#you're a blessing to the community

[joffyworld]

AW MAN ALLIGATOR YOUR ART'S SO PRETTY AMD CUTE I FORGOT IT WAS SAD TOO :((((((

I have literally so many super-long depressing bishop comics so I decided to just do a two-panel one to get back in the swing of finishing these.

In my AU comic I think I mentioned once before, shamura kinda compulsively writes down absolutely everything they do, interviews other deities and amasses this like huge collection of stories and people and events. In a literal sense, they're the god of war but they kinda asserted themself as the god of knowledge through providing accounts of everything they witnessed over the ~100,000 years they were alive. Plus when their journals got rewritten into storybooks by their scribes, it made for good material to teach the kids to read/write. So when they get their dome smashed they forget most of it, and the three remaining siblings go through their writings to retell them stories and distract them from chronic pain? Sometimes Shamura remembers they were the main character of the stories, sometimes they don't, but they always enjoy the company when they're stuck in bed. And also, the plot twist of "it was you the whole time!" doesn't get old when you forget it happens every time

(I'm resisting the urge to spam a bunch of comic panel sketches of the lightning god Ala cause she's pretty important in my au...I will do that another time)

[lovesickvirus]

THERE'S THAT ONE BLOG QND THEYRE SO COOL IT MAKES ME CRY I WANNA BE FRIENDS WITH EM AND THWY SEEM NICE BUT IM SOOOO BAD AT SOCIALISING ILL KMS THEY'RE ZO COOL ANDF AWESOME I WANNA BE FRIENSF WITH THWM

[auguryofjellyfish]

This is the main blog of @misha-v and I just wanted to say that I really love the long commentary tags you leave on art reblogs complimenting all the little details, it means so much to me when ppl notice and appreciate those and take the time to point those out and explain why they like them, you especially. It makes me feel rlly good inside and it kind of keeps me going because I know for a fact that you love it to the point where you're willing to dedicate your time to leaving those long tags ^^

So thank you, thank you so much ^-^

hi!! thank you for taking the time to write such a long and kind message! i'm always blown away when people tell me they appreciate my tags, like fr, wow?? i'm so so happy to hear how they make you feel <3 the tetro community artists create a lot of things that i find pleasant, thought-provoking, impactful, or things that evoke feelings in general, which makes the words come to me more easily. i always like it when i find i have a lot of things to say about a piece of art! i'm glad that my words can brighten people's day too.

speaking of yapping, i hope you don't mind cuz i wanna do that right now :3c I LOVE YOUR ART!!! you have mastery over using shapes, the general "blockiness" of your style reminds me of those early 2000s cartoon network shows, which is nice to see because these artstyles aren't that popular nowadays. so that, + the smoothness and thickness of your line art makes your character artwork look really defined and sharp.

and your colour choices... i have no idea how you do it, but they're just sublime. like in your DRDT designs, for example, the cream + gentle red of okazaki's suit, the greenish black of hiroaki's, the vibrant orange of isono's hair contrasted with the bluish green, the beautiful purples, pink and white of tamba's outfit... bruh. this stuff almost brings me to tears. it's breathtaking how beautiful these colours are, and how well they go with each other. they make my brain go brrrr.... not to mention the designs themselves are fire too RAAHHH!!! lies down... i just think it's neat.

also i need, neeed to talk about your chap 3 au. it's so meaningful to me. i've seen people kill off wada as a victim in their AUs A LOT, it's like a staple at this point. usually, it's him taking someone else's place or just to have him die in general ig, and i don't find that very compelling. like, oh wow, victim wada?? definitely haven't seen that before lol. but in your au, he dies, but it was because he decided to strike back against his abuser, and i find that so beautiful.

disclaimer, ik okazaki is also a teenager and i'm not celebrating her death etc. but the fact still stands that wada is a victim, hers and in general, and you had him take back some of his power for the first time in his life. not only that, he also inadvertently saved a person he loved from being executed (whether it was a good thing for her is another matter). the killing game itself makes the participants inherently powerless, but he acted with as much agency as you can while being inside it.

i LOVE this wada. this is such a wonderful take on his character, a version of him that's a bit to the left, that values himself and his own dignity a bit more than in canon. and maybe one that holds onto bitterness/anger more, as well. but it STILL MAKES SENSE!! it doesn't feel OOC! this au just took the him that stabbed okazaki as self defense and turned that into more active and retaliatory force.

also, strangling a mf to death with HDMI cables is just iconic. pure king shit. anyway... i'm very glad that canon wada's survived this long, and i love him for who he is, but if he had to die, it wouldn't be so bad if it had gone something like this. thank you for creating such an awesome AU.

[chipmunkweirdo]

Hey, Jenna! I got ten minutes to close my laptop before my Mum starts yelling, again. I've got nine hours before my test tomorrow. I will never get enough time or the vocabulary to tell you just how much of a wonderful person you are! I wanted to say this on discord - but it's not letting me log in, for some reason - and I just wanted to let you know that I am absolutely enthralled by your love for AATC.

It seems like such a simple thing to say, but so many people talk about their “love” for the show and just don't do anything with it, you know. It feels like a platitude. An empty emotion. But, your love for AATC makes me love it even more.

Thank you for writing. I'm so glad to have you as a friend. I'm so happy you got the job, because you deserve it. And you deserve every good thing in this world, because the world is a better place as it has you in it.

GOOD LUCK ON THE TEST! I HOPE YOU ACE IT!

I’m in happy tears right now. Thank you! Thank you so much! I am so blessed to have such a wonderful friend like you.

I’m thankful for this opportunity and although I’m still anxious, I’m going to take the leap and I hope that it works out in my favor.

HEARING THAT MY LOVE FOR AATC IS CONTAGIOUS AND LIKE��BLEEDS ONTO OTHER PEOPLE IS MAKING ME SMILE SO DANG HARD!

Growing up, I was always told that “you like the chipmunks too much” “isn’t there more to you than that?” “You’ll have to give them up some day and be an adult.”

But here I am. An adult. Who still likes, no LOVES AATC to the point where the characters never leave my brain. And I am mostly, mostly FUNCTIONAL!

Also your comments are my fics are the best and I love that you and I can ramble to each other for hours!

[gospel-orchestrated]

handed out one of my pamphlets to a classmate and before he went home he said "hey, c. The Orchestrator. Orange and vanilla...? Or.."

i told him chocolate. chocolate and cherry, especially, but orange would work too, because it's his color. figured he was going to do some kind of personal sacrifice for the upcoming finals. nothing too odd, but wonderful all the same because someone other than me takes The Orchestrator seriously enough to offer things up.

fast forward 2 weeks and he shows up in class with the brightest orange homemade macarons i have ever seen in my short earthly life and passed them out to the entire class, in packs of three

got extras to leave on my altar. what a win

[leaveharmony]

Me the first time through, followed immediately by Al ready to yell a man into surviving: "Oh, absolutely fucking not."

[wolves-in-the-world]

tags on krakenartificer's post about a leverage au where nate enters the priesthood but ends up running cons for people who come to him for help anyway:

#now i need a crossover episode of catholic priest nate who's still running leverage style shenanigans #with father brown [via @trivalentlinks]

thank you for making me stare at the wall in fascination and horror about this crossover

they'd be occasional allies occasional confidantes they'd go behind each other's backs once or twice and only kinda regret it. This nate hasn't gone through the same loss as in canon, but that wouldn't make him a whole lot softer, so he'd be fundamentally irritated with father brown - his tested and unshakeable belief and his optimism about the human condition - and father brown would be generally concerned about everyone on nate's end, and nate not the least of it. They'd play chess together and be fairly well-matched. They'd visit each other's confessionals to check in.

we'd get some interesting acknowledgement of father brown's "I'm nice and simple and harmless" grift (which I could also call power negativity) which is only kind of a grift because he really is that nice and harmless beneath, except that he uses it to get information from people.

flambeau would be utterly thrilled and (playfully?) insulted not to be father brown's only criminal associate.

the leverage crew would be correctly suspicious of flambeau, I think, but sophie would greet him by name - possibly with a kiss to the cheek, possibly eyeing him like he's a viper in their midst - and reference some very improbable occasion when they were after the same prize. He mentions she was using a different name then; he doesn't say what it was. Bonus points if he also had his eye on the dagger in the Rashomon Job but had the flu / was unexpectedly in prison / had to attend a grandmother's funeral at the time.

I have this certainty in my mind that the leverage crew would be largely dismissive of sid's abilities and he'd kind of snort and roll his eyes about it - he's at worst a common criminal and very lower class, so he's used to being understimated - and surprise them with his connections or lock-picking or holding his own in a brawl or fixing an elderly car in the quickest dirtiest way imaginable. (Parker would decide she likes him then; the others would be reassured after seeing how gentle he is when talking with her.) He'd also nope out of leverage's business at a sensible time, because father brown's rubbed off on him and he doesn't actually want that kind of danger - unless the con's personal.

(I'm not sure whether to set this in leverage time or drag it back to father brown's 1950s so I'm settling for mashing the two together and pretending it's not an issue. See also: geography.)

… father brown would have I think one harrowing conversation with eliot where they mention their time in the military, the marks that killing people and losing people leaves on a person - father brown already does this in canon, tells someone it's unfair that they're mired in trauma and alcoholism when he found his faith through trauma instead, it floored me - and after brushing on repentance and god here, he wouldn't bring it up with eliot again. (I think father brown varies on this in canon, frankly, but he often respects that kind of boundary, and I think he'd recognise a wound so sore it should be left to heal however it can.)

(yes I'm playing with fictional priests like barbie dolls but no I'm not comfortable with the conversion aspects, so apologies and bear with me while I skate on past that.)

(he'd describe eliot as a good person, once, or as someone working very hard at it. Eliot would be on edge about that for the entire con, finding a little too much uneasy satisfaction in getting to knock people out and play the bad guy - play at the simpler stuff he used to do. Sophie might catch father brown for a word about it; father brown wouldn't be that clumsy again.)

I think father brown and nate would both talk bunty out of getting involved in a joint kembleford-leverage operation except in the most innocent way possible. The problem is she actually would make a good getaway driver, and she's thrilled with the idea, but she's already had some run-ins with the press and the law and can't risk another; luckily she's better used as a distraction elsewhere.

and I'm sorry to do this, but I think lady felicia's husband would be a mark or potential mark at one point. It would be fraught.

(the main reason I haven't recommended father brown's heist episode (s7e10), aside from not having a background on the politics in it, is that it shows lady felicia as a victim and pulls the heist on her behalf. The show largely convinced me to ignore the messy reality of her and her husband's inherited wealth, but that episode made me kinda uncomfortable - which is a shame, because seeing these characters pull a heist was fucking great.)

mrs mccarthy would be used against her will or knowledge as a distraction while someone's pockets are picked. She isn't told until afterwards, and then only half by accident. She is, of course, horrified. Father brown was absolutely the one to suggest it in planning, but flambeau slips in mid-apology to smoothly take the blame.

I could in fact go on and this is in fact a problem.

—

editing to continue:

I'm actually thinking that father brown might approach eliot from an ex-military angle and not a Religious Authority angle at all - eliot was raised protestant, after all, and it's an entirely different vibe. And I have to think eliot's guarded around father brown for the very fact that he's a priest and seems to mean it in a way that nate, I feel, wouldn't. So they may avoid the topic entirely, or as close to it as they can when brushing on, well, eliot's entire moral injury situation. Which is good news for me.

bunty would admire parker for being different and capable and getting up to exciting things, though would probably fail at any attempts at friendship until she thinks to ask what parker likes doing and ends up learning to pick pockets that evening. The second those two are around buildings tall enough to rappel down she's in danger. (The second parker can slip away at night she's giving the church a go; father brown gives her a look the night before and quietly warns her about the dodgy roof.)

mrs mccarthy decides fairly quickly that hardison is a very nice young man (his nana instincts are online and functional) even if he spends far too much time on the wretched computer. She's determined to feed him and half the time he's determined to find ways to politely refuse, though the strawberry scones are actually pretty good.

she's appalled by eliot's job, and fiercely territorial of her kitchen when he offers help, even just cleaning up, but once she's seen him get in the way of trouble she's absolutely catching his arm and half hiding behind him in any crisis real or perceived. (She still doesn't approve of him.)

lady felicia sees hardison and eliot as two very different kinds of novelties and does some talking to hardison about tech (mostly listening and marveling) and some quietly ogling both of them, and especially eliot once she's seen him fighting. (Eliot unfortunately turned on his charm when he realised she sort of expected it. She doesn't get to chat with charming southern gents all that often - it's very shallow, and she's not serious about it.)

thank goodness bunty's too young for eliot so I don't have to go there. He has to tuck her out of sight in a barn at some point when trouble's headed their way; when the mess is almost cleaned up and she's grabbed a rifle from somewhere to tell the the remaining goon to clear off, with every appearance of competence, eliot takes it from her and disarms it with a smear of blood under his nose and a slightly betrayed expression.

hardison and sid get along, aside from a little initial insecurity on the parker front, and get to bitch a bit about flambeau, who hardison mistrusts from the start.

flambeau... he admires parker, from a distance - professionally and not very effusively - but after he watches her work for a while he seems to realise who she was trained by, and tells her as much. He says he was too, for a very short time, and it's unclear if he'd gain anything from making it up. Says that he and archie had a difference of opinion - and has a way of saying it that implies there might have been fire involved.

[dandelionjack]

single? taken? in a parasocial relationship with a deceased late 90s cult classic am radio talk show host?

[aseuki]

Hello! I'm going around the Kirby community trying to spread positivity wherever I can! I know you post more than just Kirby, but I just wanted to drop by and say that both have been a joy to follow and I'm always happy to see your work on my dash! Wishing you all the best! Please do take care, and have a wonderful day!

aaaa thank you for the kind words anon??? It means a lot that you enjoy my work, and I hope you enjoy the many more to come!!

[asheanon]

Showing some appreciation with a 😳 to Branson from Angela!

(Still figuring out how these work but they look fun so I want to give it a shot! 😅)

(💕 You got this, my dude. As long as the context is there and/or readable, it's all good - and it always has been for the things you've sent in! You're doing just fine.~)

". . ."

When a pretty face lets you know that you're "pretty" and you don't have the processing power to properly react to that information as you've never felt "pretty." Not for a single day in your life.

"... Thanks."

Like a turtle retreating within its shell, it is as if he too withdraws beneath the brim of his hat. Though portraying the monotonous standard, there is a rosiness to what can still be seen of his ashen, hirsute cheeks. 🖤

[gabetheunknown]

dear twitter/reddit refugees, for the love of god reblog things you like to keep the insanity train running

[magdaclaire]

don't be fucking stupid and i won't call you fucking stupid

[kabretoss]

dinosaur kid in the 90s, never accused of being a tomboy and used to love dresses until I went 180 and rejected them when I realized they were compulsory Girl Formalwear

blissfully don't think about gender throughout most of my teens

straight because boyfriend? have a minor panic when said boyfriend comes out to me as bi. have a Homophobic Moment(tm) when I think about my boyfriend leaving me for a boy

promptly eat my words about a year later when I'm having a sleepover with my bestie at the time and the thought occurs, unbidden, "if she were down I'd have sex with her"

(never made a move on that one. though later I'll find out a couple of my Girl Crushes at the time were queer)

cautiously and tentatively start thinking of myself as bi

start discovering I enjoy wearing masculine fashion

the hammer comes down hard on that one from my mom

for the next 10+ years I dress almost exclusively in baggy pants and hoodies. i am still undoing this damage.

BUT: the next time I end up with a Bestie Crush, I make a move and it goes well (hi @cherrehc!) (I end up marrying her. like 15 years later) (we like to take our time with things)

20s are an occasional sexuality buffet (with Cherry's thumbs-up) and I confirm that yes I do enjoy sex, and yes I do enjoy it with multiple genders

still not thinking about gender: am aware by this age of Transgender People and am cool with them but I've never felt like a boy so that's not what I am, right?

(Even if, when puberty really took hold, I felt completely alienated from my secondary sex characteristics? that's normal, feeling like your body isn't yours but is a barbie's, right? I'm hot and I like being hot, so I'm a cis girl, right??? people like my tits and I like that so I must be a cis girl, right????)

at the same time find myself playing nonbinary characters in RP situations before they are in vogue in the wider community.

(reading some of my old RP logs is wild. it is all RIGHT. THERE. in text from when I was 20 and had never heard the word nonbinary.)

(I have avoided RPing men up until about this point because "I don't know how to play a guy". women are already strange to me: men must be aliens.)

(then a particular character occurs and something clicks.)

fast forward to my early thirties. one of my best college friends is on T, has been calling himself a male name for years, and comes out first as nonbinary and then as a man.

wait.

wait.

wait.

if I'm not a girl I don't have to be a boy? I don't have to be a boy to not be a girl? well that's closer, but what does that leave me?

I hear the word agender.

grief.

the loss of so much time. looking back on this timeline of events and feeling the most profound sense of something gained, late, not too late but still so late. It's never too late to know yourself, but you lose time. You lose the ability to experience parts of your life, ones you can never relive, as your genuine self. In my case, I also may have lost the window in which I can safely medically transition, as other health issues have cropped up since I was young.

I will never get to be a young nonbinary person: I never was, because I was never allowed to imagine myself that was.

I was a "girl". I was an alienated, lonely girl, who didn't understand why she felt, even when invited, that female spaces were wrong and strange. There are other reasons for that too, but I think a huge part is gender. I was invited repeatedly into the world of the feminine by good women in my life, but I never went there. I didn't feel the pull of it, even when I wanted the friendship and companionship that seemed to live there.

I lived in limbo. I felt like -- not a gender failure, but a kind of nothing. An empty space. a void. I didn't have something missing, I was something missing.

it's a big grief. It's ameliorated by getting to see young people living as the people they are, watching others grow up with the self-knowledge I was never allowed to come to.

I don't know where all the agender people my age are: odds are good that attrition bore them into silence or suicide, or that life has not yet introduced the opportunity for them to learn better than how they were raised, or they're (like me) just so very fucking tired and unable to build community themselves. I know a few of y'all here fall into that category and I'm quietly collectively rooting for us, here; I know one or two others from my union and animation work.

But it brings me so much joy to see younger queer communities embracing gender diversity. Treasure it. It may still be an uphill struggle, and newly dangerous in a different way to be visible, but at least you're not lost alone and blind in the dark woods thinking that sight is a myth: you have each other, and you know what you are.

LGBTQ+ folk what was your gender/sexuality pipeline?

[heritageposts]

🇵🇸 From Friends of Al-Aqsa (FOA):

This Ramadan make sure you’re not breaking your fast with the taste of apartheid. All you need to do is check the label to avoid buying dates from apartheid Israel. This includes dates labelled from Israel, the West Bank and the Jordan Valley or if the country of origin is not shown. Ramadan is a time of reflection and self-improvement. During this month we are more conscious of our actions and how they affect others. Israel is the world’s largest producer of Medjoul dates. Let's be conscious of not buying dates that support Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine and apartheid regime. * Major UK supermarkets like ASDA, Tesco, Iceland and Waitrose all sell dates from apartheid Israel as well as local grocery stores * The UK is the second-biggest importer of Israeli dates in Europe 50% of Israeli dates are exported to Europe, where the UK, Netherlands, France, Spain and Italy import huge quantities of the dried fruit. In 2020 the UK imported over 3000 tonnes of dates from Israel, worth roughly 7.5 million pounds. There are two peaks of date consumption in Europe. One is during the month of Ramadan and the other is during New Year’s Eve and Christmas. Boycotting Israeli dates in Ramadan is a concerted community effort that can show we are not powerless. It would be brilliant to see all Israeli dates still left on shelves across the UK and Europe at the end of the blessed month. This would reflect our strength as a community to stand together with a very important message: We will not support the oppression of Palestinians and we will not be complicit in Israeli apartheid. So, this Ramadan #CheckTheLabel and boycott Israeli dates.

With Ramadan approaching, please consider sharing!

If you're in the UK, they also have leaflets available for order on their webpage. These tie into their upcoming campaign #CheckTheLabel, with a national day of action on the 16th of February.

Again, check their webpage for more info.

[yanderedrabbles]

Yandere Mobster

Chicago - 1931 The Height of Prohibition The mafia is earning top dollar smuggling alcohol into the country. And one mobster has his eye on you.

Yandere! Mobster who's a made man, who drives a nice car even after the stock market crash forced most people to sell theirs.

Yandere! Mobster who wears a tailored suit and fedora, his black hair swept back. Who everyone in the neighbourhood says is a good guy, a decent man, even if he does work for the don.

Yandere! Mobster who pulls up next to you when you're walking home from work. It's late and clouds are scudding across the moon.

Yandere! Mobster who leans out his window and offers to drive you home. Who says these streets ain't safe for a pretty girl like you.

Yandere! Mobster who's known you since you were children. Two kids from immigrant families, playing together in the tiny bits of open space your apartments could offer.

Yandere! Mobster who keeps looking at you and marvelling at how grown up you both are. Where did that scruffy little girl go? And when did you get so pretty?

Yandere! Mobster who spends the whole drive chatting about old times. Who makes you laugh at his stories about running from the landlady and stashing his school books behind the canteen.

Yandere! Mobster who leans over you and pulls the door closed when you move to get out. Who looks you dead in the eye when he asks if you're having trouble with your rent.

The mob is a big part of the community afterall, and he knows just about everything.

You drop your eyes, embarrassed. Your brothers have their own families to care for, you say. Things are hard but if you pick up a few more shifts at the factory, you might manage it.

Yandere! Mobster who sighs and digs in his suit pocket. Who pulls out a stack of cash and counts it right in front you.

Yandere! Mobster who offers you enough for two months of rent. A small fortune to someone from your part of town.

You shake your head, horrified. You can't afford the interest, you tell him.

Yandere! Mobster who scoffs and asks if you really think he's offering a loan when you've known each other for years? It's a gift, to keep your mama out of the cold.

Yandere! Mobster who smiles at the hesitant way you accept the money. You're too proud to ever ask for help and he knows it. Just like when you were kids.

Yandere! Mobster who gets out and opens the car door for you like a gentleman, even if he knows the whole apartment building will talk about it.

Yandere! Mobster who grins that charming, good guy smile even though he has a gun holstered under his jacket and a shovel in the trunk. Who says he'll consider things even if you cook him dinner some time.

Yandere! Mobster who visits your ma while you're at work. Who tells her he's interested in you and wants her blessing. And your ma is all too happy to give it. He's such a good boy, she says, and she knows he's always had a soft spot for you.

Yandere! Mobster who insists on driving you home after work everyday. Even when you blush and complain that he's going out of his way.

Yandere! Mobster who gratefully accepts the gifts you offer him. Fresh baked bread, jars of your mama's famous marinara sauce, homecooked meals... Who eats so much better when you take care of him.

Yandere! Mobster who eventually runs out of luck and straight into trouble. What was supposed to be a routine whiskey delivery turns out to be a sting operation.

Yandere! Mobster who sees his partner get a hole blasted right through him and almost die. Who fires at the cops until his tommy gun is red hot and smoking. Who ends up with so much blood on his hands he ain't sure it will ever wash off.

Yandere! Mobster who finds himself at your door afterwards, his coat drenched by the rain.

Yandere! Mobster who doesn't resist when you pull him inside and strip away his jacket and shirt. There's blood on your hands after you hang up his coat, and you pretend not to notice it.

Yandere! Mobster who can see your curiosity fighting against your sense. In the end, you don't ask him a single question about it.

Yandere! Mobster who sinks gratefully into the bath you draw for him. And who falls asleep the second his head hits your pillow.

Yandere! Mobster who's gone by morning. His bloodstained coat gone with him.

Yandere! Mobster who asks around about you and finds out you've got a whole score of fellas vying for your hand.

Yandere! Mobster who let's it be known that he's interested in you and watches with satisfaction as all your potential suitors drop away.

Except for one. He just spits and says you're a grown woman and can choose your own man.

Yandere! Mobster and his buddies pick the guy up after a late shift. Tie his hands behind his back and gag him before they toss him in the trunk.

Yandere! Mobster who beats the shit out of him. Who breaks his nose with a knuckle duster and his ribs with a crowbar. Who grabs his hair with bloody fingers and hisses that you're off limits.

Yandere! Mobster whose buddies lounge against the warehouse wall and smoke, never bothering to question what a simple dock worker did to deserve such a brutal beating.

Yandere! Mobster who sniffs your hair when you hug him. He's like a dog - always making sure other men haven't left their scent on you.

Yandere! Mobster who let's his hands wander when he takes you out dancing. Who kisses you goodnight and let's his lips brush your neck before he pulls away.

Yandere! Mobster who goes home and jerks off to you, his teeth bared and head bent forward. Who snarls at you to take it, take it like a good girl.

Yandere! Mobster who tells his don about you - how pretty you are, how clever, how discreet. The man leans back in his chair and pulls on his cigar.

She'll never make a liar of you. You should marry her just for that.

Yandere! Mobster who shows up at your door a week later, an engagement ring burning a hole in his pocket.

Be my girl. And I promise I'll take care of you.

You think about the night he came to you covered in blood and not speaking a word. You think about your friend from the docks and the way he dissappeared. You think about the way people look away when you're with him in public.

You say yes, as though you have a choice.