#i really hope he's v snobbish

[might-be-tiny-gt]

No Big Deal

Chapter 1: A Story Served with Pancakes

———

Alejandra Sanchez is an average girl starting her Sophomore year of high school. She’s got good grades, great friends, and a loving, if a bit dysfunctional, family. Perfectly normal… almost. There is something that makes Ale different from the rest of her family, the rest of the world even. She’s only 4 inches tall. But it’s fine, her height hasn’t stopped her from living a perfectly normal human life and nothing’s gonna stop her now. That is until one night she encounters someone and he’s just as small as she is. Her whole world view shatters as she encounters someone who knows what she is, a borrower.

———

Alejandra dashed into the Queen’s hedge maze, the entire deck following closely behind. She hoped to confuse them but she didn’t really know the maze any better. She knew she couldn’t out run them for long, they were cards after all. They didn’t need to breathe, or eat, or rest, if the Queen demands, “Off with her head!” They won’t stop until heads rolled.

Unfortunately for Alejandra, her breathes we’re getting slower, her steps heavier, she was going to collapse any second. She stopped by the rose bush she had helped to paint red earlier. Little did she know then that would be exactly what lead her to becoming a fugitive, mere minutes away from saying goodbye to her own head. She could not rest easy as the stomping of the guards’ marching grew louder and louder. If she could not out run these soldiers she had to come up with a plan, her only two options being to hide or fight. The clearing she found herself in was large and spacious with no obvious hiding places in sight. She could attempt to hide in the walls of the maze itself but she worried the sound of the leaves rustling would alert the guards to her hiding spot. The only other plan would to be to prepare for a fight, but that don’t seem like a viable option either. She had just used up most of her energy running and even if she had her full strength 1 V 52 hardly seemed like an even match.

As the stomping and the shouts drew closer and closer, Alejandra resigned herself to her fate. She sat down at the foot of the rose bush and hugged her knees. She prayed that maybe now would be the time she would wake up from her dream, that her alarm would pull her back to reality before it became a nightmare. But no such thing happened. She did everything to stifle her tears but she just couldn’t hold back any longer. Tears ran down her cheeks like water from a waterfall. This whole thing felt too familiar. It was just like this when she first fell down and found herself in that wondrous little hallway with the impossibly tiny door. At the time she thought she never escape the hall until she had found the bottle simply labeled, “Drink Me.”

Then another memory came rushing back, one that inspired some spark of hope within her.

Alejandra reached into her pockets and pulled out two pieces of mushroom from either pocket. She had encountered a snobbish caterpillar earlier that afternoon who had instructed her to eat a piece of his mushroom to change her size.

“But which is which?” She muttered under her breathe. She had too much on her mind to remember which piece should make her grow and which piece would make her shrink. Lost in thought she didn’t realize how close she was to being found.

“I THINK I KNOW WHERE SHE WENT!”

“WELL WHAT ARE YOU DOING JUST STANDING THERE, LEAD THE WAY 8!”

Their shouts were too close to be coincidence, they were going to corner her any second now. With no better ideas she ate both pieces whole. She hoped they’d still have an affect on her and not cancel out.

“If it makes me grow bigger, I stand a fighting chance… and if it makes me grow smaller, I can hide until they give up the search..”

“Halt!” Came a shout from one side of the clearing, “By order of the queen!”

The guards had finally caught up and the mushroom was not having any sort of affect. In a panic, Alejandra tried running to the exit on the other side of the clearing only to run into another group of guards. Their pursuit pushed her back to the center of the maze until she was completely surrounded.

Two cards, the Ace of Hearts, clearly the leader, and the Ace of Spades, very clearly the executioner, stepped forward.

“Alejandra,” the Ace of Hearts began to read aloud from a large scroll, “You have been declared guilty of heinous crimes against our beloved Queen of Hearts including but not limited to conspiracy to cover up illegal white roses by painting them red, causing chaos in the courtroom, insulting her majesty, so on and so forth. By order of the Queen you shall lose your head effective immediately!”

The Ace of Hearts grabbed Alejandra before she could attempt any sort of escape while the Ace of Spades happily prepared his axe, lifting it above his head. Alejandra tried to fight back, doing everything in her power to free herself from the Ace’s grip, but she couldn’t get him to budge. A terrible feeling began in her, was this stress? Was it terror? She shut her eyes waiting for the axe to swing when she felt the Ace’s grip loosen. Suddenly, confused shouting began amongst the crowd.

“What’s this?”

“How dare she do such a thing!”

“This shall be added to your list of crimes I assure you.”

Alejandra opened her eyes to see that she was now nearly two feet taller than the soldiers, and still growing at a rapid pace. She realized that feeling wasn’t fear, at least not entirely, it was the mushroom finally taking affect. Looking down she could see the cards attempting to flee from her, trying not to be crushed under her feet. She felt herself stop growing and by then her head had grazed the clouds in the sky. As for the soldiers below?

“Hmm..” She bent down with a cocky grin, picking up the two Aces, “What was that you were saying?”

The Ace of Hearts wriggled in her hand, clearly terrified but doing his best not to convey it, “Y-You are breaking the rules! You shall put me down, make yourself an appropriate size, and properly face your execution!”

The Ace of Spades nodded in agreement.

“Why should I listen to you?” Alejandra tossed them aside and watched as they floated down like autumn leaves, “You’re nothing but a pack of cards.”

While several cards retreated, just as many tried fruitlessly to attack Alejandra. However at this size, even their weapons did nothings. Alejandra would simply brush them to the side with her foot, they weren’t a threat any longer.

Suddenly, a sinking feeling at the pit of her stomach made itself known. She knew that feeling, what it meant… She wouldn’t be this giant any longer, she was beginning to grow smaller. Afraid of what might happen if she found herself at her normal size amongst the aggravated guard she ran. Her first giant steps kicked up large clouds of dirt and dust that blinded the remaining perusing cards. As she stepped over the walls of the maze she felt herself getting smaller and smaller, faster and faster. Luckily she was able to escape the Queen’s domain by the time she returned to her normal size, but she didn’t stop shrinking. She kept running and running, shrinking and shrinking until she found herself seeking refuge under a towering tree root.

She took a moment to compose herself and check her surroundings. She assumed she was in a very dark wood of some kind, but something wasn’t right. The area didn’t look like she was in a forest filled with trees and plants and the fantastical creatures she expected from this place. No, it was more accurate to say that she found her self in a pitch black void with outlines of trees and grass extremely sparse and just barely visible to her eye. She had never been here before nor did she think she could navigate in such a massive space that was nothing but darkness. Instinctually she leaned her hand against the root she was hiding by and through she could barley see it, she most certainly felt it was there. She felt around the ground until she found what felt like a giant leaf. She did her best to fashion it like a tent or even a giant blanket. She felt comfortable resting there for the time seeing as she didn’t hear anything that sounded like the cards’ patrol.

“I-I’ll just wait here til dawn,” She said to no one in particular, “When the sun rises I’ll be able to see, and maybe find a way home then.”

“But there is no dawn here,” No one in particular replied.

Startled, Alejandra looked around for the source of the voice, finding nothing. That is until the no one began to laugh. Alejandra jerked her head up and noticed the moon, the only clearly visible thing in sight. Its beautiful crescent descended down and oriented itself into a large smile as the owner of the smile materialized in front of her, the Cheshire Cat. His fur seemed to glow in the darkness, it’s color overwhelming the space around them. Alejandra had encounter this mischievous cat earlier, but she was much bigger than him earlier and it was hard not to be intimidated by his wide grin now that that alone was significantly larger than her.

“What- What are you doing here?” Alejandra yelled, fearing her voice would not be heard unless she did.

The Cat looked down, finally acknowledging the girl with his eyes rather than his grin, “I noticed you found yourself at a dead end, thought I could lend a paw so to speak.”

“This isn’t a dead end. I was stuck in a dead end back the Queen’s maze, but this place is huge. In the morning I can look fo-“

The Cat cut her off, “But there is not morning in Tulgey Wood, and this is a dead end because you’ve stopped moving, but haven’t reached your end,” Then there was a pause, “Unless this is where you want to call your end?”

“I- no! I don’t want to spend of my life here! I want to wake up already! I… I WANT TO GO HOME.”

“Home? If you want to go home, and you go home by waking up… why haven’t you woken up already?”

That question stuck Alejandra like a ton of bricks. Why hasn’t she woken up? It wasn’t for a lack of trying. Was she just trapped in this dream for the foreseeable future? All she could muster was, “I don’t know…”

“I see, perhaps,” His spoke, grin unchanging, “I could help?”

“Help? Help how?“

“Isn’t it obvious? I can wake you up.”

“You can? Then please, wake me up!”

“I don’t think I should right now.”

“What?!” Alejandra wanted to scream so many thing at this troublesome cat but she felt like her lungs couldn’t continue for much longer, “You just told me I should wake up and now you refuse to help me?!”

“You see, Alice, my services come at a price. Are you satisfied with who you are right this second?”

“What does that have to do with your price?”

“That is the price, Are you satisfied with who you are right this second?”

Before she answered, Alejandra took a moment to ponder the question. Was this some weird trick? Had she some how changed as a person between now and when she first fell down? She didn’t hesitate a second longer, she was happy with who she was now and after everything she’s gone through, she’s ready to go home.

“Yes,” She said, “I am satisfied with who I am right this second.”

The Cat’s grin found a away to grow wider, “Very well,” He took a few steps closer to Alejandra who in response backed up until she back struck the root behind her and she could move no more. “You see Alice, in order to wake up, first you must fall asleep.”

As he said this, the tip of the Cat’s tail had lightly brushed Alejandra’s forehead. In that moment she felt a rush of clam and drowsiness overcome her body. She blinked a few time and found herself now laying on the ground which now felt as soft as her bed.

“Goodnight Alice.”

Then she drifted into a deep, deep slumber.

——————————————————

“Then what happened?!”

“Oye, not so loud, you’ll wake up the neighbors like that.”

“Sorry Mamá, but that can’t be how the story ends! That still doesn’t explain why Ale’s so small.”

“I’m getting that part.”

Ms. Sanchez had finished washing the last dish and took a seat at the kitchen counter next to her youngest son, Marcelo, “Now promise me, that you’ll finish your breakfast as I finish the story, Sí?”

Marco stabbed the last bit of his pancake and stuffed it in his mouth, turning to his mom with a proud smile, “Yes Mamá”

“Dios Mio” She muttered as she corrected her son’s table manners. “So when Alejandra woke up, she was back home in her bed but she brought a bit of magic back with her.”

Marcelo swallowed the last of his food and gasped, “The mushroom!”

“Well, yes and no. You see when the Cheshire Cat asked Ale about her being satisfied with who she was, she though he was asking if she felt like a good person. What he actually meant was her height, she was still a few inches tall after all.”

“So, he sent her back home, but at the same height she was at that moment?”

“Correct.“

“How did you and Papí react?”

“How did we react? Dios Mio, we were absolutely shocked, but Ale explained the whole story to us. Of course we wouldn’t have believed it if she wasn’t standing in our palm when she told us.”

“Mamá, will Ale ever grow back to normal?”

“Well, you’re just gonna have to ask your sister that.”

Marcelo nodded. He grabbed his plate and dashed to the kitchen sink placing his dish in the sink and trying very desperately to reach the handle to turn the water on. His mother, of course, turned it on for him, and he began cleaning his plate Mrs.Sanchez called out, “Oye Mijos, Marcelo already finished breakfast, if you don’t hurry you won’t have time to eat! Same thing applies to you Jośe!”

From upstairs she heard her oldest son, Juan Carlos, “Be down in a second, just waiting on Ale!”

Down the hall she could hear her husband, Jośe, accompanied by the sounds of haphazard typing, “Just finishing up this document, save me some pancakes!”

As Marcelo finished cleaning his dish and drying his hands, they could hear the cacophony of foot steps, Juan Carlos’ racing down the stairs and Jose’s rushing from the first floor office. It was only the first day of this school year, and already the familiar sounds of the family frantically getting their footing were falling into place. Mrs. Sanchez sighed, she wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I’m here,” With a stack full of documents barely in hand Jose took a seat at the table, “Did you save me any-“

“Pancakes?” Mrs. Sanchez handed Jose his breakfast before he finished his thought.

He leaned forward to give his wife a kiss, “Rosa, what would I do without you?”

“Make your own breakfast?” She quipped, “Don’t take too long. Marcelo needs to be dropped off in 40 minutes and your are not leaving without cleaning your plate.”

Jose looked up, his face already stuffed, nodding as of to say, I understand.

Rosario pinched the bridge of her nose, “Jose, small bites please. You’re even worse than Marcelo.”

Marcelo, who had been checking to make sure he had everything in his little backpack, chuckled with delight. It’s always fun when you get a win over a parent, even a minor one.

“Morning!” Entering the kitchen was Juan Carlos, but he wasn’t the one to greet them, “What’s for breakfast?”

Sitting on Juan Carlos’ shoulder was a small figure, barley 5 inches tall. Her hair was tied back with a bread tie to keep it in place. Despite the huge size difference between her and the everyone else in the kitchen, no one seemed to bat an eye at her presence. Makes sense, this is her family after all.

Juan Carlos took a seat at the table next to his father while letting the tiny girl climb down so she could take a seat on the table top itself.

“Oh look at you two,” Jose said nearly teary eyed as he cut his pancakes into more manageable bites, “Sophomores already… time flies. How’s the uniform Ale? Not too baggy, right?”

The tiny girl posed for her father, “It’s perfect dad. Not too baggy at all!”

Juan Carlos snickered, “Gee, it’s like it was tailor made for you.”

Mrs. Sanchez put down another plate of pancakes, this time for her son. She then addressed her smallest, “Ale, I made chocolate chip pancakes this morning but I know that it gets really messy. Would you like something else?”

With out hesitation Ale responded, “Can I have a slice of strawberry then?”

“I don’t know mi amor, the juice is just as messy as the chocolate chips…”

“Mama,” She pleaded, “I’m not a toddler, I can have strawberry without staining my clothes. Besides, dad just made me this uniform, you really think I’d be so reckless that I’d ruin it before making it to class.”

“Alright,” Rosario put her hands in the air as if surrendering, “One strawberry slice it is.”

While her mother rummaged through the fridge, Ale was greeted by her larger younger brother, “Ale!” He had his face pressed against the table.

Alejandra ran to the edge of the table, “Hey kiddo! Excited for your first day of 5th grade?” She playfully messed with his hair as she asked.

“Yup! Papi’s taking me this year! I’m super excited to see Justin and Danny again too!”

“Good, I’m glad.”

“Ale can I ask you something?”

Rosario passed by with Ale’s slice of strawberry, handing it to her on a napkin. To her, it was less of a strawberry slice and more of a strawberry steak. “Yeah of course, what’s up?” She replied before taking a bite of her sweet steak.

“Are you gonna grow back to your normal size?”

Ale was dumbfounded, What is he talking about? Ale’s eyes shifted until she found herself looking her mother’s way. She shot her a confused look while her mother responded with a suspicious grin. On a hunch Ale asked, “Did mom say anything about being bigger before?”

Marcelo nodded excitedly, “Yeah! She told me about how you followed the white rabbit and how the Cheshire Cat asked if you were ready to go home and-“

Above her, Juan Carlos nearly spat out his drink. She looked up to see him stifling his laughter. Ale rolled her eyes and held her hand up to Marcelo before taking another bite of her strawberry. That explains it, she thought. “Well Kiddo, I’m not sure if I can grow back, not without going back to Wonderland at least.”

“Oh…”

“But that’s ok,” She began, “I’ve been this small for years and I am satisfied with who I am. And I know Mom and Dad and even JC like me like this too. You’re ok with having a tiny older sister, right?”

“Of course! I love you no matter what Ale! I just feel bad that you can’t go back.”

Alejandra sighed before finishing off her strawberry. She wiped her lips with a piece of the napkin before returning to the edge of the table. She gestured for her brother to put out his hands. He did so and she stepped on before he brought her closer.

“Don’t feel bad kiddo, I’m just fine. Sure there are things I can’t really do at this size… but there’s so many cool things I can because I’m this size!”

“Like sneaking in my bag and coming with me to school?” Marcelo asked.

Jose interjected with a concerned tone as he took his plate to the sink, “Which is not happening again.”

Ale laughed, “Yes, like that. What I’m trying to say is that I’m not upset or sad I’m like this ok?“

“Promise?”

“Promise. I’m fine.” Ale leaned forward and gave Marcelo a boop on his nose which made him giggle.

“Alright, Macelito!” Jose bend down to meet his son at his height and place a hand on his shoulder, “We better get going, don’t want to be late on the first day. Say bye to your sister.

“Bye Ale!” Marcelo placed his sister back on the kitchen table. He grabbed his backpack and his father’s hand and headed for the door. “Bye Mama! Bye JC!”

“Have a good day!”

“¡Te Quiero Mucho!”

“See ya!”

When Ale heard the door shut, she turned her attention to her mother, who was putting away the dishes. “Mom,” Ale called, “We need to talk about this.”

“¿Que Pasa? You didn’t stain your uniform did you?”

“No, I mean we need to talk about this story you keep telling Marcelo.”

Rosa stopped what she was doing to take a seat at the table. She knew her daughter preferred to have conversations face to face as opposed to across the room. “What about it? It’s a fun little story, no harm in it right?”

“I mean, I guess? But don’t you think Marcelo is too old for it?”

“Yeah mom,” JC joined in as he washed his dish, “You should tell him she’s Tinker Bell’s lost cousin instead.”

“Not funny JC!”

“But he loves that story,” Their mother began to lament. “He always believed you were something out of a fairytale. You should hear him at school, ‘My sister has been to Wonderlnad you know!’ He takes such pride in it.”

“I get it, but maybe you should just tell him the actual story? I’m not magically shrunk I’m was just… born like this.”

.

..

…

“But where’s the fun in that?” She asked so plainly. Ale could only facepalm.

“I can’t win with you, can I?”

“Mija, I’m just teasing. It’s just, I love telling that’s they as much as Marcelo loves hearing it. But, you’re both growing up so fast. Giving up on the story feels like admitting you’re basically adults now.”

Ale put her hand on her mother’s, she gave her a sincere smile, “Mama, Marcelo’s 10. He’s not gonna move out and get a job just cause you slow down with your story telling.

“It’s not that simple it’s… well….” Mrs. Sanchez struggled to put her thoughts into words, after a moment she just settled for, “You’ll understand when you have kids of your own.”

Ah, mom’s classic conversation ender. Not a moment later, they heard a loud honk from outside. Ale didn’t have the best view of the window from where she stood, but she knew exactly what was outside.

“Bus is here,” JC gathered his things before walking up the table, “You ready to go Ale?”

“Yeah you have my bag right?” JC nodded and pointed to his backpack’s front pocket, “Then I’m good to go-hey!”

JC picked up his sister by the back of her shirt and placed her on his shoulder, “You got a good grip?” He asked.

“Yeah, but a warning would have been nice.”

“Juan Carlos, how many times have I told you to be careful with how you carry your sister?”

“Mom, she’s fine, we do this all the time.”

“Dios Mio, I hope you don’t do this kind of thing at school.”

“I don’t!”

Ale concurred, “He doesn’t.”

Mrs. Sanchez sighed before stretching out her arms, “Alright, give me a hug before you go.”

JC was pulled into his mother’s embrace, both of them being mindful of Alejandra who had to settle with hugging her mothers arm.

“¡Besos! I love you.”

“Love you too!”

“See you later mom!”

Finally free of his mother’s grip, JC made it out the front door and towards the bus. The door swung open and as JC stepped inside, the bus driver greeted them, “Morning, I’ve got both of you on with me, right?”

JC turned so that the bus driver could better see Ale, “Morning Patty!” She waved to ensure Patty could see.

The driver, Patty, nodded, “Good to see you. Careful finding your seats.” JC and Ale both gave her a thumbs up before making their way further down the bus. The bus was decently full, the Sanchez siblings knew they were one of the later stops. Ale always found it amusing seeing the other students turn their attention towards her and her brother as they boarded. She’s known most if not all of these kids her entire life, but seeing a tiny person casually riding on a human shoulder never seems not interesting. There were plenty of empty seats but Ale and JC were looking for someone in particular…there she is!

“Hattie!” Ale called out. Luckily her friend heard her small voice over the other students. Ale felt her brother walk straight for Hattie’s seat as soon as he made eye contact. When he made it to Hattie’s seat he held out his hand for Ale and she rode it until she made it into Hattie’s hands.

“Keep an eye on her, make sure she doesn’t hurt herself.” He said as he passed his sister off to another student.

“Oh please,” Hattie scoffed, “Ale is perfectly capable of taking care of herself.”

JC smirked, “That’s nice and all, but I was actually talking to my sister.”

Ale laughed as Hattie feigned offense. JC then took his seat closer to his friends, leaving the girls alone for the remainder of the ride.

“Hey Hattie,” Ale greeted again, “What’s up?”

Hattie held her hand up to her face so that she and Ale would be properly facing one another, “Oh not much. What up with you?”

“Well, I had a funny thing happen with my little brother this morning.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, he asked about Wonderland again.”

The girls laughed at the absurdity of it all. They continued to go back and forth, sharing anecdotes until they made it to school.

#Guys… This one has been in my drafts for ages #finally got around to finishing the first chapter #I really like this story so I’m excited to finally post it #No Big Deal #NBD #title is subject to change…. still not sure about it #g/t #giant/tiny #gt #giant tiny #borrower #borrowers #g/t community #gt community #g/t writing #gt writing #mighty writes

[dolce-tenebra-toscana]

La Squadra taking you on a date on V. Day

i know, i know is not V Day anymore!! But i had the biggest writer's block and i didn't like anything i tried to write :(

SO, i'm super late, but i still hope you'll like this one my little caramel drizzled cupcakes!

Risotto: " Concert Date "

You and Risotto had lots in common, but the one thing that really connected your souls was music.

Him, knowing this, decided to recreate your first encounter at the local music shop; so he woke up earlier than usual and started writing on sticky notes that left on your bedroom's door and kitchen's counter before getting out of the house.

After finding those notes you decided to put on your favourite outfit and happily followed the instructions, that lead you to a very familiar music shop; you saw from afar the tall, stern, goth man that stole your heart a long time ago and when you approached him, he kissed your cheek and opened the door for you.

The scent of incense, the light dust on the shelves, the hundreds of vinyls waiting to be listened and maybe brought home, everything was just like that rainy october day...

You spent the morning listening to music, then grabbed lunch at your favourite kebab place, went to the beach to bother other couples just for fun and when the evening came...Risotto tossed you a helmet and drove you out of town with him.

You let the february breeze hit your face, hugging your boyfriend from behind while he rode his chopper ( no one except Melone knows about his motorcycle, and it has to remain that way ) and after a while you both stopped in front of an old warehouse and once you opened the door...you started laughing and bawling your eyes.

It was a concert, but not any concert, it was the band who played at the local music festival the day he asked you on a date the first time!

The two of you started making your way towards the stage and once you were under it, you let yourself go: headbanging, singing, screaming....It was perfect!

At a certain point Risotto embraced you, and kissed you with all the passion he was capable of and of course you happily reciprocated. You didn't care about anything in that moment, everything was just right.

Formaggio: " Soccer Date "

Formaggio loves 3 things in his life: You, food and " A Roma"; he was grateful to his favourite team for many good memories but meeting you was the best.

So he decided for V Day to bring you with him, with a VIP pass to see the derby Roma-Lazio and meet the whole team!

He knew what people may be thinking: bringing your gf to see a soccer match on the sacred day for lovers? ewwww!! But they didn't consider one lil detail: you!

You were a Roma's fan even more hyper than him: you liked the adrenaline, the camaraderie, the ups and downs after every match...and that's what made him fall for you.

He worked his butt off for months, took more missions (even with illuso, that says a lot about how much he loves you) and even robbed a couple of " Poste Italiane " to get the money but in the end he did it!

You had to work the whole morning, but the promise of your lover to make you spend " the best night of your life " made you go through the whole deal of snobbish costumers and unpleasant people at your job.

Once you got out you saw Formaggio grinning in your direction, wearing his " completo da Stadio": Roma's shirt, hat, gloves, scarf and even a trumpet! He ran towards you and swept you off your feet, peppering your face with kisses.

Hand in hand you ran to catch up the last bus, already filled with other Roma's fans and once the two of you arrived in front of Stadio Olimpico, you thought you were going with with the other fans but Formaggio stopped you; the two of you were escorted from another entrance and instead of the stadium...you got inside the locker room...with the whole Roma's team welcoming you and yelling "Buon San Valentino rega!!" (ooh what money and some threatening to the manager can do...sometimes being in the mafia has it's perks)

You couldn't believe all this, you were just screaming and jumping and asking autographs here and there...When HIM came foreward holding a bouquet of red and yellow roses: Roma's team leader Francesco Totti.

Er Pupone smiled at you and Formaggio and, after wishing you a happy V day, asked the assistants to lead you to your vip seats where you watched the rest of the game with such happiness and you were literally vibrating on the spot. Formaggio looked at you with loving and adoring eyes, feeling so lucky to have you in his life.

Once Totti sealed the deal, humiliating Lazio once again, the two of you cheered with the rest of the fans and kissed under the victory fireworks, holding each other like no one else in the world existed.

Illuso: " Spa Date "

Illuso was picky with everything: picky with food, clothing, accessories, people...especially the people he chose to date.

At first the two of you didn't like each other at all, he was so sobbish and straight up mean! He ordered you around at your job, treating you like a servant whenever he went to have his spa day at the beauty center you worked. He pushed your buttons in so many ways one time you just had enough and straight up threw his drink in his face yelling that no matter the masks and treatments...he still was ugly af inside! You had this staring contest for a long time before making out on the sauna bench and being almost caught by your boss!

You both now laugh at that memory and look with tenderness at the path you walked together from that day; Illuso matured (but shows this side only to you) emotionally and you on the other hand learned to stand up for yourself more; that's why he decided to treat you good on V day this year.

He called your boss and asked/bribed her if he could rent the massage room, the one with the jacuzzi (it was your favourite) for the day and promised to be very careful with the equipment. After some convincing ( and 500,000 lires ) she said yes and so instead of going to work and help girls prepare themselves for their dated...you were the pampered one for a change! And by a very sexy masseur.

Illuso made you change with the soft bathrobe the spa gave the costumers, with your bikini under it, and started giving you massages while you laid on the bench.

Your mind was floating: the candles, the roses, the champagne, the oil and his hands on your body were everything you could ask for and more...

Once your massage session was over, the two of you moved to the jacuzzi and cheered to your relationship with the champagne and sharing a tender kiss between the bubbles, yes he was still kind of a jerk for the other 364 days of the year...but he was your jerk, and to be honest you weren't that better yourself... but you didn't care, you had each other and the world could off itself if it didn't approve.

Melone: " Festival/Carnival Date "

Melone can make everything romantic, in his own weird way...But he tries and that's what matters to you.

Melone organise surprises and bring you gifts basically every month but what kinda worries you is that your beloved purple weirdo doesn't know what the word " simple " means: one time he said he got you a lil something to ease your loneliness when he was gone, and you ended up with a cat! One time you said that you would have loved to own a pair of Gucci shoes...AND HE LITERALLY ROBBED A GUCCI BOUTIQUE FOR YOU!

You had to sit with him and talk about the way he can show you love without going over the top, but you had this conversation with Melone so many time in the end you just gave up.

He wanted to surpass himself this V day tho, he wanted to bring you to the most special place in his proud tuscan heart! So he texted you that morning telling you to wear your cutest outfit and to be prepared to be surprised in the evening...And so you did.

You spent the whole day doing your hair, makeup, showering, nails, choosing your outfit and also thinking about what he had in mind this time:maybe he booked a super exclusive resturant, or maybe he was going to bring you to a resort out of town...Or maybe he bought you a pony like you wanted when you were 6!

You held tight during the whole ride with him still wandering where the heck you two were going...only to stop in front of pure tuscan chaos: food stands, folk music, wine and laughing people verywhere, there was also a tiny carnival in the back of the park.

you asked confused where thw two of you were and he proudly yelled " Welcome to La Sagra del Tortello e del Cinghiale cittina mia!!" (this event is actually a very famous festival in my region, i go there every year and is amazing) and waited for your reaction with big puppy eyes.

You remained speechless for a long time, confused and actually not knowing what to say...But then it hit you! This was Melone's hometown!! He was sharing with you such an intimate part of himself, not even his teammates knew about the place he came from; they knew he was tuscan but the city has always been a mystery.

You started giggling and hugged him so tight you actually cracked his back (he was also thankful for that, his posture was the worst) and thanked him for this gift. He smiled even more and after takig your hand he showed you around, offering you typical food of his land, dancing with you while the folk music hyped the whole town with it's cheery tunes...In the end the two of you sat on a hill, watching the lanterns being lit up and flying in the sky, under a pine tree.

He covered your shoulders with his jacket and as the two of you snuggled he asked shyly if you had fun, you answered by kissing him and saying if you could travel around tuscany more often...

he said " Of course cittina mia, but what do i always say?"

you laughed and answered " Gli unici posti da levare di torno, sono Arezzo, Pisa e Livorno " ( the only places to erase from existance, are Arezzo pisa and livorno. I have nothing against these cities personally but the meme about us tuscans being petty with each other that much is real ahah)

Melone hugged you and said " Well done tesoro! Di molto bene!!"

Ghiaccio: " Home Date "

Ghiaccio hates cheesy stuff, he thinks relationship are private matters ad no one should be seen parading hearts pillows, roses, matching shirts and all that crap...But that was cause by years of rejection and bad love stories.

When the two of you got together you quickly learned that his love language was a silent one: leaving you the last slice of pizza, always lowering the toilet seat after he went to the bathroom, cooking dinner if you felt too tired to do that... You appreciated all this and always made sure to let him know that! But sometimes you craved that romcom bullcrap you saw on tv, you wanted to be surprised with flowers, go on dates where you could show the world that you two were happy together and stuff like that; but you knew Ghiaccio and all these fantasies had to remain in your head..

He decided to try this year tho, he decided to REALLY try to make something romantic for you: he called risotto and asked him for a free day, ordered your favourite takeout, got tons of beer and your favourite drink, rented your favourite movies, got all the blankets he could find in the house...Damn he even baked you a cake!

He wanted to show you properly that he cared this time, and he was gonna succed in his mission!

You came home expecting nothing, as usual in this particular day but once uìyou opened the door your mouth went agape: the room had soft lights, candles, flowers...And a very embarassed Ghiaccio waiting for you on the couch with a little box in his hands.

The young man mumbled a " Happy Valentine's day tosa..i love you" and you just had to pepper his face with kisses and hug him; you sat next to him and asked what made him change his mind, he just answered that you deserved something nice for putting up with him all this time.

The two of you spent the rest of the evening eating your favourite food and the cake Ghiaccio baked, watching movies, playing videogames and just chilling, if before you did dream about the romcom v day, what your boyfriend prepared for you this day was way more romantic and thoughtful.

Just a little before midnight, he gave you the box he was holding at the beginning of your specal night, and once you opened it you started crying happy tears: inside you saw a necklace with a crystal snowflake, the one you saw in that jewelry months ago but was too pricey for you.

You hugged Ghiaccio, that reciprocated and held you tight with all the affection his stubborn ass could show...in the meantime on tv the reporter talked with the distressed owner of a jewelry, but robberies happens everyday and this was no special..right?

Prosciutto: " Travel date "

Prosciutto had one plan in mind: get the hell out of La Squadra's radar! He spent too many V day hoping to be alone with you, and in each one the boys came out of nowhere made him look like a fool at a certain point!

But not this year, no this was the year where he planned everything one step ahead of his teammates and he was going to make you feel like the princess you were in his eyes!

He booked a flight to bring you to the city you always wanted to visit in Europe, a fancy hotel room for two nights and bought you an item from your favourite fashion brand ( he is classy and so is his lady )

You woke up at 3 am on february 13, and with a very sleepy voice asked him if something was wrong, he only answered " We have one hour before Illuso or Melone notices we are gone. We have to hurry picciottina mia"

At hearing those words you suddenly woke up and dressed as quick as possible, grabbed your luggage ( prosciutto prepared both his and yours the day before ) and ran to the airport; once you saw the plane leaving the land you both high fived and relaxed for the first time in a week. Prosciutto knwe his friends were only goofing around, but Valentine's day was special to him and he wanted to have one without problems with his girlfriend for once!

The landing went smoothly and after a quick taxi ride you got inside the hotel room, what you saw in front of you was everything you could ask for: champagne, rose petals, a fireplace, your favourite dish and strawberries covered in chocolate...

You turned around and held his face, caressing his cheek and leaving sweet kisses all over it ( you loved the gap between his teeth and slight overbite so much, it was too cute ) and lead him to the bed.

You spent all day in your bedroom: talking, loving each other, eating and drinking the goodies the hotel gave you and when the evening came you both dressed up and went to dinner to a typical resturant of the country you chose to visit and once your heard the bells of midnight ringing, you shared one last kiss, wishing each other a happy Valentine's day and hugging tight like you always did,praying to spend many many more valetine's days like this one in the future

Happy late V day everyone :D and sorry for the delay, love you all cuties and i hope life is treating you good <3

#jjba part 5 #jjba #jojo x reader #jojo melone #jojo risotto #jojo formaggio #jojo illuso #jojo prosciutto #jojo ghiaccio

[cartoonemotion]

owl house for ask game!

The first character I first fell in love with: GUS !!!!!!!!!!!!! i think eda would maybe be an obvious answer but gus is just such a delight his whole introduction as a human realm fanatic had me instantly charmed and just also made him so relatable and every appearance he had since has literally never disappointed me. i just love characters who have a lot of enthusiasm for whatever niche thing theyre interested in, and gus also has the extra detail of literally being a child prodigy who skipped a bunch of grades which i think would be easy to go in the route of them being snobbish or too focused on proving themselves thru their schoolwork to focus on much else but gus is such a friendly and warm character and the bond he forms with willow and luz (and then later hunter) is just so genuine and touching to watch. i like that he still gets to be insecure and make immature choices but it's never something that like, detracts from the confidence you already watched him gain or it's not the only problem that troubles him ! genuinely just such a good character. more gus forever

The character I never expected to love as much as I do now: kind of tied between king and amity ? i was prepared to be kind of annoyed with the direction she mightve took as "mean kid who is actually under a lot of pressure bc of her terrible family" but i think the writers have been able to avoid those pitfalls and craft her into a character you come to really care about and root for (i think this is also helped by showing that the twins similarly like. arent monsters. like they all care about each other). with regards to king i kind of just thought he was going to be relegated to a funny sidekick G0D HAVE I NEVER BEEN MORE HAPPY TO BE WRONG !! The character everyone else loves that I don’t: man idk all the characters are pretty good. like toh has a completely excellent cast of characters from reoccurring/main cast to side characters... i think this is a rate instance where i can see everybody actually really loves the main cast and seems to be somewhat less interest in side characters but also ! im not super "active" or w/e in the fandom so i could be wrong The character I love that everyone else hates: same as above The character I used to love but don’t any longer: UMMM so far this has not happened !!!! i hope it doesnt i have faith in the writing team The character I would totally smooch: RAINE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The character I’d want to be like: i work with kids so i'll say principal bump :v] i love how much you can tell he cares about the students and their success and happiness and how the kids seem to really like him as their principal its pretty sweet The character I’d slap: belos as though this is any surprise. ill put scorch marks on his nickelodeon gak son of a fuckin, A pairing that I love: RAEDAAAAA absolutely #1. luz and amity are quite cute too theyre definitely the couple i wish i could have seen when i was like 13

A pairing that I despise: whats with people trying to ship willow and boscha together ?? hey maybe dont do that ??? like .

#toh #ask game

[kibu-me]

New students at RAD!

#raphael #thirteen #mephistopheles #obey me #raphael obey me #thirteen obey me #mephistopheles obey me #obey me jp #obey me: one master to rule them all #my art #i love em #as i mentioned before i have (3) hands #i made mephistopheles' hair curlier to emphasize that he uses lots of hair conditioner #i really hope he's v snobbish #can't wait to draw em interacting with orit #i have many ideas fufufu

[pastelslytherin]

hey there :DD saw your blog and was wondering if i could plsz request a jujutsu kaisen match up hehe :>>

i'm 18+ (sorry, not really comfortable with sharing that information explicitly on the internet), cis-female with brown eyes (behind my glasses lmao) and hair of the same colour that reaches my waist. on the shorter end of the spectrum whoops; am 5'2 hehe

personality... hm- i guess for starters i'm somewhere in between infj and intj, and maybe that's got to do with how soft i am towards other people, but hard on myself when no one's around to see. probably bc i can't take confrontation, and i'd just much rather listen to others and speak only when spoken to, but also bc i think the world j needs to be a bit kinder, so i tend to kinda try to be a decent person even on my bad days. it's a different story with myself tho, bc i have pretty high standards i will set out to achieve no matter what stands in my way, unless it's really that immovable of a force (i'm too stubborn for my own good sometimes, but... perseverence points !!!)

as for what i like... tangibly it would be music (listening and playing; i'm a classical pianist, though that's more of a hobby) and reading/spending time around stem. that could come off as a little snobbish, sorry, though that's really not my intent !! i just really like reading non-fiction and the discoveries that come with science that help make human lives a little better. in terms of interaction, i like spending time with my family and close friends when i have nothing better to do, chill tgt and all that. spending time w myself is also another v good option tho :D

my love language (giving) is physical touch and acts of service! stems from my wish to have people feel comfotable around me, though the former would prob drive people away HAHAH i do like hugging my friends/fam tho <33 i'm generally open with my affections (platonic) but a lot more reserved if i have a partner. receiving is a lil harder—probably physical touch as well, and quality time bc i'm usually p busy, and i'd like if i could section part of my day just to spend time w my s/o

that's p much it !! thank you so much for talong the time to read through my request :)) please take care of yourself and stay happy and hydrated !!

Hi anon, I hope you’re having a lovely day! No worries about sharing what you’re not comfortable with, it’s perfectly fine. Your privacy is your business :)

I match you with..

SUGURU GETO

Geto is quite the complicated and problematic curse user, but he can relate to you in a sense. He works himself to the bone for his achievements and for what he believes in, whether it's to save or destroy humanity. He has grown hateful and bitter as he has continued to live this way, pressured to fulfill his own expectations. Yet, unlike him, you continue to be kind to the world around you. He wonders why you make such an effort. Maybe that is why he’s drawn to you. 

You two can have such long intellectual conversations, exploring topics relating to medicine, science, and philosophy. Ideas and theories would be brimming between the two of you. He’s magnetized by the way you connect certain scientific discoveries to the betterment of humanity. It’s so different to how he views humans so he’s fascinated by your thoughts. Slowly, he begins to feel at ease with you, gradually accepting your affections while he expresses his own feelings for you. Overall, your relationship is insightful, thoughtful, and introspective.

Headcanons:

You might not like speaking a whole lot, but Geto wants to hear your thoughts and opinions. He thinks what you have on your mind is important. 

His physical affections are subtle and experimental. A brush of his fingers as he tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. Maybe run his fingers through your hair. The lingering touch of his hand as it brushes against yours. It’s as if he’s testing your boundaries as well as his own. This eventually evolves into holding hands and leaving fleeting butterfly kisses here and there. 

Geto can be romantic when he wants to. He’ll set aside a time to schedule a romantic date with you, complete with champagne and roses. With classical music playing in the background, he’ll whisk you off your feet and slow dance with you. 

It’s become a relationship habit for the two of you to send each other academic articles and say something ironic like “I thought of you <3”

One of his safe places is lying down and listening to you play piano while he holds a book in his hands. It’s one of the most peaceful things he’s experienced, almost as if he doesn’t have to worry about anything at all.

A lot of times, he thinks you’re too kind to him. He sees you with your friends and family, and he feels like he doesn’t belong, considering everything he has done. He’s too far gone at this point, but you still treat him with such gentleness as if he was any other human being. He doesn’t think it’s fair to you. 

Other potential match:

Satoru Gojo

Gojo might be an odd person to be matched with, but his contrasting eccentricities could compliment your personality and interests. You’re kind, friendly, and helpful while Gojo is cocky, arrogant, and annoying to most people. He often comes off as childish and rude, but even he has a dream. And that dream is to make the jujutsu world better, not dissimilar to how you try in your own efforts to make the world a little better. He watches you with curiosity, wondering what buttons he can push to make you snap at him. But you’re stubborn and firm in your disposition, so it kind of becomes a game for Gojo. 

As much as he might annoy you, there’s something familiar and nostalgic about his relationship with you. Because of this, he treasures you and wants to see you thrive. To see you be more self-indulgent and softer on yourself.

———

I hope this was alright!

Please look over this post before submitting a matchup request :) Thanks!

#jjk matchups #jjk x reader #suguru geto x reader #satoru gojo x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen matchups

[dalishious]

hi lydia! i hope youre doing the best you can be in these Trying Times. i just wanted to ask for your thoughts on varric? idk about anyone else but he's always read as quite centrist to me even in da2. he claims he doesn't support either side, but considering hawke is his close friend (and is either a mage or has a mage sibling in the circle), he still says things that i (playing as hawke) found aggravating. like the bit about having friends who are mages and templars (1/?)

like sure one group of ur friends goes to the tavern after a long hard day of beating up, raping/assault and abusing ur other set of friends but sure, varric. & then at the gallows he told me that we were 'helping dangerous people run amok' like??? and then his comments in da:i abt the mage-templar war in general idk it always sat badly w me in da2 but ive also seen arguments where ppl say varric clearly is on one side bc of how da2 can be presented to cassandra (2/?)

like whenever justice showed up upset abt the mages, to cassandra & the chantry, who have v specific views about spirits and demons (altho anders vehemently makes the distinction, cass' suspiciousness abt cole, a spirit of compassion) probs just sees it as a sign of anders being unstable & crazy instead of a profound statement abt the injustice of the circles? & you CAN play da2 as pro-templar as well so how is it a sign tht varric is on the mages' side? any 'humanity' given to the (3/?)

to the cause of mages is, in a game where you can be pro-templar, just a centrist narrative, isn't it? 'both sides had valid points' kind of narrative? idk thats what i felt anyway. varric is one of the fandom faves but to me he was a strong vehicle of da's centrist politics & i dont get why people dont see it. but i wondered if you had any thoughts on him in particular. this was kinda ranty so feel free to ignore it too SORRY im just pressed he's coming up in another game again :( (4/4)

The problem I have with centrists in real life, is that they a) equate people advocating for equality with people advocating for oppression, and/or b) believe in finding “compromise” with bigotry, thus continuing to enable the “‘meet me in the middle’, says the unjust man” routine. I do indeed think that Varric is a centrist, and I do indeed find his centrism annoying/frustrating at times. Because he does both of those things above when it comes to the mage-templar conflict.

My understanding is that the goal in DA:2 at least was to write him as a character who is no matter what, always on Hawke’s side. As such, Varric is purposely centrist, in order to appeal to both a Hawke who is pro templar and a Hawke who is pro mage. (And yet, he is still more leaning towards templars than he is mages.) But consequently--whether this is intentionally a character flaw or not, I’m not entirely sure, but I do count it as a character flaw, personally--he is not actually invested with either stance. It negatively makes him come off as distant and snobbish, as if he is above the conflict.

I definitely agree that Varric being a fan favourite was used as a vehicle for centrist politics... Actually, I really like that term. I might use that in the future. (I also think Cole was detrimentally used like this, not because he was an established fan favourite, but because his character is presented as insightful and morally guiding.)

I’ve said before that I’m not a big Varric fan. I don’t hate him, I just ultimately don’t car about him much at all.

#anti varric #abuse tw #rapetw #Anonymous #ask

[timebird84]

🎄 PotO Advent Calendar 2020 🎄

By @flora-gray​

The Gift Exchange

(Rated T)

Erik was wrong. 

It was a rare occurrence, in Christine’s experience, but even geniuses don’t know everything about everything, and he certainly didn’t seem to know much about anything when it came to love. 

He had insisted that the distraction of a suitor would interfere with her studies — it had not. She hadn’t missed a single one of their covert lessons, but had continued to put in the endless hours of practice he demanded, with irreproachable focus and without complaint.

He had been adamant that a man of nobility could not be trusted to do right by her, yet here they were, six months on, an engagement ring on Christine’s finger and a gift in Raoul’s hands, carefully wrapped in bright red paper trimmed in gold.

After all those summers at the seaside, this was their first Christmas together, the first of what Raoul promised would be a lifetime of many. Christine chewed at her thumbnail — a nasty habit, Erik would say whenever he caught her — as her fiancé ripped open the paper, a smile twitching on her lips. 

“Oh, Christine!” Raoul exclaimed as he pulled a little ribbon-wrapped bundle from the box. The spicy-clean scent of peppermint filled the air. “Polkagris? Wherever did you find this?” He pulled a candy stick from the bundle, the glossy swirls of red and white glistening in the dressing room’s soft lamplight. “I haven’t had polkagris since we were children! I can’t believe you remembered how much I used to love them.” A smile beaming on his face, he tucked the candy back into the box and pulled her into an embrace. “Christine, you truly are the most thoughtful person I’ve ever known.”

“It’s just a little thing,” she replied, her cheeks glowing a warm rosy pink. “I remembered how you used to beg Papa for them, and I happened upon a candy shop run by a Swedish family.”

“Well, I’m afraid mine will seem rather uninspired compared to yours,” Raoul said, speaking up over the sound of rustling paper as he dug into the bag next to him, “but I do hope you’ll like it anyway. I’ve hardly been able to stand having to wait all week — I had to hide it away in a closet so I wouldn’t be tempted to give it to you early!” He placed a box on her lap and rubbed his hands together, nearly bouncing in his seat. 

The package was large and flat and covered in thick, heavy paper printed all over with shining silver arabesques, topped with an elaborately tied white satin bow. “It’s so beautifully wrapped, I almost don’t want to open it,” Christine said, trailing her fingers over the soft, shimmery ribbon before tugging it loose. Gingerly, she slid a nail around the edge to loosen the paper.

“You needn’t be so careful with it, I have plenty more of the stuff back at home. It’s all yours, if you like it so much,” Raoul laughed, his eyes lit up with anticipation.

“Good,” she smiled teasingly back at him. “Then I’ll expect you to wrap up everything you ever give me just like this from now on.” The paper fell away and she lifted the lid.

Layers of impossibly thin tissue paper covered the contents, and she peeled them back, one by one. 

On top was a fine linen handkerchief trimmed in lace, embellished with intricate embroidery. “It’s lovely Raoul!” Christine breathed, lifting it from the package and letting her fingers glide along the underside of the smooth fabric, all the while wondering vaguely if she’d ever stop feeling uncomfortable with such fine things. 

Raoul’s casual displays of wealth, though never snobbish, were evidence of the privilege he’d been raised with, so different from her early life of scraping by, of simple meals of bread and cheese and rough muslin against her skin. And even now, she was acutely aware of the gulf that lay between them. It was impossible not to, when she was occasionally mistaken for a shop girl while they strolled Le Bon Marché together, an experience he found much more amusing than she did. Even once they married and she went from Christine Daaé to Vicomtess de Chagny, she doubted she’d ever truly fit in amongst the fine ladies who’d been raised with finishing school and balls, who sat and enjoyed operas from velvet-lined boxes rather than performed them, sweating under the hot lights for a modest salary. And though Raoul was insistent that he loved her just as she was, that certainly didn’t seem to stop him from trying to outfit her like somebody else.

Unfolding the handkerchief which likely cost more than her entire dress, Christine spread it open to admire its details. “I’ve never seen such gorgeous lace!” she gushed. “And are these our—” 

“Yes, our initials!” Raoul finished triumphantly. 

Christine’s brow furrowed. “Actually…” She brought the handkerchief up to her eyes and squinted at the letters. Her heartbeat began to quicken. “It says R, and...” She blinked, but the letter stubbornly stayed the same. “And...V.” 

“What? Let me see!” Raoul’s hand shot out and yanked the handkerchief from her slack fingers. Turning it over and over, he examined every inch of it, shaking his head. “There must have been some mistake! Perhaps the girl at the shop heard me wrong — I suppose the letters do sound the same.” He looked up at her, eyes anxious and searching. “I’m so sorry, my love, I can’t believe I didn’t notice! I can have it remade right away.”

“Oh no, it’s fine,” she said, her lips forming the words automatically. A formless sense of unease was slithering its way into the back of her mind, but, with a firm shove, she pushed the feeling away; there was no reason to let a simple mistake ruin their first Christmas. “Really,” she insisted, arranging her lips into a smile that was only a little forced.

Beneath the next layer of paper, enclosed in its own small, shallow box, was a pile of silk, white as snow and with that same incomparable look, as though it were delicate enough to melt under her fingertips. This new luxury unfurled as she raised it up between them, the folds falling, forming the shape of...a pair of ladies’ drawers?

The breath escaped from her lungs in a sharp gasp. Heat flamed at the edge of her ears as she dragged her eyes up to where her fiancé sat, stock still.

A red flush was creeping up from under his collar. 

His voice wavered. “That— that’s not a shawl?” 

“No, Raoul,” she replied evenly, despite the queasy fluttering in her stomach. “It is not.”

“Are those…?” He dropped his gaze to the floor.

“Yes, they are.”

“I—” Raoul squirmed in his seat. The flush was working its way up his neck, spreading across his face, leaving beads of sweat in its wake.  “It was meant to be a shawl. I would have never—” His words fell away and he looked up at her with pleading eyes.

“I know you wouldn’t have,” said Christine quickly. She jammed the drawers back into their box and shoved it all to the side, eager to leave the subject behind. 

And it was true, she could not think of a less likely thing for him to give her. Their relationship had been quite chaste, almost to the point of frustration, with nothing more than sweet, sinless kisses, always broken off far too soon. He’d never given any indication that he so much as even thought about what lay under her skirts, let alone considered the subject enough to buy her such intimate garments. The mistake would almost be funny in its outlandishness, if it weren’t so mortifying — and such an unpleasant reminder of her most secret insecurity: the fear that though he undoubtedly seemed to love her, perhaps he did not desire her. That perhaps he held her up against those lovely ladies of high society he’d been pushed for years to accept, with their bosoms spilling from their silk dresses and their ample hips swaying beneath their skirts, and found nothing inspiring about her waiflike frame. 

But no, he was just being a gentleman, wasn’t he? He wasn’t like the other men of the aristocracy, who took mistresses and visited brothels — no, no, he would never. Raoul, that sweet, brave boy from the salt-kissed seaside was now a respectful and honorable man, and he loved her for herself, not her body. There was nothing wrong with that.

But of course this was the last thing she wanted to be thinking about right now; Christine shook her head to fling away the thought and refocused the entirety of her attention back on the box in her lap. 

“Oh, look! There’s still something left,” she said, infusing her tone with much more enthusiasm than she felt, and she lifted a red velvet pouch from where it lay, heavy, at the bottom of the box. 

Raoul sprang forward. “Actually, why don’t you just give that back to me,” he said, his voice tight and trembling, reaching to take it from her hands. “This has turned out horribly so far, and I—”

“Darling, please.” Christine pulled the object out of his reach. “Certainly one of the three will be as you intended. Your luck can’t be that bad,” she laughed, though in the pit of her stomach sat a sour, sick feeling.

Grasping the pouch in one hand, she reached in with the other and slowly began to pull out a thick pillar of ivory, sculpted and polished, heavy as a candlestick — but not shaped like any candlestick she’d ever seen. It was too irregularly formed, the contours somehow too carnal, and her cheeks were already inexplicably burning before she’d even finished withdrawing it from its velvet enclosure. 

It couldn’t be… 

She’d heard that such things existed, but she never—

Too late she realized she should stop — not that she was sure she could have — but her hand kept moving, pulling the thing free from its covering to stand tall and proud in her clenched fist, absurdly large and luridly detailed — each vein, each curve of ivory flesh on display as she held it high, an obscene trophy.

Not a sound could be heard in the room. Not even a breath — not from her, and not from Raoul, who was looking at her, slack-jawed, with complete and utter horror written in every line of his face.

A minute passed, and then time unfroze.

Gasping as though she’d surfaced from deep underwater, Christine’s fingers flew open, loosing their grip on the vile thing; it hit the carpet with a muffled thud. Then she was on her feet, groping blindly for her cloak and gloves.

Raoul didn’t move from his seat; pale and trembling, he sat staring at the now empty gift box. “I don’t understand...”

Christine rounded on him, hot tears pricking at her eyes. “You don’t understand?” That formless unease had now taken a sinister, serpentine form, snaking itself around her heart, which spasmed within its crushing coils. “What was all that, Raoul?”

“I don’t know! It doesn’t make any sense. I wrapped it myself — that wasn’t in there!” 

He stumbled to his feet, reaching for her hands; she pulled them away, pressing her clenched fists against her turning stomach. “What’s the explanation, then? Are you implying that the contents of the box were just magically replaced without you knowing?” 

“No of course not! I mean, I don’t think so…”

One desperate, near-hysterical sob wrenched itself from Christine’s throat, and she fell silent. The painful throbbing of her heart had ceased. That place within her chest was cooling, hardening until it was as cool and hard as the piece of ivory which lay on the carpet, that disgusting thing which forced her to admit the truth to herself, a truth she’d been trying to deny since the moment she saw those embroidered initials. 

How could she have been so stupid? This never could have worked out. He was highborn, she was practically a peasant. Perhaps he did love her, but likely it was a love born of nostalgia and pity, the love of a brother for his sister — and even if he had been willing to marry her, that kind of love isn’t the only kind men need. And perhaps...perhaps he really wasn’t different from other men, after all. 

Christine gathered her cloak and gloves into a bundle and shoved it under her arm. “Goodbye, Raoul,” she said with finality, and steeling herself, she turned her back on the man she thought she loved.

“Christine!” Raoul gripped her arm in a wide-eyed panic. “You can’t believe that I would ever give you such a thing!”

Shaking off his hand, she held her head high. “No, Raoul, I don’t believe you would.” She could not look at him, not if she wanted to hold onto the last scraps of her tattered pride. “Do you know what I believe?” Despite her best efforts, tears were beginning to leak from her eyes, making the words thick and strained. “I believe that gift was intended for another woman.”

“What?” he cried, nearly choking on the word. “No!” 

“The wrong initials,” she sobbed, no longer able to hold back the tide; bitter tears flowed freely down her cheeks. “I may be naive, but I’m not stupid, Raoul! Who is she? How long has this been going on?” Christine tugged the gold and diamond band off her finger. “Is she wearing one of these, too?” she demanded, brandishing the ring in his face.

“Christine…” Tears welled in Raoul’s beautiful blue eyes, but she would not be swayed by the obvious ploy meant to prey on her sympathy.

She flung the little piece of gold at him, and it bounced off his chest and fell to the floor with a pathetic clink. 

“I should have listened to Erik!” she cried, and slammed the door behind her.

*****

Erik was right. 

But then again, he usually was. 

It was never going to work out between Christine and the boy; affairs between the nobility and the bourgeois rarely do, she had to know that. Really, it would be a mercy for it to end sooner rather than later. It was inevitable. And hadn’t he tried to warn her?

Still, he pretended surprise when she showed up at his door, red-eyed and sniffling, her ring finger blessedly bare.

Wordlessly, he brought her inside, wrapped her in a blanket and sat her down by the fire, brought her hot tea and let her pour out her heart — along with a steady stream of tears. Eventually, she slept, and Erik carried her to her room, tucking her into the bed he’d readied for her. He brushed the curls away from her face, now so hot and raw from crying, but no less beautiful.

He hated to see her in such pain, but someday she would understand, and she would have to agree that it was for the best. Erik always knew what was best for her.

Just like he knew that idiot boy would never notice a few feet of missing wrapping paper. 

#PotO Advent Calendar #PotO #Phantom of the Opera #Door 22

[inhibited-irregularity]

EUROVISION 2021, personal favorites:

- Russia 🇷🇺

Manizha, Russian Woman: Absolute favorite. The sheer originality of the song! Her energy and the level of absolute badassery! She can sing, she can rap,and she's a bomb of energy. The way reggae and brass and hiphop and Slavic melodies overlap and it somehow works, the transitions between fun and "I'm bitter about the sexism and I'm mocking it unapologetically and making a stand" and the anthemic, emphatic and powerful message to Russian women; I was swelling with emotion while watching her. While to an American or a Westerner it may seem like performative feminism, I'm gonna remind you that in Russia and other Slavic countries that's very much not a thing and actually a very unpopular stand to make, and in Russia, The Balkans, and Eastern Europe in general, hundreds of women face domestic and sexual abuse on the daily, and those who do come forward rarely get support and are mostly dismissed. Let's not forget that Manizha got a huge backlash from the Russian government officials, and a big part of it was for her Tajik roots. The honesty of her message is real, and she's speaking from personal experience and the experience of women around her - nothing performative about her song, and you can tell from her delivery that the fire within her is true and she leaves her heart on the stage and pours it into the song. The staging and costumes are great as well, and symbolically well thougt-through. I would really like her to win, or at least get to the top 5. Most of all, I hope her message is heard and felt. 10000/10

- Italy 🇮🇹

Måneskin, Zitti e Buoni: definitely the closest thing to my actual music taste this year, so liking them off the bat wasn't a surprise. However, they're not just your regular Franz-Ferdinand-ish young alt rock band that wants to do rock "properly" - they have IT. The X factor, the Je ne sais quoi. I've been exposed to that particular genre, and I can confidently say that the song still manages to be refreshing and original (that bridge, those riffs!) The band has a great energy and no matter how much Damiano steals the show, they are still a unit and nobody is left in the shadows. They have the spirit of great rock bands of the previous century, and yet they don't try to copy anyone (khm,Greta Van Fleet, khm). Damiano's vocals are both powerful, seductive and provoking, and I'm still admiring the sheer amount of emotion he can pack into a single line and the nuance and yet rawness behind it. I'm not gonna state the obvious lol (the obvious being yes, I'm thirsty as well, he becomes yet another unattainable rockstar for me too,and yes they all look great) Anyway, great song, and maybe the clearest and most serious candidate for the number one spot, taking both the jury and the public into consideration. 10/10

- Iceland 🇮🇸

Daði Freyr and Gagnamagnið, 10 years:

What can I say about this masterpiece that hasn't already been said? A clear fan-favorite (hi, Valentina), but with the guns to back it up. The song is contagious, fun and campy, and unlike some other songs with said qualities, actually good from a musical perspective. Daði is incredibly charismatic and his sense of humor shines through, and even though he's the star of the show, the same can be said about the other band members. The synergy Måneskin has can be applied to Gagnamagnið as well, even though the energy is entirely different. They're serving us fun, sunshine, kitties rainbows sugar spice and everything nice, and manage to do it with zero cringe factor (plus those funky keytars). I'm one of those Eurovision fans that lament the golden age's (2004-2009) campiness (We'll never forget you, Verka), and Daði managed to bring it back, but modernised, polished and still sincere. I personally preferred the epic dad joke that slightly more commercial Think About Thing was (but that's one tough act to follow), but I'm always down for a husband adoring his wife and singing praises to their relationship. Since we're on tumblr, I feel obliged to use the term "cinnamon rolls" in describing Daði and the band. 9.5/10

- France 🇫🇷

Barbara Pravi, Voilà: She brought the theatrics, she brought the drama, and she brought the 101 in "that's how you perform". Her personality leaps through, and her voice is both beautiful and full of emotion and power. I'd hire her to star in a serious and artistic movie. Despite the fact that Voilà is from its melody to the singing style to the video to the vibe and the aesthetic hands down the most French thing I've seen since Amélie (do not come for that movie), it miraculously doesn't come across as a cliché, but rather an homage, and an individualistic one at that. It's not entirely my cup of tea, since I'm usually biased to songs that may come off as snobbish (I mean, the jury is going to lap it up), and are all about being proper and technical and oh how ~artistic~, but Barbara puts the soul into the immaculate. I'm not giving her the highest mark because I'm yet to see the performance, but I'm rooting for her. If she delivers the performance, we might have a clear winner. 9/10

- Ukraine 🇺🇦

Go_A, Shum: I'm a sucker for all things ethnic and mytological, so this was a no-brainer. I want that song played at every party. I want to go to the forest in the video and chant and summon the spring with flute and hard-bass. Kateryna Pavlenko has some unexplainable power over me, and her eyes are simply hypnotizing. The vocals are great, proper Slavic ethno right there (seriously, check out Slavic folklore and traditional music), and she has a subtle punk quality too(?). Ukraine came to save the spring and make us forget about the pandemic, and minus the Maruv fiasco (justice for her!), they always deliver and I expected nothing less. On the other hand, I loved the original version much more and couldn't help but be a bit disappointed with the revamp (yes, I know they had to), and while I personally love Shum, I think some other acts are more deserving of the higher placement. Go_A are not my winner, but definitely soon to be in my playlist. 8/10

- San Marino 🇸🇲

Adrenalina, Senhit ft. Flo Rida: You know that golden age of Eurovision I mentioned? THIS. I'm Serbian, so I can't resist a banger reminiscent of our horrible turbo-folk elements (and I say that endearingly,takes me back to 18th birthday parties (boy I'm glad that's over)). Let's just crown Senhit this year's Queen of Camp. The wild factor of Flo Rida...just?? Amazing. Can't wait to see how the performance goes (EDIT- it went great, I had a grin on my face the entire time and couldn't help but dance along). A certain refreshment after Serhat and Valentina Monetta endless loop. They didn't dial down the weird, but made it catchy af, and the vocal can rival any Balkan folk diva. While I think it's definitely the most entertaining entry this year, it's far from being the most original, and it's not really my genre of preference. Will vote for Senhit and root for her to qualify. 7.5/ 10

- Sweden 🇸🇪

Tusse, A million voices: As I mentioned before, I'm the first person that starts complaining about Sweden Superiority as soon as Eurovision season begins, and I'm with you all with being tired of Sweden qualifying just because they're Sweden and usually just bringing the same brand of MTV/Calvin Harris/American pop, or a successful and not-so-subtle imitation of the performances that did well the previous year,but listen: A million voices is a solid pop song and I'm going to die on that hill. It actually embodies the essence of pop - a catchy, pleasant melody sung by a good vocalist, with a short,sweet and uplifting message. It's not the same as previous years, it's not commercial, just good pop - good pop being something you immediately like and vibe to no matter how many common elements of the genre it checks. It relies on RnB rather than electronic sounds, auto tune or various DJ effects. Tusse is charming and charismatic af, and he's a 19yo kid doing an amazing job on a global stage. You don't have to like it, but there's no need to hate on it (ask Jendrik). Imo, Tusse deserved to qualify. Not winner material yet, but I wish him a fun time and a successful career. 7 5/10

- Switzerland 🇨🇭

G'jons Tears, Tout L'Univers: I saw the video first, and I HATED IT. It came across as a Duncan Lawrence-high-art wannabe, something technically perfect, but empty of soul or meaning, another soft boy with a sad falsetto, another jury-points bait. BUT. I changed my mind entirely after seeing him perform. Hands down, it was touching and epic. Reminding me of Hamlet aside, he DELIVERED, and made me love him, and actually enjoy the song. I still think the song is less original than Tusse's voices, but I enjoy the troubadour vibes of the pre-chours. G'jon is absolutely adorable, and I'm not gonna be mad if he wins. 8/10

shout-outs&honorable mentions:

- Serbia 🇷🇸 Yes, some national bias, but I'm proud of our girls. Ever Since we placed 2nd with Željko's Lane, we had that goddamn flute e v e r y year, and the same outdated scenography with a side of extra pathos (I'm sure that ruined Sanja's chances and her otherwise great performance back in 2016.) Finally something fun and actually representative of the music popular here. They looked flawless and the energy was off the charts. Go, Hurricane!

-Finland 🇫🇮 Yes, cheesy and corny and I cut my finger accidentally from watching the video on all the edge, but I'm biased because they're bringing emo and nu-metal back, and that's the music of my early adolescence (hello, Kaulitz brothers and Andy Biersack,hello Gerard Way and Linkin Park) Call me grandma lol

- Malta 🇲🇹 DESTINY CAN SIIIIIIIIING! I wasn't impressed with the song initially, but the performance blew my mind.

- Ireland 🇮🇪 A for effort, and so nice of her to try and give us something unique! While it wasn't good enough to qualify, it was super fun and she seems so nice. Also, we all know that she was out of breath an can sing much better than that. Still wasn't bad.

- Romania 🇷🇴, for being so young and brave enough to put on a show. The nerves got the better of her, but the song itself is good and no doubt she'll do well in the future

- Lithuania 🇱🇹, thanks for the memeries

- Croatia 🇭🇷, Not my cup of tea, but Albina gave a great performance

-Norway 🇳🇴, for embodying the spirit of Eurovision

- North Macedonia 🇲🇰, for the disco chest

- The UK 🇬🇧, for putting some effort

(Might edit later)

#eurovison #eurovision 2021 #rotterdam #the netherlands #russia #malta #italy #france #iceland #sweden #serbia #esc 2021 #switzerland #san marino #ukraine

[kyokkou]

( // ok this is me being a curious, but I really want to know how your muses were like the 1960s! As in how did your muses react to the economic miracle, increase of consumption, and a post-war memory? ;v; )

I love receiving questions like this! Actually, I’ve been thinking about something along these lines a lot lately, not to the point of brainrot but pretty close... haha. I predict this being very long, so I’ll slap a readmore on it.

I want to start by saying Kiku was a bystander of sorts from 1945 until 1989. Though he doesn’t realize it at the time, he ends up being in a sort of spiritual limbo (this is something I’m still trying to put into coherent words for the most part, the why of it relating to being half-inugami but it’s still very vague right now and I apologize for that !! ) so he’s stuck watching life go on without him, and while he can go out and about, no one can interact with him.  

Eventually, he just isolates on his own, since the situation seems so hopeless; he can’t communicate with Hikaru, and the only one who seems to see him is the personified fighter aircraft he favored. There is one other time where he had company throughout this, but the problem with Reiji is that he cannot speak. He couldn’t even tell Hikaru about all of this, so that’s why he just stays in and misses a good decade and a half from the 70s until 1989.

That said, for Kiku, things are completely different. He stagnates as a person and does not grow along with Japan / Hikaru, though he has little choice but to accept the changes as he watches them happen. He goes through a lot of emotions about things like Anpo and the resulting protests. At the time, he’s angry about it because he simply does not want Japan to befriend the US. He’s still angry about things from even before the war, even as far back as the Perry Expedition. He’s angry that Hikaru simply goes along with it because he wants to avoid conflict, even though just a decade prior he was pushed into allowing a self-defense force, with the remnants of Kiku’s army and navy. 

On the other hand, he’s glad Hikaru isn’t starving. He isn’t unaware of what happened to his wartime allies, particularly the Soviet-occupied half of Germany, and Kiku has to admit that he’s relieved it’s only the Americans who are occupying Japan. Sometime in the final weeks of the war, the USSR did declare war on Imperial Japan (specifying this only because of the two of them being one and the other) and did take the Kuril Islands and south Sakhalin along with a partial occupation of N.Korea. So, they were always right around the corner, and since things had changed so much since the Russo-Japanese war, he obviously wasn’t too comfortable with that, either. 

I’m digressing but anyway, Kiku’s experiences during the 60s were very different than Hikaru’s were, and he was stuck watching as Hikaru slowly started to adjust to being the main rep again. It was easy during the Edo period, until the end. He rarely had to deal with outsiders, but now, he constantly had to deal with the US occupying forces and all of the bases that are still in operation today. He had to be present for things, but he avoided anything having to do with the JSDF, as he still does today. 

During this time, he isn’t swept up in the consumerism, because he’s still afraid of change and afraid to just go along with everything that the citizens are. He never picks sides; while he doesn’t particularly enjoy the fact that they had to enter a mutual defense treaty (it goes against Article 9, in his opinion) he also would rather not be left on his own if something did happen. As far as he knows, he is all alone, has no one to consult when he’s filled with self-doubt about the direction he’s going as a nation. 

While he remains humble during all of this, he doesn’t completely shun the modern conveniences that begin to come about. The first shinkansen line came about in the early-mid 60s, and it is something close to his heart for two reasons. Not only was it the first high-speed rail line in Japan, but also the world... and the predecessor to this was something that was conceived in the 30s. The truth is, for as angry as he is (still, even 20 years after the fact) at Kiku for everything, he misses him. He has no one to really share these achievements with except the rest of the world, and he’s pretty sure they’re all still angry with him (which isn’t totally far off.)

Still, Hikaru has no reason to be too sad, because he also hosts the Summer Olympics the same year-- Japan is the first Asian nation to host the games. He’s learning that he doesn’t need someone to help him make decisions, and that he can be successful on his own, as the whole nation overall has been finding success in new ways and recovering from a devastating war. Hikaru finally feels at least somewhat confident during this time, a reflection of how well the economy is doing. Japan’s economy even manages to overtake West Germany’s economy in the late 60s. 

In spite of being hesitant at the beginning of the decade, Hikaru is more inclined by the end of it to engage more with the consumer economy, he might or might not purchase things he doesn’t necessarily need, but wants to have to make life easier now that he leaves the house to work with the rest of the government on the daily. By the end of the decade, he stops being as dependent on the lifestyle he knows, and starts gravitating more toward how his citizens are living in their everyday lives. (This is going to be important for the 80s when there is more rampant consumerism and his attitude actually trends toward being somewhat snobbish and materialistic.) 

He starts engaging more with western culture, where before he was reluctant out of fear that he would abandon his traditions, a fear that was instilled in him even more during the Imperial era, and this is likely when he becomes as fluent in English as a native speaker of the language. Honestly, this is probably the period of time in recent history in which Hikaru was the most open he’s ever been.

If asked, their memories of this time would be very different; Hikaru would remember how much he came out of his shell, but Kiku would remember how angry, depressed, and alone he was while serving his sentence in what I jokingly call Demon Jail™. He certainly deserved it, but his anger (as mentioned) comes from having to do a 180 and play nice with the US (and remember, he’s still pissed about things as far back as 1853-4... so this isn’t just about the war, haha.) He’s depressed about the rapid changes and how Hikaru doesn’t even need him around, so why am I still here like some sort of ghost? Why can’t I just disappear completely, then?

It isn’t that Hikaru is completely happy and healed from everything that happened, either. He’s simply too distracted by so many new and interesting things happening to him to think about it, and he’s more than busy with his new role, too. 

This was really long as predicted, and I had to stop for dinner in between, but I hope it covered everything / answered  your questions! If not, I’m more than happy to have another round. 笑

#bozii #✺ 「そんな風にも考えていたの。」 || answers; #✺ 「深い闇を俺は抜け出した。」 || headcanons; #[ cw occupation ? ] #[ content warning: occupation ? ] #[ just in case idk how sensitive people are to this but i don't want to take chances. also: ] #[ cw: war ] #[ content warning: war ]

[palmerasenfuego]

january reading log

V. & Vineland, Thomas Pynchon

With a big ass pretentious Pynchon project percolatin’ on the back burner, I won't spend too much time discussing these novels here, neither of which I had read before. Maybe this will come up again in that project, but these two novels are interesting to compare because V. is emphatically "pre-feminist" Pynchon, with the women all serving merely opposite the men, femininity at times equated with the novel's bête noire "inanimacy," while Vineland seems to be explicitly engaged with feminism and feminine subjectivity. I wouldn't read Pynchon for his gender politics, though, even if I might defend him as a critic of phallocentricism and masculinity.

Dept. of Speculation, Jenny Offill

I was surprised by how expansive this slim novel (novella?) is. While not like, superb or totally mind-blowing, I think Dept. of Speculation does what the best autofiction is capable of doing, ie wring art from the banality of lived existence. There's real force and emotional sweep to the relationships depicted here, and Offill peppers her text with enough insights and bon mots to carry my bitchy ass through a tale of bourgeois anxieties. Sometimes I think I'm being hypocritical when I criticize a strain of literature concerned primarily with comfortable middle-class life, since 1) I live fairly comfortably middle class and 2) all artists are by definition bourgeois, but I refuse to believe that necessarily means Iowa-style fiction of the mundane is somehow the best we can hope for from our literature. Anyway, that's not really a complaint about this novel, which I quite liked.

“Manfred,” Lord Byron

Rereading this dramatic poem, I've come to agree with Ezra Pound who said that when reading a poem by Byron, you're liable to find at least seven serious flaws. Byron's work is important for the affect it expresses; his language is often prettily rendered but rarely very innovative. This poem does however contain these lines, which are imprinted onto my heart:

She was like me in lineaments -- her eyes, Her hair, her features, all, to the very tone Even of her voice, they said were like to mine; But soften'd all, and temper'd into beauty; She had the same lone thoughts and wanderings, The quest of hidden knowledge, and a mind To comprehend the universe: nor these Alone, but with them gentler powers than mine, Pity, and smiles, and tears -- which I had not; And tenderness -- but that I had for her; Humility -- and that I never had. Her faults were mine -- her virtues were her own-- I loved her, and destroy'd her!

The Lichtenberg Figures, Ben Lerner

I read this a few years ago and remembered enjoying it, so I spent an hour or so rereading these sonnets while at work. Again, I enjoyed it, and I think Lerner does some interesting things with form and repetition through the cycle that warrant attention, and I'm certain this is better than any of the novels he's written, which I have no interest in reading, but ultimately I already basically forgot what the poems say, which may honestly reflect more on my inability to retain information that on any flaw in the work. They're good, I suggest reading them, but maybe don't go out of your way.

Maldoror, Comte de Lautréamont

I quit reading this a little over halfway through because I felt like I "got" whatever I could get from reading this stream of amoral insanity translated from the French. Don't let me quitting on it reflect poorly on the work, I just didn't feel like I could get inside what's really happening in the text without reading it in French, because otherwise it's just an approximation of surreal images strung together in strangely constructed English. Probably should have kept reading until at least the famous scene where Maldoror kills a turtle by decorating its shell too extravagantly, but oh well there's too much to read, sorry Maldy.

ABC of Reading & Selected Poems, Ezra Pound

Ezra Pound was at least two things: the most important poet writing in English in the 20th century, and a latterly repentant fascist antisemite. The poems are unimpeachable: his antisemitism is less apparent in his work than Eliot's was in his (or even, for that matter, like, Hemingway's and Fitzgerald's), but people usually seem content to write him off because he was a vocal supporter of Mussolini. Pound says you know a bad critic when they spend their time talking about the writer and not the writing, and like with a lot of what Pound said, I mostly agree. My poor education requires me to defensively critique Pound's belief that you can't even learn to read if you only read English, but his extreme snobbishness and rigorous standards are often missing among the contemporary literati. I want to see more of it without it being saddled with the idiosyncratic fascism of an intensely bourgeois American.

There are three kinds of Pound poems: those written in idiomatic American English, a kind of modernist version of Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman, or William Carlos Williams but cosmopolitan--these are my favorites of his, because I'm too stupid to really understand the second kind, the High Modernist lyrics historicizing and stuffed with multiple languages, Chinese ideograms and allusions that fly about 17 miles over my head. The third kind is his translations, which admittedly I skipped over for no real reason other than I felt like it. If I weren't already working through reading all of Pynchon this year, I'd dive into the Cantos soon. I might still, stay tuned.

#reading log 2021

[antler-steve]

✨ 1/4 hi can i join the dabi match up? 🥺 im 4'11, straight, asian and im a capricorn! & i think im really meant to be a capricorn lmao im an extrovert, sympathetic & v kind to others but im reserved most of the time, i dont like sharing (serious) stuff about me. im like friends with and kind to everyone but comfortable with few hehe im that friend u go to for an honest (harsh) but logical advice 😂

✨ 2/4 i am really independent, witty & driven/ambitious most of the time but i'd be so stubborn lol my friendliness may also come off as confidence but that's not really true i have a long ass list of insecurities that lie beneath djsksks in terms of athletic abilities i think im on average since i was into sports (football!) but my body shape isn't fit im a bit chubby n all :< i may have said im selfless & nice to everyone but that doesn't apply when im mad & i get so hot-headed v easily lmao

+ i also have a v snarky and sarcastic side sometimes it's funny sometimes it's snobbish tbh + my love language is words of affirmation & quality time so words really do give me the 🦋 tho im easily hurt i hate crying when there's other people around (but i can't really help it :c) my hobbies/interests basically says im a pretty chill nerd lmao i enjoy math&science, i love watching series/movies (bonus if it's thriller/mystery), reading, & listening to music hehe i also (secretly) sing 🥺

✨ 4/4 with dabi, knowing he's a villain, at first i'd think i'm delusional if i think im attracted to him. tho, i'd be so damn curious about him & im not gonna be surprised if that leads to attraction djdks since im really stubborn (even w/ my feelings) i think til the end i'd deny how i like him esp how i enjoy the back & forth banters & with my insecurity issues i think it will never cross my mind he's gonna like me back keldks i hope this isn't too long :< have a good day 🥺💕

***

Hey anon, you’re fine, thanks for sending in an ask. I like a bit of length, it gives me more to work with. But you didn’t put your age, so I’m not giving you any nsfw stuff.

I think I'm going to match you with…

Dabi

He flirts with you while you're in denial, at first because he thinks it's funny, but he likes teasing you a bit too much for that to be the only reason

The first gift he ever gives you is a drag on his cigarette

He has sent you four texts ever, three of them consist only of the word "ok"

He will never lend you his jacket if it's cold, but he will let you put your hands up his shirt. He'll give you shit about how cold your hands are but he secretly enjoys how they feel like little blocks of ice

Your first fight starts with a cold breeze, and broken glass on your bathroom floor. Dabi has come to visit, and you've been curled up on the couch together watching something until the cold starts to bother you. It was then that you'd seen it, the pane of glass smashed and the latch forced, a mess of sharp fragments littering the room. You storm back to Dabi, a fragment of it in your hand. "You broke the window in my bathroom?"

Dabi looks up at you, blue gaze insouciant. "Yeah."

"I just got that fixed!" you feel exasperation seep into your voice. "I had to bug my landlord for months."

"Well-" Dabi's lips quirk infuriatingly at the corners. "Maybe you shouldn't have."

"Dabi-" you spread your hands, frustrated.

"I always use that window to get in. What else did you expect me to do?" He turns away, shaking his head.

You set your jaw, scowling at him. "Maybe, and here's a thought, you could use the front door like a normal person?"

"Oh, so I'm a normal person now?" he drawls. "Newsflash, short stuff, I'm not exactly normal."

Somehow, Dabi always knows the exact thing to say to get on your nerves. "Being on the wrong side of a firework one time doesn't excuse being an inconsiderate shit to everyone in your life, you overcooked piece of lean cuisine," you snap, tossing the piece of glass you've picked up into your garbage.

The air in the room goes dead. You've made a mistake. You've treated him like a person, not like the  incendiary maniac he is. Blue fire flashes in his eyes, and you take a step back as he advances on you. Your back is against the wall, and Dabi leans over you, palm on the wall above your head.

"You gonna say that again, doll?" he says, tone flat. You stop breathing for a second as he stares down at you, but he's not using his fire. The things that have been upsetting you swirl around in your mind, and it's not just the broken window that you're going to have to get fixed again, it's your boyfriend being a villain who's going to end up in Tartarus if he gets caught, so you can't even tell your friends he exists. You can't even complain about his scorched ass to anyone. It's too much.

You shake your head as you feel tears form at the corners of your eyes, and push your way past him, leaving the room. His body is solid under his loose t-shirt, but he doesn't resist, blue eyes fixed on you as you close the door behind you.

You throw yourself on the bed as a sob escapes you. Stupid, stupid, stupid. You've let your anger get the better of you and now Dabi's going to leave. He's going to slip out into the night, and you're never going to see him again. Maybe that's for the best. The thought rips another sob from you.

You don't hear Dabi come into your room, but you feel the bed shift under his weight as he sits beside you, patting your side to get you to make room for him. He flops down by your side, a soft noise as he expels air through his lips. He's not touching you, but you can feel the warmth that radiates from his skin.

You sniff into your blanket, eyes still wet. "I'm not gonna apologise."

"I know," he says. It occurs to you that he really deserves an apology, you were pretty savage to him, but that would require him to give you an apology about the window, and you both know he's too proud to give you that.

"Truce?" you ask.

"Mm." Dabi rolls into your side, an arm slung over you carelessly. "You really think I'm an… what was it you said? An overcooked piece of lean cuisine?" His tone is light, more amused than angry, though there's still an edge to it. You've managed to hurt his feelings this time, those things you sometimes forget he has.

You roll so that your back is to him, so he can't see what a mess your crying has made of your face, and you feel his lips brush the top of your head as he pulls your body to his. "You're more than that, Mr Crispy." You sigh, sinking against him, his warmth easing the tension in the muscles of your back. "Though if you want to come in the front door in future, I could give you keys for my place."

"Keys, huh?" he asks. "What if I lost them?"

On a whim, you reach up and behind you, fingers brushing the metal of the piercings in his ears. "You've got rings, don't you? Just attach them to one of those."

Dabi snorts, jabbing a thumb into the softness of your belly to make you squeal. "Fuck you," he rasps, half laughing, but he’s not mad at you anymore.

#not fic #matchup #dabi x reader

[thinking-outside-the-giftbox18]

A Pill In Time: Chapter 1 - Welcome to St. Dymphna’s Psych Ward

Part 1 - The Cafeteria

Ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25747456/chapters/62524816

Wattpad link: https://www.wattpad.com/932664360-a-pill-in-time-ahit-psych-ward-au-chapter-1

Summary: An alternate universe where A Hat In Time [by Gears For Breakfast] is set in a psychic ward and anyone non-human in the game are human now.

Notes: The writer has done research on the mental disorders yet has trouble understanding and memorizing them, please don’t harass or insult them as they have tried to be empathetic and avoid spreading misinformation.

The perspective of the main character changes to the next character to show what the main character is really doing.

TW: Mental disorders [Autism/Autism Spectrum, PTSD, OCD, Anxiety, Schizophrenia, etc.], the perspective of a child can be dark too, self-loathing, mentions of physical abuse [not kids fighting each other, we were kids who fought our own siblings before, unless it was physical abuse on your perspective…nevermind…], mild swearing, might be boring depending on how I write this story.

I swear I’m not crying…I’m not crying at all! When I get angry, the sweat goes into my eyeballs! I’m gonna kick Timmy to the ground till he becomes a vegetable and I’ll chop him up and eat him for dinner, and he better taste delicious!!! Okay Hana, calm yourself…You have to get your toys first before anyone else can! I see what looked like a cafeteria up ahead, and then I heard what sounded like a girl making karate noises and punching someone. I was almost close to the source of the sound when I saw this girl, she had blond

hair that was tied into pigtails, but the bands are almost at the end of the hair. She was kicking a big security guy who looks like he was in pain, she stopped and turned towards me, she had yellow eyes that stared at me with surprise and confusion.

Before I can say anything, she ran away and I had to follow her. She went inside the cafeteria and kept ducking under the tables and dodging the other security guys…who all look the same…weird. While chasing her, I noticed something near the tall barred windows and I ran over to it. It was my blue blanket with star patterns, still folded and rolled in a bundle! I grabbed it and shoved it inside the bag. I got up and looked around…great, I lost her. I cautiously tried to get to the exit, but then I heard a loud booming voice, I almost hit my head under the tables from jumping!

“FIND THAT BLONDE GIRL AND MAKE SURE TO PUT HER IN THE ROOM!!!”

My ears ring from that yell, I really don’t know or want to know what “The room” is. I peep up and see a chef with black hair and a scowl on his face, he has a fancy mustache and bushy brows. He had both his arms on his hip and commanding the guards around, I quickly left the room before he can see me.

Mark’s P. O. V.

I looked around the cafeteria, making sure no table is left unturned for Maria, that little she-devil…As I was watching out for her, I could have sworn that I had seen someone ran out the cafeteria… Might be that I’m really tired.

Hana’s P. O. V.

That was close…I looked around and see that I have some options, there was a flight of stairs going up and an elevator. I was busy thinking of my choice to venture to the other floors that I did not notice the clicking sounds from the badges on my bagpack. I jumped and turned to see that girl again, who looked at me like a curious owl.

She walked around me, looking up and down, suspicious and serious. Is…Is that red marker on her cheeks??

Maria’s P. O. V.

This brown haired girl with blue eyes looked at me with surprise; maybe she couldn’t believe the glorious sight of Miss Maria, the Marvelous Hero of the St. Dymphna’s Psych Ward!

That is a working title, by the way!

“Hello there! You must be new here! I am Maria the Marvelous and Welcome to the Psych Ward! What are your superpowers?” I introduced myself to the newbie; she looked at me silently and blinked, like any clueless person. She must be a mute, like those two weirdoes from the third floor who scare the security goons.

“You must have a really cool superpower, kid! I’m the hero of this place and I’m currently on a mission! Wanna join the rebellion?” She was about to open her mouth, but I know the answer! “Great! I had to hire you after watching you escape from the bad guys’ headquarters, that’s some pretty good sneaking if you ask me!” Then I remembered the badges on her bag, I ask about them “Those are some pretty cool badges you got there! Do they mean anything? Do they relate to that super cool superpower of yours?”

Just the thought of having a badge for having a superpower already sounded awesome! “I saw this boy with a red jacket running around and dropping off these weird looking toys on the corners of the building before I got here. Do those belong to you?” She nodded her head immediately, good to know she’s not deaf. “I can help you find them all since we’re comrades now! Or better yet, we’re partners in crime! Whaddya’ say?” I held up a hand for a high-five, and then realized she’s shorter than me.

Hana’s P. O. V.

No offense to Maria but she was and sounds bossy and obnoxious. However, I was really grateful for the help she had given me. I jumped up and immediately high-fived Maria back, I spent my time with Timmy to know to never be slow to a high-five. She seemed impressed by that and she led the way.

As we found my comfort toys one by one around the ground floor, she talked about the ward and the tall tales of the residents who live in the second and third floor above. There’s a grumpy old man who yells at everything and argues with another guy who has big poofy hair, a long haired tall man who screamed at the guards and one of them sort of died, a skinny red eyed man who chants to himself while his fingers are always entangled with threads, and finally this really creepy lady who screams every day and attacks anyone on sight. The last one kind of scared me because after Maria told me that tale, a distant scream rang out and Maria looked equally as scared as I am, even though she later denied it.

Anyways, she takes me back to the cafeteria and I’m making sure to not open my mouth, though it was getting harder everytime Maria talked.

Maria says that she had recalled seeing one of my comfort toys in the kitchen, I show my “upset face” which is me lowering both my eyebrows.

“Don’t worry, I, Miss Maria the Marvelous, know a shortcut!” she exclaimed, peaking my interest. It’s started to feel like an action spy movie! I listened to her directions, making sure to not leave out anything and nod my head to show that I listened. “Okay, new kid! Go in there and get that thing! Knock ‘em dead if you get caught!” I waved and ran off to the back door.

Maria’s P. O. V.

I waved her back as she sneaked into the kitchen back door, to be honest…I feel happy to have a friend after being here for so long…

She is planning to betray you…~

My heart sank and eyes widened. ‘S-She won’t…! I can tell!’

She is silently planning on telling about you to those stupid goons…~ And laugh at your ugly face for believing in her~

‘She wouldn’t do that!! She was so nice!’

She will watch you cry and take away your place as the hero. Her toys are her strength, that is why she was looking for them~ She’ll become a powerful villain and betray you to the very end~

…I am her friend. I trust her. I’ll prove you wrong! She’ll thank me and never leave me! Watch me! When I enter the cafeteria, she’ll open the door after getting in the kitchen.

But I am always right. Without me, you’ll be nothing…We were there when “he” put you in this place, we’ll always will be~

…

…

I doubt you now.

So be it.

I entered the cafeteria cautiously, and waited for the newbie to unlock the door, but it was still locked… Maybe she bailed out on us…~ Or she got stuck somewhere…

Suddenly the door unlocked and the kid stood by it while she gave a kind smile at me. “Well, you took your time, didn’t you? Don’t make me wait like that ever again!” I huffed and turn up my nose in annoyance before playfully snicker and hold her hand. She was surprised but smiled back at me before following me to the kitchen.

Hana’s P. O. V.

I was a bit shocked at Maria’s fake snobbish attitude, but I knew it was just pretend. To be fair, it was difficult to pass through the vents of the kitchen, I was lucky to find gloves before going in there. Everything was so sticky and slimy, and even so…small! I shuddered at the thought of it. I don’t mind letting my guard down for Maria, she isn’t so bad after all. I hope it stays that way after I get my comfort toys back.

#giftbox_treasures #a pill in time #ahit #a hat in time #ahit au #ahit fanfic #ahit hat kid #ahit mustache girl #ahit mafia goons #ahit mafia boss #ahit Timmy

[dreamywriting]

✨ 2/2 i may have said im selfless & nice to everyone but that doesn't apply when im mad ... & i get so hot-headed v easily lmao + i also have a v snarky and sarcastic side sometimes it's funny sometimes it's snobbish tbh + tho im easily hurt i hate crying when there's other people around (but i can't really help it :c) i love spicy food + watching series/movies (bonus if it's thriller/mystery), reading, & listening to music hehe ty stay safe n have a lovely day!! 🥺💕

This just screams the perfect match to me. Kirishima would love how kind and selfless you were, and when for some reason you’d lose your temper he wouldn’t mind in the slightest. I mean, ya’ll have seen the way he handles Bakugou on a daily basis. He’d enjoy the sarcasm, always up for some banter with his favorite person in the world. Kiri would be enamored by you. He’d make an effort to put together playlists for you and listen to you talk about the latest book you were reading.

If you were in public and he ever sensed you were on the verge of tears, he would discreetly come to your side and guide you somewhere more private. He’d hold a protective arm around you, loving the way you would feel against his bigger statue. Kirishima would feel so manly beside your cute frame, playfully picking you up when you were in private and lovingly reminding you of how gorgeous you were. He’d understand how you felt about your insecurities, but he would do everything he could to make you feel safe and loved.

a/n: hope you liked this, darling! have a nice day/night, too. 🤍

request

#matchup #kirishima eijirou

[sparksinthenight]

A story idea:

K I don’t have the time to actually write this, considering that I already have five WIPs. So if anyone has time and wants to write this, feel free.

Okay so it’s a historical fact that George Washington’s family was very racist, greedy, egotistical, exploitative, power-hungry, wealthy, powerful, etc. They owned slaves and we’re all-round scum. George himself was also all this. This is a historical fact. Watch RenegadeCut’s video about the Cult if Tradition if you’re want more information.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwUIDNYwZRY

Okay so now the fiction comes in:

So the story starts when George’s mom is pregnant with him. His father has invested in some business ventures that are too risky for his likings - I don’t know enough about history to know why this would be at the time - and he stands to lose some of his obscene fortune. He can’t stand this and eventually his desire for money and also the power and status that come with money win out over his desire not to do anything too weird.

He follows a young poor woman to where she lives. There’s rumours of her being a witch because she lives out in the forest by herself without a man. But she’s also the best embroider there is and people really like her work so they keep her around. But anyways, Augustine (George’s dad) I’d hoping that she is a witch. Not in order to get the town to burn her but in order to blackmail her into doing magic for him. He has like a special copy of the bible given to him by a really sketchy priest with him that can help him detect witchcraft. He has it hidden.

The woman knows that he is following her, though he tries to be very secretive about it, and she confronts him immediately. He says that he is merely wanting to confirm that she isn’t doing some horrible witchy stuff or whatever and that he is merely trying to keep the town safe. She tries to get him to stop following her but he is really insistent. She recognizes that the power imbalance between them means she can’t do anything about him following her so she lets him.

It turns out that she lives in a small cottage that she found in the woods. Though he doesn’t know this yet, she is in fact a witch and also he helps slaves to escape. She sends out a magical message to the slaves hiding in her home that danger is coming and they should probably hide, so they hide in her cellar. Meanwhile Augustine, using the special bible, detects that she’s just used magic though he doesn’t know what magic she used.

So he calls her out in her witchcraft, shows her the proof, and she’s terrified. But he assures her that he will not tell anyone as long as she does what he says. She promises him that she will. And he commands her to see into the future to learn what is in store for his plantation.

She does so, and sees that there we’ll be great suffering for the many people who work on it, for generations upon generations to come. But she can’t really say that because even though she’s technically obeying him he’ll still get her killed if she says that. Instead she tells him that his profits will continue to improve and his bloodline will prosper. Not lies. But she really wants to stick it to him. She tells him that the first child born in his house February of this year will become a great leader and a hero whose honourable deeds would have effects for centuries to come. Augustine knows that his child is due in February and takes this as glorious news. But she knows that the first child born in the house in February will not be George. It will be a little black girl named Liberty (is that too in the nose?). She knows that Augustine never pays attention to the lives of his slaves and does not see them as people, so he won’t even notice that his maid is also pregnant. And of course he won’t pay any attention to a black girl.

So then we go to February. Towards the beginning of the month Liberty’s mother goes into labour and there is no-one around so she can’t get help and she gives birth on the cellar floor. It is a deeply traumatizing experience and terrifying and painful experience for her because she had no access to support or comfort or medical care or anything. Which obviously sucks, she deserves better, but stupid systems create injustice. But despite the traumatic birth, the girl is healthy and beautiful and she loves her immediately. It’s the middle of night by the time the child is born and there is incredible starlight, mirroring what happened when Jesus was was born. She gathers her strength and walks to her hut, to where her husband is, and they decide together to name the child Liberty.

So then we get to see George’s mother giving birth with a fictitious and a midwife and the best painkillers they had at the time, in her hugs and soft bed.

And we see both the children growing up. We see George being snobbish and racist and treating his slaves badly.

And we see Liberty being humble and kind and friendly to her fellow slaves. We see her suffering and doing child labour. But we also see her listening to the problems of her friends and family in the slave quarters, and offering them support and encouragement. We see her telling stories if hope and bravery and confidence go the younger kids, and even the older kids. She becomes a great storyteller, weaving tales of defying unbeatable odds, rising up against oppressors, showing silent, secret defiance, of showing compassion and togetherness and unity. And we see her living her ideals as much as we can. We see her stealing bits of extra food to share with her people when she could. We see her finding funny ways to secretly mock the masters. We see her lying cleverly to protect people from punishment. She is incredibly proud if her people. How they make it through the depths if hell by finding light in each other. How they try so hard to survive. Everything about them.

As George grows, he increased in his spoiled ness and his pride but also becomes charismatic and manipulative.

As Liberty grows, she only grows more protective and brave. She lives her people more than anything, and has inspired, helped, empowered, and even saved so many people. When she is fifteen she gets sold to another plantation. And that’s heartbreaking. She finds herself loving her new family of fellow slaves and supporting and sticking up for them just as much. She even draws attention to herself purposefully when the younger slaves mess up, so that the overseers’ wrath can be directed at her instead and they can be safe. People admire her for her selflessness and spirit. She admires then did their kindness, longing, community, wisdom, hope, the list goes on. They find hope in each other.

Liberty gets involved with the (well there wasn’t an Underground Railroad yet, but the equivalent) and she slaves run away to freedom. She never goes herself, knowing that if she stays on the plantation she can help many slaves become free. And she is hailed as a hero.

Eventually she is found out by the whites and hanged for all this. But before she dies she proclaims that they won’t be able to keep her people in inequality forever and that one day there will be justice. Then she dies. A whole bunch of black people see how she was defiant until the end. George Washington is in the crowd. He feels true fear for the first time in his life. For just a second.

And the truth is that with her humility, her selflessness, her pride and her ability to find power within an abjectly powerless situation, she positively impacted so many more lives than the president with his fame and his power and his glory ever did. She sowed the seeds of love, of hope, of true freedom, rather than the seeds of blind patriotism and capitalism and false freedom.

Sure, the president is the man that the history books remember, but his actions were based on selfishness, ego, and greed. He hijacked a revolution that should’ve been for and led by poor people and slaves. And he built the foundations of an empire that ended up being worse than the British one.  

It was the strength and the togetherness and the hope and the love and the ability to find bits of power in the most hopeless of situations, that all the slaves had, it was what built the foundations of true freedom in America. Every single slave was a necesssty key into opening true freedom. And Liberty played her part beautifully, inspiring hundreds of people to believe in their people, to fight for their people. Those people in torn found their own power and inspired other people, and so on and so forth.

And eventually the world that Liberty believed in triumphed over the world that George believed in.

#story ill never write #story ideas #writing ideas

[turtle-paced]

Thought on Selyse Florent? Haven’t seen her discussed much here

Selyse Florent, as we know her in the series, is not a nice person at all. She’s superior, snobbish, and she burns people alive.

“Yes,” Lady Selyse agreed. “Patches’s helm. It suits you well, old man. Put it on again, I command you.”

[…]

The maester sat silent while the fool set the antlered bucket on his brow. Cressen bowed his head beneath the weight. His bells clanged. “Perhaps he ought sing his counsel henceforth,” Lady Selyse said.

- Prologue, ACoK

“You are an onion smuggler, what do you know of skulkings and stabbings? And you are ill, you cannot even hold the dirk. Do you know what will be happening to you, if you are caught? While we were burning on the river, the queen was burning traitors. Servants of the dark, she named them, poor men, and the red woman sang as the fires were lit.”

- Davos II, ASoS

Queen Selyse sniffed. “We are done with Eastwatch. We did not like it there. A queen should be mistress beneath her own roof. We found your Cotter Pyke to be an uncouth and unpleasant man, quarrelsome and niggardly.”

- Jon IX, ADWD

But we also have enough information to see the utter misery that probably went into her devotion to her newfound faith. One of the very first things we learn about Selyse is that she’s a plain woman:

Lady Selyse was as tall as her husband [note: Stannis is over six feet tall], thin of body and thin of face, with prominent ears, a sharp nose, and the faintest hint of a mustache on her upper lip. She plucked it daily and cursed it regularly, yet it never failed to return. Her eyes were pale, her mouth stern, her voice a whip.

- Prologue, ACoK

We know from Brienne’s PoV that it really, really sucks to be an ugly woman in Westeros. When the Baratheon regime tapped the Florents for a wife for Stannis, a man not far down the new succession at all, they probably said “yes, please, take our daughter!” knowing that no better matches were going to come along. Selyse, then almost certainly in her late teens, was most likely not consulted, and she wound up married to Stannis Baratheon.

And that marriage sucked.

The wedding was a poor enough start, what with Robert’s antics at the feast (we see that both Stannis and Selyse were humiliated by this). It would quickly have become apparent to Selyse that she could expect propriety from her husband - no less, but also no more. No affection, and certainly no love.

Only the one child, too, a daughter who promptly came down with a disfiguring illness. According to Westerosi social mores, Selyse is supposed to be a good wife and bear her husband sons. This she did not do. All the while she’s on Dragonstone, which from what we see is a pretty bloody miserable place at the best of times, and a long way from most of her family. When Stannis was appointed to Robert’s council, her domestic situation got even further from the ideal:

Stannis had always been uncomfortable around women, even his own wife. When he had gone to King’s Landing to sit on Robert’s council, he had left Selyse on Dragonstone with their daughter. His letters had been few, his visits fewer; he did his duty in the marriage bed once or twice a year, but took no joy in it, and the sons he had once hoped for had never come.

- Prologue, ACoK

Yeah, Stannis was hoping for sons, but we see in ASoS that Selyse sure wanted  them too.

Queen Selyse went down on both knees before the king, hands clasped as if in prayer. “Robert and Delena defiled our bed and laid a curse upon our union. This boy is the foul fruit of their fornications. Lift his shadow from my womb and I will bear you many trueborn sons, I know it.” She threw her arms around his legs.

- Davos V, ASoS

Her hopes must have faded with the years too, stuck on Dragonstone with a husband distant even when he was present, who ever so clearly did not actually care for her, and a daughter who (through absolutely no fault of her own) could not help but remind Selyse of her failures.

Then Melisandre shows up. Melisandre tells Selyse that there is good and there is evil, and Selyse can help in the fight. Melisandre tells her that Stannis is meant for great things - Selyse’s pain and unhappiness in her domestic life is not for nothing. There is hope. There will be something more if she just has faith.

Though I’m obviously not supportive of burning people alive, much less on charges as nebulous as “they’re servants of the darkness,” I can definitely see what got her to the point where she’d do anything for Melisandre and the hope she offers.

#ASoIaF #valyrianscrolls #cw: violence #selyse baratheon #stannis baratheon #melisandre #a clash of kings #a storm of swords #a dance with dragons #asks

[bnha-more-like-bnh-gay]

can i get a bnha match up pls? 🥺 im a 4’11 (straight) girl, tan skin, black medium length hair w/ bangs! & chubby and kinda insecure :< i don’t like studying 24/7 but when i study, i ace it 😬 i dont have a hard time getting to know people + my friends describe me as super duper witty (a bit snarky) & kind but once i get mad ... small but terrible ... 😂 my hobbies include binge watching / music basically im a very chill nerd lmao ++ it’s kinda a secret i can sing i love musicals 🥺🥺

“ ✨ 2/2 i may have said im selfless & nice to everyone but that doesn't apply when im mad ... & i get so hot-headed v easily lmao + i also have a v snarky and sarcastic side sometimes it's funny sometimes it's snobbish tbh + tho im easily hurt i hate crying when there's other people around (but i can't really help it :c) i LOVE spicy food !!! + watching series/movies (bonus if it's thriller/mystery), reading, & listening to music hehe i also (secretly) sing since i love musicals 🥺”

Hello! Thank you for the ask! Sorry it took a while to get out, but I hope you enjoy!!💙

I match you with Denki!

You guys met at UA, and are both pretty extroverted; so you became fast friends!

He always thought you were pretty, and he loves snuggling with you!! Cuddle dates! He likes to brain your hair when you’re cuddling. You can also watch tv or just talk!

He loves that you can be a little snarky, like,,,, this boi is sassy,,, and the sass that you’ve got going on is fabulous!

Neither of you are big on studying, but when you know you need to; you make him join you. Or,,, you try. He’d rather focus on trying to brain your hair, and try and distract you with something (mainly musicals)

Speaking of, being the dramatic boi that he is, he asked you out by doing a dramatic poetry reading and singing songs from your favorite musical👌

T’was when you knew that you loved this boi.

He admires how kind you are, and how strong you are! Whenever someone crosses you, you’re strong enough to fight back and then do whatever it takes to help someone else the next day. He hates when you’re upset and always tries to help you. He will attempt to make you the spiciest of foods! Sing all of the musicals! He will do a one man performance of your favorite musical (costumes included)

Hugs,, I cannot stress this enough. Hugs👌 just,,,, cuddle dates, listening to music, talking about conspiracy theories 👀👀

Sometimes, he’ll ask you to read out loud to him. He loves watching you read, hearing your voice, just being with you! Watching your face light up if something happens in the book, whether it be cute, a plot twist, a pairing you did or didn’t want! He is smitten. Mina loves to tease him about it👌

Watching scary movies/tv shows is always fun, because you can both get scared sometimes, and isn’t that part of the beauty? But you both also get so enthralled in some of the more twisty thrillers! 2 am scary tv dates are fabulous, but you’d better cuddle with him, because he really does love horror, but afterwards “babe, the shadows are moving”

I hope you enjoyed!!💙

#bnha #mha #edits #bnha momo #bnha jirou #bnha kirishima #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #aizawa shouta #dadzawa #mha denki #bnha denki #denki kaminari