#which I believe is the cowards way out because I like women

[a-lilac-lyric]

While I do love fanfic that has them being cute with each other yeah, I can acknowledge that the main appeal of their ship is the tragedy and the drama.

Especially considering that their dynamic shifts depending on what part of the timeline we're on. As kids, then teenagers, Roland being married to Lorelei, Roland being a single father, Roland getting married to Miranda, all of those would change the nature of their relationship drastically.

(And this post gives me an excuse to talk about that a little bit yay!)

In most fan fictions I've seen they've only ever been set in the period either when Roland is courting/just married to Lorelei, or set in the time where Roland should be married to Miranda, but she'll be mentioned so little in the fic or even not at all, that it's nebulous as to whether they even are married or this is an au where they never were.

I think the main 2 parts of the timeline that I would want to see explored in fan fictions are the time when Roland is a single father (he's single Cedric, now is your chance! But Cedric doesn't want to be a co-parent, oh no! The drama! But seriously though I do think that that would be a major factor in whether they'd be able to have a long-term romantic relationship. I think that would be something that Roland would find incredibly important, because if his boyfriend can't get along with his kids, that would be a deal breaker for him I think).

And the other part is once we're at the point in the timeline where Cedric actually has become reformed because of Sofia. Which means that Roland is definitely married to Miranda. Which means now we got some kind of love triangle drama that either ends in tragedy or ends in a polyamorous relationship, (former could be angsty, but I really want to see the latter. Roland can have his morally dubious magical boyfriend, Miranda can get a morally dubious magical girlfriend! And then they can still enjoy their happy marriage together! All is balanced).

And then of course there's always stuff you can do out of the Canon timeline, like if Cedric actually did take over Enchancia… delicious angst. Or if Roland never became king and Cedric never became royal sorcerer in the first place.

Ooooo what kind of cedland fanfic do you want to read?

(I say as someone who has read nearly every one of these fan fictions I could find and also has personal judgments on ones that I would wish to see, and I'm now curious to hear about what you want).

honestly, with the little amount of fics available, i’ll take just about anything 🙏😭 but, i must admit, i loveeee any fic that leans into the tragic nature of their relationship. it just makes the ship so much more exciting imo.

my craving has gotten to the point that im actually knee-deep in writing one right now lmao

[tropes-and-tales]

Lieutenant Steal-Your-Girl, Part III

(Bob Floyd x F!Reader; Jake Seresin x F!Reader)

CW:  Angst (relationship woes); open relationships; violence (the boys be fighting); 18+ only.

Word Count:  3871

AN:  This is part of a larger mini-series, found here, and it was requested by several anonymous folk!

AN2: This has not been edited in any way, shape, or form!

Jake has the idea to follow you and Bob.  A nauseous rage courses through him from where he sits, tucked away in the shadows.  He has the idea to follow Bob’s truck as it drives to Bob’s place, to confront the two of you:  his treacherous girlfriend, and his fellow Dagger.

But from his vantage point, he watches you and Bob.  He sees how broadly you smile, how Bob says something that makes you laugh.  When was the last time Jake made you laugh like that—where you pause in your steps, throw your head back, and actually laugh?

Then he sees Bob Floyd—fucking Baby on Board—lean into you, sees the scrawny fucking back-seater kiss you.  He sees how you melt into the kiss, the way your body arches into Bob’s.  He sees you when you break away, the little laugh you give as you reach up and adjust Bob’s glasses, the tender gesture needling at Jake’s heart.

He has the idea to follow you and Bob, but Jake finds himself frozen in place.  He sits in his truck in the side alley.  He stays there long after you and Bob leave, his hands clenched so tight on the steering wheel that it creaks from the pressure of his grip.

*****

Bob knows from his work that there are always limits.  A plane, designed in such a way, can only go so high or so fast before systems start to fail.  Punishing speed, the crush of gravity, extreme cold or heat…engineering can only do so much.  There are always limits where a system starts to fail.

Bob knows this thing with you is exactly the same.

He’s reaching his limit.  Maybe he’s already reached it and has been a dead man flying for a while now. 

He went into this thing with open eyes, he thought.  This thing.  Hell, he doesn’t even know what to call it.  A fling?  An affair?  A relationship?  No word really captures it, and half of the words make it feel tawdry, even though Jake was the one who opened up your relationship.  The other half of the words make it feel tender and promising, which is hard to believe when you’ve only ever spent the night once.

Like tonight:  Jake told you in no uncertain terms that he was going off to fuck another woman.  You watched him leave the Hard Deck.  Moments later, you left with Bob, came back to Bob’s apartment, and fucked Bob.

And now you’re dressing and getting ready to leave.  You sit on the edge of Bob’s bed and pull your shirt back over your head, and Bob is left tangled in his sheets and feeling about as badly as a man can.

There are always limits.  Steel, carbon fiber, titanium…it all cracks under pressure, if there’s enough pressure.

“You can stay,” Bob says.  He sits up and reaches to the bedside stand for his glasses.  He slides them back on his face and watches how your shoulders tense up at his offer.

“I should head home.”

Bob snorts at your choice of wording.  Home.  Where you live with Jake, when Jake deigns to come home and be with you.  When he’s not out sleeping with other women, sowing his wild oats—too scared of being locked down for life to one woman, but too much of a coward to cut you loose in the meantime.

The noise makes you turn and look at him.  You study his face and must see something there, because you frown and say his name in a way that sounds like a warning.

“Bob.”  You meet his gaze and shake your head faintly.

“What?”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”  He leans forward and takes your hand in his, but you pull it away.  He sighs. 

“Don’t…just…I don’t want to—”  You try to find the words, but he cuts you off.

“What are we even doing?” he asks. 

You turn away, hang your head, and with your back to him, Bob can see the tension in your shoulders, the slump in them.  How tired you look even from this angle.  Worn down.  The pressure must be getting to you too.

“I don’t know,” you finally reply.  Your voice is so quiet, barely above a whisper, he has to lean closer to hear you.  “He…he wants to take me home with him for the holidays.”

Another snort, but more bitter.  “So he can play Boyfriend of the Year?  So he can pretend like he hasn’t been fucking around on you for the past year and making you feel like shit?”

You curl in more on yourself, wrap your arms around your waist, and isn’t this why Bob has steadily grown to hate Jake Seresin?  That he’s made you into a cringing, insecure creature, so unsure of yourself that you can’t even voice what you want?

“Honey, c’mon.”  He moves towards you and you don’t dodge him, so he settles behind and wraps both arms around you.  He pulls you close, and he feels how you sag against him.  He lays his cheek against your head and sighs.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs into your hair.  “I don’t wanna fight.”

“Then don’t fight.”

He kisses your temple, sighs again.  Settles back against you and takes in the scent of your shampoo, the scent of you that manages to linger in his place long enough after you leave that he aches with how much he misses you.

“I just want to see you happy,” he says, and that’s the truth.  He wants to see you laughing and smiling, and if Jake could do that for you, Bob would step aside even if it hurt.  “Are you happy with him, honey?  Are you happy with the life you’re living with him?”

You shake your head in reply.

“Then why…”  He trails off, doesn’t finish the question, but you understand it anyway.

“Because he’s all I’ve ever known.  The only boyfriend I’ve had.  I’ve…Bob, I’ve followed him all over the country my whole adult life.  Everyone back home knows me as Jake Seresin’s girl, for heaven’s sake.”

The admission stings Bob a little, but he can’t say he’s been your boyfriend.  He’s mostly just been your hook-up.

“I’ve dated him since I was a kid,” you add.  “It’s been so many years.”

“So many years and he still won’t commit.”

That makes you untangle yourself from him, and you stand up from the bed and turn to look at him.  If he expects rage or tears, he is disappointed:  there’s only your eyes fixed on his and a deep exhaustion behind them.

“Maybe all he needed was this time to get all this,” you gesture broadly, “out of his system.”

Bob shakes his head in frustration, and he reaches down on the floor to snag his boxers, his t-shirt.  He pulls them on and stands to face you, and when he places his hands on your upper arms, you don’t pull away.

“And I need you to understand that a real man who really loved you would have had nothing left to get out of his system,” he tells you.  He jostles you lightly, tries to get the words to sink into your skull for once.  “He would have given you so much love, he wouldn’t have even looked at another woman.  He would have given everything to you, with nothing left for them.”

You reach up and grasp his wrists where he holds you.  You look so sad.  Defeated.  Bob can see not just the past year but the years, all the time you invested in Jake—so much that you aren’t even you to many people.  You’re Jake Seresin’s girl, and your identity is wrapped up in your feckless boyfriend.  Bob can guess that you only see yourself as a pale reflection of Jake’s bright fly-boy persona.

“It’s been so many years,” you repeat sadly.  “It has to mean something, Bob.”

Then you gently pull yourself from his grasp, and Bob can only stand there as you leave.

*****

Bradley has a sense about these things:  something bad is coming.

He has a preternatural feel for doom which, not to be dramatic, probably comes from his dad dying in a freak accident and then his mom withering away from cancer years later.  He got both ends of the death spectrum—sudden, violent, and slow and wasting—and so he feels particularly sensitive to certain atmospheric conditions that signal trouble.

Then again, Hangman’s fucked up life blowing up during a Saturday game of dogfight football is hardly on the same scale as Bradley’s path to being an orphan.

Bradley scoffs at himself (dramatic asshole, he thinks), but his stomach does do a warning twinge the moment all the relevant players are on the field.

There’s Hangman, the Golden Boy from Texas, his jawline clenched so hard that Bradley imagines his teeth cracking under the pressure.

There’s you, you hand held firmly by Hangman until you get set up in your perch higher up on the sand—you shake out a blanket, weigh down the corners with your shoes and a cooler.  You tilt your head towards Jake for the bruising kiss he lays on you before he turns away and makes his way to the other Daggers.

And then there’s Bob, standing quietly with the other Daggers, watching quietly as Jake kisses you. 

Something about the scene makes Bradley go on alert, and the thought drifts through his head the moment Jake walks past Bob.

Jake knows.

Which should be fine.  Jake should know.  Bradley is entirely confused about how the man couldn’t know, since the open relationship was his idea.  Since Jake brazenly took other women home while you watched like an abandoned kitten from the sidelines of the Hard Deck.  Since Jake joked around about it sometimes, months ago, playfully tried to drum up dates for you with the other Daggers.  Hell, Bradley was there when Jake sidled up to Bob once, asked the guy if he wanted to fuck you, and if it was all just joking around, Jake still shouldn’t be surprised if Bob eventually took him up on the offer anyway.

Goddamned Jake and his fucked-up life.  Bradley never saw the point of it, opening up a relationship like yours.  That sort of shit probably works fine for couples where both parties are into it, but any casual observer could see how miserable you’d been at the start of it.

You hadn’t really started smiling again until Bob came along, and that is something worth pondering, Bradley thinks.

The problem with Bradley’s sense for impending doom is that he’s rarely wrong.  Almost never.  So ten minutes into the first game of dogfight football, when Jake—who is on Bob’s team—hits the backseater, all hell breaks loose, and all Bradley can think is shit, I’m right again.

*****

One minute, Bob is standing in the sand, watching Harvard drop back and throw a perfect spiral to Coyote.  As his gaze shifts to take in the other ball—currently tucked against Nat’s stomach as she tries to weasel past Javi—Bob’s world suddenly shifts sideways, and he finds himself with his face in the sand before the pain from the blow even registers.

“Wha—” he starts to say, but something presses him down into the sand, someone’s on top of him, and Bob only gets a glimpse of Jake’s red, furious face before a fist connects with his face.  The wire frame of his glasses dig into his cheek, and Bob stops thinking and just reacts.

He jabs his elbow up and connects with Jake’s belly; the man grunts out in surprised pain and ease up enough for Bob to roll out from under him.  He finds his feet, does a quick scan of himself.  Ribs hurt.  Face hurts from the hit and the cut from his glasses.  Nothing catastrophic though.

Jake stands too, but only for a second—then he charges Bob again.  Bob only has a split second to react.  He takes a quick step to the side, manages to dodge being completely tackled, but Jake gets an arm around him and drags him back to the ground.

Bob’s never been much of a fighter.  Aside from backyard squabbles with his brother and cousins when he was a kid, he’s never been in a proper fight until now. 

He probably gets one half-assed blow in for every three of Jake’s.  The man’s fists come fast, steady—timed to the hammering of Bob’s heart, almost—and each new bloom of pain is immediately replaced by a new one. 

It feels like it goes on forever.  It feels like Bob and Jake are the only two people in the world because everything is quiet except for the blows that reverberate through Bob’s skull.  Later on, he’ll realize the entire fight is less than a minute, really just a handful of seconds before the Daggers understand what’s happening and pull Jake away.

Bob lays on the sand, gasping, sun-blinded and stunned in pain.  The only sounds are his own pulse thudding away in his aching skull…but then he hears screaming.  He manages to turn his head, blinks against the spots dancing behind his eyelids.  His vision is blurry—his glasses are long gone—but he knows it’s you running towards him, and even against the royal beating Bob just took, he smiles.

*****

It’s funny how much can change in less than twelve hours.

You’d left Bob the night before, exhausted and confused and unsure of what to do.

Half a day later, here you are:  kneeling on the sand between a bleeding Bob, glaring up at Jake, and the decision is so fucking clear to you.

“What the fuck, Jake?” you yell.  You turn back to Bob; his face is already swelling, and a shallow gash on his cheekbone oozes blood.  You notice a glint in the sand and see his glasses, but when you pluck them from where they are half-buried, you see that they are beyond repair.

“You know what the fuck,” Jake growls back.  He takes a half-step towards you, but Bradley holds him back.  You study Bob, take in each wince as he catches his breath. 

“You okay to stand?” you ask him, your voice low. 

Bob nods, and Nat kneels on the other side of him.  Together, you each get an arm under him and help him stand up.  He staggers for a moment, leans on you, and you brace yourself to take his weight.

Then you turn back to Jake.  His expression is stony:  his eyes cold and impassive as he takes in you and Bob.

“I’m closing our relationship,” he tells you. 

That’s what makes you laugh.  That’s what transforms all the hurt and confusion and self-doubt to a sad sort of hilarity.  You take a sharp inhale at his words, but then breathe them out in punched-out laugh, a shrill giggle that probably makes you sound insane…but once you start laughing, you cannot stop.

You know it sounds hysterical, but it’s been years of this bullshit.  Instead of screaming or crying, you laugh—until tears flow down your face, until your ribs ache from the effort.  Bob has an arm around your waist, and he squeezes your side in a grounding, questioning gesture, but you let it all out.

It’s so fucking stupid.  It’s been stupid for so long.  You’ve been stupid for so long.  Trailing after Jake like a whipped puppy, eating every bit of shit he ever fed you.  And for what?  For a man who never put you first, rarely even put you second, and who only wants to shut down this entire stupid open deal the moment it stops being fun for him.  All those years meant nothing after all, and even if you’ve only ever been Jake Seresin’s girl, it hasn’t amounted to much anyway.

Are you happy with him, honey?

Bob asked you the question only hours ago, and now you know the answer with a certainty you’ve never felt before in your life.

“Oh, Jake.”  You reach up with your free hand and swipe at the tears that have finally slowed as your laughter died down.  You study the faces of the Daggers around you—their expressions range from wariness to confusion, and Bradley has a faint grin—and then you look your boyfriend dead in those gorgeous eyes a shade of greenish-blue you’d never seen in another person.

“Fuck you,” you spit out.  “Forever until the end of time, fuck you.”

He sputters some reply, but it washes over you.  You never note it at all. 

That’s how you finally end your relationship with the only boyfriend you ever had:  walking away from him on a sunny San Diego beach, staggering under the half-dead weight of the man who just took a hell of a beating for doing nothing but caring for you.

*****

Bob is not exactly clear the next few hours.  He never loses consciousness, but he’s not entirely all there either.  Pain makes time skip and drag in a weird way.

There’s a trip to urgent care.  X-rays.  His dislocated nose is reset; a dislocated finger is taped into a splint.  He’s packed in ice packs, given prescription-dose ibuprofen, and sent home.

You and Nat take care of him:  hover at his elbow, keep him steady as he totters from Nat’s car to the urgent care waiting room, then back, then home.

Nat disappears for a while, then returns with a pain pill left over from her wisdom tooth removal surgery.  Together, you and her get Bob cleaned up, tucked into bed.  The pain pill is just starting to pull him under when Nat calls out from the doorway of his bedroom.

“I’m gonna take her over to her place.  Pack a bag or two.  You okay on your own for a bit?”

Bob nods, and he wants to ask for you—he wants to see you, wants to take your hand in his, wants to make sure you’re okay—but his tongue is thick in his mouth, and his eyelids feel like they are weighted down.

He sleeps.  Despite the pain, he sleeps deep and dreamless, and when he surfaces back to wakefulness, the day has ended.  Long shadows creep across his bedroom floor.

He gets up on unsteady feet.  Makes his way to the bathroom, studies his face in the mirror.  He looks like shit, swollen and bruised.

He hears the low murmur of his TV, and when he makes his way to the living room, he finds Nat sitting alone.  She stands up, makes her way over to him.

“How you feeling?” she asks.

Bob chuckles.  “Like I got the shit kicked out of me.”

She helps him sit, then perches on the couch beside him.  He doesn’t even have to ask the question before she answers it for him.

“She’s at my place.  I told her she could crash there as long as she wants.  I have the spare room, and things are…well, they’re a lot right now.”

“She could stay here.”

Nat nods, bites at her lower lip.  “Yeah, she knows.  It’s just complicated.”

Bob shakes his head.  “Seems like it just got a lot less complicated.”  The dark thought crosses his mind then, so he adds, “unless she didn’t break up with him after all.”

“She did.”  Nat sighs, and she turns herself to face him.  “I need you to listen to me, okay?”

He doesn’t like the ominous tone in her voice, but he nods.

“You need to let her go,” she says simply.

He’s stunned by Nat’s order for a moment, then he laughs.  It’s ridiculous—after all of this, he’d just let you go?  Now that you’re finally free of Jake?

Nat’s eyebrows furrow together.  “I’m serious, Bob.”

“Maybe she doesn’t want to be let go.”  It comes out defensive.

“Maybe she doesn’t,” Nat agrees.  “But maybe you need to be the bigger person anyway.”

It takes his pilot a long time to get through to him, but in the end, Bob sees the sad wisdom of what Nat is trying to say.  They talk for hours—interrupted only long enough to order food, then eat—and then they talk more.

Nat understands your situation as well as he does.  Maybe she understands it better, even.  She points out what everyone knows—you and Jake, your long history together—but then she adds more that Bob never knew, bits and pieces gleaned during girl-talk at the Hard Deck, then a flood of intel freely given during the past few hours as the two of you tended to Bob.

“They grew up in a small town in Texas,” she explains.  “I grew up in a similar sort of place.  Towns like that, they aren’t democracies.  They are some weird fiefdom system, and people like Jake and his family are at the top of the heap.  Jake’s dad owns a Chevy dealership, you know?  His mom was the county fair queen.  They live in this big, sprawling ranch and just rule the town.  Then comes along your girl, and she’s from a middle-of-the-road sort of family.  Nothing spectacular.  But Jake noticed her, and a guy like him noticing a girl like her…that’d be like me turning down a date with a prince, Bob.  She was so young, and everyone around her was telling her how lucky—how blessed—she was.  Of course it warped her thinking.  She was just a dazzled kid, and by the time she started to wise up, she’d invested years into her relationship with him.”

“I get it.”  He lifts his hands, helpless, then lets them drop.  “So I’m too late either way.”

“No.”  Nat reaches out and puts her hand on his knee, pats him gently.  “Not too late.”

“Then what?  Let her go, then what?”

“Then you do like the cliché says.  If you love her, let her go.  If she comes back to you, then you know she’s yours.”

Bob shakes his head.  He wants to disagree, wants to make Nat understand how he feels with you, another cliché:  how he feels like a complete person.  Not that he is missing pieces and you’re there to shore up the missing parts.  It’s harder to describe, the calm that washes over him when you’re with him.  A charged calm, a paradox, because he feels like he can finally relax, knowing he’s found his person, but he also feels a jolt of energy because he’s found his person and wants to face each and every adventure with you.

“You have to give her time and space to be alone.  To learn who she is without Jake fucking Seresin jerking her strings.  She’s never been alone, Bob.  Doesn’t she deserve a chance to find out who she is?  Who she might be?”

His voice, when he finds it, comes out rough-edged, a croak.  “What if she doesn’t come back to me?”

Nat’s hand back on his knee, bracing him.  “Then you’ll still always be the man who broke Jake’s spell over her,” she replies.  “And that will always count for a whole fucking lot.”

[greisekinderschar]

regarding book!dandelion’s much discussed misogyny one thing i find insanely amusing is how the gamer bro fanbase perceives it.

because to me, it’s like, supposed to be one of his weaknesses. it’s one of the ways in which he is unhinged that continuously gets him in trouble. yeah, there’s a joke here and there. but like. dudu thinks he can get away in dandelion’s form? nah man, the angry woman with the frying pan knocks you out, worst decision you made that day. he’s afraid he’ll get murdered if they go to toussaint. he survives the quest to end up on a scaffold because he couldn’t stop fucking around.

yet, when you see the dude bro “book stans’” reaction to the queer netflix reveal there are very personal grievances when they say “you made the womanizer gay!!!”. we know he’s not gay. he’s bi. he fucks more than twice the amount. but the fact that “the womanizer” would as much as look at a man somehow hurts these people in their masculinity, which reveals they think this part of him to be the cool, masculine part.

and it’s really funny to me, because i have this idea of sapkowski using bard characters (he does it in the hussite trilogy as well) to have some, dare i say it, subversive masculinities. because dandelion is very un-masculine in the context of the story. not only does he challenge the temerian knights and others by directly insulting their idea of masculinity and often ridicules the hierarchic structures he himself benefits from despite having fled the connected responsibilities. he’s not a fighter, he’s a poet, he’s not ‘hot’, he is pretty. he’s a coward, he is vain, he is bitchy, he is emotionally intelligent. he laments the gruesomeness of war that is nothing like the heroic masculine stories told about it. he is kind of the mum of the hansa. in short, he is very ‘feminine’, except for his womanizing and his misogynist moments (and the drinking). the parts of him that are, as i said, the most pathetic of his character. and yet, readers who are caught up in the structures of hegemonic masculinities perceive it as a way to consolidate his place in the hierarchy. in a way, his assholery is his redeeming quality in the masculine order. or at least that is what i believe, because why else would they have such an extreme reaction. if dandelion loses his one hegemonic masculine trait of putting himself above women by also sleeping with men, then he is not a man.

[i am aware the concept of masculinities has fluctuated massively in history, which is the point of hegemonic masculinities, and that medieval courtly masculinities had their own ‘feminized’ moments, with monks complaining about the knightly fashion making them look like vain women, but this is a fantasy saga that the reader perceives from contemporary standards, and the masculinities presented are very warrior-centered]

plus, i imagine it complicates his friendship with geralt. because they are bro bros, going to the BROthel together, sharing beds, kissing each other on the cheek for goodbye. if one of these bros is interested in dick, it makes emotional intimacy among men ~weird~. it makes the dude bros go “a bro cant have anything”. but bro, bro, you could have everything. you could even have a bite of dandelion.

[stainlesssteellocust]

Concept: What if Sulla’s dull and purple-prosed memoirs are actually just as bullshit at Cain’s official propaganda, and she’s just like him fr fr.

She (wrongly) believes that a Hero of the Imperium has the utmost faith in her and can’t bear the consequences of failure should she not live up to his high expectations (which he doesn’t have) and masks it behind her eager soldier persona so hard that even Cain doesn’t see it. And then when she becomes famous a whole generation of Militarum girls read Valhallan Valkyrie at a formative age and start thinking they need to live up to her. Just an endlessly recursive loop of imposter syndrome.

Like what if in For the Emperor when she leads her command squad in a risky flanking attack and nobody is quite sure afterwards whether she was being brave or stupid and she hyped the whole thing up in her memoirs, what she actually wrote in her private diary was:

Obviously the last thing I wanted to do was leave my nice safe command vehicle, which could shield me from the heretic lasbolts until His Majesty got down from the throne, and head out into the open where they could cut me to bits. But the only reason I had a command vehicle at all was because all the real officers had been torn to bits by Tyranids and I’d been shoved into a position I didn’t deserve. It had been made clear that our commanders were counting on me, and if I showed myself to be unworthy I could expect to be back on the frontlines within a week, if not in a penal legion.

Worse, an honest-to-the-Emperor hero had put his trust in me. How a man such as Ciaphas Cain didn’t see at once through my ridiculous persona I will never know - but if Cain had one weakness, and as a woman who had the honour to fight along side him for many years, I think I know better than most his hidden heart - it is that he was perhaps overly trusting of the men and women in his command. Such a noble warrior could not imagine that a regiment such as ours could hide a coward as craven as myself, and if there was anything other than the Emperor’s own grace that forced me out the entrance ramp that day, it was the need not to bring our company shame in his eyes.

Besides, if I didn’t live up to that utterly undeserved faith there’d be no more commands for Jenit Sulla, and I’d probably dead within the year. The only way to keep myself out in danger going forward was, ironically, leaping feet-first into it today. And so, cursing myself every step of the way, I fixed the old “Valkyrie Warrior” expression back onto my face, stepped out of my Chimera, and gave the order to advance.

[thornethenorn]

I wanna hear all the fun facts about the norn then pretty please

Okie dokie hehe

1. It's assumed that there is a spirit of the wild for every animal that exists, not just the ones we hear about. This leaves room for a lot of original spirits for people to make

2. They produce a lot of body heat, and this is likely why they don't cover up in cold environments- they would overheat. I made a whole post about this you can find in my Biology of Tyria tag.

3. The Kodan believe that norn are descendants of Kodan who didn't listen to Koda and went south. This is likely not true.

4. The lowland Kodan call norn "Children of the Bitter Wind"

5. They're shapeshifters. It's not acknowledged enough that they're literally a race of shapeshifters.

6. They also have an AVERAGE hight of 9ft tall. They can be way taller than that, probably.

7. They don't sleep in beds. They don't have mattresses, just piles of furs and blankets. They also will sleep on the floor.

8. Skaalds are bards, yes, but anet literally just took the actual Norse word for 'singer/bard/poet" and added an a.

9. Speaking of which, Hoelbrak means "hall of noise" in old Norse, but in-game, it means "lowland" in the norn's native language.

10. The norn's native language is canonically mostly lost, but it can be infered that its writing system, described as runes, are similar to elder futhark runes. In old Norse, elder futhark was the writing system and alphabet. Old Norse was mostly a spoken language, but occasionally could use the runes as writing. The runes also had individual meanings and were used for divination.

11. They were forced out of their native home and have been for 200 years. Even after killing Jormag the corruption still makes the far Shiverpeaks uninhabitable.

12. Norn and Jotun used to be some of the most powerful magic weilders in Tyria.

13. I call them the viking furries race as a joke but honestly they're more like the normal scandanavians. This isn't really a fact about norn this is actually your monthly PSA that vikings were from literally ONE part of scandanavia and the history of this region is so much more nuanced than just "those guys with cool pirates"

14. They're anets least favorite race of the main five (next to Asura free my guys Asura mains) and if I have to write the rest of their lore on my own I will

15. Also the norn and Asura have a lot of parallels that should be explored more often. Both pushed out of their homes and given half-written lore that we're begging to be completed

16. Norn live up to 120 naturally. However, almost nobody ever lives this long because of their culture. They constantly try to top themselves and push themselves too hard and die to 'hold my beer' moments and that's sad

17. Norn women die so often in the story. The fact Arina survived getting thrown into Nayos is a miracle

18. They're named after the Norse version of the Fates. The Nornir (singular being norn) in Norse myth were the three goddesses that sat at the base of Yggdrasil and spun threads of fate. While they can be depicted as hags, they are also sometimes depicted as maidens. This works for the norn race because their culture is insanely intertwined with the concept of fate and destiny.

19. They're not human. Anet are cowards for not doubling down on that. Norn should've had pointed ears and fangs and slit pupils and I will die on this hill

20. There's a stereotype of norn being dumb muscle that only drink and hunt but fuck you all they're nuanced and perfect and I love them

Now we're not even getting into my headcanons either so...

[milk-ly]

Do you ever think about how Kotoko was pretty much Fuuta’s ideal self.

They both wanted to be the same thing, a long-awaited hero, but Kotoko actually “succeeded” while Fuuta “failed.” And that’s also how we judged them in t1. The fanbase thought of Kotoko as the strong, cool vigilante who took down a bad guy, but Fuuta was viewed as a brutish coward who hid behind a screen and killed an innocent teenager.

You could partially link that to the fact that in the end, their convictions were very different. Kotoko has supposed strong convictions but Fuuta seems to parrot things he probably heard on twitter to reinforce himself that he DOES have "strong convictions" like a hero/vigilante (like kotoko) does. Yet, his actual goal was never really Justice at all. Rather, it was all just to gain acceptance and connection. You can especially see that with how Fuuta stands firm in his ideals like he does with others but then immediately jumps to try and connect with Kotoko and impress her by parroting her words and opinions because he craves acceptance from someone whom he respects in some way.

Fuuta: "Ahh, yeah, Norway! The famous thing they have there!" This man clearly had absolutely never heard of it before until Kotoko brought it up. And he immediately pretended like he knew what she was talking about.

Another aspect is Fuuta's insecurities about how he doesn’t measure up to his ideals of being a strong, independent and responsible man. Like his want to protect others despite his cowardice. Or like how his ideal self in bring it on is seemingly taller and more confident.

Yet, Kotoko has constant traits and connections to masculinity (here's a great post about it by purgemarchlockdown) such as being tall, possessing fighting ability, not wearing more traditionally feminine clothes, and possessing traditionally masculine traits like strength and stoicism. Even stories about werewolves were traditionally more about men. While witch hunts, which Fuuta is connected to, mainly convicted women.

There's also the fact that Fuuta craves ally ship and Kotoko seems to be more well-liked than Fuuta even though they’re both rather standoffish. In fact, you actually see Fuuta going out of his way to interact with others (in his own way) more than Kotoko is throughout t1. (I believe he's the first character to give someone else a physical gift, even if it's just a tomato. And insists on giving Shidou his spinach in return when Shidou wants to give him his natto)

Here, Fuuta is the one who actually approached Mikoto to check on him. Fuuta cares and makes SOME effort to have a good relationship with others he's just uh. He's trying, okay.

Yet, in t1 at least, a good portion of the others generally disliked him or looked down on him in some way. Kotoko on the other hand was in pretty good terms with everyone until t2. (Aside from Mikoto, but that's because Kotoko doesn't like him, not the other way around) And considering the fact that Fuuta wants that acceptance so bad, Kotoko has that ideal.

And side note, do you ever think about how their murders frame both Kotoko and Fuuta’s ideal self as fallen heroes tainted by blood?

Or how these two saw each other as pretty similar at first before their true differences hit them both in the face?

And also how Fuuta starts t1 by seeing Es (and you) as the enemy but then draws a direct parallel between him and Es (and you) in t2? But Kotoko does the exact opposite, starting out in T1 and T2 trying to team up because of your similarities, and then ends up seeing you as weak by the end?

Ohhh 03 + 10 character foils…

[kateis-cakeis]

Do you ever think about how the scene where Arthur catches Merlin with a dress in S2Ep9, and the scenes where Arthur is like "girl??????" in S5Ep8

that it's like just a lil bit suggested that Arthur thinks Merlin is both into men and crossdresses (which does that suggest some kind of queer culture in Camelot where gay men are known to do drag?? who knows) and not only thinks that, but accepts it too.

Like Arthur who is presented with the fact that Merlin might wear dresses in his spare times just shrugs and says what a man does in his spare time is up to him, and that the colour suits him.

He literally could have made any joke about Merlin being a girl like he often does when he teases Merlin about being a coward (which we know is just teasing) but instead he just accepts it, and still calls Merlin a man.

Meanwhile in The Hollow Queen, well, I'll let the lines speak for themselves:

GUINEVERE: He’s not in danger. He’s seeing a girl.

ARTHUR: Merlin?

GUINEVERE: Gaius, I’m sorry, but there is no reason to worry.

ARTHUR: Except for the poor girl.

---

ARTHUR: Oh, so you can go and visit that girl again.

MERLIN: What?

ARTHUR: Girl.

MERLIN: Don't have one.

ARTHUR: That's not what Guinevere tells me. So, why don't you tell us all about her?

MERLIN: Right.

ARTHUR: And why you're walking with a limp.

---

The first lines could be interpreted that Arthur doesn't think Merlin is good with women, but paired with the lines from the 2nd scene where Arthur asks him about it.... it definitely feels like Arthur is saying to worry for the girl because he thinks Merlin isn't attracted to women.

I mean the sheer disbelief alone when he says "Merlin?" like it's so out of realm of possibility. (I mean it could also be suggested that Arthur doesn't think anyone would be attracted to Merlin, but with the 2nd scene it definitely doesn't seem so.)

Especially the way he says "girl" with sarcasm dropping from his tone, like literally "girrrl" is how he says it. Like he's basically calling out Merlin, or saying that he knows that the girl Gwen told him about is actually a man.

Which I believe is why the "and why you're walking with a limp" has Arthur so, well,

like this. I think he truly believes that Merlin is lying sjhdfghsdfg Like he's thinking in that little brain of his that Merlin got pegged by a man and just isn't admitting to it.

And he's definitely accusing Merlin of sneaking away to have sex, you know, during an important time and all.

Basically, with these like 3 scenes in the show, I'd say it really comes off as Arthur accepting Merlin as gay and just waiting for the day where Merlin tells him the truth.

And that's really funny to me.

[acourtofthought]

Some on the other side seem to have misunderstood my post from yesterday.

If Elain wants to reject the bond then it's fine. Rejecting her bond doesn't make her weak, it's her right to do so and a reader can support that decision, can even applaud it.

However Elain hasn't rejected her bond. She hasn't had a book which means you don't know who her endgame person is. Because of that she's has not defied fate yet some are acting like she already has. Lucien is still her mate, she's his and there is not a single character in the ACOTAR that believes them to have a rejected bond.

Some are applauding Elain during Elain Week, a week to to celebrate her character, for something she hasn't even done. For a Fated Mates author, chances are strong she never will. I'll say it again, if some still think Elucien can't be endgame despite their current setup, I'd like to point you in the direction of 99.9999% of other Fated Mates stories.

Elain is currently hiding from her bond, from Lucien. That is not Strength or Bravery, it's Elain being afraid. Afraid of how it makes her feel, afraid of how fate decided something for her, afraid of something else, take your pick. She's currently avoiding having a real conversation with Lucien which yes, she owes him. Throw your real world opinions of "women don't owe men an explanation!" out the window because this isn't your real life. This isn't nice guy Tommy from down the street who isn't taking the hint of your disinterest.

This is a novel and Elain and Lucien were given a connection that you will never see in your lifetime, a magical link to the other ones soul.

She does owe him an explanation and a decision on what she wants or doesn't want from him. Don't like it? Take it up with the author who wrote the rules of her fantasy world. Her ignoring Lucien is not enough for a character with a magical connection to her to "take the hint and move on".

Sarah is the one who wrote Elain hiding from her bond and the others acknowledging it as the elephant in the room. She is the one who wrote Elain as refusing to say to Lucien "I don't want you and I want him instead".

That would be Elain showing bravery. Vocalizing to her Mate what she wants, not her sister while she was still mourning her fiance and after Feyre made a comment about entitlement. Of course she doesn't owe Lucien her time, he doesn't feel she does. Yet she continues quietly taking his gifts (a little odd right? Accepting gifts from a mate you don't want anything to do with?) stashing them god knows where and allowing him to suffer rather than having a conversation with him about no longer holding out hope for her, for them.

Elain is good and kind, she is loving. Yet some honestly believe she's just heartlessly and needlessly allowing Lucien to keep coming around for no reason at all since they believe it's a done deal. She doesn't want him, will never want him, yet she somehow can't use her voice to say that. She had no issues speaking up to Nesta in SF, Sarah had no issues with writing a bonus showing Elain returning Az's gift yet Elain must have her own book and pov to reject her mate which she's apparently wanted to do for years now but just did not. Because it's somehow more girl boss that way?

Because she felt it was necessary to leave him with a glimmer of hope for two years by not rejecting him before that despite always knowing it's what she wanted?

The e/riel version of Elain being badass is not my Elain and not the Elain that Sarah has written.

Elain insisting they help Feyre help others was girl boss.

Elain standing up to Nesta in SF was girl boss.

Elain returning Az's necklace after he chose to call her a mistake was girl boss.

Elain refusing to look Lucien in the eye or have a conversation with him when she's supposed to be so confident that she doesn't want him makes her a bit of a coward right now.

[youmakemefeelbetter]

Request: Can you do a Bucky and young teen avenger (platonic or familial)

Plot: he helps face their abusive father?

@parasitichamster-14

Lay It On Me

“You spend so much time with those people, they probably just think of you as a baby or someone to be saved-that is their job after all.” he states smugly

“At least they see me as someone to be cared for. I don’t have to apologize for every time I sneeze or scratch my elbow, having one foot in their way while I get dirty looks to move it. I dedicate my time to looking after you-I’m sixteen, and I don’t even mind-but I barely even get a glance of appreciation from you.”

“What do you expect me to do?”

“Anytime someone does something for you, you act grateful-but then you forget it ever happened, which isn’t your fault, but it still isn’t a reason to condemn them for being a kid or a women. You have pushed mom so far away and expect her to come crawling back each time you threaten to take something from her, she doesn’t deserve that. I can give her better than that-and I do, every single day I consider her in the little things and I do the things that you deem insignificant but frown upon if someone else other than you does it.” I state

“You expect me to thank you for taking her away from me? You’ve got some nerve if you think I’m going to allow that.”

“If I was anyone else other than her child or her own parent, I would be happy to know that my father values their relationship so, but if he did, he wouldn’t mistreat her so much that she believes it’s normal and her fault!”

“So you think you’re the big girl, huh? Why isn’t she the one telling me this, if she feels like this then she should discuss it with her myself, she is my wife after all.” he tries

“There’s a difference between being old fashioned and refusing to accept and introduce equal and fair treatment. Since you ignored the lessons your wonderful mother never gave you-here are a few. No means no, hesitation means no-and do not guilt her, push her or encourage her to break her boundaries. Her feelings are not something to take advantage of or ignore, yours aren’t the only ones that matter.”

“Then why doesn’t she leave me?”

“You think she hasn’t wanted to, it’s been in her mind for seven years. Yes, since the beginning of all of this! Because you have laid it on us and laid it out so thickly that you once managed to convince us that all of it was ours to deal with to, but it’s not, it’s yours. And our thing to deal with is you, as the team she and I have become-oops, sorry to tell you that she found a better teammate than you, she finally realized what she was worthy of. I can’t believe you say all this stuff about marrying her because she could hold her own-then you beat her mental and emotional capacity to the point that she forgets she has her own.” I release

The more and more I reveal throws weight off of me that has been there since I was eight years old, just waiting for the chance to leave his ignorance.

What’s there to lose now?

No matter how much I try to hide it, the team encourages mom and I to rely on them instead of the bastard in front of me.

I find myself smiling, like a martyr being brought to the chopping block while they know Heaven is just past the edge of the hard part. This male might be twice my size, but he is a coward while I seem to have courage, he has determination and I have reason; he has nothing on my inside.

“Our problem isn’t with looking after you, it’s your ignorance, inconsideration and lack of respect for the person wasting away taking better care of you than I do for ourselves. When I help the team with even the slightest thing, they actually celebrate it-they’re so proud of me when I diagnose or discover a new algorithm in the system since only Tony can. Mom doesn’t do it because she’s more vulnerable to you-as she should be, you’re her spouse which gives you a soft spot-but I’ve lost that. I have worked against the grain of that inheritance because you don’t deserve a soft spot in me, I’m too good for you to be worthy of my care, yet I give it without a problem-as I will continue to do because you’re terminally ill and you need someone to help. What I won’t do is give in to your demands outside of necessity, you think because we care for you that you have control of how much time she and I spend together just talking about girl things, or finally talking to her friends because she’s pulled away from them so far that she forgets she has them. I will tell you this, I won’t let her put up with your crap anymore; that will be my job which means you get to deal with mine when I’ve had enough of yours-which is more often than you allowed us to express.” I let out

The high I get from telling him these things is insatiable, I just want to keep going until he’s on the floor and astounded by the callout. But if he wanted to be changed by how he treats us, he would use any other reasonable argument from my side as a wake up call.

“You hide your manipulation and coercion in the blurs where you don’t demand necessities, you’re kind and quiet about them. But if there is one thing that is unnecessary and you think you need it, it have convinced yourself that you need it, you push us to the edge until and after you have it. I won’t put up with that anymore, we won’t because we have people in our lives who like how we are-and I like who she and I are.” I add

“I knew she was cheating on me with one of those Ascenders, probably the space God, right? She always had a thing for him.”

“You put in your head that she’s cheating because you want something sturdy to hold over her head, but she’s not a cheater-she wouldn’t do that to you, or to our God. Thor is in a somewhat stable relationship, but he treats her like he’s the brother you pulled her away from. Tony’s a jerk who you act just like, but I call him on his crap too, so it’s fair. Steve and Bruce have shown her how a gentlemen treats a woman-oh and Mr. Barnes does too. You have had female friends that are in no way romantic, yet you get mad if she has a single male friend who helps her realize she married the wrong person, though he never has the intention to make her leave you for him because he’s a devoted man to his own wife and children. Your heart is so messed up that it’s empty of what she needs because you refuse to fill it for her, yet she wears herself dead at work and comes home to be emotionally and mentally thrown around by you right after.”

“You’re making this up just like all the other things you rant to me about.” he challenges

“I wish all of this-any of this-was made up in my imagination, but that would mean there’s a positive side to this and none of those come just because they are wanted. You can try to make us think these things didn’t happen, or you can tell others they didn’t happen and that we were in the wrong just so we have to come back to you and do it all over again, but it won’t work because I will not allow it. I know that the legions on your brain make you forget so much, but remember the fact that all of us have a better memory than you in which we aren’t trying to make you think of things that never happened, we are holding you accountable for all of the things you have made us endure.”

“But-you’re my daughter.”

“Maybe, but you’re no longer my dad. I don’t have one and at this point, I don’t think I need one. I may not even want one, either way, we know better than you and we know that we deserve better than you.” I stand firm saying, no matter how many years form in my eyes

He yells so many things that I just keep smiling at since this will always show more on his part than on ours. He exposes these words until he’s sitting on the kitchen floor, panting like the dogs he made us get rid of because a problem came up. I walk myself over to him and pick him up the best I can, help him over to his chair then pack a bag of my mom’s clothes and leave it by the door.

I wait in my room until she comes home, my baby blanket drenched in tears and snot from expressing my dread and turmoil of that argument. Once I hear the car door shut, I walk myself to it and wait for her to come in. When she does, I turn towards her and point down to the bag on the floor.

“I hoped to shower first, where are we going?” she wonders

“The Compound. Not we, just you, I’ll be staying here and handling him-you know I’ve been wanting to.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She yelled at me for an hour, Judy, said I did a whole bunch I’ve never thought to do.” he speaks up to say

“You call him out on the past couple weeks?”

“Not weeks, months and years. Give Jarvis the code word and you’ll be let in, hopefully some of the team is there to help you to your room.”

“She has her own room there?”

“Well, she had to go somewhere safe when you tried to blame her for all your troubles.” I say and shrug from behind him

“This is gonna be good.” I whisper and smile to her

“Alright, are you going to come after I leave for a while or you staying here?”

I sigh but forgive her for her thoughts being so lost on the subject.

“Maybe, I don’t know. My main focus is getting you to a free space.” I explain

“Alright, well, I’ll call to check in on you. You sure you’ve got this?”

“I do for long enough to get by a little.”

She nods and grabs her night bag, loading it on her exhausted shoulders to carry to the fifteen year old vehicle she recently climbed out of. She gets back in and blows me a kiss before heading off, taking everything in her to not leave me with him.

Judy’s POV

I take my time on the fifteen minute drive to the Avengers’ Compound, since we luckily just live outside Staatsburg. I’m in tears by the time I get there, having to pull over a few times until I’ve calmed down enough to handle a vehicle in New York.

When I get there, I put my daughter’s code in the fence call for it to allow my through. When I get in, I park over by Maria Hill’s little jeep that Captain Rogers got her for her birthday. I walk my way to the doors, anything but embarrassed by the tears draining my body of hydration. I hit the guest button, but Happy is leaving the building already and allows me in without a problem.

I find myself shuffling towards the bathroom of the Compound’s lobby, but I’m stopped by a thin hand on my shoulder. Soon enough, they pull their arm around my shoulders and guide me into some sort of hallway.

“What’s wrong??” Ms. Romanoff’s worried voice asks

“Y/n’s stuck at home with her father. She chose to, sent me here for good measure, but I can’t just leave her there-I already did, Natasha, I’m not a good mother.”

“You are a fine mother, she unsurprisingly told you she could handle such a horrible thing and you’re not in the shape to handle it yourself or go back over there. I’ll send Barnes to check on her, I know he won’t have a problem with it.”

“Are you sure?” I check

“We love having you two here, makes this place more of a family and less of a workplace. I’ll call for him and we’ll get you settled, alright?”

I nod and shutter, shaking from the sincerity and severity of the situation. My hearing practically goes numb while she does what she needs to, though the sudden feeling of a metal hand on my left shoulder and a human hand on my right jumps me out of my daze.

“Y/n’s stuck at her house with her dad, think they had a big fight today. Would you-and he’s gone.” I hear

I turn to see him running out the door, very very quickly coming back to grab my keys which I hand to him without a problem, but with a chuckle. He nods thankfully and heads out the door as quickly as he can, Agent Romanoff soon guiding me to one of the lounge rooms to relax in.

Bucky’s POV

I thank Frank for the fact that Tony tuned up the car for Y/N and her mom, making it more efficient-regardless of the fact that I haven’t driven in decades. With the soundtrack of honking horns and yelling drivers (and me doing the normal wave with the arm that I’ve forgotten isn’t made of skin).

When I get to my destination, I pull in with the speed of Steve’s motivation to do anything right until I’m parking and slamming the door-thank God it was made well in the nineties. I head to the door, doing a gentler knock then I wish to before unlocking the door and going right in. I slip the keys into my pocket aim to where I hear the most sound..which happens to be right behind the door.

“You have no right to move your mother away from me, she bound her heart to mine at that altar and there it will stay.” Y/n’s dad expresses

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you left your heart a thousand miles away from here, but a church is the last place I’d expect it to be.” I state

“Sergeant Barnes.”

I nod at his address

“Would you stop yelling at her? She puts up with so much of your crap and you don’t even respect her for it, it takes a lot for someone to do that and even more due to the fact that she’s a child.” I respond

“Who gave you the right to tell me what not to say to my daughter? It’s a free country, I know you spent a lot of time in a captive one, but you fought for our rights first, yes?”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t tell, I just said you shouldn’t.”

I leave him there, walking to Y/n’s room and leaning by the door because even though I’m balanced, sleep deprivation will get you and everyone knows I have plenty of that.

“You know, when you stick up for yourself like that, it barely gives me a word left to tell him.” I say to her

She turns around from packing her suitcase, the blood vessels in her eyes deep red from irritation and the skin around her eyes disturbed from the tears that have left stains down her cheeks.

“Oh, Honey.” I frown at her state

“I am so glad I have the strength to do it, but on top of that, caring for my mom-and the fact that I don’t have a fully developed frontal lobe, I don’t know how often I’ll have the words to come back at him.”

“You have every reason to feel that way and to be that way, and you won’t have to worry about it for much longer.”

“What are you talking about?” she worries

“I talked to Tony and he’s gonna have you guys move in. Your dad will have someone different everyday to deal with his temperament while you and your mom get to live your lives freely. You can live here or at the compound, this house will be protected from the bank and all.”

“Wha-Mr. James, I don’t. Why would you do that for us?”

“You’ve known me long enough to call me by the name Steve gave me. And I’m doing this because you need someone too, and we have the resources to make it happen.” I tell her

“You can’t make me leave this place.” I hear from behind me

I turn to face the “man” who helped create and raise the only kid I trust myself not to hurt (sometimes).

“Actually, as a former-unwilling-member of Hydra’s assassination committee, I specialized in forced exits and I will be happy to bring some of those back here. You don’t have to go to the hospital, but you can’t stay here; and I’ll make sure you don’t.” I tell him

[eldritch-spouse]

Not the same anon from the last Patches ask but I can imagine this scenario:

When Patches was alive a woman who sold flowers fancied him, and he fancied her. She was gentle and lady-like and was around to greet him and ask how his day was. Being scared of women that he was, elected to run away from her or only said enough for less than a few sentences. She takes it as a sign that he's not interested when he's anything but. Next time he sees her there's a ring on her finger. She tells him her parents set up an arranged marriage because she was taking too long to find herself a husband. She says her fiancé is nice but he just wasn't her main choice (aka Patches/Fabio). Next time he sees his infatuation, she's on a date with a well to do man, both look as happy as can be. That was something that chewed him up when he was Fabio: knowing he could've had her. Fast forward to modern day. And he sees her, a carbon copy of his past infatuation. Not just in looks but in personality too, heck she's even selling flowers for a living, just like she did. The way she greets him and asks him about his day is like a warm blanket on his cold undead skin.

That's a good one, really.

I've always liked the interpretation of Patches just being awful with women as a living man. He had a pasty, almost sickly appearance and hardly interacted with others when he became an adult. Sure, maybe he had talent, but no one would elect to show him off at social gatherings, purely because he kept putting everyone off without meaning to and wanting to leave immediately when he sensed people were starting to look at him like a freak. Fábio could have become someone bitter and relentless because of this constant rejection, but the fetishes he developed from constant belittling by beautiful women sort of cut off the development (or at least manifestation) of more outwardly aggressive behaviors. He would act out so as to be caught and punished, mostly.

Indeed, someone who showed genuine, non-degrading interest in him during that time period would be heavily avoided at first. Because Fábio just doesn't know what to do with himself, he feels awkward and wrong. He wonders why you aren't kicking him or calling him gross when he stares at you for too long, wonders why you let him touch your hair. It's weird. But the infatuation is inevitable, yes. Shame Fábio is a little coward who did nothing to keep this woman in his life while he still breathed.

He's tried to get over this as an undead, to reflect on his own nature and try to rationalize that there's more to women than just pleasurable abuse, that they're people just like him and it's not as if all of them will see him as a parasite. Internalizing this is harder than it sounds for the dullahan. The nature of his new job has also brought out a tad more assertiveness in certain settings, which is probably what gives him the motivation to insist when he finds you. The woman he believes to he a reincarnation of his flowered beloved.

Problem is, this is the wrong type of motivation. He's insisting too much and too quickly, afraid that he's not being assertive enough and that he'll find you with a ring around your finger once again. He won't make the same mistake! But Patches will make many others, much worse ones.

[thevelaryons]

why did daemon chose to marry laena? I have always thought it was because she is prince aemon’s granddaughter and her mother and brother laenor were at some point considered jaehaerys’ heirs, we know daemon is ambitious so marrying her will bring him closer to the throne. but the show made laena (who is interested in flying more than boys) the one who seeks him out, she even admits that she was not his first choice.

The show has a lot of odd writing decisions that depict characters acting opposite from their book counterparts so trying to determine the motivations of the book characters by looking at the show versions is an exercise in futility.

Daemon clearly had a preference for Valyrian women. His favourite paramour was Mysaria, he willingly chose to marry Laena and then Rhaenyra, at brothels he was described as picking the Valyrian maidens, and he had no interest whatsoever in the non-Valyrian Rhea. So just as he had, at one time, wanted to have a family with Mysaria, this time too, with Laena, he could create a family with a suitable partner.

Though I’d say his reasons for marriage were more personal than political. Apart from being Valyrian, Laena is also a beautiful young woman described as having a fiery & adventurous personality, she claimed the dragon Vhagar at a young age, and she is the daughter of two people who Daemon is already familiar with. All of that would appeal to a man like Daemon.

Corlys is the type to keep an egg in every basket so I think he would see the political value of the Daemon/Laena marriage, but Daemon’s actions don’t make him appear to be acting in any political interest.

Prince Daemon fell in love with Laena, the singers would have us believe. Men of a more cynical bent believe the prince saw her as a way to check his own descent. Once seen as his brother’s heir, he had fallen far down in the line of succession, and neither the greens nor the blacks had a place for him…but House Velaryon was powerful enough to defy both parties with impunity.

Daemon is more pragmatic than people believe, so I don’t see him as the falling in love at first sight type. But his marriage to Laena was clearly not about the throne either. If Daemon’s claim is considered low on the line of succession, then Laena’s claim is even lower. Daemon would have to go on a murder spree to eliminate Viserys/Rhaenyra/her sons/Aegon/his sons/Aemond/Daeron, and then he and his children by Laena could be considered claimants for the throne. Clearly Daemon was not doing any of that.

Prince Daemon knew that his brother would not be pleased when he heard of his marriage. Prudently, the prince and his new bride took themselves far from Westeros soon after the wedding, crossing the narrow sea on their dragons.

It’s said that Daemon chose to leave Westeros after marrying Laena. Daemon is many things but not a coward. So it wasn’t simply a case of fearing his brother’s wrath. Daemon, hardly if ever, fears Viserys. Daemon’s marriage to Laena removed him from the political sphere entirely.

He and Laena returned back to Westeros only after they had children, at which point they took up residence with Laena’s family. It’s very unusual for a man in Westeros to be living with his in-laws, but that’s what Daemon did.

Laena is described as a fiery girl and Daemon is given the description of hot tempered. In his wife, Daemon found someone who could match his personality. They’re a very fire on fire dynamic. Just like Laena, Daemon also claimed his dragon. They both seem to dislike the stagnancy of staying in one place and are rather restless individuals (at least until they become parents). For many years, Daemon was stuck in a marriage to Rhea just as Laena was stuck in a betrothal to the Braavosi boy. They both know what it’s like to be devalued, Daemon because of his brother’s dismissal and Laena in general because of her gender being the reason she was passed over as heir to the throne. But neither of them are defined by this, judging by how Daemon chooses to live his life on his own terms and not by the whims of his brother and Laena not being bothered by the distance to the throne. So I’d say their marriage was a case of two like minded individuals finding common ground with each other.

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

I want to write a meta on Stede Bonnet of Our Flag Means Death and internalized homophobia. A lot of this is going to be a rehash of something I said to an anon back in october of 2022 but I feel like it deserves to be put out without rancid anon takes attached.

Our Flag Means Death as a show is trying to do a deconstruction of toxic masculinity. I feel very comfortable in saying that seeing as David Jenkins had "A lot of what we're taught about what it means to be a man is wrong" and a show about gay men with a thesis like that is necessarily also deconstructing homophobia, even if it doesn't center homophobia, which ofmd does not, it keeps it in just out of frame at all times, because it prefers to center queer joy. However that doesn't mean it's not there and I want to talk about the one place where it exists that I feel like people don't really touch on.

Stede is a character that comes from a background of wealth, of rigid adherence to social norms that he was never able to fully fit into. There are rules for what men do and what women do and those rules must be obeyed and Stede learns this the hard way, by getting tied in a boat and having things thrown at him for picking flowers. By being bullied relentlessly for being soft and weak. Under such conditions you can’t not internalize those rules.

Stede also is very insecure, in episode 2 it's established that he struggles with feelings of inadequacy. A lot of Stede’s guilt comes from his inability to preform the roles of husband and father, roles which were thrust upon him without his consent and stand in opposition to his identity as a gay man, at least in the 1700s. Stede considers himself a coward for his inability to preform these rolls. Stede is unable to forgive himself for being unable to fit into the heterosexual expectations that society as placed on him.

Blackbeard is also a hypermasculine figure. A role that Ed finds himself unable to fit into. That’s why Ed and Stede seem to be in the same place when they first meet. They’re both trying to break out of these rigid boxes that have been forced upon them. Blackbeard is less heterosexual, more specific, but it’s still a distinctly male expectation which is tied up in cultural ideals about masculinity, especially non-white masculinity. And the whole show Izzy, a gender conforming character who seems to go out of his way to talk down to any man he perceives as even a little bit soft, is trying to force Ed into it, and when he tries to imply that Ed isn’t Blackbeard enough he does it by emasculating him

Ed is open, at least when he's made to feel like he's in a safe environment, about not wanting to be blackbeard anymore. Stede suggests retirement and provides him space to experiment with reinventing himself, but at the end of the day Stede doesn't believe him because Stede venerates Blackbeard as one of the most fearsome pirates of all time (something I expect to be a large point of contention between them in the next season). When Ed finally shakes off his captaincy and tries to leave Blackbeard behind for good Stede ends up blaming himself for it, because he perceives Ed's desire to leave a role that is hurting him behind as him being ruined, the same way Stede perceives his own failure as a husband and father as an inherently corrosive thing.

Unpacking Chauncey's speech in season 1 episode 10 and why Stede agrees with it is fundamental here. Gay people have been for centuries been portrayed as corrupting influences trying to convert people to our lifestyle. We've been portrayed as horror villains. Our sex is portrayed as defilement. We're accused of being groomers who want to corrupt others to our way of life, we're accused of recruiting. This is one of the more classic homophobic tropes. So when Chauncy says you're a monster who defiles beautiful things there is venom and oppression behind it. And Stede agrees to it because he does believe himself to have corrupted Ed away from being Blackbeard into being kind of a pansy like Stede. And that he defiled his family by leaving despite it being what he needed to do.

And so his reaction to this is to shove himself back into the closet and try to be Mary's husband again.

I'm not passing moral judgement on Stede, it's just difficult to interpret the show without seeing the subtextual journey of overcoming internalized homophobia that Stede goes on.

[hanaybuns]

see, i have so many ideas for the type of girls that the matsus should end up with based on their strengths and weaknesses, lemme explain:

Osomatsu: osomatsu is all issues... he doesn't really know who he is outside of the group, he's objectively very selfish at times, and he's somehow both a pervert and a coward when it comes to women. but at the end of the day, he's a laid back big bro who always knows the right thing to say to diffuse a situation. the girl he ends up with has to be the complete opposite. i want her to be high strung, very type A. she should be successful, her job gives her a lot of responsibility, but she's up to the task. she's not boring exactly, but she spends so much time working that she can't enjoy herself without feeling like she could be using the time more productively. osomatsu would flirt with her and ofc she's like "someone get this bum off of me." it starts as a one off thing, but he finds himself actually interested in this big boss lady. talking to her makes him almost actually want to improve, because he really gets a look at what a real leader is like. talking to him makes her admire his freedom and humor and helps her unwind. it's slow, but over time, osomatsu actually feels the need to chase her and try to win her over. in the process, osomatsu subtly changes for the better, as he tries to emulate the traits that he admires in her. i think they'd learn a lot from each other.

Karamatsu: karamatsu's issue is that he lives in this delusion where he's convinced that he's the coolest guy in the world and that everyone around him admires him to no end. as a result, he often struggles to say what he's really thinking and feeling (or listen to others) because he's trying to keep up his cool image. kara needs to end up with someone way cooler than him. just objectively this cool, badass girl. and she needs to be kinda blunt (like karamatsu). someone that can challenge him to really say what he's thinking and open up, but not rude to the point where she actually hurts him. see, she has to be the cool one, but not break the illusion for him that he's the cool one. she'd be someone who struggles to be vulnerable, and he can make her feel loved and cared for. she almost can't really believe that someone could forgive her and care about her despite all her rough edges and the mistakes she makes. but kara is like "i have 5 brothers who torment me relentlessly and i love them with all my heart, nothing you can do will ever make me stop loving you" karamatsu can use his karamatsuisms for romance and love, but she would force him to break away from them when he needs to articulate what he wants or doesn't want. i already wrote a scenario about this made up girl a while back, so you can check that out (please don't).

Choromatsu: ohhh choro-chan... see, choros issue is that he doesn't like women, he worships them. and thats all good and dandy in theory, but would make him really toxic in a relationship because he'll put the girl on an untouchable pedestal. he also lives in this perpetual sense of delusion where he's far more important and responsible than he actually is. see, he has to end up with someone very flawed and also blunt. she needs to be someone who can snap him out of this fantasy that women are these mystical creatures. unlike kara's girl, choro's girl is actually rude. i want her to be rude, messy, funny, and kinda a slob. but the key is that she's very pretty too, which makes this a very frustrating situation for choro. he'll try to tell her that she should act more like a lady, but she'll immediately snap back with "shut up, people with jobs don't listen to girlfriendless neets." and chorochan is miserable because his bros ask him if he likes this girl and he's like "NO she's sloppy and rude and annoying and she drives me up the wall but aaaaurrgghh i can't stop THINKING about her" they'll be really frustrated with each other at first, how can he/she think that he's/she's better than me??!! she's mad because despite being a neet, he actually is more responsible than she is. he's mad because despite being a slob, she actually has a job and contributes to society. but as they open up to each other, they start to appreciate each others characteristics and flaws. oh, and they're both nyaa fans

that's enough for now, i'll do the rest of these weirdos later

[saintsenara]

Weird question but do you think the centaurs SAd umbridge in ootp? It kinda feels like it’s written that way and it’s pretty disturbing tbh

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

the spoiler alert is that i don't - i think the series' approach to sexual violence leaves a great deal to be desired, but i don't think this is one of those cases - but obviously this discussion does come with a trigger warning for rape and is under the cut.

i know where this interpretation comes from - since a huge amount of the classical greek mythology surrounding centaurs is based in the idea that they rape human women - and i also know that the series' general view that any violence which happens to someone who "deserves" it is fine means that readers consider it plausible that jkr would have thought it acceptable for umbridge to be subjected to such a "punishment"...

and the text certainly can be read as showing the aftermath of a sexual assault:

All six of them looked around. Professor Umbridge was lying in a bed opposite them, gazing up at the ceiling. Dumbledore had strode alone into the forest to rescue her from the centaurs. How he had done it - how he had emerged from the trees supporting Professor Umbridge without so much as a scratch on him - nobody knew, and Umbridge was certainly not telling. Since she had returned to the castle she had not, as far as any of them knew, uttered a single word. Nobody really knew what was wrong with her either. Her usually neat mousy hair was very untidy and there were bits of twig and leaf in it, but otherwise she seemed to be quite unscathed. “Madam Pomfrey says she’s just in shock,” whispered Hermione. “Sulking, more like,” said Ginny. “Yeah, she shows signs of life if you do this,” said Ron, and with his tongue he made soft clip-clopping noises. Umbridge sat bolt upright, looking wildly around. “Anything wrong, Professor?” called Madam Pomfrey, poking her head around her office door. “No... no...” said Umbridge, sinking back into her pillows, “no, I must have been dreaming...” Hermione and Ginny muffled their laughter in the bedclothes.

but i think its actual intention is for us to take ginny's reading of the situation as the correct one.

the series likes to punish its bad characters for their bad deeds with a punishment connected to their defining flaw. lockhart - the epitome of grasping narcissism - is felled when he believes that he'll be able to perfectly cast a memory charm, too convinced of his own brilliance to notice that ron's wand is broken and the spell will backfire. fudge - a coward who's obsessed with his own public image - is forced from office when his year-long burying his head in the sand is revealed and the public turn on him. marietta edgecombe - a traitor, and a character jkr is on the record as loathing - is punished for wanting to remove the risk of negative attention falling on her and her family by having her crimes, quite literally, written on her face.

bellatrix is taken out by her arrogance, wormtail is taken out by his moral insubstantiality, and - of course - voldemort is taken out by his attempts to outrun both love and death.

what the series hates about umbridge is that she is the encapsulation of bureaucratic bigotry - she's someone who is obsessed with maintaining control and order by subjecting everything in her life to elaborate rules, she values the rigidity of social convention, and she is completely intolerant of anything which contradicts this rule-system. her ruthless discrimination against "half-breeds" is because she wants to confine things she fears or doesn't understand into rigid boxes - she doesn't want to risk discovering that a colleague she likes is a werewolf, because that would undermine the belief system she upholds, and so she removes that threat to herself by passing legislation which prevents werewolves from working alongside her.

her punishment for these crimes - in the series' world-view - must therefore directly relate to her prejudices, and - specifically - to her prejudices being wrong. it wouldn't do for her to be raped by creatures she considers subhuman, because this would justify her belief that centaurs [and werewolves, mermaids, goblins etc.] are savage beasts who will violate wizarding norms at every opportunity, and who, therefore, need to be subjected to violent wizarding control.

it makes more sense to suppose that she is subjected to something she would find it impossible to deny was "civilised" - i imagine, for example, that centaurs have their own legal system, and that she is dragged off to stand before the assembled community and have something which she can meaningfully recognise as a trial - and that her shock and disorientation is because her conviction that she'd be brutally attacked by a group she considers incapable of restraining or governing themselves did not turn out to be true.

and she is also, i think, supposed to be read as affected by the fact that dumbledore - whose authority she has been trying to eradicate from the school - is the person who rescues her, and who achieves through his commitment to [ostensibly] respecting centaur autonomy far more authority over them than the ministry does.

her humiliation, then, comes - in the text's eyes - from the fact that her hypocrisy has been utterly exposed. and so ginny is right to say that she's "sulking" as a way of trying to save face.

[winterwandersland]

Echoes of Mercy

Simon "Ghost" Riley x Black!Fem!Reader Call of Duty x The 100 x Resident Evil tw/cw: none? word count: 3.5k Task Force 141 encounters an unexpected guest on their search to find the anti-virus.

Chapter Two

On Board

TWO YEARS EARLIER

You didn’t mean to yell at Price how you did. He was just trying to help, just like you were. But none of it had to be this way. No one had to get shot. No one had to get hurt. Mr. Diyoza was just trying to protect his only daughter. If anyone on your team had kids, they would do the same. It didn’t matter what Diyoza did wrong because, in his eyes, she was still his little girl.

And now you're holding kitchen cloths to her throat, praying that it was enough. You weren’t religious, but praying seemed like the only thing you could resort to. It didn’t matter if your prayer was going to a god or some other universal being. It just needed to be heard by someone and you needed that someone to give you at least a grain of hope to keep going.

“Please, to whoever or whatever is out there, keep her alive. I know she has done wrong, but this isn’t how she deserves to die. Let her learn from her mistakes, but please don’t take her away,” you murmured as you prayed, down on both knees and clasping your hands together on top of the cloth, keeping Diyoza from losing too much blood.

She was unconscious, but still breathing, which meant she didn’t cut too deep, which also meant there was a chance she could make it. After this long, she should have bled out and died. Maybe it was the cold air, but whatever it was, you were grateful.

As you kept the pressure over Diyoza’s throat, you gazed over at the rest of your teammates who were staring back at you, watching you like you were doing something wrong.

“The fuck are you all staring at?” you blurted out.

“She’s a terrorist. Why are you still trying to save her? Let her die a coward,” Bravo 3-8 answered.

You took a deep breath before you lost your mind. It was a rational thought. All terrorists were supposed to die. But Charmaine Diyoza wasn’t only a terrorist. She was your friend. She trained all of you. All of your team had some sort of connection with her. How could this be so easy for them?

“She’s your colonel,” you replied.

“She was our colonel. Now, she is a prisoner deserving of punishment,” Bravo 3-8 said.

He was the only one that would speak. It seemed like everyone else had some kind of remorse, but not him. Bravo 3-8 had always been the one teammate you bumped heads with the most. With the 141, he was an angel, but back on your own base, he caused you and Diyoza hell, but especially you. You figured it was because you were a woman, but Diyoza was, too. However, you had heard many times that Diyoza was more respectable because she was taller. Stronger. More capable of being a SEAL than you were.

But that didn’t matter to the government. You were both still women, so neither of you were supposed to be here. Neither of you should or could ever do what a man could, and at some point, you believed it. You almost dropped out of the SEALS camp because of an incident that happened, but a protective lieutenant and encouraging colonel kept your head in the game. If it wasn’t for them, you wouldn’t be here.

And now you're sitting with one of the few people who kept your hopes up, trying to keep her alive because she lost the hope she gave you. How ironic.

“We are not letting her die. Sure, she deserves to be punished, but she can’t be punished if she’s dead. If-When she lives, she will be sent to the penal colony on Eligius IV. But her worst punishment of all is having to live with her actions and what she has become. That is punishment enough,” you responded.

It was true. Diyoza would have to live with the guilt of massacring innocent people to get the attention of the government that she wanted. Even if she didn’t regret it now, she would one day.

Everyone was quiet. The aircraft was cold and there was no more bickering about whether to let Diyoza live. She was going to live and have to face the team that had so much faith in her.

The metal of the aircraft did nothing to decrease the freezing air that seeped through the terribly insulated plane. Just before you went to capture Diyoza, Simon had given you his poncho because you hated even the slight breeze of air. You used it to cover yourself up and find warmth and comfort in his scent that lingered on the oversized hooded piece of clothing. You prepared yourself to lie against Diyoza while keeping pressure on her neck, but you had to do a headcount first.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. You counted.

“What the hell?” you said.

“What is it?” one soldier asked.

“There’s eight of you here,” you answered.

“Yea. So what?” the same soldier replied.

You felt yourself start to breathe heavier and you could practically hear your heart thudding out of your chest. “So who’s flying the plane?”

PRESENT DAY

The team skulked about the piles of bodies, many of them still decomposing, their flesh still intact with their bones.

“What if it’s them? Squadron Eight,” Gaz stated.

As much as Ghost wanted to believe that, he knew it wasn’t true.

“There are too many bodies and it’s been two years. All their flesh would be long gone by now. These are recent deaths,” Ghost said.

He couldn’t afford to be thinking about you right now. He needed to be thinking about getting the anti-virus to deliver to the city. Then, once the mission is over, he can go back to reminiscing about the days you were here with him.

Ghost’s direct answer sent chills up the team’s spines. If this wasn’t your squadron, then who was it and what could have placed their bones in piles like this? From what they could see, there were no animals around big enough to kill the people, let alone drag their bodies into a pile. These bodies were at least a month old, but some of them were no more than a week. What could have done this? Who could have done this?

Soap slowly approached the CDC facility door, its cracked glass and moss that decorated the door and its surroundings. Whoever worked here did not keep up the building maintenance, but why would you when it blended in so well with its surrounding area?

He knocked on the door. “Hello?” Soap called out, “Special Forces!”

No one answered.

He knocked again, but there was still no answer, so he did the only other thing he could do in a facility like this. He opened the door, letting himself and the rest of the team through. They each held their guns up as they skulked about the empty lobby.

“Hello? Special Forces! Come out! We’re here to retrieve a package,” Price called out, but yet there was still no answer.

The building was completely trashed. Shattered glass, mold on the walls, and the most interesting of all, blood. Everywhere. There was still a stench, but it didn’t smell like death. It was a mix of must and ammonia once they entered further into the building.

“Someone’s been here recently,” Soap announces. He follows the scent of ammonia to a back door that seemed to be ajar, leading to the back of the building.

“How do you know?” asked Gaz.

“That ammonia smell…that’s piss. Human piss,” Soap informed him.

They continued scouring through the surrounding land, trying their best to ignore the foul smells that engulfed them, practically burning through their nose hairs.

Price raised his fist, bringing everyone to a halt. “Wait, you lads hear that?”

There was a faint rustling through the trees and the murder of crows flocking away that drew their attention. They pointed their guns towards the trees, their flashlights creating small orbs as they lit paths.

“I don’t see anything,” Gaz whispers, doing his best to keep his voice low, keeping anyone outside of the team from hearing him.

They each gathered in a circle, their backs turned to each other, keeping every angle under their surveillance.

Ghost put his weapon down after realizing there was nothing but the rustling of the trees. “It’s just the-,” he began, but a figure suddenly attacked him from above before he could finish.

In these situations, the team would be eager to shoot, but that would be a waste of a bullet when the attacker was so close. Ghost fought off the attacker, Price coming behind the person and grabbing them off of him.

“Don’t kill him! Could be the only way to find the CDC members!” Ghost yelled.

The hood of the perpetrator’s coat covered their face, making it nearly impossible to see who it was. The coat was large, made with fur gathered from the animals during the warmer seasons. It was getting cold out, the teams’ armor barely being enough to keep them warm.

Gaz and Soap kept their guns pointed towards the attacker while Ghost rose to his feet and Price kept the person restrained, finally knocking them onto their back and knocking the air from their lungs.

Price immediately got on top of the person, removing their hood and revealing a woman with blonde tipped hair and grown out brunette roots. The team’s face immediately lit up, Gaz and Soap lowering their weapons and letting out breaths of relief.

Price’s hand gently brushed the hair out of the woman’s face. “Charmaine?”

TWO YEARS AGO

You slowly moved to a squat position, keeping one hand on Diyoza’s neck and the other reaching for your sidearm. You silently wave down one of your members, motioning for him to keep pressure on Diyoza’s wound. Everyone had made it clear that they wanted Diyoza dead, but you couldn’t let that happen. You won’t let it happen. You take a look at everyone as the soldier places the pressure on Diyoza’s throat and you whisper to the team, “If I come back and she’s dead, I will kill every single one of you.”

You weren’t sure if the look they all gave you meant they were scared and believed you or that they were waiting to call your bluff. Either way, you were prepared for both options.

You creeped towards the front of the plane, your gun leading the way, your body tense and preparing for who you may find. The door to the cockpit was ajar, so you gently kicked it open with your foot and immediately pointed your gun to where a pilot should be.

“What the fuck?” you murmured. There was no one in the seat.

But there was someone behind the door.

You ducked as you saw a dark shadow go over your head. You heard the cockpit door slam shut, leaving you and the infiltrator in the small space to fight to the death. He was bigger than you and his face was unrecognizable. You had never seen this man before in your life, but what you did know is that he had to be here on Diyoza’s behalf. But how he got there you could not figure out.

Your team couldn’t hear you struggling over the turbulence and you refused to give up. He had the strength, but you had the intelligence, and you used it to your advantage.

You kneed the man in the balls as hard as you could once he was on top of you. He fell to the side, and you used it as an opportunity to hit him on the head with the barrel of your gun, knocking him unconscious.

You checked the coordinates on the dashboard, but you couldn’t recognize them either. The plane was on autopilot and low on fuel. If you turned off autopilot, you’d burn too much gas and the plane would spin out before you got to the coordinates’ destination.

“Damnit, Simon. Where are you when I need you?” you mumbled under your breath as you banged your hand on the dashboard. You placed your hands over your face and let out a scream loud enough for the team to hear over the ruckus of the plane.

One of your teammates barged into the cockpit, struggling to get through the door because of the unconscious man lying in front of it.

You sat in the pilot’s chair, staring outside of the window, watching as you flew over the open bodies of water that felt like they lasted forever.

“Are you alright?” the soldier, Bravo 4-8, asked. Of all the men in your squadron, you were the closest to him. He understood you. You understood each other. He knew the impact you wanted to make on the world. Like you, he grew up in a house full of women. It was noticeable from the first day you met with him. The respect he gave you like you were an equal and not just a woman trying to prove a point.

When you made a mistake, he didn’t ridicule you, but guided you. There were rumors that you two had slept together, but you both knew it wasn’t true. The rumors made you laugh, considering he wasn’t even attracted to women. You both gossiped about who in each squadron you considered attractive. Whenever there was a new commanding officer or someone substituting to train you, you’d both get in trouble for failing to contain your laughter when you snuck glances at each other after getting a good look at who was training you.

Most of the time, neither of you ever made a move. You were the first when you caught the Lieutenant’s eyes. Bravo 4-8 swore you were done when you were being reprimanded by the jarring lieutenant and instead of staring at him with the serious face that all soldiers and recruits give, you smiled instead. “Yes, sir,” you said, looking up at him with your big, soft brown eyes and full, soft lips.

No one had ever seen the Lieutenant so stuck before, hesitating to send you on your merry way. “Go-get back to work-,” he started before looking across your chest for your name tag. “Abara,” he finished. You weren’t actually being reprimanded for doing anything seriously wrong. The Lieutenant wanted not only an excuse to speak to you, but also to get your head back in the game. You were two laps ahead of the rest of the cohort and you had stopped to chat with your friend, and the Lieutenant wanted to make sure you stayed ahead of everyone else.

“Yes, s-,” you started.

“Just go,” he interrupted. “Don’t call me that.”

“Then, what am I supposed to call you?” you asked him. He couldn’t help to notice the cute tilt in your head, swaying of your arms that was actually a fidget that he came to notice later on.

“Anything but that. And keep still,” he responded.

“Yes, s-,” you began before catching yourself. He could practically see the wheels turning in your head as you thought of another name to call him. “Yes, Lieutenant…” you started, now glazing over his chest as you were now searching for his name tag. “Yes, Lieutenant Riley.” Everybody called the Lieutenant “sir”, but what he didn’t want you to know is that when it came out of your mouth, it did something to him.

You ran back to Bravo 4-8 for a few seconds before passing him, trying your best to contain your giggling, but he knew you couldn’t keep it up for long.

And now he was here with you, trying to figure out what the hell happened and why there was a random man in the cockpit. And oddly enough, he was the only one that could fly the plane.

“I’m fine,” you tell him, quickly rising up and moving past him. You reached for the unconscious man’s foot and‌ pulled him out of the way, making room for you to open the cockpit door and pull him through with Bravo 4-8 holding the door open for you.

“What the hell?” you hear some soldiers mumble.

You drag the man to the middle of the plane, all eyes now facing you both, mainly focused on the random man that was starting to wake up.

“Anyone know who this is?” you ask your members.

They each shook their head and you could tell they were all sincere. They were just as confused as you were. Until Diyoza woke up, you couldn’t ask her questions and even if you could, the chances of her being able to speak so soon were slim.

“Who’s flying the plane?” you hear someone ask.

“No one. It’s on autopilot. We’re low on fuel. Coordinates are set to an unknown destination,” you replied.

“Have Bravo 4-8 fly it and change the coordinates,” another soldier said.

“Like I said, we’re low on fuel. Autopilot can conserve some of it. If we put the plane on manual, we’ll run out of fuel before we reach either destination and we’ll drown in the ocean. The most we can do is change the coordinates,” you explained.

Bravo 4-8 was behind you and hung his head down, his face filled with guilt.

“How do you know so much about planes?” someone asked you.

“Had a few lessons while in the military,” you said.

“Ahhh. Flying lessons with the 141 Lieutenant. Is that foreplay or aftercare?’ Bravo 3-8 joked.

Everyone laughed like it was the funniest joke ever told. Everyone but you and Bravo 4-8. He quickly ended their silence when he announced, “We can’t change the coordinates.”

“What? Why?” you quizzed as you snapped your head back.

“It’s code activated. I tried. It’s not the usual code I use. It’s been changed. I tried every code I know. None of them worked,” Bravo 4-8 replied. His voice didn’t quiver. He wasn’t afraid of you. He spoke to you like a worried friend. A worried friend that wasn’t sure how you all were going to make it out.

“So, what? We just wait until the plane lands itself?” a soldier inquired.

“This plane on autopilot doesn’t land itself,” you explained.

“Not only that, but there isn’t enough fuel for the plane to be landed,” Bravo 4-8 added.

“You have got to be kidding me,” you murmur.

You can see the panic on each of the soldiers’ faces, their laughter quickly coming to a halt. Your only hope now was the random man on the ground. You took a look at everyone and peered down at one soldier putting pressure on Diyoza’s wound. The bleeding seemed to have slowed down, but you didn’t want to risk anything in case you were wrong.

You took a pair of handcuffs and placed them on the man’s wrist, strapping him to the pole of the metal seat. You sat in front of him, your knees bent and spread as you rested your forearms on them with your gun in your hand, waiting for him to wake up. You didn’t know what you would do. Torture wasn’t your thing. You hated it. Knowing that you were in a relationship with someone who could inflict such pain like it was nothing, you weren’t sure.

It didn’t make you uneasy. It didn’t make you attracted to him any less. The only thing it did was make you wonder why it wasn't a deal breaker. Why were you okay with that side of him? And why didn’t it scare you?

Maybe it was because you knew it was part of the job. There would be times that such crimes would be committed, even if no one spoke about them. Only those in higher authorities could get away with it.

Ghost was part of that higher authority.

You called yourself a hypocrite because how could you go calling Diyoza a terrorist when your own boyfriend had committed some of the same crimes?

They were different. Right? He didn’t kill innocent people like Diyoza did. He didn’t go planting bombs. But he tortured people. He imprisoned people. Those were crimes against humanity.

That would make him a war criminal.

But what did he have to go through for him to get to that point? And it was then you realized that Diyoza and Ghost may not be so different after all. What did Diyoza endure to conclude that what she did was okay? What did she know that you didn’t? What did she see?

You felt safe with Diyoza. Even after all she had done. You felt safe with Ghost even after all he had done. It was obvious there were parts of you that enjoyed that savagery, and you wondered if there were parts of you that could do what they did.

[ambrosiagourmet]

Has anyone requested Marcille for the ask meme? If not then pls

Marcille!!!!!!!!!

First impression

Gay? Interesting elf girl with a really good design for a female character oh my god thank you. She gets to wear pants!!! It's a miracle!

Impression now

BELOVED HALF-ELF OF MY HEART... most determined member of the party, maybe second only to Laios. Not that it's a competition.

Girl who carries the weight of her existence in her heart everywhere she goes. Girl who doesn't know how to just exist because that would mean surrendering to the things time will take away from her. Girl with bloody knuckles who clings too tightly to the things she loves because she remembers a time when she didn't realize what they meant to her.

Girl who must shape a life too big to hold all at once. Who stares into that impossible task so unflinchingly that you kind of want to tell her to run away from it for a bit. Be a bit more of a coward, Marcille! But she doesn't have time to be a coward!! She's hurtling towards her goals at terminal velocity. But the same love that keeps her tumbling forward also pulls her back from the brink. Because she's still figuring out the balance.

Favorite moment

Rabbit chapter... my god rabbit chapter.........

Genuinely maybe my favorite chapter in the whole manga. It hits such an incredible peak of humor and raw emotion and impossibly ridiculous situations and grounded believable character writing. And no part of it is separate from the others.

What a fucking chapter. And what a fucking thesis for why Marcille is such a good character. Her being ridiculous and her being incredibly determined and her being powerful and her being scared are ALL part of her. Man. Marcille. She will do anything to pull through for her friends.

And then on top of it the way the Lion takes advantage of this moment to pull her strings. Which is just. So horrifying to watch because you want someone to give her a hug but all the people who would give her a hug are currently DEAD and she's left in a room along and exhausted with a manipulative, abusive, hungry opportunist. God. God. I love Rabbit Part II So Very Much.

Idea for a story

Umm hi sorry I am still busy thinking about Rabbit Part II. Please enjoy some shameless self promotion while I go lie down for a bit.

Unpopular opinion

She's bisexual!!!!! Normally I don't hold so fast to like "well canonically this character was into A Man so she can't be a lesbian blah blah blah" but it does bum me out that people ignore her succubus because I really do think that bi Marcille deserves more love. It doesn't make her any less into women sheesh.

Favorite relationship

Sorry I was thinking about Rabbit Part II again what was the question? Favorite relationship?

Yeah I dunno maybe Marcille and Laios? I kinda like the part where they rely on each other because there is no other way through and share an unnamed intimacy born in blood and bone and the way that they place impossible burdens on each other and owe each other their lives many times over and neither holds it against the other or asks for the repayment of debts that can never be repaid, choosing instead to keep walking into the future by each others sides because what else can you do. What else can you do.

They are pretty cool I guess. I'm normal about them though. Haha.

Favorite headcanon

I imagine that castle staff help Marcille with her hair on a day-to-day basis because leaving it just to personal friends and family would probably be impractical. But also I think Chilchuck, Laios, Falin, and also especially KABRU all learn enough to help her with it. I think that the first three learn some basic nice stuff but I think Kabru would get really into it.

That man could absolutely intensely hyperfixate on something like "nice hairstyles from another culture" for three to six months and come out the other side an expert.