of his days. "But none of that was your fault. I will always carry some of the burden of it, always know I chose to leave her for war and glory, and that I played right into Maeve's hands."

"Maeve wanted to ensnare you to get to me, though."

"Then it is her choice, not yours."

Aelin ran a hand over the worn wood of the desk. "In those illusions she spun for me, she showed me variations on one more than all the others." The words were strained, but she forced them out. Forced herself to look at him. "She spun me one dreamscape that felt so real I could smell the wind off the Staghorns."

"What did she show you?" A breathless question.

Aelin had to swallow before she could answer. "She showed me what might have been—if there had been no Erawan, if Elena had dealt with him properly and banished him. If there had been no Lyria, none of that pain or despair you endured. She showed me Terrasen as it would have been today, with my father as king, and my childhood happy, and..." Her lips wobbled. "When I turned twenty, you came with a delegation of Fae to Terrasen, to make amends for the rift between my mother and Maeve. And you and I took one look at each other in my father's throne room, and we knew."

She didn't fight the stinging in her eyes. "I wanted to believe that was the true world. That this was the nightmare from which I'd awaken. I wanted to believe that there was a place where you and I had never known this suffering and loss, where we'd take one look at each other and know we were mates. Maeve told me she could make it so. If I gave her the keys, she'd make it all possible." She wiped at her cheek, at the tear that escaped down it. "She spun me realities where you were dead, where you'd been killed by Erawan and only in handing over the keys to her would I be able to avenge you. But those realities made me ... I stopped being useful to her when she told me you were gone. She couldn't get me to talk, to think. Yet in the ones where you and I met, where things were as they should have been ... that was when I came the closest."

His swallow was audible. "What stopped you?"

She wiped at her face again. "The male I fell in love with was you. It was you, who knew pain as I did, and who walked with me through it, back to the light. Maeve didn't understand that. That even if she could create that perfect world, it wouldn't be you with me. And I'd never trade that, trade this. Not for anything." He extended his hand. An offer and invitation.

Aelin laid hers atop his, and his callused fingers squeezed gently. "I wanted it to be you," he breathed, closing his eyes. "For months and months, even in Wendlyn, I wondered why you weren't my mate instead. It tore me up, wondering it, but I still did." He opened his eyes, and they burned like green fire. "All this time, I wanted it to be you."

She lowered her gaze, but he hooked a thumb and forefinger around her chin and lifted her face.

"I know you are tired, Fireheart. I know that the burden on your shoulders is more than anyone should endure." He took their joined hands and laid them on his heart. "But we'll face this together. Erawan, the Lock, all of it.

"We'll face it together. And when we are done, when you Settle, we will have a thousand years together. Longer."

A small sound came out of her. "Elena said the Lock requires—"

"We'll face it together," he swore again.

"And if the cost of it truly is you, then we'll pay it together. As one soul in two bodies.

Her heart strained to the point of cleaving. "Terrasen needs a king."

"I have no intention of ruling Terrasen without you. Aedion can have the job."

She scanned his face. He meant every word He brushed the hair from her face, his other hand still clasping hers to his chest, where his heart pounded a steady, unfaltering rhythm.

"Even if I had my choice of any dream-realities, any perfect illusions, I would still choose you, too."

She felt the truth of his words echo into the unbreakable thing that bound their very souls, and tilted her face up toward his. But he made no move beyond it.

She frowned. "Why aren't you kissing me?"

"I thought you might want to be asked first."

"That never stopped you before."

"This first time, I wanted to make sure you were ... ready." After Cairn and Maeve. After months of having no choices whatsoever.

She smiled despite that truth. "I'm ready to be kissed again, Prince."

He let out a dark chuckle and muttered, "Thank the gods," before he lowered his mouth to hers.

"You're my mate." Her words were a breathless rush. "And I am yours."

The world might have been burning around them for all she cared, all he cared, too.

"Together, Aelin," he promised, and she heard the rest of the words in every place their bodies joined. Together they would face this, together they would find a way.

Together we'll find a way, their mingling breaths, the crashing sea, seemed to echo.

Together.

[deus-ex-mona]

my five surviving braincells when something remotely good happens:

[frosty-tian]

Despite me still really missing BoulGram and holding them dear to my heart (which some might have read about in the deleted post), the time the new hyperfixiation kicked in was actually perfect timing because so many unexpected shit happened, one which I still haven’t gotten over and am likely a slightly traumatized by.

Funny how things worked out.

Working on everything to the point of collapsing seems to be the only solution because being alone is the only way to be safe.

[alchemiclee]

I hate that whenever there's a gay ship, people immediately het-ify it. people are so obsessed with making one the "man" and one the "woman" when that's completely unnecessary, because they are both the man or the woman. It's extremely annoying. these people will completely mischaracterize a character to fit into their stupid little het roles they force on them.

for example, you don't need to make one man the "wife" and feminized him to the extreme and fit him in a traditional "woman" role so the other man can be the big strong masculine manly man. they can both be masculine or both be feminine or both be both at the same time! they do NOT need to be gendered opposites to fit het roles. crazy, I know! it's like no one considers it a possibility! or sees how good it can be to have them be equals without gendered nonsense.

when there's a gay relationship, you have the perfect opportunity for the couple to stand on equal ground. they get to be equals who are just as strong and just as soft as each other. there's no faulty power dynamics where one is above the other (because let's face it, society unfortunately deems masculinity > femininity). one doesn't need to protect the other. they can protect themsleves, fight aide by side as equals. one doesn't do all the housework. they share that duty equally. one isn't weak and pretty, while they other strong and manly. they both are strong and pretty, or masculine and weak at the same time.

equal relationships are amazing and need to be explored more and appreciated. there can be more understanding and working together. i'm bad at explaining what I mean, but I prefer these equal relationships over forcing them into opposite roles to mirror het relationships, which are usually extremely unbalanced and unequal. especially because these not het relationships! so why must they look like one? they can and should look different! so why does literally every shipper and writer out there make them so het coded?

I don't understand why people do this. do they actually believe all romantic relationships must mimic het ones to exist and thrive and purposely force that on them? or have they genuinely just not fathamed that they can be different and dont need to follow the expected het standards?

I wonder, it feels like no one actually knows how non-het relationships are meant to be and how they could work, since het ones are always forced down our throats since birth. it becomes The Standard that everyone thinks they must follow. maybe it's all people know since they don't see any other possibilities. their preferred dynamics for their ships are what we are taught and nothing different, because they don't know it can be different. i also think people might be obsessed with that whole "opposites attract" trope. but that opposite doesn't have to be the traditional het-fueld feminine vs masculine or wife vs husband characteristics. it can be other personality things like one is loud and one is quiet, one is dumb and one is overly smart, one is rich and one poor, etc. it doesn't have to be masculine vs feminine!

BREAK OUT OF THE HET NORMS!!!!! TEAR DOWN HETERONORMATIVITY!!!!!!!!! FREE THE GAYS

(disclaimer, not saying masculine vs feminine ships are all bad/shouldn't be done ever. but it doesn't need to be 100% of the time either 😅 can't think of one ship people dont do this with lol)

[autumnalhalcyon]

.

[silverselfshippingchaos]

Your guy!!!

MAXXIIIIIII HI BABEEEE!!!!

[dancing-with-stars]

i am losing my mind

[acourtofquestions]

She had not trusted this world, this dream.

The companions who had walked with her, led her here.

The warrior-prince with pine-green eyes and who smelled of Terrasen.

Him, she had not dared to believe at all. Not the words he spoke, but the mere fact that he was there. She did not trust that he'd removed the mask, the irons. They had vanished in other dreams, too—dreams that had proved false.

But the Little Folk had told her it was true. All of this. They had said it was safe, and she was to rest, and they would look after her.

And that terrible, relentless pressure writhing in her veins—it had eased. Just enough to think, to breathe and act beyond pure instinct. She'd siphoned off as much as she dared, but not all. Certainly not all.

So she had slept. She'd done that, too, in those other dreams. Had lived through days and weeks of stories that then washed away like footprints in the sand.

Yet when she opened her eyes, the cave remained, dimmer now. The thrumming power had nestled deeper, slumbering. The ache in her ribs had faded, the slice down her forearm had healed—but the scab remained.

The only mark on her.

Aelin prodded it with a finger. Dull pain echoed in response. Smooth—not the scab, but her finger. Smooth like glass as she rubbed the pads of her thumb and forefinger together. No calluses. Not on her fingers, on her palms. Utterly blank, wiped of the imprint from the years of training, or the year in Endovier. But this new scab, this faint throbbing beneath it—that remained, at least.

Curled on the rock floor, she took in the cave. The white wolf lay at her back, snoring softly. Their sphere of transparent flame still burned around them, easing the strain ember by ember. But not wholly.

Aelin swallowed, tasting ash. Her magic opened an eye in response. Aelin sucked in a breath. Not here not yet. She whispered it to the flame. Not yet.

But the flame around her and the wolf flared and thickened, blotting out the cave. She clenched her jaw.

Not yet, she promised it. Not until it could be done safely. Away from them.

Her magic pushed against her bones, but she ignored it. Leashed it. The bubble of flame shrunk, protesting, and grew transparent once more. Through it she could make out a water-carved basin, the slumbering forms of her other companions.

The warrior-prince slept only a few feet from the edge of her fire, tucked into an alcove in the cave wall. Exhaustion lay heavy upon him, though he had not disarmed himself.

A sword hung from his belt, its ruby smoldering in the light of her fire.

She knew that sword. An ancient sword, forged in these lands for a deadly war. It had been her sword, too. Those erased calluses had fit its hilt so perfectly. And the warrior-prince now bearing it had found the sword for her. In a cave like this one, full of the relics of heroes long since sent to the Afterworld.

She studied the tattoo snaking down the side of his face and neck, vanishing into his dark clothes.

I am your mate.

She had wanted to believe him, but this dream, this illusion she'd been spun ... Not an illusion.

He had come for her.

Rowan.

Rowan Whitethorn.

Now Rowan Whitethorn Galathynius, her husband and king-consort. Her mate.

She mouthed his name.

He had come for her.

Rowan.

Silently, so smoothly that not even the white wolf awoke, she sat up, a hand clutching the cloak that smelled of pine and snow. His cloak, his scent woven through the fibers. She rose to her feet, legs sturdier than they'd been. A thought had the bubble of flame expanding as she crossed the few feet toward the sleeping prince.

She peered down at his face, handsome and yet unyielding.

His eyes opened, meeting hers as if he'd known where to find her even in sleep.

An unspoken question arose in those green eyes. Aelin?

She ignored the silent inquiry, unable bear opening that silent channel between them again, and surveyed the powerful lines of his body, the sheer size of him. A gentle wind kissed with ice and lightning brushed against her wall of flame, an echo of his silent inquiry.

Her magic flared in answer, a ripple of power dancing through her.

As if it had found a mirror of itself in the world, as if it had found the countermelody to its own song.

Not once in those illusions or dreams had it done that. Had her own flame leaped in joy at his nearness, his power.

He was here. It was him, and he'd come for her.

The flame melted into nothing but cool cave air. Not melted, but rather sucked inside herself, coiling, a great beast straining at the leash.

Rowan. Prince Rowan.

He sat up slowly, a stillness settling over him.

He knew. He'd said it to her earlier, before she'd let oblivion claim her. I am your mate.

They must have told him, then. Their companions. Elide and Lorcan and Gavriel.

They'd all been on that beach where everything had gone to hell.

Her magic surged, and she rolled her shoulders, willing it to sleep, to wait-just a while longer.

She was here. They were both here.

What could she ever say to him, to explain it, to make it right? That he'd been used so foully, had suffered so greatly, because of her?

There was blood on him. So much blood, soaking into his dark clothes. From the smears on his neck, the arcs under his fingernails, it seemed he'd tried to wash some off. But the scent remained.

She knew that smell—who it belonged to.

Her spine tightened, her limbs tensing. Working past her clenched jaw, she inhaled sharply. Forced a long breath out through her teeth. Forced herself to work past the scent of Cairn's blood. What it did to her. Her magic thrashed, howling.

And she made herself say to him, to her prince who smelled of home, "Is he alive?"

Cold rage flickered across Rowan's eyes.

"No."

Dead. Cairn was dead. The tautness in her body eased-just slightly. Her flame, too, banked. "How?"

No remorse dimmed his face. "You once told me at Mistward that if I ever took a whip to you, then you'd skin me alive." His eyes didn't stray from hers as he said with lethal quiet, "I took it upon myself to bestow that fate on Cairn on your behalf. And when I was done, I took the liberty of removing his head from his body, then burning what remained." A pause, a ripple of doubt. "I'm sorry I didn't give you the chance to do it yourself."

She didn't have it in her to feel a spark of surprise, to marvel at the brutality of the vengeance he'd exacted. Not as the words sank in. Not as her lungs opened up once again.

"I couldn't risk bringing him here for you to kill," Rowan went on, scanning her face. "Or risk leaving him alive, either."

She lifted her palms, studying the unmarked, empty skin.

Cairn had done that.

Had shredded her apart so badly they needed to put her back together again. Had wiped away all traces of who and what she'd been, what she'd seen and endured.

She lowered her hands to her sides. "I'm glad," she said, and the words were true.

A shudder went through Rowan, and his head dipped slightly. "Are you..." He seemed to grapple with the right word. "Can I hold you?"

The stark need in his voice ripped at her, but she stepped back. "I ..." She scanned the cave, blocking out the way his eyes guttered at her retreat. Across the chamber, the great lake flowed, smooth and flat as a black mirror. "I need to bathe," she said, her voice low and raw. Even if there wasn't a mark on her beyond dirty feet. "I need to wash it away," she tried again.

Understanding softened his eyes. He pointed with a tattooed hand to the trough nearby. "There are a few extra cloths for you to wash with." Dragging a hand through his silver hair, longer than she'd last seen it—in this world, this truth, at least—he added, "I don't know how, but they also found some of your old clothes from Mistward and brought them here." But words were becoming distant again, dissolving on her tongue.

Her magic rumbled, pressing against her blood, I, squeezing her bones. Out, it howled. Out.

Soon, she promised.

Now. It thrashed. Her hands trembled, curling, as if she could keep it in.

So she turned away, aiming not toward the trough but the lake beyond.

The air stirred behind her, and she felt him following. When Rowan gleaned where she intended to bathe, he warned, "That water is barely above freezing, Aelin."

She just dropped the cloak onto the black stones and stepped into the water.

Steam hissed, wafting around her in billowing clouds. She kept going, embracing the water's bite with each step, even if it failed to pierce the heat of her.

The water was clear, though the gloom veiled the bottom that sloped away as she dove under the frigid surface.

The water was silent. Cool, and welcome, and calm.

So Aelin loosened the leash—only a fraction. Flame leapt out, devoured by the frigid water. Consumed by it. It pulled away that pressure, that endless fog of heat. Soothed and chilled until thoughts took form. With each stroke beneath the surface, out into the darkness, she could feel it again. Herself. Or whatever was left of it.

Aelin. She was Aelin Ashryver Whitethorn Galathynius, and she was Queen of Terrasen.

More magic rippled out, but she held her grip. Not all-not yet.

She had been captured by Maeve, tortured by her. Tortured by Cairn, her sentinel. But she had escaped, and her mate had come for her. Had found her, just as they had found each other despite centuries of bloodshed and loss and war.

Aelin. She was Aelin, and this was not some illusion, but the real world.

Aelin.

She swam out into the lake, and Rowan followed the jutting lip of stone along the shore's edge. She dropped beneath the surface, letting herself sink and sink and sink, toes grasping only open, cool water, straining for a bottom that did not arrive.

Down into the dark, the cold.

The ancient, icy water pulled away the flame and heat and strain. Pulled and sucked and waved it off.

Cooled that burning core of her until she took form, a blade red-hot from the fire plunged into water.

Aelin. That's who she was.

[elegyofthemoon]

re: hsr 2.1 spoilers (idk has it been long enough since? im just gonna tag it anyways to be safe x - x)

see, here was my thought with trying to find the memory zone victim list: I was really hoping that by getting the victim list I'd be able to see how or why memory zone memes exist/why do they attack, but what I did learn is they just attack whoever. There really isn't any big pattern between the different victims

But what I do notice is that in the victim list they use the word "abducted" rather than killed. So just "missing" instead of "dead." But it's traumatizing enough that eyewitnesses need to get their memory wiped by the Family, so... it could seem like they had been killed.

If you talk to one of the NPCs in Golden Hour Lew Archer, she talks about how she's jumped off the rails in Golden Hour several times now out of guilt for the case she had been trying to work on, which included getting a child killed in action, so whoever dies in a dream only just wakes up in reality. And then even in Black Swan's companion quest, you hear about Sparkle's victims being woken up after the attack and having to be taken care of.

If that's the case, maybe the "abduction" done by the memory zone memes causes the victims to not be able to return to reality.

But it's still weird though: why is it that Firefly splatters into water when she gets killed by the meme and why is that Robin's body remains? 🤔That was also something I was hoping the victim list would give me some ideas on, but guess not slakdajfh

[flintbian]

Well, one year to go

[bittwitchy]

those 40 gifs took 5 hours btw

[claratwelve]

yeah no okay i just finished s13 and i loved it, that was some good cinema