#where are we. who are these random people on boats. are they from a different continent?

[amarimeta]

are there any show only watchers of wheel of time who genuinely feel like they have a good understanding of whats going on.

[caldwellwrites]

Things to Consider When Writing Setting

As a writer who has been coming up with a specific story concept for the past nine and a half years, I have a lot of trouble when it comes to writing and, oftentimes, imagining the setting of particular scenes. I almost always one detail in my head, but struggle to come up with any other features. Anyone can think, "Okay, my character is in a parking lot". But we, need to think beyond that.

Okay, first things first, decide a few things before we start consulting the big(ish) list.

-Where does this scene take place? (Pt. 1) That means the type of location. Are they in a forest? At home? In a Starbucks? There are a near-endless list of places for your character to be, but it's crucial to make sure you know where this person is before building from there. In my opinion, this is probably the most important aspect to know before attempting to write about the setting. Know. Where. They. Are.

-Where does this scene take place? (Pt. 2) This means the country or province. Consider every aspect of this place (I'll be making a post about world-building soon for those who need it). What are the geographical, cultural, and climate-related features. Think about how would these features impact the way your character experiences their environment.

-When does this scene take place? I'm talking about the time period, time of day, and time of the year. All of these factors will change what your character sees, hears, smells, everything.

Now that you've (hopefully) answered the three questions above, let's look at the big list of ideas. These are just some ideas I thought of while writing and editing this list, there are so many more ideas that are not on here. Try not do get overwhelmed by the list, and just look at it one section at a time. Play with some of these ideas in your head, on paper, a doc, whatever, and decide what feels write (get it?) for your project!

Sky, Weather, and Temperature

Sky Objects: Sun, Moon, Planets, Stars (Constellations), Meteors, Clouds (look up the different types), Rainbow, Flying Craft (Planes, Blimps, Drones, Helicopters), Balloons, Confetti, Kites, Bubbles

Weather: Sunny, Cloudy, Rainy, Stormy, Snowy, Hail, Foggy, Windy

Temperature: Sweltering, Hot, Warm, Comfortable, Chilly, Cold, Freezing

Nature and Natural Elements

Plants: Trees, Flowers, Grasses, Herbs, Mushrooms, Weeds, Bushes

Domestic Animals: Dogs, Cats, Horses

Wild Animals: Wolves, Coyotes, Bears, Wild Cats, Raccoons

Water Sources: Unmoving, Slow / Gentle, Rapid, Rough

Objects and People

Vehicles

Houses

Shops, Kiosks, Stalls

Schools & Other Buildings

Garbage

Fences, Walls, and Other Barricades

Parades, Parties, Festivals

Random Citizens / Passerby's

Higher-Ups (Royalty, Government Officials, etc)

Workers (Gardeners, Dog Walkers, Street Performers, etc.)

Furniture or Decor

Smells

Urine or Feces

Death / Blood

Cigarette / Cigar / Marijuana Smoke

Car Smog

Flowers

Fresh Cut Grass

Garbage

Food and Drink

Rain

Smoke / Fire

Pine

Sounds

Animal Sounds (Birds, Dogs, Insects, Frogs, etc. )

People Being Loud (Screaming, Playing, Cheering, Laughing, etc.)

Wind (Wind Chimes, Howling Wind, Blowing through plants, etc.)

Water

Machinery (Lawn Mower, Leaf Blower, etc.)

Transport (Carriages, Cars, Buses, Boats, Trains, Emergency Vehicles)

Weather Sounds (Rain, Thunder, Hail)

Fire Crackling

Music

[weepingtalecowboy]

Fanfic prompt :Everyone always makes the joke that Wild and Hyrule are the most likely to get kidnapped

But in their literal game mechanics and the lore of the games

Hyrule must run from anyone and trust nobody or someone could hand him over to ganon he definitely is really skittish about trusting anyone but when he sees someone help him he does trust them a bit more (he knows the concept of stranger danger and had to become a master at it or else it was game over)

Wild literally just has to throw a banana and you can almost always tell it is a Yiga even before you even pull out said banana (it is part of the game mechanics after all)

But you know who is the one who actually canonically is the most likely to get kidnapped and not notice it at any point during the entire process

Wind who has jumped on the boat of sketchy old man and pirates during both his adventures

Like he was extremely lucky that nothing ever happened to him

And he probably doesn’t know the concept of stranger danger because nobody on the island is a stranger or dangerous to him how would he even figure out if nobody is telling him about it or showing it

Like the first thing he does when the game starts is run up to a random girl who has fallen from a tree then she turns out to be a pirate and even if she has told him the truth about the kidnapped girls

You don’t jump on the boat of a pirate no matter how nice they seem (for all we know she could have orchestrated this situation to kidnap him and it is pure luck that she was just nice like that )

Essentially because later during the failed heist he gets throw across the sea he literally just wakes up on a different boat with no record of how he got there and instead of alerting anyone (because Wind fell island has a prison so he could have told the guards that a random guy had him on the boat and all that) he breaks fucking tingle out of the cell just to buy a sail for the weird talking boat and then continue on with just the two of them together (like I get desperately trying to save his sister but telling a guard or two that your sister got kidnapped and that you are saving her to make sure that at least a few people will know where you are like grandma definitely doesn’t know that you no longer are with the pirates)

And even more unhinged is the fact that tetra is not a good person at all she has interrogated a guy who wouldn’t sell her bombs which should have tipped Wind of as a red flag she has scammed a rich man out so much that he lives as a beggar with his daughter (also a thing that makes it more vague than ever to know what she would have done to his grandmother like a promise telling him she would bring his sister back safely is very dubious)

Also he canonically has repeatedly went to tingle's tower and asked him to translate the triforce charts (like that is tingle and nothing more has to be said)

Like Wind has the most luck known to mankind

It also somehow gets even worse because during phantom hourglass he and tetra are on the boat (which understandable because she proved that she is someone you can trust and a good friend)

And after waking up on a random beach the first thing you do is go into an old guy’s storage unit to get his sword (and somehow again not get mugged , kidnapped or trafficked because you never go somewhere alone when a single person is aware of it with no weapon especially when someone told you to go there )

Then he went with a different shady guy he just saved at the temple who genuinely looked like a problem in the making (and it was a problem in the making like I love linebeck he is a father figure for wind but also he did have the problem with his ex who wanted to kill him and he looked really shady and you would not have been able to escape if he did kidnap you because you are on the sea )

Like obviously Wind hasn’t learned his Lesson at any point in time because every time it went well

But with Yiga nothing goes well with them

He would probably hold hands with them as well and any other kidnapper would have a very easy catch

He probably joined the chain in less then a second without any form of self awareness (like everyone definitely was nervous with each other but not Wind he heard they said everyone else can sleep while another takes watch and planted his face on a pillow and was just out like that while everyone else was uneasy and didn’t sleep well or also took watch to make sure they won’t be killed in their sleep)

The chain really has to teach him that lesson (for the sake of like literally everything he has ever done because that luck will run out at some point)

Like Warriors definitely is seeing Wind go with literally everyone and not understanding why like that looks like a trauma response (it is just wind with over 12 years never learning about stranger danger and a big misunderstanding but also not really wrong )

[tibby-art]

Given how much Scar’s character knows. (From him connecting series that we don’t think he should know about to his character. And him knowing things he shouldn’t…) I’m on the band wagon that Scar is some sort of Eldtrich God.

Righttt like, my best guess is he's some sort of dimension-hopper or something... a traveling trickster god.. mentally i'm at a corkboard w/all the red strings connecting to different scars trying to piece it all together, holding my head in my hands

It's like. Okay. He had an encounter with s8 tycoon scar where he stole his hat, and he killed him (?) but today he said he simply broke a wheel on the wagon and stole the hat? He says each hat has a story. Does Jellie's hat also have a story. Jellie obviously travels with him across every universe. He seems not to mind when people don't remember who he is but he gets VERY upset when people don't know who Jellie is; just thought that was interesting

Did P!Scar travel to the hermitcraft season 8 universe? After the moon hit the server? Did tycoon scar travel to the pirates universe? Or are they the same person and it's just a lie? When he first spawns in Pirates SMP he makes it a point to mention a mysterious flower crown in his inventory. He says it's an important crown, and it's the only one on the server. Buttercups??? (Sidenote he also spawns with some blocks of cyan glazed terracotta. Not sure what that's about but it's dangerously close to being light blue glazed aka the vex magic. I would have lost my mind)

At the very beginning Scar says his ship was called the Flying Jellie. The Flying Jellie. What if it wasn't a boat. What if it was a space ship. He calls it a pirate ship but that doesn't necessarily mean a boat, ti could be a space pirate ship. (He's done loopholes with his phrasing like this before, like today when he sold michela a sword that was "nearly full" durability, only to later clarify it was "nearly full-y depleted"). He says he won an important battle with the ship, but he lost the ship and the crew. I've seen people say that the crew is supposed to have been boatem, not sure if that's canon? Is the ship story even true?

He made references to both Pearl and Grian today, are they his Pearl and Grian from the pirates universe or is he referring to the hermits? He mentions Pearl by name to Sausage, who says he doesn't know who that is (and yet Sausage goes on to casually mention the moon at the mention of Pearl, either Sausage is also a dimension-hopper and he's bluffing or he has a subconscious connection to his other lives). He doesn't say Grian's name but he talks about a man on his crew who sunk with the ship that's very obviously meant to be Grian (says the man's head looked like a loaf of bread, that he wore red, would have been a Kite). He doesn't seem too upset about the loss.

He greets Cleo, Scott and Martyn when he first sees them even though they don't know who he is. Cleo flat-out says "I don't believe we've met" after he greets her by name. Interestingly enough when he first calls Martyn by name, Martyn doesn't question it (I know Martyn also has some Lore going on, maybe he recognizes Scar too) Also I saw someone point out that his pants resemble mayor scar's pants. Possible season 7 reference, season 8 reference with tycoon scar and a possible? season 9 reference?? with that flower crown???

I literally can't tell if he has this planned-out intricate lore that connects all of his minecraft SMP characters like Martyn does or if he's literally just saying random stuff for fun. His character could be lying about his entire backstory, we don't know. i have no idea what's important to the lore and what isn't. this man is such a trickster god its not even funny. tldr WHAT IS GOING ON

[miskamix]

☆𝓦𝓪𝓿𝓮𝓼 𝓸𝓯 𝓓𝓮𝓼𝓽𝓲𝓷𝔂 ☆

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☆ While on your journey home after visiting another country due to royal duties, your boat gets cought up in a vicious thunder storm. As you open your eyes again you see the strom ended and that your on a new ship where you dont know anyone. What shall you do now when your miles and miles away from home with no clue where you are and who these people who saved you are?

☆~

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☆2nd person☆

"...i hate this.." You groan while sitting on your knees hovering over a bucket. You've been feeling sea sick the whole journey back home, and even worse, the heat has been making you feel like you're getting cooked alive. "Why couldn't we just have taken another way home! i hate being on this ship!" You whine while Sigma, one of your servents pats you on the back. "..there would be no way to avoid going on a ship you highness.." He chuckles a bit awkwardly as you give him a glare. "Am i being punished for something?! First this blazing heat is killing me and now i feel sick!"  You get up and lean on the railing of the ship while holding onto your hat so it doesn't fall into the sea. "The sea is so beautiful, i just hate getting sea sick everytime i'm here" you say before throwing up again. You feel sigms patting you back again to try and comfort you a bit.

"..i think i'll go to sleep now.. maybe i'll feel better in the morning.." You say to sigma while he carries your puke bucket with a disgusted face. "Sleep well your highness" He says quickle before walking of with the bucket. You walk a bit wobbly while tryng to get to your bedroom, the waves in the water making you feel slightly more nauseous then before. When you finally feel the soft bed under you you start to relax and soon fall sleep in the dark room. while half sleep you hear some rain start to fall making you feel more relaxed and calm due to the calming sound. 

~~~~

Hours later you're suddenly awakened by loud thunder and being thrown of your bed. You get up weakly while holding onto the wall as to not fall due to the way the ship is violently moving side to side. When you open the door you can hear the sound of people yelling and the rain hitting the deck. You hear sigma yelling at everyone to find you and to get you in a life boat. 

While running you slip on something and hit your head, your vision suddenly going dark and the last thing you can hear are the life boats being dropped into the water. 

~~~~

~~~~

~~~~

~~~~

When you finally open your eyes again you let out a groan at the pounding pain in your head. When you look around you notice you're on a completely different ship, with a bunch of people around you looking at you. 

When you try to get up you feel a hand on your shoulder, making you lay back down. "Who are you?" you hear an annoyed voice say, and when you look up to see who was talking to you, you see man, that looks quite short looking down at you. You hear him huff before speaking again, "I asked you a question, are you deaf or something?" He says while giving you glare. "...i.. i.." You try to speak before starting to cough and throwing up some water. You see him look at you with a disgusted face. "..my name is (Y/N).." you mumble while coughing a bit before stoping. "I'm a part of the royal family.." You say and hear him let out a scoff, "You, a part of the royal family? then i must be an angel sent from heaven" He says sarcastically, "How do you expect me believe you? You were just some random person floating in the sea" he says while looking down at you. 

Before you can say anything back you feel your vision weakening again and you pass out. When the man kneels down to feel your head, he feels that your burning up with a fever. "..damn.." he mumbles before picking you up. 

~~~~

☆first person☆

I open my eyes slowly to find myself in a new place. I feel the soft bed under me as i hear the door open and see the same short man walking in with some clothes and i prop myself up with my elbows. "You're awake" He says and puts the clothes on a near by table. "..how far am i from [C/N]..?" i ask in a wak voice, and the man looks at me. "With the way your ship was going it would take a few weeks, but the way we're going its gonna take up to 4 months" He tells me and i look at him in shock, "I can't be away from my kingdom that long! why wont you go the same way i went!?" i yell a bit while panicing. The man just looks at me before explaining, "That way is quite dangerous right now, there have been a lot of storms in that area, and i'm not taking that risk just for a little liar" he looks down at me. 'liar' i think, 'he really doesn't believe me' "..I'm not lying.. i really am in the royal familiy.." I say in a defensive voice and he laughs at me. "Yeah yeah, believe that your in the royal family all you want, when we get to our next stop in a few weeks we're just gonna kick you off the boat" He says.

The man forces me to lay back down while he changes the wet rack on my head. I try to lay as still as i can as not annoy him anymore, but after a few seconds i feel a pain in my stomach and i grip the fabric of my night gown a bit. "You okay?" he stops his movements and looks down at me. I try to push him away since i can already tell what about to happen but i can't get him out of the way in time and i throw up on his shirt. He pushes me of him before groaning at the puke on his shirt and walking over ot his clostes to find a new shirt. after he left the room to change his shirt, i pull the blanket over myself in embaressment. '..this was already bad enough..' 

When the man walks into the room again i slowly pull the blanket of me to look at him, i see that he chagned his shirt and brougth a bucket with him, "Throw up in this next time" He drops it on the floor creating a loud bang. He pulls my body up a bit and touches the back of my head and i let out a loud yelp of pain, quckly pulling away and looking at him in shock, "theres a bump on the back of your head, i'm guessing you fell and hit your head at some point" He tries to touch the bump again but i smack his arm away. "..thanks for saving me.. mr.." "Chuuya, call me chuuya" "Well thank you for saving me Chuuya.." I look at him with a awkward smile. I look over at the clothes he brought me, feeling a bit thankfull that wouldn't have to walk around in my night gown all the time. I get up from the bed to put on the clothes, but i instantly sit back down as i feel sharp pain in my left ankle. "Did you hurt yourself?" Chuuya ask me with a bit of concern in his voice, "I must've fractured my ankle during the storm.." I sigh and lay back down on my back. 

While i try to find a relaxing position to lay in i see Chuuya leaving the room again. I let out a content sigh as i finally relax into the bed and try to go to sleep, before i'm interupted by Chuuya comming back into the room with a box of medical supplies, "I'm just gonna bandages your ankel and then you can go back to resting, (Y/N)" He says and kneels and starts to gently bandages my left ankle. I move a bit in pain and Chuuya lets out a groan of annoyance, "Sit still would ya?! I'm tryin' to help you!" He huffs and squeezes my ankle a bit as a form of revenge, "You asshole!" I yelp and kick him with my other foot. After a while he finally gets up after our small battle. "Is it to tight?" "No, it feels fine" We both stay silent for a while not even looking at each other.

 After a while i speak up "So are you gonna kick me out of the bed once you're going to bed or..?" I ask, looking up at him. "I'll sleep on he couch, you need the bed more right now, but once you're fully healed you sleep on the couch" He says and walks over to a closet to get a blanket and a pillow for himself, and putting them on the couch. "..how much is the clock..?" I ask him while getting comfortable on the bed again, i also look at all the things around the room, seeing all the expensive furniture. "Its about 9 pm" He looks back at me before starting to take of his clothes, "Look away would ya?" he asks and i roll over to face the wall before falling asleep. 

☆~

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This is my first time writing in like almost 2 months (′ʘ⌄ʘ‵) i rlly felt like writing but i just randomly got the energy to write again(＾_＾) Anyways i hope you guys liked this and next chapter is coming next week><

[nellsfutbol]

Truth (Leah Williamson x Reader)

Being a lioness was a dream, being able to play for your country was a dream, playing for Arsenal was a dream but being in love with Leah Williamson was at the top of that list. She was easy to fall for, that's why just months after your shocking transfer from Manchester United to Arsenal, you decided to make the first move. Awkwardly asking Leah on a date after a hard training session definitely wasn’t what you had in mind but after seeing her sweet smile, you knew you made the right choice, you also knew you were going to protect this new found relationship with your life. You hadn’t meant to keep the relationship a secret, it just kind of happened after your first date, you and Leah both agreed to keep it between yourselves to see where it was going.  After a year of dating, still only your families knew, it’s not that you and Leah don’t want people knowing, you just both never got around to telling people assuming they already knew or figured it out.

You were currently travelling to camp, unfortunately separate to Leah and the other arsenal girls as you had gone to see your family the day before camp was meant to start. Rush-hour traffic was definitely starting to get on your nerves as you began nearing to camp stuck in masses of cars.

Arriving at camp about an hour later, everyone was crowding around in the lobby greeting each other and waiting for Sarina to come and announce the rooms for this camp. Sluggishly walking towards Leah, waving towards the girls as you walked past.

‘Look who's finally turned up!’ Beth teased, wrapping you in a tight embrace, ‘alright Meado, you saw me a day ago,’ you chuckled lightly pulling out of her embrace.

‘Hello, sweet girl.’ A familiar voice spoke behind you before pulling you into her, turning in her embrace you replied ‘Hi Lee, I’ve missed you.’ Leah’s arms around you tightened, ‘I missed you too.’

‘You missed her but not me, Y/N  you wounded me, I can’t believe this,’ Beth pouted behind us, turning quickly, ‘I’ll make it up to you, Beffy!’ you bargained while lightly tapping her cheek.

‘Hello girls,’ a dutch accent called out in front of us, all of you turning to look, ‘I hope you all had a safe trip over, I will be putting the list of roommates on the wall over here, keys are at the main desk, remember dinner's at 6 and we will be having team bonding tonight the games room, everyone go have some rest before coming down for dinner, I’ll see you later.’ Sarina stated while sticking the list of roommates on the wall next to the reception desk.

Slowly walking over to the list of roommates, you skimmed over the list looking for your name which was found next to Lucy Bronze, quickly searching for Leah’s name as well you find her next to her regular roommate Georgia Stanway.

Saying a quick goodbye to the arsenal girls, you find Lucy who already had the key waiting for you, ‘If it isn't Y/N Y/L/N.’ Lucy inquired with a devious look in her eye, ‘Well if it isn't Lucy Bronze, thought you would still be following keira around like a lost puppy,’ you replied with an equally devious look.

‘I see the way you look at skipper Y/L/N, I think we’re in the same boat,’ Lucy smirked, ‘oh shut up,’ you replied burning red.

‘Come on let’s get moving I want a nap before dinner’ the pair of you laugh before catching up on what’s been happening in your lives before reaching your room. Both of you flopping onto your respectable beds before passing out.

Waking up in time for dinner, you and Lucy walk down together quietly chatting before splitting up to go to your different tables, seeing a seat saved for you next to Leah, you pick up your pace plonking yourself down digging into some food. The table chatting quietly between yourselves about random things before deciding to start going to the games room for team bonding.

You tugged Leah’s arm signalling her to stay behind, ‘hello captain’ you quietly spoke before leaning up towards her, pressing her lips to yours, you stayed in a loving embrace before slowly pulling away once air was necessary. ‘I’ve been wanting to do that for days, it's been lonely without you!’ Leah exclaimed. ‘I know Lee, so have I, you have me all to yourself now.’ you replied joking towards the end. ‘Hmm I like the sound of that,’ Leah laughs, ‘come on, let's not leave them waiting.’

‘I have decided for all of us that we should play truth or dare, any questions? No? Let's get started.’ Rach Daly exclaims as you enter the room, pulling out a bottle from behind her back.

Once you were all sat in a circle, Rach spun the bottle which landed on Ella who decided to pick ‘dare’, which ended up with Ella attempting to hold a headstand and balance said bottle on her feet. A couple more rounds went by before Beth spun the bottle which landed on you.

‘So Y/N truth or dare.’

‘Truth.’

‘Who is the best person you have ever kissed?’ Beth smirked.

‘Oh definitely Leah.’

‘WHAT?’ basically the whole room exclaimed, with a couple of ‘I KNEW IT’ thrown in there.

You and Leah looked at each other confused.

‘What?’ you both repeat.

‘YOU TWO HAVE KISSED?’ Beth howled.

‘Well, yeah that’s what you do when you're dating someone.’ you say back extremely confused.

‘YOU’RE DATING?’

‘SINCE WHEN?’

‘LEAH YOU DIDN’T TELL ME.’

‘You mean you guys didn't know?’ Leah said, wearing the same confused expression as you.

‘I kind of just thought that you two were extremely close.’ Beth exclaimed.

‘Beth, we live together and you literally saw us kiss right in front of you.’ you replied.

‘Well how was I meant to know?’

(this was my first fic let me know what you think, thanks)

[jellybeanium124]

Stede excused himself from the brightly lit ballroom with two hundred chatting people and loud band to go to the bathroom. He sat on the toilet for five minutes in the brightly lit bathroom as other fundraiser guests walked in and out, doing their business and washing their hands.

All he wanted to do was go home. He didn't want to talk, he didn't want to be wearing a suit, he didn't want a fancy meal. This was unusual for Stede. He normally loved wearing a fancy suit while eating a fancy meal and talking nonstop, but he was tired and his whole head and body was buzzing. His suit felt too tight and itchy, and he swore he could feel tags rubbing against him, and his shoes hurt.

He left the stall and washed his hands and started wandering around. He shouldn't be doing this, abandoning the party to snoop around like a curious child, but he couldn't go back in there. What was he supposed to do? Go find Mary and stand behind her while she talks like a functioning adult? He didn't even know why he felt like crap.

The entire building the party was being hosted in was bright and fancy, but at least here in a random hallway with benches and candelabras on the walls and plush velvet carpeting, it's quiet.

He turned a corner and saw a man sitting on the ground, leaning against the wall where a bit of it juts out to form a small corner. He's got his knees tucked up to his chest.

"Sir, are you okay?" Stede asked, walking over to the man.

He looked surprised to see someone. "What? Yes, yeah, I'm fine. I'm with the fundraiser benefit, that's why I'm here. I just... needed a break."

"Me too."

"...You wanna sit?"

"Ok."

Stede sat down on the carpet next to the man, and stretched his legs out.

"I'm Stede," he said, holding out his hand.

"Stede??" the man echoed, shocked. "Shit, Stede Bonnet?"

"Um... yes?"

The man seemed to grow shyer, and looked away. Stede put his hand down. Then he pulled his knees up and sighed.

"You've probably read those articles, right? About Bonnet Suits? Where I'm the silly spoiled son of an evil Disney villain?"

"Yeah... might've..."

"Well, Mr. Teach was right about some things. My father is evil. There's no appealing to his humanity no matter what. He won't make any of the changes I want to make in the company. That's why everyone thinks I'm so useless. Maybe all my ideas are stupid anyways... I just have stupid ideas..."

"What are your ideas?"

"Pay every single employee who works in the factories making suits for us the equivalent of $15 an hour. Every single one. I've done the math 40 different ways, it's possible! We could pay them more, but I've got to start somewhere. My father always shuts me down and tells me I'd be throwing away hundreds of millions in profits. I've stopped trying to convince him to do something by explaining how this will help the people who make the suits that made him fucking wealthy beyond his wildest dreams, and right now I'm working the whole 'everyone loves human rights this will get us more customers and we can charge more if people think we're sustainable' angle but even that's not working. I can't take it anymore. I have a little boat. I bought it as a fiftieth birthday gift to myself. It's sitting at a pier in Rhode Island right now. No one knows about it. Not my father, not my wife... once I grow some balls I'm going there and getting on my boat and I'm not coming back."

The man blinked at him.

"Sorry... fuck... I don't know why I said all of that. Fuck, there's journalists at this thing. I'm supposed to be doing good for my father's reputation, not sitting in a hallway talking about what a piece of shit he is..."

The man swallowed. "Yeah..."

"Enough about my stupid problems, you really don't seem okay. Are you sick? Should..." Stede cut himself off and looked at the floor.

"Should...?"

Stede shook his head. "Nothing. You came out here for some peace and quiet, and I'm fucking it all up. I can go now."

"I wouldn't mind if you sat and we had peace and quiet together."

Stede smiled at him briefly, before leaning his head back against the wall and letting out a sigh.

For a few minutes, the two of them sat together in silence. It felt a little good, at least, to know that there was someone else here who couldn't stand to be at that party longer than thirty minutes. A kindred spirit, maybe. A potential friend.

"I'm Ed Teach," the man said quietly, after a few minutes had passed.

Stede's heart dropped through the floor.

He was sitting next to the man who called him an ineffectual, under-qualified, empty-headed heir to a despicable fashion fortune. And he was right.

"Oh," Stede said.

"That's it? 'Oh?' You're not going to have me thrown out? No yelling? You're not even gonna bribe me to stop talking about your dad's company and the shit he pulls?"

Stede shrugged. "Eh, we deserve worse."

"You're a lot different than I thought you'd be."

"You're a lot different too. I thought you'd be a ruthless and mean sneaky journalist."

Ed sighed. "It's hard being like that all the time... I thought you'd be a prick. A real entitled asshole."

Stede smiled gently. "At least one thing my father never gave me was his personality."

Ed nodded. "But y'know, if you're really serious about change, why don't you just fucking do it? Stop waiting for your dad's approval, go to Cambodia and Bangladesh, and pay them out of your own pocket? Running away to Rhode fuckin' Island isn't gonna help anyone."

Stede cocked his head at him curiously. "Could I do that? Go behind my father's back and just... pay them out of my own savings? Is that legal?"

"I mean, you can give people money. You can write checks. You could write me a check right now. That'd be legal."

Stede raised an eyebrow. "Writing a check for my nemesis journalist? That'd be awful suspect, even if it's legal."

"Okay okay okay not me specifically, but, like, you can do that. You can write checks. I know you're sitting on millions and millions of dollars, Bonnet."

"Okay," Stede said, standing up. "Let's go."

"Let's?"

"Yes. Let's go. Fuck em."

Ed stood up. "Now?"

Stede nodded. "Now. Let's get our passports and board the first plane we can. I'm going behind my father's back, like you suggested."

"And you want me... to come with you?"

"Of course. Presumably I'll need a journalist on my side when this shitstorm goes public," Stede said with a manic smile.

~~~

Obviously, our juvenile stunt didn't immediately solve everything. Bonnet Sr. still had access to Stede's finances, and drained his bank accounts so the millions he gave out in checks would bounce. But our stunt wasn't without its value. It immediately brought public attention to Bonnet Suits, and the fashion industry and its abuses in general. Bonnet Sr.'s now infamous meltdown during his interview for Reuters caused him to step down as CEO, leaving Stede to take over. Over the course of the following year, Stede made sweeping reforms inside the company, all according to plans he'd spent years trying to get his father to implement. Yesterday he publicly announced that he's retiring, and now here I am, retiring as well. People often compare us to Romeo and Juliet, with one reporter who shall remain nameless calling us "just as fockin stupid as those teenage twats." And perhaps we are just as stupid and headstrong as them. I did get on a plane to Bangladesh with a billionaire approximately 5 hours after meeting him (he'd never flown on a commercial flight before, he was adorably excited about trying the "airplane food" and requested a pin with wings on it like kids get). But now it's been well over a year, and I'm still stupidly in love with him, so up yours. I'm going to retire and spend the rest of my days eating fresh lobster rolls and relaxing on my husband's little boat. Journalism has no doubt taken years off my life, so I'm going to spend whatever time I have left happy.

Take it sleazy, Ed Teach

[mangoofthesea]

I saw a post today talking about how difficult making friends can be, as well as maintaining friendships, and as someone who has spent the last few years learning how to maintain friendships while moving a couple times and some big life events. One of the best things you can do for a friendship is organise to do THINGS.

Not just meet and talk or chat over message. Arrange to go swimming, or for a row boat ride, cook dinner together, try making clay creatures and laugh at how bad they are. Go to see a play or a singer or a waterfall.

Sit on a call together in silence while you crochet or watch something at the same time in different locations.

Or while you both draw or do dishes and say the random questions that come to mind 'do you think aliens could exist?' 'How can you tell when you're in love?' 'There’s a really cool bird out the window I think you'd like it, it's all blue and green!'

The key is to not try to keep the friendship for the sake of it, but enjoy the Person and their company

Maintaining of a friendship over time requires effort, but also acceptance that you won't speak or see each other all the time. My 3 best friends are all from different phases of life and I have had periods of months or years where I didn’t speak to them just because we had shifted how much we saw each other.

You see them when you see them, you speak when you speak, but you'll find people who with even a tiny amount of effort (a birthday gift, a card, a meme sent, a message or a gif) you can hold onto. People who mean the world to you even though you only see them a could times a year.

I once heard the phrase that friends are like stars, even when you don't see them, they're still there.

Friendships that truly mean something aren't like sitcoms or movies. Life is more complicated and people are too, don't feel bad if your friendships don't match up to what you expect, or if you can't be there all the time.

All things considered, I'm a pretty shit friend sometimes, I forget birthdays and I'm useless to get hold of sometimes. But on either side of friendships that I have, we both make enough of an effort that they're still there.

I'm going to the cinema tomorrow with a friend I've had since I was 11 (or 13 depending how we've decided to measure it that day) and I haven't seen in person in nearly a year. We're still going to have a great time.

Your friendship takes whatever form works for you, don't lose sight of the people you love cos the way you love them doens’t look like 'it's supposed to'

[faislittlewhiteraven]

Fais fanfic rambles: Introduction to my 'Selkies by Starlight' ISaT AU

Note: Not to be confused with @looped-140-and-counting / Soren_793's wonderful Selkie AU oneshot series 'The Northern Islanders are Selkies' which was hugely inspiring for this if potentially VERY different in vibe (we got very into talking about cloaks! XD)

Basic premise/summary:

In an alternate version of the precanon adventure, the party lead by Mirabelle to stop the King freezing Vaugarde in time, recruit Siffrin as per usual.

Thing is, Siffrin is a Selkie.

A very skittish selkie without a cloak of their own, who openly wears the cloak of another, and due to Reasons is under the impression that the party know all both of those things and the Implications about them, and for whatever reason have decided to welcome him into their group anyway.

Which er, he's completely wrong about as the party know absolutely nothing.

Mira and Isa like most Vaugardian humans think 'shifters' are just fairytales, Odile knows shapeshifters are real but is only really familiar with how foxes like her father work, and Bonnie is actually able to sense some pretty major things but is a preteen dealing with a lot and hasn't even joined the party yet, so this pretty major misunderstanding is sustained for quite a while...

Cue the AUs' main focus being on the resulting party dynamic shifts as more and more canon divergence due to Sif's 'selkie stuff' (both cute and serious) comes into play, the party slowly realising something is up, and all of it hitting an eruption point right around the time of the 4th Orb/the loss of Siffrin's eye...

Some key world building notes: (Note: very summarised from my docs. I have like 20k+ words on this stuff XD)

The Island - Probably the most drastically different thing from canon here, the Island was not forgotten or erased here. Rather it is hidden away and permanently shrouded in Wish Craft generated fog from 'those without cloaks'. Side note: Sif is still unable to return home and continues to have some very plot critical memory problems but those are due to unrelated issues, which means yay I get to have Sif talk 'home culture' with the others in this =D Also idk why the King is freezing Vaugarde still. I've got a few ideas I'm not sure about and he's not in focus enough for it to even matter really, but random suggestions -especially those with possible selkie motivations- would be very much appreciated.

Selkie powers in my setting - Went into something of a deep dive regarding selkie folklore for this and did you know they have an absolute ton of seer/oracle based stuff going on?

From selkie being summoned by their human lovers shedding seven tears into the ocean, to a selkie man telling a former lover that he and their child will die at the hands by her genuinely good and loving future husband, to a selkie woman forseeing her fisherman husband about to die out in a storm just in time for her to swim over there and rescue him, etc.

So... Yeah. This AU has a lot of plot relevant sensory/seer stuff going on as well as the standard seal shapeshifter stuff (Islander selkie traditionally believe it to be the Universe talking with them, in the same way Wish Craft is talking to the Universe), and going off all the stuff I read decided it'd be most fitting if the general rule for how it all works is: - Selkie always passively have a bit of it going on (aka Sif's canon 'you sense someone nearby' stuff) which like most things can be enhanced with Craft use a bit. - Near perfect understanding of all 'connected' bodies of water (aka they know EXACTLY where the tasty fish are/will be and can probably get a general sense of location for most people on a boat) - Potentially get strong 'visions of the future' and/or instincts on what they need to do to avert an outcome when it comes to loved ones being in danger/distress.

They also maybe get to pull very fast, high power Wish Craft 'curses'/miracles' at idk, the cost of something major like their cloak or lives (mostly based off of the The Legend of Kópakonan where the whole island of Kalsoy was cursed with death by a selkie in retaliation for her husband and children being murdered) but not super attached to this idea past it being in 'seal shifter' stories in-setting.

Other non humans in setting and regional differences in shifters - Pretty much only selkie and selkie issues are in focus here, but just as a general thing, all non humans in setting are shapeshifters and originated from human ancestors who went crazy with the the Body Craft and/or used Wish Craft in some way.

Ka Bue in particular has a ton of them since yokai, with their origins being various sects/clans back in the warring eras going so nuts with trying to weaponize Body Craft (super soldiers, enhanced life spans, infiltration, exploiting attraction to furries, etc), that after some particularly high profile incidents (for an idea plz see: Kiyohime, Tamamo no Mae, Kachi-kachi Yama) and 'Body Craft misuse leading to shut down of the brain/vital organs' being the most common cause of death for 10+ years once peace time was established, eventually Ka Bue's authorities set their foot down and banned Body Craft altogether.

Currently the shifter population in Ka Bue is around 30% of the population, shifters are required to have ID regarding their forms (or potential forms if they're merely 'half'), and it's considered distasteful for a shifter to be in non human form outside of private settings/necessity and even ruder to ask a shifter about their non human forms if they haven't brought the topic up yet first (kinda like seeing/asking about someone's underwear or something XD).

In contrast the Vaugarde, Mwudu and Porteria region is extremely shifter sparce, with most of its original shifter population being the result of various Universe worshipping peoples (mostly small groups, like greek mystery cults) deciding to use a big Wish Craft ritual as some sort of religious rite and becoming shifters as a side effect of their primary Wish (usually stuff like 'we wish for us and our descendants to be one with You and the sea/air' or 'may we Change with the phases of the holy moon' etc) which granted them some pretty neat skills but also tended to come with some 'potentially nasty' drawbacks attached (see: selkie and swan maidens with their cloaks, werewolves Changing in both body and mind etc) Which er, lead to some issues born of lack of knowledge about this stuff, later some very nasty anti shifter sentiment in the region, and then around... IDK 200 to 300 years ago or so ended up exploding into violence and other very nasty things, with most shifters able to do so fleeing the region, and those that couldn't either enduring horrible conditions until they could escape/died or went deep into hiding, with the Island's Country being founded by the two later groups who used Wish Craft to hide their new home, erase awareness of their existence from their enemies (a short term, fully intentionally 'forgetting' blast centered specifically around shifters), and developed a LOT of culture and traditions regarding when, who and what can be told to 'outsiders' about themselves, Wish Craft, etc in order to keep their people safe.

There are shifters living in present in Vaugarde of course (anti shifter sentiment died back a LOT after most people stopped thinking they were real, and most modern day Change Believers are more likely to view these 'totally fictional/allegorical' beings as children/messengers of the Change God rather than 'evil demons who stole power by tearing apart the Change God's cloak for themselves and thus have to be hunted down and made to repent' propaganda take that was everywhere back then) but numbers actually living outside the Island as opposed to merely visiting remain low, since either the shifters know their history and stick firmly to their 'stay secret' traditions or quickly pick up on how oddly unknown shifters are around these parts and decide to err on the side of caution... Also 'trust worthy' humans who do learn about them (usually northern coastal folk, gee wonder why) tend to help cover them up so... Yeah =D

---

And... Yeah!

This is hella long as is, so will stop here and ramble about the actual 'how this all affects our beloved Sif and Co plot and culture wise' stuff that is the actual meat of the AU in another post later, but hope this made for an interesting/idea provoking read, know that I have no issue with anyone using any of this for their own works (just please, don't use the 'Selkies under starlight' same story name unless it's actually a fanfic/fanart of my 'hopefully soon has a chapter/one shot up' fic/Ao3 series of the same name so people don't get confused), and I would love to chatter with you about any thoughts/questions you might have so...

Wishing you a good day =D

(sighes in relief finally getting this post finished after literal months. Pheeeeww~)

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

book 7 part 4 thoughts!!

***THIS POST CONTAINS MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR BOOK 7, PART 4 OF THE MAIN STORY!!***

Usually I would put this in bullet points, but I have so many thoughts that I have to format it as paragraphs. (If you’d like to watch a rough part-by-part summarized translation, please check out this archived stream!)

Please note: this is NOT meant to be a summary or a translation; these are only my initial thoughts on the events that unfold. There may be details overlooked or misunderstood in this post, so PLEASE do not use this as a translation.

LILIA'S SO DIFFERENT 🤡 His voice is deeper, and he speaks more gruffly. He definitely comes off as more combative and having disdain for humans. HE'S POPPING OFF ABOUT HOW BAD SILVER/SEBEK/GRIM ARE AT MAGIC??? Damn, what happened in the following years to make him change????

The contrast between current Lilia telling Silver "there's nothing left for me to teach you" and past Lilia being like, "there's nothing for me to teach you, are you trying to make fun of me?"

The human faction they're fighting at the moment are the Silver Owls!! There are also people who dress in iron (a metal which harms fae in irl mythology), I'm not sure if they are synonymous with the Silver Owls or not.

IHBFIOASBFIAADSI LORD, THE FAE SOLDIERS ARE ALL MIDDLE SCHOOL NEKO GIRLS HISSING AT US

AYO, SEBEK GRANDPA REVEAL????? ??? ? ? ????? BAL/BAAL/BAUL REAL, I CAN SEE WHERE SEBEK GETS HIS LOOKS AND HIS PERSONALITY FROM

Silver's asking to team up with Lilia and his group (Lilia was about to just leave them there because he's concerned with the Silver Owls setting up camp at the base of the mountain)? Bruh, book 1 we're calming down an angry classmate and book 7 is like, HEY KIDS LET'S TAKE A FIELD TRIP INTO AN ACTIVE WAR ZONE.

Silver's hoping to shock him awake via a fight, here comes a Sebek and Silver tag team battle!! RIP Lilia beats them up a little :v (Sebek. Don't fanboy over his strength, WE ARE FIGHTING FOR OUR LIVES HERE)

Oop, they disorient him with light and Lilia's mask off!! It's treated like a big reveal????? Sorry, but how does Yuu not notice this is Lilia automatically 😅

Lilia voice) you are not my son (and here you can hear Silver's heart breaking/j)

Oh boy, we get to be prisoners of war/j

NOT LILIA ASKING SILVER AND SEBEK HOW THEY KNOW HOW TO FIGHT SO WELL WHEN IT WAS LILIA WHO TRAINED THEM TO BEGIN WITH

"Fae don't go back on their word" AH SO THEY LIKE TO KEEP PROMISES EH

"May the night bless you" seems to be some kind of salute for nocturnal fae?

LOL Lilia's against being called a father OTL THE IRONY HERE IS SO STRONG

Not Sebek's grandpa telling them off for not showing Lilia respect and saying how great he is... Fanboy genes run in the family/j

DOES YUU STILL THINK THIS IS A PERIOD DRAMA OR SOMETHING

BAAL IS CALLING SEBEK A HUMAN KEK

BAL/BAAL/BAUL REAL DROPS THE CROC MASK???? ?? ?? ?? ? He's got SCALES instead of facial hair???? ???? ? ? Oh man, he reminds me so much of Seteth FE3H OTL The scales are a signature trait of the Zigvolt line! Sebek says his mom has the same scales.

NO NOT SEBEK HAVING TO CONFESS THAT HIS DAD BEING HUMAN, IS THIS THE START OF HIS CHARACTER ARC

LILIA TOLD BAAL TO BABYSIT US...

AW Sebek's so excited about seeing his grandpa in his prime... I'm happy seeing Sebek happy OTL

Lilia's dreaming about the past... I wonder if it's because he was thinking about his life and what he has achieved before leaving his loved ones with his legacy...

Lilia first got the invite to NRC 500 years ago??? So NRC has been around much longer than we expected.

Ahhhh, crap 🤡 The return of book 6 limited battles but now with a battle map. There is a new mechanic where HP carries over from each battle; if a card's HP gets knocked to 0, you cannot use them. (5 cards be restored at random if you get to a heart space on the battle map.)

SEBEK'S ACTING AS OUR OLD FAE SPEECH TRANSLATOR (He's throwing his own angry commentary in, which is hilarious)

The humans arrived on a boat ~100 years ago. Now they have a settlement in the east and are mining around Briar Valley + taking the fae's natural resources. (I think this is why Mystium, that shape-shifting magic green ore that Lilia's weapon is made of, is no longer as plentiful; it was likely mined into obscurity.)

Magical creatures are now coming down from the mountain and causing trouble in Briar villages; the fairies cannot handle all of this. Damn, this is just the plot to the first Shrek movie 😂 They're invading Shrek's swamp--

Oh, interesting! So there are different kinds of fae language (depending on the type of fae they are; think of the diurnal fae from Fairy Gala speaking in bell tinkles), but they infuse their voices with magic so they can understand one another. In modern Briar Valley, there is a common tongue. Omg, Sebek speaks it with his mom and grandma! BILINGUAL KING, HE'S SO PROUD OF HIMSELF... Silver tried to learn from Lilia, but he struggled with it; Sebek's dad had the same issue so the problem must be that human ears cannot pick up on the same range of sounds as fae ears can. This is true of real life as well; different creatures have different auditory thresholds and auditory detection ranges.

Bruh, not Lilia sending out literal children to fight for him on the battlefield...

Eh, new character named??? Some human soldiers are talking about Henrich?? Henrik??? Henric??? He's a commander of the Silver Owls who is conceited and dumps his work onto his subordinates. Errrr he apparently also has a little sister named Leia? Lea??? Leah???? Who is rumored to be in a relationship with someone called the Dawn Knight.

More interesting lore????? Kind of???? Some pixies (small fae) come and warn Lilia about something up ahead, then heal them too. This is notable since in Fairy Gala: What If, we learn that diurnal fae (which I believe pixies are) and nocturnal fae (which Lilia and Sebek appear to be) do not like each other. It seems they got along well enough in the past to confront a common enemy?

They reach a Silver Owl camp!! ... Aaand Lilia tells his soldiers to boot them out so they can take over the camp. I mean, it IS technically the fae's land to begin with, so. Uhhhh, yeah I think I'm with Lilia on this one 💦

I don't think iron affects fae negatively in Twisted Wonderland?? Lilia and co. are having no trouble fighting them even when the humans are clad in iron armor.

HMMMM they've named dropped a formidable person on the human side called the Dawn Knight (Lilia mentions them once, then the human soldiers do). The Dawn Knight is the captain of the Silver Owls and even Lilia considers them a strong opponent. Methinks they'll become a key player later...

OH NOOOO 😭 Sebek’s like, “let’s change this fate!!” but since it’s just a dream, reality won’t be altered at all… Then Sebek suggests just. Staying in the dream???? Which makes darkness spawn… The light from Silver’s ring thing (the trinket he got from Lilia as a sign that he is now a full fledged adult) protects them???

Silver fears the dream will tempt him to stay too 😭 He asks Yuu to snap him “awake” if it ever comes to that… Silver, sweet boy… OTL

NOT SILVER AND SEBEK JUMPING IN TO STOP LILIA FROM COOKING FOR THEM (Come to think of it, how have Lilia's soldiers survive this far with him cooking for them???? ?? ??? ?? ?? )

LILIA THINKING THEY'RE GOING TO POISON THEM, THAT'S SO JAMIL ENERGY

Omg... They're acknowledging their Master Chef training (this is the only time they've referenced events in the main story, if I recall correctly)... Silver even prepares a risotto for them all~ (His own favorite food is mushroom risotto, so I like to think of it as he's sharing a piece of himself with the fae.)

asldiuhaodasidba Lilia complaining about the tiny portions in fine dining...

SEBEK PREPARING A ROAST CHICKEN FOR THEM, they're going all out for this one meal??? ? ? ??? ? ?? Poor Sebek though 😭Baal refuses to eat anything Sebek made, he'd rather starve or eat rations than a human's cooking...

AW BAAL BOUGHT SEBEK BOOKS????? And encouraged his love for reading... 😭

Grim taking Baal's portion of food... (Of course... Did we really have any doubts about that?) Sebek really did get his attitude from Baal... Now Baal's going, "Gimme my food back!" after Grim started digging into it... And then Baal has three entire helpings of risotto... THEY HAVE THE SAME INTIMIDATING-YET-ALSO-PATHETIC VIBES

AYO SILHOUETTE FOR MALLEUS'S MOM????? Her name is (Princess) Mallenoa, the only daughter of Maleficia (Malleus's grandma). She lives at a separate palace and commands the military. Lilia also describes her as being extremely powerful, fickle, stubborn, selfish, and easy to anger. He's just tossing out allllllll the adjectives ahdbayodqdq

Ah, so it sounds like humans greatly outnumber the fae??? So they're at a disadvantage. Normally a royal would handle diplomatic stuff like this but for some reason Lilia is being sent? They're traveling on foot to deliver a message to the human encampment to the east; the last messenger (that travelled there via magic?) did not return. Ominous...

Fae nobility are repulsed by the smell of iron? I'm confused, are fae in TWST impacted by iron or not????

Aww, Silver... He's asking his dad to come to school not to learn, but to make special memories there 🥺 Back to "our Night Raven College"...

NOOO NOW THEY'RE FLASHING THROUGH ALL THE DORMS... while Silver and Sebek monologue about how everyone at NRC is very different, but despite how weird they all are, there is a lot that can be learned from their differences. Silver's spreading what he learned from his dad... and the fact that even Sebek pitched in... 😭

Lilia voice) let's make these high school students our pack mules and unpaid chefs and if they fuck up we leave them for dead in these woods where there are monsters lurking about

Man, he's so ruthless????? Lilia will use anyone he can to succeed in his mission... But then the next second he lays into his princess with a smile www

Lilia knew the princess since they were kids ~300 years ago, which puts the current conflict at ~400 years ago from modern day (since present Lilia is ~700 years old).

asdjbasbldbasdi Gotta love the lowkey jabs at classic fairy tales... Lilia says that human princesses may need protecting but not theirs???? (Yet Mallenoa still stays in her castle all day like she's waiting for a prince.)

THE PRINCESS HAS AN EGG... MALLEUS????? IS THAT YOU???? ???? ????? ? ?? ? ? (LOL at Sebek calling it Tamago-sama asghdyqovywqdwp9qbpacpasb) JAHAJAAH BAAL SUS OF THEM BEING INTERESTED IN THE EGG????

Oooh, so dragon eggs only hatch after receiving enough love and magic from the parents??? (Otherwise the egg will not mature and hatch.) The "power of love" is real, you guys 🥺

ANOTHER new character name drop?????? Levan/Revan??? It's a fae that went missing (probably the messenger from earlier??) I-Is that. Is that Malleus's dad???????? (Lilia says that both the princess and Levan/Revan have been pushing their tasks onto him; he has known them both for a long ass time.)

Baal voice) I still don't trust you

Fandom, back at Baal: Sorry (grand)daddy. Sorry. (Grand)daddy? Sorry. (Grand)daddy? Sorry.

Malleus is 178 years old in current day even though his egg existed 400 years ago, so it seems there was a few hundred years of delay before he actually hatched (normally the egg would hatch in 2-3 years). That means Lilia was ~522 when Malleus hatched and ~683 when he found Silver as a newborn (Malleus was ~161). Silver and Sebek think it’s weird that the timeline does not add up; it means Malleus was dormant for quite a while?? Or is the dream world wonky to accommodate for a “happy ending”? Or maybe the history they know is not correct (since earlier in book 7 Lilia mentions how true history can be distorted over time.)

Very sus, apparently there is not a lot known about Briar Valley's history??? Lilia never talked about the past around Silver, and Baal did the same with Sebek. None of the books Sebek read really goes into that history either. In current day, the palace where Malleus's mom resided isn't even there anymore, it's just land. It suddenly became a mystery...

MAN, I've been wondering this whole time why Lilia's happy ending is wartime but maybe. This is the period where Malleus's parents both died???? Maybe his happy ending is saving them??? Instead of them dying and him having to live with the guilt of not being there to protect his friends and his future prince's parents???? (I previously thought it was during war that Malleus hatched and/or Lilia found Silver, but I guess the timeline doesn't make sense there.)

According to Silver, they cannot stray too far from dreamers or else the darkness will return and try to drag them into a deeper sleep.

asdhbasdobasdbas Sebek is SUPER hype to see baby Tamago-sama Malleus...

Sebek points out that Silver is not nodding off (good catch, I actually did not notice this because I was too busy screaming about the lore); sooo when Silver is dream walking, he's consistently alert. It looks like Silver's narcolepsy is an important detail??? (Lilia took him to lots of doctors that didn't know how to help him, Silver does whatever he can to sleep well and to have a sleep schedule.)

OH MY GOD, I DIDN'T REALIZE THAT YUU AND GRIM STILL DIDN'T KNOW LILIA IS SILVER'S DAD. They thought it was a friendly nickname this entire time??? Kind of late to get to that, but alright 😅 We have acquired the Forbidden Knowledge... (SEBEK'S MOM IS WAY OLDER THAN HIS DAD BUT LOOKS WAY YOUNGER?? I mean, I kind of expected that but to have it confirmed just hits different.)

One of the soldiers tells the kids to stfu so they can sleep and so Sebek yells at everyone to stop disturbing them (you know, in his LOUD AS HECK voice).

Water in the Briar Country is cold because it is located up north (it snows a lot!). The lake water usually comes from melted snow. Checks out, I guess?

They're packing up to leave the camp... Reminds me of Mulan!

[Insert boring trek to the Silver Owls' base. Interesting tidbit: some soldiers we run into comment that Silver resembles the Dawn Knight/they didn't know the Dawn Knight had a lover?????? So... that's obviously gotta be an ancestor of Silver's, right??? Also??? The Dawn Knight apparently never removes their helmet, even around subordinates... VERY SUS, SIR

NAYUUURx NOT SeBEK CAViNG TO THE DATKNESS 😭 I feel like??? This is a really big character development moment for him?? He’s always been pretty blindly loyal to Malleus and hateful of humans, but this marks the first time he willingly does something against Malleus’s will and he calls Yuu and Grim by name… Sebek, sweetie… 😭 (Side note: Silver’s been so strong-willed through all of this, but I’m glad that TWST showed he isn’t perfect and infallible; he, too, was tempted to stay in the dream when Sebek started to consider it too.)

bchsheoxndle Something else I enjoy is Baul being so… tsun?? He complains about the kids but keeps an eye out for them anyway (and Sebek in particular)… The paternal vibes are too immaculate to completely squash 😎]

They made it!! Finally!!

UHHHHH THEY'RE FIGHTING A BIG MACHINE AND. LILIA INSTINCTIVELY BLOCKS SILVER?? (He’ll be fine, he’s in his prime 😌)

Oop, Heinrich and the Dawn Knight were supposed to be in the eastern base but they aren't??? Oh no, it looks like. It was a diversion?????? While Lilia and co. are busy at the base, Heinrich launched an attack on the palace where Malleus's mom is???????

AND OF CORUSE THAT'S WHERE WE CUT OFF?????????? BRUH.

OKAY, so this entire update was focused just on Lilia's dream. We have no clue what's happening in Idia's dream or the real world with Ortho??? Which I'm totally fine with; I feel like we learned SO much about Briar Valley's history and important figures in it. That's a very fair trade-off. I loved getting to learn about the conflict between humans and fae, fae culture, and about how Briar Valley (or Country) works. I'm surprised that the characters themselves know so little about the history, but that just makes me worried that that's because it's a dark part of history that was purposefully censored from the textbooks...

There were a lot of new characters introduced in this part, most of them just mentioned by name or silhouette. It really feels like we walked right into the most dire part of a history textbook... So much tragedy has been set up, so many key players put into place... But being that this is Lilia's promised happy ending, surely he must reverse fate and save the day in the end????? Right? Right??? ?????? ?? ??? ? ? ? ? ? ?????? I have my eyes glued to the Draconia family lore and history, I'm READY to absorb it!

Something else I found really fascinating was learning more about Sebek this update! He still has a very arrogant attitude about him (that much hasn't changed), but I loved seeing how he acts different around his grandfather and how excited he gets over little things like seeing Malleus's egg. I think this part also marks the start to his character arc; he is constantly put down time and time again by his grandpa, someone whom he really loves. Sebek is used to his grandpa accepting him for who he is, but now his grandpa is shouting hateful rhetoric and discriminating against him for being half human. It's the same ugly behavior that Sebek slings to other people, but now the shoe's on the other foot and HE'S the victim in these situations. It must no doubt be extremely uncomfortable for Sebek, but it's also forcing him into a situation where he has to look at his own bigotry head-on, and it gives him a chance to reevaluate himself. It's similar to how Vil had to challenge Epel's outdated gender views even when Epel kicked up a fuss every time Vil did. asdhbsaisdbabdil I'm just really invested in Sebek's character arc!!

I think there's a high probability we'll see all of the silhouetted figures in full in a future update, it's clear that we'll eventually be rushing back to check on Malleus's mom at some point. I'm super interested in seeing how Malleus's parents, the Dawn Knight, Lilia, Baal, and Henrik tie together. (And, of course, we NEED to check in with the Shrouds as well.)

I have heard people say that Henrik may be a reference to King Henry from the live action Maleficent? Then that means that the Dawn Knight may be TWST's equivalent to Stefan/Stephan (Aurora's dad) and Henrik/Henric's little sister is Leah/Leia (Aurora's mom)??? Then I've heard other theories that since Malleus's dad vanished, we have no corpse to confirm he is for real dead and maybe he's actually Crowley who went off to buy some milk and never came back???? (Because “Levan” sounds like “raven” and you know who else is a black bird? CROWLEY. Is he. Is he really going to be the Ultimate Absentee Dad by pulling off his mask in front of Malleus and go, “Luke, I am your father” at him????) And then there's those of us who are drooling over new character designs and screaming about how hot Sebek's grandpappy is. Point is, there are so many wild parallels, theories, ideas, and thirst posts flying around right now. I love how this wild update reinvigorated the whole fandom into a new period of theory crafting and other creative works. asdhabsdasdbasdi Every new book 7 update gets more and more hype... I just hope we get part 5 in July!!! Super intrigued by the history of the Briar Valley~

[queenofthursday6599-blog]

So we all agree that H2O and Mako Mermaids are different timelines right?

Like yes we see Rikki in Mako Mermaids, but that's definitely not Rikki from the same timeline as H2O.

She's not wearing red, she's selling the artifacts she's using her mermaid abilities to find and retrieve to random privet collectors instead of trying to get them back to the rightful country/cultures.

Even though back in H2O we had a whole episode about why Rikki shouldn't just sell anything she uses her mermaid gifts to take out the ocean to complete randos for personal gain.

Like baby girl this is how you ended up accidentally selling endangered/protected animals to the black market. Let's not repeat your mistakes with historical artifacts, by way of selling it to random privet collectors instead of repatriating them to the people they rightfully belong to.

Let's not be the British Museum.

This doesn't even get into the fact that Rikki in Mako Mermaids only mentions that she was with two friends when she was turned into a mermaid. And when asked about where they are now, she just says that they all grew up and got different interests.

She only mentions two girls, and she doesn't mention them by name even.

Even though H2O Rikki was also good friends with Bella by the end of that series, and her not mentioning her two friends by name leaves the door open for the other two girls in her old group to not be Emma and Cleo.

Which I honestly think there's a pretty good chance it wasn't Emma and Cleo who MM's Rikki became mermaids with.

MM's Rikki says she became a mermaid after ending up in the moon pool with her two friends.

But H2O's Rikki wasn't friends with Cleo and Emma when they became mermaids. If you go back to watch the first episode of H2O, I'm pretty sure Cleo explicitly states that while she's seen Rikki around school before, she's only even talked to her a couple of times.

For H2O's Rikki her becoming a mermaid alongside Cleo and Emma was the bedrock of that friendship.

Sure they might have still ended up as friends if they'd stayed on Mako's beach until the water police came to pick them up and never went to the moon pool.

It's just as likely that without the secret to bind them together they wouldn't have. I mean, Rikki 100% stole a boat and got them stranded on an island who's waters is a shark breeding ground.

I definitely think Emma at the very least wouldn't have been interested in being Rikki's friend if it weren't for being turned into mermaids togehter and having to share that secret.

Not in the immediate aftermath of their being stranded on Mako island together, due to Rikki being reckless, anyways.

Now if Cleo wanted to stay friends with Rikki after that, because Rikki did save her from when Zane tried to strand her on the boat and have her drift out to see alone, even if Rikki also ended up getting her stranded on Mako island for a few hours.

I could then see Emma eventually ending up as friendly acquaintances with Rikki due to their mutual friendship with Cleo.

Not immediately, but at some point, and they'd definitely wouldn't have been anywhere near as close of friends as they were in H2O's timeline.

Then there's the fact that MM Rikki doesn't have either of her friendship necklaces. Either her locket from the 50s girls that she shared with Emma and Cleo, or the moon pool crystal necklace that she shared with Cleo and Bella.

And while that could imply that she simply doesn't choose to wear either one anymore due to drifting apart from them. I could also pretty easily see it being that due to it being a different group of mermaids from H2O, they never ended up with either set of necklaces.

I mean, they meet Mrs. Chadwick because the woman randomly spotted Cleo while she was taking a trip to the marine park, and the woman noticed that Cleo was a mermaid.

Without Cleo in the group, Mrs. Chadwick might have never made contact with MM Rikki's group, and thus even if one of them did find Gracie's locket at the bottom of the moonpool it would have just been a random locket.

I don't know if they even would have thought it belonged to someone in a similar situation to themselves. Or if it was brought into the moonpool by like sea currents, or a bird flying over the moonpool dropping it. Or something like that.

While the moon pool crystal necklaces are only introduced after Bella gets one first, and it seems like MM Rikki might have never met Bella.

All of this, and MM Rikki never talks about how she and two of her friends saved the world because apparently the Mako mermaid pod that has supposedly lived there for hundreds of years at least, were slacking off and not paying attention to the impending doom of it all.

And when we see MM Rikki in the moon pool with the Mako Mermaid group, she mentions that it hasn't changed at all since the last time she was there, even though the moonpool looks completely different in the two shows.

In H2O it looks way more natural and cave-like, while in Mako Mermaids the edge of the moon pool is like tiled, or has large stone blocks squaring the edge of it off at least. It looks man (mer) made, or at least has had construction done to it.

The moonpool in H2O definitely feels more wild-magic-y I guess you could say.

Magic collects and moves through there by way of natural means and processes, and will do so without the interference, presence, or guidance of any kind of sentient being. It is in itself alive and sentient to some degree.

It directs Rikki, Cleo, and Bella on how to deflect the comet and save the world, or at the very least the surrounding area, from the potential impact.

Mako Mermaid's moon pool feels far more colonized I guess. Lived in by beings that change nature in order to make themselves more comfortable is what I mean.

I mean the mermaids are shooing away fish from around the island, they're gate keeping the moon pool to keep humans away, they've altered the moon pool from it's natural lava tube/sea cave structure into something more people friendly, they use the moon pool's magic for their own ends.

They're also just completely willing to potentially destroy the moon pool due to their own personal fears of mermen, which is said to also kill any mermaid that is tied to that moonpool, but that's a whole other thing.

Not to mention the fact that the H2O moon pool is severely damaged by that illegal mining operation in H2O season 3. And it's the whole reason why Cleo and Rikki have to help Bella make the tower of light instead of Bella doing it on her own with the help of the moon pool.

While it's again, completely fine magically, and in fact looks like it was altered for people's comfort in Mako Mermaids, even though it's only a time gap of 6 years because Rikki is 24 years old when she meets the Mako Mermaids.

So there's just no way that H2O's season 3 and Mako Mermaids exist in the same timeline at the very least.

There would have been mention of the potential end of the world, or at the very least how the Mako Mermaids had to repair the moon pool, or Rikki noticing that he moon pool was repaired after what Will's sister did.

But none of that happens, so the only explanation is alternate timeline, and I'm not afraid to argue that to the bitter end.

[teddybeartoji]

HI MICKEY MY BELOVED!!!!! soooooo you already answered my questions from the random question list … SO. i am here to ask you others :3

- do you prefer the sea or the forrest? which makes you feel more alive, and which makes you feel more at peace?

- if you picked the forest: are you the trees, the dirt, or the mushrooms? why?

- if you picked the sea: are you the sand, the waves, or the salt? why?

(also ofc if you’re something else lemme knowwww teehee)

ANYWAYS i love you and i want to kiss you under the warmth of the sun with nervous hands that don’t know what to do besides love you. ANYWAYS :33

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOUUUU WHY ARE YOU LIKE THE SWEETEST FUCKING PERSON IN THE WHOLEWIDE WORLD WHAT THE FUCUUUKKK i'm in love with you these are the loveliest questions ever quinn:(((((((((((((((((((

starting off with an AWFULLLLL question btw why are you making me pick between my wives sighhh............. i really love both. such a boring answer i know i know but i don't think i could really live in a place where i wouldn't have both of them close by. 

the sea definitely makes me feel more alive and the forest is a place where i feel calm, at home (this is the most beautifully worded question i'm sitting here with my head in hands btw ilysm). i love going swimming i love just watching the waves. i love collecting sea glass. i love cold water. oh my god i love when the water is just fucking freezing. that makes me feel alive. 

the waves. they take and they take, they swallow and they drown, but people still love the sea. they adore it, they worship it. the waves threaten to sink boats and to end lives and yet, there's something about it. the vastness of it, the depth and the darkness. beautiful, no matter how ruthless and cruel. 

the waves clash against the shore and catch your attention, the call your name like sirens in disguise and invite you closer and closer and closer. it'll be nice, it'll be peaceful. the waves promise to cradle you like a child, but if you mistake the gentle fingers wrapping around your wrists and ankles for anything other than a wild beast dragging you into the depths of its lair… who is to blame? are you at fault for getting drawn in or is it the waves? are they at fault for doing what they know best?

anyway i love forests:33333333 forests always make me feel so comfortable. i love all of the different shades of green i love trees i love moss i love birds i love when the sun shines through the leaves i love how the air is after some heavy rain. it really does feel like home. i went on a little 'hike' with my mom last summer and i just loooved walking through the woods and the bogs here.

you know, i feel like moss resonates a bit more than the trees and the dirt and the mushrooms… and hsadghsaghdghsa i don’t have a pretty answer for you here, i’m afraid. i just keep thinking about how soft it is. and how good it’d feel to just lay down on a moss bed would feel. could stare up at the trees and the sky and just listen to the birds sing around you… maybe it’s not what i am but what i need instead. maybe it’s something i should become, to melt into the ground and grow back as a beautiful patch of moss?

DOUBLE ANYWAYY:3333333333333333 I WISH I COULD DLY YOU OVER HEREEEEEE I WANT TO SHOW YOU AROUND I WANT TO SHOW YOU MY HOME!!!!!!!!!!!! I WANT TO SHOW YOU THE OCEAN AND THE FORESTS AND THE BOGS I THINK YOU WOULD LOVE IT:(((((((((((((((((((((( "i want to kiss you under the warmth of the sun with nervous hands that don’t know what to do besides love you" . do you want me to die yes or yes WHAT DID I DOO TO DESERVEE YOUU OH MY FUCKING GODDDD WE HAVE TO KISS WE HAVE TO HOLD HANDS WE HAVE TO LOVE ONE ANOTHER ALWAYS AND FOREVER

[allthingsfangirl101]

Never Alone – Timothy McGee

The past couple of weeks have gone by in a blur. It started with a rough case where the team needed to blow off steam. Things shifted after I woke up naked in McGee's bed. It remained tense when I snuck out of McGee's apartment before he woke up. I ended up calling out sick a few days later. The plot twist occurred in an OBGYN's office.

I spent the next couple of days trying to make all these decisions at once. My decisions narrowed down to one big one; do I tell McGee?

Obviously, I should tell him. It's his baby. But telling him may cause friction between him and me. Not to mention how Gibbs and Tony will react to this. Tony will have a field day. Gibbs, however, is a different story.

I subconsciously placed my hands on my stomach as I listened to Gibbs explain the threat. There are rumors someone put a bomb on one of the Navy ships in port. If they set it off, they'll kill hundreds of innocent people and risk causing a chain reaction. It would be catastrophic.

"Any chance this is a bogus tip meant to distract us from the actual target?" DiNozzo asked.

"There is a chance," Gibbs nodded, "but we're not gonna risk it."

"Boss, that's a lot of ships to check," McGee brought up. I couldn't look at him so I busied myself with the case file. We haven't talked since that night. We both walked into work after that weekend and acted like nothing happened. Now, knowing what I knew, looking at him made my stomach flip.

"We could narrow it down," I said, still not looking up.

"How?" Gibbs asked.

"The most damage would come from blowing up the North side of the pier," I started to vocally figure out. "Obviously one of the bigger ships. Plus, if any of the ships are carrying precious cargo or a secret shipment, they'd be of interest. Any ship with anything valuable, other than people, should be the first we check."

"Y/L/N," he started.

"I'll come up with a narrowed-down list of possible targets focused on the cargo," I finished for him.

"McGee."

"I'll help Y/L/N," McGee stuttered.

"No," Gibbs said. "You will focus on anyone who may want to target one of these ships. DiNozzo, alert the pier."

As we dug into the ships, I could feel McGee continually glancing at me. I did my best to ignore him.

"I got it!" I jumped up. "There is a section of four boats. One of them is loaded with ship parts, another was empty, and the third one had uniforms and random things for bases. The last had ammunition."

"Ammunition?" DiNozzo asked. "What kind?"

"Every kind the Navy uses," I clarified.

"Oh," DiNozzo mumbled.

"Grab your gear."

We headed to the ship that had all the ammunition. We split up and started checking the ship. McGee and I ended up going together. The entire time we searched the ship, there was a piece of me yelling at myself to finally tell him the truth.

"Tim," I shakily started. "There's something. . ."

"Everyone, off the ship. Now!" Gibbs yelled at us through our earwigs.

McGee and I instantly turned on our heels and started running. We had just gotten off the ship when something exploded, knocking us off our feet.

"Y/L/N?" I heard from someone next to me. Soon, I felt arms gently help me up. "Y/N, talk to me. Are you okay?"

"I'm. . . I think so," I said, my head still pounding.

"I'm going to go check on Gibbs and Tony," McGee said. "You okay to stay here?"

My heart jumped into my throat and I felt like I could barely breathe. The baby. . .

"Y/N, did you hear me?" McGee tried again. I jumped when he gently cupped my cheek in his hand.

"Yeah," I stuttered. "I'm fine. Go."

I ran my fingers through my hair, my mind only focused on the baby. I had a little hope when I saw Ducky and Palmer getting out of their van.

"Ducky!" I gasped. I ran over and grabbed his hand.

"What's wrong, my dear?" He asked. "Are you hurt? Do you need. . ."

"I'm pregnant," I cut him off.

"Oh," he said softly. "My dear. . ."

"I need to know if. . . If the explosion made me. . ." My voice broke as I finally got out, "I need to know, Ducky."

"Okay," he soothed as he caught a tear that was streaming down my face. "Mr. Palmer, take Agent Y/L/N to the nearest hospital."

"Is she. . ."

"Just go," Ducky cut him off.

"Okay," Jimmy stuttered. "Come with me, Agent Y/L/N."

McGee watched as Jimmy escorted Y/N to his car. The others jogged over and instantly asked Ducky what was going on.

"Where are they going?" DiNozzo asked.

"Mr. Palmer is taking Agent Y/L/N to the hospital."

"Wait, what?" McGee asked quickly. "Why is she going to the hospital?"

"It's nothing," Ducky said gently. "I just wanted her to get a couple of tests done. She will be fine."

DiNozzo and Gibbs relaxed and went back to attending to the scene. McGee, however, was focused on the mystery of why Ducky sent Y/N to the hospital.

"What tests?"

Ducky studied McGee, realizing that the two agents had gotten closer than any of them were aware of. He only had to think about it for a moment before deciding to tell him.

"Y/N is going to the hospital," he started, "because she is worried that the explosion may have caused her to lose her baby."

"Her. . . Y/N's pregnant?"

McGee's head was swarming. Could she be pregnant with his baby?

"Ducky," he slowly tried to start. He wasn't sure what he was going to say. His thoughts wouldn't unscramble.

"Timothy," Ducky said gently. "Go to her."

* * * * *

I leaned back against the pillow and closed my eyes. Relief filled my whole body as I rested my hands gently over my stomach. It didn't last long. I jumped when the door was swung open.

"Tim," I stuttered.

"Is it true?" He demanded.

"Is what. . ."

"Are you pregnant?" He cut me off.

My breathing quickened and my heart started pounding against my chest.

"Yes," I whispered.

"And it's mine?"

"Yes."

"What the hell, Y/N?!" He snapped. "How could you not tell me you're pregnant with my baby?!"

"Tim, I only found out last week," I tried to explain. I swung my feet over the side of the bed, my heart skipping a beat when he jumped. "It was a lot to find out and it's not something that's an easy conversation. What? I was supposed to tell you when we were on the stakeout last week? I had no idea what you would say or how you would respond."

"I had a right to know."

"I know and I'm sorry. For the record, I was about to tell you that we needed to have a serious conversation, but the bomb went off." I paused before saying, "But now you know."

"I do," he said, finally calming down.

"So? What do you. . . Do you want to be. . . I want to keep the baby," I finally got out.

Tim walked over, stood between my legs, and gently grabbed my hands. He looked at my hands before looking up at me.

"I think you should," he whispered.

"Do you want me to?" I asked, my voice barely audible. I held my breath as he leaned in and delicately pressed his lips to mine. When he broke the kiss, he leaned down and kissed my stomach.

As he looked back up at me, tears formed in my eyes. Overcome with emotions, I grabbed his face and brought his lips back to mine. I felt him smile as our lips started moving in sync. He wrapped his arms around my waist and brought me closer. He broke the kiss, both of us breathing heavily.

"You should get some rest," McGee whispered. "What did your doctor say? Is your. . . Is our baby okay?"

"Yeah," I smiled. "I have a small concussion, but the baby is perfectly fine. She told me that our baby is about a month and a half old."

"Make sense," McGee shrugged. "We had our night six weeks ago."

I smiled at the blush that formed on his face. "We should probably talk about things," I said slowly.

"I think I can sum it up in three words," he said cheekily.

"Oh, really?" I teased. "Only three?"

The look on his face changed, making my heart jump into my throat. He took a step closer and lowered his voice.

"I love you."

I felt like the oxygen was sucked out of the room but not in a bad way. I studied his eyes, slowly taking in those three words. In some situations, they were light and fun. But in other situations, those three words were incredibly heavy.

"You do?" I asked, my voice barely audible.

"I do," he said as he slowly reached up and moved some hair out of my face.

"I love you too, Tim."

When those words left my mouth, McGee instantly closed to gap between us and pressed his lips to mine. I didn't bother to stop the small tear that escaped and slid down my cheek. McGee broke the kiss when my tear got to his hand that was still on my face.

"I hope those are happy tears," he whispered.

"They are," I giggled. I didn't mean for my smile to drop but it did.

"What's wrong?"

"You should get checked out too," I said. He opened his mouth to object but I interrupted him. "Please, Tim."

"I'm fine," he said too calmly.

"But you were closer to the ship when the bomb exploded than I was," I said quickly.

"Y/N, I'm fine. I promise," he tried to soothe me again.

He laughed when I looked him over. Instead of saying anything, McGee helped me lay back down. He laid down next to me and wrapped his arms around me.

We stayed like that and enjoyed the silence but something was bugging me. There was still a lot we needed to talk about.

"What are we going to say to Gibbs and the team?" I whispered as he held me close to his chest.

"The truth," he shrugged. "We had one drunken night. You got pregnant. And now we're going to start a family."

"So much for rule number 12," I sighed. Tim just laughed as he tightened his arms around me. "He can't fire us for breaking one of his weird Gibbs's Rules, right?"

"Right," Tim chuckled.

"He could fire me for being pregnant though," I said slowly.

"Gibbs would never fire you because you got pregnant," he said instantly. "He might be a little more worried about you when we're in the field, but he's not going to fire you."

"Maybe he should," I mumbled under my breath.

"Wait, what?" Tim asked as he sat up, bringing me with him. "Y/N. . ."

"I just mean," I stuttered, "maybe it's best if Gibbs does fire me. It would be safer for the baby. We get shot at for a living, Tim. I can't put our baby in danger every day."

"Wait, Y/N. Stop for a minute," he tried to soothe. "Just breathe and let's talk about this."

"Talk about what?" I asked, my anxiety building. "How every time I do my job, it's going to be like I'm pointing a gun at our unborn child? What kind of mother puts her baby in front of a bad guy with a gun?! Not to mention the fact that with me in the field, you're going to be distracted, and what if that gets you shot?! What am I going to do if I get you killed?! I can't raise a baby on my own, Tim."

"Y/N, breathe," he said as gently grabbed my arms. "Look at me. Yes, I would worry about you when we go out in the field. I worried about you before you got pregnant. I'll always worry about you, Y/N. Now I'll always worry about our child. That's my job."

"Something tells me you're going to be crazily protective of both of us," I chuckled as Tim pulled me back into his chest and tightened his arms around me.

"You bet I will," he laughed. "I don't know how Gibbs and the team will react to us, but to be honest, I don't care. I care about you and our baby."

"Our baby and I care about you," I whispered as my eyes started to close. Before I fell asleep, I heard him whisper one more promise.

"You are not going to raise our baby alone. I promise, Y/N. From now on, you are never alone."

[undergroundbillions]

I SEEN YOUR POST,,, AND I CAME!! i have a couple of questions abt some history with merchandise and whatever (unless you guys made a post abt the hallmark raggedies alread) ! :)

1. So do you guys have any history or insight of the Hallmark raggedies? If so id like to hear, im a big fan of the hallmark branch of the raggedies!!!

2. Do you guys have any fun hcs? If so what are they!

My example of one is: i hc Ann making dresses and skirts for her friends!! Or even Henny hating bugs but he collects them for his bug collection lol

3. Why do you guys even care about Rag Dolly in the first place? What made you guys want to find it AND want to revive it? Was it a personal project or better yet a fan project put up together by fans (aka the mods aka aka you guys, i think unless im wrong lol)

You guys are cool and im excited to hear any other updates on the revival of Rag Dolly, yall are so cool and talented,, can't wait to see what you guys do in the future!!! Keep it up guyss!

Ok! Here we go!

We don't know much specifically about Hallmark. At that point, Bobbs-Merrill was in charge of the licensing of Raggedy Ann images and books, while the family was still in charge of the dolls. Hallmark licensing began in 1969 and continued throughout the 70's. They published the cardbooks, which came with tiny dolls (which for licensing purposes don't actually count as dolls, but rather as other toys). And the pop-up-book records, stationary, and lots of random little things. Big company buys lucrative licensing and puts it on everything for a few years, that's the story!

Oh man when I ask for hc questions I mostly mean ones *about* headcanons, I'm bad at open ended questions like that lol. But here's a few I've been thinking about recently: I think Marcella has regular fainting spells when she gets exhausted. This doesn't really transfer to the dream but it happens in real life. Ann and Andy's seams and faces are all wobbly because Poppa's too often drunk to sew straight lines. This isn't a hc because technically it's canon to Gibson's writing but Poppa made Marcella a little toy boat from wood scraps and that's where the inspiration for the boat in her dreams comes from.

What got most of us interested in the musical was the video by CollinLooksBack going over what little was known about the show at that time (2019). At that point, we knew about the movie already. If you want to know more about the little details of the time before RARE specifically was founded, I've written up a timeline on our website! (And I plan on expanding it) Idk what the difference is between a personal project and a fan project in this case? We thought the show was interesting, and liked the music, so we decided to start looking for it! The organizers are all theater people, the majority of us went to school for theater and plan on working in it. We knew we had the background and resources to make an actual revival happen. Specifically the founder, Gwyn, who has certain legal and industry connections that are making things go a lot smoother. But really, we never thought we'd get this far, we weren't thinking this deeply about it. It was 2021, we all needed something to do and people to talk to. None of the organizers knew each other, though a few early members were mutuals from the 1977 movie and other fandoms. It just slowly got more serious and we continue to take it more and more seriously the farther we get. Most importantly, all of the main founders have deep personal connections to the story. We have all suffered illness and loss of loved ones. I mean I literally discovered the show like two months after my mom died I don't think you can get much more fated than that. We like the show, it means something to us, and we think it deserves a second chance in it's actual intended form and not as a huge broadway spectacle. It's literally still popular in Russia, why shouldn't it be popular here?

-𝕸𝖔𝖉 𝕲𝖊𝖓𝖊𝖗𝖆𝖑 𝕯.

[sebaztianlovesgeek]

(don't read if you don't want to be spoiled for Black Butler or JoJo's Bizarre Adventure part 1)

The best thing about being both a black butler AND a JoJo's Bizarre Adventure fan is because of the potential the 2 stories have in a crossover fan fiction.

Think about it, JoJo's part 1 (Phantom Blood) and the first few arcs of Black Butler take place IN THE EXACT SAME YEAR (1888), they also take place in the same country and the same city and they both have sort of the same supernatural and horror elements in it.

Not to mention in both stories there's a part where the characters are on a happy boat cruise and suddenly a bunch of zombies start attacking them.

I think the only thing that drives these 2 universes apart is the fact that Jack The Ripper is different in both stories. In Black Butler he (or she) is both Madame Red and Grell working together, in JoJo's he's just a random dude who later is turned into a zombie by Dio (and then is killed within like 5 minutes lol).

But I guess that can just be excused by saying Dio found the wrong Jack the Ripper and just found a random guy who coincidentally also killed prostitutes, and meanwhile Grell and Madame Red were doing their own thing.

I'm honestly very confused why I barely see any JoJo's x Black Butler fan fiction, I'm not sure if it's me just not looking hard enough or if not many JoJo fans are also fans of Black Butler or vice versa. I've met some people who are both JoJo and Black Butler fans (mostly online since where I come from, anime and manga, especially less popular stories like Black Butler, aren't well known) but most of the time when I meet someone who is a fan of one of these, it's just the one and not both.

Anyways, I'd also just love to see the interactions between the Black Butler and JoJo characters. I know a lot of the characters in JoJo's part 1 are less memorable than those in other parts, the only really memorable characters are JoJo, Dio, Speedwagon and Zeppeli, and sometimes people can remember Erina, Poco, Dire and Straizo but they usually only remember the first 4.

(I actually like a lot of the Phantom Blood characters, and despite it being one of my least favourite JoJo parts I still like it, I love the aesthetic of it, plus if Phantom Blood never happened we would have never gotten better parts like Stardust Crusaders or Diamond Is Unbreakable.)

Black Butler, meanwhile, has a wide range of amazing and memorable characters, though this is probably because Black Butler is a lot longer than JoJo's part 1 for obvious reasons:

Phantom blood was the first part of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, and is the shortest part, in the anime only being 9 episodes long while most parts are 20-40 episodes long, JoJo's is a story told through different parts which usually take place years and eras apart, every part also often takes place in different countries and every part the main character (or as the JoJo fandom knows them as... The JoJo's) changes because each part is the story of someone descendant of the Joestar family.

So therefore in each part we mostly get new characters and only a few reoccurring ones.

Black Butler was designed to only be told within one whole big story line, with the same main characters, therefore we'd be seeing the same characters every arc, the story mostly takes place in one main setting (London city, England) but on occasion the settings can change:

Like when Ciel and Sebastian joined the circus and left the city, the anime only version when they went to Paris, the emerald witch arc which takes place in Germany, we also sometimes get flashbacks to other countries like India.

So how would the Black Butler and JoJo's characters interact?

This question can be interpreted in many ways depending on how you see the characters from both stories.

Ciel and Jonathan are quite similar, they're both rich nobles who live in Victorian era London, their parents died, their mansion burned to the ground, their brother is an antagonist in their story. Heck they both even have blue hair (well in the anime for JoJo's at least because apparently in the manga Jonathan's hair is brown).

Personality wise though, Jonathan and Ciel are very different. Jonathan is a kind, loyal gentleman who just wants to protect his friends, family and the innocent, meanwhile Ciel has experienced a lot of trauma from a young age, his family was killed, he was kidnapped, abused, watched his twin brother die, made a deal with a demon who only wants his soul and so much more I could write a whole other post on.

Because of this trauma Ciel, despite being 12-14 is a cold, miserable, depressed and sometimes a bit cruel.

Of course Jonathan went through a lot trauma during Phantom Blood but since most of it didn't happen when he was a child, him and Ciel react to their traumatic pasts differently.

Jonathan would probably want Ciel to open up to him, but Ciel just isn't having it, this could lead to some interesting dialogue between the 2 protagonists because of how similar but also different they are character and personality wise.

What about other characters, more evil characters such as Dio and Sebastian?

Now I don't think these 2 would get along, because since in my mind Ciel would be an ally to Jonathan, Dio would want to be rid of him as well, so Sebastian would have to protect Ciel at all costs.

However, these 2 are both supernatural creatures (Sebastian being a demon and Dio being a vampire) so they'd probably like.. I dunno tease each other when fighting? Like they wouldn't just be yelling angrily at each other they'd make fun of each other.

(okay maybe Dio would yell angrily if he starts to lose because in Phantom Blood he's a bit of a manchild compared to him in Stardust Crusaders in my opinion, I don't hate Dio, he's in fact my favourite JoJo's character ever but we can definitely see how his character developed after all the mistakes he made in Phantom Blood)

Sebastian probably knows about the existence of vampires, the mask, hamon and the pillar men, he's existed for thousands of years afterall, possibly since time began itself, heck he may have even been friends with some pillar men.

I don't think demons are affected by hamon, since hamon comes from the sun and we see Sebastian and other demon characters are definitely NOT affected by the sun unlike vampires.

Undertaker and Grell would probably both be interested in Dio, for different reasons.

Grell would probably be attracted to Dio romantically and sexually, because...

1: she's a simp

2: Dio is canonically very charismatic and handsome which is why he literally has so many servants and minions in part 3

Dio would probably be annoyed by Grell, but Grell is a fairly useful and strong character with her being a grim reaper and her thirst for blood, so he'd probably manipulate her and just try to put up with Grell being an obnoxious fangirl

Undertaker would probably be interested in Dio's ability to turn people into zombies, I don't think he'd want to join Dio's side but he'd probably do it anyways for his own gain. He wants more knowledge on the cinematic records, he may even kill one of the zombies to see what their cinematic records are like, if they ended when they became a zombie or if they continue since they're neither dead or alive. Undertaker also wants to get inspiration for his own bizarre dolls and how to make them more life like.

The grim reapers in general probably also know about vampires and hamon (though I'm not sure if they'd know about the history with the stone masks and pillar men) and would probably treat them the same way they treat demons, obnoxious creatures who interfere with soul collection.

You're probably wondering "But vampires and demons are not the same, the reason the grim reapers hate demons is because they eat souls, and therefore don't let the grim reapers collect them. Vampires don't eat souls, they drink blood"

Well I feel like when vampires turn people into zombies, it sort of corrupts both of the cinematic records and the soul, the zombies still have records and a soul, but after being turned they're just broken and not worthy of the reaper's time unless it's for experimental reasons when it comes to characters like Undertaker.

I feel like if Black Butler and Phantom Blood were to ever have a spin off crossover anime show (which definitely will NEVER happen because they're both owned by different companies and both Hirohiko Araki and Yana Toboso probably wouldn't have an interest in that, but pretend we're in an alternative time line where Araki and Toboso's works are owned by the same companies and they are both very interested in each others works and have all the legal rights to make a crossover series) It would definitely be a lot longer than Phantom Blood, not as long as Black Butler is but probably about 20 episodes+ , I'm not sure how many seasons or arcs there would be, but I'm guessing 1 or 2 seasons and a few arcs.

So I'm guessing they would be in Japan specifically, in other countries? Well despite me coming from the same country as Jonathan and Ciel (England) both Black Butler and JoJo's are sadly not that popular here, it's a pain in the arse trying to find merchandise for both animes even in anime based shops, the most I usually find of them is manga, and even then they usually don't even have majority of the volumes.

Would it be popular? Well JoJo's and Black Butler in Japan are rather popular (JoJo's is definitely a lot MORE popular with some describing it as around the same amount of popularity as Star Wars does in the West in Japan, but Black Butler is fairly popular as well, I'm guessing JoJo's is more popular because it's been around since the mid 80's and Black Butler has been around since the mid-late 2000's)

I just think this whole concept is really cool and I'll probably talk about it a lot

[deke-rivers-1957]

Girls! Girls! Girls! Review

With the established success of Blue Hawaii, Hal Wallis and other Hollywood executives decided that comedy travelogues were the best way to go regarding Elvis films. In fact, to recapture the magic of Blue Hawaii, director Norman Taurog was brought to direct this movie. Additionally, 13 songs were included to match Blue Hawaii's 14 songs.

Filmed on location in Honolulu, Girls! Girls! Girls! captures not only the natural beauty of Hawaii but also the down to earth side. Surprisingly the movie managed to get nominated for both the Golden Globe award for Best Motion Picture - Musical and Elvis himself received a 2nd place Laurel Award for Best Male Performance in a musical. Did this movie deserve the praise through its own merit, or did it rest too heavily on Blue Hawaii's laurels? Let's find out.

"Girls! Girls! Girls" is such a bizarre titular song given what happens in the movie. It's got a good upbeat tune, but for the title of this movie, it just feels out of place. We get introduced to Ross Carpenter, a young man living in Hawaii. He's seen helping a married couple on a fishing boat. At first the movie plays perfectly into the title showing Ross flirting with girls on the West Wind.

We very quickly go away from that when Mrs. Morgan is seen to flirt with him only for him to not at all return her feelings. I'm very glad that this doesn't last long. I just don't think it's very entertaining to have romance drama right off the bat. At least give us a chance to learn who these characters are without adding romance.

For instance this scene alone allows us to learn more about Ross without romance. We know that he's working for this elderly couple because he wants to buy a boat. I love this couple as even though they don't have a big role, they give this movie a lot of heart.

Ross seeing them as family is so sweet. It makes him completely different than the loner edgy man he's portrayed. Not every Elvis character with missing parents needs to be so angry at the world. I think it's great to see that Ross is being productive with his grief. He makes connections with other people and creates his own family.

It's interesting how we get introduced to Robin, yet she isn't the love interest. I think they used to be in a relationship yet for some reason Robin still feels very bitter about something. I can understand a girl feeling upset about a breakup because that makes them human, but she's just so bitter about seeing Ross and you just wonder why. It isn't as if he was caught cheating on her.

"I Don't Wanna Be Tied" is a good song. It's quite fitting for the scenery but it's odd that it's in this movie given what will happen not that long after this scene. We get introduced to Laurel. Even in her first scene I immediately like her character. Her going on a random spiel at the hotel about having birds that don't exist is so hilarious. I have no idea what it was about, but I liked it. She has that nice amount of randomness where it's charming. In a nice blink and you'll miss it moment, you can actually see Blue Hawaii posters in the background. I know the crew had absolutely no intention of making that movie exist in the same universe as this one, but you still can't help wondering how that would work.

So Ross has to show off the boat to a potential buyer, Mr. Johnson. It's clear that he doesn't want to do this but his actions are understandable. He goes to see Laurel for their lunch date but immediately storms off when he sees her with another man. I'm so glad the drama of Ross seeing Laurel with another man is resolved quickly. It ended up being a complete nothing burger as the man she was meeting was her father, therefore it was completely harmless. The matter ultimately has no impact on the plot, but it shows that this couple has healthy communication skills. We don't get the cliche of having this be the drama that lasts the rest of the movie but is instead a misunderstanding that can easily be resolved with just a couple lines of dialogue.

Robin then shows up and I have no idea why she's so upset. Even though she had feelings for him, he's not at all obligated to stay loyal to her. Any romance that they had in the past is over. You basically get the idea that while Ross has moved on from the split, she's just too petty to do the same. Of course that doesn't stop Laurel from considering her as a rival.

We get the Stavros' anniversary party and I think it's beautiful that Ross was allowed to bring Laurel with. It really demonstrates how much this old Greek couple means to him. I wonder how Elvis felt having to sing "We'll Be Together" knowing his relationship with Gladys. It's so touching for Ross to sing this to Mama and in general having him call her Mama is sweet.

Ross explains why the boat means so much to him. This gives genuine depth. It's not a 3rd act reveal meant to be a plot twist, but something we already learn so we have context for his actions. Him singing "A Boy Like Me, A Girl Like You" is nice. I think if we didn't have all these songs so close together, it would've been the emotional highlight of their relationship.

I love how we get actual Hawaii in this movie. This isn't just pretty tourist Hawaii. This is actual Hawaii where the native people live and survive. Paradise Cove is a real tourist attraction for the island of Oahu. It makes perfect sense to film there since it's only about an hour away from Honolulu if you're driving.

I also love how we have a lot of genuine Hawaiian extras. It makes this feel like a real place as opposed to just a soundstage. It also makes Ross feel like a real person as he's shown being relatively familiar with everyone. The Yung family especially gives him a little spice that is well appreciated. It shows that he has made so many connections from various cultures.

I love the Yung family and the Ling sisters. These are not Asian stereotypes but a real Asian family. I absolutely love the casting decision to include Chinese actors and the Tiu family. Like I mentioned about their sister Vicky Tiu, the Tiu family originally came from the Philippines before moving to Hawaii. Having them portray Chinese characters is not farfetched since Manila does have a relatively large Chinese population. Mr. and Mrs. Yung being played by Chinese actors really pays homage to the Chinese population in Hawaii. Because you allow the actors to portray experiences from their own culture and introduce it to an audience that for the most part didn't have that experience.

Seeing Ross use chopsticks correctly is so beautiful. It shows that their culture is not something to be made fun of, but a genuine part of who they are. It speaks volumes for him to eat with chopsticks even with Mr. and Mrs. Yung using forks because it shows how he's taken the time to learn how to use it properly. I also love how he gives Laurel a fork so she won't have to keep struggling to eat. This is a real concept when eating Chinese food. If you go to a Chinese household and struggle to use them properly, they won't mind if you use a fork. As a guest, they would rather have you use a fork and enjoy your meal, than misuse chopsticks and struggle. As long as you show that you're trying to use them properly that's all they can ask for.

"Earth Boy" is amazing. It shows how Ross actually took the time to learn Chinese. Chinese is not at all easy to learn and given that Duolingo and other online translation services didn't exist, you would have to be really dedicated to learning it. This is why I think Ross is bilingual because even though he isn't entirely fluent in Chinese, he knows enough of it to be able to translate what the Ling sisters are saying in Chinese.

The song itself is pretty good. It doesn't feel out of place for him to be singing with these Chinese girls. Since we already established that he's known them for quite a while, it doesn't come off as nonsensical for Elvis to know Chinese. Now I'm not Chinese so I can't speak for how well his pronunciation is, but I give him props for at least trying to tackle it. I also wonder who did the instrumentals for this song since it's not at all a typical Elvis song. If anyone out there is Chinese I'd love to hear your thoughts on that scene and the use of Chinese culture in general in this movie.

Ross and Laurel are one of the most real couples in an Elvis movie. Waking up in the middle of the night to cuddle during a rainstorm is so cute. The whole scene makes you think of the things you would do with your significant other as a teenager. I also love how Mrs. Yung knew that they snuck out but chose to do nothing. It was a quick blink and you'll miss it, but a nice detail. Laurel revealing that she's getting over a bad breakup and Ross supporting her is so wholesome. It's always important to be open about your situation and not string your partner along. Even though you can tell these two have obvious chemistry, you appreciate that they move along at their own pace that feels natural. You want to ignore that they've known each other for a day because it doesn't feel that way at all when you watch them interact.

The next day we found out that Johnson buys the boats. Even though Ross is upset, Johnson is not a villain. No one is the villain here. Mr. Stavros isn't a villain for wanting to sell them, Ross isn't a villain for wanting to keep the West Wind and Johnson isn't a villain for wanting to buy them. It's a naturally bad situation that Ross has no control over. I love the way this conflict is set up since it would be too unrealistic to make Johnson a cliche mustache twirling villain who wants to wipe out Mom and Pop shops. He doesn't even have a vendetta against Ross since he offers him a job. If Johnson was really a villain, giving him the chance to buy the boat wouldn't even be an option.

So Ross decides his only option is to go back to the nightclub and work as a singer. He wants to tell Robin himself because for whatever reason he's worried that she's going to be upset. I know she's jealous that he's with Laurel, but it's pretty ridiculous for her to think that he'd want to see her get fired. The boss of course doesn't care and introduces Ross as his new singer.

"Return to Sender" is iconic. Funny thing is the word zone being used in the song. Not long after the song was released mailing zones were no longer used. They were replaced by what we know now as ZIP codes. Even though it's now considered anachronistic to use that term, you don't really care because replacing it with ZIP code or just code doesn't convey the same meaning.

"Because of Love" is ok. Honestly with how many songs we have in the movie, the only way I can comment on all of them, would be if I talked about them solely on the soundtrack. The show ends and I have no idea what Robin's deal is. If she claims to know Ross so well, she should know that him working at the same nightclub is not at all meant to be an act of revenge. I don't get why on Wikipedia he's described as having to choose between Robin and Laurel. There is no big drama here. He's already made it clear that whatever relationship they had is over and he only wants to be with Laurel. Maybe I'm missing something but I just don't buy that this is a legit drama when from Ross' perspective the choice was already made.

Laurel being upset that she was stood up is very understandable. She already explained that she got hurt very recently and trusted him to keep a promise. Of course it's not Ross' fault because he was open about wanting to get money. Even though Laurel is wrong to say that he was doing it to be with Robin, you don't blame her for thinking that way. Given how quickly he gets the job as a singer, there's no way she could've known that. She did go too far by saying he should go back to Robin but I love the face she makes when she sees him leave altogether. It shows that he was genuine about only wanting the money and has the emotional maturity to not get in this back and forth when Laurel is clearly not thinking rationally.

"Thanks to the Rolling Sea" is a pretty good song given that it has good audio for the middle of the ocean. Yeah it's pretty obvious that this song was pre-recorded but the song itself is an interesting sea shanty. Unfortunately the fishing nets were destroyed by I'm assuming the motor. Obviously that would have to be taken out of Ross' pay. Except it turns out that it won't. Because Johnson is so much of a villain that in exchange for giving Ross his fair share of the income, Johnson will take the loss on the fishing nets. How absolutely awful. This man is so terrible that he's willing to ruin his own business just to be fair to his employee who's done nothing but complain.

"Song of the Shrimp" is so unnecessary. It's good yes but this doesn't fit with the Hawaiian background. Especially when we outright hear New Orleans. It feels like this was just a holdover from when they had the idea of filming it in New Orleans before deciding on Hawaii. We just didn't need another song so soon after the one we just had. Especially since this is now the 2nd song within not even five minutes about some type of seafood. The spacing between each song is terrible. It works as a soundtrack but in a movie it's so distracting.

As expected, Laurel goes to apologize and I love how this doesn't feel forced. Laurel has an established internal conflict that she opened up about. She instinctively reacted and realized she made a mistake. After allowing some time to really think about it, she goes back to apologize. This is a very healthy way to resolve conflict and it only emphasizes just how little romantic drama exists in this movie. There is no love triangle since you don't even consider Robin to be a threat to their relationship. Yes she does have feelings still, but she ultimately doesn't have a big enough role to make it feel like this big choice Ross has to make.

It really speaks to their relationship that Laurel invites him to her apartment for dinner with the full assumption that he'll show up. Ross snarks but ultimately doesn't deny it. It feels so realistic because it's totally normal for loving couples to be snarky with each other. It shows just how comfortable they are with each other's feelings that they know where to draw the line.

In an act of foreshadowing about her background, it turns out that Laurel can't cook to save her life. She knows absolutely nothing about how to operate in a kitchen. She turns to Ross for help when her roast catches fire. It's incredible how we get genuine advice by seeing them looking for salt. Salt/flour is exactly what you put on a kitchen fire involving oils and grease if you don't have a fire extinguisher. Ross making dinner while Laurel burns herself lighting a match is the perfect amount of chaos. This whole time I'm thinking about how Ross is going to be the malewife while Laurel's the girlboss. Even though this was 1962, I genuinely see him as being the one to take care of the home while Laurel works simply because he actually knows how to keep house.

"The Walls Have Ears" has a wild set up. There's a couple arguing next door and results in a lot of banging noises. Laurel and Ross try to figure out what's happening and it's very much implied that the couple next door started having sex. So what do our main characters decide to do when the whole apartment starts shaking? They start to tango and makes you realize exactly what will go down in the bedroom. Ross being visibly aroused makes perfect sense even though it was not at all intended. The song itself is the highlight of the movie

So because Laurel loves Ross so much, she decides to go to Johnson and buys the boat. I love how we see Laurel girlboss her away around. Even her father isn't immune to it. I admit for the 60s it was a little eyebrow raising when it's implied her father thought she was getting an abortion. I know such a topic existed back then, I just didn't think for a non-gritty Elvis movie it'd even be mentioned.

"We're Comin' In Loaded" is once again a good song that doesn't need to be here. This is now the 3rd song about seafood and you just wonder why. I'm starting to think this is now a musical about lonely fishermen who only have sea shanties to help pass the time. Elvis is after all dressed in a sexy sailor Halloween costume. It's honestly incredible how when he sees the boat was sold, he punched Johnson for being a rat. Johnson has the patience of a saint for not pressing charges. Because in real life, if you have an employee acting that way, you'd call the police.

So Laurel meets with Ross at the restaurant for lunch as promised. Only problem is that now he's sore that she was the one who bought the boat. He considers it to be a real betrayal. At first you think he's being very unreasonable and think Laurel didn't do anything wrong. But it turns out that he has his own instinctive reaction. Ross grew up having to provide for himself. He feels like people are only pitying him by giving him charity. I personally don't understand it, but I do know that it isn't unrealistic to react this way. I think even in Elvis' life his family felt that way because admitting you need charity is admitting that you're failing as an adult. As much as this is drama, you can understand why this happened. It's not a moral failing in a new relationship to have a conflict between the two parties wants and needs. It's how they overcome this obstacle that tells you whether or not it will last.

I like how Laurel meets with Robin to find Ross. She's willing to talk to someone she can't stand. Robin meanwhile never gets her redemption as even when she tells Laurel where he could be, she's still so petty. I don't know what the intention was for her character but she's too unlikeable to consider her a genuine love interest for Ross. If anything, her behavior only makes me think that it was the reason why their relationship failed to begin with.

I think it was funny that Mr. Yung has a cat named Kapu that he uses to tell the weather. As much as you think it's just a stereotype, I personally don't see it that way. While it is true that the Chinese doesn't have a superstition about cats predicting the weather, I don't think it's a stereotype to have him believe that. People having superstitions about predicting the weather isn't something that only Chinese people have. Every culture has superstitions and people can believe in things that others from their own culture would think is odd.

Naturally Mr. Yung is proven wrong as not only is a storm about to roll in, but Chen finds Laurel with Johnson on the West Wind. It's very telling that Ross' first instinct is to get on a motorboat with Mr. Yung and save her. Granted I never thought she was ever in any real danger, but given the low opinion Ross has about Johnson, his actions make sense. It's also very sweet how Mr. Yung is so supportive of his relationship with Laurel that he's willing to help. It really shows how much he sees Ross as an adopted son just like the Stavros.

So we get the final fight scene and it's honestly incredible how quickly it's resolved. It also shows that Johnson was ultimately only an antagonist as opposed to being a straight up villain. Sure he was pushy with Laurel, but that only makes him a jerk. Johnson buying the boat back just because he got beaten in a fight proves that as much as he was annoyed by Ross, he really didn't have a vendetta against him. He was simply an obstacle that Ross had to overcome.

In a very quick blink and you'll miss it moment, the motorboat Laurel and Ross get back into actually crashes right into the West Wind. I have no idea if that was intentional since we do get a close up of Johnson's reaction. If it really was just an accident I'm very shocked they left it in, since that crash looked like it could've been very dangerous. This is the real Hawaiian waters so the motorboat could've easily capsized. And the last we ever see of Johnson ends with him saying Ross reminded him of himself, ultimately proving there was never any ill intent on his part.

As promised, the Yung family has a party while Ross and Laurel talk. He realizes that making himself miserable just to have the chance to buy his dad's boat back isn't worth it. That his dad wouldn't want him to working for bosses he doesn't like just to keep his memory alive and that building a new boat with Laurel is a healthier way to cope with the grief. When it's implied that the two will get married, I can believe that. I don't get the feeling that this relationship was rushed at all. This movie shows us that they have the chemistry from the very start and shows us that they can overcome various obstacles. That's enough to believe that even if they only knew each other for say a couple months, that this couple will last. This is one of the most maturely written, most developed couples in an Elvis movie.

The reprise of "Girls, Girls Girls" is amazing. The movie finally lives up to the title by showcasing the various cultures that exist in Hawaii. As much as it's confusing to see kimonos being associated with the Ling sisters who are Chinese, there was a point in history where the Japanese got the inspiration from Chinese traders. Outside of that, it's still fitting to have various Asian cultures given that they make up a large portion of the Hawaiian population. Overall a cheerful tribute to the non-white cultures of Hawaii and a good way to end the movie.

I was very shocked at how good this movie was. The title and the marketing is a complete injustice since you assume it's a cheap rom-com Elvis vehicle with little emotional substance. Might I suggest changing the title to "The West Wind" since that's the actual object of Ross' affection. It's incredible how this title completely influences your opinion only to surprise you with how little focus the girls actually get. Instead we get a pretty touching film about a man trying to reunite himself with the final physical tie to his deceased father. It's not a dramatic masterpiece similar to King Creole, but it's definitely not the throwaway cheap beach film you initially think it is.

Therefore I'm giving this a 9/10. The songs could've been spaced out better and the movie trying to market itself based on the sexual appeal of women just doesn't fit. That being said, if you look at the movie in regards to writing and its characters it's very solid. My only issue is that Robin's involvement in the plot is very weak. If the intent was to have her be a legit threat to Ross' relationship with Laurel, I'd say it was a failure because I never saw her as one. She just comes off as very petty with no real reason why or any chance at redeeming herself. Outside of that, I think this was a great ensemble cast and highly recommend giving it a chance.

An: Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there. I'm glad to have reviewed a movie that showcases how even adults have respect for their parents.

Tagging: @whositmcwhatsit, @hooked-on-elvis, @smokeymountainboy, @atleastpleasetelephone, @stitchlover0112,

@tupelomiss, @vintagepresley, @eapep, @almightybigbrain, @coltswael,

@cieloestrelladoluna, @huhhhhsthings, @arrolyn1114, @peaceloveelvis, @peskybedtime,

@mercsandmonsters, @tacozebra051, @valloos, @ilovequeen978, @elvisvideos,

@presleyhearted, @leiaorganaskywalkers, @kawaiiwitchy, @swingdownsweetchariot, @ruggednessworld,

@gentle-bunny, @atrophyingaphrodite, @jrbrandi13, @summer56, @elvismylove04,

@eptodaytommorowforever, @lookingforrainbows, @araiarts, @fharysa, @lett-them-eatt-cake,

@fryb0rg, @wanderlustingtomboy, @slayingjd, @wildhorseinkansas, @ilovequeen978,

and @jhoneybees.