#would he even... maybe if the world did indeed require it

[l-in-the-light]

Chapter 1131 commentary

Finally the long break is over!! And no break next week :3 Let's start from the survey again, they're honestly quite fun to come up with :D

Now, let's move on to the chapter itself :D

Luffy's so excited! And why? Because finally it's confirmed they're in Elbaf! Which means I was right, his excitement from before wasn't because he saw Elbaf (this is the reaction right here instead), it was because of the snow! :D

Luffy is so excited and he's not even listening to Loki anymore, lol. Loki at first follows through, but soon he can't even sneak in a word anymore, haha. The manipulator having a hard time getting Luffy's attention. A moment later he snaps and scolds Luffy, I mean... for a master manipulator he's not overly patient or good at steering those conversations in direction he wants them to go...

Hm, interesting how Loki treats humans. He clearly takes care of them, but thinks of himself as their master and requires they call and treat him this way. Reminds me of those thoughts I had in previous chapter commentaries, that for giant people normal humans will seem like toys, puppets or slaves. Though it is worth noting Loki seems to indeed take care of them properly, so maybe more puppets or underlings. I wonder why they wear gas masks... because of the putrid smell?

Treasure Tree Adam confirmed!!! So it's actually not Yggdrasil!

Seems Loki has the same issue as Luffy with remembering people's names, lolol. Loppy, can you imagine...

The Realm of the Dead, lowest layer of Elbaf or also "the first world", where criminals and condemned are kept, a prison and execution ground. Where humans wander around as "walking corpses" (in clothes covered in "putrid smell", in blood from the deceased perhaps?), to disguise their presence to survive, otherwise they will get devoured by the beasts. They seem to be also servants (of the sun god?), they end up here by "defying Elbaf" or by trying to challenge it. It's indeed a lot like Rodo's detention centre roleplay model. Seems Luffy doesn't like the sound of it. Later in Hajrudin's scene we learn that it's also a hunting ground for the brave warriors (but who isn't brave in Elbaf, the land of war?).

It's worth noting that the accursed prince Loki apparently was held in this lowest layer since he was born (or soon after he was born). He says it himself: he friended the beasts because he knows them ever since he was a child. So the conclusion here is that he must have been kept in this underworld realm for most of his life? After all only those "who defy Elbaf, criminals and condemned" are living here. My hypothesis that he is called accursed because of some prophecy or mark he was born with, seems to line up with those pieces of information we got so far.

I admit I'm impressed with Luffy. He actually did not attempt to free Loki, despite the fact he was so shocked that Loki was kept here for 6 years. He listens to him and stays with him, but doesn't agree to his ideas and doesn't even comment much. I'm proud of Luffy, Law would be proud too, Luffy is no longer causing random chaos without knowing more about the situation. Is Luffy finally growing up? 💔

More lore. The World of the Dead belongs to the Sun, hm? Is that why Loki is kept here or is he calling himself a sun god as the result of becoming a master of this realm (by making everyone his underlings so now he is their god)? Interesting.

Also it's kinda rare to associate sun with underworld, not counting some indigenous beliefs of people from Amazon rainforest. I remember reading in anthropology books that sun can be linked with the realm of the dead, because everyday it makes a journey on the sky and finishes it in the underworld (then the night falls on the world). If you hop in on the sun god's carriage (it's actually a canoe swimming on the sky carried by two big birds), you can actually travel between the world of the living and the world of the dead. The god can be nice enough to transport back a lost human that ended up in the underworld because of grief and falling through one of the pekari pig's holes in the ground. But the human that is dead but returns back to the world of living will appear to humans like a regular pekari pig. Apparently after humans die they turn into pekari pigs and are kept in pens by the god of the underworld, who takes care of them. It's actually not clear which god it was. The myths refer to them as "master of the pigs". It might have been the sun god, or god of the underworld, or maybe it's one and the same being.

Amazonian myths are very interesting, but rarely ever referenced in modern fiction. I don't know if Oda is referencing it here, but the moment they called Sun the God of the Underworld, I instantly thought of that. I will be surprised if anyone in OP fandom even considered the possiblity that sun can be linked with the realm of the dead! Oh, it makes me have so many interesting thoughts and observations about the world of One Piece in general...

Also, nice worldbuilding intro to Elbaf. Seems Elbaf has "multiple" worlds, each located on it's own level of the tree Adam; it's very similar to the norse mythology realms that you can travel into by descending or ascending Yggdrasil :D

Luffy already tamed those beasts, huh XD five beasts, a bear, a gorilla, a wolf (I think it's a wolf at least?), an elephant/mammoth and a snake. Snakes and gorillas often appear in important worldbuilding arcs of One Piece, somehow. I know the zoology of OP is often overlooked, but I feel like it will bite us in the ass before the end of the series.

Because look at people's reactions every time Luffy tames the beasts easily. It's a really uncommon talent! It seems very important, maybe it's some special trait only passed down in Luffy's lineage? The picture Oda drew of child Garp taming some wild beast also comes to my mind... it might be a D. clan trait, or maybe it's just Luffy's lineage trait. Was Joyboy good with animals? :P I mean, that question just begs to be finally asked... at least minks and Zunesha have an important connection to Joyboy...

I solemnly swear I'm up to no good, signed by Loki, lol. He said all this shit on purpose to provoke Luffy, but I dunno what his plan here actually was. If he realized that Luffy was so happy at the mention of Shanks, then calling Shanks names is not gonna get him what he wants from Luffy, quite the opposite really. And again, the triple dot of doom... We shall remember this moment, I guess.

TCB is kinda failing with their translation a bit in this chapter. The last line is definitely spoken by Loki again, because it's another pissed off bubble, but they translated it like it was something said by a third party instead... The alternative translation also makes more sense: "if you can't move, then don't piss me off" as in "should you even provoke me if you can't fight back?" instead of the "whatever, I don't care" attitude. Makes more sense for Luffy's personality, he's not a "whatever" type of person. It was also a while since we last saw Luffy defending his friends like this :D

Loki doesn't seem to like Luffy very much, there goes the good first impression, haha. Already plans to kill him off in anger lol. (that will definitely not happen btw, he will 100% change his opinion on Luffy) Curiously enough Luffy seems to like him a bit, as long as he doesn't trashtalk Shanks.

See? Now here it makes more sense. "I will tell you more about Shanks if you do something for me". The earlier "coward" approach was such a nonsense in comparison. Did Loki seriously just expect Luffy to sit there and listen to him trashtalking Shanks? For a master manipulator, Loki kinda falls a bit flat, ngl. People have already pointed it out that he seems more like Usopp-type, selling some lies to appear more important/respected than he actually is. That attitude might have the root in similar childhood: always staying on his own so telling talltales is his coping mechanism, just like it was for Usopp.

At this point we might question whether Loki will indeed bring any sort of end to the world or is it yet another lie (or perhaps he got banned to this underworld realm as the result of a prophecy told at his birth?). And he most definitely isn't a sun god, he just thinks he is because he considers himself the ruler of this lowest realm of Elbaf, which according to the beliefs is the realm of Sun God. So it's a natural conclusion: if he's on top of it then he is the sun god himself, right. But despite his name, he's not really a trickster or anything like that, Doflamingo would easily outclass him.

Also a moment of appreciation for cute blushy Luffy :D last time we saw his blushy cheeks from the cold was in Punk Hazard!

Sunny spotted! It looks like a toy when Giants are carrying it, haha. Like a cool boat toy for kids. I can't with Zoro, always trying to cut up their problems, lol. Glad Usopp is the brain of the group.

I bet the Giants actually want to catch up to Strawhats to get them to safety, not to kidnap them again lol. Well, maybe except Rodo, he might want some payback 😂 though would he openly oppose Hajrudin, even if he refused to work under Strawhats? I'm not sure Rodo has it in him tbh, now that it's been exposed that he kept them hostage, lol. I wonder if he's now in trouble or what haha. Or maybe he lied and said he wanted to deliver them to the feast once they wake up but they escaped him instead lol.

Random appreciation for Usopp the brave warrior getting over his fear of heights thanks to his fear of being chased by their captor :D

Appreciation for their cute little song :D

I wonder what's that all about? Sun stone? I guess I will have to wait for Japanese youtubers to address this, they might have something interesting to share.

I like how Hajrudin is still full of gratitude towards the Strawhats! Even preparing a feast for them. I have a feeling Giants really like to drink and have feasts all the time XD

Woah, what a fun snake-like creature there in the sea!

Brook is cute with how anxious he is. I'm glad that finally he's around new people who are laughing at his skull jokes, because Strawhats are so used to it already that they just ignore Brook by now, heh.

Bonney's excitement :D Franky is suddenly becoming very nostalgic, no wonder, he met Robin at Water 7, his home, and they had that "adventure" at Enies Lobby together. (he really looks great in those clothes btw. Some people speculate his cowboy hat actually belongs to Robin and she borrowed it to him, I actually love that idea!)

Yet another triple dot of doom, this time coming from Robin hmmm.

She looks cute indeed. Oda really highlighted this scene though, hm. her blush is adorable :D

And another triple dot of doom. Third one already this chapter, and two from Robin alone. I wonder, is it time for callback to Water 7 finally? They even mentioned the events of that arc in this chapter, it feels like a build-up honestly. Are we finally getting the payoff from that arc?? Is it finally the time to share my Robin conspiracy theory with the world?! (yes, I do have one. I have it ever since I reread Water 7 for the third time. There are loose ends there and I think I know where Robin's story is going towards from now on. Hence why I'm so hmmmm over all those triple dots bubbles lol)

Hm, TCB translated this as "he fell and can't get up" while other translation went with "he fell and he's not moving". Honestly the second one sounds waaay more dramatic. I mean, he might be just drunk, we saw Saul drinking while he was listening to Vegapunk's broadcast. But that would make this cliffhanger really lame, ngl XD

But IT IS very curious that we get this cliffhanger teaser here just before Robin and Saul can finally reunite, right?? I kinda want it to lead to some serious development, not a gag.

Time to share the results of the previous survey! Technically, everything listed up there can *still* happen in the future, so I will keep it in mind to return to those results later as far, just to see how correct we all were, for the laughs and potential self-satisfaction gloating moment!

But as for this chapter alone, the second option seems to be the winner. "It's not Luffy's business" lol. So far in my surveys only the minority choices win and we all thought we know Luffy so well already! Hey, I was also completely off, I really thought Luffy would attempt to free Loki immediately :D

This break was way too long, I already need the next chapter please, it was hardly enough!

[aotoreiki]

I somehow picked up a Nargacuga egg in MHS2. I haven’t even seen one in the wild yet and judging by the ranking and the little I can find online, they’re supposed to be fairly rare? at least at this point in the game, it’s the rarest monstie I have so far, so good job me, I guess.

They seem stealthy and fast. If I can figure out a Monster Hunter verse for Ice, then I’m going to see if I can give him one.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Subtle - ao3

Pairing: LQR/WRH Summary:

"Have you ever considered being subtle?" Wen Ruohan glanced sidelong at that-bastard-surnamed-Nie. "Are you suggesting that I'm not subtle?"

------------

"Have you ever considered being subtle?" 

Wen Ruohan glanced sidelong at that-bastard-surnamed-Nie. "Are you suggesting that I'm not subtle?" he asked, tone low and insidious, suggestive of possible violence should the answer not meet with his satisfaction – and rich with the expectation that it would not, rendering the subsequent clash inevitable.

There were times when he and the Nie sect leader were on good terms, even very good indeed, and times when they were not.

At the moment, they were most definitively not.

"I'm suggesting that you've never met the concept of subtle," that-bastard-surnamed-Nie said, having apparently not realized the current state of affairs. "You're passingly acquainted with its cousin discretion, maybe. But subtle?"

He snorted.

Like the damn pig he was.

"Maybe I don't require subtlety," Wen Ruohan said. "My Qishan Wen sect -"

"Most powerful in the world, sun in the sky above us all, all good things are yours, yes, yes, I know. Heard it all before. I'm not questioning your methods -"

He was definitely questioning.

"- I'm just curious to know if it's ever even crossed your mind to try something different. I mean, it's all a bit crude, isn’t it? All pillage and slaughter, the iron fist of tyranny, the marching army, submission or the sword…I mean, no one can doubt that it’s efficient, certainly. But one can hardly call it subtle."

Wen Ruohan scowled icily, even though most of his plans for conquest really did more or less boil down to that. "Don't pretend as if you know what subtlety is yourself. Your sect isn't exactly famous for it - rather the opposite."

That-bastard-surnamed-Nie was unmoved. 

"As you're always saying, I am not my sect," he said easily. "And you're not yours. Is that a no?"

"It most certainly is not a no."

"Hm." The bastard didn't believe him. "All right, then. Whatever you say."

Wen Ruohan seethed. 

He'd show him subtle, he vowed to himself. He could be subtle. He would be subtle. He'd be so damn subtle that the bastard wouldn't see the hit coming for a thousand li, and when he finally did, it'd strike him right where it hurt most. It would take away something he didn't even realize was his to lose.

Subtle. Hah!

Wen Ruohan could do subtle.

-

Lan Qiren received a letter.

This by itself was not terribly unusual. He was acting sect leader of a Great Sect - he received a frankly dizzying number of letters. He received letters of all sorts and shapes and sizes, though most of them contained complaints of one color or another. Well, complaints, and also bills.

He hated bills. It wasn’t even that he minded paying them, when deserved, but he still loathed them. He was good enough at mathematics, even though it was far from being his passion the way obscure musical arrangements or historical depictions of ethical debate were, but he was in no way naturally inclined towards the sort of skills required in managing the economic considerations of a sect as large as his Lan sect. Not to mention also accommodating the many subsidiary sects that expected to be able to use his sect as the lender of last resort in a crisis, no matter how inconvenient that made planning his own budget...in short, it was a nightmare.

One he was never going to wake from, it seemed, though he lived in (increasingly futile) hope.

This letter, therefore, was primarily notable in that it was not a complaint. Or a bill. Or a pressing problem Lan Qiren needed to solve. On the contrary, it contained a perfectly friendly, even mildly chatty, introduction, then a request for assistance in identifying a snippet of an unusual musical score that might or might not belong to the Lan sect, accompanied by reassurances that an answer was only needed whenever he had the time and only if he had the interest, and also including the snippet itself. It was by far the most enjoyable letter Lan Qiren had received all season, and it would have been all year if not for the very effusive thank you he'd received a few months back from one of his more troubled student's parents, deeply relieved at their son’s remarkable improvement. 

Still, even compared with that, this letter was a delight.

It was also unsigned.

Please respond at your convenience using the transfer array attached to the bottom of this letter, the letter said cheerfully, as if opening an unfamiliar array inside the sect’s gate wards wasn't a recipe for trouble at minimum, disaster at maximum. Not being an idiot, Lan Qiren promptly took the array to be examined by his sect's specialists, and he was even now waiting for their reply.

There was every chance that the letter was part of some sort of plot, Lan Qiren reminded himself diligently. His interest in musical arrangements was well known, and could therefore be targeted through a well-tailored appeal. The letter could even contain some sort of poison or curse aimed at crippling him, and through him his sect; such things were not unheard of. There was no point in giving it another thought until that gating question had been resolved. 

Only...he was giving it some thought.

Mostly about that music score, which itched in the back of his brain - he was pretty sure it was Lan sect in origin, although nothing out of their usual rotation of spell-songs. A private composition, perhaps, which meant thar the only way to identify it would be through a stylistic comparison with other examples -

You do not have time for this, Lan Qiren reminded himself. You are not helping until you know whether it is worthwhile to do so.

It would have been much easier if only the letter had been signed! Lan Qiren would have been more than happy to help if the requestor had been one of the smaller sects, or even a rogue cultivator with a little fame, just enough to be recognizable. To refuse to sign a name - any name - suggested either something to hide or a profound need for privacy, which one wouldn't have expected for something as measly as a few questions about music. It was suspicious!

It was music.

It was the most fun Lan Qiren had had in months, and he hadn't even started properly digging into it yet.

He liked research, liked music, liked helping people - in fact, the reason he was quite so suspicious of the letter was because it was exactly the sort of thing he liked most. At this stage in his life, Lan Qiren had long since accepted that there was no such thing as an unasked-for turn of luck, no silver lining without its accompanying cloud...

Still, it was hard to see what sort of plot could be advanced by an academic request regarding music. Maybe the requestor was simply too embarrassed to reveal their identity - one of the other musical cultivation sects, perhaps, that didn't want to admit to their ignorance. That would be quite reasonable, and under such a situation it would not be unreasonable for Lan Qiren to provide the asked-for aid. The Lan sect rules counseled prioritizing chivalry and graciousness, after all. He would be perfectly justified in diverting some of his limited time to visiting the library, perusing old volumes, even taking notes...

Lan Qiren sighed to himself.

"Teacher?"

He blinked, roused from his reverie, and found that it was a disciple, one he recognized: it was one of the apprentices to the specialists in the talismanic arts. He was holding the letter in his hands.

Lan Qiren felt an unaccustomed frisson of excitement. If the specialists had determined the letter to contain harmful substances, it would not be returned to him at all. There was still the possibility that it had been deemed to involve some sort of plot, but...

"What is the honorable masters’ conclusion?" he asked politely, trying to suppress his excitement.

"There appears to be nothing wrong with the letter, Teacher,” the disciple reported. “The transfer array at the back is a little unusual, but mostly for being so old fashioned - it was once a popular method for discrete correspondence, despite the strain and cost involved in using it. Later a method for detecting and even interfering with such messages was discovered and the use fell out of favor."

Lan Qiren hummed thoughtfully. He hadn’t heard of such a method; it must have been before his time, or something only of interest to people who studied obscure arrays and talismans. "What does it involve?"

"The array must be personally crafted by an expert that is familiar with the craft, and the sender must put in a considerable amount of spiritual energy in order to charge the array for use. Once charged, the recipient can use the array to send correspondence back to the sender until the spiritual energy in the array has been exhausted."

Lan Qiren's eyebrows arched despite himself. "The transfer is immediate?"

"Unfortunately not, Teacher. The spiritual energy travels through the air. Sending a messenger by sword, or even by horse, is likely more efficient."

"Only if you know where the recipient is," Lan Qiren said, reaching up to stroke his beard. "And of course spiritual energy is far more discreet than a messenger. I am unsurprised that it was once popular, whether for diplomatic missives or even spy-craft."

"Just so, Teacher. Unfortunately, the sect that discovered the countermeasures was Qishan Wen, so..."

Lan Qiren didn't grimace outright, though he was tempted. "Yes, I can see why the method's popularity waned."

The Wen sect had always been ambitious. There was the current Wen Ruohan, who was constantly scheming to expand his power and influence, and by historical accounts, prior generations had been no better and were quite likely worse. 

Still -

"I see why the array was included," Lan Qiren said. "It serves as both a method to ensure discretion and as an offer of payment. Please inform the elders that I intend to accept, and will offer my assistance with the question in exchange for commissioning the sender for another of these arrays for my own use."

The disciple looked surprised. "What for, Teacher? If it's not secure..."

"Security matters only when the contents are confidential," Lan Qiren explained. "Such an array would be invaluable when corresponding with someone with no fixed location. For instance, disciples out on a night hunt."

Or, for another example, a rogue cultivator family constantly on the move. Lan Qiren had long maintained a correspondence with Cangse Sanren, primarily through her determined efforts, but it had by necessity been largely one-sided to date. Even if he received a letter from her from Jiangnan, by the time it arrived and his reply composed, she might already be in Henan. He was only able to gather his thoughts and wait patiently for her next visit to the Cloud Recesses, or else count on luck to have them cross paths elsewhere. This array would not improve the speed of their interchanges, but it would give Lan Qiren the chance to write back, no matter where she was when he did so, and in return she could always send something if she happened to find herself in an urgent situation far away from any post.

His mood significantly improved, Lan Qiren dismissed the disciple and carried on with the paperwork he still had to complete. Diligence came first, pleasure only later - thus were good habits formed and maintained. 

But later...

Research on a matter of great interest to him, a valid excuse to spend time on it, and even the possibility of repairing an old regret and improving a friendship - really, Lan Qiren could not be more pleased with his mysterious correspondent, anonymous or not. He could even say that he'd formed a rather favorable impression of whoever it was, and perhaps even go so far as to hope this would not be the only letter they exchanged. Lan Qiren liked fellow scholars best of all, and he had painfully few friends; it would be nice to increase their number, even remotely.

He would write back with a preliminary response this evening, he decided, and take some time over the next few days to look through their library. It would not be inappropriate to show his correspondent some measure of his enthusiasm and sincerity...

-

Wen Ruohan felt a small twinge in his qi, signifying that a part of it had been consumed. It was not an inconsiderable amount - for a weaker cultivator, it might be exhausting, while even a stronger cultivator would notice the strain of the effort, though it wouldn't slow them down too much. For someone of Wen Ruohan’s caliber, it was of course not even worth mentioning. 

Lan Qiren had already responded to his last letter, it seemed.

Smiling faintly to himself, inadvertently terrifying the majority of his lieutenants currently attending to him, Wen Ruohan dismissed his audience and rose to return to his study, where he had set the receiving array. 

He had been the one to create the letter transportation array, back when he was much younger and his primary concern had been satisfying his little brother’s obsession with collecting trinkets, though one of his brothers had figured out the potential use of it for spycraft first and claimed it in his own name. Not that it did him much good – he was known to be stupid, the way the Wen clan regretfully sometimes tended to be when they weren’t ambitious or cunning enough to get themselves out of it – and so everyone had ascribed the original invention to whatever little sect he had just demolished. Wen Ruohan hadn’t very much cared back then, having not yet decided to jump into the race for the position of sect leader; later, when he decided it was time to start caring, he had simply invented a countermeasure and employed it to great effect.

As far as he could tell – and if he couldn’t, no one could – there were at the present moment in time only two such arrays currently in existence, both created by him: the one he used to contact Lan Qiren, and the one Lan Qiren used to write letters to his little rouge cultivator friend, Baoshan Sanren’s disciple.

Wen Ruohan naturally was able to read all of those as well, and of course he did. He’d found himself unexpectedly amused by her consistent teasing and Lan Qiren’s querulous and too-earnest responses. There was not a hint of romance there, as he’d initially expected to find, but there were some very funny and rather uncomplimentary asides about Jiang Fengmian that revealed an entirely unexpected layer of petty nastiness in Lan Qiren, which by itself would have made the whole business worthwhile.

Not that it wasn’t otherwise worthwhile.

Lan Qiren wrote to both of them, Cangse Sanren and (unknowingly) Wen Ruohan, but the letters he sent to Wen Ruohan were by far the more common.

In fact, Wen Ruohan had to admit that he was a little surprised at the alacrity of Lan Qiren's responses. Naturally he was well aware of how starved for company the other man was, how lonely, and indeed he had been counting on it to ensure that his plan would be a success. And it was a success, an astounding one - only a few months in, and Lao Nie was already complaining under his breath that Lan Qiren never seemed to have much time for him these days, always busy writing letters or doing research. It was only that he'd underestimated, well...

No, let him be blunt: he'd underestimated Lan Qiren’s genius. 

It was not much consolation that everyone else had apparently missed it as well. Wen Ruohan had picked his first few requests quite carefully, old Lan sect tunes that had been very briefly popular decades ago, but not popular enough or in rotation long enough to be included in the sect's regular canon or even recorded in their histories. He was baiting a trap for a Lan, after all; it wouldn't do to send Lan Qiren a problem he wouldn't be able to solve. He'd figured that the examples he'd picked would last him half a year or even more.

Lan Qiren had identified them all within a month.

Moreover, he'd explained the rationale of his deductions - comparing first underlying composition styles to identify the approximate time period, then sorting the whole era by idiosyncratic musical quirks, which was insane - and even offered some helpful suggestions on improvements to solving the mostly non-existent problems Wen Ruohan had been pretending to have. He specified 'mostly' because while he had indeed been pretending at the start, Lan Qiren's proposed solutions had been so effective that he'd actually started implementing some of them in various parts of his extensive domain. 

Most recently, he'd even taken to asking about real problems he was obligated as sect leader to solve, of which there were always a multitude, and in turn getting real answers. It was fantastic. He was resolving issues that his entire cadre of advisors had failed to even come up with ideas to tackle, and with remarkable swiftness. His entire sect was reconvinced all over again that he was a genius! Which of course he was, but in this instance it wasn't entirely due to him. Or rather it was, indirectly, but only in the sense that knowing how to properly utilize personnel was also a form of genius.

Lan Qiren had even somehow divined from Wen Ruohan’s manner of asking questions that his true interest was in arrays, not strictly music, and had modified his explanations accordingly, including more details regarding of the underlying spellcrafting and taking extra time to explain some of the more obscure music-only concepts. He hadn't figured out that his anonymous correspondent was Wen Ruohan, which was only reasonable, Wen Ruohan being these days more famous for his tyranny than his talent for arrays - which was actually a little annoying if he thought about it too long - but their correspondence had certainly become a great deal more fun ever since. It was nice to have his interests catered to, even interests that he had very nearly forgotten that he had.

Wen Ruohan might not have had much time for academia in the past few decades, but he had once been one of the most accomplished and recognized in his field, and like most academics, he loved his subject. He hadn't had a willing ear, as opposed to a terrified and inadvertently coerced one, for years upon years now, and in all truth he'd forgotten how enjoyable it could be to talk about cultivation simply for the sake of increasing his knowledge, rather than always considering it as a matter of power.

Not that he'd forgotten about power.

His plan to seduce Lan Qiren by proxy was working splendidly, and it wasn't as if he'd planned to start extracting secrets from the man until he'd built up at least a year or two of acquaintance. Nothing had changed there, other than the fact that Wen Ruohan was having an unexpectedly good time doing it. And solving problems for his sect in the meantime, which was always a plus - though of course he'd have to be careful there. He couldn't let the far too clever Lan Qiren have a chance to put together his recent correspondence with the Wen sect's recent successes. He would, too, given even the smallest little hint.

He was too clever not to.

Perhaps for the next set of letters Wen Ruohan would pick something a little more theoretical, more purely academic rather than practical. Maybe he could dig something up from his old notes, the ones he’d kept from back when he used to occupy his days with research and cultivation and experimenting with talismans and arrays. It'd been ages, long enough that he barely remembered it, but a little study should be enough to get him back into shape. And then he could get Lan Qiren to focus on that, which had no known connection to the Wen Ruohan of today...yes, that would do quite well.

It might even be fun.

Who would have expected that?

-

"I took your advice," Lao Nie said to Lan Qiren, who was just finishing pouring tea for them both.

"I wasn't aware I had given you advice," Lan Qiren said, then added, dryly, "Or that you ever listened when I did. The last time we met, we argued, did we not?"

"We did, we did," Lao Nie agreed, completely unswayed by any reasonable criticism, as was his fashion. "I'm not saying you're wrong that I've been acting a little atrociously with regard to Wen Ruohan, though I still don't plan to change anything -"

"That is functionally the same thing."

"I don't understand why you even care about him. No, don't say you don't; I don't see you getting involved in other sect leaders' relationships, do I?"

"Most sect leaders are not my friends, as you are, and they have not decided to start a liaison with the most powerful cultivator currently alive and then cheat on him – and not just once, but twice – "

"Now, we don't need to rehash all that," Lao Nie hastily interrupted. "By chance, it was to that argument which I was referring, in fact. You might recall that about halfway through you called me - what was it - it started with 'lumbering' -"

"A lumbering uncouth bull charging around a porcelain shop without the slightest sense of presence, wholly incapable of tact, discretion or subtlety?"

"...ouch. Somehow that's even worse than I remembered." Lao Nie rubbed his forehead, then shrugged it off. "Anyway, I then said I was totally capable of subtlety, and you said 'I'll believe it when I see it' -"

"To be precise, I said that you had hitherto not demonstrated any instances of such behavior to the best of my knowledge."

"Same thing. Anyway, I decided that I would try it out."

Lan Qiren frowned. "Try what out?"

"Being subtle. Anyway, I think it worked!"

"...congratulations." Lan Qiren sighed. "What exactly did you do?"

"As if I'd tell you the details-"

"You have no idea what exactly you did, do you."

"No, not as such. But it worked! Wen Ruohan is way too busy with whatever his current scheme is to be angry at me. Or angry enough to kill me, anyway; he’s still not exactly pleased."

Now it was Lan Qiren's turn to rub his temples. "Should I be worried? Or rather, should we all be concerned, given the end results of most of Wen Ruohan’s schemes?"

"You're such a pessimist." Lao Nie chuckled and picked up his teacup. "Maybe he's just picked up a hobby again...? A non-torture hobby, even. Surely he could find one of those."

Lan Qiren snorted disdainfully.

"Yeah, I don't think it's likely either," Lao Nie conceded. "I'll let you know as soon as I have some idea of what he's up to. Anyway, enough about me. Tell me more about you! Tell me about your new love interest -"

"It's not like that," Lan Qiren protested, but he had started smiling in a way that might open him up to criticism based on the Lan sect's rule against smiling foolishly. His ears had even gone a little pink! "We are only acquaintances at best, not even friends, much less that. I do not even know their name..."

"And yet you knew exactly who I was referring to, didn't you?" Lao Nie pointed out, and had the pleasure of seeing Lan Qiren blush and stutter out a half-hearted denial. "Qiren, really, even if you only get a new friend out of it, I couldn't be more pleased for you! But I'm telling you, at this point whoever it is? They’re just looking for excuses to write back."

"Nonsense. They have posed genuine problems in need of solving."

"No one has a territory with that many problems at once, Qiren, not even the Great Sects. Not even Wen Ruohan! They just want to keep talking."

Lan Qiren coughed. "Well, perhaps. It's no business of mine what their motives are, provided they do not cause harm...though I admit I have been enjoying receiving their letters. Even enjoying immensely."

"Oh, well, if it's enjoying immensely, then I suppose I can forgive you for forgetting about little old me -"

"Lao Nie!"

Lao Nie laughed. "Don't worry about it, Qiren. I really am glad for you. You should be immersing yourself in the joy of a new relationship -"

"I told you, it is not -"

"Not necessarily romantic," Lao Nie said, though if it wasn't romantic he'd eat his boots. Lan Qiren had never blushed over one of his letters, to be sure...though presumably it was the content that was the issue. Not that the contents here were standard sweettalk! What Lan Qiren found romantic in receiving an array based on a musical composition meant to clear murky water, Lao Nie had no idea, even if it was a composition of Lan Qiren's own making, based on something he’d written about one of his nephews.

Scholars. Who could understand them? Even Wen Ruohan had the same tendencies, deep down, and he'd been more warlord than scholar for as long as Lan Qiren had been alive.

Actually, sometimes Lao Nie did get a little worried about what Wen Ruohan was now cooking up. Whatever it was, it was making him smile - actually smile, rather than the usual dead eye smirks he typically favored - nearly as much as Lan Qiren was now, and knowing Wen Ruohan’s temperament, the cause could be anything from genocidal atrocity to a particularly good witticism. 

If only he could figure out a way to get Wen Ruohan to fall in love with somebody! Now that would solve all their problems - including, yes, the ones he'd created for himself though some concededly less-than-wise romantic decisions. Wen Ruohan had an obsessive personality: if he fell in love, really in love, he would move heaven and earth to win his lover's favor, and that would probably distract him from all that torture and world domination and such. 

Unfortunately, as far as Lao Nie could figure out, the only thing that Wen Ruohan was attracted to was power, either for himself or for his sect, and also being the first one to discover or exploit that power. Which was a hell of an ask. It wasn't as though Lao Nie could pull an underappreciated genius out from his sleeve to throw at Wen Ruohan...

Oh, well.

Whatever it was that Wen Ruohan was planning, they'd find a way to deal with it. 

In the meantime, he had Lan Qiren to tease. 

Such fun!

[to-boldly-nope]

Like Crazy (Peck!Spock x Reader)

Plot: just...angsty pining

Words: 566

Warnings: drinking, brief mentions of making out (so slight nsfw), angst, self-angst(?)

A/N: Hey!!! First of all, if you've read that one post about the reason why I stopped writing, I'm here to say everything is still OK between me and my fiance and we plan on getting married in October! Second, it's been a while, like I don't know how long, maybe 2 years? Maybe 3? How's it going! And third, my dad started watching Strange New Worlds and holy shit Ethan Peck is...woah...(in a good way..obv)

Another A/N: If yall see me posting a lot just message me and tell me to get back to my school work because I'm a master procrastinator.

You sit at the bar on the ship, watching as the people party and drink and you do too, well, you drink. You watch as Christine flirt with Spock for the umpteenth time tonight, he looks bored as he makes eye contact with you from across the room. Was he actually uninterested or did he just look like that? You take another shot. 

You see Spock walk up to you and you grimace softly. “Too much Christine?” 

“Indeed,” he simply said. I try to sit up, but I sway softly. Was the ship unbalanced or were you drunk? You couldn’t even tell until Spock’s hands steadied you. His face was blank, but his eyes were concerned. “You’re intoxicated.” 

“I’m not. Why do you care?” 

“You are a valued member of this crew,” he said, his voice deep like always and it sent shivers down your spine. This wasn’t even right. Spock shouldn’t be caught in the middle of whatever was going on. Between you and Christine pining after him, trying to win his affection. You swore that there was something there for you in his eyes. He always had a softer look, a softer voice, a softer touch. You don’t want this to end, but if you kept on being a coward then Christine would win him over first. 

“Right,” you say with an eye roll. 

“I mean it, (Y/N),” he whispered and the shiver returned again. 

~

You don’t remember when you made it into the science lab with Spock. Maybe it was adrenaline or maybe you were drunk, but those thoughts went away as Spock pressed you against the table. 

“Don’t wake me,” you mumbled against his lips. 

“What was that?” Spock asked while pulling away. 

You just shake your head. You were scared of that one wrong thing and you’d wake up from this dream. You’d wake up and Spock would realize that you didn’t deserve any of this and he should be with someone like Christine and not some tough security officer. Someone who matches his intellect and can have conversations and requires logic and not force, but you could do that too. What’s the difference between you and her anyway? You can be logical and intellectual too. You seem to be viewing yourself from outside of your body, like a reflection. You see yourself wrap your legs around his waist as he easily lifts you up on the table, making some of the glasses fall to the floor and shatter. 

You’re afraid that everything will disappear. Maybe he’s just here to help numb the pain, the pining. Maybe he made his choice and decided that he wanted you and not Christine, she was leaving for the Fellowship after all. Maybe this wasn’t a dream after all. 

You let him lean into you, placing kisses against your neck, one of his hands holding your thigh and the other resting on your lower back, holding you up, making sure you don’t touch any of the broken glass. Your hands go towards his uniform shirt, grasping it.

~

You wake up in your bed, the skin on your neck tingling softly from where you dreamed of the kisses and the bites. You take a minute to ground yourself, making sure that you are awake and aware, your fingers slowly touching the tingling skin. 

“Alone again,” you hissed to yourself, wiping away tears, “what’s the point?” 

[the-lincyclopedia]

In Defense of Juliet

I just read Romeo and Juliet with @socialshakespeare, and I felt like I understood it for the first time, since it’s a play I’ve never studied, and I’ve mostly been exposed to it by seeing it performed a couple times. And I am so angry on Juliet’s behalf. She has been done so dirty, both by the adults around her within the world of the play, and also by the way she’s been remembered in pop culture. She’s not a foolish, simpering teenager the way she’s often thought of as being. I honestly think that Juliet is the most reasonable and pragmatic character in the play, and that there aren’t any major decisions she makes where she truly had a better option. 

Romeo and Juliet, the characters, are both often mocked for how quickly they fall for each other. And I do think there’s something to that when it comes to Romeo, especially given that he was professing love for Rosaline literally hours before meeting and apparently falling for Juliet. But Juliet? What people often forget is that, right before she meets Romeo, Juliet is informed by her father that he has arranged a marriage for her, and that she has to marry Paris whether she likes it or not. 

Now, a few notes on this: 

Juliet is 13 years old. There are plays and books where you have to kind of guess at characters’ ages or figure it out from context clues, but this is very much not one of those times. Juliet being 13 gets talked about, explicitly, a lot in this play. 

It was not normal for girls to get married that young, even in Shakespeare’s day. Here’s a great essay on that. 

Paris is definitely older than Juliet. It’s unclear by how much, but it could be over a decade, maybe by a substantial amount. He’s also canonically pretty skeezy. 

Even in many cultures where arranged marriages are common, it’s also common for the consent of the couple to matter. “Arranged marriage” does not by necessity equal “coerced marriage,” and indeed, the Church in Shakespeare’s day did (at least in terms of doctrine) require the people being married to consent in order for their marriage to be valid. (See the essay linked to in point 2.)

So here Juliet is, knowing she’s going to be forced into a marriage she doesn’t want. Her options are basically to go along with marrying Paris, or to do something that her parents can’t undo that will make the marriage to Paris impossible. What are her options for that? Well: 

She can become a nun. This isn’t her first choice, and she’s not too keen on it even later in the play, when her options are much more limited and Friar Lawrence suggests it. 

She can run away but not become a nun. This would basically mean she would be destitute and incredibly vulnerable. It’s not surprising she doesn’t choose this option. 

She can kill herself. Again, unsurprising that this isn’t her first choice. 

She can quickly and secretly marry someone who isn’t Paris and present the marriage to her parents as a fait accompli. 

It’s really, really not surprising to me that her first choice is option (4). I mean, personally I would have considered becoming a nun, but I’m ace, and Juliet seems to, uh, probably not be. So, okay, you’ve got Juliet, literally fresh off a conversation with her father about how he’s going to force her into an unwanted arranged marriage, and she’s trying to figure out how to get out of it, and then this guy approaches her at a party and seems totally into her. Like, are she and Romeo hasty and probably hormonal to think they’re in love this fast? Yeah, probably. And Romeo a) was professing love for someone else this morning, and b) does not seem to be under urgent familial pressure to marry. But Juliet is desperate to marry someone who isn’t Paris, as soon as humanly possible, and Romeo seems both interested and more tolerable than Paris. Is it surprising that she’s all in? 

So then Romeo and Juliet have the balcony conversation, and then the next day they get married in secret at Friar Lawrence’s. Cool. Now they can break the news to their respective families, Juliet won’t have to marry Paris, and everything will be fine. Right? 

Except then Juliet’s cousin Tybalt picks a fight with Romeo’s friend Mercutio and winds up killing him, so Romeo retaliates by killing Tybalt. Romeo, by law, should be facing capital punishment, but the Prince commutes his sentence to banishment. Which is still a problem for Romeo and Juliet since they’re newlyweds and the Friar and the Nurse are the only ones who know. After spending the night with Juliet in secret, Romeo leaves town because he doesn’t really have a better choice. 

Meanwhile, Tybalt’s death has significantly increased the urgency of Juliet getting married (which her parents don’t know she’s already done). Tybalt and Juliet are the only two in their generation of the Capulets, so Tybalt was The Heir, which means that now that he’s dead, Juliet needs to marry immediately, because, as a girl, she can’t inherit. Ideally, she needs to start producing heirs as soon as possible. Her father suddenly moves the date of her wedding from some inexact time in the future to this Thursday. 

So Juliet’s close cousin has just died, her husband has been exiled, and her second (and, by the standards of the time, inherently sinful) marriage is suddenly very, very soon. She tries to talk her parents out of forcing her to marry Paris, and her dad is still very much not having it. She is, understandably, desperate. She goes to the Friar’s place and starts talking about suicide. 

The Friar tells her not to kill herself, and he gives her a potion that will make her seem dead for a couple days. He tells her to take it before she’s supposed to marry Paris, and then instead of getting married, she’ll be buried, and then she can wake up and get smuggled off to join Romeo in exile. Juliet goes home and takes the potion as instructed. 

But unlike Much Ado about Nothing, this is not a comedy. The potion works; Juliet’s family finds her “dead” and holds her funeral, and Friar Lawrence sends a letter to Romeo informing him of the plan. But the letter doesn’t make it--the friar carrying the message is quarantined for fear of plague--and meanwhile Romeo hears that Juliet has died. He comes back to Verona, duels Paris at Juliet’s tomb, finds Juliet seemingly dead, and kills himself. Juliet wakes up, finds Romeo dead, and (despite the deeply inadequate arguments of the Friar, who leaves Juliet by herself when he hears someone coming) kills herself. 

And like, what the fuck else was she supposed to do? At any point? I thought of the musical Six a lot during today’s read-through, and Anne Boleyn’s line “Like, what was I meant to do?” feels so appropriate for Juliet (as does "All You Wanna Do," for other reasons). She couldn’t just keep living with her parents and being a teenager--she was going to be forced into an unwanted arranged marriage unless she could find a way to make herself permanently unavailable for marriage to Paris. Marrying Romeo seemed like a better idea than becoming a nun, running away and becoming destitute, or dying. Taking the potion of living death and then joining Romeo in exile seemed like a better idea than entering a sinful second marriage. Maybe becoming a nun would have been better than suicide, in the end after Romeo has died, but Juliet has been through an incredibly stressful few days at this point, her cousin is dead, her parents clearly don’t care about her happiness or well-being, and, oh yeah, she just woke up with her dead husband in her lap--I think she’s allowed to be Done at that point. 

I’m not sure that Romeo and Juliet make a good couple with long-term potential or whatever. But this is absolutely not a story about how teenagers are dumb and impulsive. The adults are the ones making terrible decisions--the Montagues and the Capulets for having a deadly feud, the Prince for not doing more to end the feud earlier, the Capulet parents (especially Lord Capulet) for trying to force Juliet into an unwanted marriage at a very young age, Juliet’s Nurse for encouraging Juliet to marry Paris even though she knows Juliet is already married to Romeo, Paris for continuing to try to marry Juliet when she’s clearly unhappy about it, Friar Lawrence for leaving the tomb before Romeo arrives and then leaving again when Juliet wakes up and is freaking out--literally all of the adults suck, and Juliet is trying her best in the face of some seriously awful circumstances. 

If the throughline of tragedies is that they couldn’t have gone any other way, I think that’s especially true for Juliet, specifically. She’s so smart, and she’s trying so hard, and there is no way out.

[ariaswrites]

This is a repost of blacksun-Judar. This is NOT my personal work

Judar,Hakuryu,and kouha found out their fem s/o was pregnant after escaping a few months ago (the child is theirs but they didn’t know because s/o left without telling them)

Judar:

- Judar would be infuriated upon finding out she’s pregnant. Was it another man’s? Why hadn’t he heard of this? Had she moved on from him that quickly? He’d slam her against the wall, his ice magic already freezing her ankles to the floor. He’d yell and demand answers, but her shaky reply left him with his mouth gaping.

- Judar would freeze on the spot. He would stare at his darling with a completely blank expression as he rolled the words around his head, again and again. Even when her panicked tears were spilling over, he paid no mind to her, only snapping his head back when she started to squirm, lowering her head to softly sob in shame. Her body badly shaking, and her arms holding her stomach tightly, shielding it from whatever wrath he would unleash upon her.

- Unable to really process the situation, he would melt the ice, grab his darling’s arm and drag her back to the palace. If she struggled, he just had to dig his nails into her flesh and threaten her baby, and she quieted rather quickly. The entire carpet ride, she would be pinned to his lap, his wand pointed at her stomach. No matter how much she shivered and cried, pleading for him to spare their child, he didn’t budge. Normally he enjoyed it when she escaped - he got to punish her, but this, this was different. She was pregnant, of all things. With his child.

- When they finally get back, Judar will have no tolerance for anyone, pushing aside servants and even Kougyoku if she tried to ask what was wrong. As much as he hated Al-thamen anywhere near her, they were the only one’s whose magic could figure out the truth.

- When the results come out that Judar is indeed the father, he’ll have no idea how to react. He didn’t want a child, never wanted one. They were annoying, messy, and they would require his darling to pay attention to them instead of him.

- He immediately starts researching magic for abortion. If he can go through with it or not entirely depends on how good his sweetheart is. If she can make an earnest enough plea to melt the ice around his heart, that this was his child, that he couldn’t just kill it, then maybe… it could be born. But if not, Judar would kill the baby in the womb without mercy. After all, if it’s not born… he’s technically not murdering his child, right?

Hakuryuu:

- Once finding out that she was pregnant, he’d stand there, mouth agape, before narrowing his eyes and glaring. He wouldn’t raise a hand against her, not yet, but Hakuryuu is unable to keep his voice level enough and ends up shouting at her. Whose child is this!? When did this happen!?

- When she softly utters that it’s his, Hakuryuu would definitely be caught off guard. His? His baby? She was going to have his baby? As he processed the information, warmth suddenly enveloped his chest.

- He slowly raised a hand out to touch her stomach, ignoring the way she flinched and reached out to stop him. He’d reach out another hand to gently caress her cheek, wiping away the tears that wet her cheeks. He was still mad, and he told her as much, but… he was so happy at the same time. He wouldn’t be able to bring himself to hurt her, not after hearing those wondrous news.

- He would still be gentle with her though, taking her to the carriage and setting off back for the palace. However, once she was safely chained to her chair, he would begin to scold her. How dare she run from him while carrying his child! Hakuryuu knows how dangerous the world is, how his precious little darling could be hurt at a moments notice. How beautiful she was, that anyone would want to ruin her. Why would she take that risk?

- Hakuryuu would be in complete denial that he was the reason behind her running away. And when they arrived back at the palace, he’d drag her back to their shared room, and chain her up on their bed, admiring how beautiful she was, with her baby bump just beginning to show through. He’ll make certain that the chains are loose and that she’s comfortable, and will quickly get a glass of water if she looks parched. He might even put a few books beside her, though he gave her shorter then normal ones out of spite for her running.

- He’d get pregnancy books of all and any kind, researching any information he could get. He’s decided he’s not going to punish his darling, not just yet - not until their baby is weened off milk and doesn’t need her tending to it every hour of every day. Even then, Hakuryuu probably won’t have the heart to punish his darling by that point. All the while, he’s got his precious s/o chained up, and her chance at freedom grows ever smaller, because she knows all to well this won’t be the only child they’ll have…

Kouha:

- Once he finds out she’s pregnant, he has half a mind to chop her to pieces right there. Not only did she run away from him and reject his love, but she’s going to have a baby too! The very audacity already has his fingers curling around her neck, not even caring for any excuses she has to spare. Until she sputters out the one excuse that causes him to freeze and stare at her like she’s got two heads.

- Kouha stares for a moment, not sure of what to do, before giving her a great big smile and letting her go. As his darling kneels to the floor and wheezes for breath, that dark grin never once leaves his face. Oh, he’s still angry, no doubt, but what she just told him helped him make up for it and more. It’s his child. Now, all that’s on his mind is getting her back. His brain processed the information quickly, and his mind was already racing with ideas. Before she can even process it, her arms will be bound by golden chains, and she’s already being dragged away.

- His grip on her arm is tight as he drags her to the carriage, his three loyal attendants in close toe, making certain not even a pebble could cause his darling to trip. When the get back to the carriage, Kouha is all smiles, keeping her on his lap and cuddling, softly caressing her stomach. Ignoring that way his sweetheart flinched and leaned away from his every touch. It’s not as though he could ever hurt her - not now, after finding out she was with his baby. Afterwards, is certainly a different story, however…

- When they return to the palace, Kouha is excitedly dragging her around, practically screeching it to everyone in earshot. In fact, Koumei’s positive he went deaf. Even the members of Al-Thamen were groaning and shaking their heads at the princes antics. Despite that, Kougyoku expressed joy at the news, both happy his s/o is back, and for their child. Though she can’t help but question the fear in his darling’s eyes… and why she even ran away in the first place.

- His darling will quickly be chained to the extravagant bed they shared, surrounded by the softest pillows and blankets imaginable, so quickly it will make her head spin. Of course, Kouha will assure her she will be punished in due time - but only once the baby is born. He couldn’t help but to bite his lip and shiver at the despairing look she gave him.

- Kouha too, will overload on pregnancy books. However, he’ll sit down with his darling and read out loud with her, practicing for when the baby is born. Kouha will put some limits on spoiling her, of course - she did run away, and waiting possibly more then nine months to punish her will drive him mad. He will allow her on walks occasionally, but only to the balcony and back. She has no say in what she eats or wears, and Kouha won’t give into her pregnancy cravings either - only if it’s good for the baby will there be an exception. Then again, isn’t this how he always treated her? He’s just stricter now. Plus, after the pregnancy is when things start getting intense…

[animeloverskylarmoon]

Ulquiorra Cifer (Bleach) - Oneshot

“I’ll enjoy killing you reaper.”

The hand around your throat felt final. With your zanpakuto a good distance away, you really couldn’t see how this would end in your favor. In actuality, you should have known it was an ambush. Those two previous hollows had been taken down way too easily.

All it took was one viciously charged punch to your gut and you’d been knocked down. Now with its hand squeezing against your windpipe, you just prayed that it would be over quickly.

Your vision was becoming blurry, you could feel your consciousness slipping.

“Release her.”

There was a weight to those words, and your shaky gaze moved to the source of the order. All your mind seems to process are those emotionless green eyes. The hollow turned, still holding you off the ground. All you could offer was another grunt of pain.

“You would kill your own kind to protect a reaper.”

The hollow sounded almost disgusted.

“You are not my kind.”

Your savior lifted his hand, and the beam that shot out blasted the hollow’s head clean off. Your breath hitched, because the grip loosened almost immediately and your body was falling. You didn’t even have the strength to brace for the fall. You were caught, and your gaze shifted in his direction, trying to make sense of what little your brain could process before you finally gave in.

The next time your eyes opened, you were staring at a familiar ceiling. You blinked and when you turned your head, Unohana offered a smile.

“You’re awake.”

She looked altogether pleased that you were now conscious, and you had so many questions. Like how did you get there? What happened, who was the reaper that saved you?”

“It seems Ulquiorra-san made it just in time. I’m relieved that you’re alright.” Unohana wore a gentle look and you were happy, but the sentence seemed to play over in your head and that’s why you registered who had saved you.

“U-Ulquiorra-san?”

She nodded, turning her head as she gestured to someone. When she walked away, you weren’t expecting the former Espada to be your rescuer.

“You..saved me?”

“Yes.”

His tone was blank, his expression the very same.

While the alliance with them was solidified, it was still strange. Nel was easy to adjust to, after all she had been on your side from the beginning, but Grimmjow, even Harribel, it was weird. But obviously appreciated.

Now with all the wars done, they were as much a part of the Gotei 13 as any other reaper. So it shouldn’t be crazy that he would help. It was just the fact that you knew his personality. Before that moment, you wouldn’t have thought that he cared at all for you, much less your safety.

Suddenly you’re aware of how inadequate you are as a reaper.

“I guess it should be expected, I’m weak and useless.”

You laughed, but it was only to cover up your own inadequacies.

“You are weak.”

A bead of sweat ran down the side of your head at his very calm tone.

“Geez, he could have at least lied to me.”

It shouldn’t even be a surprise.

“But you are not useless.”

That made you turn. There was still a detachment to his gaze, but he was looking right at you.

“Everything in this world has a use, I have found mine. You will find yours.”

There was a sincerity in those words, even if he couldn’t display it on his face.

In that moment, you truly felt like you would indeed find your purpose.

Maybe that’s when your perspective on him started to change. After your recovery, you were back taking missions.

Your most recent one was with Shinji. While the assignment didn’t truly require a captain, you got the feeling that he just wanted to visit the Karakura. After all, he’d spent a few decades in the town. Now in casual clothing, the first place he stopped by was at Kisuke’s. Hiyori, Orihime, Ichigo and to your surprise Ulquiorra were all there sitting around the table. Ichigo was bantering with Hiyori, Orihime was just laughing happily at their antics and Ulquiorra stayed planted, almost blending into the background.

“Hey baldy you’re back.”

The nickname earned a yell.

“Stop calling me that you loudmouth shrimp!!”

She then persisted to grab him into a chokehold. At that point you realized how obvious it was that he missed his other home. A smile made its way on your face.

“(Y/N)-san, do you mind getting some more rice cakes? The store down the street sells the best ones. Kurosaki-kun ate all the rest.”

“I-I did not!”

His cheeks were burning and you were smiling.

“Hai, I’ll grab some more.”

“I will accompany you.”

Ulquiorra’s declaration earned looks from everyone in the room but Orihime. She was still wearing a bright smile.

“Really?”

Ichigo asked.

“Yes, she is weak. She needs someone to look after her.”

Shinji laughed and you puffed your cheeks that were now flushed.

“Y-You don’t have to keep saying it.” You grumble.

Ulquiorra was unfazed and you sighed.

“Let’s just go.”

In a matter of seconds you were out the door. You knew he wasn’t intentionally trying to be hurtful, he’s just very blunt.

“You have fully recovered.”

The statement drew your attention, and your cheeks heated when you realized he was looking at you. From the stare he must have been doing so the entire time you were walking.

“I-I’m okay.”

You stammered out.

“That’s good.”

That was all he said before he turned his gaze forward. In truth, you couldn’t read him. He gave so little away. You weren’t sure if he was being nice or simply making an inquiry just for some kind of confirmation. That’s why you felt you had to ask.

“Before..you said that you found a purpose, a use, what is it?”

His eyes were still directed ahead.

“To help other souls, the way that Orihime-san has helped me.”

For just a moment, you can hear just a spec of emotion and it’s possibly the most incredible thing you’ve ever seen, because a single act of kindness seems to have changed the views of someone who felt so far gone.

It was at that point that you realized that you truly did admire not just Orihime, but also Ulquiorra. Maybe that’s why you always felt so warm whenever he would even look in your direction.

Each encounter felt different, you grew closer.

“You’re weaker than all those fourth squad members.”

A few other reapers laughed at the statement and you gritted your teeth, clenching your fist.

Getting jumped by members in the eleventh squad was never ideal. They still thought they were the best of the best, and despite your clear irritation at the three men standing in front of you laughing, they were right.

You’re weak.

That’s why they always pushed you around. All you had done was drop off some papers when you caught them messing with a reaper from squad four. Of course you intervened, but now you’re backed into a wall and you’re certain you can’t take three of them, not all at once.

One of them cracked their knuckles and you flash stepped. You knew he assumed you were running away, that’s why when you reappeared, delivering a harsh kick to his face, his friends looked startled. He was down for the count in seconds, and you dropped low, taking another one down. His body hit the floor with a harsh thud, grunting at the pain.

For a while you were sure you had the upper hand. After all, one was unconscious and the other was at least rattled. The next attack you planned to deliver didn’t land. The last one moved quicker and you were grabbed by the back of your head as he slammed your face into the concrete. He grinned, adding pressure and you yelled out in pain.

“Serves you right.”

His hand moved to the back of your robes and he flung you. You expected to hit a wall, or at the very least the roof of a building, but someone caught you, slowing you down. Your feet skidded midair to a stop and when you looked over your shoulder, those green eyes seemed like recognition enough.

“Shit!! It’s Ulquiorra, I’m out of here!!”

The reaper who had been pummeling you dashed off and his conscious friend picked up the passed out one, running just as quickly. You huffed, face and ego bruised. They stepped on you like dirt, but one look at Ulquiorra had them booking it into next week. It was irritating, the reminder of your difference in power, but you couldn’t find it in yourself to be mad at him. This was the second time he’d come to your rescue.

“Your abilities would be better dispensed if you weren’t afraid to utilize your zanpakuto.”

Your brows knitted and this time you turned to him fully. It dawned on you that he must have seen a part of the fight to make such a comment.

“You saw?”

“Yes.”

Yet he hadn’t jumped right in. You weren’t sure why that made you feel a bit better. You know he thinks you're weak, but he didn’t immediately assume you wouldn’t be able to handle yourself. Despite your swollen cheek, you smiled.

“A-Arigatou!”

You couldn’t seem to wipe the happy expression off your face and he looked a bit confused.

“You are happy I let them attack you?”

“Hai!”

“Do you enjoy getting hurt?”

You just laughed, because it was funny how little he understood but still made an effort to try.

Time and time again he just seemed to be there.

His stare still the same, but his actions a reflection of someone who wanted to learn, to understand what it meant to protect, to care. After all he’d done, it felt right to treat him. That’s why you were now sitting in your quarters with a bowl of ramen placed in front of him.

“Eat up, there’s plenty!”

He just gave a nod, and you took a seat, chin in your palm as you watched him eat silently. You’ve realized for a while now that there was something underlyingly elegant about Ulquiorra. The way he spoke, carried himself, even ate. He just emits a certain type of energy.

You must have just been staring at him for a while, because he placed the chopsticks down and you blinked.

“I am done. It was delicious.”

You weren’t sure how such a monotone voice could sound so endearing.

“I’m glad you liked it.”

You took the empty bowl, heading over to your sink to clean the dish. Humming happily, you were barely paying mind to much but learning more about him. When the dish was cleaned, you placed it down, turning back to Ulquiorra who was not standing and just looking at you.

You blushed.

“I-Is something wrong?”

“No.”

You laughed a bit awkwardly, inching out of the kitchen.

“T-Then why are you staring at me?”

“Because you are beautiful.”

If you weren’t red before, you sure as hell were now. You looked away with a nervous smile.

“You really need to work on your skills Ulquiorra-san.”

He may have been oblivious about every single thing, but the one thing that’s guaranteed is that you always felt safe with him. That’s why those little meetings continued. After a mission or even a tough day, you would decompress by inviting him over and just offering a meal, or conversation.

Regardless of how battered you got or what you went through, you always felt a bit better when you saw him. Those green eyes that were still so void of emotion, they felt like everything you needed. What others were put off by drew you in. That’s why when the most recent rumor, well it felt somewhat crippling.

“Did you hear, Ulquiorra-san was injured in battle?”

For a second you staggered, and you rushed over to the group.

“Did you say he was hurt!!”

They looked a bit startled.

“Y-Yes, apparently there was an encounter with a powerful enemy in the world of the living. I heard he’s in squad four be-”

You didn’t wait for the rest, you were dashing off to squad four. Your feet were moving briskly, and the second you landed in the barracks, you were rushing through the halls, almost running into a few reapers.

“Ulquiorra!!”

Your yell echoed and you made another sharp turn. The moment you entered the room, you saw those green eyes. You didn’t even wait for him to say anything, you basically jumped into his arms. He took a step back, eyes widening slightly at the contact as you clutched unto him desperately.

“You’re okay…”

You were sobbing, and he looked down, still fairly confused.

“Why is she crying?”

He couldn’t understand.

You pulled back slowly, staring at him. For a second you were searching for injury. As you fully took in his state, you couldn’t truly see any bruises, or at the very least a wound.

“Y-You’re not hurt..?”

“No. Zaraki-san made an unsanctioned trip to the world of the living to chase after Kurosaki Ichigo. The Head Captain asked me to follow to ensure the damage was at a minimum. Unfortunately he got to Kurosaki before I arrived."

Ulquiorra stepped to the side and Ichigo’s twitching form was laying on the bed. You sweatdropped.

It just goes to show how unreliable gossip is. 

You sighed, wiping your cheeks as you sniffled. You felt like a fool making a scene for nothing. Now thoroughly embarrassed, you just turned.

“W-Well I’m glad you’re okay!”

With that you were hightailing it in the opposite direction.

It was clear that just the thought of anything happening to him would be devastating to you. Before you knew it you’d become attached, that’s why with every little meeting at your barracks you felt a little more awkward. The moment you became aware of your feelings, you felt like he had too.

“(Y/N)-san.”

“Hai!!”

You jumped, and from his expression it’s clear he wanted to know why you were acting like a skittish cat. You swallowed, looking away, playing it off with a laugh. Suddenly being in your space with him alone felt like too much. It’s not like you could stop the visits altogether. Surely he would know something is up.

Also..you didn’t really want them to stop. The more you thought about it the more flustered you became.

“W-We should probably call it a night. L-Let me see you out.”

You jumped to your feet to do just that, but your legs chose that very moment to stop working. Your legs caught with each other and you tumble right into his chest with a grunt.

His hands came down to steady you, and when you looked up, you couldn’t move, almost stopped breathing. That emerald gaze was fixated on you and every fiber in your body just froze. You weren’t sure how to react, what to say. Your eyes shook and before you could stop yourself, you were pushing up on your toes as you pressed your lips to his. His eyes grew a fraction bigger, and yours stayed shut, terrified of rejection, or worse, disgust.

After a few moments, you pulled back with a shaky breath. Your lips quivered and your heart was beating aggressively against your rib cage. Ulquiorra still seemed to be collecting himself, and when he licked his lower lip and stared down at you, the next words were the last thing you were expecting.

“Be my wife.”

Your face flamed up.

“A-AFTER JUST ONE KISS!!”

“Yes.”

You felt like you were going to overheat. You meant to say something, reason with him, but this time his head lowered and he leaned in, pressing a kiss to your awaiting lips. Your brows knitted, and the gentle way his hands held your shoulders made you want to melt on the spot. With your eyes closed, you could hear your heart more clearly.

When he pulled you closer, you felt something thumping and it became apparent that the noise wasn’t your heart rate beating harshly, but it was his. You all but melted. He took one step, and you moaned the second you realized he’s used his flash step, pressing you to the door.

The sound echoed in the room, the noises of your desperate kisses felt near sinful. Your lips were meeting and joining with a sense of urgency. You had no idea Ulquiorra could kiss so well. You were barely keeping yourself upright.

Your fingers gripped tighter into his robes, and when he pulled back, you were fighting to regain your breath. When you looked at him, it was the first time you could see his emotions clearly. He was breathing pretty calmly for someone who had just stolen not just your oxygen, but also your heart.

“You taste sweet.”

That confession was almost too much. You wanted to say just that, but he kissed you again and you whimpered, now very aware that there was no escape.

He had too much power.

For once, you could admit that you were indeed weak.

[odyssean-flower]

The Chief Justice and the Worst Painter in Fontaine Chapter 3: The Chief Justice, the Painter, and the Otters

summary: It was supposed to be your time to relax and get in touch with your (extremely) buried creative side…but then your boss showed up. Masterpost here

Chapter 1 || Chapter 2 || Chapter 3 (Bonus Scenes) || Chapter 4

The week seemed to pass by at a crawl. You found yourself looking at the clock frequently and tapping your feet. You got scolded more than once for being distracted. When Sedene delivered Neuvillette's note to you that Friday, you surprised even yourself with how eagerly you took it from her.

However, confusion replaced excitement when you read the note.

We will be going underwater tomorrow.

Some of your coworkers dived in their spare time, but you yourself had never done it. You could barely even swim. What did Neuvillette mean by this?

Except for the meeting spot, there was no other information. Not even instructions to bring spare clothes. 

Maybe this is a euphemism for killing me after I shouted at him, you thought half-jokingly.

By now, you knew that Neuvillette wouldn't do such a thing. But, just in case, you wrote a note for your roommate and put it in your drawer. 

You went to the designated location the next day. Your stomach was filled with butterflies, and your arms were filled with your painting supplies. Come to think of it, how were you even going to paint underwater? 

Neuvillette was already there, as always. He was wearing his usual clothes. There were no diving suits or anything that could be remotely used for diving in sight. 

"Hello, Monsieur Neuvillette," you greeted him like normal. "Are we not going diving today?"

"We are indeed going to go underwater today, but not by diving."

"Going underwater...but not diving?" you repeated, confused. 

Neuvillette saw the confusion on your face, and a small wrinkle appeared between his brows. "I'm sorry, I can't explain it in any more detail than that. But I assure you that it will be completely safe. Although, you are free to decline if you wish. I won't mind." 

I don't know why, but I feel like he would mind if I refused, you thought, and happened to glance up at the sky. It was a brilliant blue before, but now you could see white clouds slowly drifting across it.

You pondered. Going underwater without any aids seemed like a surefire way to die, but you were going to be with Neuvillette.

It was funny. You still didn't know anything more about him that you hadn't already known before you two started spending time together. And yet, you instinctively knew that you would never be harmed as long as you were with him.

And besides, going around Fontaine had awakened the spirit of exploration within you. You weren't about to quit your job and become an adventurer anytime soon, but the chance to see the underwater world for the first time...you couldn't let that get away from you.

You nodded eagerly and stepped closer to him. "Yes, I would love to go underwater! Although, I'm really not a strong swimmer, so I'm afraid you'll have to look after me a lot."

Perhaps it was the shadows of the (rapidly receding) clouds playing tricks on your eyes, but you could have sworn that Neuvillette's lips curved into a smile. "I'm perfectly fine with that. And there's no need to worry, you won't be required to swim."

Not required to swim? Just how were you getting underwater? As if he read your mind, Neuvillette said, "Please allow me to carry you in my arms."

"Okay?" Did you just hear him right?

He seemed to take that as agreement and lifted you into his arms easily. He must be stronger than he looked. You nearly dropped your things. His face was suddenly very close to yours, and you had the urge to bury your face in your hands. An attractive person looking at you so closely was not good for your health.

"I-um-I...what...um...sir..." you babbled like an idiot. Never in your wildest dreams did you imagine that you would be held in the Chief Justice's arms. 

"My apologies, I startled you. But don't worry, it won't be for long," Neuvillette informed you. Wow, his pupils really are slitted, your brain thought idly, as though to prevent itself from spontaneously combusting by distracting itself from the current situation. 

He slowly stepped forward into the water. "I hate to make more requests of you, but could I have you close your eyes? It will make this a bit easier for both of us."

How would I closing my eyes make it easier for him, you wondered, but obliged. You didn't think you could handle staring at his face so closely for any longer.

Neuvillette walked forward a few more steps. Before long, you felt coldness surround your feet, then your calves, and slowly rise upwards to your waist. Your clothes didn't feel wet, strangely enough. 

As the water came up to your chest, and soon, your neck, you held your breath. You did trust Neuvillette, but anyone would feel a little bit of panic at the prospect of going underwater, right?

You feel the water caressing your cheeks, then rubbing against your temples, before covering the top of your head. You were underwater now. Though you couldn't see anything with your eyes closed, you could sense that it wasn't completely dark.

The two of you were going somewhere. You hoped it was close by because you weren't sure how long you could hold your breath for. You could feel the cool currents of water rushing past you, though they weren't as bone-chilling as you expected. You were moving pretty fast--was Neuvillette swimming? Somehow, you just couldn't imagine the elegant Chief Justice doing something like that. Maybe that was why he asked you to close your eyes? Probably not.

Your head was starting to hurt. You needed to take a breath. Bracing yourself to breathe in water, you exhaled--and nearly gasped in surprise. You were breathing normally like you were on land. What was going on? You didn't dare open your mouth to speak, though.

Eventually, Neuvillette slowed down. It seemed that he had reached his destination. There was a brief resistance like he was pushing through something, and then you were inside some sort of building.

"You can open your eyes now," he said, and gently let you down. You slowly opened your eyes, and your breath caught. He had taken you inside a round, gazebo-like building. At first, you thought it had full-length windows on all sides, but when you looked closer, you saw that the "glass" was wavering like water. The inside of the building was perfectly dry and tastefully furnished with bookshelves, a rug, and tables. There was even a gramophone. 

"This is an observatory built by researchers," Neuvillette explained. "It's currently unused by anyone, so I thought that it would be a perfect place for you to paint."

"It really is..." you said, and then suddenly realized something. "It's incredible."

The outside was even more fantastical than what you've seen in pictures. The surroundings were cast in a dreamy blue light. Fish swam through kelp and coral formations like birds flitting between the branches of a tree. The white sand at the bottom glittered in the sunlight that filtered down. It was like you were on land, but everything was more...magical. Even the crates and pottery scattered around and half-buried in the sand looked like precious treasure chests.

You were so distracted by your surroundings that you belatedly realized that your clothing and things were completely dry. You were also able to breathe normally earlier. Was this Neuvillette's doing?

"Um, Monsieur Neuvillette, were you the one who kept me dry on the way here?"

"Ah," Neuvillette looked awkward all of a sudden. His gaze wandered around slightly. "Well, as the Chief Justice of Fontaine, having such powers is a necessary part of my job. And I made a promise to you that I have every intention of keeping."

He nodded, like that was supposed to be convincing. It wasn't.

How? You wondered, but decided not to press him on it. Everyone in Fontaine knew that the Chief Justice was hundreds of years old. There were many theories about who or what he was, but someone as long-lived as him would most likely have some kind of power. You were just a lowly desk worker without even a Vision, so there was no real reason for you to know his true identity or anything. 

Still, the fact that an ancient, powerful being like him would spend his time on you, even using his powers to help you with something as trivial as your hobbies...you felt something warm and indescribable well up inside your chest.

He did so much for you out of the kindness of his heart. You wanted to repay him with what little you had. An idea was forming in your head.

You set up your easel and paints and got to work. All of the paintings you painted until now were neatly stored away in your apartment, never seeing the light of day again, but this one will be special.

Though it was cool in that underwater observatory, your forehead was damp with sweat from concentration. You could picture the underwater scenery perfectly in your head, but it wasn't quite transferring onto the canvas in the way you hoped. It was so frustrating that you felt like crying, but you couldn't stop.

You discovered something new about yourself--you enjoyed the challenge. Perhaps it was honed from having to meet your superiors' exacting standards over and over again. (Wasn't this supposed to be my relaxation time away from work, a part of your brain wondered). 

As you painted, you could feel Neuvillette pacing around, throwing glances at you frequently. It was strange, he was usually so still as you painted. Perhaps being underwater made him restless. You felt bad that you couldn't divide your concentration well enough to talk with him as you worked. He must be feeling bored. 

That realization hit you surprisingly hard. You'd felt similar feelings before, but there was something deeper to it this time. More than a subordinate worrying about disappointing their boss. What was it?

You decided not to probe those feelings any further. It felt like you were crossing a line.

You finally put on the finishing touches and stepped back. Now you needed to wait about half an hour for it to dry. Feeling shy about showing it to Neuvillette before it was ready, you found a blanket on one of the couches and threw it over your painting. 

Neuvillette saw what you did. His brow furrowed in confusion. "May I ask you why you covered your painting? Forgive my forwardness, but I was quite looking forward to seeing it."

"I want to wait until it dries before showing it to you," you put on your best, most innocent smile despite the butterflies in your stomach. Neuvillette's eyes widened slightly and he took a few steps back. Was your smile that horrible?

Electing to ignore that bruise to your ego, you changed the topic. "Monsieur Neuvillette, I would really love to see the underwater world more. Could you please accompany me outside? I-If it's okay with you, of course."

You wanted to kick yourself for being so presumptuous, but that was the first thing that came to mind. 

"Yes, of course. Please, give me your hand." That was fast.

You obeyed, and he pulled you towards the watery film that served as the entrance of this observatory. When you went outside, you felt the coolness and pressure of the water on you, but you could still breathe. Your legs were dangling below you. Maybe this was what flying felt like.

"You can talk as well, as long as you're with me," Neuvillette told you. He looked majestic even--maybe especially--in the water. You had to look away for the sake of your heart.

Your gaze landed on a group of adorable otters. They were swimming together on their backs, holding shells in their little paws. They occasionally flipped the shells up into the air and caught them, twitching their noses as they did so. They were the most adorable creatures you had ever seen in your life.

"Oh Archons, they're so cute!" you squealed, then practically dragged Neuvillette over to them with you. The otters didn't startle when you approached them. In fact, one of the otters even came up to you, its tiny face peering into yours and its paws brought together. Your noses were practically touching. You really wished you brought a camera with you. 

"Look, sir!" you turned to Neuvillette excitedly and was caught off guard by the smile on his face. When he realized you were looking at him, he cleared his throat. "Yes, they are indeed lively and adorable creatures."

Something suddenly occurred to you just then. Neuvillette's white hair and the otter's long white fur, the shared blue streaks, even the fact that they were both wearing (figuratively in the otter's case) the same shades of blue...could it be possible?

A vivid image of Neuvillette swimming around leisurely on his back, his nose twitching happily, holding his cane in his hands and flipping it in the air, appeared in your mind.

Oh no, you could feel your lips curve up into a smile. Giggles threatened to spill out from you at any moment. You had to hold them in, but it was so hard, especially when both Neuvillette and the otter were looking at you with the same confused expressions.

Unable to endure it anymore, you reflexively pulled yourself from Neuvillette--and immediately started choking as water flooded your lungs. Thankfully, Neuvillette got to you before you could become a permanent part of the sea. At least your giggles had disappeared.

After repeatedly assuring Neuvillette that you were fine and both apologizing profusely to each other, you had a fun time exploring the fascinating things that lay beneath the surface--with Neuvillette's hand firmly around your arm, naturally. You liked the silky feeling of the seaweed beneath your hands and the plump Blubberbeasts lying on their backs. 

Before long, you two returned to the observatory. Even in the water, you could feel your hands getting sweaty as you approached the gray building. This was a whole new level of anxiety from before. Maybe it was because you were giving your painting to Neuvillette this time.

Well, you've learned from experience that there was no point in putting things like these off. If he doesn't accept it, maybe I can beg him to let me stay here forever, you thought, half-jokingly.

You walked over to your painting and uncovered it. It was all dry now. It didn't look as good as you hoped, but it was finished and there was nothing you could do now. 

"Here, Monsieur Neuvillette, please take a look at my painting."

Neuvillette stepped up next to you and gazed at your painting in silence. That was normal, except for the fact that the silence stretched on unusually long. You could hear your heartbeat in your ears.

"...Did you paint a dragon here?" Neuvillette said at last, pointing at the blue, wavy lines in the center of your painting.

"Yes...?" you said. Oh no, is it so ugly that he can't even recognize what it is?

"Why?"

"Why...?" The clipped, blunt tone of your voice made you panic. You shouldn't have done this after all. "Well...because dragons are...cool...and amazing...and stuff, like you. I mean, my favorite story when I was little was the story of the hydro dragon, and now that I'm underwater, I thought that it'd be cool to imagine the dragon swimming in the sea. So I wanted to put that in this painting. Which I am giving to you, sir. As a gift."

Your explanation sounded lame even in your ears, even though it was the truth. And come to think of it, did the hydro dragon even swim? The tales you knew only spoke about it being able to make it rain.

"You're giving me your painting as a gift?" Neuvillette repeated.

"Um...you don't have to accept it if you don't want it..." You were seriously considering jumping out of one of those watery walls right now.

"Perish the thought. I shall frame it and put it in my office."

"Huh!?"

"I think it's your finest work yet. You captured the essence of what it is like being underwater perfectly."

"Really? Oh, uh, please don't put it in your office, sir. It's embarrassing..."

"Embarrassing? Not at all. It deserves to be displayed for all the citizens of Fontaine to see."

Now you felt like jumping out into the water for a different reason.

"No, no, please don't do that...it's just my way of saying thank you for everything you've done for me. You encouraged me, brought me to all sorts of wonderful places, even here...and yet I've never done anything for you."

Neuvillette turned to look at you then. There was alarm in his eyes. "A thank you gift? Does that mean our trips together are ending?"

"What, no!" you exclaimed. "I just wanted to thank you in some way, for being a good friend. I'm not rich or powerful or anything, so this is all I can give you."

Silence hung in the air. You said it. You said the f-word. But you didn't regret it. Even if it was one-sided, that was who he was to you. You looked straight into his eyes, almost daring him to say something.

He leaned forward until his face was right next to your ear. Your breath caught. 

"I wouldn't trade your gift for any amount of gold or jewels."

Neither of you said anything more on the trip back to the surface.

[cosmicgesture]

DP x DC Idea

ok hear me out- Ghost King Jason Todd. Bear with me a tick.

At the end of the first millennium of his rule, Pariah Dark was required and compelled by Zone Law to name an heir should he retire or shatter. (Not that anyone expected him to do either.) Still, it was a law of the zone itself, and it needled at his core worse than the Observants and their constant prattling.\

So, eventually, he grew annoyed enough by it that he declared his heir to be a liminal being. If that wasn’t controversial enough, he picked a random name that had yet to popularize in the mortal world, specified that the death was a violent one, and the death date? The death date was just numbers he happened to glance at in the moment, with the year set thousands of years away from the time the heir was named.

Pariah Dark figured, what are the chances someone with this name, of liminal nature, will die on this random date? Well, he knew of Clockwork (maybe knew him well, even), and knew there was always some slim chance. Still, he figured he could simply find his presumed heir and destroy him before he could try to claim the throne.

He didn’t expect to be locked up in the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep.

When he’s freed during Reign Storm and notices the date, it’s one of his priorities to send a lookout for the random kid who would happen to be his heir. Danny and co. lock him up before he receives any information, and that ends up being kind of that.

There’s discussion in the Zone after that, about a potential ruler. Some think right-by-conquest applies, but others argue the technicalities of the matter - Danny did not act alone, did not beat Pariah Dark without help. Thus, it doesn’t count as Conquest (though it does put him in the high recommendations for the next king’s knight). There begins the questioning then: did Pariah Dark ever declare an heir? Few were left who remembered such a thing, but it was confirmed that he had indeed, though the information about said heir was scant and somewhat inconsistent. One story said the heir’s name was Jackson, and that he died tragically; another called him Jensen and claimed he still lived. So the search began, with inconsistent clues. Any place in the mortal realm with enough ectoplasm to sustain a ghost was a potential hiding place for the heir. They started in Amity Park and spread to other towns and cities. Some ghosts sought out newly dead that had died the day Pariah was locked back up again.

But who’d’ve thought to connect that the same day the sarcophagus locked again, a boy named Jason Todd rose from his grave?

[shadowqueenjude]

Quotes about Elain in ACOSF: Elain said, “Then I will find it. I might require some time to … reacquaint myself with my powers, but I could start today.” “Why?” Elain demanded. “Shall I tend to my little garden forever?” When Nesta flinched, Elain said, “You can’t have it both ways. You cannot resent my decision to lead a small, quiet life while also refusing to let me do anything greater.”

“Look who decided to grow claws after all,” she crooned. “Maybe you’ll become interesting at last, Elain.” “I went into the Cauldron, too, you know. And it captured me. And yet somehow all you think of is what my trauma did to you.” “Including Elain, who is more than capable of defending herself against the darkness of the Trove, if she chooses to. Don’t underestimate her.”

“Why not tell Elain about the baby’s sex first?” “She discovered the pregnancy. I wanted you to know this part before anyone else.” Elain had always wanted to visit the continent to study the tulips and other famed flowers, but her imagination had stretched no further. Also the direct contrast between Nesta and Cassian's thoughts: Elain was like a dog, loyal to whatever master kept her fed and in comfort.

Nesta was wrong, Cassian realized, to think Elain as loyal and loving as a dog. Elain saw every single thing Nesta had done, and understood why.

We see Night is wrong for Elain and Spring is right: Elain in black was ridiculous. Yes, she was beautiful, but the color of her long-sleeved, modest gown leeched the brightness from her face. It wore her, rather than the other way around. And he knew the cruelty of the Hewn City troubled her. But she hadn’t hesitated to come. When Feyre had offered to let her remain home, Elain had squared her shoulders and declared that she was a part of this court—and would do whatever was needed. So Elain had let her golden-brown hair down tonight, and pinned it back with twin combs of pearl. He’d never once in the two years he’d known her found Elain to be plain, but wearing black, no matter how much she claimed to be part of this court … It sucked the life from her.

But Elain … The Spring Court had been made for someone like her. Too bad her sister refused to see her. Nesta would have told Elain to visit this place.

We see Nesta taking the rose carving made for Elain: Her gaze shifted to the carved wooden rose she’d placed upon the mantel, half-hidden in the shadows beside a figurine of a supple-bodied female, her upraised arms clasping a full moon between them. Some sort of primal goddess—perhaps even the Mother herself. Nesta hadn’t let herself dwell on why she’d felt the need to set the rose there. Why she hadn’t just thrown it in a drawer. Her father had died for her, with love in his heart, and Nesta held love in her own heart as she pulled the small, carved rose from her pocket and set it upon the gravestone. A permanent marker of the beauty and good he’d tried to bring into the world.

And then there's her mate Lucien: He had to give Lucien credit: the male was somehow able to move between his three roles—an emissary for the Night Court, ally to Jurian and Vassa, and liaison to Tamlin—and still dress immaculately.

“Easy,” Lucien repeated, and flame sizzled in his russet eye. The flame, the surprising dominance within it, hit Cassian like a stone to the head, knocking him from his need to kill and kill and kill whatever might threaten—

“No. But we need to summon Lucien,” Azriel said, just a shade tightly, as if he didn’t like it one bit.

Koschei said, “Tell my Vassa I’m waiting.” Mor failing to form agreements in Vallahan and its implications: Indeed, Mor’s eyes shuttered. “They don’t want to sign the new treaty.” “We are weakened—all seven courts. Even more at odds with each other and with the rest of the world since the war. If Montesere and Vallahan march on us, if Rask joins with them, we will not withstand it. Not with Beron already turned against us and allied with Briallyn. Not if Tamlin cannot master his guilt and grief and become what he once was.

“But you and yours have more important things to think about than ancient history. My father is furious that his ally is dead, but he’s not deterred. Koschei remains in play, and Beron might very well be stupid enough to establish an alliance with him, too. I hope that whatever Morrigan is doing in Vallahan will counteract the damage my father will unleash.” And Spring has fallen into disrepair and Beron wants it: “They say a beast prowls these lands now. A beast with keen green eyes and golden fur. Some people think the beast has forgotten his other shape, so long has he spent in his monstrous form. And though he roams these lands, he does not see or care for the neglect he passes, the lawlessness, the vulnerability. Even his manor has fallen into disrepair, half-eaten by thorns, though rumors fly that he himself destroyed it.” Eris’s fingers closed around the petals. “Who says he wants land on the continent?” He surveyed the orchard—as if to make a point. Silence fell. Rhys murmured, “Beron knows another war that pits Fae against Fae would be catastrophic. Many of us would be wiped out entirely. Especially …” Rhys tilted his head back to take in the apple blossoms. “Especially those of us who are weakened. And when the dust settles, there would be at least one court left vacant, its lands bare for the taking.”

And a bonus...from the bonus chapter. He slept as well as could be expected, but when Azriel returned to the river house to gather his presents before dawn, he found Elain's necklace amid the pile.

"But I wonder if everyone has spent so long assuming Elain is sweet and innocent that she felt she had to be that way or else she'd disappoint you all." "But I also think we haven't seen all she has to offer." "Let's focus on helping one sister before we start on the other." Make of that what you will 🤷‍♀️

[merinsedai]

Rooftops of London snippet 3

for @dreamlingbingo

Snippet 3/5 for my WIP: The Rooftops of London :)

Square/Prompt: D5: Accidental Marriage (plus adoptable prompt: Creature: Veela)

Title: The Rooftops of London

Rating: T

Ship(s): Dream of the Endless/Hob Gadling

Warnings: n/a

Additional Tags: Second Chance, Mary Poppins AU, yes you read that correctly, Dream is Mary Poppins, Hob is Bert, Dream of the Endless | Morpheus is Good with Kids, popping in and out of paintings, teaparties on the ceiling, Developing Relationships, potential flying of kites, Will Roderick Burgess be redeemed? Is it possible? Who knows, read on and find out, fat pigeons

Summary: In 2025, Dream awaits Death as the Kindly Ones ravage the Dreaming.

In 1910, two young boys send out an advertisement for their perfect nanny.

or, the tale of Dream attempting to Mary Poppins his way out of his 20th century nightmare

Read the first chapter on AO3 here

And snippet 1 here

And snippet 2 here

A scene from Chapter (??no idea anymore), where something has gone a bit wrong for Hob.

“Perhaps a briefing on Veela etiquette would have been helpful?” Hob hisses as he scurries along in Morpheus’s wake, glancing fearfully back behind him every few steps. Morpheus floats along serenely ahead of him, seemingly completely unconcerned by this rather unfortunate turn of events. Alex’s hand is held securely in one of his and the little boy is skipping along singing snatches of that blasted song. Randall is shuffling along behind them, sulking in the way only a pubescent boy can. Well, one who has just had his first instructive lesson on the fairer sex brutally curtailed, at least. Another time, Hob would have a lot of sympathy for the lad.  Not right now, however. 

“I did not think it necessary,” Morpheus replies, glancing behind him. Alex has begun fully swinging off his arm now, leaning precariously to the side so his free hand is able to trail through the dew-slicked purple grass, eliciting giggles of “ooh it’s sticky”. Anyone else of Morpheus’s build would have been sent staggering to the side by the virtual gymnastics going on, maybe even risking a wrenched shoulder. Morpheus just continues walking like it’s nothing. Not that Hob thinks that his… companion would ever deign to do anything so ungraceful as to stagger. Or even run… and Hob is feeling like running might be required here soon.

“Not necessary?” he gasps, quickening his steps a little to draw alongside Morpheus.

“No indeed, as a wise man of the world, I assumed you to be cognisant of the fact that one does not accept gifts from the fae.”

“Fae? You didn’t say they were fae! You said they were Veela!”

“Veelas are fae,” Morpheus continues, as if Hob should have known this very important fact, despite having never heard of a Veela until about two hours ago. “And especially never say thank you: you are now in her debt.”

“Oh come on! Her debt? She just handed me the thing! We were having a dinner party! How was I to know it was a gift! A blo–” he catches the curse before it finishes leaving his mouth. Little ears after all. “A piece of fruit!”

“More precisely: a pomegranate.”

“So?!”

Morpheus tsks and gives Hob a look out of the corner of his eye. “And here I thought you had been a student of the classics, Hob?” There is a twitch to his lips that speaks of suppressed amusement, and if Hob didn’t like him so much then he may quite happily have punched the other man for letting them get into this situation. 

“What’s a pommy-granit?” Alex sings songs, still swinging like a monkey. His hand glitters with the dew and he waves it in front of his face. “Look Morpheus, it’s so sticky, it’s not coming off!”

“A pomegranate’s a fruit, stupid,” mutters Randall sullenly. He really is put out at this hasty exit, though not nearly as put out as the Veela girl to whom Hob now seems to be betrothed, judging by the shrieking behind them that seems to be growing ever nearer. Morpheus simply looks at the boy though, and Randall blushes bright red to the roots of his hair. 

“Your brother is correct, Alex,” Morpheus says quietly to the younger boy. “But to certain societies it is both a fruit and a symbol. In this case, the pomegranate is a symbol of marriage.”

“So Hob’s getting married?” Alex asks offhandedly, still more interested in his sparkly fingers than the situation. Hob grimaces.

“I am not-” he begins hurriedly but Morpheus speaks over him.

“Oh no,” he says casually, and this time there is a definite smile on his face. One might even describe it as a highly amused smile. “Veela do not do betrothals and courtship. Hob is not getting married. He already is married.”

[morkanslily]

(I.) In the End You are a Shell, and Nothing More.

summary: Two little dolls who lack a heart. While the first believed it was only he out of you two who lacked it in the metaphorical and literal sense, he came to learn that so too, did you.

notes: puppet!reader & scaramouche, where reader dies. In this, the Balladeer harbinger rank actually has two lords, with Scaramouche facing as its face, and you being considered in equal ownership of the role. Basically 2 lords in one

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

He truly did love you.

And oh, how he wished he didn’t.

Prior to this disaster, the herald of indignation was performing his required duties as harbinger. Tasks that were nothing more than mere inconveniences that only served to pull you further away from his grip. Excruciatingly long visits to lands beyond Snezhnaya, such as the country of Freedom and that of Contracts. And even then, these nations felt just as bitterly empty and cold as the former was without your presence. It anguished him to no end, how he agonizingly longed for you by his side. Not only because he yearned to see the way how your lips would curve humorously when your eyes caught his, but also how he found such desires childish—and maybe even embarrassing to an extent. He was a poet of ire, and you, his beloved, were his muse of recourse. After all, he is The Balladeer, is he not? In his long and miserable existence, he had sought solace amongst humans when the gods had forsaken him. But for every time he chose to, it would come back to bite him. What did he even expect, being so naive? Offering your hand to vicious and cruel beasts will only leave you without it.

 Nevertheless, you are an exception it seems. Exceptions… Ah, quite a rare occurrence indeed. For gods see no worth in him and neither does he sing their praises, and humans are too far beneath him to matter. In this perpetual purgatory of living, never once had he expected to come across you. You, yes, you, bear the same mark of mechanical existence as he. Destined to live an outlier amidst gods and men, you are the only being blessed with sentience who he deems his equal—his other half.

It always mystified Scaramouche how even the knowledge alone that you are indeed of his kind brought him reassurance for the eternity he had yet to spend with you. He would never admit it of course, but deep within the confines of his soul, he is elated to bask in your familiar presence and his thoughts of you. Just as a sunflower(despite him being the farthest man possible from said plant)will always bend towards the sun for dear life. To know that there is someone in this world whose touch is as cold and devoid of warmth as his, sends him into repose--where for just a brief moment, he is allowed to forget the veil of his burdens that trail behind. If the people of this world have turned their backs on him, at the very least, he has you.

And even then, you…

…

“God, why me…” the Fatuus underling muttered under his breath.

He tried, oh how he tried his best to not tremble as he treaded anxiously towards his superior. Genuflecting, it took all of his willpower and dried up hopes to not mistakenly stumble and humiliate himself. He would much rather endure the violent winter of his homeland than have to accomplish this task. But can you blame him, really? Nobody, and no one has ever wanted to face the ordeal that is Lord Scaramouche. Especially not this guy, with the message he was ordered to deliver. He couldn’t shake off the memory of those sympathetic looks and shaking heads behind him as he departed. Practically everyone agreed that this mission bestowed unto him was a death sentence. And what was that mission, exactly?

The harbinger donned a scornful look of malevolence as his impatient eyes scrutinized the poor fellow. His head was raised, perhaps to further incise the fact that he was echelons above. The subordinate knelt before him, preparing to deliver the news. The messenger shrank under his senior’s watch, with an unshakeable spine-chilling cold running through him. Though he dared not to gaze back, he felt the crushing weight of irritation scanning him, unpredictable and utterly terrifying. He shuddered to think that if he just so happened to breath, this behemoth of inhumanity could erase him from existence with a snap of a finger.

“Speak.” The Balladeer demanded, narrowing his eyes in anticipation. 

“Yes, my lord.” the subordinate replied. He cleared his throat, and carried on. “Er, one of our m-main base camps in Snezhnaya—specifically one that you direct has… formally requested for your immediate return. They ask that y-you may personally provide assistance."

“...And what for?” the harbinger scoffed. “Are the fools that I specifically assigned to do their own jobs that worthless?” he crossed his arms, clearly exasperated by such an outrageous demand. “Hmph, the audacity to bother me with such menial affairs. I almost feel insulted by their ineffectiveness alone.” The lord fell silent for a moment, which sent the subordinate into panic. What more did his superior want? Was he contemplating, or purposely engraving anxiety onto his soul to taunt him? He cringed, awaiting what would entail from this deathly silence.

The Balladeer turned his back on him, striding ahead, then coming to a halt. All that was left was a silhouette cloaked by darkness in the dead of night, as his diaphanous veil served to shadow his figure further. All the minion could see was the giant kanji on its back, echoing the words in his mind. 悪. Evil.

What a savage man he is, the underling thought. His future would be on the line, very soon. If he wanted to live, he would need to successfully get ahold of his own strings in this puppet show of life and death—and choose his next words wisely. As the sixth slightly turned his head, his veil followed, swaying in the breeze, slow and elegant such as the pirouette of a ballerina. Above all else, the most accurate way one may describe him would be an angel of death. Sent straight from the thunders of heaven, to forever damn and blight Teyvat. The subordinate gulped, and braced himself for the punishment to come.

“You aren’t stupid enough to have traveled all this way to waste my time, are you?"

“No sir. Actually, the camp that called for your backup was ravaged and left in ruin by a currently unidentified criminal. Most of the survivors were successfully evacuated, but the location remains unsafe.” He held his breath. “I’m afraid that… the 'other half’, was last seen there, and went missing.“

Silence, again. The Balladeer turned to face him, the wind coming to a startling halt. In that very moment, the world felt as though it was in stasis. Stasis that hid the imploding pressure underneath the surface.

“What did you just say?”

“The situation is urgent. So far we have not been able to find the ‘other’ Lord Balladeer, due to complications. I will elaborate further, but as of now I advise that you may depart as soon as possible.” the Fatuus finished. The overlord lowered his head, his wide brimmed hat concealing his expression.

“Hmph. Is that so?

“Uh...yes my lord?"

“Oh, but when did you have the authority,” he raised his head, revealing a wry expression. “...to make demands of me as well?” he sneered, looking back at the subordinate.

Shit.

“No, I..."

A bolt of lightning immediately vaporized the ground nearby, almost missing him. The impact left a painful singe on his side, with parts of his garments chipped and burnt off. He clutched his side in pain, fully collapsing to his knees. His ears rang painfully, and his vision blurred as he coughed on the ground. Fire bloomed in the grass, the embers alive and sizzling. Lord Scaramouche’s finger was still smoking, an expression of pure wrath plastered upon his face. His eyes wide, crackled and seethed with anger. Even the wind picked up, furiously blowing at his hair and garments.

“You humans are always so dreadfully annoying.” He muttered, gritting his teeth whilst smoke seeped between. His words were lacquered with acrimony. The harbinger strode forth with celerity, trampling weeds in his wake. “Useless.” he rubbed his hands together to stop the smoke. “Inefficient.” He shook his head. “Ugly, worthless specks of dust.” In his eyes, humans were no more than unsightly weeds that spread too fast and too far in the garden to be plucked. The only situation? To burn it all together. He looked down on the recuperating man, and grabbed him by the collar. “You vile vermin fail to do the one thing you are asked, and still have the impertinence to come back crawling to me for help? Tsk, how amusing.” When the Balladeer raised his other hand to strike once more, the pest scrambled to make his final move.

“ W-wait, my lord-"

Only then did the subordinate truly learn, that sinners never gain redemption in the eyes of gods and angels alike.

@mhiieee @rainxiaower ⭐️

[elliemarchetti]

The Queen of the Quills - Jily Edition (Part 5)

Posting on Tumblr too because this fic's sister is already there.

Reading The Queen of the Quills - Blackinnon Edition will not be mandatory to understand the developments of James and Lily's story, but some details could be shared, therefore, for anyone wishing to fully enjoy the experience, I will leave this series' masterlist here.

This was @athenasparrow's gift for @jilymicrofics ' Exchange 2024, but if you like it and are willingly to reblog, it would be super appreciated since stories like this require quite some time and effort🥰

Taglist (if anyone wants to be added, please DM me or comment and I'll gladly add you!): @thaisthedreamer

Plot: James Potter, London's most evasive bachelor, an impertinent libertine, has decided to get married. He has also already chosen his wife, the debutante Lily Evans, a self-confident young woman who has not the slightest intention of being seduced by such a man. A Bridgerton inspired Regency AU.

Words: 4093

Mrs. Potter’s musicale proved to be a decidedly musical affair (not, this author assures you, always the norm for musicales). The guest performer was none other than Maria Rosso, an Italian soprano from the all-witch choir known as Spellbound who made their debut in London two years ago and has returned after a brief stint on the Vienna stage. With thick, sable hair and flashing dark eyes, Miss Rosso proved as lovely in form as she did in voice, and more than one, or it would be better to say more than a dozen, of society’s so-called gentleman found it difficult indeed to remove their eyes from her person, even after the performance had concluded.

The Queen of the Quills, May 17, 1813

Lily felt the exact moment he walked in the room. She tried to tell herself it had nothing to do with a heightened awareness of the excruciatingly handsome wizard, she couldn’t imagine that every woman didn’t notice him immediately, and furthermore, he arrived late – not very, but still enough he had to try to be quiet as he slipped into a chair at the front next to Mrs. Evans – still she noticed him before her own mother and sister did, and it rendered her unable to even breathe. He didn’t look her way, but several candles had been snuffed, leaving the room bathed in a dim, romantic glow, so the shadows must’ve obscured her face and the way she tried to keep her eyes on Miss Rosso throughout the performance, even if the woman couldn’t take hers off of Mr. Potter, and for some reasons, it didn’t improve her disposition. She should’ve rejoiced in the fact, it was just another piece of proof he was every bit the licentious rake she’d always known him to be, but she wasn’t feeling smug, or vindicated, she was just heavily, uncomfortably disappointed, so much so she felt herself slump slightly in her chair.

When the performance was done, she couldn’t help but notice how the soprano, after graciously accepting her applause, brazenly approached her suitor and offered him one of those seductive smiles, the sort Lily would never learn to do even if she had a thousand opera singers trying to teach her. There was no mistaking what she meant with that act, and he must’ve realized too, because he threw her a mysterious look and actually tucked an errant lock of her raven hair behind her ear.

Lily shivered in disgust. For Merlin’s beard, the man didn’t even need to chase women, they practically dropped at his feet and whispered sweet nothing in his ears! Maybe she praised him, or maybe she outwardly offered herself, because he leaned down enough to kiss her neck.

“Lily?” hissed her mother, decidedly irritated. “Stop watching Mr. Potter.”

“I wasn’t… well, all right, I was, but did you see him?” she whispered urgently. “He’s shameless.”

She looked back over at him, still flirting with Maria Rosso, no care in the world about who might see.

“I’m sure his behaviour isn’t any of our business,” replied Elizabeth, lips pursed into a tight line. “He has been kind in delivering the invitations to the musicale himself, but I’m certain he wants nothing to do with you after that fiasco in Hyde Park.”

If the situation had been different, Lily would have argued that it wasn't her fault that his dog had pushed her into the water and he jumped in to save her when she was already swimming toward the shore, but she didn't have the energy to argue right now, so she sagged her shoulders and followed her family as they greeted their lovely hostess. Mrs. Potter had fair hair and light eyes, and she was rather petite to have mothered such a large son, so Lily decided her late husband must’ve been a tall man.

“Mrs. Evans,” she said warmly, “what a delight to see you again. I so enjoyed our meeting at the last ball and I must say I’m very glad you decided to accept my invitation.”

“We wouldn’t dream of spending the evening elsewhere,” her mother rejoined. “And may I present you my daughters? The older one is Petunia, and the younger one is Lily.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you both, and I would like to introduce you to Mr and Mrs. McKinnon’s daughter, Marlene,” she said, motioning to a young lady at her side. For some reason, Lily was convinced she had already met her, but maybe she was just a classmate she had passed a couple of times in the corridors at Hogwarts. After all, Londoners were used to minding their own business there too, and she had no doubt that someone so beautiful and seemingly delicate was constantly surrounded by flocks of other adoring young women. Anyway, Lily smiled warmly at the girl, who looked to be about the same age as her, even though the similarities between them ended here: her blonde hair were a perfectly styled field of lovely golden wheat and her face was angular, a rather sharp contrast with Lily’s roundness.

 “Is this your first season?” she asked, already friendly.

Both Lily and Petunia nodded.

“How lucky!” she exclaimed. “I attended a few parties last year and may I say they were a bit… boring? Everything was so new the first time, but by the end of spring I already remembered everyone’s name. This way, I thought I could get an excellent match, but as you may see by yourself, I’m still unmarried.”

As Marlene spoke, Mrs. Evans glanced at her son, who kept flirting madly with the Italian opera singer, and frowned.

Lily felt something very uneasy in her stomach: according to recent issues of The Queen of the Quills, Mrs. Evans was on a mission to get her son married off, and while he didn’t seem the sort of man to bend to his mother’s will, or anyone’s, for the matter, she had a feeling the woman would be able to exert quite a bit of pressure is she so chose. Maybe that was why he was so intent on courting her.

After a few more moments of polite chatter, the Evans left Mrs. Potter to greet the rest of her guests and were soon accosted by Mrs. Bones, who, as the mother of three daughters, two still unmarried, always had a lot to say to Elizabeth – she had long declared herself on a first-name basis with the Evans – although that day her gaze was firmly focused on Lily, who immediately began to assess possible escape routes.

“What a surprise to see you there!” boomed the stout woman, leaving her interlocutor puzzled. “Gossip said you were ill.”

“Don’t worry, it was nothing that serious,” Lily retorted, with a weak smile. How Amelia had managed to become a pleasant person to have around with a family like hers Lily just couldn't explain.

“From what I heard, you contracted it in a rather serious way,” Mrs. Bones added, brows rising a good half inch. It was evident she knew, maybe she was even at the scene, but there was really no need to talk about it at the Potter’s.

“A way of little consequence, as you can see,” Lily countered firmly, although she was finding it difficult not to growl at the meddlesome woman.

Mrs. Bones opened her mouth, a sharp intake of breath telling she was preparing to launch into a lengthy monologue on the topic of the importance of good deportment, or good manners, or good breeding, but her youngest promptly interrupted her, offering to fetch lemonade for everyone.

“Lily, would you be so kind as to help me?” she asked, turning to the one she set out to save. “Unfortunately, I still don’t have enough hands to carry all those glasses.”

Lily tried not to appear too eager to accept, but everyone must’ve noticed their urgency to flee from how quickly they walked away, dodging those present with skill.

“Thank you,” she murmured to her saviour once they reached the lemonade stand and grabbed four glasses, for everyone except Petunia, who said she wasn’t thirsty.

“I know how my mother can be, I’m usually her favourite victim, so since I could avoid you what would’ve sounded like a lecture from an almost stranger, I took advantage of it. I’m sure somehow she would’ve found the opportunity to insert me into the conversation just to define me an impertinent social failure,” replied the other, and although a part of Lily wanted to pity her for that cruel fate – no mother should behave like that with her daughter – another part told her not to do so, because the girl needed an ally, not yet another young lady looking at her like a hopeless cause.

“Can we go back for a glass for ourselves?” asked Amelia as soon as they reunited with their families, and her mother nodded in a matter that told Lily everyone must know her youngest wasn’t her favourite.

“Why don’t we go out for a bit of fresh air? Since we’re together, we don’t need a chaperone,” suggested the redhead, who wanted a little more space to investigate on what the wizarding society really thought of Mr. Potter. Was he a hypocrite? A scoundrel? Or even a liar? Had he by chance deluded women and then abandoned them without any prospect? Did he have bastards? She didn't know why she cared so much, after all he probably believed her a menace to society, or he wouldn’t have acted as he was doing with Miss Rosso, still she needed to know if it was the norm or just a game to get back at her. So she asked, rather forward, as she and her friend sank into a cushioned bench about ten yards from the music room. They remained there for several minutes, more than pleased with the comfortable intimacy of their gossip, until they heard one particular voice rise slightly above the low rumble of the crowd, followed by decidedly musical laughter. After a shared look of realization, they hitched up their skirts by a few inches to save themselves from tripping and ducked into the doorway next to the bench, hoping Mr. Potter and his paramour would walk on by, and they could scoot back into the music room and laugh about their little adventure. As their eyes adjusted to the dimness of the room, they realized they were in some sort of office, with walls lined with books, although not enough to be a library, the place dominated by a massive oak desk with papers laid on top of it in neat piles. Clearly the place was lived, not just for show, and as curiosity got the better of them, they wandered toward the desk, Lily running her fingers along the wooden rim. The air still smelled faintly of ink, and maybe the slightest hint of pipe smoke. All in all, she decided, it was a lovely room, comfortable and practical, a place a person could spend hours in lost in lazy contemplation, but just as she was about to lean back against the desk, savouring the quiet solitude exuding from the place, she heard and awful sound. The doorknob clicked, and with a frantic gasp, Amelia disappeared, leaving her with no other option than dive under the desk, squeezing herself into the empty cube of space and thanking the heavens that it was completely solid rather than the short that rested on four spindly legs. Barely breathing, she listened, cursing herself for not taking Apparition class seriously.

“I had heard this would be the year we would finally see the notorious Mr. Potter fall into the parson’s mousetrap,” came a lilting feminine voice. Lily bit her lip, recognizing the Italian accent.

“And where did you hear that?” came James’ unmistakable voice, followed by another awful click of the doorknob that made Lily shut her eyes in agony. She was trapped in the office with a pair of lovers. Life simply couldn’t get any worse than this, unless she was discovered, though it didn’t make her feel much better about her present predicament.

“It’s all over town,” Maria replied. “Everyone is saying you have decided to settle down and choose a bride.”

There was a silence, but Lily could swear she could hear him shrug: “It’s probably past time.”

“You are breaking my heart, did you know?” she asked, making Lily nearly gag.

“Now, my sweet signorina, we both know that your heart is impervious to any of my machinations,” Mr. Potter murmured, and Lily pictured him as close as they were before, his lips nearly on her skin, because next came a rustling sound, which she took to be Maria pulling coyly away to state she wasn’t inclined for a dalliance.

“I don’t look for marriage, of course, that would be most foolish, but when I next choose a protector, it shall be for, shall we say, the long term,” she added, low and husky.

“I fail to see the problem.”

“Your future wife may not.”

“The only reason to give up one’s mistress is if one happens to love one’s wife,” Mr. Potter chuckled. “And as I don’t intend to choose a wife with whom I might fall in love, I see no reason to deny myself the pleasure of a lovely woman like you.”

Lily tried to imagine the reaction of the couple if she jumped out of her hiding place, screaming like a madwoman, asking what made him think she was the right match if that was his plan from the start. It nearly made her laugh, and at the same time she wanted to cry, because there was no way she could make the entrance she wished to make when she was squatting like a frog with her hands wrapped around her ankles. A few unintelligible sounds distracted her from her fantasies, and she dearly prayed they weren’t a prelude to something considerably more intimate. After a moment, though, Mr. Potter’s voice emerged clearly, asking to the singer if she cared for something to drink. Maria murmured her assent, and James’ forceful stride echoed along the floor, growing closer and closer, until he came into view, his athletic frame displayed to surprising benefit from her vantage point on the floor. If he just kept his face to the window as he poured, she might escape detection, but if he turned so much as halfway she would be as good as dead, for she had no doubt he would kill her. Frankly, she was surprised he hadn’t tried last week at the Serpentine.

“Is everything all right?” Maria called out, when Mr. Potter clinked the tumblers slightly together as he set them down before pouring two fingers of amber liquid into each glass.

“Perfect,” he answered, although he sounded vaguely distracted, like a dog sniffing the air around in search of his prey. Maybe that was why Lily froze and stopped breathing completely, eyes wide and unblinking, as he started to hum slightly to himself and his body slowly began to turn.

Keep walking, she screamed in her head, keep walking to your lover and don’t look back.

But it didn't go that way, and she watched with complete and utter horror as his eyes scanned her starting from her shoes and pinned her where she was.

__________________

James knew quite well why he’d brought Maria Rosso back to his study. Surely no warm-blooded man could be immune to the charm of her lush body and her intoxicating voice, and he knew from experience that her touch was equally potent, but even as he took in that silky sable hair and those full, pouting lips, even as his muscles tightened at the memory of other full, pouting parts of her body, he knew he was using her. He felt no guilt in that regard – she was using him as well, and she would at least be compensated for it, whereas he would be out several jewels, a quarterly allowance, and the rent on a fashionable townhouse in a fashionable part of town – no, if he felt uneasy and frustrated, if he felt like he wanted to put his damned fist though a brick wall, it was because he was using Maria to banish the nightmare that Lily Evans was from his mind. He never wanted to wake up hard and tortured again, knowing she was the cause, he just wanted to drown himself in another woman until the very memory of his recurring dream dissolved and faded into nothingness, because Merlin knew he was never going to act on that particular erotic fantasy because he shouldn’t like her like that. The though of making love to her, and not just bedding her, made him break out in a cold sweat, even as it swirled a ripple of desire right through his gut. Bloody hell, the woman must’ve bewitched him, there could be no other explanation for the dream, and besides, even now he could swear he could smell her. It was that maddening combination of lilies and soap, that beguiling scent that had washed over him while they were in Hyde Park.

“Is everything all right?” Maria called out.

“Perfect,” James said, voice sounding tight to his own ears. He began to hum, something he’d always done to relax, and he turned, even started to take a step forward, because after all Miss Rosso was waiting for him, but the damned scent followed him and his foot hesitated in midair, his step forward proved to be a small one instead of his usual long stride, and he kept turning, his nose instinctively twisting his eyes toward where he knew there couldn’t be lilies until he saw her under his desk, crouching like a frog. It was a wonder he didn’t drop the whiskey as their eyes met, and he saw hers widen with panic and fright.

Good, he thought savagely. What the hell was she doing here? Wasn’t making a scene after he doused himself in the filthy water of the Serpentine to rescue her enough for her bloodthirsty spirit? Did she need to spy on him as well?

“Maria,” he said smoothly, moving forward toward the desk until he was nearly stepping on Lily’s hand. “I have suddenly remembered an urgent matter of business that must be dealt with immediately.”

“This very night?” she asked, quite dubious.

“I’m afraid so. Allow me to walk you to the door,” he said, and although the singer’s eyes were curious, she still took his arm and forgave him for his rudeness for not taking her back to the music room.

“I am a grown woman, I believe I can manage the short distance,” she laughed, a low, sultry sound that should’ve seduced him. “And furthermore, I suspect there isn’t a woman alive who could deny you forgiveness with that smile.”

“You are of a rare kind, Maria Rosso,” he replied, hoping she couldn’t feel how far his head was from this conversation. Not too much physically, since Lily was just a few steps away, but metaphorically…

“But not, apparently, rare enough,” she murmured before floating out, finally giving James the possibility to shut the door with a decisive click, turn the key and pocked it. At the sound, Lily crawled out of her hiding place, leaning on the edge of the desk for support, apparently unable to start the much-needed explanation she had to give about her presence.

“Well?” he asked, breaking the bubble of silence.

“It was an accident!” she exclaimed. “I was sitting in the hall and I heard you coming. I was just trying to avoid you and your lover, to spare the embarrassment to everyone...”

“So you decided to invade my private office?” he asked, suspicious.

“I didn’t know it was your office. I…” she started, but was unable to finish her sentence, probably intimidated by his deliberate proximity. He could swear he was hearing the frantic beating of her heart coming from beneath the bodice.

“I think perhaps you did know this was my office,” he murmured, letting his forefinger trail down the side of her cheek. “Perhaps you didn’t seek to avoid me at all, on the contrary, you desired something else, something more… insane?”

Lily swallowed convulsively, long past the point of trying to maintain her composure.

“What do you say to that?” he asked, his finger sliding along her jawline.

Her lips parted, but she couldn’t have uttered a word if her life had depended on it. He wore no gloves, he removed them during his interrupted tryst with Maria, and the touch of his skin against her was so powerful it seemed to control her body, for she breathed when he paused, stopped when he moved. He had no doubt their hearts were beating in time as his breath kissed her lips, and he smiled, victorious, when she deleted the little distance still separating them. It was evident she was an innocent who wouldn’t know what it was like to have a man so near the heat of his body seeped through her clothes, who wouldn’t recognize the first prickles of desire, nor would she understand that slow, swirling heat in the core of her being, but it was there, he could see it in her face with only one look of his experienced eyes.

James told himself that if she hadn’t kissed him, he would’ve stopped right there, left her bothered and breathless, but he knew he was lying, he knew the moment there had been barely an inch between their faces back in her house and he resisted the pull to give in to her beguiling scent only because the footman might’ve saw them. But right now, there was no chaperone, they were in the privacy of his study, her mother was probably immersed in conversation and the prickles of desire he’d meant to spark within her suddenly ignited him, sending a warm claw of need to the very tips of his toes. Although her kiss had been chaste, and rather desperate, the fingers he’d been trailing along her cheek to torture her suddenly became a hand that cupped the back of her head, and his lips took hers in an explosion of desire, making her gasp against his mouth, something he took advantage of to slide his tongue between them. She was pliant in his arms, so James pressed his suit further by allowing one of his hands to slide down her back and cup the gentle curve of her derriere.

It was madness, he knew he should stop and he damned well shouldn’t have started, but his body was racing with need and he felt so good he had no intention of letting her go. It was like when he was younger, with no care in the world, and his father was still alive, ready to rule the family and gift him with the chance to mess up without consequences a little more, and at the same time he found she possessed something that suited him like no woman ever had before. Something about her was just right, maybe her smell, or maybe the way she felt in his arms, and he knew that if he stripped off all of her clothes and took her there on the carpet on the floor of his study, she would fit underneath him, around him, just right. A low, triumphant growl emerged from James’ mouth as he moved it to her slender neck and further down, in the expanse of skin usually hidden by the bodice he moved slightly, enough to not expose her right away but still more than decency allowed. With ragged and fast breath, he pinned her to his desk, crazed, frantic, leaving small red marks wherever he sucked, regardless of the consequences.

“Do you still hate me?” he asked, and when she slightly shook her head, he cupped one of her breasts, covering it entirely with his hand. Just as he was plotting the best course back to her lips, he heard the perfectly awful sound of Sirius’ voice outside the door.

“James!” he shouted. “I know you’re here and your mother does too. She needs your assistance and asked me to tell you to stop fucking Miss Rosso.”

Miss Evans, blissfully unaware of how close she’d come to having been pleasured utterly senseless, threw a horrified look to the door.

“One of these days,” James muttered, “I’m going to have to kill him.”

[mist-the-wannabe-linguist]

Man, the more I think about future alternate history of Temeraire the more it looks like the 20th century would see a massive decline if not outright near-extinction of heavyweights dragons, at least those in Europe and maybe Russia

It's 1914, dragons in Europe have had rights for a while now, still not 1:1 to humans (not sure where women's rights would be at in Temeraire universe so maybe dragons are on par with human women) but we're getting there. They aren't seen as beasts or intelligent warships anymore. But then World War I begins and the propaganda machine is everpresent and merciless. It is every man's duty to defend his country or else he is a coward and a weakling and deserving of shame, and for dragons, whose size and strength is incomparable to humans, this applies tenfold. Not to mention the fact that dragons require lots of food from the already dwindling wartime resources. The pressure on dragons to "pull their weight" would be massive. And so most of them join the war effort, working as messengers, reconnaissance, moving cargo, or serving as soldiers in their own right, old but still capable dragons once again taking on harnesses and crews like they have 100 years ago and teaching the younger ones the tactics they still vividly remember. But this is not the 1800s anymore, technology has progressed and just like the traditional cavalry, dragons and their crews fall prey to modern artillery and machine guns. Smaller, lighter breeds manage to keep ahead of the relatively primitive technology, but the large and slow heavyweights become little more than gigantic moving targets. In this world, the term The Lost Generation rings even more true.

Meanwhile in Russia the period of chaos after the dissolution of Russian breeding grounds during the Napoleonic wars has long since passed, with sky-high costs in both human and dragon lives. By the 1830s, some of the few remaining dragons were lured back to human society with promises of steady food and treasures, and it did not take long for things to return to what they used to be. Dragons were indeed treated better now, but still far from equal, their situation more reminiscent to pre-Temeraire Britain, and there was still a strongly baked-in hierarchy of preferential treatment based on dragon size. Come 1917. The war drags on, living conditions plummet and unrest rapidly rises in the Russian Empire. Still not seeing any of the societal changes that dragons of Western Europe enjoyed, Russian dragons find much common ground with peasants, especially the small lightweight dragons, and calls for a change became louder. Humans and dragons alike united by the vision of peace, freedom, prosperity and equality for all, the Socialist Revolution sweeps through the country with the speed of a grey courier's flight. A republic is established, the tsar and his family are executed, same as thousands of other members of nobility, the wealthy, and others seen as enemies of the state. This includes many dragons who did not side with the revolution, particularly those who refused to part with their hoards. Many heavyweights saw themselves as targets, viewed as symbols of the imperial power by the people and as tyrants in their own right by smaller dragons. Then the middleweights, and even lightweights do not avoid suspicion. Talks of the inherent greed and savagery of dragons find more and more voices, people remind themselves of the brutality unleashed by freed dragons a hundred years ago. With the increasing industrialization and technological development, there are opinions that dragons have no place in a modern world, claims that "why need dragons when we can achieve just as much with machines and pure human ingenuity". Many dragons find themselves out of work and out of food, and retreat to the wilderness. Those who remain are mostly the small ones, just large enough to live similar to humans, eat as much as humans and work according to human standards.

[goodqueenaly]

I wanted to appreciate a few aspects of Aegon III’s life and personality that feel reflected or paralleled in the life and personality of his son Baelor.

For one, Gyldayn makes a very brief mention that “[a]s a man grown, [Aegon III] … was known to wear a hair shirt under the velvets and satins required of a king”. We know virtually nothing about Aegon III’s personal piety, but it is at least possible that during his adult years the king undertook this sign of self-mortification, usually (and certainly in Westeros) associated with religious repentance, because he sought to contextualize the terrible calamities of his life in the Faith of the Seven. Perhaps the king, who had witnessed and endured so much terrible loss during his childhood, wanted to personally repent for what he might have seen as the sins of his family and/or the realm (compare, say, my suggestions on Alysanne Osgrey potentially having done the same if she voluntarily chose to join the silent sisters). The selfish ambitions of both black and green factions, resulting in the chaos and destruction of the Dance for both House Targaryen and (perhaps even more importantly, in the king's mind) the people of Westeros, were, so Aegon III might have seen them, national tragedies for which he, as king of that nation, would offer himself as a sort of sacrificial victim. Maybe Aegon decided that he would suffer, regularly and personally, so that his people would never suffer; if their king undertook this penance, he would perhaps be that much less likely to forget the suffering his own family had caused them. 

We do not know at this point whether Baelor himself specifically wore a hair shirt, although I certainly would not be surprised if GRRM reveals as much in the future: after all, Lancel Lannister, who himself has venerated the memory of Blessed Baelor (and whose marriage to Amerei Frey broadly mirrors Baelor’s marriage to Daena Targaryen) had as of AFFC taken to wearing a hair shirt. Even if he did not do so, however, Baelor used other means of self-mortification as demonstrations of his devotion and humility. Indeed, his journey to Dorne served as a sort of personal repentance for what Baelor seems to have seen as the sins of Daeron’s war in Dorne: by walking barefoot, clad only in sackcloth, Baelor subjected himself to physical pain and deprivation explicitly as (so Yandel quotes him) an “act of piety” in suing for peace. Likewise, during his reign, Baelor engaged in penitent fasts, depriving himself of all but the barest amount of bread and water in contrition for both his own sinful feelings and broader events he regretted: his apparent lusts, the short-lived twins born to his cousin Naerys, and the birth of Daemon Waters to his sister Daena. By physically harming himself almost to the point of death (and - ostensibly - actually, in the end), Baelor seems to have wished to repent for what he believed were the sinful natures of not just himself but also the wider world (including other Targaryens), much as his father may have wanted to use the wearing of a hair shirt to atone for the chaos and destruction of the Dance and the associated guilt of House Targaryen. 

Gyldayn also notes that during the Winter Fever, the young King Aegon III “spent his days visiting the sick, and often sat with them for hours, sometimes holding their hands in his own, or soothing their fevered brows with cool, damp cloths”. While Aegon's Kingsguard were apparently horrified by the king’s willingness to visit the sick and physically interact with them, those who survived the infection reportedly praised the king’s “healing hands” as the explanation for their survival. Aegon III may have believed in the “magic in a king’s touch” which Gyldayn relates as a smallfolk superstition, or the supposed Targaryen disease resistance/immunity (which, for the record, I think is in practice bullshit, but that’s mostly beside the point), but his actions objectively demonstrated a true courage on Aegon’s part. That the Winter Fever had already proven devastating by the time Aegon III began his visits to the sick was clear: this was a disease which had wiped out half the population of Sisterton, struck down thousands in White Harbor, Gulltown, Maidenpool, and Duskendale, and reportedly killed three quarters of those infected. Yet Aegon III did not apparently hesitate to go personally to the bedsides of the infected and dying, and not merely as a passive observer either. By himself holding their hands, wiping their brows, and allowing the sick the opportunity to have someone to speak to during a time of mandated isolation and fear (no less a person than the king himself, in fact), Aegon underlined his resolve to serve his people, no matter their rank or status. No king was so great, Aegon III may have wanted to show, that he could not put himself at the service of the least of his people; he had been made king not to glory in the throne but to use his power for the benefit of those he ruled. 

Aegon III’s personal devotion to the sick, crossing the divide of rank, reminds me of a very brief allusion to an action taken by Baelor the Blessed. In “Davos IV” ASOS, after Stannis astounds Axell Florent by stating his intent to hear Davos’ opinion on his, Axell’s, planned attack against Claw Isle, Davos compares Axell’s reaction to “the look that proud Lord Belgrave must have worn, the day King Baelor the Blessed had commanded him to wash the beggar's ulcerous feet”. Given Baelor’s dedication to characteristic expressions of charity for the benefit of his poorest subjects - Yandel describing how Baelor “emptied the treasury regularly to fund his charitable acts, including the year when he donated a loaf of bread daily to every man and woman in the city” - Baelor may have decided to take matters a step farther, literally serving his subjects by washing the feet of the poor. Likewise, given Davos’ description of that Lord Belgrave as “proud”, it may have been the case (and not mutually exclusively with the prior thought) that Baelor specifically ordered this lord to wash a beggar’s feet to teach him, Belgrave, the same humility and commitment to (what Baelor saw as) the service of the poor as he, Baelor, professed. Just as Stannis had summarily humbled Ser Axell by promoting the worth of a smallfolk (or, at least, about as close as the series ever gets in its POV characters), so Baelor, it appears, wanted to humble Lord Belgrave by reminding him that even the greatest in the land could and should recognize the worth of the least, as represented by that beggar. (It perhaps goes without saying that, as GRRM has already explicitly cited Jesus as inspiration for the appearance of Baelor, so the author may also have been thinking about the Gospel account of Jesus washing the feet of the Apostles at the Last Supper for inspiration for this moment, as well as the royal practice of this rite on Maundy Thursday in, for example, any number of European monarchies.)

Whatever the specific context of this moment, I see again certain parallels between Baelor and Aegon III. Just as Aegon III would define his reign as one of service to his subjects - disdaining elaborate crowns in favor of a simple gold band, and promising not feasts and progresses but “full bellies and dancing bears” - so Baelor may have had that same desire to place the needs of his people first and foremost. As Aegon III had proven that being king required the readiness, even eagerness to care for one’s subjects on a personal, indeed intimate level, so Baelor may have wanted to emphasize that neither he nor any of his aristocrats could rest on their feudal privileges when faced with the miseries of the poor. The beggar afflicted with those “ulcerous feet” deserved, so I think Baelor believed, as much aid and compassion as did those infected with the Winter Fever during Aegon III’s reign, whom his father had so selflessly tended. These were the crown’s people, and they were suffering; it was, consequently, the crown’s responsibility, father and son may have agreed, to ease their sufferings as much as possible, either by the king doing so himself or (and again, perhaps not mutually exclusively) ordering his vassals to do the same. 

What I like about both of these examples is the way GRRM has the opportunity, as he continues to write about this period, to compare father and son and draw parallels between them. While on the surface Aegon III and Baelor may not appear particularly similar - and while their respective styles and philosophies of rule demonstrated pretty stark differences from one another - they are not entirely different personalities either. Baelor the septon-king did not emerge from a vacuum; he spent the first roughly 13 years of his life as the son of King Aegon III, who had himself been king for a decade by the time Baelor was born. As GRRM has so brilliantly discussed father-son relationships throughout his Westerosi works (see, for example, in “The Mystery Knight”), so I hope he uses Aegon III and Baelor as another chance to connect seemingly very disparate monarchs in paternal-filial influence. 

[tanadrin]

@sadoeconomist

Something politically aware people on every part of the political spectrum from the left to the right think is true and leaders of the Russian, Chinese, Israeli, etc. governments believe in enough to talk about publicly and make major geopolitical decisions based on maybe is not just a crazy fringe conspiracy theory, could be that there's some truth to the CIA, NED, etc. having more involvement in these events than the video author thinks I watched all this stuff happen in real time, and I read your notes, which went over how Russian hybrid warfare succeeded in Crimea in 2014. Every major power takes hybrid warfare seriously, what's objectively stupid is your mischaracterization of how it works. Trying to astroturf a revolution out of nowhere simply by paying random citizens en masse to overthrow the government would indeed be stupid but that's not what it is. Your notes seem to suggest that the video says US was paying little attention to eastern Europe until 2013 but Russia was frequently reacting to imaginary US provocations because they are stupid. It's like there's a giant America-shaped hole in the video's narrative. Ukraine was understood to be a NATO-Russia geopolitical battleground long before Euromaidan, it wasn't just Putin shadowboxing imaginary opponents out of pure stupidity that led to this.

You seem to be operating on the basic assumption that governments don't do stupid things for no reason, or fall prey to obviously inane conspiracy theories. That's simply not true; governments are led by human beings, human beings are subject to a common set of cognitive biases, and when you're an authoritarian right-winger (as the leaders of Russia, China, and Israel all are right now), an explanation for your apparent unpopularity that pins all the blame on the CIA instead of your shitty policies and your attempts to cling to power flatters those biases.

But we don't need to speculate about the propensity of governments to do stupid shit, because we have plenty of historical and contemporary examples of governments believing in nonsense: Havana Syndrome in the US, AIDS denialism in South Africa, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories in Nazi Germany and Imperial Russia, etc., etc. And often these false beliefs lead to real strategic blunders: the Bay of Pigs, the Iraq War, World War II, etc. Sometimes world leaders are stupid! Like, leadership probably tends to select for some kinds of intelligence and ability--charisma, social intelligence, and so forth--but it doesn't automatically make you a geopolitical genius, or make you immune to believing false things about the world.

And the biggest problem with the conspiracy theory outlined here isn't just that we can trace its origin to a fringe American political cult, it's that it's not necessary to explain any development in politics since 1989. There is no problem in understanding the revolutions of '89 or 2000-2014 that CIA involvement is necessary to solve. Indeed, as the videos point out (if you would actually watch them), trying to use "the CIA did it" as an explanation adds considerable problems, bc color revolution theory doesn't work. It's based on misconceptions, misunderstanding of data, and a healthy dose of paranoia.

The only real problem is trying to explain Putin's behavior--and that doesn't require color revolution theory to be true, only that Putin believes it is true. And why he would believe something is true, when he has the supposedly vast power of the Russian state at his beck and call, is easy to explain: authoritarian dictators surrounded by yes men do not have accurate pictures of the world! From Idi Amin to Saddam Hussein to Vladimir Putin, there is a common pattern of authoritarian dictators losing touch with reality, getting really weird, and coming to believe all kinds of counterproductive stuff that flatters their egos. It would be an even bigger problem to try to explain why Putin was immune to that dynamic after 24 years in power.

"World leaders don't shadowbox opponents out of pure stupidity" is an assumption that seems wholly ungrounded to me. Why not? World leaders do foolish things all the time on large and small scales. World leaders make mistakes. World leaders can become paranoid and out of touch--and if they lead countries without functioning electoral democracies, they can stay in power regardless. World leaders are not a magic special class of human being. They're just people. And whether it's because they're your uncle who watches nothing but OANN and Fox, or they're the President of Russia and they have yes-men and the Global Research guys telling them only what they want to hear, they can end up making absolute nonsense a load-bearing part of their worldview.