#what a trip down memory lane . still insane LOL

[nick-cassidy]

you had an estie bestie era???.

YES 😭 I don’t know if anyone was into f1 around 2019-2020 but nobody liked him AT ALL and the tag was three specs of dust and Me . Ppl would send me crazy asks like below . Have been humbled ever since

[ayyy-pee]

Hi lexi! I just finished Strangers in Love and it’s so beautiful that I just don’t want to let it go yet! Would you be open to maybe writing a drabble for Reader x Nanami in this story? Like when they first started dating in high school? I’d love to learn their history

Thank you for all your great works! ❤️

omg anon i'm sooooo sorry it took me so long to get back to you! i'm barely crawling out of my slump lol but i hope you like this. it got a little more angsty than i intended but it felt a little fitting for them idk T_T. hope you enjoy!

𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞 - 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐲

Discord 18+ - Twitter - JJK Masterlist

Pairing: Nanami Kento x Female Reader

Summary: You and Nanami take a trip down memory lane.

Genre: Divorced to Lovers AU

The tension is thick in the apartment as you and Nanami set down the final pair of small boxes you'd retrieved from your storage space on the coffee table. Satoru is over for some reason, lounging lazily on the floor. Without a word, you and Nanami take a seat on the sofa, a good amount of space between you two. The boxes sit there, untouched in the silence. Satoru's eyes dart between the two of you before he leans forward and peels the tape off of one.

"I take it therapy didn't go well..." Satoru sighs, pulling out the contents of the box.

An understatement. It's been quiet like this since you and Nanami had returned home from one of your couples therapy sessions. After a very intense session going over the reasons for your initial divorce, you both left feeling...honestly? frustrated with each other. 

Where you felt justified in how you handled the divorce situation, Nanami disagreed. He'd of course apologized for what you felt contributed to your first marriage’s demise, but felt he would have been willing to work through things had you come to him, had you waited for him to be in a better headspace.

Where Nanami voiced how he felt things could have worked out differently, you disagreed. You didn't feel there was a way to work past your issues at the time, Nanami being too stubborn and "too tired" to ever listen.

There didn't seem to be a way for you two to agree. And so, your therapist gave you homework. Your assignment? Go on a walk down memory lane together. Apparently you and Nanami had a habit of dwelling on the negatives when it came to discussing your divorce. It was a sore spot for you both.

You'd left therapy, annoyed and in a sour mood, muttering to Nanami to take you to your storage space where all the pictures, gifts and memories…your entire relationship with Nanami stood frozen in time. And Nanami, in as sour a mood as you, agreed. You'd arrived home to find Gojo sprawled out on your floor. Who even knew how he'd gotten in there? At this point, you just assumed he could move through walls.

"Ewwww, you kept this?" Satoru whines, pulling a picture of him, Nanami and you in high school from the box. It's a selfie of the three of you, though Satoru should’ve never been in it. You reach forward, taking the tiny photo from your friend and Nanami closes the distance on the sofa, scooting closer to have a good look.

You remember it well, the first picture you'd ever taken together.

High School Years

It had been a little under a year since you'd transferred to Jujutsu Technical High School for your Junior year and you were still adjusting to how insanely difficult the curriculum was. You were lounging beneath the shade of a tree during lunch period with Nanami, quietly chatting about how damn hard your physics lab was. Nanami listened patiently, humming to indicate he was paying attention to you as he flipped through your physics work.

You're waiting for your friend, Haibara, to get out of class, the one who'd introduced you to Nanami in the first place. You all made plans to meet, but he was running behind and this was honestly your first time being alone with Nanami. You'd worried you wouldn't have anything to talk to him about. Mostly because Nanami was always so quiet, hardly spoke a word to you even with Haibara around. Also because despite his silence, you had the biggest crush on your blonde, sidebanged friend of a friend. Though you could never bring up the courage to say anything about it.

Mainly because Nanami felt wholly unapproachable. Even so, you were surprised at how easy it was to simply...exist together without Haibara as a buffer.

Nanami's eyes scan over your classwork and after a moment of silence, he closes the book, placing it gently into your lap which makes your heart feel like it's trying to crawl out of your chest.

"If you'd like..." he begins quietly. "I can help you study the material. I'm pretty good at physics." He stares down at his legs laid out before him, a faint hint of pink dusting his cheeks. "I could come by your dorm tonight? We can study in the common room...if that's ok."

"Really?" You tried not to sound too excited at the prospect of spending more alone time with Nanami.

"I'd be happy to."

And for the first time since you'd met Nanami, you saw the tiniest bit of a smile appear on his lips. Your eyes widened, heart pounded, cheeks heated when you saw how beautiful the boy before you truly was. Now you wore a goofy smile of your own.

"I'd like that, Nanami."

He squirms briefly in his spot before he clears his throat. "You can call me Kento."

"Kento..." You test his name on your tongue, smiling when you see Nanami now staring at you, eyes wide, noticing the now red tips of his ears. So cute. "Thank you, Ken-"

"Awww, look at the lovebirds," an annoying voice you'd grown accustomed to teased. You sighed, looking up to find none other than your school nuisance looming over you, Satoru Gojo grinning down at you. "Should I take a pic so you losers can remember your first date?"

And before you could reply, he snapped a selfie of you three; you and Nanami still sitting on the ground and Gojo front and center, two fingers up to make a peace sign. He spun around, laughing when he saw the pic before he turned his phone to show it to you both. "Man, I'm sending this to Haibara. He'll love it."

Next to you, Nanami stands. "Speaking of, I need to get to class. I know Yu has your cell number. Is it okay for him to give it to me?"

"Oh, I can just give it to you now?" You offer, an attempt to delay his departure.

Gojo interrupted. "Oh, yeah! Gimme your number, too since we're all sharing." His thick, round sunglasses slipped down the slope of his nose, one of his freakishly blue eyes winking at you.

Nanami scowled at the upperclassman. "It's fine. I'll get it from Yu and will text you to meet up later. I have to get to class." He sneered at Gojo one last time as the snowy haired man settled down in Nanami's spot under the tree. "Try not to be more unbearable than usual, Gojo," he gritted out, making Gojo chuckle next to you.

You did get a text from Nanami that night. You'd met up to study, which was mostly you sneaking peeks at Nanami's beautiful side profile as he sat as close as he could to you, dragging his finger along your physics workbook.

Beneath the table, where you both gripped the edges of your seats, Nanami's fingers brushed against yours. The sudden contact made you jump. But Nanami didn't react, still explaining something about 7s and 3s. You weren’t listening. You brushed off the touch as an accident, until you felt Nanami’s finger on yours again. Just his pinky, gently running over your knuckles before he stopped when you didn't move. Nanami continued going over the study materials as if nothing happened, the red hue on his ears returning and you suddenly realized this was his tell. He was nervous, embarrassed. Just like you. 

Heart in your throat, you reached your pinky over and brushed it along his knuckles, his reaction immediate as he linked his pinky with yours.

Above the table, your eyes met, words lodged in your throat as you held hands with no one in the world aware except you two. Nanami's phone buzzes and it takes him a few seconds to tear his gaze away from yours before he picks it up. He tells you it's a text message from Haibara, so you lean over to see. There's a photo attached.

Yu Haibara: How's the study date going?

The tips of Nanami's ears redden even more if possible, and he quickly brushes his long golden strands over them. This makes you giggle beside him.

Yu Haibara: Gojo sent me this earlier and I meant to text it to you.

1 Image Attached

Nanami opens the photo, the selfie of you, him and Gojo taking over his screen.

"Cute," you whisper, the grip of your pinky tightening around Nanami's under the table. He doesn't say anything. He taps the screen, probably sending a reply back before he gets back to studying.

At the end of the night, as Nanami packs his belongings back into his bag, his phone buzzes again with a message. You spare a quick glance at his screen, doing a double take when you see his phone background. It's pixelized from the zoom, a little blurry, but it's definitely you beneath the tree that afternoon, rolling your eyes as Gojo took the picture.

That night changed everything for you and Nanami. Group outings soon turned into date nights, study sessions to makeout sessions, awkward smiles to shy kisses. All of it with Nanami, your first boyfriend, your first husband, your first love.

Present Day

Satoru has now dumped most of the box’s contents out. You and Nanami have joined him on the floor, you sitting between Nanami's legs with your back pressed against his front.

"Oh my god, Ken, do you remember this one?" You hold up a photo of you both at prom, awkwardly holding each other in front of a tacky background. Nanami is wearing a smile that looks almost painful, and you with your obnoxious blue eyeshadow are beaming. 

Nanami chuckles behind you. "Yes, I do. I remember Satoru spiking the lemonade and Yu vomiting everywhere."

You throw your head back with a laugh. "Yeah, right after he found us making out on the side of the building. Threw up the second he saw us..." You recall between giggles. "So rude."

Across the table, Satoru shifts the contents of the last box around. "He would've loved to see you guys workin' it out." He mutters. "Miss that kid sometimes."

"Me too," you and Nanami say in unison.

"He knew I loved you before I did," Nanami says solemnly, thinking of Yu. "He would've never let us get to the point we did."

You nod, remembering the wide, contagious smile of your first friend at your new school. And it brings you back to the beginning of you and Nanami, who you would've never known without Yu.

Haibara, who helped you navigate your relationship early on and hilariously guided you through your awkward stages with Nanami.

The picture reminds you of the first time you'd held hands in public. It takes you back to your first kiss outside of your dorm room after seeing a movie with Nanami, the first time you'd made love. It pulls back all of your first memories of your early stages with Nanami. The picture reminds you of when you'd moved in with Nanami. Makes you think about all of your ups and downs and what inevitably brought you back to each other.

It reminds you of Yu, who listened whenever you argued with Nanami and pushed for you both to make up. He knew you belonged together, even if you didn’t know it yet. It was Yu who brought you together, and Yu who was ultimately reminding you all these years later to remember where you began.

You lean back into Nanami's embrace when he holds up another photo; this one is of you two at your first wedding, both wearing big smiles. By that time, Yu had been long gone. But you made the most the day just the way Yu would’ve wanted you to. You couldn't wait to start your lives together, to be together forever.

You didn't know what the future held back then. But you know what the future holds now - a love withstanding time. A love that survives. A love that you know you both would fight for no matter what this time.

This force of nature, this strong, pure, burning love that never left either of you, even when you were miles and prefectures apart. It was what brought you together again, the reason you both were willing to try again.

Nanami kisses your head, breathing into your hair. "I want to keep looking through these, but I want to talk about therapy later. Really sit down and talk, okay?"

You nod, eyes still glued to your wedding picture and your heart swells knowing that one day soon, you'll be doing this all over again with the man you've loved for as long as you can remember.

[piningintrovert]

2023: A Year in Review

Thank you for the tag @wanderlust-in-my-soul and @25shadesoffebruary; I'm always down for a trip down memory lane

Rules: Link your favorite and most popular post(s) of each month of the year and tag some CCs friends

January

Most popular: Payu and Rain make up, Love in the Air Special Episode (understandable lol just like with everything else, they were insane for this) Favorite: Yeo Jung becoming Dong Eun's executioner, The Glory (full black and white set, my beloved AND this monologue is just so *gestures wildly*) Honorable mention: Tinn asking Sound to help Chinzilla, My School President (had a lot fun playing the text and emoji animations; it took forever and a day but it was worth it)

February

Most popular: The Complete BL Sass™ Collection (finally gave the people what they wanted lol) Favorite: Masumi finding out the world is going to end, The End of the World With You (one word: ACTING)

March

Most popular: You're my man; don't call yourself a pebble, My Beautiful Man 2 Favorite: (same as above)

April

Most popular: Payu touching Rain's lips, Love in the Air (deleted scene) Favorite: Kiyoi just wanted Hira to feed him, My Beautiful Man 2 (shameless plug for my "don't mind me" collection)

May

Most popular: Why do you like me?, Be My Favorite Tralier Favorite: Deleted scene from Payu & Rain's first time, Love in the Air (I still maintain that it was a CRIME to cut that scene out)

June

Most popular: Bad Buddy meta; Ink and Wai are the only ones who know about Pat and Pran's relationship as shown with their outfits Favorite: Tongfah and Paper's first kiss, Second Chance (the blue in this scene speaks to me)

July

Most popular: Payu and Rain attending Sky and Prapai's wedding, Wedding Plan (I would like to know when we're getting the special episode of WP where Nuea plans Payu and Rain's wedding) Favorite: Domestic Kazuma and Ren, Tokyo in April is...

August

Most popular: Henry, the world-class insomniac, Red, White & Royal Blue Favorite: Prince Henry "You're in his DMs" tweet (this was the first time I made an edit like this and I love how it came out)

September, October & November

I went offline for a bit so nothing for these months

December

Most popular: Smol Rain next to Big Zaddy Payu, Love in the Air (first set after my three month hiatus; way to come back with a bang) Favorite: Welcome to Smirk City, Pit Babe (the first gif... need I say more?)

It's always nice to look back on the year like this because I sometimes feel like I don't contribute enough to the fandom (dw I'm actively trying to change that mindset ^-^), and something like this really helps puts things into perspective for me. Even with a three-month hiatus, I created quite a bit of content—content that I'm proud of :)

Tagging @raypakorn @musicdramalove @snimeat @forcebook @spicyvampire @aejeonghae @maxescheibechlinichacheli @dengswei; feel free to ignore~

[petruchio]

PLEASE share your midnights Matty softlaunch theory, it’s such an odd and (to me at least lol) fascinating album

ok so. im going to go into insane detail track by track, but i think midnights makes sense (almost) if we read it as a journey through deciding to leave joe and we read mastermind as being a matty song — so the album is mostly her wondering if this thing she feels with matty is real or in her head, and then wondering, if it is real, if it’s worth it to make the jump. and i think she was ready to do it, and midnights would’ve been basically the matty “announcement,” but then she and joe made up and the 3am tracks are kind of damage control to confuse the narrative and make it less obvious. but we have to do a bit of digging. so let’s dive in.

(obvi we don’t know what happened for real. but it’s just fun to speculate!!!)

we open with lavender haze. and here we see taylor desperate to stay in the happy, peaceful relationship she’s in — she doesn’t WANT to get married, she doesn’t WANT to be talked about, she doesn’t WANT anything more. she just wants this. it’s enough for her. …or is it?

because immediately, we move to maroon. we go from a pastel purple color to various shades of red, changing the image and flipping back through memories. and these memories call back to a lot of 1989 era imagery — we get the wine stain from clean, the rosy cheeks from wildest dreams, new york… that’s a real fucking legacy to leave. something triggered this little trip down memory lane. maybe they hung out, or someone said something, who knows. but i think this is where the cracks in the lavender haze begin.

and so after all that she takes us to anti-hero. it’s me, hi, i’m the problem. i think this is probably the precursor to guilty as sin? — it’s saying, oh no. i’m the problem, fantasizing about my ex again (i dream of cracking locks, throwing my life to the wolves/i wake up screaming from dreaming) and acknowledges that joe is going to leave her when he finds out (one day i‘ll watch as you’re leaving)

but she can’t stop. the fantasy continues to grow in snow on the beach. this song is filled a bunch of space/sky imagery — “a few moons ago,” “stars by the pocketful,” “your eyes are flying saucers from another planet.” let’s keep track of that imagery. (we’ll return to the all space stuff in a big way in down bad, but don’t worry, it’ll reappear on midnights.)

and then there’s the realization of you’re on your own kid. that’s right — you’re on your own, and you always have been. i think this is her deciding to separate her sense of identity from joe. and the first verse brings up a lot of images we see come back on ttpd: “summer went away, still the yearning stays” -> “another summer/rolling thunder/he don’t understand me” and “it’s okay we’re the best of friends” -> “but tell me who else is gonna know you?” and “you’re smoking with your boys” -> “you needed drugs more.” it’s tempting to interpret the first verse as a retrospective on her teenage years, but it could just as easily be about falling for matty while they were “just friends” and she was still with joe. but i think in yoyok she’s still trying to convince herself it’s not real: “just to learn that you never cared.” matty doesn’t want her, she thinks. but she has her songs. maybe that’s all she ever needed?

this triggers an even larger dive into the past: midnight rain. now she’s wondering if the reason she’s so resistant to marry joe is just a repeat of old patterns, so she dives into the past looking for answers. i maintain that midnight rain is about the muse of debut and i think it’s her looking over her own past and trying to make sense of what’s happening now. am i the problem? was i always the problem? am i incapable of marriage or is it just with this guy?

so now she has to know. she has to get answers. is this fantasy about matty her just replaying old patterns of leaving when things get serious? or is this thing she feels with matty something real? basically, can i ask you a question…? we don’t even need to dive any deeper into the 1989 era of it all. this song is pretty obvious. note that we return to the space imagery though: “does it feel like everything is just like second best after that meteor strike?”

i don’t feel like talking about vigilante shit because it’s a bad song but suffice to say i think it’s just her being admitting she’s okay sometimes being the villain. other than that it’s not really relevant to the matty narrative.

so then we get bejeweled. which was strange when it came out and hasn’t gotten less strange, but it’s kind of another step in deciding to leave joe behind. she can’t marry him, because she’s not sure matty isn’t actually the one for her. “when i meet the band, they ask do you have a man, i can still say i don’t.” is the band… perhaps… the 1975? and this is when she leaves. “what’s a girl gonna do? a diamond’s gotta shine.” she sets herself free. you can try to change her mind, but you can’t. she polished up real nice.

and then we get labyrinth. which to me only makes sense as a post-joe song. “it only hurts this much right now.” “i’ll be getting over you my whole life.” “break up break free break through break down.” but what saves her? the person who comes in right at the last second: matty. he turns the plane around. remember all the space imagery? my flight was awful thanks for asking? well, here he is. uh oh, i’m falling in love again.

and actually… she loves it. it feels like karma. (or maybe destiny.) for all her work, all her struggle, all her pain, she gets the guy in the end: the years of pining and coded songs all add up to this.

but she can’t hate joe. she could never hate him. she might have wanted to leave, but it wasn’t because he treated her badly. he never wanted anything from her. just sweet nothing. i don’t think sweet nothing is a breakup song; it was probably even written as a love song. but its placement on the tracklist makes it feel like a goodbye. “they said the end is coming,” she says. but she needed someone who saw her that way. it’s an i will always love you song. it’s a thank you.

and so we close: mastermind. the planets and all the stars aligned from snow on the beach and question. we’re up in space now. she’s been planting these seeds since back in 2014… and now she has him. matty. she did it. all the wisest women had to do it this way. doesn’t that sound like fucking politics and gender roles? the liquor in the cocktails that she’s always drunk on when she’s around him? but he knew the entire time. she’s a mastermind.

okay so that’s the standard edition. the bonus track being hits different makes sense if it’s the joe breakup — “it hits different this time.” she’s left people before, but never like this. she’s SAD! she’s waiting for his key in the door but it never comes. she might have been the one that left, but it still hurt like never before.

but the 3am tracks are the last bit of the puzzle. and here’s where i think we can take taylor’s word for them as sort of “vault tracks” because they don’t fit in the narrative of midnights, but they tell a story in themselves. and that story is of her and joe getting back together after all this.

the first one she tacks on is the great war, a song about making up after a fight. so she puts that one to first, to reassure that they actually made it through. then i think we get the “cutting room floor” tracks — that is, they’re out of order but all part of the larger story. we get another heartwrenching goodbye in bigger than the whole sky, a return to the delusional lavender haze and staring at the ceiling in paris, a song about cheating in high infidelity. all thematically relevant, but not perfectly fitting into the narrative of the original record.

then we get glitch, which imo is also a matty song. “depending on what kind of situationship im in” read: if joe and i are off or on. “2190 days of our love blackout” read: six years since the 1989 era where they dated originally. “nights are so starry” brings us back to the space imagery, the glitch video on spotify glitching to the 1989 tv of wildest dreams… “it must be counterfeit” will come back too, in loml when she says “something counterfeit is dead.” but here… it’s only getting started.

would’ve could’ve should’ve again sees her examining her patterns with toxic men, and begins a lot of the religious theming we’ll see return on ttpd. and then we close with dear reader, a song about self-loathing, and begging the listener not to take her advice because she’s not really a good person. she admits it: she cheats, she lies, joe has left her alone in the house (not a home, cause nobody’s there.) “you should find another guiding light,” she tells us. but she shines so bright…

anyway yeah. that’s my extended theory. i think it was supposed to be the goodbye to joe and mastermind was introducing matty, but then when they patched it up, the narrative changed and 3am tracks got added on and changed the direction. (it makes sense if those tracks were added on late, since they weren’t available physically for a long time after the record was released. hits different, the song about breaking up with a long term partner… was.) we could deep dive into every song and analyze the lyrical parallels with 1989, folkmore, and ttpd too (don’t get me started on the 1 and cardigan) but we’ll save that for another time.

and of course, we all know what happened next. but we wouldn’t be here without the chaos that was midnights. without it, we might never have gotten an answer to that one, burning question…?

now we have the answer. the only thing that’s left… is the manuscript.

[luzswonderland]

Thoughts on “Watching and Dreaming” Part 1

Since this maybe the last time I might actually do one of these, I want to make it count and make it special. I really am going to miss this show. These past few weeks have been difficult.

I loved the cold open of hearing “King Titan’s” voice before the title card showed for the last time. It makes this episode feel more final🥹

Even though it was creepy, I did like Luz in Emperor Belos’ attire. It lowkey fits her.

Seeing Luz, Eda and King all have dreams of their greatest fears is really symbolic of the show centering around them and I appreciate that.

Luz’s fear of losing her new friends and home

Eda’s fear of being rejected by her family

King’s fear of his heritage

Luz’s light glyph always comes in handy 😉

This reunion means so much to me. It’s probably been months since they last saw each other🥹

Eda giving Luz and King kisses was icing on the cake

Raine being possessed by Belos is so jarring😣

“So, toys break all the time. You just fix them.” -Yikes😬

As traumatizing as they might have been, the scenarios that the Collector put Luz, Eda and King through were kinda funny lol

The maze, the marble game and Jenga lmao 😭

What the archivists did to the Collector and the Titan race was so messed up

Wish we found out more about this event and lore 😢 It would have been a fire episode and plotline imo

The abandonment issues that the Collector has 😭

The imagery of Emperor Belos taking over the Collector’s heart was cool

Amity came in clutch with the light spell. So sweet 🤗

I appreciate the trip down memory lane with the Collector. So many events occurred in just three seasons 🥲

“Did you know Lilith was her captain?” “Really, now that’s a spin-off I’d watch.”

That’s so crazy! Me too! 🙃

Tinella Nosa cameo. Havent seen her in a minute ☺️

“I get it. You just need kindness and forgiveness, huh?”

I don’t know about that Collector lmao

Mood

My heart stopped when this happened. OMG!😭

Eda and King going berserk for Luz is everything to me!

Meeting King’s Dad was a treat. He has such a warm personality 😊 Wish King could have met him.

Love the glyph detail on the pants

“He fears what he can’t control.”-FACTS 👏🏾

“Luz is a Noceda. You know what that means. It means she’s way to stubborn to let any of this get her down. She’ll be okay.”

Love how Camila believes in Luz and cheers everyone up. They have a really healthy relationship. 🤗

“What is this stuff? Why won’t it stop?

Oh, Collector 😭

THIS FORM IS SICK! 👌🏾

I wish Amity got to see her in this form😩

“I still can’t think of anything to say!”

Don’t ever change Luz 🥹

Luz, King and Eda doing their thing again for the final time 😩

The animation went insane during their fight scene. I have so many iconic moments but my favorite has to be this one

Their expressions and their happiness really does a good job of displaying their prior connection as a realistic family unit. I love it 🙌🏾

“Wow” Indeed

A sight to behold 👀

[roxy206]

Trixie Recreates Her Drag Race Season 7 Finale Look! — 07/10/2023

watch here

We’re taking a stroll down memory lane

And I can’t believe I still have them — idk is anyone surprised lol

Ask Katya, she’ll tell you — I’m fine I’m fine I’m fine

Why am I nostalgic for a time I wasn’t even around for??

I remember Katya came to visit me & stayed with me overnight — why is it so cute & funny that she specified the overnight part

Her coming to visit me was so magical — 😭😭😭😭😭

Trixie mentioning three times in such a short amount of time that Katya visited her. Oh my god. I love how it clearly meant so much to her getting to see Katya & how it’s still such a special memory

I don’t know how many of y’all watched Bob’s video where she followed this tutorial but the way I clocked the time period before Bob even said anything about how tan & fit Trixie was

I had just broken up with someone — the plot thickens

It’s actually, like — hearing Trixie talk about having 15-20 people in the audience & thinking about where she is now? That alone makes me a bit emosh because I just love how much can change

Also as an aside, my friends & I had a trip to P Town planned … in 2020. So I really hope that at some point we’re able to actually do that

This is actually making me so nostalgic

We also have the podcast today, you guys. I think I’m going to sit with Katya & do the podcast in this old Trixie makeup. I wanna see what she says when she walks in

This video is making me feel a lot of feelings

You absolutely have to give it to Trixie that the makeup skills even with this look have absolutely improved

Does Trixie think we don’t already know you have to convince her it’s her idea?

THE BLUE CONTACTS

Look into the eyes of delusion & insanity

Katya’s going to be coming here for a podcast pretty soon & I think we should just get her reaction. I think she’s gonna flip the fuck out

Season seven. You did — It looks great

Pleeeeeaaaaase Trixie walking out the door to put her arms around Katya

You’re scaring me, you’re scaring me. It’s actually scary

This is not a read — Ahahahahaha Katya absolutely bringing down the level of delusion Trixie was feeling 😂

[gunsatthaphan]

Okokok! Breaking News! They finished shooting Be My Favourite! So we might expect it in the forseeable future maybe even after ABAAB!

I am so not mentally ready for this thing I am sorry but from the bts picture I can't see any chemistry between the 2 of them! they literally look like 2 random friends attending a wedding(the tuxedo picture) and just hanging out in uni I am sorry but I don't think this shit show is gonna work, p.s. I don't think Krist is a good actor(other than being unlikeble) and Gawin can shoulder only so much boy is only one he can't provide for 2 people! when Mike left they should have recasted Krusty as well and chose Podd! but alas Krist is still one of their popular actors...

Well lets brace ourselves for it cuz "BMF IS COMING"!

yeah I saw lol.

They filmed this show for 4(!!!!) months which is insane lmao. Idk how many episodes we're in for but I'm scared lol.

We all know this won't work and tbh I wouldn't be surprised if they,,, uhm. altered the plot a little lol. Like it's still gonna be a bl probably but I'm expecting it to be very different from other gmm productions. I'm getting ready to take a trip down 2016 bl memory lane with this one if you know what I mean lmao. I'm preparing for sniff kisses, awkward hugs and "I'm not gay I only like you" kinda vibes lmao.

Objectively speaking Krusty is not the worst actor ever, he has some experience under his belt but he's definitely not in the upper category lmao. And as much as I love Gawin, he's not part of the A-listers either so yeah. Either it will be so strange that it's entertaining or they will somehow magically create something amazing and leave us all shook fdjkghf

But either way it's gonna be weird. Even the acting coach said their chemistry is "different" fdjkhgd. gosh. I'm preparing for the worst. Also yes, this could've been the perfect PoddGawin reunion. From what I know about the characters, Podd would've fit the role of Pisaeng perfectly so if they had kicked Krusty out and switched the roles, this would've been perfect. But this??? nah lmao.

But yeah. Can't wait to tune in and laugh the cringe away djkhgdf

xxx

[dorovahkiin]

Is Reiner's promise to Ymir still relevant?

(This is an update on my old post)

In the recent 137 chapter Reiner almost died again being surrounded by titans. Ancient titan shifters came to help - one of them was Freckles Ymir who saved his life. Reiner was obviously surprised as you can see above.

Now I'm aware I might be delulu, but I think this is the perfect opportunity to address the promise again after being saved by Ymir.

Now some people wonder: What promise am I talking about?! So here's a little trip down memory lane...

Reiner's mission has always been to get back the Founder in order to avoid the rumbling. However, the consequences of this mission was that Paradis would be doomed. And that means Historia would be in danger either. Because not only Marley, but the whole world hates Paradis. Without the Founder Paradis loses its protection. Reiner, Bertholdt and Ymir were aware of that when they kidnapped Eren in season 2. That's why Reiner and Ymir wanted to take Historia with them - she'd been safer with them than being alone in Paradis without the protection of the Founder.

So we record: Reiner's mission to retrieve the Founder has always the consequence to jeopardise Paradis and Historia. Because without the protection of the Founder the other nations can attack and exploit them forever. They fear and hate Paradis. Udo once said that Marley treats Eldians good in comparison to other nations:

Anyway, back to topic: Ymir knew Historia would be in danger if Reiner's mission was a success, that's why Reiner gave Ymir the promise to protect Historia regardless.

However, Reiner failed his mission in season 2. Eren managed to escape with the help of the scouts. When Eren controlled Dina Reiner, Bertholdt and Ymir felt the coordinate and realised their theory was right about Eren being the founder. Then, Ymir commented Historia was safe for now with Eren (the Coordinate) staying on the island.

However, in rts the promise became relevant again when Reiner, Bertholdt, Zeke and Pieck tried to retrieve the Founder once more. Because if they would have been successful to kidnap Eren, Paradis and Historia would be in danger again. Before the fight started Reiner reminded Bertholdt of the promise he had given:

At this point I want to make clear that Reiner was even determined to fulfill his promise in warrior mode. In the end Ymir sacrificed her life, so he better be determined to fulfill it.

But the fact it has been brought up again means that Reiner took it seriously.

...

Now many years have passed and the promise wasn't brought up again. Because there simply wasn't the opportunity to address it since they weren't close to retrieve the Founder again.

The closest we got was when Marley invaded Paradis right before the rumbling. But they failed yet again.

And now, right NOW after 137, there is the next and probably the last opportunity the promise could have relevance. Why?

After Zeke's death the rumbling stopped. Jean blew up Eren's titan's head. I guess Eren is pretty much done and will die next chapter (I believe in Reiner Helos theory btw).

But the rumbling being stopped and Eren being dead would have the consequence that Paradis is in danger again. Eren genocided a lot people, but not the whole world population. There are still many people left who could harm Paradis. Unless they'd be like: "Ok, never mind, we're good now", but I could imagine they now hate Paradis more than ever. As a consequence, Historia would be in danger again either.

And here's where Reiner's promise is relevant again. It was nice Ymir saved Reiner last chapter and I hope it reminded him of it again. And it's nice to see Ymir doesn't support genocide either and I wouldn't have expected otherwise from her. Because even if it harms Historia's safety genocide is just insane.

I wonder what Ymir would have told Reiner in 137 if she was able to talk to him.

Now imagine Reiner kills Eren next chapter and through that titan powers cease to exist. Don't know if that's possible, just a thought. Titan powers are the reason everyone fears Paradis. What I wonder though is if the world still hates Paradis if titan powers are destroyed. I couldn't blame them at least after Eren almost genocided the whole world lol.

With two chapters left I'm afraid not everything will be concluded, but let's see what Isayama has planned.

But either way, Reiner's whole arc has always been about becoming a saviour.

[kellykadesperate]

I have a random question. What are your favorite fics of your own? Like, which ones did you love writing or which ones have stayed with you over the years?

ohhhh i love random questions and this one is the best !!

ok so there’s been a few lol. most fics of mine i actually struggle to really remember but there has been also loads that i have really enjoyed writing and also some that i still get shouted about lol

we’ll meet again: it was a big bang fic of mine and i was so tiny and nervous about it lol but the reception i got from it was so insane. i was just so happy people enjoyed it because i was able to fuse my love of history, with a ship i love and merge it into a fic that wasn't all bad

if our stars would meet: i just really enjoyed writing the situation. the idea of single teen dad aaron need to fake date to impress social workers and then goes and properly falls in love with robert sugden is just really neat lol. it has been a fic of mine i really really loved writing

the flowers always grow back: this fic was in the works ever since i watched robert have to say goodbye to seb :( it was also the first time i had really wrote in the pov of not the ship, with seb being in the forefront. it was just a nice little twist on the idea of how a reunion would go down and i was so happy that people enjoyed it

hope is a distance unreached: this fic really stays with me mainly because it took so long to write for some reason lmao. like ages. it was received really well and i remember having some artwork made for it too and that was just so insane for me!

i’m coming home to you: again this is burned into my memory because of the length!! and the fact that for some reason i decided to not split it up into chapters so it was just like 50k of a sweet home alabama au which i thought just fit robron so well! it was one of those fics which just is overflowing with opportunities and scenarios and i had the best time with writing robert try and convince himself that he was only joking when he married aaron ssjsjsjs

between lines you fail to see: this fic still is the one that i wish could have happened in canon. the idea of robert having a stalker and that stalker ruining his life and making aaron convinced that robert has cheated on him/left him before realising something is up??? sign me up for that angst lol. it’s still a fic i really am happy i decided to write even if i was a little nervous about it

oh and my most recent one has had such a big impact on me and my writing so i have to include both sides of the moon too!

thank you so much for this lovely question my love, it’s taking me on a trip down memory lane on this fine tuesday evening!

[xoruffitup]

Adam Driver on SNL: 1/25 Dress Rehearsal Recap

I’m having dejavu of the best kind. I’m sitting here on the bus on my way back from NYC in hungover euphoria and overjoyed disbelief at everything I just experienced, texting new friends and old, recounting everything in my head and smiling so hard. The September 2018 weekend of Adam’s last SNL show lives in my memory in unmatched infamy, so my excitement was off the charts to do it all again. And because this show was absolutely fucking INCREDIBLE, this weekend delivered in every way all over again!! Seriously, my face aches from how I can’t stop smiling aksnksj HELP :’)

My friends and I were in the Dress Rehearsal, so below the cut are retellings of ALLLL the skits including those cut from the Live show - and no small amount of helpless emotional flailing.

I had an idea of what to expect after attending Adam’s 2018 show, but I nevertheless felt sky-high levels of anxiety when Sarah and we arrived at the NBC shop at 6:30. I knew rationally that our chances of getting into Dress were good with numbers #12 - 14, but every now and then there’s the occasional oddity of only a handful of Standby people getting in. Though even without any uncertainty in the equation, my entire being goes on Hyped/Anxious Overdrive anyway whenever I’m about to be in the same space as Adam sO really there’s nothing for it. :’)

They lined us up by numbers, I did a lot of emotional wobbling like “I can’t believe we’re here again together guys waaaah” (have I mentioned I met these girls at Adam’s last show? Full circle moment of the highest and most beautiful caliber and it had me hella verklempt), and thennnn - drumroll and hushed silence please - the main security guy comes up to the giant line and asks the first 20 people to come with him.

As they constantly remind you throughout this thoroughly nerve-wracking process, there is no guarantee you’ll actually get into the show until you’re physically in the seat. It’s a long, harrowing trip from the NBC store where the line gathers, up stairs, elevators, and through hallways to reach the studio, and you can still be cut even as far as the very last checkpoint if all seats fill up with the people ahead of you. So as you get closer, the excitement spikes higher and higher but so does the worry! We went through security, and then I clung to our new Standby line friend Catherine’s arm as they lined us up two-by-two on the first staircase, with Sarah and @reylonly right behind. I was likely extremely annoying as I couldn’t help being rambly and weird in my nerves and compulsively hugging my girls’ arms. @reylonly did her very best to calm my hot mess down, bless her.

About 45 minutes later (Maybe? I had no idea what time was, lbr) we reached the final point of the elevator and last hallway, and were held just outside the studio. THEN - the woman there instructed the next 4 to follow her in (thank GOD because we were terrified of being split up), WE WENT INTO THE STUDIO WHEW YAYAY OMFG WE WERE THERE!!! - but then oh no it happened so fast that she pointed @reylonly down to a single seat in the center and then the other 3 of us to seats towards the left side of the stage. They were all single seats, but thank GOSH they were all end seats of rows right next to each other. So Sarah was right in front of me and I could grab her shoulder (which I would do a lot in increasingly desperate excitement over the next 2 hours), and Catherine and I could reach across the aisle to cling to each other’s hands! @reylonly was on her own but in an incredible seat, and during commercial breaks we would lean forward to wave and blow kisses to each other and mime flailing or crying as one incredible sketch after another played out in front of us. I made sure to be friendly and talk to the people sitting next to me so they wouldn’t be too annoyed with me and Sarah always grabbing at each other, but LOL they probably thought I was at least a little insane. I mean, maybe for the moment alone when I saw a girl I’d made friends with in line but then lost track of in a seat not too far from me, and we started waving and dabbing at each other. Once we were seated there in the studio, all the anxiety gave way to surging excitement and I was practically bouncing in my seat, so overjoyed to be there and see my dear fandom friends there with me!

Michael Che warmed up the audience with some standup, the House band jammed, and Sarah and I momentarily got Extremely Excited when we saw them setting up the hell backdrop set for the cold open and thought at the time it was supposed to be Tattooine for a Star Wars skit, lolol. But then the actual show started, and with our Adam-eagle eyes Catherine reached out to whisper “there he is! In the blonde wig!” And, heart in my throat no matter how many times I see this man in person, I frantically squinted at all the people waiting just off to the side of the set until I saw that unmistakably Tol Broad back, and then he stepped onto the set and into the lighted camera’s view and I was cheering and clapping so hard for his first appearance that I couldn’t hear who he was supposed to be playing. xD I was just tapping Sarah’s shoulder in front of me, bouncing in my seat a little, and trying not to start levitating with the sheer force of my excitement and joy to be there.

OKAY from here I’ll break this up by skit! Anything that was different or missing from the Live show I put in bold font if you want to skip to that! Starting with...

Intro Monologue

WHAT A GOOD MONOLOGUE, ITS LIKE THEY JUST LET ADAM RUN WITH IT AND WRITE IT HIMSELF IT WAS SO HIM AND HILARIOUS AND WEIRD AND YET CHARMING IDEK I WILL NEVER COMPREHEND THE WONDER OF THIS MAN??

So when he dropped the bomb of “I’m a husband and a FATHER” I clapped Sarah’s shoulder SO HARD, then he made he joke “I’ve made it very clear to my son that he’s second in everything” and I could not bELIEVE the wonder of what I was hearing omfg. I heard the words “my son” come out of his mouth with my own ears WHO COULD HAVE PREDICTED, SURE AS HELL NOT ME????

Then he went into the audience to demonstrate how “approachable” he is and was so awk/weird/hilarious I was just losing it, then took his time meandering around the stage and making weird faces into the camera and I was just LOSING IT. And AKSKSJA after that he wandered over to another camera that was lower and kind of hummed as he lifted his shirt and put it over the camera so we got a full on belly button view for 2 unbelievable glorious seconds!! He looked up at the monitors as he was doing it and went “oh you can’t see anything” so that’s probably why he sadly didn’t flash his belly in the Live show.

“Cheer” with Adam as one of the team coaches

I’m going by the skit order in Dress, and this one was first after the monologue. Best part for me was the accent reminiscent of Clyde Logan. :3 But tbh, of the 6 skits they did for the Live show, I kind of wish this one had been swapped for the one performed last in Dress that was sO Wild and would have made fandom absolutely lose its shit aksnksal more to come on that.

UNDERCOVER BOSS AKA RANDY THE INTERN

THE BEST GIFT WE COULD HAVE RECEIVED!! BLESS YOU SNL AND ADAM FOR GIVING US KYLO CONTENT TO BE HAPPY OVER AND LOVE WHOLE HEARTEDLY. T___T

Honestly, I cannot even properly describe my reaction when the Undercover Boss intro logo appeared on all the monitors oHMYLoRDDD. I nearly leapt out of my seat, like my heart nearly jumped clear out of my chest oh my fuck and I was legit holding onto Sarah so much I almost slid out of my seat - I just couldn’t believe it and I cheered SO LOUD. The entire audience erupted with this “HOLY SHIT” vibe outburst and I was SO happy to be there in that moment - knowing that our entire fandom was only hours away from this!! I honestly didn’t expect it at all - after they didn’t do one of these the second time Adam was on, I thought there was no chance. But IT HAPPENED AND IT WAS SO QUALITY HILARIOUS WE ARE SO BLESSED - THANK YOU TO RANDY’S LIL BEANIE AND VEST AND HIPSTER PANTS.

Pretty sure I like half curled up on myself laughing so hard my feet left the floor at OK BOOMER. And at the part with “will Rey take his hand?” I swear MY SOUL NEAR LEFT MY BODY I MEAN IS THIS THE REAL LIFE IS THIS JUST FANTASYYYY

..... Can someone come promise me we really didn’t just collectively hallucinate that??

SAG Awards Fashion Red Carpet

I’m not too disappointed this one was cut. Of all the amazing skits performed, I would have ranked this one lower. Adam and Kenan Thompson were fashion critics talking about celebs’ looks on the SAG red carpet. A minute in Adam says, “We should be paying more attention to the kids!” Kenan: *nervous laugh* “uh, should we??” Adam starts talking about/admiring the outfits for like Finn Wolfhard etc, with hilarious but bordering creepy descriptions like “masculine but not quite fully grown,” until Kenan is like “umm maybe we shouldn’t be talking about kids this much?”

They interview a girl who’s supposed to be Jojo Siwa and Adam’s like “you should know I think you’re beautiful. Kids need to hear more often that they’re beautiful.” Kenan panics, going “alRIGHT we’re gonna cut back to the studio now!” The skit ended with Adam: “I got a ticket to the Nickelodeon afterparty and I’m gonna swipe one of those kids in my pocket!”

“Slow” Digital Short

HONESTLY, this competes with Undercover Boss for my favorite skit of the night. I can’t even tell you - I had literal tears running down my face I was laughing SO fucking hard during this entire thing. From the first moment we heard Adam’s deep-ass voice I absolutely and entirely lost my shit oh my GOD. We’d been so pumped for Adam in some kind of rap sketch when we saw the photos of him and Kenan filming the day before, but it was SO FUCKING GOOD. I will never ever in all my days not bust out laughing at “Bring that ass here” and “In a 65 hour lane going 2” aksnskns I’m on the bus struggling to fight back laughter just thinking about it SEND HELP!!!

It’s just brilliant. The turtle next to his expensive loafers. His cheesy sunglasses. That shot of his glorious bare arms. His deep voice “Baby” when they’re at the door and “But I brought ice cream” oh my god I love it so much BLESS YOU SNL BLESS YOU. I never in all my days thought I’d get Adam rapping but it’s every single thing I never knew I needed.

Del Taco Commercial / “Aw Man I’m All Outta Cash!”

ADAM’S SLEAZY LOOKING LONG WIG LMAO. This one was a wild and funny time once you got into it and just let it go. Once Kyle, Beck, and Adam were all yelling the line and Adam went “You don’t want to kill yourself, you just want a taco, Jesus” everyone was ROLLING. I think the only difference (is this even worth color coding lol) was that after Kyle took his pants off Adam kept slapping his thigh during Dress bahaha.

“Hot Dad” Adam dealing with a clogged toilet at a teenaged girls’ sleepover

Adam and Kate McKinnon comedy together YES PLEASE. This one was all the same as far as I can remember, but I will say that a woop/cheer rose from the people sitting near the set for this one at the line about Adam being a “hot Dad.” Yep sounds about right.

(Halsey’s first song, Weekend Update)

Medieval Renaissance Fair

You can’t have Adam host SNL without giving him some ridiculous character skit ala Oil Baron Parnassus. I absolutely loved how intense and deep he was for this kind of nonsense xD We can thank this skit for giving us footage of Adam yelling “Whore!” and spitting, lmao. Also.... I’ll just say in that outfit and wig he looked even Extra Big in comparison to everyone around him.

Courtroom Trial / Sinbad on Cameo

I’m also okay with this one being cut, but I was biased to enjoy the hell out of it live because the set was right in front of where I was sitting and I had such a perfect view of him. <3

Adam was supposed to be the defendant in a case where a female coworker claims he harassed her by sending “threatening” videos. Adam goes up on the stand and the prosecutor asks “are you familiar with these videos?” Cut over to Kenan Thompson, who’s pretending to be Sinbad on the app Cameo, making videos for the woman that are like “Hey you better give Mark a chance! Otherwise he might come after you!” Adam responds with disbelief: “I have no idea who this Sinbad person is and frankly, your honor, this is pissing me off.” Kenan acts a few more videos which keep getting funnier because he keeps eating things or being in crowded public places while filming them. But in the final video he references Adam’s character’s name so it’s clear he was the one requesting the videos. Adam gets all sad on the stand: “It doesn’t matter. No one likes me anyway!” It ends with Kenan as Sinbad crashing into the courtroom in person.

This was more Kenan’s skit as he really was hilarious, but someone had to explain to me afterwards who Sinbad is and how the Cameo app works so I didn’t quite ~get it while watching. BUT more importantly - Adam looked great despite the weird brown wig he had on. During the second of Kenan’s videos when the cameras were on Kenan instead, Adam’s face definitely started quivering with suppressed laughter until he visibly locked it down like NO FOCUS ADAM. Most of my attention stayed fixed on the buttons of his shirt because hOOo boy were they straining! Without me even saying anything, Catherine reached across the aisle for me immediately afterwards and whispered, “That shirt did /not/ fit well.” OH YES I NOTICED >:33

PBS Science Show

Another one which was performed right directly in front of us!! I already knew this was going to be a good one because Adam went right over to the skeleton mannequin when he came on set and started playing with it, like making the arm and wrist wiggle around. The biggest dork cutie you’ll ever see.

He was standing right under me, which meant once he started handling the balloon I got mighty distracted watching his MASSIVE hands around that tiny-looking balloon. >:)) Then I cracked up so hard when he got exasperated and threw something back against the window. WE GOT TO SEE HIM SMASH SOMETHING IN PERSON YESSSS

Ketchup bottles

Oh my GOD EVERYTHING WAS AMAZING ABOUT THIS ONE FROM START TO FINISH. The best part though might have been the prep beforehand. Someone carried the giant Ketchup and hot sauce bottles onto the set before the actors came on and we were like wtf? (For a minute I was triggered remembering Kanye coming on in his Perrier bottle during the 2018 show) But THEN Adam and Cecily Strong came on in big red shirts and people started lifting the giant plastic bottles over them and LOL we realized where this was going. They definitely struggled for a minute getting Adam’s bottle up over his head because of his height xD People in the audience were already laughing just watching this costume set up, and once Adam got the bottle on a WOOT cheer rose which I later learned was none other than @reylonly aka my hero. It was followed by someone yelling “THATS HOT”, which akndosjan made Adam laugh and raise his arms with a hilarious little shimmy in the bottle. He really seemed to be enjoying himself during the whole show, but during this ridiculous and incredibly hilarious skit especially so.

Game Night / Movie Quote Competition

OKAY this is the skit it’s a real tragedy didn’t make it on air! There were lines in this I couldn’t beLiEvE my ears were hearing, and if we ever get a recording I’m pretty sure the fandom would basically implode. 

Three couples are sitting around a living room having a game night. Adam is sitting with Kate McKinnon with his arm around her. After they finish playing Settlers of Catan, Heidi Gardner suggests they play a movie quote game where one of them says a line from a movie and the rest have to guess the movie. She is clearly very into it, and the others reluctantly agree. It quickly becomes clear that Adam is just as good at the game as she is, and they immediately start becoming competitive. They reach the point where they quote three lines from Captain Phillips in a row, trying to trick each other. As the game gets more heated, they exchange aggressive flirty banter such as:

Heidi: You really know your movie quotes, huh? Adam: Yeah I do. Heidi: And with some BDE over there. Adam: Yeah, I got that too.

AND !!!!!!!!!!

Heidi: You’re quite the movie flick daddy. Adam: I’m the world’s biggest flick daddy.

!!!!!!!!! HE CALLED HIMSELF A DADDY HELP CALL 911 EMERGENCY !!!!!!!!!!

The game keeps escalating until Kate tries to calm Adam down and he brushes her off. Everyone else tries to tell Heidi to relax, and she responds “What?! I’m supposed to lie back and let (Kate’s character’s name)’s hot husband rail me??”

I WAS FLOATING ON THE CEILING BY THIS POINT, I literally couldn’t believe what my ears were hearing alsdfjsldafjlsdkfj!

It gets to the point where they’re both standing, shouting completely vague snippets of lines at each other while the other continues to guess correctly. Until finally Adam exclaims, “I got a good one!” He grabs her and fULL ON kisses her. 

(Pictures from The Adam Driver Files twitter.)

Immediately afterwards she goes, “I know! That was the kiss from (Movie X - I can’t remember the exact title).” Adam: “HOW DID YOU KNOW?!” Heidi: “From how you moved your tongue!”

I’m still reeling from this one. Adam calling himself a daddy, talk of “getting railed” by him, and intense kissing?! Oh my lORDDDD. I’m still trying to keep it playing on a loop in my ears. I’m not sure if we as a fandom could collectively survive a full video of this, but GOD I hope we get the chance to test ourselves. RELEASE THE UNAIRED VIDEO, YOU NBC COWARDS!!!

FLICK DADDY INDEED

...Aaaaaaand that was a wrap! After 10 skits and nearly 2.5 hours, it literally felt like I had run a marathon at a full sprint. I was just trying to process everything I’d just witnessed, while trying to focus on committing every single thing to memory. I just couldn’t believe the range of amazing and hilarious things I’d just seen Adam doing: Play a talking ketchup bottle, call himself a daddy, awkwardly talk about feminine products clogging his toilet, yell “WHORE” then spit and swing a medieval mace around, rap hilariously, and yell about umami?? It was all almost TOO MUCH. 

For full-circle and emotional fulfillment reasons, I wore my Save Ben Solo shirt to the show just like I did at the 2018 show. I had debated beforehand whether it would be too bittersweet to wear it after TROS, but now I’m so glad I did. All these hilarious and zany skits were just what we all needed to continue the cycle of fandom excitement and positivity despite the last month. I’m so incredibly grateful to SNL for such great material for Adam to work with and us to laugh at, and for giving us the perfect reminder that there’s still so much to whole-heartedly appreciate and love. Most of all, Adam himself. <3

THANK YOU SNL AND ADAM FOR ANOTHER LIFE-HIGHLIGHT WEEKEND! <3

[semperreformanda]

When exactly would you say that you embraced reformed theology?

I think it started off slow. I began listening to more gospel-centered preachings online, in particular I found a preacher that I really enjoyed listening to because his sermons always drove me to repentance and joy in Christ. My dad discovered him first–Carter Conlon from Times Square Church. We loved listening to him! What a great man of God. He isn’t reformed, but his zeal of the Word preached and preached right really is amazing.

Then I discovered John Piper and Matt Chandler, and started to hear the word “Calvinism”. But I only learned more about it on Tumblr lol I remember being SO MAD because there was a Calvinist guy on here that used to just beat people over the heads with his bible 😂 It was terrible, but I remember he posted an apology later on. Dude was in cage stage mode for a while. I disagreed with the doctrine of grace wholeheartedly back then, but I didn’t really dive into the Bible or anything; it was just because I grew up learning a different system of beliefs.

So it was a slow kind of thing, around 2016-2017 someone re-introduced me to it again. He was kind of wrestling with the concept of election and I got curious and started googling it. He introduced me to James White and Jeff Durbin and one listen to James White’s sermon on God’s sovereignty and I was HOOKED. I remember thinking, whoa, the sovereignty of God was never explained to me this way before. Then I found the sermon series of Jeff Durbin on Calvinism and few minutes into the first video I… was just blown away. I remember I kept replaying a piece of the video over and over because it started to make sense. So I started reading about it more and cross-checking with the Scriptures and getting into reformed groups online because I needed someone to discuss it with/see discussions about it. It was crazy, I’d stay up late into the night just reading and learning about it. Imagine growing up with a set of theological ideas, and now all of a sudden I read the Bible and it’s hammering down on all of my long-held traditions and beliefs. It was insane. By summer of 2017 I finally decided to leave my Pentecostal church (after weeks of wrestling with God in prayer, and wrestling with my convictions, and much, much tears) and God led me to a Bible-centered and gospel-shaped reformed Presbyterian church. It was then that I learned that Calvinism does not equal to reformed theology, but rather just a part of it. I’m still learning more about to this day. :)

Thank you for asking this question. I liked that trip down memory lane. I truly thank the Lord for having mercy and showing me a deeper knowledge of Himself and His word.

[bigskydreaming]

But what does the economy of Faetown (or specifically the one Scott resides in as there are multiple similar settlements in the world) look like 🤔 These are all young adults who have up and relocated, running from home. Is there a bartering system, which makes sense since they're partly fey

What? Me, including the Fae folklore about their tendencies towards bartering and double-edged favors in almost everything I do? Pfft. What ever would give you that idea. Absurd!

LOL no, but yeah that’s definitely a thing, buuuuut because I do use that so often in so many things I wanted to make sure it was distinct from like….the barter magic system I used for that one Scackson, yknow? The tattoo magic thing.

So pretty much all the Changeling settlements operate off of some form of homegrown/naturally developing quid pro quo exchange. You need something from someone, you offer something in return. If you don’t have anything they need, you get it from someone else first in exchange for something you do have to offer, and so on and so on.

Precisely because most of these are young adults relocating with minimal resources and a lot of them only partway through schooling and such, its intentionally meant to be an unnecessarily, overcomplicated system at times. It differs from one Faetown to the next, but its never totally streamlined or the most efficient process because they’re literally making this stuff up as they go along. They haven’t figured out the most efficient ways to do things yet.

And in every Faetown there are those Changelings that anyone’s pretty much happy to give them whatever they need, for the most part. Kind of a “this person is always welcome to eat here for free” kinda thing, y’know? Because we’re talking about the Changelings who are basically built into the actual infrastructure of these Faetowns themselves, like part of the very reason they exist. So in Bordertown in SF, for instance that’d include Scott, but also the Ferryman, the Rose Garden, that one dragon Changeling and his Rider, etc. The ones whose magic is responsible for the protection and safety of the Faetowns, bringing Changelings to them in the first place, etc.

And then the rest of the Changelings in each settlement basically just put themselves out there and make themselves known as offering or available for whatever products or services their Changes make them best suited towards, in various ways. In Bordertown, there’s a central marketplace right smack dab in the center/most protected part of the town, near Rose’s Garden and the Aerie. But with some kind of Changeling-dug river that cuts straight through the town to it from the docks so the aquatic Changelings who live out there have easy access to it too. And they organically congregate in various clusters or ‘lanes’ of similar type of wares, so to speak.

So for instance, there’s a row of stalls or shops called something idk yet, but like, Answers Alley, something like that. And this is where the various Changelings who traffic in information can be found. 

The diviners, seers, prophets, like Boyd and Alicia…..or the ones that have access to various forms of esoteric or ‘valuable’ information, like that one kid, the Archivist, the one modeled after Aaron idk if you remember. He’s the one whose skin is covered with constantly changing, flowing script like tattoos….writing that appears on his body and is endlessly replaced with new writing day after day. And all of the writing is straight out of various sources of ‘lost’ or destroyed knowledge, like the books or tomes or scrolls destroyed in places like the Library at Alexandria and similar places throughout history. 

And also Lydia and her Whisper Lounge would be on this street, there’s a Changeling who specializes in memory retrieval and another whose Change lets them imbue physical objects with memories or feelings, like imprint them onto the object so anyone who touches it experiences that particular feeling or sees that memory. Etc, etc.

So basically, any Changeling who is looking for some form of information, be it a specific piece of knowledge, a way to check up on someone, finding someone or something that was lost, etc…..they go here and just start working their way down the lane til they find a Changeling who can help with what they need.

At one end of this street, it ends up at the warehouse that was converted into a lair for the dragon Changeling to live in, with the roof removed and replaced with a covering for when it rains but otherwise opens up to the air, so he can fly up and out as needed. But since he’s so huge and the city itself just isn’t really adapted to his needs, he really tends to stay put unless he’s needed somewhere for some reason, like to defend the town or do a warning fly-by overhead if for some reason they think outside forces are thinking of making some kind of attack or incursion. Plus, his metabolism is like, insane, and so he’s fairly sleepy and lethargic a lot of the time anyway, reserving most of his energy for spurts when he needs to be flying and fire-breathing and all that jazz.

Basically, his very presence is a deterrence to a lot of threats and he’s one of the primary defenders of the town, and that’s a contribution in and of itself the rest of the town tends to be very appreciative of. So they always make sure he has plenty to eat, but more than that, like, the big drawback to his size and shape is that he misses out on a lot of day-to-day activities and is limited in where he can go and what he can experience firsthand….his magic and that of his Rider sync up in such a way that like I’ve mentioned, they can see through each other’s eyes and kinda share experiences that way….but along with that, the one big thing about the dragon is that he’s actually fairly young, was early teens at the most when he was Changed, and he loves stories.

And so that’s the reason his lair is located along this particular street….because along with housing him, it ends up becoming like a central gathering place for storytelling and theater, performing arts, etc. Changelings flock here pretty much 24/7 (given that there are as many nocturnal Changelings as there are diurnal), and its basically like….the entertainment hotspot, sprung up around the Changeling who is most land-locked and who most benefits/is ‘compensated’ or appreciated via a constant revolving door of storytellers. Changelings just sharing personal stories or weaving tales out of their journey to Bordertown in the first place, or making up stories and kinda bringing back a resurgence of storytelling as an oral tradition, etc. 

And then pretty much anything related. Here’s where you’d find the Changelings who use illusion magic to make three dimensional movies, shapeshifters reenacting any number of plays, Changeling singers, bands made up of those whose music or art has nothing to do with their Changes, is just their own hobbies and interests separate of that, as well as the Changelings with actual magic that manifests via singing or music in some way.

Then on another street tentatively called Mercy Row, you have the healers. Isaac would eventually end up here once he was settled in, for instance, but also ones like Brett who can purify toxins and poisons, and part of the river/canal would cut across this street so the aquatic Changelings with healing powers could be found here as well. 

Because the aquatic Changelings have such variety and there are some who are just totally undersea 24/7 vs the ones who are more amphibious and can have a presence both underwater and above it, down in the adjacent sub-aquatic settlement by the docks where they all congregate, there’s a separate Market just for the always-underwater Changelings to go to. 

And occasionally there are Changelings here who never go above the surface but have specific Changes or magic that the surface Changelings might need or want to seek out. So for instance, there’s one Changeling in the surface market whose magic lets her produce these pearls…that when held or worn allow an air-breather to survive underwater until the pearl finishes magically dissolving. So between her and some others, there’s a few different ways that surface Changelings can take like, day trips to the underwater village.

At the very heart of the Market, the part that intersects/butts up against the Rose’s Garden, you have the various Changelings with nature magic or elemental Changes. So that’s where they go to trade for most food, with the Garden and its various flora-related Changelings able to grow year round pretty much any fruit or vegetable known to man and a number that aren’t. Plus stalls from the various Changelings who trade in food of various types made or obtained via other kinds of non-plant based magic. And then the various weather workers are gonna be situated here most days they’re at the Market, with them usually to be found up in the Aerie the rest of the time (given that the vast majority of the weather workers are flight capable as well).

And then scattered throughout the various streets and lanes specific to their kind of offerings or services, there are various Changelings whose magic creates or provides the stuff the town as a whole trades with either other settlements or with mainstream humanity - which has as much to do with people leaving them alone and there being no official responses to their presence/settlements as the threats/warning of weaponized Changeling magic acting as a deterrent.

So on one street, Kid Midas has his shop, the gold-skinned Changeling with ruby eyes, who can turn anything into some form of gem or precious metal with just a touch. And sure, there’s the occasional Changeling looking to make or give someone some kind of jewelry or gift, of course there’s a ‘demand’ for his talents in that respect, but honestly not that much of one. Changelings are still for the most part the same as they were before they were Changed, so its not like there’s not still a bunch of them who like jewelry and pretty things as much as anyone, but there’s not a hugely pressing need for those things due to the things that are most prioritized in Bordertown. And its just…not the direction the still forming, still young Changeling society is taking, even as its still being formed day by day. So yes, there’s still plenty of individual Changelings who like the things Kid Midas makes and are willing to trade for them, but nothing he can’t ‘fill to order’ on a day by day basis without breaking a sweat. 

But in contrast, the gems and metals he can make out of anything do still hold quite a bit of value in mainstream society, so he’s one of the primary figures in Faetown providing the various trades they offer people outside Bordertown in order to keep people off their backs. Like, there’s the idea ‘okay but why wouldn’t someone outside just try and have this particular Changeling kidnapped and thus have a constant source of free money’….but the thing is, when the various Changeling settlements first started springing up as central gathering places, and there were skirmishes, and efforts to abduct and exploit individual Changelings….like, the Changelings worldwide made sure to impress upon people that for every Changeling with a ‘valuable’, exploitable Change or magic….there were just as many whose magic was dangerous to others or outright fatal, and many of these Changelings had instinctive defense mechanisms they didn’t even need to be conscious to deploy. 

Like y’know with how the Rose’s skin is like smooth mahogany wood to anyone who touches her with her consent…..but any hand that touches her without permission or being invited to is inevitably going to find itself stabbed by poisonous thorns that can kill with a single prick of the thumb.

So…..there are plenty of Changelings any of the seedier elements of society would love to snatch up and exploit as their own personal golden geese, but there are just as many where anyone who tries that with them, they’re going to regret it. And due to the sheer breadth of Changeling appearances, and how so many of their appearances don’t directly or obviously correlate to their magic……good luck trying to figure out at a glance whose magic is ‘valuable’ and whose is going to kill you if you so much as look at them the wrong way, like the Basilisk and Devil-Eyed Johnny and assorted others. Or Lydia, if she so much as takes off her sunglasses in your vicinity, lol.

All of which means that anonymity is one of their greatest protections. As long as they’re safely within their particular Faetown, and they’re not directly associated with those who go to trade these various valuables with the outside world, some random criminal looking to kidnap the Changeling who makes precious gems and metals wouldn’t even know where to start even if they got someone within Bordertown itself and was able to hunt around looking for which Changeling that might be. Kid Midas is far from the only Changeling whose Change is related to precious minerals or kinda of artistic statuary, etc, and there’s several who look not too dissimilar to him but where touching their skin without permission is just as likely to turn you into a statue yourself.

So basically, as much as different people outside Bordertown gnash their teeth at not being able to just have direct access to any one particular Changeling on their terms, so long as they have something of a pipeline to the valuables they’re being offered in trade on the Changelings’ terms, its counter-productive and not worth the risk to most to possibly end up losing even that and gaining nothing to show for it, if they tried storming Bordertown and either accidentally killed the very Changeling they were looking for, or just ended up driving all of them further underground and into complete hiding instead. Doesn’t mean nobody’s ever tried or isn’t going to at some point, but for now, that status quo is holding.

And as such, even though what Kid Midas has to offer isn’t something that most of Bordertown is hugely interested in or in need of on an individual level, he’s still one of the more crucial Changelings in town, due to his role in keeping their emerging society the way it is and largely autonomous.

And then there are various Changelings whose magic lets them create artifacts or items with different kinds of imbued magic that can be utilized by others, plenty of potion-makers of different types, you’ve got that one Changeling with the magic tears and different kinds of teleporters/transportation magic, so on and so on.

Plus there’s also a thriving black market, since even within Bordertown and the various other Faetowns, there are divisions and internal strife…..plenty of Changelings are far from perfect angels, and as stated, there’s plenty of ways in which Changeling magic can be dark and dangerous and deadly, and there’s obviously a market for those things as well. But obviously none of the Faetowns really have distinct marketplaces or shops dedicated to these things, and its more sort of a ‘you have to know who to find/look for’ kinda thing. So for instance, within Bordertown, we’ve talked about how Theo is the largest presence in that kind of vein, and he has his group he’s gathered around him and they all operate out of that one restaurant he kinda called dibs on in the early days of Bordertown, so that’s where you go if you’re looking for something a bit more ‘frowned upon’ than the wares or services you’d find in the central market. 

I tend to picture Theo’s restaurant as being on the outskirts of what the Changelings have kinda claimed as officially within Bordertown’s borders, making it easy for him and his people to duck in and out of town and meet with people outside the settlement, because they know there’s definitely a market there for them and many of their skills and magic…and they feel pretty safe and confident in doing so, because trying to snatch up one of them just because they’re outside the safety of Bordertown is a bit like having a deathwish. These tend to be among the most deadly of the Changelings and most of them would be more than capable of protecting themselves anywhere….they come to various Faetowns for the community and so they don’t have to constantly fend off attacks, but its not remotely because they can’t. So a number of the Changelings Theo’s surrounded himself with are in high demand as assassins, poison-creators, etc. 

So among these you’ve got like, the Doppelganger, and Garrett with his autonomous shadow, and Tracy’s feathers that allow her to kill people in their dreams and Violet who’s a constantly shifting mix of human flesh and hallucinogenic cloud, almost impossible to keep your eyes on, let alone know where to even aim when trying to kill her or defend against her. 

And last but not least, each of the major living spaces throughout Bordertown have a large floor to ceiling painting in the main area of their home. So like, there’s one in the Aerie, Scott has one in his ‘sheriff’s station’, Lydia pulled some strings and arranged to get one in her bar, as did Theo in his restaurant….Danny’s got one painted in materials expressly meant to be protected from underwater damage, in the heart of the subaquatic village. There’s one in Rose’s Garden, about a dozen others in all, scattered throughout the town and kept in the homes/care of the Changelings who all in all are considered the most influential, well known, most-looked to, and well, powerful and dangerous. They’ve deliberately spaced themselves out throughout the town so there’s one for every several streets or blocks, meaning in an event of an emergency, one of them is in fairly close reach to any and all Changelings and no one has to go far or run for long before reaching one.

The significance of these paintings is they were each painted by a Changeling named Paul, whose magic makes each of them a permanent portal or doorway to the scene/landscape depicted by the painting. They look like ordinary, albeit beautiful paintings, but any Changeling who knows what they are knows that the second they touch it, their own magic will resonate with the Changeling magic imbued in the painting. Which in turn turns it from a two-dimensional image to something that magically gains depth and perspective as the surface of it becomes intangible while the Changeling walks through it, until they emerge out the other side and it becomes just a painting again. 

So each and every one of the paintings in question is an image of another Faetown, somewhere elsewhere in the world. And the unofficial leaders of Bordertown, basically everyone who has one of these paintings, offered the same in trade to any other Faetown that allowed them to paint one of their city/town. To be used as a last resort escape hatch should the Changelings in their town ever need to flee somewhere safe. 

And each of the other Faetowns agreed, and so in return they got their own paintings by Paul, paintings of Faetown….depicting the very rooms that each of these Bordertown residents kept their own paintings in. So that they too could use their own paintings to escape to Bordertown if they needed to instead. By mutual agreement, every Changeling in possession of one of these paintings, across all the various Faetowns that have one now, all agreed that they never change hands from the Changeling they were initially given to, without notifying all the others first. 

Thus, everyone who has one of these paintings acts not just as a guardian of it, ensuring the preservation and safe-keeping of a valuable escape hatch in case of emergency….but by the same token, they act as a first line of defense in case of anyone coming through a painting from the other side, that shouldn’t be. 

Like, just in case worst ever comes to worst, and a Faetown was overrun by hostile forces who somehow found out what the paintings truly were and how they worked, and forced a Changeling to touch one to open up the way to an adjoining Faetown….even if some enemy somehow managed to hijack a painting portal and use it themselves, they’d still be emerging right in full view of basically the very Changelings who are most capable of defending themselves and just destroying any attackers, the second they determined “this is not a Changeling who should be using this doorway.” 

Like, Lydia’s magic makes it pretty much impossible to catch her unaware, thanks to her constant retinue/crowd of Whispers, meaning anyone trying to coopt the portal leading to her bar is likely to find her already waiting for them, just standing there with her arms crossed and sighing because of how tedious this all is….before just taking off her sunglasses and annihilating them all with a look, lolol.

Also, being not just powerful but influential and in a leadership role in their Faetown’s society as well, the caretakers of each of the paintings are also the best positioned to immediately take charge of coordinating and helping Changeling refugees that suddenly start spilling out of the painting in their home without warning.

Anyway, so that’s the basics as of right now….with one addition. So going back to how I said the barter system as they have it right now is somewhat more complicated than it needs to be and can turn into a pretty intricate web of trades upon trades, even favors or debts made to one Changeling just to obtain something that they in turn can trade to the Changeling who has something they actually need?

Well, as I said, that has a lot to do with their ages and the fact that they’re just making this all up as they go along and don’t always have the best idea what they’re doing or anywhere to really look to for precedence.

But only part of it. There’s another way in which the very complexity of these arrangements is entirely intentional, as a kind of….test many of these Faetowns are conducting in concert.

See, like you suggested, it makes sense for the Changelings to naturally fall into a kind of barter system, given that they’re part Fae…..but that begets the chicken or the egg question.

Nobody knows why these particular kids were taken and Changed, let alone by whom or why, though Faeries is just as popular a theory as aliens. And the way so many Changelings seem predisposed to bargains and debts and trades is something others have noted and taken into account and added to their list of why they think Faeries have something to do with it, assuming that the things they can do now really are magic and not just Sufficiently Advanced Technology.

So nobody is oblivious to the possibility of Fae-involvement in this, least of all the Changelings themselves. I mean, there’s a reason Changelings so quickly became the most widely used slang to describe them.

But anyway, even noting they have that common personality trait among them, it still begs the question….which came first? The personality trait or the Change? Meaning….was the fact that they were all already predisposed to things like that, had a certain way of thinking along those lines, was that part of the reason why they in particular were taken and Changed in the first place? Was that part of the criteria for whomever took them, were they looking to Change individuals of certain mindsets, personality types, perhaps those with outlooks or perspectives or ways of thinking similar to the Fae folk of old? 

Or was it the other way around, and this tendency of theirs is an addition or alteration of their pre-existing outlooks and personalities, a Change every bit as much as their physical Changes and magical gifts? The end result of some forces trying to make them more like the Fae, in mind as well as body and magic?

The thing is, even the Changelings themselves don’t know….and they don’t like that. Many of them are constantly looking into their origins, trying to figure out what happened to them, who did it, and to what end, using their magic, combing through ancient lore from various cultures, etc. The one thing most all of them agree on is that they very much don’t like this blindspot hanging over them like a Sword of Damocles. There’s a lot of cynicism in various Faetowns, due to the circumstances that led most of them to run away or seek out a community like them rather than stay where they were in the first place. 

So the popular sentiment is that nobody tends to do things for free, and they’re wary of anyone who has the power to take them and Change them on such a massive scale, worldwide, imbue them with such vast powers themselves in a lot of individuals….without a clue who that anyone might have been and why they did this. What do they want out of the Changelings themselves, or want them to do, because….who knows if its something the Changelings are going to be on board with…or have the power to resist, given the likely power of whomever their unknown ‘benefactors’ might have been.

And in the very early days of the Changeling settlements, when they were first seeking others out and coming together in large numbers, sharing these concerns with each other….their tendencies towards making barters, trades, deals….that definitely was something they’d noticed by now, once they had enough other Changelings to compare and contrast themselves too. Most agreed that they didn’t feel that different in that regard than they had before their Changes, like they felt like the same person as always so they didn’t think it was some new trait transplanted to all their personalities….but they also agreed that with that said, there was a slightly more…intense nature to it now. Not just like they were naturally inclined to barter and make deals and take a quid pro quo outlook to life….but there was a vague….something underlying it now, like an additional instinct almost.

With them also noting to each other, on a related note, that they’d pretty much all universally disliked ever being in someone’s debt…owing someone something….but since they returned Change, there was an added intensity to that tendency of theirs too. It was almost like they each felt an instinctive…revulsion, to the idea of being in someone’s debt. It wasn’t a full on compulsion or anything, it didn’t override their decision making or anything like that….but it was just this gut feeling most of them had that for some reason, it felt unnatural to be in someone’s debt. To owe someone for something. On a bone-deep level, they all seemed to instinctively shy away from that, as though their bodies and minds were warning them for some reason that wasn’t good for them.

And this too matched up with a lot of lore about Fae in various cultures, that part of the whole reason behind Fae gifts was that the Fair Folk can’t stand being in a mortal’s debt, that its a form of powerlessness for them….debts unpaid held some sort of magical significance to them, not just cultural….so they would try and resist or refrain from being in another’s debt by any trickery or other means possible.

So when running through the various possibilities as to the origins of their Changes and who might have done it and why, and what they might want from the Changelings in the long run, like when building their various settlements around the world and birthing their own new and distinct societies….it was agreed this was one of the possibilities at the top of their lists for various reasons, and so they factored that in.

And so the overly complicated barter system and web of favors and bargains and debts they all developed some form of, became a kind of….longterm test and the foundation for a possible defense against their unknown benefactors trying to exert control over them at a later date. Just in case. With the Changelings leaning into offering each other favors, bargains, putting themselves in debt to each other as part of their barter system, just as often as they kept things simple and even one on one trades. 

Like, even though this defied their very instincts, that they all felt that instinctive revulsion each time they made a bargain, agreed they owed another Changeling a favor, bound themselves to another with a promise to come to their aid if they should ever need in the future, in exchange for the other doing this thing for them now….

This offered them two things:

First, it allowed them to use themselves as a kind of group experiment, a trial run testing out how far this dislike of longterm bargains and debts went with them, and what the potential longterm consequences were, of say, having a longstanding debt to another, a favor they’d let go years without paying in full, a promise with no real and definitive end date, etc. They figured they’d rather find out any potential consequences this held for them, by not following their instincts and shying away from these sort of arrangements….like, if anything was going to manifest further down the line as an actual consequence to things like being in someone’s debt or owing someone a favor or promise….

Well, it seemed to all of them it would at least be better to have the individual on the other end of that debt or favor or promise or oath be a member of their own community, in the same boat as them, with mutual understandings that it was in all of their best interests to not try and utilize these hypothetical consequences against them, or exert any power being in each other’s debts held over them, if it turned out to hold real, magical power over them in some fashion.

And secondly, again - they’d been discussing among themselves all along, what would be the potential endgame of their Changes, what would anyone stand to gain from just….bestowing them with all these various magical Changes and abilities, making some of them extraordinarily powerful, with magic that theoretically could be turned on the gift-givers themselves if they ever came calling and wanted something of them that the Changelings did not want to give.

With it occurring to some of them, in these hushed councils among themselves in those very early days post-Change….that suppose favors, bargains and such did hold magical significance for them now, thanks to their Changes and their own magic. Suppose that being in someone’s debt was something they instinctively felt resistant to, that it was best to shy away from if at all possible…..that like those stories about the Fae Folk, debts could be a kind of binding, that owing someone or something could turn into an obligation to see them paid back in full for whatever they’d given you first... 

That because they were in some way or to some degree part Fae themselves now, assuming that there was some connection between them and whatever beings were chronicled in these old legends and stories…..that their new Fae natures were the part of them that was trying to tell them body and mind that they absolutely did not want to be bound to anyone, be obligated, to owe anyone in some form...

Because, following that train of thought….if that were true to any degree, on any level….imagine some beings of some kind imbued you with great powers, magic and Changes that made you stand out as different, but also made it possible to find others like yourself, form communities of yourselves, pool your various magics to decisively protect yourselves from those who would seek to harm or exploit you because of your new gifts. Gifts which you in concert with others like you could use to further empower yourselves and build lives and communities for yourselves that left you vastly better off than you were before, or would be without them. Given that all of you that found yourselves Changed still only wound up having to leave home and seek out others like yourselves because your home was less than inviting to begin with, and actively hostile or apathetic after your Change was revealed.

Well, they concluded, if those beings were to then just sit back and wait while you utilized the gifts they’d given you to empower yourselves and enrich your own lives, build communities far more to your benefit than those which you came from…..

It seemed the longer those beings waited before revealing themselves, the more you became accustomed to using their gifts and becoming one with them, just as you became more accustomed to being one with your new communities….the more you felt grateful for being who you were now, post-Change, with your true potential revealed, with your magic making you autonomous, capable and powerful, with your community now one you couldn’t imagine being without….

The more in debt you would end up being to these mysterious gift-givers.

And once someone arrived at that conclusion, the mere possibility of it was unsettling to every single Changeling who heard it theorized. It wasn’t at all an implausible scenario, even if they certainly couldn’t prove it true or rule out other possibilities….but they pretty much all agreed it was a possibility they had to prepare for…..because if it did turn out to be realized, if being in these beings’ debt did end up binding them to them, making them obligated to them….well, how would they be able to fight or resist that? 

It wasn’t like they could pretend they hadn’t already been given great gifts via their new magic, or like they could just refuse to use these gifts, especially since many of them were needed in order to defend or protect themselves from those who viewed them as targets or prey because of their Changes, many of which weren’t easy to hide.

And so they eventually came up with their ‘overly complicated’ barter system with its sometimes completely unnecessary web of bargains, promises, favors and debts owed all throughout their communities, seemingly baffling in its complexity and intricacies…all while leaning into these natural or amped up tendencies towards barters and bargains and just with the spillage over into the unnatural debts and binding promises plausibly seeming to be just the unintentional results of their youth and lack of knowledge or experience with such matters.

While in reality….the Changelings have this whole time been using their barter system and promises and debts to each other to quietly test their own natures and possible ramifications these things had on their magic…..trying to little by little feel their way through the ins and outs of the ‘rules’ that might come with or govern the magic they’d been given without an actual manual to go along with it. Using themselves to test the limits of their magic-imbued bargains and how far they could stretch things….and to practice the trickery the Fae in all the old stories so often employed to try and weasel their way out of their debts or promises.

And underlying all else….their ultimate Hail Mary, should their mysterious benefactors ever appear at some point and try and exert power over them by ‘calling in their unpaid debts’ for the gifts given to them,’ cite that as proof the Changelings all owed them their allegiance or obedience and potentially back that up with magical compulsions or bindings….

Because should that day ever arrive, the Changelings of various Faetowns all across the world were prepared to fight anyone trying to claim they owed them anything, for gifts they’d never asked for and certainly hadn’t been offered guidance on how to make the most of, even while they’d been made targets just for having them….

And their weapon of choice for fighting any possible coercion later down the line, any claims towards owing mystical unpaid obligations….

Was to be prepared to have counterclaims in place to push back with….to weaken the hold initial and unasked for debts held over them….by drawing upon the strength of the bonds and favors, promises made and debts owed….

To each other. Members of their own communities. To their communities as a whole.

So at the end of the day, the barter system isn’t just their quid pro quo arrangement that acts as their own particular version of their economy.

Its also their protective armor of obligations they willingly and with full knowledge of what it meant, made to each other and their communities.

That they were prepared to uphold as more powerful, binding, and compelling than any other debts others tried to hold over their heads. Try and call in past favors we owe you all you want, they decided in regards to their mysterious ‘benefactors’ years ago. Guess we’ll see how much weight that holds compared to what we owe each other, who have been right here at our sides helping us, building with us, the whole time.

[spearxwind]

sorry if that's a stupid question but what is flipnote hatena??

*was :’)

hatena was a website where you could upload your animations that you made in flipnote studio for the nintendo DSi. it sadly closed down in 2013 

it had a really cool and talented community minus the absolute fuckers that would report gore and blood. you see, a lot of us were (still are)..... very edgy and so were our animations. violence and blood and insane furry ocs were a #1 trend. alternatively, the stickfighter animators did a lot of blood also they were so fucking talented 

anyways we had to start putting disclaimers on our flips that said ‘lol guys its all just strawberry jam haha!! its all jam!!’ so they couldnt report it for gore or violence 

there was also a super fucking useless star system, where you could give people’s flips colored stars that you owned

the thing was tho. for yellow stars everyone had infinite of them.... but the other colors you needed to buy them and when someone gave you a purple star (the most expensive bitch) youd be like holy fucking shit you’d go to peoples profiles and see how many stars they had to check on their popularity 

there was also a lot of reposting though... you could download flips and reupload them again so a lot of people just grabbed animations and sped them up to post them again 

also for the sound in your animations  you had to record the music with your nintendo’s mic.... which did not end very well. everyones sound quality was ass save for a select few and people passed those flips around to delete them but keep the music like MAD 

god i forgot so much about the place but yeah thats a trip down memory lane jeez 

[nutellarchives]

Senior Year Shenanigans

It's been a month since updated but this ain't gonna be a monthly update, just a compilation of remarkable things that is currently happening. Keep reading to read more~

Ever since the summer passed and school started, I've been busier than ever! I suddenly missed the chill and relaxed break that I've had this 2022, welp that would be the last unfortunately because in the corporate world, vacations doesn't exist... oh well at least I can earn stuff right?

Below would be the highlights of my life atm. It's not much but hope you enjoy reading!

That addicting FPS game!

I've never imagine that I'll be playing an FPS at this day and this age. I did play FPS games when I was a kid but I did lose my interest because of how I suck at PVP games. I remember I always lose to these guys that I play with and of course up until now I am a hardstuck Iron who enjoys spike rush and replication more than competitive.

I did start playing this game March of this year and I am just a casual player so It's not really a passion for improvement and I play whenever I want to. I did start with being a Viper main, just love her design and her kit then I did main Sage a little (well because she is very easy to use and her heals are very handy) BUT last month (if I remember correctly), I was able to unlock Killjoy and boy oh boy I've been using her non stop. Her kit is so fun to use and all of these creative lineups on every map is just fantastic! I am now a hardcore KJ main!

Fangirling again and again

ONEUS JUST HAD THEIR COMEBACK OMG OMG OMG!!! Okay, virtual fangirling aside. I've been listening to SEVENTEEN and SNSD and Aespa songs on repeat for the longest time and I've been enjoying their discography and latest release so far. For Aespa it's Girls and Illusion for me then I did a lil trip down to memory lane with their Savage album songs, which I did found some favorites such as ICONIC and Lucid Dream. For SNSD, I cannot stress enough how happy I am for these girl's comeback. It's been 4 whole years since the last Oh!GG comeback and now they came back as whole. SNSD is one of my favorite 2nd Gen GGs, they are part of my childhood. FOREVER 1 is such a great album and a no skip for me!

For the featured picture of this portion, ITS ONEUS COMEBACK, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?? I honestly didn't hype this comeback so much because I became their fan last year, after they released Luna and months after they announced their Trickster (Bring it On) comeback and I did hype for it and I got disappointed, like honestly, because I believe that the Luna concept was top tier and after that they released a concept that I don't find interesting. It's my personal opinion obviously (please don't come after me) but now they are back SAME SCENT SOTY! I honestly love the beat, melody, the vocals and the visuals and even the choreography. This comeback deserves another win! Though I have to be vvv honest, I am not a fan of the repetitive eh eh eh and the mmmind mind mah mind part of the song, but other than that everything is perfect. What's missing is the win, the trophy, and the recognition yah.

The Stardew Valley Addiction

I have never expected to be this addicted to this game. I generally never was interested into farming games because I find them grindy plus I got traumatized (kinda) with Genshin, because that game is hella grindy. So I am still at Spring and Year 1 (as of writing) and still exploring lot of stuff. One thing that I want to do is create another game and repeat everything because I feel like I just wasted my time in that game plus the speed of the in game time is insane, increments every 10 mins. like thank you in real world it ain't like that. Anyway one goal I have is actually to marry one of the NPC called Sebastian and I did watch a guide on how to befriend him.. which is hard LOL plus I knew *spoiler* that he likes Abigail like I also like her! (design-wise hihi). Anyway I should probably be playing now instead of writing LOL.

Created my First Visual Novel Story!

Creative writing is something that I wanted to pursue but was too scared to do so. I am a fan of reading fiction books and also fan fiction on the internet (hello tumblr and ao3) and consumed a lot to be able to write a story for the visual novel. I am a game dev major and that I have an on going Thesis research which requires integrating a game to our study, and since we are doing a Visual Novel project, I volunteered to write for the team. It was sooooo hard, with the fact that I haven't written any fiction for the longest time. It was a challenge to be able to write something decent and connect the lines. The story though, is about the gender neutral protagonist (since players can select which gender they can play) who uncovers their past through a hypnotherapy. I did integrate some psychological stuff in the story and of course advice to all the future players (because why not).

Trying to hop on the Tumblr Writing (and Theme Making)

This one is connected to the previous section, I am deciding to maintain a writing blog (aside from this one) that focuses on a mix of fiction and non-fiction. I just love words and imagery so much that I need to release it through writing. English may not be my first language but I am aiming to improve on that plus I am planning on taking a creative writing courses online, because honestly I suck at descriptive writing.

Another thing is learning how to create tumblr themes! I am a ComSci major and I know how to code front-end but I've never once touched the tumblr documentation so I guess the time is now to do so.

I honestly should focus on studying but the things mentioned above are my escape and that everyone should have their own escape too because this what makes us sane in this fast-paced and busy world.

BTW, thank you for reading this entry, it's long (as always) but I hope you did enjoy and I might not be able to update for the longest time again but oh well, let's see.

- ella

[vinku-iikku]

Yay I finally finished 2018 inktober! If you want to just scroll through them all please go here, and if you want to see some comments on each please look under the cut.

Day 01 Flowey and Overgrown Ruins This prompt I picked as is because as far as I remember Flowey stayed behind when the monsters left. If you can’t find him, he’s near the big root on the left. All other days the second prompt got randomised by a die (except when I reached the last two).

Day 02 Grillby and Exotic Flora Grillby’s on a journey to look at all the flowers that aren’t living in a wet environment. Maybe he’ll make some wine from the non-poisonous ones.

Day 03 Chara and Cave Entrance They are still curious about morbid things and places that could be portentially dangerous, practically running at danger.

Day 04 Undyne and Astral Plains/Dreamland Welp I’d rather have had her with some other prompt, but now she has an anime showdown/faceoff with a mean monster that harasses a moldsmal.

Day 05 Asgore and Rocky Ruins Asgore had a trip down memory lane and visited the place where their castle used to be, before the war. Not much is left any more.

Day 06 Frisk and Ancient Tree They are still precariously looking for adventure. I saw this article about a 800 year-old Finnish tree, as soon as I saw that top I wanted to climb that, looks like a perfect spot to see everything around you and chill for a bit.

Day 07 Temmie and Nature Untouched I did some research in a nearby forest for this one, the sales-Temmie has made a nest in a tree that has fallen down in a storm. The soil is shallow before solid rock so trees have their roots mostly close to the surface, when they fall the roots go up as well. Temmie on the left is sitting on an ant nest lol. There are seven Temmies in total.

Day 08 Muffet and Crystal Coves Crystal Coves is either a place where crystal business is the main employer, a cove that has crystals, or a cove with crystal clear water, I think. I tried to implement them all just to make sure. Muffet has now made a business in making spider-products with glass expertise.

Day 09 Fuku Fire and Freezing Fjord Finally back to the ‘monsters travelling’ theme, Fuku is taking a longer trip and is currently on a boat by Norway.

Day 10 Gaster Blasters and Townsquare The blasters are on their own for whatever convenient reason, Pap’s one is figuring how things work by destroying them, Sans’ is... playing with local children. :D The fountain is loosely based on Havis Amanda.

Day 11 Nice Cream Guy & Shanty Town He’s travelling the world and selling nice cream! Definitely inspired by Beadle in BotW.

Day 12 Mettaton EX & Cemetery This combination took me a moment, Mettaton is a bit loud and showy for a cemetery. Then I remembered that Napstablook said they’re already dead when you try to kill them, so here Mettaton’s visiting haunted places and telling everyone about this wonderful body he got and where to get one if you’re interested in becoming physical again. I worked in a cemetery for one summer years ago, felt weird pulling those visual memories to this...

Day 13 Toriel & Hall of Deities In order to become a teacher I’d imagine she’d have to brush up her knowledge on lots of things that’ve happened on the surface, and here she’s in a secret underground place with some sacred scriptures or something, she reads them and writes down notes and then returns the scrolls.

Day 14 Annoying Dog & Volcanic Terrain Another weird combination, but eh, it’s the dog. It’s feeding bones to the vulkins and admiring danger up close.

Day 15 Monster Kid & Path Along the Water I made a huge area with different textures so I could try learn something new by scribbling around, and I’m really happy how the boulders on top of the waterfall and the water itself look like.

Day 16 Doggo & Ancient Altar Room Took a moment to come up with an idea, then I read Doggo likes squirrels. So now he’s travelling the world too, and he always has time and seeds for any squirrel population he discovers.

Day 17 Alphys & Summoning Altar I thought I’d not be drawing Mew Mew, but here was a perfect opportunity for that! Alphys isn’t travelling, but discovering new things in her home, humans have such interesting books! All of the Japanese text mean something; the bowl has the kanji for ’love’, books under it are Mew Mew manga, there’s two yury books, a reference to Free!, Digimon, Pokémon, Rose of Versailles, Natsume Book of Friends... and it’s fine if you don’t get the one that says ‘corn’.

Day 18 Photoshop Flowey & Windmills and Grasslands I think the modern wind generators look super cool. I tried to make Flowey as cute as possible so he’d be more fun to draw there, this is some dream stuff or alternate universe since Flowey did stay behind.

Day 19 Papyrus & Desserted Drylands I’m pretty sure that’s an accidental typo, but since it was Papyrus I wanted to roll with the new pun meaning. First thought was Papyrus somehow being in the drylands and dropping a huge cake, thus ’desserting’ it, but that would’ve been a bit mean. This cake is made with 100% organic sand (some of which he ground himself when grooming Rocky), the tiny cow ornaments are modified mouse skeletons. :) The chef hat would be straight but there wasn’t enough room on the page of the notebook I draw these on... I remembered he had a triangle on the battle armor, but didn’t remember what way it points so avoided it by replacing it with a heart. :D

Day 20 Sans & By the Beach Sans is getting some more sand for Papyrus with his shortcut, then he took a nap unfortunately close to the tide..? The shore felt a bit bare so I added some animals to keep him company. I h/c that animals don’t mind having monsters around unlike how they usually try to run away when a human is near.

Day 21 Shyren & Buried Statue(s) She’s doing that Disney princess thing where you sit down and start singing and all small animals within hearing range come to listen.

Day 22 Asriel & Underwater Temple Another dream thing since Flowey stayed behind, this is how he imagines the oceans look like outside.

Day 23 Lesser Dog & Market Place Some people have to learn the hard way to not trust a dog that has opposable thumbs.

Day 24 Box Mettaton & Merchant’s Store Any website run by a popular monster must get an insane amount of curious folk, which leads to ad revenue being a good way to fund the next tour. There’s some.. insider jokes there if you’re in any kind of website business.

Day 25 Rocky the pet rock & Eldritch Forest I don’t actually know what the latter means, looking at Google images it’s probably just a forest that’s very dark or something. Wanted to try a different perspective for a change. Rocky has a bowl of food there but I can’t really think of any non-sad reason for why it’s in this forest.

Day 26 Froggit & Inn in th Middle of Nowhere Had to take a break for one day, regardless I’m proud of myself on being consistent this far despite everything going on. I first only had the top Froggit and the bg in the sketch, and didn’t like how it looked. Somehow adding more Froggits made it look a lot better to me...

Day 27 Burgerpants & By the Docs Birsd with human arms and birds sitting like humans will never not be hilarious to me.

Day 28 Bratty and Catty & Deep in the Woods Tried to play with perspective with this one, it’s kind of the opposite of the Rocky drawing.

Day 29 God of Hyperdeath & Idle Portal I had a hard time coming up with anything for this, so now poor goat is somewhere in a completely white dimention and the only way out is not active, though he’s quite chill about it.

Day 30 Amalgamate & Abnormal Formations This and last one’s world I didn’t leave for the die to decide, I really wanted to do Tetris with Napstablook and out of the two still left this prompt suits Endogeny more anyway. There’s a forest in Poland where several of the trees bend to north like this.

Day 31 Napstablook & Puzzling Platforms Only one I did during morning, my hands shake more then so all the lines are more or less wobbly. Every Tetris piece has it’s own signature design except the L-shape which is just blank to keep it interesting. Napstablook is enjoying game music while inside the game, maybe ghosts can possess videogames..? This also shows the notebook I drew all of these in and the tools I used most of the time.

It’s hard to tell if I’ve improved at all when comparing these to 2017 inktober, I haven’t draw regularly through the year and the main focus point this time was on backgrounds and not so much on lines and characters. I did learn new things and that’s always exiting, I think my trees, glass and rocks look way better than before I started, and I did some progress in shading metal too. All of these took 3 hours or less to finish, some only took an hour. I didn’t need to erase pencils like last year because I used a trick where I placed the sketch under the notebook page and my tablet with 100% brightness and a white bg under them, and traced that with ink. The notebook paper is pretty thin, you can see the Amalgamate drawing’s clouds showing through in the Napstablook photo. Anyway, this was fun, and I think I’ll try do it next year too!

[kfawkes]

'we can cuddle' with Eggsy pleasee xx

[Sweet! You know how much I love Eggsy ;.; You guys are so awesome btw, thanks for all the support and prompts I am gonna be busy for 10000 years :) (send more!!!!) As always, I start one thing and end up somewhere so different hahahah. BUUUUT you know, at least I’m consistent :D Kinda short, hope you like it!!!

Pairing: Eggsy x Reader with a small cameo by Merlin ;)

Words: 1.3K Kinda on the short side? 

Warnings: A little bit of smut references, but nothing actually dirty. Cursing as always!

– Read on Ao3!]

Saying the day was long was about the biggest understatement of the century. The day was long, and then some… and then add a little bit more and you were pretty much there. It was one of those days that started way too early, didn’t have nearly enough coffee and that made time feel slowed at how painfully long it was. We’re talking it-feels-like-you’ve-been-up-for-nearly-50-hours long and what-day-is-it? long.

But the job needed to be done, and more importantly Eggsy needed you. 

He couldn’t go into that mansion alone… That and there was no way in hell you were going to let him even if he wanted to. You two were a team; A pair, an unstoppable power couple, or something just as cheesy. Where he went, you followed. 

That’s just who you two were. How it’s been since you started this insane relationship, and it sure as shit wasn’t about to change today… or was it yesterday. You really didn’t know anymore, but the point was all the same.

Now, usually your missions didn’t last this long without a break, but who were you to complain? It wasn’t like a billionaire mob boss was really going to make anything easy on you, was it? To answer the question; no, he absolutely was not and he absolutely didn’t.

Why the Kingsman were sent to deal with this man was beyond you, but you definitely didn’t question Merlin’s orders. Especially after he’d made sure your relationship with Eggsy would continue being permitted. After you two got caught, you were certain you’d both be fired. But Merlin made it happen… somehow. He convinced Arthur to make an exception, and here you were nearly 2 years later incandescently in love with your coworker.

Except this wasn’t really the time to take a trip down memory lane. Not with nearly 20 hours of nonstop fighting and traveling… oh and more fighting. But at least you and Eggsy were there finally. You’d made it. 

Here you were in that son of a bitches hideout, and you were ready to kill that fucker once and for all.

The sooner you wrapped this up, the sooner you could get back to your flat, curl up with a bag of chips and snuggle the shit out of your boyfriend and dog. Then you could sleep for about a day, rinse and repeat.

If only it were that easy… Alvin MacNamon did everything in his power to ensure that didn’t happen; and he very nearly succeeded. The fight itself felt like it lasted nearly as long as the search for him had, and damn was he good at what he did. Alvin was fast, dexterous and extremely agile.

But ultimately he wasn’t good enough and sure as shit not better than you two. He fell like so many before him had in a thunderous fashion. Your effortless fighting and perfect unison was unfair to any that cross you, envied by those that watched it blossom from the start; and once more, it had saved you. 

When you thought about it, it made you smile like a child, and now as you look down at the disembodied man below you with chest rising and falling; it sept through once more filling you with a bright warmth and a cool chill of comfort. Usually the sight of a dead body should erupt other emotions, but you weren’t really thinking about MacNamon, were you?

“What you smilin’ bout, luv?” Eggsy asked you with breath hurried to match your own. 

He walked closer to you; his suit dirty and nearly ripped to pieces. Eggsy was speckled with blood, and even though he smiled you could see how tired he truly was. That golden head of hair shined in a disheveled mess atop that perfect head of his, and as you watched his steady steps; you fell in love all over again. He really was a breath of fresh air among the smog, and now like every other time he nearly took your breath away when he looked at you.

“Hm?” You asked with brows lowered. Eggsy sent you a soft smile starting in the corner of his lips as he wipe a beed of blood from his chin. “Oh. Just thinking about how I can’t wait to get home and sleep for like… a year? Yeah… a year sounds good.”

Eggsy walked closer to you, pulling the glasses from his face and stuffing them in his pocket. When he reached you he placed his hand at the nape of your neck, then kissed you softly. “Think we earned it, yeah?” 

“Oh, we absolutely did. I think we deserve the next several weeks off to recuperate… maybe even longer.” You slid your hands lightly up his chest ending at his neck; letting out a soft sigh as you scan the flecks of blood and fresh scrapes decorating his jaw. 

“What d’you s’ppose we do with our free time?” He asked innocently, pulling his hands to your hips. His azure gaze danced between your own, and there was a trickle that shot throughout your every limb offering a soft static. 

“Well firstly… I demand there be food. A lot of it. I’m talking mountains.” You answered honestly, evading the obvious reply you so desperately wanted most: Him.

“That’s my girl.” He replied pressing his hips into yours softly with a wink. With one hand he removed your glasses, placing them into your jacket pocket smoothly. “Any requests?”

“Pizza? Candy … fries?” You laughed, closing your eyes nearly smelling and tasting it all. 

Okay, maybe sleep was really what you needed most and not food, or sex for that matter. But you’d have plenty of time for rest after you got your snacks and desert, right? Right.

“Jus so happens I know a place…” Eggsy kissed your nose affectionately, then slid his hand back to your neck lightly, eyeing you sweetly; admiring each detail that decorating your face like it was a work of art.  

You scrunched your nose softly as you smile up at him insinuating with your next words. “And just what do you think we should do, Unwin?” 

“Was gunna suggest cuddlin’.” He pursed his lips, raising a brow playfully.

With this you couldn’t help but send a soft chuckle. You certainly did like cuddling, of course you did… There weren’t many things you liked more than being wrapped in those arms, actually. But your mind was a little less U rated and more along the lines of no clothing, and a lot more moaning if you were being frank…

“Cuddling?” You narrowed your eyes on him, pulling your lip between your teeth. After a moment though, you nodded sweetly pulling him into a tight hug; breathing in the fresh piney smell of his skin. “Yeah… I could go for some cuddling.” 

“An maybe after, I could show you somethin’ new I learned…” Eggsy breathed into your neck softly, lightly tracing his lips over your skin.

With a smile you pushed your mouth into the soft part of his neck, biting him softly. “Something new, hm? And just what might that be…”

“Jus gonna have to show ya, won’I?” He slid his hand through your hair, pulling you into a fervent kiss and for a moment you both forgot where you were. 

“Bout ready to go, luv? Bet Merlin’s sick a hearin’ us.” When Eggsy pulled from you, your eyes were still closed and somehow you’d never felt more rested than you did now.

“He certainly is.” Merlin replied in your ears, and your eyes shot open. 

You pulled your lips between your teeth sending Eggsy an almost bashful smile as you separated turning a lovely shade of red.

“Sorry… about that, Merlin…” You suppressed another laugh as the two of you made your way hand in hand out of the mansion; delusional, tired and perfectly in love. 

The day had been long, and all you needed was some food and rest. Could have used a bit more coffee, and a lot less embarrassment… But there was no way you were going to bed without having your cake and eating it too.