#with only the vaguest of ideas where she was going with this

[lotus-ignis]

The worst part is that this fic is for someone that I would like to consider my friend (not that it takes much for me to consider someone my friend) and I don't want to accidentally massacre their favourite characters!

[isaacathom]

my friend pondered a highschool au for their ttrpg ocs, and then i went 'hmm. interesting. what if my ocs?' and then, well,

[bkgexe]

if all else fails, i was myself

bakugou x reader ✾ 4.6k

info! no smut sorry gang ✾ tw! trust issues that manifest as issues w physical intimacy/contact, dubcon in its vaguest definition (NOT bkg & reader) ✾ notes! ive been in perpetual writers block for months. is this trite idk. i miss my baby but anytime i write for him im like oops this is gonna be 60k words!!! so here is. a drabble lmao. also big lmao moment this is titled after count me out by kendrick lamar ldskfjdlkjf which was on repeat while writing so uh sorry mr. lamar abt the mha fanfic

katsuki has always known that part of him is wrong.

he’s never liked being touched. every kiss he’s experienced has made him tense as an elevator cable poised to snap. any attempt to go further than that has made him a little ill, made his gut feel like a stack of loose papers being torn to shreds, slow and loud.

it doesn’t help that he’s only ever had three kisses in his life: eijirou at a new year’s party (too many teeth), eijirou again at another new year’s party nearly a decade later (too much tongue), and then his fourth date with kyoka (when he tried to convince himself he just had to push through the discomfort to become normal).

things went further than that. it was a mistake. they both knew it right after it happened—kyoka first, and then katsuki after his head stopped pounding with what if i'm doing this wrong what if she's pitying me for fucking this up what if i don't know how to touch another person correctly what if i was supposed to learn at some point and i missed it how could i fucking miss it will it always be like this because i can't do this again i can't i don't—

“kat," she said after. she looked at him with something only a few degrees removed from pity, and poorly removed at that.

he attempted a halting non-apology. he attempted a real apology. failed at both.

"it's okay, you know," she said. "to not like it."

he scoffed even though he wasn’t entirely clear on what she meant by it, because there was so much he didn’t like. “i like it just fine.”

“if that was liking it, I’m honestly worried about your capacity for enjoying life in general.” it wasn’t a joke. her bluntness was something that'd made katsuki think he could push his boundaries with her. all of her thoughts were laid out plain for him to read, an open-source journal. “i'm just saying you don't have to like it. and you don’t have to force yourself to do things you don’t want to do. don't fuck yourself over for someone else's happiness.”

kyoka still texts him often, checks in, invites him to drinks with their friends. she’s kind. she’s normal. she doesn’t have this weird, shredded thing inside her that makes her balk at the idea of someone’s hand on her skin. that makes her think she's doing something wrong, even if she's not the one that initiated the touch.

when you started your job at the front desk of katsuki’s agency, he never thought that he'd be here, wishing above everything that he could just be normal. just for one fucking day, so he could laugh at your shitty jokes and maybe brush his knuckles across the back of your hand in passing and take you on a date where he could kiss you in his car after driving you home and the thought wouldn’t make his skin crawl, wouldn't tear up his insides to pulp.

because he fucked everything up. he's standing in his empty office where you'd been spending time with him and he fucked it up and hurt you and he's not sure how to unfuck it.

the thing is, he could grin and bear it. he could deal with the odd thing inside him that hates the contact and white-knuckle it through every kiss, every caress. but he’s never been a great actor. he wouldn’t be able to hide that from you.

(kyoka told him, years later, that it’s not that the sex itself wasn’t fine—what made it nearly unbearable for her was the fact that she could tell, only after it was too late, that being physically vulnerable with her pained him far more than he was willing to reveal.)

no one wants to feel like the person they’re with is grinning and bearing it. that they’re white-knuckling it through. katsuki knows this. he knows he’s basically a fucking virgin all but in title at thirty and that he’s got the personality of a dried-out fig you find in your fridge weeks after its last edible moments. he doesn't have much to offer.

but he walked into work one day and nodded at you, curt, a grimace on his face—and you smiled at him so kindly that his stomach twisted.

with you, it wasn't the feeling of something being torn apart. it was different, lighter. leaves wrenched into the sky by a strong breeze. still a kind of tearing, but different—less destructive.

he was wearing a deep carmine sweater his mom sent him in one of her bi-monthly care packages (as if he’s not an adult, and a pro-hero on top of that), and you said, “that’s such a nice color on you. is it new?”

there was that breeze inside his chest, strong, pulling at his bones. “yeah,” he grunted. then slowly, as if remembering how: “thanks.”

it was the attention, he thought at first, that piqued his interest. he wasn't used to it. people always watched him from afar, and he had fans online that were borderline obsessive, but people didn’t approach him. they didn’t say that’s such a nice color on you. they didn’t smile the way you smile.

he’s always had a shallow streak. it’s not like he doesn’t know this. it’s become a little muted over time, a little discouraged by the visible scarring on his face and body from his time in the field, but it’s never fully been eradicated. so it was simple, he thought. you paid him attention and stroked his ego, and he preened like a self-obsessed bird of paradise.

and then you started making these little origami whale sharks.

fucking stupid. it bothered him an annoying amount. you had a bunch at your desk, all different colors and sizes, some taped to your desktop monitor, some hung up with little pieces of string under the desk's storage overhang. you drew dots on the back of each one, a distinct spotted pattern that was unique for each shark. and you made them for everyone but him. eijirou bought you a pack of high quality origami paper and you made him his own fucking school, all with little faces, winking or surprised or angry, their wide paper mouths gaping and empty, the lines of their bodies pressed careful and sure.

he hated it. it was annoying and a waste of company time and he usually didn’t ever use dumb corporate slogans like “a waste of company time” but you were really pushing his fucking limits.

it was definitely just the attention he liked, he told himself, because surely someone doing something as dumb as this would annoy him to no fucking end if he spoke to them.

and then he spoke to you and he was wrong.

he asked why you made the damn things in the first place and you told him, “i like whale sharks. but to be totally honest, i just run out of things to do."

and he saw that as a challenge. you were running out of things to do? rest assured he could find more shit for you to take care of. so he did. tasks that he wouldn't wish on his worst enemy, they were so dull and time-consuming. and you were so achingly competent that it drove him up a fucking wall. you completed everything he asked of you in half the time it would take someone else, and you always reported back with a smile, and you always did good work, and he could see himself having a conversation with you about something other than work but he didn't want to try because he was worried he'd begin to like you as a person.

you're pretty. really fucking pretty. he can see that now, and he sure as fuck saw it then. you're hardworking. you're just likeable, and that's something katsuki had never been. it (reluctantly) impressed him. worse than that, it turned his feelings for you into a sort of interest.

but he knows he's not normal when it comes to things like this.

he tried to distance himself from you because of it, but it turns out that asking someone to do work for you means you do have to speak to them sometimes. and sometimes turned into a lot of times.

sometimes turned into bringing him coffee in the morning, not because he asked you to, but because you're sweet like that. sometimes turned into being the person he bounced ideas off of when he had a board meeting coming up or something otherwise boring and meticulous. sometimes turned into you laughing at his prickly comments rather than going quiet because of them. turned into you saying suck it up, dynamight, this is what it means to be the boss when he complained about doing paperwork.

sometimes turned into staying late with him at the office, getting take out for the two of you to share while you finished filing claims and damage reports and other stuff he hated taking care of by himself. sometimes turned into him asking you to stay late just because he wanted you there. because even when he was quiet, you'd tell him about your day, about things that happened in the office, about how much you like the book you'd both been reading. he loved listening to you talk. felt comfortable enough to tell you things about himself when he'd never felt comfortable doing that before.

sometimes turned into you holding out a piece of fried tofu from your take-out container for him to eat while he was approving time-off forms that he should have looked at much earlier that week, and you being so close that he could notice how good you smelled, and the warmth of your body basically radiated towards him, like all your energy was focused on him, and your smile was small but somehow even more lovely than usual, a secret for him to tuck away and keep, and when you finished feeding him and he had a little sauce on the corner of his mouth and you reached forward to wipe it off for him and your hand lingered there for a moment and your eyes fell to his lips and what if you try to kiss me and i'm wrong and you hate me for it and what if i can't give you what you want and what if i'm not actually what you want what if i've disappointed you already what if—

it was too much.

so he fucked it up. your thumb was so soft against his skin. he reeled backwards in his chair, rolling it whole feet clear of you, and he felt the tearing again, the bad kind, like paper unevenly shredded by clumsy hands, and he had to leave. he had to leave. he needed to leave so badly that it felt like pulling his skin off would be preferable to being in that office with you.

hiding in the bathroom was fucking pitiful. he remembered his breathing exercises. he remembered to ground himself. and when he came back to his office, you were gone.

if he was normal—and he wants to be normal, god fucking damn—he could have stomached your proximity. he could have eaten out of your fucking hand. he could have touched you back like a normal person probably would have and he wouldn't be here, alone, looking at a little purple sticky note you left him that says i finished organizing the pto forms. i hope you feel better!

he doesn't know whose pride you're trying to save with that. as if you didn't leave because he made things so fucking awkward by running away from you when you touched him. when you—maybe, if he was reading the room correctly—were about to kiss him.

and you don't speak to him for days. he doesn't want to push so he doesn't—just watches you out of the corner of his eye whenever you're both in the same room, which is arguably worse. he's not sure. he's just itching to fucking talk to you because he misses it.

he misses you. in a more-than-friends way.

it takes a while for him to realize this. when he does, it hits him like a metal rod up the side of the head. it's fucked up of him to miss you the way he does when he doesn't feel like he can provide you with the things a normal person could. and though he's worked on his patience over the years—worked on understanding that he can't have everything he wants—it doesn't stop him from being selfish and finally pulling you aside to talk.

and baffling as fucking ever, the first thing you say is sorry. "i know i should've talked to you about it earlier. i just—i shouldn't have done that. and i know it. i shouldn't have assumed that—i don't know. that you..."

you look helpless. it's one of the very few times that katsuki has ever felt the compulsion to touch someone. not because he wants the touch, per se, but because he wants to be able to provide comfort. he never figured out how to do that with words. he's so focused on his inability to comfort you that he barely has any idea of what you're actually talking about. instead of doing anything at all, he just stands there like a fuckwad.

"i just want you to know that i would never—like never—have touched you, or tried to... if i didn't think there was like, a vibe?" you shake your head, exasperated with yourself. "god, even that sounds so bad. i'm sorry, i just—"

"wait, what are—?" and then it clicks, because he's been slow on the uptake figuring out his shit when he should have been focusing way more on yours. "there was..." katsuki says, and he fucking hates that he can't find better words for what you were both feeling in his office, "a vibe."

the way your face changes when you're flustered is one of katsuki's favorite things, but it's not as enjoyable when he feels just as flustered as you look. "i—oh? so... so you—?"

his ears feel like they're being attacked by two heated straightening irons and he knows they're red as hell right now. he's gonna have to say this plainly even though he'd rather get his teeth pulled out one by one with a pair of pliers. "it's not you."

your expression loses any sort of hope it once held. you press your lips together and sigh, maybe a little exasperated. he's doing his best here but he knows his best is shit. "i can handle a non-cliché rejection," you tell him. "honestly, i'd prefer a non-cliché rejection—"

"i'm not trying to reject you," he says, and it's selfish of him. because he's really not. he isn't comfortable with the things you'd want from him, but he still wants you in some capacity. "i just don't—do shit like that."

"kissing?"

somehow knowing for sure that you did want to kiss him in his office makes him want you more. he likes that you're bold. he likes that you're not ashamed of that. he wants to be different than he is. "any... of it," he struggles to admit.

"at all?"

he nods.

"just—like touching, and stuff?"

it sounds so juvenile that he can't help but laugh through his nose, roll his eyes. "yeah. touching and stuff."

"oh."

you're disappointed. of course you are. it's not like he expected anything different, but—sometimes he fucking hates his life. hates that he can't be the thing people need him to be. hates that trying is so difficult, that it flings his stomach into space, like a throwing stone skipping across a still lake.

"so you don't go on dates, or anything."

"haven't tried."

"do you not want to?" you ask, and he can tell it's more of a genuine question than anything. you're curious about him, like you always are. it's more than he deserves, for all he can offer.

"doesn't make sense to."

"that's not what i asked."

it's not. and so katsuki listens as you ask your question again, and he really takes a moment to think.

considering the answer to your question leads him to his first date with you. and his second, and his third—his fourth, and he's keenly aware that his last fourth date ended with what he expects all dates are supposed to end with.

he takes you to the aquarium. because of all the fucking origami whale sharks. you still haven't given him one and it sticks in his craw like a bone. in front of the backlit tank that holds sharks of all types, shapes and sizes and teeth he's never pictured possible of a living creature before, he asks, "why sharks?"

you look at him, brow raised. "i don't know. they probably needed the biggest tank in the aquarium. and this looks like the biggest tank."

"no, dumbass—your sharks. the ones all over the fuckin' office."

"what, you don't like them?" you ask, but you're smiling, sly.

he shrugs. he thinks they're dumb as hell. he wants one to hang up at work, like the ones you've got hung up at your desk. "they're whatever. they clutter the fuck out of ei's office. and he's already got issues organizing." you've just made eijirou so many at his point, and it's getting ridiculous. "but what—are they easy to make, or something?"

you laugh a little. "no. not at all, actually." a whale shark swims by, its spotted hide shimmering in the tank's eerie blue lighting, and you watch it intently. "but it'd be boring if it was too easy."

this date ends with him walking you home from the aquarium a few blocks from your apartment and you smiling at him and telling him that you had a really great time, and he feels like a fucking freak because you don't even expect more. you don't wait for a kiss. don't look disappointed that he doesn't try to give you one. the way you look at him holds so much affection that he doesn't deserve and he has no idea how to reciprocate it to you, and somehow he lands on, "make me one."

"one what?" you ask, but he thinks you already know what he's asking. you like to play coy. he likes it when you play coy. when you're enjoying yourself.

"one of your little fuckin' paper things," he mutters, because admitting that he wants one of those dumbass sharks feels somehow demeaning. he doesn't want you to know how much he's wanted one. "ei's got a million of 'em."

your hand was on your door handle, but it falls to your side. he's keenly aware of its proximity to him. he doesn't feel that terrible ripping in his gut and its absence is almost frightening to him. your fingers tighten into a fist. it's cold out. "ah, and you're jealous?"

"no," he says, knee-jerk. "i just don't get why everyone gets one but me."

you smile when he says this and he could live in this image of you, delicate and small and made for him. he goes home and thinks about it until he falls asleep. thinks about it even beyond then, feels that strong breeze inside him tearing every leaf from its grounded perch.

here's the thing—nothing against jirou, but unlike his other fourth date, this one was enjoyable. more than. he loved watching you be amazed by the size of the whale sharks, and he loved watching you put a bunch of coins into the penny press and cranking the machine until one was squeezed out into the pattern you wanted, and he loved watching you lay your hand against the glass where the rubbery wings of a flood of stingrays battled for your attention, and—

he loved watching you. that's weird, right? he sounds like a fucking lunatic thinking that.

but he does. he hadn't realized until now how difficult it had been not only to touch people, but to look at them. maintaining eye contact, watching someone do a simple task out of interest instead of staring them down in an attempt to intimidate them. he's so much more fucked up than he thought but what makes it bearable is that he can do it with you. he can watch the way you enjoy things and feel like he's not intruding on something he shouldn't. without even trying, you make him feel welcome—wanted.

that's it. you make him feel wanted.

the realization affects him in a way he doesn't understand. at work the next day, when you smile at him over the top of the front desk, he feels something incredibly strong—something like instinct—that tells him to touch you. small. a thumb brushed across your cheek. his fingers grazing yours. he wants it in a way that can't be right because he's never wanted to touch someone like this.

he doesn't do it, but he thinks about it all day. your little smiles when you notice him watching you on your dates, the way your fingers graze your lips when you cover your laugh, the softness in the way you regard him. you're quiet, reserved, but when you laugh you laugh hard. he wants your soft, your quiet and your loud, he wants the feeling of your fingers on his lips, he wants your smallest smiles, all things he wishes he could fold up and keep and later display somewhere he can always see them. a school of paper fish, gaping mouths and drawn-on spots and such carefully pressed lines.

so on the eleventh date—(he knows it's ridiculous to count, but he's never spent this much time with one person before, not like this)—he reaches for your hand when you're walking alongside the bay, the air turning cold in the wake of the sunset that the two of you had just witnessed. that's romantic, you'd teased when he asked you to watch it with him. he'd rolled his eyes, shrugged you off.

but maybe he wanted it to be romantic. maybe he wanted to make this as normal as possible for you because nothing has been normal between the two of you so far.

you pull back when he reaches for you, as if on instinct. look up at him, confused, when he reaches out again. "katsuki..." you say, and it sounds as if he's done something wrong.

he tries not to let his brain spiral but thoughts drip inwards. water meeting a dented hull. what has he done this time? what else has he fucked up by being fundamentally wrong?

"you know..." you start, and you lose your words.

he thinks of kyoka, years ago. it's okay, you know. to not like it. he wonders if you'll still text him like she does.

your lips pull into a frown before you speak and katsuki can't breathe. "i was never gonna ask on my own because i know you don't like talking about things like this if you don't bring it up. but—um. katsuki—do you think i expect something from you?"

"huh?" he asks, dumb. breathing is still something he fails to do.

"i know that this is—different. i know you have some things going on that make the physical part hard for you." you look up at him so earnestly, and he loves looking at you. he loves looking at you and doesn't want to have to stop and he's worried that this is it. the moment he'll have to stop. you try to smile and it's small and he wants it all for himself. careful. delicate. secret, for him. "i'm not gonna lie to you. i don't know what a relationship without that kind of stuff looks like. but that doesn't mean i'm not willing to find out. it's—i don't need you to try to do something you think i want you to do."

"i'm not."

"it makes me feel a little sick, kat. honestly. it makes me feel like, i don't know—like i'm taking advantage of you, or something—"

"you're not."

"you don't have to do things like that to keep me around." you look flustered, eyes darting from his face to the skyline. "if you want me, i'm—you know."

it's okay, you know. "i don't know."

"i'm yours," you say, and cringe immediately at your words. "or like—i could be, you know, kind of whatever you wanted, if you—if that's what you want. would want."

katsuki can only remember a few times when his head was this quiet in the presence of someone else. when he trusted someone enough to let his mind go blank, to let himself act on instinct. "can i kiss you?"

you sigh. "this is what i was saying. i don't want you to—"

"no," he says, quiet, and he's closer to you than he's ever been. he likes the way you smell. he's not gonna apologize if that's weird. "i just want—god, i feel pathetic asking again. can i just—?"

just, just, just. just a touch, just a kiss, just a moment of your fucking time—it's all he wants. and he's never wanted like this. he's never trusted like this. his head has never quieted entirely because he's so sure that he's not going to disappoint you, or be something you don't actually want, or be wrong.

you've shown him that he can't be wrong with you, regardless of whether or not something within him is broken.

your lips are warm, a little chapped from the dry air, and he tries to remember what kissing chastely is but it's like something breaks in him further the second the two of you touch. his hands are cradling your face, his tongue is gliding against your tongue, his teeth are clacking against your teeth, and he knows the kiss is bad and wrong and messy but he suddenly needs it. he needs to feel you.

you make a noise against him and worry slices into his stomach before he realizes it's a quiet, breathy moan, and maybe you've been okay without the touch but that doesn't mean you don't enjoy it when you receive it. he can tell he hasn't made his boundaries clear enough—your hands circle his wrists, too cautious to go further, too hesitant to grip him like he thinks you want to. like he wants you to want to.

his teeth hit yours again and you laugh, and he pulls back, stomach tight. there's a hope in him that's ready to be torn.

you see it in his face—the fear. "i love kissing you," you blurt out, as if it's the only reassurance you can think of in the moment. "i mean—you're just." you laugh again, and he realizes it's nerves. you're just as nervous as he is. "can i—can we go somewhere warm? and maybe do this more? or—if this was enough—"

he's pulling you towards his apartment before you can get another word out.

kissing you is easy because you make him feel like it's relatively new for you as well. maybe that's how it feels for everyone every time, but he wouldn't know. he just feels comfortable with you. like you're not so much better than him, like you're not waiting to laugh at him when he fucks up, like you're touching him because you really want to.

so he takes you to his apartment and puts you on his couch and kisses you until your back is against the armrest and he's looming over you and you feel comfortable enough that your hands stray from his wrists to his shoulders to his hair and he didn't even know touching someone could feel like this.

put aside the fact that he's nearly finished in his fucking jeans three times just from your fingers running across his back, from the way you cup his cheek when he pulls back for air because he keeps forgetting to breathe—just having you close is intoxicating. he wants to bury his face in the curve of your shoulder, he wants to bite marks into your skin that'll stay vibrant for weeks, he wants to etch himself into you so deeply that he doesn't have to leave. these wants aren't even sexual—it's something about having you be his. i'm yours, you'd told him, and he hadn't even known that it would be exactly what he needed to hear.

he's in love with you, which isn't shocking to him, but he knows he shouldn't be in love with you yet because people that aren't fucked up in the head don't feel shit like this so quickly. he's not gonna tell you this for a very long time, but he knows—so completely and confidently—that he will reach a point when he can tell you.

"you sure you want this?" he asks, breathy, between kisses.

you stop kissing him, brows raised in surprise. "katsuki, we don't... this is a lot for one night. we can take it slow, still."

"that's—i'm not talking about that." he gives in, then—lets himself bury his face in the crook of your neck, lets himself breathe in deep, lets himself find your hands and intertwine your fingers, and you can probably feel that he's hard as fucking metal for you but that's not what's important right now. it sure as hell makes it awkward to try to have a serious conversation, though. "you sure you wanna deal with all... you know. my stuff."

"are you sure you wanna deal with all of my stuff?" you counter, and he pulls back to look at you. kissed rotten and smiling. "of course i want to deal with it. i like you."

and he likes you too. god, he likes you so fucking much.

the next morning, long after you've left for home, he finds a little orange whale shark hidden behind the alarm clock on his bedside table, stars in the place of eyes, and the trace of you is enough to make him feel warm. to hope that over time his apartment becomes full of the little paper creatures until his home is its own aquarium, until everywhere he looks is a memory of all you've brought him—pieces of you, perfectly arranged and delicately folded by your careful hands, much too gentle to tear.

[corkinavoid]

DPxDC Hogwarts AU [pt. 1]

The first time Tim sees him, he is seven, standing by his Father's side, and bored out of his mind.

The 'party' is numbingly dull, full of adults, sparkling flutes of champagne, tiny sandwiches, and fake twinkling laughter. Tim doesn't understand how his parents find any of it interesting; in his opinion, nothing about just talking to people for hours and hours straight sounds as exciting as they make it look.

He wishes he could just go home already. Not that his time in the Drake estate gets any more exciting than bothering house elves or spending his day in the library, but it's still better than this.

Or, Tim thought so until he heard the unmistakable sound of glass shattering on the floor.

He turns around, and there are yelps and screams of surprise and angry swearing. It takes Tim a few seconds to realize what's going on - a few people are holding their hands to their faces, like trying to hide them, and he gets a glimpse of an elephant trunk peeking through the palms of one old lady.

And then, there's a sound of loud, delighted laughter ringing through the room, and the sound of footsteps, and-

"DANIEL!" Tim hears Mr. Masters, the host of the event, yell at the top of his lungs.

A moment later, Tim sees a boy zooming past him, elbowing the adults on his way to push through the crowd and still cackling like a madman. Tim doesn't get a good look at him, what with the boy running so fast he almost trips, but he does notice the messy black hair and the large, knitted blue sweater that looks too big on the boy's body.

"Daniel Jackson Fenton, come back this instant!" Mr. Masters calls again, his thunderous steps louder than all the yelling around them.

The boy doesn't even deign him with a look over his shoulder. Instead, he darts towards the nearest window, opens it with what seems to be practiced ease, and climbs on the windowsill. Only then does he look back to the chaos he created in the room full of respectable guests, and grins.

Tim blinks. He's never seen anyone smile like this, all teeth and mischief, and cheeky excitement.

"What, too old to catch me, Vlad?" He sticks his tongue at Mr. Masters, and just for a moment, Tim is scared the man is going to lunge at him. Yet, right as Mr. Masters gets close enough, the boy pushes off and jumps out the window, his laughter echoing through the night.

Mr. Masters looks like he is about to follow - and Tim is, for once, curious to see if he would - but stops himself short, only leaning out the window.

"Don't bother coming back, you little badger, you are grounded!" The man yells. The only response he gets is another fit of distant cackling from the gardens.

"That is sure a way to entertain the crowd," Father says quietly, and the tall, dark-skinned woman he's been talking to before the whole mess happened snorts a short laugh.

Tim looks back to the few people who are still sporting elephant trunks for their noses.

It's the first time he thinks a party full of adults in stuffy robes can be more fun than he expected.

—☆—☆—☆—

Some visuals for v i b e s

The room where the scene took place:

Tim's drawing after he was back home from the party (house elves helped):

[Picrew]

—☆—☆—☆—

I have the vaguest possible idea of where I'm going, but this is definitely going to be a multichapter thing.

A few notes I've got pinned down so far:

Drakes are a mostly pureblood family, not filthy rich and straight up focused on the whole purity thing, but keeping their reputation clean and nice, and their income stable. Both Jack and Janet have attended Hogwarts, and they were both Ravenclaws while they were at it. Janet might have some relation to Blacks, but it's so distant that she doesn't bother keeping it in mind.

Vladimir Masters is, technically, a pureblood wizard, but his family has been in England for only two or so generations. His grandma (who is still very much alive) came from Russia after falling madly in love with Vlad's grandpa (who is now deceased and, as the rumor goes, his wife had a hand in it). He also attended Hogwarts and has been a Ravenclaw in the same year as Madeline Fenton nee Walker. Hence, Daniel Fenton is his godson and, unofficially, as of right now, heir to Masters family.

[part 2 ->]

[willyhoos]

i read a fic that changed my brain chemistry and now i can't stop thinking about a universe where amy works for eggman... and metamy ensues. naturally. you know the drill by now. also roboticized sonic theory because it makes it more deliciously potent.

DESERT ROSE: A prickly young girl with terrifying strength and a love for the finer things in life, like frilly dresses and deadly high-powered machinery. She thinks maintenance is a romantic couples activity. Not only is the "desert rose" highly poisonous, it can't really be considered a rose, can it…? However, its resilience means it could bloom even in a rusty scrapyard...

notes for the au under cut!

rose believes metal sonic when he says he is the original. he hasn't told her what happened. that he failed to save her. that he failed to save everyone. that there was a time when he was organic like she is. he just said "the other sonic is the copy" and she said "okay! let's kill him :)"

metal sonic is constantly torn between guilt and adoration at who rose has grown into. she became so much stronger. strong enough to protect herself - strong enough, even, to protect him (if he ever let her, that is. he might not be a hero any more but it's burned into his core forever that > KEEP AMY ROSE SAFE is a KEY goal.) on the other hand... he feels like he remembers someone different. a girl who loved animals and flowers and sunshine. who would give her life to protect everything she's now destroying. but his memories are so fuzzy...

i'm not so sure that amy would be big on programming and constructing machines herself, but she's always eager to "test" them... and it goes without saying she is frankly terrifying when she wants to be and is a beast on the battlefield

what a helpful young lady! im so glad i didn't just kill her!! - eggman probably.

"wait if rose calls metal sonic 'sonic' then. what does she call sonic" -> she calls him faker. copycat. knockoff. off-brand. etc. in short, she doesn't acknowledge him by name

i have the feeling that metal sonic is a bit more... enthusiastic? i guess? about his mission in this universe. it's not "ME VS. EVERYONE WHO COULD HAVE LOVED ME HAD I NOT FAILED" its "ROSE AND I VS. THEM" don't get me wrong he's furious and undead and vengeful and jealous and still insane. but. i think rose helps jog the vaguest of memories of who he used to be? unfortunately the person he used to be is a hero so i also imagine he's ever so slightly more conflicted in this universe... ("the old amy wouldn't have liked this, would the old me feel the same?")

codependence is my favorite flavor so i imagine metal really, really, REALLY appreciates having rose around. someone who is kind to him. someone who believes that he used to be more than this, and treats him like maybe he isn't worth less after all... i imagine if sonic ever tried recruiting amy, metal would go BALLISTIC. "YOU ALREADY HAVE EVERYTHING ELSE. YOU CAN'T HAVE HER TOO." she's mine -> she's my (partner) she's my (memory) she's my (friend) she's my (tether) she's my (hope) she's my (rose)

metal sonic is. (gestures) metal. and he lives in a metal box on a metal ship surrounded by metal debris. but down the hall there is a single remaining rose. and in this state she is perfectly preserved. nothing can hurt her. eggman can't hurt her if she's on his payroll, huh...?

i can't put it into words properly (and ive tried) but the idea of "killer metal robot (whose objective is to destroy natural life) falls in love with a gentle girl named rose" makes me start frothing at the mouth. just shut up. why don't you hold his hand too. and he can't FEEL it like he should . and it hurts. and it's infuriating. but he Can tell that her pulse is higher than average and the temperature of her cheeks are strangely high. and he supposes that can comfort him for now.

i feel a little "if i had to choose between the world and sonic i would choose sonic" vibe.

this took me so incredibly long so if it flops im dropping out of college.

i wanna update these designs later, these are just the beginning concepts for the au :)

[a-purely-objective-frog]

As someone who works retail in a city with A Lot of mormons, in a store sandwiched between a mormon bookstore and a mormon-run ice cream place, I play a game with myself where I pretend I have only the vaguest of ideas what mormonism is to see how people explain it to me.

(Technically I was raised mormon but I never was a mormon for autism reasons. It's complicated, but I had to go to church for 18 years so I have the rights and information to lightly psychologically torture these nice people.)

Today I had a really odd one. Lady comes in with a bunch of family photos and a few church photos, including one of Russell Nelson, the current mormon prophet. She's chatty, we are talking about her photos while I ring her up when I see my opportunity.

Is this grandpa?

Oh, no, no. That's the president.

(For those of you not in the know, mormons referring to the prophet as "president lastname" is pretty common. Referring to them simply as "the president" is Not Typical but I can see how she got her wires crossed. I try to act appropriately confused.)

...of the PTO?

No, no, sorry, my church has a president. We call the prophet the president, sometimes.

Oh neat! Does your church also have a vice president?

And she crashed to BiOS. I have never actually seen a person crash this hard. I'm sure she's a busy woman with six kids at home and has been running errands all day but she crashed Hard. I actually felt bad. She opened her mouth and shut it without speaking twice, before busting up in laughter, like, semi-hysterically. Then she took her stuff and left, and when I told her to have a good day she didn't respond. Weird, considering how chatty she had been. The vibe was Off.

That is normally not how this game goes. Usually, they are very nice to me and try their best to explain themselves/invite me to their ward, and we play the Politeness game. Idk what her problem was, but I hope she's ok.

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 延禧攻略/Story of Yanxi Palace.

Story of Yanxi Palace is a high-budget 2018 Chinese harem drama about the historical-accuracy-adjacent antics of an extremely baller young woman who gets a job working in the Forbidden City in an attempt to discover the reasons behind her sister's death.

Imagine Nirvana in Fire, but only the scenes that take place inside the Inner Palace. So there's still schemes aplenty, but now these schemes are happening among a cast that's 90% women, all locked inside a walled city with rigid rules, excruciatingly strict hierarchies, and a very limited number of ways of getting out alive.

This show was huge in China. The English-language fandom is almost nonexistent. I'm betting most of you reading this have never even heard of it, and if you have, you have only the vaguest idea of what this 70-episode palace drama is about.

I enjoyed this show a whole hell of a lot. I also had some major issues with the show, to the point where I very nearly did not write this rec. But I'm doing it because I think the good parts of the show are worth seeing, and because I think the problem parts of the show are worth thinking about. Interested? Then follow me through these five reasons (and a few anti-reasons) I think you should watch it.

1. The Real Housewives of the Forbidden City

Tired of c-drama sausage fests? Want to see a bunch of incredibly talented ladies act their faces off? Then this is the show for you.

The vast majority of characters in the show are absolute bitches to one another. They are locked in a cutthroat game of power and manners where the stakes are literally life and death, so they spend their whole lives either plotting to take someone else down or counterplotting so the person trying to take them down gets taken down instead. They all know they can't trust one another, but they also sometimes can't not trust one another. They keep their friends close, and their enemies closer.

Unlike most other schemes-based shows, which are all about one big mystery, Story of Yanxi Palace has several smaller arcs. Remember the sister-murder I mentioned at the start? I was prepared for that to take the whole runtime of the show to solve; it actually gets (mostly) concluded around episode twenty-something. Antagonists arise and fall. Situations happen and resolve. Think of it less like a movie's single narrative, and more like a video game's multiple levels. Hooray, we finished Garden World! Now we get to go back to Palace World, but with way more EXP and powerups than we had before!

I know that looks like a bunch of lovely, high-class ladies in that shot, but it's not. It's a pit of vipers. Any woman in that lineup would straight-up shank pretty much any other woman in that lineup without hesitation or remorse. Every woman there knows exactly where she fits in the hierarchy and has a detailed plan for how to take out every woman above her to get to the top -- except for the one in black, who already did take out every woman above her to get to the top, and that's why everyone has to ostentatiously defer to her now.

If you are a fan of TV shows where folk scheme their way to success, this is really a can't-miss property for you.

This is also a show about how smart women have to become to survive being at the mercy of stupid men. Not only are the women being vicious to one another, they're doing so while simultaneousy having to pretend that they are pretty, delicate, vapid ornaments whose only thoughts are how they want the best for their precious emperor and his beloved mommy. It's all about the exercise of soft power, how to hide your knives behind silk sleeves and a sweet smile.

So okay, it's not quite as trashy as reality TV, but it's still bitchy as hell and incredibly fun to watch.

2. You love to hate her (and her, and him, and her)

Now if you've read pretty much any one of my previous recs, you know I like a good baddie, and this is a show with some good baddies. As I said in the last point, this is a show about bad people doing bad things entertainingly.

However, I am not going to tell you who most of the show's love-to-hate characters are, because the vast majority of them do not start out hateable. If the show introduces a female character and you like her, or a eunuch character and you like him, there is like an 85% chance they're going to do a heel turn. (And then sometimes do a face turn after? Look, schemes are complicated.)

But I will tell you about one bitch who's rotten from her first moment to her last: Noble Consort Gao.

Noble Consort Gao is the scenery-chewing, shit-stirring, absolute meanest mean girl in the palace, and it is so fucking entertaining. She's your major antagonist for the first half of the show. She's strategically mean, but she's also recreationally mean. She does the anime villainess laugh for real. Her actor, Tan Zhuo, has set her bitch dial to 11 and isn't even bothering to chew the scenery -- she's shredding it with those incredible metal claw-nails she wears.

Noble Consort Gao is a good starting antagonist because she's so blatantly evil -- and yet somehow still unstoppable. She's a good example of how you can get away with being pretty much openly sinister if you also manage to mind your manners. The reason she gets away with being so damn awful to everyone else is that she's still playing by all the rules. She's managed to weaponize every convention about propriety to lord her power over everyone else. She's like a fucking HOA.

And you'll notice I'm speaking about her with such fondness because she's delightfully awful. In fact, pretty much everyone in this show is delightfully awful. There are exceptions, but on the whole, you want to see them go down, yet you're also going to be a little sad when they go. Even Noble Consort, by the end, you get where she's coming from, and you feel a little bad for her on the way out.

Do you like vengeance? Because we've got some vengeance for you here. Many, many people in this show have been wronged, often by the people they trusted most. And of course they all respond to this in a healthy manner, seeking justice for themselves and for their loved ones through proper channels and reasonable means.

Ha ha, just kidding, everybody here is completely unhinged! The primary difference between a good guy and a bad guy in this show is how many innocent people they wind up taking down with the guilty party. It's messy as hell and we are making popcorn about it.

This is a show full of villains. In fact, this cast is pretty much entirely bad guys, semi-bad guys, potential bad guys, and good people who had to do bad things to survive. There are maybe two non-child characters who are Just Plain Good that don't get nuked almost immediately. Everyone else is some shade of grey. Even our hero (and we'll get to her in a minute) is pretty yikes-inducing cruel when she needs to be.

Going to say this as clearly as I can: This is not a show for people who cannot tolerate moral ambiguity. This is a show for people who love to watch clever bastards work. And pretty much nobody's more of a bastard than Noble Consort Gao.

Ladies and gentlemen, the cunt is served.

3. No, seriously, this is actually what it all looked like

If you are at all interested in this actual time period, you owe it to yourself to see this dedicated work of historical recreation.

The amount of research and detail that went into this production is honestly mind-blowing. Because this show is set in the 18th century, we actually have some pretty great documentation about the places, objects, and people involved in this story -- including some (slightly later, obviously) photographs! The production went all out in its attempts to replicate the setting, including using period-appropriate techniques to create various accessories and objects.

The outfits are amazing -- and excruciatingly accurate in several aspects. I've seen more than a couple people say that their first reaction to the costumes was, ho hum, kind of boring. Well, yeah, compared to some of the absolutely bugfuck-complicated wearable works of art from earlier periods, these are a little understated. But then you start paying attention to the million little details: the embroidery, the hair ornaments, the layers, the fabrics. A whole team of people clearly put a huge amount of work into these outfits.

Nearly every royal character in the show is a real person. You could spoil yourself for several major plot beats just by going to Wikipedia. In fact, I accidentally did this, because I was reading the show's DramaWiki page and thought, oh, that's interesting; I understand why the actor names are links (because it takes you to the actors' pages), but why are so many of the character names also links? Turns out: Wikipedia! So, uh, careful where you click.

One of the great things about the show is how utterly claustrophobic it is. Most of it takes place within the heavily guarded walls of the Forbidden Palace; on the very few occasion it goes somewhere else, you're just traveling to other walled manors and villas. There's one brief scene in a forest, and the psychological difference is enormous. You see a few trees and you're immediately like, oh, so that's why these women are going crazy in their gilded cages.

The drama even shows how some of the least glamorous parts of the Forbidden Palace work: the chamber pots, the coal for furnaces, the mopping, the weeding, the laundry, the fire brigades. It's an enormous production, keeping what is basically a 178-acre city-state running to imperial standards. It's nice to see a drama that acknowledges that while rich people may want to see only clean walkways and fresh sheets, those things don't happen by magic.

If anything, knowing about all this detailed research makes the unintentionally funniest scene in the entire show -- the one with the eunuchs playing Western instruments -- ten times funnier. You had artisans spending months doing exact recreations of historical hairpins, and you couldn't spend thirty seconds asking the internet "when were saxophones invented?" or "does an accordion make noises like a string quartet?" Perfect. No notes.

Trust me when I say you'll get used to the queue haircuts on the dudes. It helps that most of the time, they're facing the camera so they just look like they've got their heads fully shaved, and most of them have heads that look very good shaved! ...Most.

4. The kind of girl who'd make Mei Changsu say damn

The show has a strong ensemble cast, but the woman at the core of all the action is the tough-as-nails protagonist, Wei Yingluo.

The details we have on the actual Lady Wei are sparse. She doesn't really exist as a person in the historical record, to the point where we don't even know her given name (if she even had one) or when she showed up to the palace. We mostly know when she got given her titles, how many kids she gave birth to, some of what she did later in life, and when she died. The show takes these historical gaps and just runs with them, weaving into the silences a narrative that, while implausible, could have happened!

The show starts when Wei Yingluo enters the Forbidden City, not as a royal lady concubine, but as a regular little maid. She's got an agenda, though -- as mentioned earlier, her sister has died tragically, and she wants to figure out why. The stakes get higher as it becomes clear just how much people don't want this question answered, for their sakes as much as for hers.

She very quickly realizes that she can't just live a quiet life and snoop around casually. Too many people are out to get her, and if she's going to survive, she's got to fuck with them before they fuck with her. And they are wholly unprepared for the self-destructive lengths to which she will go to to fuck with them.

Wu Jinyan deserves all the accolades for turning in a great performance. She has to be completely all over the board emotionally and energy-wise for seventy whole episodes, and she brings it. She's very funny and physical when the show calls for her to be! She's willing to flail around and stuff her face and ugly-cry. Then she turns on the don't-mess-with-me stare and the temperature in the room drops ten degrees. Did she get some award for this? [checks her DramaWiki page] Okay, she got several awards for this, good. Even in a huge cast this talented, she's an absolute standout. I can't wait to see her in the Double, which is definitely on my to-watch list.

I'm not going to call Wei Yingluo a Mary Sue, because that's not accurate, but this girl does have some serious plot armor on. You never get the sense that she hasn't earned it, though. She's smart, capable, and more than a little completely fucking crazy. The show makes you believe that the reason she survives most of the shit she pulls off is that everyone is just so baffled that anyone would try it at all that they don't even know how to respond.

I thought about starting out this rec post with Wei Yingluo -- putting her above the cut, in fact, because she really is that compelling. She's back here, though, because it's with Wei Yingluo that we start to slide into my points of critique. Too often, female protagonists are here to solve the problem with their cuteness and quirkiness and extra-special perfectness that shows up all the other girls and captures the heart of whatever boy she needs to save the day. And no matter how this show starts off wanting to make her something different, it ultimately can't conceive of a female lead who isn't at her core just like that.

The writers can never decide how much Wei Yingluo's Manic Pixie Dream Girl act is an act, and how much she means it. The show introduces her as a stone-cold psychopath who is capable of feigning being a carefree brainless uwu smol bean. Later it decides, actually, she's really at her core a spunky, soft-hearted creature who likes to goof off and is just capable of switching on Scheming Bitch Mode when she needs it! And it's like, are you kidding? You just spent like forty episodes telling me that it's all a big trick when she does this, and now you're saying it's not anymore?

It's like they made a character capable of decieving men, and then got decieved by her, which you have to respect. Any fictional character can fool another fictional character; only true legends fool their creators.

sidebar: fuck that dude

The show can never fully commit to this bit, because he's supposed to be our big heroic love interest, but the emperor fucking sucks.

Hands-down the show's biggest moral is that All Emperors Are Bastards -- yes, even the ones in relationships we're supposed to find cute; yes, even the ones whose lifestyles we're supposed to envy; yes, even the ones played superbly by the devastatingly handsome Nie Yuan. While watching we repeatedly invoked this tweet:

Being a billionaire must be insane. You can buy new teeth, new skin. All your chairs cost 20,000 dollars and weigh 2,000 pounds. Your life is just a series of your own preferences. In terms of cognitive impairment it's probably like being kicked in the head by a horse every day

He is the dumbest, most easily played motherfucker in China. Getting horny makes him stupid, and he's horny all the time. He has absolute power over the lives of everyone in the empire, and you can distract him with the mere suggestion of a vagina. He has taken a full You Girls Fight It Out Amongst Yourselves stance toward his scheming harem. This will not go well for anyone.

And speaking of those wives, no matter how many times they loudly profess their undying devotion to him, I have a rough time imagining these women feel anything for the Emperor beyond exhausted contempt. Well, okay, maybe the Empress who married him before he took the throne, since she had a chance to get to know him before he was in full Emperor Mode. But none of the other women should ever stop dunking on this guy like the gullible shitbag he is. If you (like me!) are already skeptical about any given heterosexual romance in fiction, be prepared to roll your eyes through the Big True Love Story this one tries to sell you.

5. Right on the cusp of a fascinating feminist conclusion!

I may be on this one for a while; skip ahead if you like.

Okay, so: What little English-language buzz I've seen about this show has used the word "feminist" about it -- mostly in conjunction with how the show's popularity made the CCP sour on its failure to portray appropriate communist values (???). So I went into it expecting feminism! And I got a show with a whole bunch of female characters in it! And hoo boy, are those two things not necessarily the same!

This show is a great example of how merely passing the Bechdel-Wallace Test doesn't make something feminist. Sure, it's mostly about a single woman who, through her plucky nature, rises in the ranks of power. But that is feminist only by the shallowest, most girlboss, Lean-In-ass definition of the word.

At the beginning, you can kinda tell this was written, produced, and directed by men. By the time you get to the end, you can absolutely tell that the production team was dudes from top to bottom. This, to me, is the big tell: that the show cannot conceive that anything these women are doing could be interesting unless it's trying to stab another woman in the back. There is a time jump very near the end, where the few female characters still standing agree to stop being shitty to one another -- and then fast-forward a decade, because why would we care about seeing what their lives are like when they're not being shitty to one another?

The show is incredibly constrained by Actual History. At the end of the day, it's a Cinderella story, and as such, we have to cheer for the social and legal mechanisms that make it possible -- even when they're grotesquely misogynistic. The show lets its female characters pay lip service to how awful it is that women are little more than breeding stock, but it doesn't let them do anything about it. Mothers can be obliquely sad that their daughters are being fed to the same patriarchy machine that fucked them up, but talking is the most they can accomplish ... because those daughters were real people who were actually fed into the patriarchy machine. We know this. We have documentation. China is very good at keeping receipts.

Wei Yingluo starts out as a servant, and throughout the first half of the show, she moves up and down in the servant ranks -- and all the while it makes the point that being a servant fucking sucks. Maybe it's better when you get to work directly under someone you really like, but the actual job sucks shit and puts you at the mercy of everyone above you in the palace hierarchy. Your life is not your own. You're barely a person. You can easily get executed for merely working in the same household as someone who broke the rules.

The feminist answer to this dilemma is to notice that the system is bad and either a) refuse to participate in it, or b) use your power to mitigate its badness. The show, however, clearly thinks that the real problem with this whole setup is that the people we like aren't at the top of it. Somebody has to take the abuse; you just don't want that somebody to be you. Once Wei Yingluo gets to a place of real power in the palace hierarchy, she starts behaving very much like the people who used to be shitty to her and takes no steps to prevent the early-show damage she suffered from happening to other people.

Now: You can make the argument that if she'd done all those radical things, she would've been dead meat -- and I think you'd be correct! But the show never indicates that it gives a second thought to how abusive and unfair this all is. Survival in this system means exploiting the people below you. There's not a neutral option. And this show expects you to cheer for exploiting the "right" people.

The show never quite seems to internalize what the stakes are -- at least, not for more than a moment or two at a time. I made the Real Housewives joke because the show more or less treats the consort-on-consort schemes as fun catfights by mean girls wanting to be the prom queen. It almost gets to the point of realizing that a woman's place in the harem is literal life-and-death shit for her, and that if she can't produce a son and work him into a powerful position, she's fucked. It always bunts when it gets there, though, choosing to play up vanity and petty grievances instead of the absolute desperation these women must be feeling.

It gets so close with Consort Shun to a real discussion about how awful it is that the men in their lives see them as pretty objects to be bartered for favor and power with other men. But it can't fully go there, because that would undermine the structures propping up this Cinderella story, and then we couldn't feel good about the Cinderella story. And we want to feel good about the Cinderella story. We will burn every other female character in the show if we get to feel good about the Cinderella story.

I've made a lot of jokes about lesbians in this show, but the truth is, it is chronically deficient in lesbianism. Lesbian sex would have improved the lives of at least half the characters here, if not more. Unlike a lot of other historical c-drama shows, Yanxi Palace acknowledges the reality and possibility both male and female same-sex sexual desire -- but it does so in order to say that both are bad. (I legitimately cannot tell if the production is doing this to show how regrettably anti-gay the past was or to play on the audience's expected homophobic disgust. I suspect the latter, but I genuinely don't know.) While it does the fascinating thing of showing desire and coupled relationships between women and eunuchs, it has no idea how queer those setups are, nor does it acknowledge the possibility for same-sex pairings to fill that same positive dynamic.

So why on earth would I list this whole mess of problematic attitudes as a reason for, and not against, watching the show?

Because it is fascinating to think about. Look, I've burned a lot of time and brainpower here writing several paragraphs that no one is ever going to read about how interesting the show's moves are. It has the weird problem where it understands what happens when you lock a bunch of women together in a high-pressure situation keyed to a brutal hierarchy -- but it doesn't ever appear to quite get why. At least, not beyond the sense that people will claw their way to the top of any hierarchy they have access to, just because it's there. (Watch how it treats the few exceptions to this, the rare nonambitious characters. See how long they stay nonambitious.)

As I said when I labeled this point, the show is just on the edge of a smart conclusion, and that smart conclusion has to do with how awful it is that women are both the people who suffer most under heteropatriarchy and the people who work the hardest to uphold it.

Yes, the world into which these women have been thrust is awful. But they make it ten times more awful because they're all semi-voluntarily engaged in a vicious, Highlander-esque zero-sum competition. They could cut one another some slack, but they're more invested in continuing the cycle of abuse to maintain an intense, repressive order. The ones that try to be kind about it get repeatedly fucked by the ones who have no interest in kindness. They all have to engage in performative rituals that mimic sincerity without actually producing a single genuine emotion toward one another. It's horrifying and paranoia-inducing in the extreme. And they're doing most of it to themselves.

If it were really feminist, the moral of the Story of Yanxi Palace would be it does't have to be like this. This dynamic is not inevitable; this is a choice perpetuated by generations of people who benefit from it just enough not to question its correctness.

Sadly, there's still enough promise in patriarchy that being a Good Girl will save you from the shit we put the Bad Girls through -- so don't you want to be a Good Girl? All we need you to do is throw all those icky Bad Girls under the bus. It's their fault for being Bad Girls anyway. But you? You don't have to be afraid. We're not going to hurt you. You deserve all the good things we're giving you. You're not like all the other girls. You're different. You're special.

Just don't forget to watch your back.

If anything, I think the CCP is terribly wrong: This show is an excellent demonstration of communist values, in that if these women had just joined together in solidarity, all their lives would have been so much better! The Emperor should have been posting helplessly on Reddit like "My (55M) consorts (40F, 36F, 31F, 28F, 22F, 19F) have unionized" so the entire internet could come for his ass.

Care to watch?

This is another of those shows you can find in a whole bunch of places! Here's the ones I know about:

YouTube

TVBAnywhere

Viki

Tubi

iQiyi

I know seventy episodes is a commitment. I know eighteenth-century palace drama is a lot. I know that last selling point of mine seemed to go on for-fucking-ever and you probably didn't read any of it. But this show is a beautiful work that I think more people should see, warts and all. Besides, if all we ever consume is ideologically "pure" media, how do we learn to think critically about anything?

True story: My Chinese colleague, knowing I was watching this show, taught me slang for "lesbian." It's 拉拉 (lala). Very useful.

[jedisandspacepirates]

Thoughts on Jod Na Nawood and Where We Go From Here

So, Jod Na Nawood. Spoilers ahead for 1x05, read at your own risk.

After watching 1x05 and seeing other folks's thoughts about what went down there, I felt the need to write something.

Now I'm going to start by saying that from the beginning, I (and everyone, really, I'm sure) was wondering just who Jod is, really. I didn't immediately buy into the idea that he's a Jedi just because he can use the Force. That doesn't make or define a Jedi, I don't think. Anyway, it kept me wondering and kept me interested. I will be honest and say that in the first few episodes, I sort of hoped that despite the fact that he's a pirate, a scoundrel in it for his own interests....I had hoped that his heart would soften at least a little bit, being with the kids. But now I remember what Jude himself has said about Jod and his perspective of the kids. According to Jude, Jod has this sort of disdain because his childhood was taken from him (or something along those lines iirc). It's a little sad because apparently Jod didn't have that. But, Jude said, he also doesn't want the kids to end up the same way he did.

Either way, I think it's interesting that Jod has twice done things that remotely demonstrate even the vaguest, faintest sense of...I won't call it affection but whatever it is, he isn't disregarding them.

First example, when he reunites with the kids on At Achrann. Neel and Wim run to him and hug him, and he just holds them close. He could have easily been aloof, or shoved them off and been like 'Ick. Small humans. Go away.'

Second example, when he finds Wim crying. Initially, he's very much repelled by the sight and turns as if to leave, but then goes back, sits down and talks to Wim about it. True, he doesn't give very good advice when he says to let go those attachments (Granted: to the Jedi, that's important, but in the sense of being free from those attachments not in the sense of cutting off love and wholesome, good human connections). But it just caught my attention.

Another thing I thought interesting is exactly how the writers are presenting him. I don't have extensive experience with studying writing methods or even observing it in the shows I watch, but I've noted that in some of the best written stories, the big reveals are almost never obvious. That's sort of their nature, no? Like why would it be a surprise if it's already been spoiled before its time?

What's my point?

This. I think it's notable that when they first present Jod, it's in an ambiance of mystery, so much that everyone is asking 'Who is he?' They're already laying down that idea of wanting to figure him out completely and see what he's made of. Now after 1x05, it was striking to me to see Jod invoke the pirate code and threaten Fern with a knife at her neck.

Let's unpack that moment first. There's a few things I want to point out.

Jod hesitates. It seemed to me like he's debating, really turning around in his head the idea of what he's considering doing. It struck me because we see only moments before how quickly he had SM-33 fill the pit back up with acid and melt the pirates. Jod has no problem with killing, that's clear. So why did he make such an effort not to harm Fern, if he's as despicable a man as we're supposedly led to think he is?

He holds the knife near her neck, but not nearly enough to harm her. It's a threat to make it real enough for her, but he's not trying to harm her. Anyway you dice it, it's NOT okay that he did that and I don't approve it, I just think that it's worth noting.

He keeps insisting that she has to say 'I yield' because that's what the Code demands. 'You literally have to say it,' he tells her.

Then, and this point's more flimsy, up to interpretation, I suppose, but...the bit with the chair. I assumed, on first watch, that he didn't react because he simply didn't care what happened to the kids now that they're out of his way, but I saw a post once (if it was yours or you know who wrote it, tell me please and I'll credit them here) pointed out it's because he knew what the chair would do and he knew where they were going--into a tunnel.

Lastly, I was thinking about this more recently and it came to mind that Jod could have, essentially, done this at any point when he was with them, no? Why did he chose THAT moment to do it? Furthermore (and I mentioned this in a different post), I find it very suspicious that the writers, if they do intend to make Jod out to be the actual Bad Guy ™ po

That's it, thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

[sunflower--ducks]

BEHOLD! More BOD headcanons upon ye

The brothers are capable of teleporting... but only when nobody can see them. They have absolutely no idea why this is the case; it's something they've puzzled over for years. But that's why they always turn the lights out before pulling their "appearing in the middle of the ring" shtick.

Kane was born at the stroke of midnight on November 1, 1974, the exact moment his maternal grandmother died. She was psychic, too.

When Kane isn’t working (i.e., wrestling), he typically wears his hair in a low ponytail. Taker often braids his hair.

Both brothers are mediums, but Taker much more so than Kane. Taker can speak to the dead as easily as he can to the living, whereas for Kane, speaking to the dead is often like trying to speak to someone when he's underwater; their words are muffled and hard to make out. Taker can also see spirits quite clearly, whereas Kane has to squint, sometimes literally.

Taker is a technopath (yet he’s technologically illiterate—oh, cruel irony).

Kane’s favorite animal is a cow. They are both adorable and delicious. Taker is partial to big dogs, especially Rottweilers.

I associate Kane with sunflowers, especially orange ones, because they’re bright, bold, and hardy—just like him. I associate Taker with lavender, and I’m not entirely sure why. They’re both purple?

Taker is an astronomy nerd, Kane is a chemistry nerd. (What is astronomy if not mapping out the stars that proclaim our end? What is chemistry if not blowing shit up?)

Taker is also an astrology bitch. Motherfucker has everyone’s birth charts memorized but God forbid he actually give people helpful advice when Mercury is in retrograde. Instead he’ll give “advice” in the vaguest, most ominous way possible and kick back with a bag of popcorn to watch the chaos ensue. He’s an asshole.

I don’t think this is supported in kayfabe, but in my headcanon universe (the objectively superior universe 💅), Kane only lets people he truly trusts stand on his blind side. If someone he doesn’t vibe with tries to position themselves on his right side, he will do anything and everything to get them on his left, up to and including physically tossing them to where he wants them to be.

Kane smokes weed on the regular. He tried it once with Rob Van Dam and found it really helped his anxiety, and he’s stuck with the habit even long after his relationship with RVD ended.

Speaking of Kane’s relationship with Rob… those two were in fucking LOVE, Your Honor

Around the same time Kane was knocking around with RVD, Taker had a fling with Kurt Angle.

Kane’s favorite band is Slipknot. Taker is partial to Johnny Cash. They both really like Judas Priest.

Kane is a chain smoker. Taker is a functional alcoholic. They have both repeatedly promised to give up their favored vices if the other one does, too, knowing damn well that is never going to happen.

When Paul first brought Kane into the Federation, their plan was to first humiliate and “expose” the Undertaker—break his body, shatter his mind, ruin his reputation in front of the whole world—then kill him and make sure he stayed dead.

They need each other like they need air, tbh. Did I already put this one in my first post about them? It bears repeating.

[sun-stricken]

Some ideas for you! Take your pick!

Gray frequents the infirmary the most. In one of my ideas lately, after thinking about iced shell, maybe ice make makes the body a bit more…prone to cracking? Maybe he bruises easy and gets a lot of head wounds. It’s why he’s always in bandages longer. I like the idea of Porlyusica getting sick of him.

Team Natsu/the guild/slayers taking care of him, even when he doesn’t realise it. (Against pervs, against himself, maybe people are a bit racist (with him being not from Fiore).

Gray gets sad sometimes and dissociates.

Gray has night terrors so he has sleeping pills, but on missions he also has caffeine tablets to keep him awake so he doesn’t have terrors around them. Safe to say, they aren’t happy when they find this.

Lucy asks Gray about where he’s from, traditions etc, and the guild realises he might be homesick so they secretly try to learn things for him. (Over the years they’ve picked up swear words (Gray doesn’t realise he’s doing it and they’ve never told him))

Gray’s actually quite touch starved. His body temperature is cold so most people stay away/ don’t touch him (but don’t realise they’re doing it). The only one who can stand is Natsu because of his magic. Maybe it gets worse after becoming a slayer.

…also do you take spicy requests?

you cant just give me all these amazing concepts and tell me to pick☹️ i will do a little for all of them if it kills me

Also yes! i absolutely do take nsfw requests! feel free to ask me anything! im surprised it took so long to ask me that tbh

there is a lot here so vv

1.

* Hes the single reason why the guild infirmary is always having to restock

* Due to Grays multiple usages of iced shell some of his body did turn to ice, most sections of his bones, it looks like a normal bones but it acts like ice, which means hes more likely to break a bone

* unfortunately, its not like a normal broken bone for obvious reasons. itll splinter and have hairline cracks all over the bones before it breaks.

* It takes less time to heal than a normal break, he just has to get it wrapped and limit his usage of his magic so it can ‘heal’ (as in, ice it over again) the breaks and cracks. It takes less time to heal and also less pressure to break, win lose situation tbh

* Which is also why head wounds are especially dangerous for him, skull fractures are more common for him than anyone would like, which is to say any at all

* His external body temperature is low and causes him to bruise like a peach, getting a friendly slap on the back can cause him to bruise for weeks, especially from Erza

* bro hasnt gone a day without a bruise in like ten years

* Hes been dragged to Porlyusica so many times now that anytime she sees him (on the field, in her office, even completely out of context and hes not visibly injured) its like second nature to check him out first

* if she could go a month, or even just two weeks! without seeing him she might consider changing her views on humanity (probably not but its the thought that counts)

* Also Gray has small sections of what people think is frostbite on his hands and feet. It doesnt hurt or limit him at all but theyre there, showed up some time post devil slayer magic

* ALSO! His blood runs slower and is darker due to his low body temperature, causes him only the vaguest of problems but its a thing (this is common in most powerful ice wizards)

2.

* Gray likes to pretend hes good at taking care of himself, but hes not hes really not

* Luckily he has a lot of nosy and protective friends thatll do it for him (in their own ways)

* Natsu literally temperature exploding some guys glass at a bar when he got wayyyy too friendly and handsy with Gray

* they were kicked out but he was really proud of himself

* Rogue drawing shadows towards Gray if he needs to sleep and its too bright, or Sting creating a warm light beam when its dark out and Gray wants to embrace his inner cat and sleep in a sunbeam

* Wendy checking him over first bc she knows hes one of the people who wouldnt ask for help if he was injured

* hes had multiple people physically remove him from fights/training sessions because he was visibly pushing himself way too hard

* Part of the reason Gray learned Fioren so fast was because he was sick of people looking at him like he was stupid for not speaking ‘right’

* he mentioned this to the little slayer group they got goin on and from then on out they were like, hella hyper vigilant with anything that could make him insecure like that again

3.

* It really scared him the first couple times he did it, it still does. He hates losing time

* It started happening during his time with Ur, he cant remember a lot of it, training, blink, fighting, blink, training, blink, training, you get the idea

* It doesnt happen often, and he tried not to think of it past the point of trying to get it to stop

* Its happens often when hes highly stressed but theres no immediate physical threat, his brain doesnt understand whats going on or why its so stressed but knows he doesnt need to physically protect himself yet so it mentally protects him (if that makes sense), usually when hes alone, or when a threat is gone

* he confided in Erza about this once, and now more times than not when he ‘wakes up’ shes there talking to him

* only part he feels is good about it is that it makes him exhausted and lets him sleep easier

* He doesn’t usually dissociate often, not that he has much of a choice, if he did it wouldnt happen at all, but it was a lot worse when he was younger, his memories of early fairy tail are all blurry and he felt like he was on autopilot even when he was ‘awake’

* he hates it

4.

* After his team found out abt his vast array of pharmaceuticals they were so confused and concerned and probably borderline paranoid, because who needs that many medications for one person??

* Gray had been taking sleeping pills at a high enough dose to let him have a dreamless sleep for so long that most over the counter brands dont actually work on him

* but he kept all the old bottle that didnt work just in case he got desperate to sleep and they suddenly magically worked again

* The caffeine tablets were self explanatory after seeing all the sleeping meds, but he also (unwillingly) admitted he takes them on missions so he wouldnt wake them if he had a nightmare, and also for days when they were especially bad so he could go long enough without sleep hed just crash and sleep with no issues. Canr have a nightmare if you dont sleep

* His team was also extremely unimpressed by these explanations

* Erza and Natsu (and also Happy) strong armed him into going to Porlyusica for actual helpful solutions since he refused to go to his actual doctor

* While Lucy and Wendy disposed of the full fucking pharmacy (seriously, he coulda started a business or smth) he had in his bedroom

* For some odd reason he felt lighter and less moody when he was on actual helpful medication and was getting genuine rest

* how strange

* and if his team checks his house for another pharmacy in the making thats nobodies business but theirs

* Also Erza tried to ban Gray from caffeine while on a quest , or at least limit it, but he looked at her like she was absolutely batshit crazy to the point she got embarrassed and had to retract the ban

* But she will tie him to the bed to make him sleep on quests if she has to

5.

* The first time Lucy asked where Gray was from was before Galuna, he ended up giving her a shady answer and redirecting the question to her (reminder, before galuna, before phantom lord) which she ended up also being a bit cagey about so she let it go

* But Lucy is nosy (endearing) by nature, so she asked if he had any different holiday type traditions sometime after Galuna, and to the surprise of, well, literally everyone, he did and gave examples

* which lead down a rabbit hole of the guild fretting a bit abt how to make him comfortable (even though hed been with them for a decade) bc he mentioned he used to be really homesick the first couple years, and sometimes still is

* Most the guild still had no clue where he was from so they were really just running in circles for awhile

* Levy tried to figure it out from the time he accidentally dropped, what she assumed to be colorful curse words, random foreign language bits

* didnt really work but she tried

* so for months he was bombarded with ‘subtle’ questions about his hometown and its culture, which got shut down most the time

* Thats not to say he didnt give them anything, he gave them enough that they were incorporated into existing traditions and holidays they already celebrated

* it was a very sweet gesture that Gray absolutely did not tear up at, so shut up—

6.

* Gray is the most touch starved fool on the planet. ive always loved the idea of him liking touch a lot

* He grew up in a pretty affectionate family, his parents were always around to ruffle his hair, or hug, or hold his hand, or carry him, they were just very physically affectionate and he enjoyed it

* With it made him nauseous, guilty really, because Ur and Lyon were also physically affectionate but it wasnt them, it wasnt his family

* Also it was plain uncomfortable at times, part of learning ice magic was to almost numb himself to cold, but in the beginning numbed him to everything and it became uncomfortable to be touched because it was tingly and it hurt

* Early Fairy Tail he was completely closed off, couldnt stand being touched, didnt want to get cozy and make friends because he planned to leave anyways.

* Ice mages (Fire mages also) temperatures can fluctuate depending on how they feel, for example, if they’re experiencing negative emotions their temperature and the space around them will get colder

* and Gray used to be so angry and upset all the time, and hed just beginning to learn magic so he didnt know how to fix it yet, which caused a lot of discomfort for people.

* People didnt stay around him long because the discomfort of being too cold, and what was he gonna do about it? ask them to come back?? hell no

* So he gained a reputation and people didnt want to disrespect a volatile childs apparent boundaries so they didnt question it

* He was fine with fighting being the only real prolonged touch hed get, totally

* But Natsus got this thing about him that makes him think he can do the impossible, which includes shaking Grays world view and comfort levels

* At some point in their teens Natsu would not let go of the alleged fact that Grays didnt like being touched for some reason, so he did what he does best and pressed the issue

* it ended with Gray being a puddle in his lap while he had a crisis about everything he thought he knew about himself while Natsu celebrated his victory against him

* Its not completely public knowledge but the guild most definitely knows at least a little about how much Gray is touch starved

* he doesnt openly welcome it with open arms but if its happening and he trusts the person hes not gonna say no

* he probably gets a euphoria high from a head pat or smth

* After getting his devil slayer magic is absolutely got worse, having two powerful ice magics, one of which he was still struggling to get the hang of, in one body made it difficult to control the temperature around him, and after long enough people would start shivering if he wasnt careful

* it sucked, totally and completely sucked

* Natsu still remained unbothered and would increase his own temperature to counterbalance Grays, which helped a lot

* he still gets all up in Grays space no matter how much Gray tell him to fuck off, he knows he needs it

[illumiera]

thinking about Miraak in Apocrypha, realising after a while—weeks? months? years, maybe?—that Mora's promises were lies and that he was never going to set him free. thinking of how Mora intentionally undid the healing he'd performed on the wounds Miraak had sustained in his battle with Vahlok, how he would only agree to save him in return for some of Miraak's memories—trivial things, things you'll never miss.

thinking of how Mora never had any intention of taking just "trivial things", but in actuality, took everything besides the harshest memories of the dragons, the cult, Miraak's own cruelty. thinking of how he took his new champion's memories of his Atmoran homeland, his memories of Nirn as a whole, his memories of the mysterious horned-and-winged woman he'd loved in his dreams, his memories of his own face and the name he'd had before he was Miraak.

thinking of how Miraak was a worshipper of Kyne and Dibella, left without even the vaguest impression of how wind felt between his fingers, how soft grass and snow were beneath his feet, how many colours there were in a sunset. thinking of how he had no idea that he'd worshipped his most beloved gods at all.

thinking of how he was put in a situation where his only choices were, effectively, two different kinds of deaths.

thinking of Elentari, horned and winged in Dragon Aspect, and how her last-ditch attempt to stop their fight ended with her using Bend Will to literally will his memories back to him.

thinking of how, ultimately, she resurrected him twice, first in mind and then in body and soul.

[snowalwayslandsontop]

"I'm sorry, but did you just say that I should marry Felix." Coriolanus was certain that he had not heard Doctor Gaul correctly. It was late, nearly midnight and she had been working him at all hours in the lead up to the next Games. They were months away but he knew she was scrambling to make these the best, yet again. "Yes. I've been giving this some thought recently and it makes sense. You need a political alliance if you aren't planning on remaining a Game Maker forever. The Plinth dollar will only take you so far and they're still District, regardless of where they reside." Doctor Gaul was hovering in his office doorway, her bag in hand as she was clearly preparing to leave for the evening. "I'm certain there are more suitable candidates for a marriage of convenience." Coriolanus had never once considered Felix as a prospective partner. They were friends in the vaguest sense. He was closer to Festus than he was to Felix but they had spent enough time together over the years. "Who exactly did you have in mind? Miss Dovecote has made it clear that she wants to marry for love, not convenience which is why she still remains unattached. Livia Cardew? Her only saving grace is her mothers connection to the Bank of Panem. A pretty thing but she will bring you nothing but trouble." Gaul offered him a pointed look. This was not the first time they had discussed his prospective marriage. He had no interest in marrying for love. It was an entanglement he didn't need. No one would ever be allowed to touch his heart again. Lucy Gray. Sejanus. They were both in the past now and he would only look forward to the future. He liked Clemensia and he had floated the idea of marriage but she had turned him down, knowing they would never find that type of love with one another. Besides, she had never quite forgiven him for working with Gaul after what she had done to her. "I don't think Felix Ravinstill is interested in forming a relationship with me, let alone a marriage for convenience." Coriolanus remained unconvinced about Gauls supposed plan. Had she already discussed this with President Ravinstill? Just what she was hoping to get out of this? She hadn't come up with this plan out of the goodness of her heart. He knew Gaul viewed him as a pawn in her own little game and if she wanted this, it was because she was going to get something out of it. "The good news is that Felix doesn't know exactly what he wants. He's quite malleable in the right hands and I'm certain it would not be that difficult to lead him whatever direction you want." Gaul moved further into the room, coming to stand in front of his desk. "A marriage of convenience and a closer relationship with the President than you have right now. He likes you. He sees great potential within you and if you were to marry Felix, you'd be a Ravinstill for all intents and purposes. A powerful position, especially if you intend to take the Presidency one day." Coriolanus sat back in his chair, realising that this was far from a flight of fancy by Doctor Gaul. No, she had given this some deep consideration. She must have been keeping this thought to herself for some time, weeks if not months before she had approached him.

A marriage to Felix wasn't something he had considered before and yet, with Doctors Gauls words, the idea seemed to be taking shape. He would indeed become a Ravinstill, even if he knew he would never willingly give up the Snow name. But it would give him closeness to the family he hadn't had before. Being a family of the 'Old Guard' of Panem alongside the Plinths money could only take him so far and he needed more. The connection was a valuable one that he couldn't use by simply being friends with Felix as he was. But there were more complications than Gaul had considered certainly. "Felix and Festus have been an off and on again couple for some time." Coriolanus mused, more to himself than Doctor Gaul but she was already waving her hand at that concern. "Mr Creed is not going to marry Felix. We both know that he continues to have his eyes set on Persephone Price for marriage and besides, even if he didn't, I'm certain you could turn Felixs head. As I said, he's quite malleable in the right hands." Coriolanus shook his head at that. Could he seduce Felix? Probably. Under the guise of friendship and a marriage that would suit them both. Would that be enough or would Felix need a feeling of love from him too? "And steal him from Festus? The man will never forgive me for it, whether he intends to walk Felix down the aisle or not." "Losing Festus Creed would not be a tragic loss. He might be from old money but he is not powerful enough to cause a problem for you. Besides, if he has genuine feelings for Felix, it could earn you his loyalty." Gaul gave him a pointed look. "He wouldn't want to cause problems for your new husband now, would he?"

Coriolanus supposed not and if Felix did go onto marry Persephone, it could earn him her loyalty too at the insistence of her husband. The Ravinstills, Creeds and Prices support together would be invaluable when the time came to run for President, or anything where he might need the support of some of the more powerful families in the Capitol. He had the Plinths too, who while they were still seen as District, had moved on and up in the world once they had declared him their heir. "Let me sit with this for a few days." Coriolanus needed sometime to wrap his head around with this idea. "Don't sit with it too long. Next Friday evening, you will attend Pluribus' night club and I'll see if I can pull a few strings to ensure Felix is there too." Gaul was turning to leave once more. Coriolanus wondered if he should concerned that Doctor Gaul knew his schedule even when he was off the clock. "It's a casual enough evening, where the drinks can flow freely." "I certainly hope you're not insinuating that I need to get someone drunk to even consider being with me." Coriolanus was only half kidding, although he wondered if there was an insult in her comment. Apparently there wasn't, because she laughed at his words. An off-putting sound that still made his stomach churn despite how many times he had heard it. She paused in the doorway to turn back and face him. "No need to play coy, Mr Snow. We both know that you can be quite persuasive when you choose to be. You're learning. As I said, Felix is quite suggestible and I'm certain you'll able to persuade him without him even realising you're doing it." Gaul gave him a pointed look. There was a hint of smile and amusement across her features but he was also aware that this wasn't a suggestion. She expected him to do this, whether he wanted to or not. "Yes, Doctor Gaul. I'll be there on Friday evening." Coriolanus gave her a nod and Doctor Gaul recognised that he understood that her suggestions weren't really optional. "Very good." Doctor Gaul nodded, a hint of a genuine smile in his direction. "Go home, Mr Snow. It's late." Clearly she was pleased with his response, since she rarely told him it was time to take his leave for the evening. "Yes, Doctor Gaul. Good night." Coriolanus watched her leave the office, feeling relief in her absence. Once he was certain she was gone, he leaned forward to rest his head in his hands.

He had certainly not been expected this when he had come into the office this morning. A potential marriage of Felix Ravinstill? The nuptials would be a long way off yet. They'd need to date first, see if they were compatible in any way because Coriolanus did not want to be miserable or have problems made for him by a difficult spouse. However, Doctor Gaul was correct in that Felix could be easily persuaded, quite malleable under the right guidance. He could be that right guidance. Use Felix to whatever end he needed and discard him if he came too troublesome. His minds eye wandered to Felix. He was a pretty thing certainly. But he was spoiled and he had squandered away his destiny as a Ravinstill. The name and family privilege was wasted on him but it could be salvaged by Coriolanus himself. He could use the name and money and power to take what he wanted, with Felix at his side for as long as he was useful. A fine idea indeed. Coriolanus smiled as he stood, starting to pack up his paperwork for the evening. The idea was growing upon him and he wondered if Friday evening went well, if Felix would attend the Polo match with him on Saturday afternoon. They'd need to take things slow enough, make their romance believable and perhaps give Felix himself a chance to fall in love with him. It would make this arrangement easier. Love clouded ones judgement. He was only too painfully aware of that himself. He wouldn't be foolish enough to put himself in that position again but it could certainly work in his favour if Felix did develop feelings for him. Once his desk was clean and organised, he clicked off the desk lamp and plunged his office into darkness. He picked up his briefcase, closing the door behind him before heading for the elevator, a slight spring in his step as he focused on his next task. Seducing Felix Ravinstill. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A/N: This idea would not leave me alone once I had seen your response to the ask about Felix and Coriolanus in a marriage of convenience. @felixravinstills So this is dedicated to you and your splendid takes. I couldn't resist having Gaul have a hand in all of this because she really is the absolute worst and her mentorship with Coriolanus is so deliciously messed up. But I do think once they start dating, Coriolanus develops some obsession with Felix and perhaps passion ignites between them after all.

[partywithoutsmiling]

How was the relationship between thrash and Thorn did they get along?

Pft in the vaguest sense of 'getting along', sure XD

Honestly, it is a norm among the Rock trolls to let themselves to be a bit wild, and the Royal family embodies this even more so. Both Thrash and Thorn were firecrackers in their youth; curiously, not that unsimilar to Barb's fiery temper.

Both of them were raised with the knowledge that Thorn is the future King, and that Thrash is the spare- and there has definitelly been done some teasing on both sides (neither were actually openly jealous of another- in fact, I would go as far as say that Thrash was very comfortable in the idea of not being the King, as being the Spare allowed him more freedoms)

But they were brothers, raised in 'you better toughen up' enviroment, so honestly their relationship, while affectionate and even loving, was more of a constant teasing and prodding and causing the other mischief.

Growing older, they definitelly tussled a lot more, physically fighting each other (to the point of drawing blood and leaving scars) but it was never in a mean spirited way, more like a sport sparring.

It was only when Thorn started to shirk his duties, after meeting Mulberry, that their relationship soured a little, because the bad reputation Thorn started to gather from being so flightly started reflecting onto Thrash, and that definitelly lead to nastier arguments and fights (especially as Thorn kept his reasons for not staying put close to himself for a very long time)

It was only after Clay was hatched that Thorn came clean to Thrash as to why- and honestly, Thrash- who has always been very family oriented- understood.

They agreed that Thorn will teach Thrash everything he needs to know to be a king- essentially skipping the succession- especially as Thorn assured Thrash that he will move his family to Volcano city as soon as he can convince his mate to do so, and that his oldest will be named Thrash's heir for the throne.

That had been the goal- where Thorn was experiencing some semi-success in convincing Mulberry to agree to it- but naturally, Thorn's father's decision to have him under house arrest for a while, and then his unexpected demise at the hands of the Bergens put a stop to that.

However, Thrash never found out that his brother is dead. He helped Thorn escape, was crowned a King, and waited for several years for his brother to return. Even when Barb hatched, he never expected her to take up the mantle of the Queen, so he neglected teaching her her duties for several years more, untill she was almost halfway through teenhood really.

It was only then when he started to question the fate of his brother- especially when any attemps at contacting were failures. He always hold out to the hope Thorn will eventually come home and his oldest will take up the throne, but as we know, his mind and body failed him long before he could see it.

[skaruresonic]

I'm reminded of the split opinion on whether Sonic Gens and Mania are suitable "first games" for people who want to approach the series.

I personally don't think so, because the appeal of those games is precisely revisiting old levels in a new format, with a new design: you're not going to get the subtle jokes as a newcomer (and Mania can get very obscure with it). But some do think they're nice pastiches for newcomers to at least get an idea of Sonic's history as a franchise, and it helps that they're both solid games.

I assumed Shadow Gens would be the same, but you make a good point, because this game has an actual story. For veterans, it's more of the same thing, if you know Shadow's story this adds very little new, and it's mostly a repeat of what he already went through in ShTH. But newcomers who want to learn more about the cool black hedgehog from the new movie would still be confused: why did Shadow become a hero? Who is Black Doom, why is he obsessed with Shadow, why does Shadow hate him? Let's not even talk about things like Mephiles' boss fight lol. (although personally I find Gerald's mention of the time portals of '06 rather cute)

So I guess this game is for veterans who just want to soak in the Shadow vibes once more, but this time with Good Writing™

If you based your knowledge only on the information provided by SxS Gens - so no supplementary material, no Dark Beginnings, no manga, no movie, no paratext - you would learn the vaguest and broadest strokes of maybe two games, SA2 and ShTH, at most. But nothing specific.

Everything else would just come off as garbled nonsense. Hell, it appeared that way to me and I've been a Sonic fan for (checks notes) 22 years. God I'm old.

I approached this game not with my purist hardhat on (though that wasn't always the case given some lines here and there lmao) but from the perspective of a newcomer who knew nothing about Shadow's past. If everyone was going to argue that this game's existence is necessary on that basis, I thought, how well would it perform as an introductory piece?

From that perspective, I don't think the game does a very good job in giving us a crash course on Shadow's history. Gerald and Maria do nothing - I hate to say it but they're ultimately window-dressing. They don't accomplish anything that, for instance, a posthumous diary or recording could have just as easily provided.

(Tbf, the NPCs in Gens also pretty much did nothing but cheer Sonic on, but it's not like, given this sheer gravitas as seeing your dead loved ones return to life via the power of timey-wimey shenanigans.)

I was actually surprised at how little plot progression there is, given my previous expectations of there being, you know, a coherent story. The plot doesn't really kick in until you've completed 4 out of the 6 available levels, and by then you've pretty much halfway done lol.

Shit happens in weird, patchwork, nonsensical ways. We get boss fights for characters that don't matter but not a boss fight against Sonic, AKA the guy we play as in Gens proper and in a context that echoes a game dynamic where we get to fight each character as the opponent. Shadow is the ultimate life form who gets his ass handily kicked by Sonic. Maria has a delayed response at the news of Shadow's heritage; she's not instantly shocked the first time, but when Gerald says it for a second time she suddenly becomes distressed. Omega claims they showed Metal "mercy" at the end of Heroes, despite questioning whether he should destroy Metal or Sonic to prove his strength. We have to fight Mephiles even though he doesn't matter because reasons.

Characters appear who aren't relevant to the plot, but are given the screen treatment as though the game expects the player to know who they are and why they might (or might not) be relevant.

---

Who is Black Doom, why is he obsessed with Shadow, why does Shadow hate him?

>>gets Silent Hill 3 flashbacks as Black Doom waxes poetic about "possessing" Shadow

---

Let's not even talk about things like Mephiles' boss fight lol.

No. Let's. :P

Mephiles' boss is one great big time-wasting in-joke that amounts to an MCU-esque "Well, that just happened." I can easily see newcomers mistaking him for one of Black Doom's minions or something, especially given that his boss arena is found in a cave under Chaos Island and not in Kingdom Valley. Because the latter is where you find Metal Overlord instead.

Yeah, this would definitely confuse newcomers.

As I've said before, the game does the "don't think about a polar bear" thing by bringing up the matter of Shadow's blood, only to backpedal immediately afterwards with "his blood doesn't matter, I swear." At times I felt like I was playing Parasite Eve with talk of mutations and what-not.

And like, sure, the game does stress that Shadow determines his own destiny, but if that's the case, why bring up his blood eighty million times? Why turn it into a friggin' gameplay mechanic? The guy turns into a squid FFS

Oh, and I forgot to mention: the light of God that shone down on IDW!Sonic during his Sermon on the Rock also shines down on Maria when she tells Shadow the reason she gave him his name. Just in case you couldn't get The Symbolism. Very subtle, much cinematic, felt like I was playing SA2 all over again.

[holly-fixation]

Seraphic and Sinister: Ch4

Summary: Sephiroth learns that he has a child, a lab made specimen existing under the same terrible conditions he was raised in. In a moment of pure rage, he rescues his child. However, his fate has long been sealed, but the child’s fate is unknown. 

Never did he expect the cadet that killed him to take responsibility for the heir of His planet. 

...

It couldn't be more than a few minutes before Sephiroth's eyes opened again. He sprung to his feet, immediately grabbing his daughter and lifting her off the mako crystal she apparently climbed in his sleep. 

...

Inspired by various asks to @rottenpumpkin13

Chapter 4: Hiraeth

He had so much to learn. His daughter slept in a bundle on the scattered grass, and the Lifespring around them offered decent shelter for the night, an issue he assumed he would concern himself with at sunset. A few hours ahead of schedule meant days ahead of Shinra.

Still, he sat along the side of the entrance to the cave, carefully out of sight and at the ready for intruders who dared follow Shinra orders, the parenting book in his right hand and his sword in his left. He scanned the area before him and the skies above before skimming one page at a time, running his finger down the center of each sheet to follow. He started at the chapter regarding six month olds. Apparently, babies were categorized by month, not year. Hopefully his ‘half a year’ comment at the bookstore didn't cause any subtle alarm. 

Six months is where things start getting interesting. The little rebel can start identifying and recognizing faces. 

He was only a few sentences in when he paused and glanced at the sleeping babe. She recognized him when they met, but she also stared at a photo of him long before. If she did not have the mental capacity, how did she manage that? 

They can start grabbing things so watch out! No sharp objects nearby! 

Your baby should be able to roll over soon: from stomach to back and vice versa. This means be careful- VERY CAREFUL- on the changing table as they have not learned what a fall is yet. 

The little angle will push themselves up into a crawling position, but don't worry, you still have a little time before they start crawling around. They might also start standing, but don't get too excited for that first step. 

His daughter crawled out of the bundle, rubbing her eyes before standing. She grabbed the hoodie and scrunched up the sleeves, pulling them through one at a time before flipping the entire article inside out.  

This is the age, the dreaded age of legend, the reason so many toys have so many warnings: this is the age your baby will start observing objects, feeling them, and putting them in their mouth. Make sure nothing they can reach is small enough to get stuck in their throat. 

They still have no object permanence so peekaboo is totally fair game. 

Your little angel will finally start to interact with you in ways beyond crying (we are as excited as you are). They'll start learning simple words like “bath” and responding to their own names!

They begin to recognize tone around this age, so be mindful if you're speaking softly or harshly. 

Your baby will start playing “language games”. No matter what nonsense they say, make sure you respond and make direct eye contact. They're having fun and are going to start speaking simple words soon (though never soon enough, we're well aware).

Of the information that popped out to him, this was all…useless. But how? Hojo always complained he wasn't really ‘useful’ until he was three years old. How was it Seraphina could hold a blade, walk on her own legs, speak childish but simple words, recognize where she was, recognize her own name, and even show a semblance of potty training?

What did Hojo do to her? With advancement this fast, why was she nearly deemed a failure at three months old?

What could they possibly want from her?

Even the vaguest of ideas had his fists clenching. She was a baby. Why did she have a sense of responsibility? Why did she know how to follow orders? Why did she act like she knew what he was saying, even beyond instruction? How was she even potty trained if the book before him informed the truth of average development? 

What did Hojo-

He felt something press against his leg and he glanced down. 

Seraphina had walked over to him, dragging the various makeshift blankets like capes behind her. 

“What is it, Seraphina?”

She crawled into his lap and curled into a ball, the fabrics landing perfectly on top of her. She reminded him of a cat claiming a new perch, making even the roughest of surfaces seem like perfect bedding. 

His instincts battled in his mind. He wanted her to feel love, comfort, joy. But he also needed to protect her, and if he had to jump up without notice, she could be in more danger than safety. 

He supposed he could allow this until the sun went down. Maybe he could risk some rest as well?

Just a few minutes. He knew he would wake up if anyone approached. The only question was if he'd move fast enough. 

If they tried to touch her, he wasn't sure how he'd react. They couldn't take her back. They would never take her back. 

* * * 

Sephiroth felt some soft adjustment, the weight on his legs. Before even waking he tried to grab the clothes on his lap.

A set of small hands grabbed his. Okay, alright, it was just Seraphina adjusting. Perhaps he could get a bit more rest if she felt safe enough to move around. 

He opened his eyes just to check. Sure enough, his daughter nodded, standing at his side. 

“Don't go far.” He wanted to mumble from his own exhaustion, but he spoke clearly as wasn't sure if she'd understand yet.

She nodded again. 

He dared to take extra rest. He only needed one hour to be back at full capacity. He couldn't risk sleeping at night, a mistake like that would cost them this escape. 

It couldn't be more than a few minutes before his eyes opened again. He sprung to his feet, immediately grabbing his daughter and lifting her off the mako crystal she apparently climbed in his sleep. 

“Are you okay?”

She seemed confused but nodded anyway. 

“What were you doing up there? Do you know what could've happened if you slipped?”

“Hurt?”

Sephiroth nodded. “Yes. You could’ve been hurt.”

She scrunched her face as if searching for something. She did this when they first met. It was almost like she knew what she wanted to say but not how to say it. 

“Take your time,” He tried to encourage. 

“...Dada…” she pointed at him. 

“Me?”

She nodded. 

“What do I have to do with being hurt?” 

This time she actually poked him. “Dada…” 

He took a breath, bringing his daughter to his chest. “I promise, whatever Hojo drilled into you isn't true. I don't want to see you hurt. Please.” 

She tilted her head at the final word. 

“Please. It's a way of asking politely. Sometimes you say it when you know only the other person can do something that you want done.” 

Seraphina still didn't understand, not responding at all. That book mentioned language play with random sounds but she rarely opened her mouth without having a real word to say. 

“It's okay. You don't have to say things the right way all the time. You're still learning. It's okay to make mistakes.” 

She flinched and hid against him. Mistakes. 

“Let's get you down. Can you show me what you can do?” He placed her on the ground and she immediately attempted to climb the mako crystal again. He had to stop his instinct to scold her. 

He did say to show him what she could do. 

Stubby baby arms reached and hooked the pointed shards of crystal. Unnaturally small, sausage like fingers tested each landing before wrapping around them. Once again she stood at the top, looking at him. Staring. Waiting. 

He held out his arms. He wasn't sure what else to do. 

The baby jumped from the crystal into his arms. It wasn't a far jump, but she jumped. She shouldn't be able to walk. 

He held her close and pet her softly. “That was really impressive, but please don't do that again.”

Of course she didn't understand his actual request. Her eyes just got a little bit bigger at the words of praise.

“What about magic? Do you know magic yet?” He handed her a newly born fire materia he picked off a monster's corpse. 

She held the green orb with both hands and placed it against her forehead. Her eyes were entrapped by the marble before her.

It took him a moment to realize she did not know what it was, but she liked it. 

She turned it slowly with her fingers, watching the light bounce off of imperfect patterns. 

“Here,” he took a blue one out of his pocket, and her eyes glowed brighter.

Seraphina's tiny hands gripped the new orb so tightly. She clicked them together and he saw her mouth tighten. She suddenly stopped and looked away.

“Why did you stop?”

He saw fear and confusion in her eyes.

“Let's try this.” Sephiroth carried her to a safe corner of the cavern, placing her on a patch of grass before summoning more materia. Cure, esuna, elemental, materia growth boosters, increased magic, increased strength. Greens, blues, and violets surrounded her as she attempted to grab every single one. 

He hoped Shinra wouldn't be able to track the movement of his inventory because the sheer joy on his daughter's face as she clicked the perfect spheres together brought the most hidden smile to his face. 

Sephiroth continued his watch, glancing between the land and his daughter. Her playing was silent beyond the clicks and clatters of the makeshift marbles, the shifting Lifestream patterns within mesmerizing. She did not make a noise. She did not smile or laugh. She just played.

She added another behavior to the list of what he hoped he could reverse.

* * *

The orange beams of sunset had Seraphina in awe, the materia left in a pile of flattened grass as she slowly walked to the entrance of the spring, her eyes anywhere but in front of her. 

“Watch your step, Seraphina.”

She didn't answer, mako blue eyes on the abundant clouds as she moved languidly. Her little jaw dropped. 

He looked at her curiously before grabbing her when she attempted to walk out into the open. “I know you want to watch, but you have to watch from here.”

His daughter didn't answer, simply sitting as she stretched to see more of the multicolored sky. 

“This is sunset.” He figured he should explain if she could understand. “During the day, the light has less air to travel through. But at night that distance increases until it's blocked by our planet.” 

She stared at him for a moment. “Dada.”

“Yes?”

She hesitated, shy and reluctant, before holding her hands up in the air and waiting.

The new father carefully wrapped his hands around her torso, giving her the chance to leave if this is not what she wanted. He lifted her into his arm and gave her the best but safest view he could.

Her mako eyes glittered against the shimmering rays of the sun. He kept his eyes on the planes around them, scanning and listening for any new vehicles.

They watched together in perfect tranquility until the sun dipped below the horizon.

As the light in the sky dimmed, Seraphina's breath audibly increased. She fussed and wriggled in his arms. 

Sephiroth immediately turned her to him. “What is it?”

She pointed up and whined.

“It's just night time. Nothing's wrong-”

Nyctophobia. 

He carried her to the mako crystal, its blue and green glow hopefully serving as a nightlight. “Better?”

A nod, but with knotted brows and wide eyes. 

He kept her close as he grabbed the book but made sure she could see the spring. 

“Dada… Dada…”

“I'm sorry.” He flipped through the pages rapidly, wishing there was an index to speed up his search. “I can't light a fire. It's too dangerous. Too obvious.”

Seraphina's whines were small but present. Tiny hands gripped the straps of his uniform as the sky darkened more and more, reaching nothing but the black void crowned with the green of mako pollution. “Dada… Dada…”

He couldn't find an answer for fear so young. 

If you haven't figured it out already, rocking your baby to sleep will save you so much time. Humans of all ages respond to rocking, that's why boats, trains, and sometimes even cars put fully grown adults to sleep.  

Sephiroth immediately released the book and held his daughter entirely. He rocked back and forth, trying to at least encourage sleep if he couldn't settle her fear. 

Her fearful fussing degraded to whimpers as she hid her face against him. She forced her eyelids closed, the squeezing tangible against his skin.

“I have you. I'll protect you. I'll never let anything hurt you.” Sephiroth did not know if the baby could understand him, but he meant every promise. 

They just needed to survive the night. 

.

.

.

.

To be continued…

Chapter list here!

Note: I needed some comfort so here’s another chapter. I sprained my wrist so every update is taking significantly longer to complete with my off hand and occasional speech to text. I’m better now but not perfect. I can hold a computer mouse without pain now, but typing is taking some time. I hope you understand the pattern now. You didn’t read the wrong fic last chapter.

Thanks for reading!

[veliseraptor]

The first steps stumbling forward (mcu) sound intriguing. I'm apologising for the blast from the past!

hey I put stuff on there as an invitation for a blast from the past, so!!! this one is the post-ragnarok steve/loki fic, or at least that's ostensibly the premise of it but i'm five chapters and a hundred pages in and the steve/loki is but a glimmer in the eye. but i guess that's pretty par for the course.

the premise here was basically "thor and loki and company end up on earth as refugees, loki's presence a carefully kept secret, fugitive steve ends up hanging out with them also, developments occur" and i'd gotten as far as "developments occurring" before i got distracted and then fell off the mcu train near entirely. but I still like what I have here! it's 100 pages of pretty good writing, if I do say so myself! but I also (again) don't have an outline and only the vaguest impression of where it was going after the point I reached, so that's probably part of my issue. technically a lot of it is also just about loki figuring his shit out post-ragnarok, as he should've had the chance to do and I'm never not going to be bitter about that particular missed opportunity.

you might be noting a pattern here with my unfinished works and it is me going 'what's an outline, I don't know her' and then running into trouble with that.

“There’s a spy in the camp,” Loki informed Thor when he came back from yet another meeting. He was in a toweringly bad mood, and Loki’d considered waiting to tell him anything, but it seemed like the kind of thing that shouldn’t be deferred.  “A spy,” Thor said, eye narrowing. “Whose spy?”  “I don’t know,” Loki said. “We only spoke briefly.”  Thor stiffened. “You spoke to him? Loki-” “Not as myself, Thor, don’t panic,” he said. “And it’s her, actually. She’s posing as one of the relief workers. I pretended to be a mother who had lost her husband looking for extra blankets for a newborn. We struck up a conversation. I did not ascertain her employer. Admittedly, I am a bit behind the times on the various spy organizations of Midgard.”  Thor stared at him. “When weren’t you?” He asked. Loki raised his eyebrows.  “I asked Clint Barton a lot of questions,” he said neutrally. “He was a veritable fount of information. SHIELD likes - liked? - to keep track of their competitors.” Thor did not look pleased. Whether at the reminder of what Loki had done, the fact that he had done it, the fact that Thor was clearly tempted to ask for more information and thus profit from Loki’s misdeeds, or all of the above, was unclear. Loki waited.  “So,” Thor said. “We have a spy.”  “Probably more than one.”  “What do you suggest we do with her?”  “Public hanging,” Loki said. “Or there’s always something more dramatic. Give me a bit and I’ll come up with a few ideas.”  “Loki,” Thor said.