#i'm still not quite sure my little blog is all that interesting

[writing-in-glitter-pen]

love🥺🫶🏻I click at my notification so fast when I saw your posting again adfkgk you have no idea how much I like your writing! also I'm new to your blog but if anyone trying to hurt you I'm......going to give them a really bad time... 😤💪//hj

Anyway 🥺🫶🏻🫶🏻can I request a reaction of wrio and neuvillette with a darling who has a habit of looking at the price on menus...like why worry your silly little head? when you're with them those silly little numbers mean nothing. it's one of your habit that's hard to let go but he find them really cute so it's okay!

Awwww thank you so much, dear!!!! You'll be happy to know that I've got nothing but love on here which I'm so so grateful for ♡ but I appreciate you so much for your protection ♡

And what a lovely idea!! This is so something I struggle with so it was interesting to write about and imagine what our favorite boys would say!! I hope you like it ♡

✧˖° you're worth all the mora in the world⋆.˚✧

Wriothesley & Neuvillette x gn!reader (separate) II fluff!

"You're not allowed to order water."

"Wriothesley..."

He slides the drink menu over to you with a stern, "Pick one."

"...but I don't need—"

"It's not about needing. I took you out to spoil and indulge you, don't deny me that pleasure."

You've been dating Wriothesley long enough for him to find your cautiousness when it comes to his funds an issue.

On the first few dates you two shared, though he'd rather have pampered you with lavish meals and treats, he decided to look the other way when it came to how you'd always miraculously choose the most inexpensive dishes on the menu.

"I guess that's only polite...", he reasoned with himself, weighing whether or not he should mention to you that money was not a problem for him; but eventually, he thought it better to just give you time.

"Once we get more comfortable, it'll change."

And once you two did get comfortable, and he found that your behavior, in fact, did not change, his patience wore thin.

Why were you still so uncomfortable with him? It was almost an insult that you thought so little of him to assume he'd find paying for you a burden.

So, he takes to ordering for you. He knows what you like, and he knows if he lets you choose for yourself, the price will play a factor into what you order—even subconsciously.

Until you start choosing the most expensive meals on the menu, you're not allowed to make objections or requests without grounds like allergies or dislikes; which you won't have, because he knows you too well by now.

If you try to lie and tell him you don't like something he's picked for you, you will fail. Miserably, so.

"I don't like crab.", you argue—peeking over your menu at him in an attempt to hide your tells that he's become much too familiar with. He could read you like a book, and you have no idea how he's gained so much expertise in the field of you.

"Uh huh, sure, doll.", he doesn't even look at you, his attention on the waiter as he orders. "That one—", he says, flicking his finger to point at you, "is going to have golden crab.".

"And the crab will be market-priced. Will that be all right with you, sir?", the waiter feels the need to confirm, as market-priced foods are often quite expensive.

You jump in, "How mu—"

"That's fine.", Wriothesley interjects, giving you a stern look as he plucks the menu from your hands, revealing your red cheeks (a symptom of your fibbing), and passes it to the waiter before handing him his own. He doesn't need to hear the price, it's just a number, and you're worth more than all the mora in his bank account. No matter how ardently you can try to protest, he's committed to giving you what he knows you want—even if you hesitate to ask for it.

And watching from across the table how your eyes glimmer and beautiful cheeks turn rosy pink as the opulent flavors hit your tongue is more than enough compensation for him to recieve in return.

Neuvillette finds your financial prudence to be a quality of yours he actually quite admires. Too often, he sees thoughtless individuals land themselves in his court with grave, unsettled debts due to gambling or overspending, so your conscientiousness is to be commended!

However, when he is the one footing the bill, he sees no logical need for you to apply this virtue. He knows what he can afford, so you need not worry about it; and to see that telltale crease between your eyebrows as you worry yourself over what to choose on a menu with nothing priced less than ˙✧12500 mora, simply crushes him.

He can never sit right with himself when you have that anxious look on your face, it makes him feel like he’s failing as your partner. And over something so small as a handful of mora! He finds it necessary to talk you through the logic of the situation rather than your—for lack of better word—illogical fixation on a metaphysical number.

“Sweetheart,”, he calls in that soothing, deep vibration of his voice that feels like resting in the coolest, calmest waters of Fontaine, “I am the Chief Justice of Fontaine; as such, I’ve been entrusted to oversee both criminal and civil trials due to my ability to apply sound judgement to otherwise complex situations, unrivaled by anyone else in the nation.”

“…”, you sit quietly with your hands in your lap and blink at him, tongue-tied as his explanation begins to make perfect sense.

“…don’t you think I would have the discernment to manage my own finances?”, he concludes, hammering his claim into you with one last strike.

You have no rebuttal. He’s pinned you so effortlessly, it’s embarrassing. Sometimes, it’s a challenge to date a man with such vast practice in rhetorical argument.

Your worries being soothed with such tact actually makes you quite flustered, your cheeks and nose turning a soft shade of red as you pout in defeat.

The way your expression graduated from nervous to sheepish with just a few sentences of reasoning makes him chuckle, reaching out to lift your chin with the knuckle of his index finger with a cheery, but reserved smile on his face.

“Darling, I’ve brought you out tonight to spoil you. Do me the honor of having some fun while we’re here? There’s nothing more I want right now than to see your beautiful smile.”

You find it’s impossible to hold back the simper that blooms on your face from that remark, to which he smirks with pride.

This was the most fulfilling trial he’s held in a century.

#genshin x reader #genshin x you #genshin impact #genshin fluff #genshin imagines #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact x you #neuvillette #neuvillete x reader #neuvilette genshin #neuvilette x reader #neuvillete x you #wriothesley x you #genshin wriothesley #wriothesley genshin #wriothesley x reader #wriothesley #genshin #neuvillette x gn reader #neuvillette x reader #wriothesley x gn reader

[silasours]

ৎ⸝⸝⠀DETECTIVE AND MURDERER IN HELL . —

#pairing : alastor x gn reader. #cw : may include adult content. enemies to lovers trope. #summary : you were a detective when you were a human! but uh oh, you died.. and you meet the target that you were on to before your death? #note : I feel bad for not posting for so long, here's a little sneak peek at what I'm working on! i received this prompt from an anon in my inbox and do i love it very much. i have so many ideas for this fic, it'll be my first ever long fic on this blog! i'll reply to the ask once I'm done with the fic :3

“my, isn’t it my favorite detective!” you hear a static, loud voice speak from behind you. you quirk a brow, slowly turning your head to see a demon that somehow resembles a deer. a red deer, that is. he wears this wide smile that stretches from ear to ear, his whole attire so formal it makes you question if you’re underdressed. he holds a cane in his hands; it looks like a speaker that he got custom-made. confusion bubbles inside of you, and multiple questions float across your mind. who is this man, that so happens to know what you work as when you were still alive?

and, out of all demons, why are you his favorite?

“I’m sorry, but have we met?” you turn your body to face him fully, your eyes scanning from head to toe wondering if it’s just a fuzzy memory of yours. the demon steps closer to you, a sense of uneasiness instantly rushes through your veins. you shudder suddenly..

“aha, of course we have! you were even so interested in me back when we were alive!” his words only made your confusion grow. you, being interested in someone? in what way? your work has never allowed you any extra space to catch feelings for anyone around you, so surely it’s not a crush unless you’ve misunderstood. It’s like he read your thoughts, he quickly adds in with a light chuckle.

“constantly trying to gather information about me, pinpointing my location, guessing my next move. fun times! I truly enjoyed watching you do so.” something clicked in your head. so this demon was presumably a target of yours before he died, but how could you know exactly which? you had so many targets, so many psychopaths you had to track down and lock them up for good. though, something about his deer features brings a blurry memory of a specific target that you currently can’t quite put a name to his face.

everyone in the hotel watches your interaction with the red demon quietly. the air is tense, nobody dared to breathe any harder than they are now. charlie is the most anxious one out of everyone in the room; angel is starting to doubt whether he should’ve brought you back to the hotel. but, surely, the manager is smarter than to kill off someone interested in staying, no?

“care to remind me which one are you?” your hands instinctively hide themselves in your pockets as a habit. your tone isn’t as friendly as it was when you spoke to the others, and the demon is loving the reaction he’s getting from you.

“gladly, my dear friend! i’d say my case was the one you spent the most time on,” you suddenly feel a strong tug on your hand before realizing that you’re shaking hands with the demon. his smile widens as you grow more uncomfortable. “the name’s alastor! pleasure to be meeting you, quite a pleasure! I was there to witness your lovely slash boring death,”

you pull your hand back from his grasp, face scrunching at the mention of your death. he witnessed your death? what is he hinting? Is he trying to tell you that it was he who took the life of yours?

“I watched as you were murdered by one petty man i convinced, it was one of the most boring deaths i’ve ever seen! but dear, was i disappointed that you’ll never be able to put a close to my case when i thought you’d do better at fighting back.” you freeze suddenly, blood running cold from your face as he carries on.

“I was the last target you had before dying, it was a joy toying with you like a little mouse.”

so that’s what all the familiarity you felt was. his demeanor and personality, all that was jotted down in the notebook you had for research. he matches everything you wrote; you remember word by word from the number of times you’ve reread it, the times at night when you’re desperate to finally put the case to a stop. you feel anger and disgust pound in your chest, feet stepping back a couple of times.

he’s the reason why you died. you stare at his mocking smile, his expression that clearly shows his enjoyment while watching your reaction. a growl bubbles from your chest, and you see the spider demon hesitantly approach you. he stays beside you, rubbing his arm nervously while trying to think of a reason to pull you away from this scene.

“I died because of you,” you breathe out, body shaking not from fear but anger and realization. you suddenly leap forward when angel is about to reach out for your arm, your fingers curl tightly around the collar of alastor’s shirt. his smile only widens at your actions, a light hum that slides out so smoothly and audibly. “and it was purely for fun?” it’s even possible to notice every small feature you have on your face from how close you’ve pulled his face to yours. you earn a mere shrug from the demon.

“woah! babes, hey, calm down would’ja? let’s head somewhere else.” you feel a tug at your arm, but you don’t budge. you want to hurt this demon, to beat him until he’s curled up into a ball on the ground, but you can’t. there’s something holding you back, something telling you to not go any further than what you’re currently doing. he reeks of danger and mystery, hell knows what would he do to you if you were to cross his line. with another growl, you harshly push him away and he stumbles back a few steps with a small ‘oh!’.

angel sees this and takes the chance to quickly drag you away from the scene, and you let him. Everyone in the hall watches angel drag you all the way to the kitchen until alastor is out of your sight. his clawed fingers release your arm, a concerned gaze fixated on your slumping figure as you let out a deep sigh while pressing your face onto the surface of your palms.

now, you’ll really have to think it through whether you want to stay in this hotel. having so many things to take in so suddenly messes up your thoughts, something you’re unfamiliar with considering how you’re always sharp and organized.

© silas ( @silasours ). all rights reserved. every work posted on this account belongs to me, and only me. please refrain from reposting, plagiarizing, translating, or reproducing my work in any form possible.

#﹕a dream to nowhere. #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel x reader #alastor #hazbin hotel imagine #alastor x reader #hazbin alastor #hazbin hotel drabble #angel dust #hazbin angel dust #hazbin hotel alastor #alastor imagine #hazbin hotel x you #hazbin x reader #lucifer #lucifer morningstar #hazbin lucifer #charlie #charlie morningstar

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

ik you mentioned interest in writing out how you'd prefer homestuck ended (though obviously time and money makes that impossible lol), and you touched on it in your big eridan essay at the end, but would you ever consider maybe a more detailed outline? i really enjoy your thoughts on the characters and the abandoned plotlines, i'd love to get a little more of an in depth look at how you wish it went down.

Yeah sure!

For those who aren't sure what the hell I'm talking 'bout, please check out my blog and the various essays I've been writing.

Some of it is contingent on stuff I kind of still need to reread so I'm really sorry to the alpha kid likers but I'm still not totally 100% sure where I want to take them. I'm also going to include quite a few personal preference ships; I'm not interested in arguing what other people should ship or about arguing about the course of action for my dumb fanfic in general. I also tend to discover the plot I want while I'm writing it, which I don't have the luxury of here, so... some of it is going to be kind of sloppy. I'm also a big troll stan so unfortunately the kids are a little bit neglected (sorry!!!!). That said.

So the changes would take place directly after GAME OVER, which is personally the point at which I think the truncation/turning on the fanbase really starts - ships start to get turbo-sped at that point. I'm not even saying I dislike JohnRoxy or JohnRezi, but they just feel oddly rushed the way they're handled in the comic itself. IMO, anyway.

There's not too much I would rearrange during this interstitial segment; I think it's important for Jade to have the experience of loneliness, for Terezi to kick off the retcons by only feeling comfortable fixing her own mistakes. Moreover, there's no reason why other characters can't use her mind beacon abilities to ask John to rearrange the timeline, though their attempts, because they aren't backed by Seer of Mind abilities, are a lot sloppier and come with a lot more unforseen consequences.

But something I would change is that Roxy's deal with Nyx is not to just kind of... sit back and chill in non-space while John does all the work; instead, like Rose in Davesprite's timeline, Nyx puts her to sleep, and when the timeline ceases to be, GameOver!Roxy's memories get transferred to Past!Roxy via her dreamself (which wakes up early), fulfilling a "stealing from void for others" aspect of her abilities, and leads to some important interactions later on down the line.

Also, this timeline's ARquiussprite and Gamzee's corpse (heretofore referred to as (ARquiussprite) and (Gamzee)) need to come along for the ride somehow. Maybe they fall through the sky after LOLAR crashes into LOFAF.

This kicks off a series of retcons, as each troll that gets brought back successively asks for another troll/set of trolls to be brought back. This absolutely RIDDLES Act 5 with password pages, can't go two steps without running into a password page, there are password pages within password pages (which IMO is very funny and very Homestuck).

Meanwhile, a couple other plots are running concurrently - the GameOver!crew (heretofore referred to as (Name)) are now in the dream bubbles, completing their character arcs and preparing to defeat LE. Because time and space are weird in the Furthest Ring, every successive meteor trip that occurs as a result of John's retcons is the first time from the point of view of the meteor, but is a repeating event from the point of view of the people in the bubbles - eg those dead god tier Eridan and Feferi wind up healing the Mayor like seven times from their perspective.

(Aradia) is fluttering her ASS off to make sure everyone is in the right "place" at the right "time" for this, lmfao.

Roxy gaining future memories also means that the Alpha kids get to complete their arcs in a way they weren't able to prior to Game Over. Because what John's retcons are doing are functionally whiting out and redrawing the past, the Alpha kids are also only seeing a single linear timeline.

One last arc, which is running concurrent to the retconned!trolls and their new meteor trips, is that bringing back each successive character allows them ALL to grow a little more. So it is NOT like they bring back Vriska, and now everyone's problem are fixed and everything is fine; Vriska's still kind of awful, but she gets better after Tavros gets brought back and they have to character develop alongside each other, and same when Aradia and Sollux get brought back, so on and so on. Because it's about BEING FRIENDS and BEING A TEAM. They're all still having interpersonal problems right up until ALL of them get brought back.

But as a side effect of this and the questing done by the GameOver!crew, the Dancestors get more fully utilized as foils, and get their problems addressed. As the retcon!team goes through their character development, they start to tear the Dancestors apart, because the Dancestors represent shitty parents who force their kids to clean up after their messes, and refuting them works both literally and symbolically as rejecting their irresponsible way of being in lieu of responsibility, accountability, empathy, and compassion.

So here's the series of retcons, and the absolute bullshit that accompanies each decision:

Terezi asks John to save Vriska, and prevent herself from getting too spades with Gamzee, as these are her two greatest regrets.

Pretty much just what her canon iteration asked for; I don't see any problems with the actions she asks John to do for her.

HOWEVER, we'd get more than just a montage of Vriska's time on the meteor, because in this version of events, we're taking our time and letting plot points breathe. Neither does she magically fix everything just by being around when she's very much herself still going thru it by the time the Meteor trip pops off. In any case, she brings with her some new complications:

Karkat still winds up having to play moirail and keep Gamzee calm. This still ends up breaking down by the halfway point of the comic, because they're kind of just not good for each other, but Karkat's personal shitty relationships are going to become A Theme, so it's important to make note of it here.

Vriska and Terezi don't fully make up on this iteration of the trip, since from Terezi's point of view, she was still actively about to kill Vriska before John intervened; however, we get more hints, now that they have to spend three years together, that not only does Vriska really miss Terezi (which is pretty well-established, given how she can't seem to leave Terezi alone), but Terezi actually misses Vriska, too - she's just really bad at separating her own feelings and desires from her instinctive grasp of karma and justice, a very Mind player-type problem to have.

At least with Vriska around, Terezi's able to nip her Gamzee habit in the bud, but this kind of leads to Gamzee feeling worse and more alone.

Something Really Messy happens between Vriska, Rose, and Kanaya when Rose starts her drinking habit, and it's pretty toxic for all involved, and Karkat is kind of stuck playing auspice. Vriska already expresses not liking Rose much and develops some flushed feelings for Kanaya after being watching her murder Eridan, so "It's Really Messy" is kind of all I can say on the matter. The girls are fightiiinnnnggggg

Dave and Terezi get close again, but given the weirdo vibes he notices between her and Vriska, and the fact that he's really not down with quadrants (YET.), means they still end up not getting together.

Sorry DaveKat likers but I am not one. They do not ever get together, so if you are hoping for that, I am sorry and you don't have to keep reading if you don't want to, it's OK.

On a note about Vriska and Terezi - personally, I do think their moirallegiance is endgame; Vriska clearly misses her terribly, constantly trying to bug her into making the Scourge Sisters a Thing again, and she even expresses feeling really bad about the Team Charge Debacle to Terezi explicitly, before directly foreshadowing how awful Terezi will feel after killing Vriska:

AG: Cause even though you got all these highfalutin morals and fancy reserv8tions, you know as well as me that a killer is a killer is a killer! AG: There 8n't no ch8nging your ways for good, and one d8y you're going to flail that silly l8ttle cane of yours and not find n8thin to 8ump into, and fall f8ce first into the shit ag8in. AG: And you're going to do something t8rri8le to some8ody and wish you could t8ke it 8ack 8ut you c8n't!!!!!!!! AG: And then you'll work hard to win 8ack their trust, and you'll try and try and tr8, and you'll see how hard it is! AG: You'll seeeeeeee!

We know that she starts using 8's where they don't make sense phonetically when she gets really agitated, so it's pretty safe to say that she's displaying genuine emotional distress here. When combined with the way she tells John about feeling absolutely horri8le about killing Tavros, it's pretty clear she's genuine about feeling really bad about the Team Charge debacle, and sincere about wanting to somehow make amends and get back into Terezi's good graces, at times trying rivalry, at times trying to prove that she's trying to fix her mistakes.

Terezi also vehemently denies them having a kismesistude and directly mirrors Vriska's hesitance about all the murder:

GC: W3 4R3 SUPPOS3D TO R3V3L 1N BLOODSH3D 4S W3 GROW UP GC: 4ND SH3 S33MS TO B3 3MBR4C1NG H3R R1T3 OF P4SS4G3 W1TH R3CKL3SS 4B4NDON, 4S 1 WOULD 3XP3CT GC: GR4BB1NG TH3 BULL BY TH3 HORNS, SO TO SP34K GC: 1TS 4 L1TTL3 1NT1M1D4T1NG GC: B3C4US3 1M NOT SUR3 1F 1M R34DY FOR TH4T

AG: On my world, I would 8e completely vindic8ed for killing him! He is far lower on the hemospectrum than me. He managed to disrespect me time and time again, 8ut I kept letting him live! In fact, the amount of slack I cut him would 8e considered scandalous 8y those in my class. AG: I had every reason to kill him. And yet... AG: I feel 8ad a8out it like a lame weak fudge8lood, just like he was. AG: And the fact that I feel 8ad is why I'm sort of freaking out right now!

They're basically two toxic girls who CANNOT be honest with their real feelings, and wind up hurting each other. They need therapy badly, but given the fact that they also mirror each other positively - Terezi feels grateful to Vriska for blinding her, and Vriska mentions she ought to thank Terezi for killing her, which set her up on a date with the dead John Terezi also killed - I think they have a lot of potential to be genuinely kind to each other once they work through their individual issues.

Anyway. We're keeping the Roxy stuff under wraps for now - last we saw of her, she went to go see her denizen, and her planet exploded, and John was really bummed about it. HOWEVER, we are going to check in with our GameOver!crew, although only lightly for now:

Meenah and (Vriska) have fully disappeared, and (Tavros), (Nepeta), and (Feferi) are looking for them because they've got the FUCKING TREASURE???

Everyone else from the Game Over timeline has landed in the afterlife, to varying degrees.

Shortly after entering the afterlife, (Eridan) fucked off somewhere to be alone. Last anyone heard from him was (ghost!Sollux) and him being Erisolsprite, but neither (ghost!Sollux) nor (alive!Sollux) have seen him since Erisolsprite died in Game Over.

(Karkat) is also brooding off on his own, feeling really shitty and sorry for himself. He's always felt personally responsible for everything going wrong for his team, and now that his team is basically entirely dead, he feels extra shitty.

Mostly just setting up that these guys are still relevant to the story, despite now being (irrelevant).

That brings us to the second retcon. Vriska obviously had great regrets about killing Tavros, both pre- and post-retcon, so she asks for his death to be prevented.

Tavros is back.

Vriska's requested fix is a very simple one - after all, Karkat makes mention about how Vriska's always had a competitive streak with Terezi, admiring/being jealous of her ability to manipul8 people; I think an ultimate culmination of that is her insisting that insisting to John that he do a retcon to stop her from killing Tavros - which, as covered above, she regrets greatly - but to do a much sloppier job of it, simply having John pop into [S] Wake and knock Tavros the fuck out.

Vriska herself doesn't believe this will have any unintended side effects, because her opinion of Tavros is still really low despite her genuine desire to make amends, and she's wrong.

Tavros's stay on the meteor has a major effect on Gamzee. I'm not entirely sure how it would pan out exactly, but I think Gamzee would step in between Dave and Tavros, into a situation none of them are happy with. This starts Tavros on a path of realizing that his inability to stand up for himself not only hurts him, but people he cares about (Gamzee, whom he ghosted).

Vriska is mostly uninterested in Tavros now, as the moment has kind of passed, and Terezi keeps getting on her ass about going after him (which brings the two of them closer).

Previous Messy romantic situations are still active. Karkat is going thru it.

Dave feels bad about tormenting Tavros but he kind of can't help himself, especially because Tavros keeps going up to him for some reason. The fact that he gets trapped in an auspice with Tavros and Gamzee kind of reinforces that he does NOT vibe with troll quadrants. Dave becomes MORE xenophobic.

On a note regarding Gamzee and Tavros: while I generally try to avoid relying on Hussie's commentary too much, as he likes to play his cards close to his chest, his note about Gamzee in the Act 5 book is actually significant enough to me to include:

The best explanation for why Gamzee says he's scared of Vriska, in my opinion, is this: he's flat-out lying. It's a good way for him to maintain his cover as 'Soft Gamzee.' It also provides some ammunition for those who, against all sense of good taste and judgment, want to continue to believe and assert that Gamzee is a decent guy with sensitive emotions and vulnerabilities before he undergoes his Muderstuck awakening. He was none of those things, ever.

Hussie likes to play coy, and you can't really trust anything he says after Act 6 because he's fed up with the fandom, but I think this comment comes early enough, and is made assertively enough, that it can be taken at face value. I know that "Soft Gamzee" is actually extremely popular in the fandom, so this may be controversial, but I do think there's more evidence for him being kind of nasty and manipulative than not, and having that always be a part of him brings more cohesiveness to his character. For example, he seems to have a pale crush on Karkat, trying to assert that Karkat is his best friend and changing the topic when Sollux gets brought up and he recognizes Karkat is closer to Sollux than him, and if you read his first log with Terezi as if he's hiding being nasty under a soft veneer, then his comments do read as pretty passive-aggressive.

TC: yOu KnOw HoW iT iS wItH fAmIlY. GC: NO, NOT R34LLY! GC: 4DURRRR DURR DURP TC: Oh YeAh... ... TC: I sPaCeD oUt, DiD yOu KnOw HoW bEaTuFuL tHe SoUnD oF tHe OcEaN iS? TC: hAvE yOu EvEr EvEn SeEn ThE oCeAn? TC: oR i MeAn SmElLeD iT... TC: SoRrY. GC: >:[

Maybe most damningly, his narration calls dealing with Eridan's genuine emotional distress "indulge emotional theatrics," an implication of his true feelings. Karkat and Eridan are heavily foreshadowed to be moirails, and Gamzee seems to have a pale crush on Karkat. What does Gamzee do in this conversation? He chases Eridan away from comforting Karkat - using the same excuse as he uses to avoid dealing with Vriska.

CA: put kar on TC: UuUuH, i cAn't rEaLlY ThInK AbOuT InTeRvEnInG, tHe bLaCk fRoWnInG MoThErFuCkEr kInDa sCaReS Me

Moreover, he does NOT seem to like Jack comforting Karkat instead, either.

THIS IS NOT TO SAY I DON'T THINK GAMZEE ALSO DESERVES A SHOT AT KINDNESS AND REDEMPTION. Gamzee is clearly a very troubled youth, between his absentee lusus, his indoctrination into a fundie doomsday cult, and his sopor usage. The fact that having his faith shattered by Dave makes him snap implies that, one, he was already unstable and teetering on the edge, and having his faith fucked with was the last straw, and two, that until he lost that last shred of hope, he was still pretending to be nicer than he was for a reason, and given that his LE worship doesn't start up until after the snappage, I think it can be extrapolated that that reason is that he genuinely wants to get along with his friends.

Given that Gamzee's issues largely stem from his neglectful lusus, it's not a stretch to say that Gamzee does not take well to abandonment and isolation. So here's kind of where Tavros comes in:

Gamzee mentions that he feels "So aT ChIlL WiTh yOu" while talking to Tavros, and Tavros reciprocates the friendship and also - interestingly - acknowledges Gamzee's religion, calling it beautiful even if he doesn't necessarily believe in it. I call it interesting because Karkat's inability to do so is explicitly one of the reasons their moirallegiance broke down. Moreover, in their first conversation together, Gamzee explicitly praises Tavros for his "gumption" for stealing his clown nose, when Tavros's avoidance of his problems is one of his biggest personal issues. So yeah, personally, I'm all for moirallegiance.

But Tavros started ghosting him after Gamzee offered to make out a little, another symptom of his avoidance issues. I'm sure that, even in this meteor trip, the fact that Gamzee killed Equius and Nepeta really scares him. In his conversation with Terezi, Terezi outright says "NO WOND3R V4NT4S C4NT ST4ND YOU"; Equius is constantly yelling at him; lots of people on their team seem to genuinely just sort of dislike him.

CG: MIRACLES ARE LIKE POOP STAINS ON GOD'S UNDERWEAR. TA: eheheh makiing fun of people2 reliigiion2 i2 the be2t thiing two do.

So having one of the few people he does really like also ghost him probably did... bad things to his mental health. Especially so when said person wound up dead. But now that he isn't dead, I think they have a shot - they just need to address their personal problems. Tavros with his avoidance, and Gamzee with his resentment toward the world, and reliance on substances and religion to take the edge off. In this meteor iteration, that doesn't quite happen - their toxic auspicetism succeeds in letting them air out their dirty laundry to the audience, but doesn't bring full reconciliation.

In any case, this meteor trip is fairly short, and uneventful from the dream bubbles side, although I do think Tavros should get a talking-to from (Tavros) about real self-esteem and self-worth.

Still, being back in contact with Tavros again, even if in kind of a messed-up way, does make Gamzee start to reconsider some of his past actions. This brings us to:

Gamzee Asks for Equius and Nepeta back.

Gamzee's not as nice as he lets on, but he does genuinely care about his teammates, and for the people he really cares about, like Karkat or Tavros, I think he's willing to stick his neck out. Bringing back Nepeta and Equius is more for Tavros than himself, really, because Tavros is scared of him for doing that, and he motherfuckin' misses Tavros, okay? John mostly agrees because he's kind of scared of Gamzee.

Some really fun stuff starts happening this go around.

The Gamzee-Tavros situation becomes resolved because this time, Equius steps in as an auspice between Tavros and Dave, and this auspicetism is COMPLETELY HEALTHY (with the bonus of being extremely funny, and what is the point of a Homestuck ship if it is not deeply funny).

Gamzee and Tavros are able to enter into a totally healthy moirallegiance once the auspicetism builds up Tavros's self-confidence, much to Karkat's relief.

Being stuck in the auspicetism makes Dave go crawling back to Terezi on his hands and knees. I'm sorry, Terezi. I'll do anything if you take me back. Just don't let me die as the guy stuck in a threesome with the two worst trolls. Dave has overcome his xenophobia.

Dave and Terezi becoming official does make Karkat sad, however, so when Nepeta finally works up the courage to confess to him, he accepts the offer to date her, thus fulfilling Jaspersprite's musing that she might only be able to date him after she dies.

They also break up. We're keeping up this trend of Karkat and his disastrous relationships. He's still involved in the Rose/Kanaya/Vriska drama, too.

With GamTav and Dave/Tavros/Equius cinched, Tavros and Vriska reach a sort of truce with each other. Not really friends, since they kind of still dislike each other, but Vriska would genuinely be glad to see Tavros getting more actually confident, and muster up the energy to genuinely apologize for almost killing him, so there's a sort of mutual respect there now. Vriska and Terezi are even closer because of this, but still not fully over their problems.

On the topic of the Dave/Tavros/Equius auspicetism: Dave still can't stop bothering Tavros, but the lewdness of it sets Equius off, so he feels like he has to intervene. Dave also can't stop himself from bothering Equius, which ALWAYS BACKFIRES, and since Tavros has a weird fondness/rivalry with Dave, he'd find it within himself to ask Equius to back off (which would work, because of Equius's... Equius). And every time Equius gets too overbearing toward Tavros, Dave feels COMPELLED to intervene, because he's like, my fucking god, you are the two worst trolls, why must weirdos fight. Dave desperately wants out, but he can't stop staring at these two.

And weirdly enough, it's beneficial for all of them. With two people to yell at him for being weird, Equius becomes less weird. With a rival in Dave and more contact with Equius, Tavros becomes more confident. And Dave has two people to rap against and feel good about his art with, something he more or less had to deal with alone during previous trips.

On the topic of Karkat and Nepeta, there are quite a few implications that they wouldn't necessarily work out. For citations, let me just link my Nepeta essay, where I go over what the comic says about their relationship from a storytelling perspective; here, I'll talk about their relationship from a more interpersonal perspective.

Karkat's signals are mixed as fuuuuuuck. While I don't necessarily think this will be an issue for Nepeta, as - as a Heart player - she's preternatually gifted at understanding motivations, the thing is... I think Nepeta can do better, and deserves better, a sentiment echoed by Jasprosesprite^2. She certainly deserves better than being second to Terezi, at the very least, even if she states she likes his outbursts.

And the thing is, Karkat is pretty explicit about saying that he doesn't return her feelings; in a world where they date, there's always going to be a sense that she's his second choice. And, just... my girl deserves better, okay? Moreover, while he respects her personhood, he's also pretty nasty to her when he DOES talk to her, implying he doesn't necessarily respect her choices. And also, she's actually really bad at shipping, so there will be this extremely weird tension of like... a hobbyist vs. a professional. I don't think Karkat would be able to stop himself from mocking some of her shipping choices if she ever opened up to him about that.

But I think them getting together is important for Nepeta, developmentally - I talk about this in my essay for her, but shipping is something I think she does need to outgrow, since it's kind of a replacement she's using for her loneliness. Moreover, I say in that essay that the issues she has in her moirallegiance with Equius warrant relationship counselling - and that's what Karkat is uniquely qualified to dispense, as the team's Blood player. Although they end up not working out, Nepeta would take several valuable lessons from this relationship - that she's kind of bad at shipping, that Equius is being kind of a shithead to her, and that she needs to start making friends with other people.

Now then. We're finally getting into some drama in the bubbles.

Please imagine for me Equius and Horuss talking, and Equius being aghast at the way Horuss is so derisive towards his matesprit and moirail. Now imagine him pulling a mic out of nowhere and rapping at him about how his problem is that he does not respect his partners. Now imagine Tavros and Dave joining in, also out of nowhere, with Tavros adding bars about how the hemospectrum is, not a good thing, he thinks. And Dave adding bars about how he does not have a fucking dog in this race. He's not even a troll. He doesn't understand their hemospectrum. Let him out of here. The fine fucking art of Alternian slam poetry. I think Horuss would start crying. So would I if three people including my grandkid started rapping at me.

Nepeta's uncanny emotional acumen leads to her wanting to befriend Damara, but being unable to speak her language.

GameOver!crew is up to something, IDK, probably showing (Tavros) inspiring people and rebuilding the ghost army, to tell a parallel story to Tavros becoming more genuinely self-confident.

We check in with the Alpha kids, too, who have some group therapy sessions led by Roxy.

Vriska and Tavros confront Rufioh together, a final culmination of their no-longer-enemiesship, and together, they steal Rufioh's ones. Like, Tavros starts speak1ng w1th ones, something he always had in him, and they also roast Rufioh so badly that he stops speaking in ones. But the way it's presented to the audience, Vriska outright just says that Tavros should steal his ones. And Tavros does. This carries over to successive retcons, as it's implied that Tavros just kind of starts naturally being more confident as healthy relationships are established sooner and sooner.

Anyway, a final note about Equius - his problems are mostly due to being sheltered. Although he is probably the most casteist highblood, he's not really that casteist, as what's really going on is just that he's got a BDSM kink. But because he's sheltered, he does not realize that it's a kink. And a fetishist who does not realize that they're a fetishist has more power than God.

His protectiveness of Nepeta does come from a good place; preventing her from playing FLARP was actually in her best interest, given what happens to people who play FLARP. But he's very much going overboard with it, likely an extension of his own lack of understanding of how much sheltering is good and how much becomes detrimental. What he really needs is for someone to point it out to him, which I think he gets via Nepeta or via Karkat, and then have a reaaaaally long think about it. He's genuinely a polite and helpful soul, who doesn't WANT to make people uncomfortable. The auspicetism is very good for him in this regard, as is his moirallegiance once Karkat talks him and Nepeta through their issues.

The point is, once he's forced to reckon with the fact that the degeneracy is coming from inside the house, I think he'd have a LOT of regrets about the way he treated Aradia. Which leads us to:

Whoops That Robot Thing Was Really Inappropriate Huh

Equius approaches John to ask him to make Past!Equius reconsider the Aradiabot Thing. John's getting kind of impatient with all these trolls who keep asking him to go back through time, but given that everyone seems a little happier each time, he can't help but agree.

So he goes back to the past, before Equius can give Aradia her robot body with the love chip in it, and something really fun gets to happen here: first of all, Equius's Void status makes him really hard to place, so John winds up missing by a bit, time-wise, so Aradia's already in the body. This is the first time that retconning!John and Aradia have been in the same place together, and when she meets him and finds out that he can time travel without causing paradoxes, she demands (with her Aradiabot deathmurderkill intensity) to be taken back in time to before she died.

John's retcon powers explicitly ignore the usual rules of paradox space - he describes it as a "fresh start". Given that Breath is associated with choices and freedom, his retcon powers are kind of the ultimate culmination of his abilities as a breath player. Although doomed timelines can and will still result from paradoxes caused by players when John isn't there, anything he directly interferes with is totally a-okay.

So all Aradiabot asks him for is passage back in time, in order to sanction her interference in the past. After she dismisses him, she still more or less has to adhere to events in the original timeline, for two reasons - the first being that she doesn't want to risk a new doomed timeline, and the second so she can keep the timeline predictable.

So even though she's basically asked for passage to the time period before SGRUB, it's basically outright stated that the progression of events has to be more or less the same, up until the point where John's other retcons take place. So here are the cascading effects of Aradiabot preventing her own death:

Aradiabot takes Aradia's place in the Team Charge debacle, being blown up/"killed" (as a sprite) by Sollux's eye beams, so that she can take Aradia's place as Doc Scratch/the Handmaiden's servant and "carry out" their orders.

Meanwhile, Aradia seeks refuge with Equius, whose void powers keep her hidden from Doc Scratch's omnipotence.

Because Sollux never actually killed Aradia, and Aradia communicates with him via Equius's account, Sollux is less depressed and self-loathing. He no longer predicts a future where all of them die and he has to be blinded. It's left deliberately vague whether this future comes to pass because he's less pessimistic, so his Mage powers are calling a happier future into being, or if his future changed, so his Mage powers are prophesying something new.

Nepeta starts regaining memories of alternate timelines and past retcons, as an extension of her Rogue of Heart powers. This includes the relationship counselling she received from Karkat.

Between Nepeta and Aradia yelling at him, Equius's character development starts sooner, so he's squared away for future events, and ends up not making the creepy Aradiabot, making a non-creepy one instead.

Aradia and Equius do not strike up a relationship, and become uneasy enemies/friends.

Aradia secretly god tiers well in advance of Jack's arrival, and meets him at Derse rather than awakening on her crypt there.

Aradia and Sollux continue a loving matespritship, leading to Sollux settling into a moirallegiance with Feferi. He's devastated when she dies, which still happens along with the rest of Eridan's freakout; Aradiabot doesn't intervene because she's needed for:

Aradiabot winds up being the one to sacrifice herself piloting the meteor, allowing Sollux to stay with the rest of the team when he meets up with Aradia, (Aradia), and (Sollux) at the Green Sun. Aradiabot winds up with the GameOver!crew.

With the 1337 hackers back in commission, Sollux and Roxy are able to establish a server connection with each other, allowing them to communicate during the 3-year meteor trip.

Aradia involves herself in the Rose/Kanaya/Vriska Mess, and I kind of can't decide what I like better - a vascillatory pitch/flush threeway between Rose, Kanaya, and Vriska, now that Vriska's near the end of her character development, with Aradia serving as a stabilizing force as Kanaya's on-again off-again moirail, or Aradia stepping in as an auspice. Either way, it's out of Karkat's hands.

This has a knock-on effect of finally giving Vriska the chance to fully make amends with Aradia, which winds up cinching the Vriska/Terezi moirallegiance. The scourge sisters are back baybee. And between a healthy moirallegiance for Terezi and a healthy moirallegiance for Gamzee, I think pitch Terezi/Gamzee could work as a healthy ship this time around. I'm not married to it, but they did always seem to hate each other well before SGRUB.

Nepeta has LEARNED HER LESSON regarding dating Karkat, so that does not happen.

Karkat now has no quadrants. He winds up desperately throwing himself at Sadstuck Sollux to try and help him get over his breakup. It's not a good look. Sadkat. He also takes up talking to the alpha kids for emotional support, which puts them off, too. Still gives really good relationship advice. He's clearly one of the more unstable members of the retcon!crew at this point.

We're light on the dream bubble drama this time around because of how MUCH is happening for the retcon!crew, but there's going to be a reference in there of Nepeta learning East Beforan.

SO. NOTES TIME.

Aradia expresses outright that she hated the feeling that she was set up and that she wishes someone would have stopped her from being so reckless. And although she seems to find some satisfaction in being the stewardess of the afterlife, there's clearly some resentment there that she's been forced into that role, as she expresses that what she's really looking forward to is watching it all break apart. There's also kind of an orphaned plot thread where Aradia is spending a lot of time in the afterlife putting knowledge together, which never really directly pays off except to the audience, and I think a really good way to bring that back in would be for her to be communing with (Aradia) in the dream bubbles in order to make sure the timeline flows as smoothly as possible.

As for Aradia/Kanaya - they're actually really good friends, and Aradia expresses that she's flattered that Kanaya wants to talk to her so much. There is a tone here that matches the way Vriska thinks about Kanaya when Kanaya is still ostensibly Vriska's moirail, and Kanaya herself admits to being attracted to people who are reckless. In fact...

AA: i just wish AA: back when i was behaving recklessly AA: i had s0me0ne t0 tell me t0 st0p listening AA: even if i ended up ign0ring their advice AA: it w0uld have been nice

GA: It Must Be A Certain Madness Im Afflicted By GA: To Orbit Those More Reckless And Dangerous Than I And More Daring For It GA: I Guess I Want To Help Them But They Never Can Be Helped It Seems

So I'm just kind of saying... Aradia and Kanaya moirallegiance... is not entirely unfounded. And a moirail stabilizes a troll's other relationships; if we have a moirail for Kanaya and a moirail for Vriska, then the Mess that is whatever's going on with Kanaya, Vriska, and Rose would probably resolve itself, I think. Either way, Rose is surrounded by SUCH a girl's night of emotional support to help her with sobriety now.

As for whatever's going on between her and Equius, I tend to believe the comic when it tells me relationships don't work out, and Aradia expresses regret for kissing him during the Ministrife. I think they could be good vitriolic frenemies, though.

Okay, onto Sollux.

In the same panel where Eridan and Karkat are implied to be "hatched for each other" pale-wise, Feferi and Sollux are foreshadowed in the same way:

They also spend a LOT OF TIME curled up in a pile together talking about their feelings, which we don't see with matesprits, but we DO see with moirails. Nepeta and Equius do the same thing, and they are kind of THE moirails. So I think Sollux and Feferi were always meant to be pale, but because Aradia died, Sollux wound up taking Feferi on as a matesprit instead. Between EriFef, SolFef, and GamTav, people getting flushed and pale feelings entangled is like, a Running Thing, so it's not really surprising to me.

Now, here's the thing. We already know that Sollux likes to cope with a rebound, since he went flushed with Feferi after Aradiabot exploded and was presumed dead. And Karkat cares very fucking much about Sollux, to the point where Gamzee speculates that he's actually Karkat's best friend, and Karkat even calls him that (although Karkat also kind of just calls anyone his best friend, lol).

CG: GAMZEE WAS MY VERY GOOD FRIEND, WHO WAS THIS GOOFY LOVEABLE BULLSHIT CLOWN UNTIL HE WENT PSYCHO AND KILLED SOME PEOPLE. I LIKED HIM A LOT. CG: I DON'T KNOW, I GUESS MY BEST FRIEND IS REALLY JUST THE GUY WHO I HAPPEN TO BE FEELING MOST SENTIMENTAL TO AT THE MOMENT, IS THAT A FUCKING CRIME.

This crab's got so much love in him. In any case, I mostly just want to keep sticking Karkat in these extremely unhealthy relationships for a while. It makes it sweeter when he finally winds up with Eridan LIKE HE WAS ALWAYS MEANT TO... but yeah.

Cross-session communication is also entirely possible, as Sollux set up chat clients between the trolls and the kids in the first place, and even without that, Kanaya found Rose's old GameFAQs on a server in the Furthest Ring. With both Sollux and Roxy on the case, there's no way they can't somehow establish communications way sooner.

Regarding Nepeta regaining her memories, let me once more point you towards the Nepeta essay. She's on track to become the one who attains Ultimate Selfhood, and comforts people like Jade and John about not really knowing their friends or being lonely.

But yeah, obviously Sollux asks for Feferi to be brought back.

F-EF-ERI!!!! 38D

Mostly Sollux just asks to be prevented from provoking Eridan so harshly. Eridan still winds up blowing up the matriorb, and thus, still getting killed by Kanaya in retribution, but this means that Eridan is now the only member of the team left dead.

PITCH FEFNEP. PITCH FEFNEP. PITCH FEFNEP

Pitch FefNep leads to Feferi letting slip something casteist where Sollux can hear; he doesn't personally care because he's heard much worse, but puts them on a break while she sorts herself out. They get back together after that.

Karkat alone :'( he's mostly just talking to the alpha kids at this point, trying to hide from all the happy fucking relationships happening all around him.

If the last retcon was really heavy on the retcon!crew, then this one is much more about what's happening in the bubbles. We get most of our dancestor development this go around. Do not read if you like the dancestors! I go very in-depth about how most of them are horrible people on purpose here, so their arcs are mostly about them being pulled up on their abject awfulness.

Nepeta, who has learned East Beforan, is able to talk to Damara and have an earnest heart-to-heart with her about how awfully she was treated. They hug and cry. Damara, finally validated, gives everyone a big middle finger.

Feferi heals Mituna's brain injury, because literally why the FUCK has nobody else done that. Now once more in control of his faculties, he breaks up with Latula, pissed off that she took advantage of him all those eons to boost her own ego. He also gives everyone a big middle finger. Damara steals her skateboard and high fives Mituna.

Porrim's basically the only dancestor who grew as a person so I think she mostly escapes unscathed.

Latula gets chased around by Sollux and Aradia, who basically just bully her for being bad at games. This is a date to them.

Gamzee completely refutes Kurloz, with his newfound clarity about the real miracle being friendship and the real dark carnival being the world he and his friends will build, not that LE noise.

In a double team between Terezi and Rose, Meulin gets eviscerated for the way her own Issues have made her ships deliberately awful, that she could have simply Not, and she has a bit of a breakdown.

As Feferi is grappling with her privilege and internalized casteism, Cronus wanders up to try and hit on her, and she goes "oh my god... when people look at me, are you what they see? A friendless loser that nobody likes? A total waste of seawater who's only pretending to be cool with the lower castes? A totally fake poser? 38(" Cronus just goes "..." and starts crying and Feferi ends the convo oblivious to that, just going "wow... thanks for talking with me! really gave me a lot to think about" imagine how funny it would be -

Karkat finds and talks to (Eridan), where he fully admits to missing the guy. His mopiness is so extreme that (Eridan) takes issue with it and punches him, before basically yelling at him to get his shit together. Karkat then yells at HIM for him to get HIS shit together, and they both leave, intent on getting their shit together.

We also get an update on Vriska and Meenah at this point, where Meenah is starting to seem more into how they totally ditched their responsibilities than Vriska is.

So the thing with this update is that most of the trolls have sorted their shit out; even Karkat has had a lot of introspection about how he really just fucking loves his friends and should have been more honest about it, not worried so much about appearing weak or lame. With the double Aradias in play to kind of handwave that the timeline will be stable because they're ensuring all loops get completed and all necessary conversations happen, and with everyone's successful relationships on display, we can kind of truncate the next leg of the journey:

Karkat Fixes Everything

Karkat is the Friendship Troll. Karkat is the Romance Troll. Karkat is the Bonds troll. He is their team's Blood player, and as the Blood player, he's been shown to deeply love all of his fucking friends - yes, even the assholes. Maybe even especially them.

As such, it's vitally important for the last push - last leg of the journey - to belong to Karkat. Where would our Blood player be without his bonds? Well, we actually have the answer to that. It's knocked out and prevented from joining in any of the important boss battles. LAME!

So in the last retcon, Karkat hears from Nepeta about the retcons that have been happening, and he really starts digging through his own past. If every retcon so far has been each troll only feeling comfortable undoing their own personal mistakes, then what of the guy who feels personally responsible for everything, all the time, forever?

Look, I'm not saying that a shipping chart saves Homestuck, but... by the time this last retcon is through, every Alternian troll is alive and god tiered. And he is dating Eridan.

If you have any questions about him dating Eridan, please refer to the link above. That essay is nearly as long as this one. There's SO MUCH FUCKING FORESHADOWING.

I don't think the god tiering needs to be explained, because if we hear that Karkat basically made his past self a shipping chart, and we've seen everybody's character development as they've gone through this journey, and we have Aradias on timeline duty and Nepeta with memories of past retcons and her alternate selves, I think we can more or less gloss over exactly how they go about earning their wings while maintaining timeline integrity. The important thing is that Karkat is dating Eridan now.

Because that leads to the last few bits of dream bubble stuff, but before we get into that...

Miscellaneous Plot Things That Need To Happen But I Don't Know Where To Put Them

Yeah there's just some ideas that I have floating around that need to be placed somewhere but IDK exactly where, or exactly how they shake out.

Hal becomes a real boy. And by that I mean as part of their character development, Jake makes Hal "real" a la brain ghost Dirk, and then the rest of them have to scramble against the clock (Jake's ability to maintain Hal's realness) to god tier him and make his existence permanent. He's a Sylph of Mind, which allows him to negate Condy's mind control. And maybe a GCATboy?

(Tavros) becomes the new leader of the ghost army.

Davesprite winds up dead at some point in the bubbles and doesn't explain how he died, but he and (Dave) get to fight each other and hash out their Realness and Relevance issues, before facing their final boss fight as bros once more.

Jade and Nepeta get to talk, and Nepeta gives Jade the reassuring speech about Ultimate Selfhood and how she won't be lonely forever. Maybe it's flushed. Might leave it ambiguous.

Somebody needs to auspicetize Dirk and Jake holy shit. Dunno who. Maybe Karkat, but I kind of like him pitch with Dirk, so IDK really.

Dad needs to die. Sorry Dad. If I can find a way to kill off all of the sprites besides ARquiusprite, I will. It's explicitly stated that sprites are drawn to the battlefield during the Reckoning, presumably to die, as part of the coming-of-age themes - losing one's guardians. It's sad but it's gotta happen.

All the Godtier!Calliope stuff basically happens as-is.

Can you tell I need to do more research on the alpha kids...

Ok Back To Karkat And Eridan

I think I'm going to leave their moirallegiance fairly ambiguous, but when Eridan is brought back, he and Karkat are basically together all the time. Karkat's signals are mixed even on the best of days, so I don't know how easy it'll be to tell that these two assholes slinging death threats at each other are pale, but *I* will know, and that's what matters.

This leads to the last two dancestor takedowns:

Karkat and Eridan (mostly Eridan) round on Kankri. Eridan calls him SO MANY SLURS. The fact that Karkat not only condones this, but is DATING ERIDAN, kind of makes Kankri lose it a bit.

(Karkat) and (Eridan), who have reconciled in the bubbles, finally find (Vriska) and Meenah. (Karkat) gives the two of them the speech that retcon!Vriska gave (Vriska) in the comic's original ending, but this time around, (Vriska) actually agrees with him. This serves as a conclusion to (Karkat) and Meenah's arc, and causes Meenah to feel so bad that she walks back to the other dancestors in shame, as (Vriska) leaves with him with the treasure to finally fight LE.

When Meenah returns to the dancestors, the first one she finds is Aranea, who's really sad about her own little escapade, blaming herself for the way Game Over went. This prompts Meenah to go, no, it was probably my fault, shouldn't have let you run off like that. And this would, from all the sobbing dancestors, prompt a string of "no, I'm the reason we failed"s, eventually culminating in Meenah rallying them together to do one last good thing before everyone gets sucked into the black hole and go join the fight against LE. Everyone agrees.

(Gamzee) is revived by the life players and cursed with immortality, so he can go on to become LE and complete that time loop. He is immediately locked in the fridge. This is also why he can't fucking die no matter what you do to him.

This also leads us into the final boss fights.

VS. CONDY

The twelve trolls. The Condesce represents tyranny, the worst aspects of the trolls' old society, and as such, is most thematically taken down by them. While she did fuck up the alpha kids' lives, too, I just personally think it's so much more thematic and satisfying to watch her be beaten down by the trolls.

VS. THE THREE JACKS

The eight kids plus Hal plus Davesprite. With Bec Noir specifically, it's fucking PERSONAL, as this guy killed their parents. This is where Dave fulfils his destiny of killing an iteration of English with his sword, when he decapitates Jack English; the person in the middle of that sandwich is Davesprite, which is how he dies and winds up in the bubbles. The iteration of Jack that survives to date Ms. Paint is Spades Slick, as he's the most sympathetic out of all of them and didn't kill anybody's parents.

At some point during this fight, I like the idea that they get zapped away by Jack English, John zaps them to the Godtier!Caliborn fight where he gets sealed in the juju, and then we cut back to the fight with Jack English, where, inexplicably, they all zap right back in.

VS. THE FELT

The spares - ARquiussprite, (Gamzee) in the fridge (who has since been revived by the life players and blessed/cursed with eternal life so he can go on to fulfill his role in the timelines and become part of LE), Dad, and the other sprites (if any of them are left alive).

VS. LORD ENGLISH

The GameOver!crew, the ghost army, the dancestors (they have a Big Damn Heroes moment right near the end, buying Jake time to deploy the Weapon), Aradiabot, and Davesprite.

Jake fulfills his destiny to defeat the Lord of all Angels by being the one to deploy the weapon, which deposits the beta kids, who knock LE in to the black hole. They then zap out of there, collecting the alpha kids from after the Caliborn fight, and zap back to the fight with the Jacks.

This specific configuration of boss battles winds up leaving Lord English entirely up to dead characters, who are then implied to all eventually get sucked into the black hole - their memories to live on through the living characters via Ultimate Selfhood, which only Nepeta achieves on screen, but implies that they will all achieve eventually.

It's important to me that the GameOver!crew is the one leading the fight against Lord English, as they're the ones who were the most screwed over by LE and his machinations - manipulated into killing each other, used as servants of his will, dying ignobly in a doomed timeline filled with special stardust. Meanwhile, the retcon!kids and trolls prove what they've learned - about compassion, kindness, equality, and forgiveness - by beating the shit out of the Condesce, who represents the horrors of Alternia, and the Jacks, especially Bec Noir and Jack English - the latter of which is a shadow of what Lord English represents - immaturity, cruelty, hatred - and the former of which is a culmination of all the failures they committed to get to this point, a symptom of their universal cancer.

I wrote a little snippet of Aradia once, and I think I'll use that to end this essay:

(ARADIA): ok now that we are all done being stupid (ARADIA): im sure enough people here remember the plan that i dont need to explain it again (ARADIA): so instead i just wanted to say (ARADIA): leave your backs to us and face forward without fear (ARADIA): the dead and irrelevant will slay the demon of double death while you unmake the threats of the living (ARADIA): and personally i think it's very fitting that he will perish here as nothing more than a bad dream (ARADIA): this will be the last time we see each other (ARADIA): so on behalf of everyone that you are going to be leaving behind (ARADIA): live (ARADIA): and be happy!

#homestuck #eridan ampora #karkat vantas #nepeta leijon #feferi peixes #kanaya maryam #gamzee makara #vriska serket #sollux captor #aradia megido #equius zahhak #tavros nitram #terezi pyrope #unfortunately i was not able to get my actual project done so i'll save that for 6/12 hahaha #but have this meager offering instead

[canmom]

reading Brainwyrms by Alison Rumfitt. it's interesting. clearly part of the post-Topside wave of trans lit, with the same 'plugged in to twitter' energy, but way more British about it. which means most of the allusions are very transparent to me. it's a combo of... hardcore kink driven romance as the main arc, in a near-future setting in which TERFism goes further to the point of outright bombings, and a scifi element with alien brain parasites that it's gradually building towards.

compellingly written, I'll give it that for sure - I lay down to read for a bit and before I knew it I'd read like a third of the book. the main character's disaffected, traumatised air is well observed, and the kink doesn't hold back.

I think my reservation with it so far is that it feels a little too much like a polemic blog post about the way things are going. the MC Frankie is a trans woman with a pregnancy kink who survived a bombing at a GIC and now works in social media moderation - it's all stuff that is blatantly Relevant To The Argument, as it were. it's tricky to criticise it for that because it's like, what you're saying is that it's tightly constructed and thematically consistent and that's bad somehow? but I think I've come to feel that I like fiction to bring me something a little new and unfamiliar.

the chapter I most enjoyed so far was actually a more metaphorical, abstract interlude, in which resistance to fascism is cast as becoming 'one mass of queer flesh, which now grabbed and clawed...'; 'faces locked in kisses until they became one face. the cops would try to pull at this mass, but to no avail'. very 'faggots and their friends between revolutions' stuff.

the chapters which are presented directly as social media posts and articles are also sharply observed. i think a lot of fiction in which the internet features heavily suffers from not understanding the internet very well (Hosoda's Belle for example), but for example the chapter 'Curious Cat' where an anonymous person (blatantly Vanya) is sending messages asking for help with a parasite, and getting rebuffed or misunderstood, and the chapter where Frankie relates a murder of an instagram model by a stalker who posts about it to a reddit community devoted to her, read as very real.

a lot of the story is about responding to a terrifying political situation in sexual terms - a flashback chapter depicting Frankie having sex with some terf's pretentious brother ("with each thrust from him, she thought to herself, I am a traitor, I am a traitor to the cause"), or the preface which jokes about how in another world the author would be writing 'cool horror stories about vampires raping werewolves, ones with no subtext at all'. I prevaricate a little on whether this is a compelling examination of a theme that I do find interesting (the mysterious origins of sexual desire) or just edgy for its own sake.

this is an odd novel for me in some ways because while on one level, this is about people who I could very easily be a single degree of separation from were they real, it's also about a facet of life that is still quite alien to me and in many ways I only know about second hand. I've never been to a kink club (that wasn't in an MMO anyway lol), I'm way too much of a nerdy autist shut-in to know what it's like to be someone who would feel put out if she hadn't had sex in a week. so even before the parasite stuff, it's hard to know how much of Frankie and Vanya's stuff is real, and how much is fantasy. is this really how things go between people? it sounds kinda fun, but unlocking the door this far has already taken years.

when I've read books about the crazy lives that American trans girls supposedly live and interesting sex they're apparently having, they've been at a certain remove, the other side of the Atlantic. and this book feels sort of similar, even though I know it's set right on my doorstep. idk, I've never been good at this.

anyway I don't think I want to write fantasy novels so directly about The Discourse of the day, but it's probably good that someone is. that said, it's hard to parse like... ok, it's titled brainwyrms, and 'brain worms' is a common way of describing an obsessive, cultish idea you receive from the internet.

and like if you look at the newspapers, or twitter trans discourse, you certainly could believe that this country is on a rapid slide to putting us in camps. however, my day to day life has been... it's not without hostility, but the average street harasser isn't doing it because of a Guardian or even Mail article. this country has a subculture of deranged weirdos who hate our guts, and a political class who will happily stoke culture war shit to score points, but most normies I've met don't care one way or another that I'm trans - they might mention a family member or friend they know who's also trans. the day to day conflicts are over way more prosaic shit, the landlord vs tenant forever war, or how the kitchen should be cleaned. which of these windows is more informative of the 'overall' state of affairs? not that a more violent terf cult is a bad premise to write a novel around, but a sense of impending doom is a pretty powerful mechanism to keep you scrolling, right?

like in 20, 40 years - will the terfs really be bombing the Tavistock and banning transness, as Rumfitt imagines in her near-future setting preface? or will they go the way of those newspapers in Thatcher's time who smeared the gay movement, just as they smear us today? of passing political obsessions like 'new atheism'? I don't know the half-life of cult shit.

anyway, time to read the rest of the novel, and see how it handles this brew that it's concocted.

#fiction #sff #novels

[cowyolks]

hey! first off, just wanted to say i found your blog last night with your 'to dull the shovels and smoke' and i instantly fell in love with your work. you are seriously talented, and it was a joy to read!

then i saw your requests were open and figured i'd drop one in! (:

i feel like our boy gaz needs more love! i saw this tiktok awhile back of tropes that would go well with some of the cod characters, and I really liked the idea of a gaz x reader where they used to be friends as kids, then sort of lost contact as they grow older, but then they meet again in like the military/wherever and they're both obviously smitten for one another and everyone sees it except for them a;sdlkjf

feel free to tweak it as you like. (i'm going through gaz love withdrawals) i know my explanation is a bit jumbled. do whatever comes to mind, and good luck in your studies! <3

YOU’RE GOLDEN SUNSHINE, IT’S SHADOWS WHEN YOU’RE GONE

Pairing: Kyle ‘Gaz’ Garrick x Female Reader

Prompt: In which you meet Kyle Garrick again after years of not seeing each other. In a gravitational pull, you find your long forgotten adoration resurfacing again.

Words: 4.3 K

Warnings: Graphic description of injury, fighting, sleezy men at the pub, inaccuracy about soccer, mutual pinning for YEARS, other than that this is a cute one.

A/n: My tribute to GazFest by @glitterypirateduck please enjoy!

You’d never been one to believe in fate, or anything as foolish as a destiny. But sometimes, you wondered if there was some force or reason for your gravitation towards Kyle Garrick.

He’d been a constant for more than half of your life. He was a warm sun, constantly glowing and gentle. A true friend, someone you could rely on to keep secrets, to council in, to laugh your arse off with.

You’d wished he’d been more before you’d left London.

The first time you ever met him, you were six, in the wonderfully blissful years of your youth. You’d been outdoors, enjoying the rare afternoon sunshine of the weekend. Your parents had corralled you to the park, hoping you’d burn off some of your childish energy in hopes of getting you to sleep through all the night.

They’d sat under a pavilion, immediately conversing with a couple tired parents that supervised their children as well.

You’d had shuffled over to the swing set, fully intending on gliding yourself into the seat and making sure you were the one to go the highest in the air. That was, until you heard a quiet little sniffle from behind you.

Your rounded eyes zeroed in on a boy, a boy with tears glazed in his eyes. He was alone, no friends playing near him. It’d made your youthful mind turn in thought, did he need a friend? Why was he crying?

Reluctantly, you slid off the plastic seat of the swing, making your way hesitantly towards the boy. Fat tears flew down his cheeks like rain, but he used the back of his hand to violently wipe the tears from his cheeks when he saw your shadow encase him.

“Hello!” You announced, not yet accustomed to the sense of conversation etiquette or personal boundaries.

“Hello.” He sounded solemn, but not completely gutted. You took this as a good sign to sit next to him on the pebbled gravel.

“Why are you crying?” You had asked, blinking towards him. His eyes were the color of sweet milk chocolate, pleasantly warm. He’d fiddled with the blue tee loose around his torso, before he reluctantly hiccuped.

“I fell down, my leg hurts.” He pointed to the angry red scratch on his kneecap, dirt and grass sticking to his skin. It wasn’t quite deep enough to draw blood. Still, you remember your Mum explaining something called an infection to you. He needed to wash it.

“It needs a rinse.”

“Why?”

You huffed, standing from the gravel and holding out your hand to your new potential friend. “Because.”

The boy must not have seen it in his best interest to argue with a stubborn six year old, so he used your hand to pull himself up, a frown etching on his lips as the irritated skin stretched when he stood. You’d led him over to the fountain, reaching up on your tip toes to cup cool water into your hands.

“Ready?”

“No… ow!” The boy whined, watching the water fall down to his socks in an unpleasant manner. You did it again, letting the water attempt to soothe away the burning ache.

“Feel better?”

“Um, kinda. What’s your name?” The boy asked, wringing his fingers against his shirt again. You took the time to introduce yourself, a wide smile returning to your face at the sudden prospect of having a new friend, although you’d already seen him hurt and cry.

“What’s yours?” You’d asked, while the two of you made your way back to the swing set again.

“I’m Kyle.”

You’d spent the rest of the day taking turns pushing each other back and forth on the swing set, happily enjoying the company until your parents and his Gran ushered you to go back home. You’d said your goodbyes, placing a sweet kiss on his round cheek.

“Mum always says when you get hurt, a kiss helps.” You supplied, not noticing Kyle holding his palm to his cheek, eyes wide and staring as you’d turned to leave with your parents.

—

“Mum! Have you seen Kyle’s jersey?” You hollered from your room, touching up the last few pieces of your clothing and appearance.

“Should be on the stairway!”

Quickly, you rushed down the steps, taking a quick two at a time to reach the light blue colored jersey draped over the railing. Carefully, pulling the material over your head, you took the time to pinpoint the smell of him. Cedar, Warm Amber, and a hint of something sweetly citrus, like the lemon drop candies he always indulged in.

The boy you’d met in the park had changed drastically, it’d been pure coincidence that you’d shared the same teacher in primary school though now. He’d been the one constant that had stayed through multiple fallen out friendships and disastrous adolescence. That wasn’t to say he hasn’t changed, for one, he’d grown like a weed, now towering over most of his peers.

His once chubby cheeks grew into his body, sharpening along with his jaw and strong nose. His eyes were still as warm and soft on you as they always were. Muscles crawled amongst his arms and legs like wildfire, veins growing more visible. He was absolutely gorgeous, any girl and guy at school would say so. Yet, Kyle managed to stay to himself, fiercely loyal to the little friends he had throughout his childhood.

You’d received many dirty looks for it.

Especially now, as you settled onto the steel bleachers with your two friends. Immediately, jealous eyes settled onto the blue of the jersey you wore, whispers breaking out into the growing crowd. You wanted to scream from the rooftops that Kyle simply didn’t like you like that. You wished he did, but you never noticed any interest. But that wouldn’t stop their stares, as long as he talked to you enthusiastically, walked you home after your volunteer shifts at the hospital, or shared a movie with you on the weekends.

You watched as he jogged over to the net, tightening the gloves on his wrists with a determined look on his features.

The game was running smoothly, your school up two goals and looking less winded than the opponent. Kyle hadn’t let a single ball escape him, his hands and knees stopping the zooming object in ridiculously fast reflexes. You’d shouted your voice hoarse cheering for him, lucky enough to catch his wink as he threw another ball out to his Midfielder.

It was the last minute of the game when a particularly cocky Striker crept up to the goal. He’d been one of the main concerns of your team. The whole game he’d thrown risky kicks and even put his hands on your teammates. You’d seen red when he didn’t get carded.

You were especially irritated when the teen was headed straight towards Kyle, straight towards him. He hardly even had control of the ball, kicking it sloppily next to him before lazily striking it forward. Kyle flew himself in the direction of the ball, eyes only on preventing it from crossing the post.

Suddenly, the striker brought his cleat up, booting the sharp material into the flesh of Kyle’s shoulder, shoe scraping all the way from his chin to clavicle.

The crowd uproared instantly, hisses and boos echoing throughout the whole field. You didn’t make a sound, your eyes only glued to Kyle’s hunched form, the ball tucked to his chest and safe. He stood suddenly, albeit a little shaky. You could see the deep color of blood soaking through his Jersey, but the red patch dulled in comparison to the beaming smile on his lips.

The game was over. He had personally defended and won the game for your school. The crowd cheered so loud you winced, but it all drowned out when he met your eyes, his smile possibly going even wider.

You’d arrived at his house an hour later, a little white kit held in your hands as you knocked on the door. You knew that your best friend was absolutely horrible about taking care of himself, you’ve known since you were the sheer age of six. He’d likely need the first aid kit you gripped.

The door opened with a creak, revealing a beaming Gran Garrick. The sweet old woman had watched Kyle for most of his life, for at a young age, Kyle’s dad had died fighting on enemy lines. You would see the admiration in Kyle’s eyes as he occasionally studied the picture of his dad in uniform on the mantle. In golden shiny text below,

Thomas ‘Gaz’ Garrick.

It was a horrible situation, but you wouldn’t change Gran for the world. She was kind, effortlessly funny, and treated you and Kyle as her own children.

“I’m glad you’re here! Boy hasn’t stopped asking about you since he came home. I had to force him in the shower, mind you.” Gran started off, ushering you inside as she made her way back into her recliner to watch the late night soaps.

“How’s his shoulder?” You asked, hearing shuffling and the cut of running water from above you.

“You know he doesn’t let me look after him like that. Thinks he’s big and strong and all that.” She chortled. You resisted the urge to say yes, yes he is big and strong.

“I trust you’re here to patch him up?”

“Yes, ma’am.” You replied, holding up the first aid kit for her to see. Gran waved you on, going back to her soaps with a pleasant look in her eyes, as if she knew something you didn’t. You ascended the stairs, making your way to the bathroom door with a sigh.

You brought your fist up, knocking.

“One sec!” You heard Kyle call, excitement lacing his voice. You resisted the urge to playfully roll your eyes. He’d likely received a deep shoulder wound, but it didn’t stop his cheerfulness.

Kyle opened the door in a rush, nearly making you fall into him since you rested your shoulders against it. “Woah! Easy there Sunshine!” Kyle joked, straightening you out with a strong forearm. He smelt freshly clean, the scent of Amber, Cedar, and sweetened citrus. You adverted your eyes away from him as quickly as you studied him. Oh, God, he wasn’t wearing a shirt.

Dark sweatpants clung low to his hips, hugging the muscle of his thighs and calves. Your eyes travelled to his injured shoulder, attempting to avoid the toned perfection of his skin.

God, you wished he loved you as much as you loved him.

“Let’s get you patched up, Garrick.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Wanna watch a movie after?” You asked.

“As long as I pick.”

—

He’d been in a horrible mood all evening. This whole week had been absolutely dreadful. To start, it was week of his father’s passing, a time when even his Gran didn’t have a smile on her face. He’d never really adapted to the pain of losing his idol all those years ago.

Second, he’d received his letter of acceptance into the British Army, something that burned a hole in his pocket for over three days.

He’d been ecstatic to tell his Gran, and she had laughed in pride. But a slice of fear encased her too, Gaz could tell by the dull look in her eyes, she didn’t want him to end up like her son. Kyle was even more nervous to tell you.

His heart grew sore just at the thought. You’d been a part of each others lives for nearly two decades. You were his everything, and to be away from you? He felt the creeping dread lay on him like a fog.

He’d always considered himself to be brave. Someone willing to protect the world and dirty his own hands. He’d prided himself in his loyalty and selflessness— It was just who he was. That is until you invade and infect every thought of his. He wished he could just mutter those impossible words— I love you. Yet, his throat locked up on him, refusing to let out any sound. It’s not like it would be enough, no mere three words would amount to how much he cared, how much he loved.

Past, present, and future— he thinks.

He thinks of you and him on the playground, the child-like innocence he wants to protect and cherish. He thinks of your laughter as he chases you around his home, playing an intense game of tag, oh how he fell for you in his childish adoration.

How you’d look with a wedding band on your finger of his own choosing. How he’d bawl tears at how absolutely ethereal you’d look. For you to finally be able to see the tiny sliver of love and affection you deserved.

But the present time? He couldn’t think of anything besides guilt and jealousy.

Now he sat clenching the pint of beer he nursed, his teeth gritting so hard he felt the dull pain in his gums. You’d been speaking to some idiot named Greg, hand waving around ecstatically as you nursed the mixed drink in the other palm.

You’d called on this party, inviting some of your closest friends and Kyle. It was a surprise to him when so many people showed up, flooding the bar and moving to you. He couldn’t blame them for trying to get close, you were ridiculously beautiful and effortlessly kind. Smart and loyal, Compassionate and Joyful.

Greg had been scooting closer to you all night. The once meter of space between you had disappeared. You’d definitely noticed, judging by the way you’d moved subtly in the opposite direction, shifting closer to him instead. Kyle felt a bubble of satisfaction flutter inside his chest, knowing you’d been more comfortable around him than the idiot.

“So, what are you doing later?” Greg asked over the music, not caring or noticing that you seemed uncomfortable.

“Heading to Kyle’s flat, we have movie night on Saturdays.” You answered, shoulders tensed. Kyle could tell that you hated every minute of this. You were a people pleaser and hated confrontation, so it was no surprise that you continued to entertain him. He just wished the man would get the hint already.

“We can watch a movie at my place.” Greg suggested, making Kyle visibly seethe. Greg’s eyes flickered to him, a nasty and smug look covering his features when you weren’t looking.

“I don’t think so mate.” Kyle spoke for you, reducing his slouching and nearly hovering over you as he glared at Greg. “Why not? This your bitch or something?”

In his twenty one years of life, Kyle Garrick never thought he’d seen more red. How dare this ignorant slime of a human being call you such a vile name?

“The fuck you just say?”

“Oh lay off it, I’ll give her back after I fuck her, I’d keep her but no one wants damaged goods.”

Glass shattered as it collided with the flesh of Greg’s face. Beer pooling sticky on his shirt as Kyle ruthlessly beat his fist into his jaw, his eyes, his nose. Anything he could reach, he punched. You’d shrunk back, basically cowering as he had flung himself over you.

His ears rang, flooded by the pure rage that radiated through his entire being. The ambience of the bar and laughter long gone, the only thing he heard was the satisfying crunch of Greg’s nose, along with the weak gurgles that escaped him.

“Kyle!” You’d screamed, allowing him to snap back to the present. Tears streamed down your face, fat and heavy. All at once, he’d felt the pit in his stomach, he wondered if the tears streaming down your face was the cause of him or Greg. Without saying a word, Kyle dropped Greg’s shirt collar, clenching his bloodied knuckles as he rushed out the door, No longer in the mood for any company.

The pub wasn’t far from his flat, he could make it there with little trouble. The weight of his acceptance letter weighed even heavier in his pocket. Especially knowing he’d be leaving in the next two days. To leave on bad terms with you would destroy him.

“Wait!”

“Kyle, please stop!”

He’d slowed, turning his head to watch you follow after him, cheeks puffy and eyes irritated from crying. God, this was all his fault.

He said nothing as you latched to his arm, feeling the dents of your soft fingertips through his windbreaker, the heat of your skin slightly calming him from thinking about what he had done. He’d single-handedly ruined your party, causing a scene in front of so many people. And here you were with him, instead of enjoying yourself.

“I’m so sorry, Sunshine, ruined your whole night.” Kyle spit out, hanging his head and attempting to hide his face under the ball cap he wore. Blood splattered against the cement of the sidewalk, dripping from his knuckles like a ticking clock.

Shocking waves of surprise rippled through him as he heard your gentle laugh. Head glanced down at you, your lips pulled up and head shaking in indifference.

“Ruined my night? I just wanted it to be us and my two friends. It was awful being around that guy, I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t there to save me.”

Instant relief fell off him in waves, his shoulders relaxing slightly as the two of you continued to walk to his flat. “He deserved more than what I gave him.” Kyle growled, not noticing the pure look of adoration cross your eyes.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you. Now, let’s go home, I need to patch you up again.” You teased, leading the way a little faster to his home.

You’d pushed him into the bathroom the second he’d unlocked the door, ushering him to sit on the hard marble of the bathtub. He did so willingly, now that his adrenaline was gone, waves of pain flew and radiated down his busted knuckles.

You’d leant over to pull the faded first aid kit from beneath his sink, long since needing to be replaced from how many times you needed to use it. You’d settled yourself between Kyle’s legs, the warmth of his thighs radiating as you held onto his wrist.

“I didn’t need you hurting yourself over me.” You whispered, taking clean tweezers and removing the small pieces of glass from his skin.

“That’s what you’re worried about, Sunshine?”

You huffed, attempting to slow your rapid heartbeat. You’d grown accustomed to the constant palpitations that always came when you were around him.

“Well yes. I won’t always be around to fix you up.”

A bittersweet feeling clung off the air, violating your lungs as your own jacket pocket burned with the slip of paper in it. A letter of acceptance into the Medical Graduate program at Yale. You’d graduated top of your class for undergrad, and had an amazing opportunity to continue in America to become a doctor.

Kyle had titled his head, a frown peaking from his lips as you finished wrapping a bandage along his knuckles, placing a kiss upon his cheek as you always did when you finished.

“What do you mean you won’t always be here?” He asked, unconsciously placing his hands around the swell of your hips, holding you to him like an anchor.

With a sigh, you fished into your pocket, pulling out the acceptance letter that held onto your bittersweet future in a vice. It was an amazing opportunity, and having the title, Doctor, before your name would be incredible. Kyle took the paper carefully, scanning over the words as his lips tilted up and eyes watered.

“I’ll be damned, always knew you were way too smart for your own good. Congratulations, Sunshine.” He managed, handing the paper back to you in a sorrow that made your heart hurt. You still stood in between in legs, never wanting to move from the spot.

“I’ll still visit on holidays and breaks,” you reassured, a watery grin finding its way onto your lips. You hated the fact that you’d leave him.

Kyle shook his head, his own hand slipping to grab that damned letter.

“I don’t think so, Sunshine.”

You’d read his own letter, a proud and sorrowful smile mimicking what he just experienced. He’d watched as your face turned from worried to completely gutted, a lone tear rolling down your face. He’d reached up, trapping the drop of liquid and wiping it away. “Don’t cry, Love, I’m sure we’ll think of something.” He pleaded, but it didn’t stop his heart from shattering.

This must be the end.

For now, he just wanted to hold you.

—

Twelve years later

“Hold pressure here, I’ll be back to reassess in twenty minutes.” You advised, wiping your hands on the white coat you’d earned over the years.

Your hands twisted under your gloves, pulling them off with a snap as you went to the next patient on your list. Spreading disinfectant on your hands, you flipped open a clipped folder all about your next victim.

MacTavish, John.

Patient forcibly admitted under the orders of his lieutenant after a laceration to his bicep from loose debris from C4.

You huffed, always used to soldiers hurting themselves. In a way, it reminded you of Kyle, how you spent more time with him with a needle in your hands than without.

You padded down the hallway, settling in front of the door the sergeant was admitted to. You knocked softly, hearing a muffled, “come in.”

“Sergeant MacTavish?” You verified, eyes filtering to a tall Scottish man with a particularly interesting haircut. He was pretty, in a way that suggested he knew it. Not that it was exactly professional for you to think so.

“Aye, that’s me.” He confirmed, a small smirk on his lips as you approached.

“Heard you took a bit of a tumble.” You stated, eyes twinkling in a gentle amusement. He’d mimicked the gesture, bringing his hand up to reveal his wound. “Ye’ could say that. Usually I’m the one blowin’ people up, not the other way ‘round.”

The wound could have looked better. The angry flush of first degree burning skin immediately grabbed your attention, among with the rather deep center. He would need stitches, and likely an antibiotic to prevent infection.

“Hope you’re not scared of needles.” You joked slightly, pulling on a pair of spare gloves while you fished in your supplies.

“Naw’, much scarier things out there, ya know.”

A small smile tugged at your lips, you liked this patient of yours. Many of them were pissed when they came in, or others bluntly hit on you. At times you joked with your coworkers about buying a wedding ring.

You set to work on his arm, disinfecting the area and numbing it.

“So how’d it happen?” You asked to pass time, although you were relatively quick with your stitches. You’d done this since you were twelve after all.

“Ghost and I were headed to exfil, we were held up by the cartel. Passed through a building but it was wired. I noticed it a second too late. Luckily Ghost got me outta there, while Gaz and Price covered us.” John explained, not noticing your halting needle and surprised face at the word of his other sergeant’s callsign.

“You said Gaz?” You asked, hardly containing your curiosity and eager questioning.

“Yes?” John answered back hesitantly. “Is he here?” You interrogated as you finished the last knot. It couldn’t be a coincidence that this soldier had the same callsign as Kyle’s dad, right?

“He’s meeting me here so we can go to the mess hall.” John spoke, confusion lacing his voice and eyebrows pinching together. Yet, he didn’t have time to ask any questions, for booted feet glided down the hall, thudding nearly as loud as your beating heart.

You decided then and there, if it was him, you’d put decades of friendship aside, just to tell him even a slice of how you feel. Of how much you loved him.

Then he was there. In front of you again.

He was there and even more handsome than when you left for Grad School. His warm caramel colored eyes darted from MacTavish to you, nearly widening out of his socket as he did a double take.

“Sunshine?” He murmured, looking as if he’d pinch himself out of this illusion. You’d managed to slap off your gloves, before very unprofessionally sprinting in his direction.

He’d just barely settled his feet before you jumped in his arms, his biceps curling around you and picking you up effortlessly. You’d clung to him there, legs wrapped around his waist as you inhaled the smell of him again. Cedar and citrus.

Kyle Garrick.

“Naw! Naw way, ya never said the woman ya fancied was a doctor!” Soap blurted, standing suddenly as he narrowed in on the moment. Your smile grew wide at the words the Scotsman announced. Maybe this was all a dream? Kyle fancied you? The man hid his glare, but Soap took enough of a hint to thank you and leave. Reluctantly you stepped back, still embarrassingly close to him.

“What are you doing here?” Gaz could hardly contain his excitement, the boyish feelings he buried now coming back in full speed like a missile.

“I work here on base. I moved back to London last month, picked a job where I knew I could help.” You explained, cheeks burning from smiling so much.

“I reckon we’ll see a lot of each other then.” Gaz brought you into another hug, arms wrapping so tightly you could hardly breathe. Damn, he’d gotten stronger and more fit. And you didn’t think it possible.

“So was MacTavish right? You fancy me?” You asked, no longer fearing. It’d been long enough, twelve years of not seeing each other, even longer adoring him.

“‘Course. I’ve loved you since I was six and you kissed my cheek on the playground.” Gaz laughed. It seemed he didn’t care to lose more time either. Twelve years was too long without you, the sneaked Polaroid of you in his pocket was the only thing that kept him sane.

“We have a lot to catch up on, huh?” You teased, no longer feeling the crippling aspect of fear and rejection.

You’d squeaked when he kissed your lips in yearning, savoring the taste of a man you’d loved all your life, with nothing more satisfying than being able to admit it. To show him, just how much you cared. Just how much you yearned for his addicting touch and hypnotic kisses. You sighed heavenly as he pulled away.

“How about a movie date Friday?” He asked, reminiscing on old times.

“You know I could never say no.” You answered, looking forward to the future.

—

Tags: @glitterypirateduck @pukbadger @ysljoon @drinking-tea-and-be-obsessed @mykneeshurt

#gazfest #cod #call of duty modern warfare #modern warfare #call of duty #kyle garrick #kyle gaz garrick #kyle gaz garrick x reader #Kyle garrick x reader

[sports-on-sundays]

prince not so charming / CL16 / PART 1

Warnings : Mention of death, Mention of sex, Mention of marriage between a minor and an adult (spoken about as a bad thing, not a good thing), Mention of forced marriage, Switching between second and third perspective, Charles acting a bit spoiled maybe.

Summary : Prince!Charles x Princess!Reader - A prince has seven princesses brought to him, and must choose which one he wants to marry.

Author's Note : I've had ideas like this circulating through my head for quite a while, so I figured this would be something good to start my blog off with, especially since I think it's another idea that a lot of other people might enjoy reading. I'm just starting out my blog, so if you read this and you like it, I would really appreciate if you would hit my ask box and request something to support me and help me get going! And of course reblog and follow would be kind too <3 Thank you, and I hope you enjoy my little story.

Requested? : No.

There are six other princesses travelling by chariot today as well, also headed to the same exact castle you're heading to.

When your father, the king of your small island country, told you that the prince of one of the largest countries nearby was sending in for all the single princesses, both you and your father had a plan.

Unlike a lot of countries, yours is just fine with having a woman rule as queen, by herself, so since your mother passed away in childbirth, and you're your father's only child, you've both basically decided that getting married into some other kingdom's royal family is just about the last thing you want to do.

Apparently, this Prince Charles, who is twenty-five, your age, has been being pressured ever since he was eighteen by his family. The story is that they keep trying more and more ladies from all different countries and families, but every single one he sees he quickly dismisses after meeting them, rejecting every single one.

Which, you figure, means he's a spoiled little ungrateful brat, like many of the royals from surrounding kingdoms and countries. Not surprising.

For seven years, his mother and eldest brother have been searching all over for the woman he'll finally accept. Of course, searching only in royal and noble blood.

So now, they're bringing in seven more princesses to see if he'll accept any of them. You're generally not worried about this conceited prince wanting to marry you, but just in case, you and your father have ensured that there's no chance he will.

So you sit in the covered royal chariot, wearing a plain white dress, a men's cloak, your hair very simply down over your shoulders, and dirt smudged on your clothes and face.

Even though it's not your most favourite outfit, it's worth it to avoid at all costs being forced to court with... someone like Prince Charles.

You're sure he'll be disgusted.

Which is good.

You've met all the princesses that will be arriving as well, and you're sure most of them will be more interesting to a prince such as Charles. Apparently, to them, he's known as the most handsome prince around. All of them would be delighted to marry him, and are surely putting forth their best for the prince.

You're sure he just uses his good looks to fake a charming personality, so people like him. That's what all the princes do, but then when you really get to know them, it turns out their personality is really quite devilish in the end, and it was just an act, a show, to get you interested in them.

Soon enough, the chariot you're in stops, and your driver gets out, holding the curtain for you as you lift your skirt to jump out. The driver offers his hand to you for help, but like always, you ignore it and hop out yourself. It's not like when women jump we break our ankles or something. My goodness. You know deep down inside they're just trying to be honorable and kind, but still.

You look up at the castle. It looks very basic, like many other castles you've seen, with it's tall pillars, carved images, and glorious towers reaching up, slicing into the bright merry blue sky.

"Would you like me to walk up with you, or send a servant to go with you, up to the door, Your Highness?" asks your driver with a very low bow.

"No thank you, but I appreciate the offer. I can handle walking by myself. Just carry on."

"Yes, of course, Your Highness," he nods, briskly, with agility, hopping up into the chariot.

You turn away from that, and start walking down the cobblestone path that leads to the third courtyard, which leads to the main gates. When you get to the gates of the third courtyard, a guard grunts at you, not even realizing that you're one of the princesses, because of your means of arrival and presentation, "What's your business here?"

"I'm one of the princesses to meet Prince Charles today," you say simply.

He narrows his eyes. "No, you're no-"

"Listen, guard. This was a message sent only to the princesses, no? How could anyone else know about this? If you do not allow me to enter and go to the castle with all the other princesses here today, I will order my men to go against you in an instant!"

The guard's back straightens. "Right, then, Your Highness! Please, show mercy, and forgive me for my misunderstanding! I'll lead you to where you need to go immediately!"

"You're forgiven. Now, yes, take me there. And let's get this over with."

Charles reclines in his velvet red couch, leaning back as he stares up at the sparkling gold chandelier with a heavy sigh. There's a knock on the door to his room, and he calls, "Who's there?"

His older brother, Lorenzo, enters the room, shutting the door behind him. "Charles, come on now. I thought you were supposed to be getting ready." He ruffles his brother's light, fluffy, tangled hair. "My goodness, Charles, you need to get this cut and washed before you meet the princesses. And clearly you are in need of a shave."

"I don't have to have nice hair or clothes for every last one of those ladies to fall deeply in love with me. In fact, half of them probably are already deeply in love with me," replies the younger with an eye roll and a scoff.

"Charles, you know you have to look more presentable. Stop with all the excuses. Get up now."

"Is Mama gonna cut my hair?"

"Charles, you're just going to have to get it done by a servant. I'm sending one in to get you fixed up now, okay?"

Charles nods, sitting up more with a sigh. "Yes, yes, Lorenzo. Now be on with your day, now, won't you, King?"

"Charles," he says, looking back from the doorway with a sigh. "Do one thing for me, please?"

"Another thing?"

His brother, the king, ignores Charles' little comment and just says, "Please choose your princess today, Charles. Please. Choose the best one for you. I've been trying to give you responsibilities for so long. I think having a lady may help with your..."

"My what? My goodness, Lorenzo, be out of my presence already! Please!"

And with a sigh, the elder brother listens to the younger's order and leaves him to be by himself.

Charles gets up and walks across the room, stopping in front of his mirror to look at himself. His hair is a little tangled, but he doesn't mind it. He always thinks it makes him look better. It reminds him of how he looks after he's won a race, pushed his horses to the limit, with the wind and dust blowing dirt up into his helmet. He's never minded a little bit of danger, and a little bit of dirt. And a little bit of fun.

Yet a part of him loves to look nice, too, for these girls. Not because he's trying to attract any of them.

Maybe just because he feels so strong in those buttoned coats with gold lining, big, black boots, with a beautiful sword at his side.

Maybe all this talk of marriage and pressure to fall in love is a pain, but by now, would he want it any other way?

It's strange the way you get used to the things you hate, so much that you almost start to like them.

The six other princesses sit as far away from you as they can. Naturally, they're disgusted. Not that you care. You figure it's better like that. This way, maybe their sweet perfume won't make you smell any better.

Even the guards in the room seem extremely confused and unimpressed by you.

Which is just fine. It means that hopefully the prince will feel just the same.

Soon, a servant comes in, saying quickly, "I'm sorry for the wait, Most High Ladies of the Land. Our highly respected and honored Prince Charles, the second heir to the throne, after King Lorenzo, may he be honored forever, is still preparing himself to meet you beautiful ladies. I can assure you all that he is very excited to meet you all. Forgive us for the wait."

Of course he's taking long. He's probably quite vain. Just like these girls surrounding you. Quite vain, you know. You can't help but smile to yourself as you ponder upon the fact that perhaps this vain, conceited, self-centred prince could potentially get along quite well with these girls. Prideful people often seem to enjoy the people who are much like themselves, after all, right?

Soon enough, though, they start taking the princesses, one by one, to come and meet the prince. The princesses here are from ages anywhere between fifteen and twenty-five. You realize that the younger one's time meeting Prince Charles is much shorter than the older ones, and even then, the longest time before the servant comes to fetch the next princess is at most fifteen minutes.

Of course, they save you for last. Which you're happy about. After seeing all those beautiful princesses, you're sure Prince Charles will be even more disgusted with you than he would've been originally.

You stand up when the servant gestures you to come, and you walk next to him down the hallway. When you make it to the end of the hallway, there is a small passage with stairs leading up. "I am sorry to tell you that Prince Charles' room is on higher floor. Would you like me to carry you up the stairs, Your Highness?" The servant asks with a bow.

"My goodness! How do you treat your women in his kingdom? What a meeting this shall be with the prince! By the name of God, servant man, no. I can walk up a flight of stairs just fine on my own two feet."

"Of course, Your Highness!" the servant says quickly, and you start walking up the spiraling staircase. You don't doubt that all the other princesses accepted the offer to be carried.

The hallway at the top is much nicer than the one you were just in. It has red carpets, gold lining, and windows all across one wall. You pause to stare out them. They overlook the huge capital city, and you think about all the little common people down there, working for their lives.

It's such a sad concept. While you're up here, worried about having to meet a prince, there are people down there worrying about staying alive.

It's not right. And when you're queen of your island, that's what you want to fix. In your country, your father has it all set up for you.

You want the people to be happy and content.

"Your Highness?" the servant says. "This is Prince Charles' room."

You nod. "Thank you."

"I'll be waiting outside here if either of you need anything."

You nod again, and slowly turn the knob to the door, before stepping in, closing the door behind you gently with a quiet click.

You have never been in the bedroom of a prince before.

There's a huge window overlooking a beautiful bright bluebody of water, which you assume must be the ocean. On the wall is a breastplate and two swords. There's a large wooden wardrobe with beautiful carvings all over it, and sitting on top of it are two helmets- one look's like a knight's helmet, shining with steel, and the other a horse racing helmet with red streaks painted on the sides. Next to the wardrobe is a painting hanging on the wall of a young man with dark shaggy black hair and a playful smile, wearing the elaborate outfit of a king, despite not having the looks of a typical solemn painting of a king. There's a wall with lines of different kinds of plaques and trophies on shelves, glass doors covering them. Prince Charles has a huge grand, wooden but painted white, piano. His huge bed has curtains surrounding it, and next to the bed is a little nightstand. There's a huge desk with parchment and ink sitting on it, and there's a soft red rug over the floor. Hanging on the wall is a large, beautiful, tinted, full body mirror. There is a large empty fireplace, and with it a red velvet couch and matching chair. Next to these pieces of furniture is a table on which a map, a compass, and a bowl of fruit sits. The whole room smells like sweet, calming incense.

And then, after viewing the room, you turn to view the much less interesting prince. He looks like every other. Sure, his face is exceptionally handsome compared to the others, but who cares? He's not that glorious. He wears a tall black shiny boots, red pants, and a long white double-breasted jacket unbuttoned with gold buttons and gold furnishing. Underneath his coat he wears a soft looking poet shirt. The whole outfit fits him quite well, and compliments his thin, lean, but very strong figure nicely.

But the best of his outfit is the sparkling gold crown upon his head. It shines with all different kinds of lovely colorful sparkling jewels. You can't help but think about how heavy that must be on his head.

His brown hair is nicely styled, his eyes bright, and his white smile likely fake.

But the smile quickly vanishes as he can't help but express the surprise on his face when he sees you. "H- Hello," he says. "You are...?"

"Princess Y/n. It's nice to meet you, Prince Charles." You curtsy.

"Nice to meet you, too, Princess," he says with a quick bow, obviously trying not to express his emotions on his face. It's hard not to laugh at this. At this little rich prince trying to hold it together. He takes a step closer to you. "How old are you?" is his first question. He speaks with the accent that it seems many people from this country speak with. You can't help but wonder to yourself if this country has it's own native language.

"Twenty-five, Prince."

He nods. "Me as well. What kingdom are you from?"

You tell him about the island kingdom you come from, and, as expected, he doesn't end up having ever really heard of it much. "How far off the coast are you?" he asks.

"It took half a day to sail here."

He nods once again. "Alright... Uh, why don't you sit down here next to me," he starts, walking to the velvet couch, "and I can tell you a bit about myself, if that's okay with you."

"Of course, Prince. Go on," you answer as you sit down next to each other on the couch. You look over his nice appearance once again.

"I'm the second son of my father, may he rest in peace. My elder brother is king of this country, and my younger one, Prince Arthur, rules nearby conquered land. Me and my wife would be the rulers of a section of land that we have just won over in war, across the river."

"So you're telling me that regardless of being older than your brother, he rules more than you and has a wife, while you don't?" You really couldn't care less. You're just trying to make him dislike you.

He clenches his jaw and says, "It's just taken a little longer for me... I guess."

"Why do you think that could be?"

"I... well, Princess, so far in my life, I've chased after things besides ruling and marriage."

"Right," you say simply.

"So... tell me about yourself. What... makes you... you?"

You can't help but softly chuckle at that question, as the Prince's eyes look you up and down. "Well, isn't this meeting really only about two things?"

"Two things? I'm sorry?" he asks in confusion.

"Whether the princess' beauty suits your tastes, and whether she'll be good to make you your babies."

He stares, wide eyed. "Wow... egh, you're honest, now, aren't you?"

"I suppose I am," you respond with a shrug.

"Right..." is all Charles says, at a loss for words at the princess' way of speaking. This is the first princess that's been so... blunt with him.

And he realizes perhaps this is why he has been avoiding marriage for so long.

He'd rather not getting married to a woman for her intense beauty, and only use her for sex to have his children. He doesn't even want children. Or a wife.

He really just wants to be for himself. Adventure. Have fun. Make the most of life.

"So, Prince Charles, you said you've been chasing after other things besides marriage and ruling? I'm curious to know what."

He swallows. "Really, my lady, it should not matter. I'm really leaving that old life in the past." Or at least trying. Really, every part of Charles hates to think about leaving that life in the past. It's a life he loves.

But, as everyone seems to say to him, Charles, you're not a little boy anymore. You're a grown man at twenty-five, and it's pathetic how little you've got done in life.

To them, what Charles has done is pathetic. To Charles, what he's got done is success.

"I still want to hear, Prince Charles."

Charles sighs. He figures it doesn't matter if this girl knows or not. He's sure no one would want him picking her, anyway. So who cares if she has a strange view of him? "I love chariot racing. It's my passion. I love it so, so much. See those trophies in that case? Those are from racing. I love the adrenaline, and the danger. I love the speed. That's one thing. I also love music. I play on that piano all the time. I'm not interested in getting married... I mean, I guess I can be kind of romantic, but I don't want to get married for the reasons everyone says I should. They always bring me these women that all seem to act exactly the same, with the same clothes, same personality... And then they get annoyed at me for loving none of them. They try to put me in armor and get me to fight if I'm not going to marry, but that's never turned out either. Even though I have the strength for it, I don't want to do it. I don't want to go out on battlefields and shed the blood of other men. Maybe that makes me a coward, I don't know. Maybe it makes me 'not a man'. I don't know. But I can't help it. It's just the way I am."

The look on this princess' face seem to be a mixture of extreme curiosity, regret, worry, and empathy. Which is confusing.

"Prince Charles, I'm sorry. You're very unlike many princes I've met. But I think you're just fine."

"I'd say you're quite unlike all the princesses I've met. And I think you're fine, too. The bothersome thing is that I basically have to choose one of you seven today. By the way, Princess, usually I wouldn't be saying this. But I just can see that you aren't like the rest. I can tell I can trust you."

"Why do you have to choose one of us now?" the girl questions.

Charles sighs, glancing down at this rug. "I don't want to make this seem like this is any of my family's doing. They love me, and want the best for me. But I have advisors put in place, that in a way have authority over me, and have told me if I don't choose a princess today, then they'll choose. And I know who they'll choose. There's a princess in a very, very large kingdom very nearby, and they've been waiting until she turns fifteen. She's fifteen now, and I'm sure they'll force me to marry her, because having a marriage with a kingdom as big as that is just wise, when it comes to government. But I am not marrying mere girl who is ten years younger than me. There is no way."

She nods. "That's... That's good. Very wise. There are lots of princes I know of that would do just that. So I respect your decision in that very much. But I suppose the best thing for you to do is to just choose the nicest out of those girls to marry. It's a hard situation to be in, though. I'm sorry for you."

"Are you really a princess?" Charles asks, looking the woman in her eyes.

"Yes, I am."

Charles reaches over and wipes a smudge of dirt off her cheek with his thumb, before holding it up in front of her. "What is this all about then?"

"I didn't want to doll myself up. Just like you, I don't want to marry, really. I'm into other things that are uncommon as well."

"Like what, Princess?"

"Well, racing as well. I like hunting with my bow and arrow. I love swimming, and going for walks, and gardening. Most people think princesses always enjoy indoors more, but I love the outdoors. And luckily, in my kingdom, I'm allowed to spend my time outside. I don't like singing or dancing or reading or knitting or doing makeup or dresses or anything, like most people expect princesses to."

Prince Charles suddenly takes your hand and says intensely, "I have an idea."

You narrow your eyes at him, feeling suspicion sink deeper within you. "What...?"

"If neither of us want to marry, then if we married each other, then we could get along more. Like, I'm not saying we fall in love. I'm just saying if neither of us are willing to fall in love, then we marry each other."

"I see your point, Prince Charles," you start, "but it's quite selfish, what you're planning. While you're being forced to marry, I'm not. So while for you it would be a step up, for me it would be a step down."

He continues to hold your hand, though. "I would let you live in your country and rule it as you please. Please, Princess Y/n. It would be... such a favor for me. Seriously, the only time you'd have to see me is when we're invited to dinners and what not."

"Oh, yes, the only time I'd have to see you is for dinners, and as well, perhaps, to come to bed with you to give birth to your heirs! Prince, I do not-"

"Can I ask you a question?"

"What? It's rude to interrupt."

"I've stopped trying not to be rude by now! Just let me ask my question!"

"Go on, Prince Charles."

He sighs, giving your hand a little squeeze. "Do you realise that if you want to protect your own kingdom, and keep it as it is as well, that you're going to need an heir?"

You swallow.

What a terrible, awful turn this has taken.

You should've just dressed and acted like all the other princesses.

But you had no idea that Prince Charles would be so...

Such a square peg in a round hole.

Much like you are.

This time you squeeze his hand, which is very, very smooth, and would feel nice, if it weren't so sweaty at this very moment.

He barely whispers, "Please."

He's so desperate.

What will your father say?

You suppose you'd just have to explain the whole thing to him.

"Listen, Prince Charles," you say, slipping your hand out of his, standing up. "I do not want to marry you. I ask you not to marry me. But I understand your point of view, and I understand that I should expect that regardless of what I've said, you still might choose to marry me."

He stands up with you. After getting to know him more, he looks much more handsome than he did in the beginning.

And then he says something shocking. "I think you're beautiful."

You stare, eyes wide. "I'm sorry, what?"

He reaches over and wipes the other smudge of dirt from your face. "I think you're beautiful."

"How? I went out of my way to look ugly."

"It's your personality that shines through those lovely eyes of yours."

"Wow... Thank you, Prince... You weren't lying when you said you were... romantic. Although you know if this is some way to manipulate me into wanting to marry you, I'm sorry. I've got my mind set on no."

He shakes his head. "That's not what I was trying to do. I was just telling you that... Showing you that... No matter what you do to your appearance, I still thought you're beautiful."

You stare into those bright green eyes, and for a moment, there's a little pit in your stomach. But not a bad one. Like there's something flying up within you. You take a step closer to him, and say, "Prince Charles, you are a very special person. You really are. To see past all the makeup and dresses and perfumes, and look for the one with the personality you like the most? That's extraordinary."

He gently puts his smooth hand to your cheek and says, "You've got to be special as well. After all these years of seeing all these ladies and princesses that I could choose to marry, and you're the first one I have any kind of feelings for. Your humility is so admirable... You just want to be there for your country. You're amazing."

You swallow, nodding. "I don't want to marry, but out of all the princes I've met, you're the only one I would marry if I had to."

"You're the... You're the princess I would marry, and I have to."

You sigh. "I beg you not to say me, but I understand, fairly enough, you're looking at your own best interest. So if you... If you end up having to say me, please let me be there for your country."

"I'll say you, but I'm putting a lot on the line."

"Like what?"

"If my advisors don't like you, which is likely, they'll make me marry the fifteen year old, likely. But it's worth it. I think putting so much on the line is worth it to be with a lady like you. Because I know I won't meet another princess like you. They likely won't even let me, though, so you're probably safe."

And suddenly, your heart softens as you look at his longing eyes, and you say gently, "Prince Charles, say you'll sleep on your decision. They'll have us princesses stay at this castle for the night. In the morning, I'll make sure I look just like the others."

"Cover up your beautiful face with all that makeup?"

"Just so your advisors accept me."

He stares, wide eyed, before suddenly hugging you.

"Oh my goodness," you breathe.

"Don't tell anyone I've hugged you."

Hugging is reserved for, in tradition, only those who are courting or related to each other, so this in a way fills you with guilt, because you know how much people would look down on you if they knew he was hugging you so tight.

You smile to yourself, though, and hug him back, even tighter.

Who cares if they look down on you?

Prince Charles steps away out of the hug, before bowing to you, taking your hand, and kissing it, before saying, "I suppose you should leave now, Princess Y/n. I'll see you later."

#f1 one shot #f1 imagines #f1 fanfic #f1 #f1 x reader #charles leclerc #formula 1 #ferrari #charles lecerc x reader #leclerc #leclerc x reader #formula1 #formula one #scuderia ferrari #charles leclerc one shot #charles leclerc x you #charles leclerc imagine #f1 x you #f1 x y/n #f1 x female reader #charles leclerc x y/n #charles leclerc x female reader #arthur leclerc #lorenzo leclerc #prince!charles leclerc #f1 fanfiction #charles leclerc fanfiction #f1 fic #charles leclerc fic #charles leclerc fanfic

[khaire-traveler]

This is not an invitation for discourse. I am just stating my personal opinions.

I've been seeing some posts going around lately about myth retellings and wanted to give my opinion on something: I think the helpol community (maybe other polytheistic and pagan communities, too) is honestly too critical and intense about modern retellings (and even some historical ones as well somehow).

I know what it's like coming from that critical point of view. I used to be highly critical of certain retellings and stories that used Greek mythology. They used to deeply bother me, actually, but overtime, I realized that staying mad and fuming about these things I can't change - that will always be created - is really exhausting and even causes me to miss out on some truly interesting stories.

Also, seeing how intense some people can be about retellings has actively discouraged people in the community from writing them. How do I know this? I am one of those people, and I happen to know several others in the same predicament. Some people in the community will rip and tear and claw at retellings as if the retelling murdered everyone they loved. People talk about these retellings as if they're literally destroying the earth itself sometimes - like, seriously, y'all, it's wild.

Once, I saw someone post a short story they wrote - a retelling of a myth that I won't name, as I don't want to give the identity of this person away. This person posted this story with good intentions and was a worshipper of the figures depicted within the story, but still, they got absolutely dragged by larger Tumblr blogs and were torn into and literally chased off of Tumblr. This kind of behavior is not ok for multiple reasons, but the main point I'm trying to make is that we are actively making it harder for people within the community to write retellings. You want retellings from people who actually worship the gods? Then maybe make the community a much less judgmental place because sharing creative works takes a lot of courage as it is. Imagine building up the courage to create and share a retelling just to be ripped into by the very community you are a part of. I'm not saying you can't mention to someone when they've gotten something wrong or have written something potentially problematic, but I am saying that you shouldn't ruthlessly dissect someone's work and rip them a part if they seem to be well-meaning but misinformed (assume the best; not everyone is out to get us; easier said than done, I know). You can give criticism while still being respectful to the original author.

For many of these other authors, however, they likely don't even know that worship of these gods exists in the modern day, and even if they do know, acknowledging it may not be relevant to their story, or even their point. Sure, in a perfect world, these authors would acknowledge our little community and pay homage to actual ancient traditions/culture/etc, but we don't live in a perfect world, and that's ok. It is ok, y'all. Not every author writing a retelling is going to be a literal classics major or historian. Not every author writing a retelling is going to be educated on the actual ancient -or modern - worship of these gods. Not every author writing a retelling is going to pay homage to original source material. Do those things suck sometimes? Yes, absolutely. Do we need to lose our heads over it? No, not really. We can choose to focus on other things - on material and media that we actually enjoy and that do depict things how we'd like them to be depicted.

Now, none of this is to say that there are no problematic retellings or that speaking out on problematic retellings is wrong because hoo, boy, there are quite a lot of those. Some retellings claim to be historically accurate and are, in fact, not; some retellings are written by authors with less than ideal values and ideologies; some retellings are even based entirely on misinformation which can be frustrating to hear about. All of these things are true, but it's also true that not every retelling is out to get us. Not every retelling is trying to attack our small community and the gods we worship. As alarming and offensive as it can feel sometimes, it's important that we take a minute and realize that honestly, authors write stories, and sometimes a story is truly just meant to be a story. It's nothing personal. It feels like we, or our gods, are being attacked, but at the end of the day, we still have our own practices, and we are still allowed to engage with those practices. We are still allowed to worship our gods respectfully, even if others do not. And it is important to acknowledge here that others do not worship our gods. These authors are most likely not worshippers of the Theoi. They most likely do not have relationships with these gods as we do, and unfortunately, they may not have respect for these gods either. It would be ideal if they did, but they just might not, and there's no controlling that.

Honestly, most authors are trying their best. They're trying their best to write an interesting, authentic story that will capture the attention of their intended audience. They want to tell a story based on a mythology that inspired them so deeply, so carnally, that they felt the need to write a whole ass book or create a whole ass game about it. They see stories of tragic heroes, powerful gods, and all those caught in-between, and they think, "This is fucking epic; I'm gonna do something with this." Greek mythology is fucking cool. There's absolutely no denying that, and the fact that so many creators of all kinds continue to create retellings based on the love and passion of a mythology from over 2,000 years ago is pretty damn awesome, actually.

#helpol #hellenic polytheism #hellenic pagan

[mono-moonchilds]

LOVE ME │JJK

⤑ series: smutty song series (smutty little scenarios based around smutty songs)

⤑ pairing: idol!jungkook x femblack!reader

⤑ genre: smut!!

⤑ rating: explicit (18+)

⤑ word count: 1.7K

⤑ summary: Girl, I fuck who I want and fuck who I don’t. Got that A1 credit and that fillet mignon. She said, “I never wanna make you mad I just wanna make you proud.” I said, “Baby just make me cum, Then don’t make a sound.”

⤑ warnings: mean!junkook, shy/innocent!y/n, OC kinda dumb highkey lowkey, riding, creampie, jungkook is manipulative, player!jk, overstimulation, post nut clarity, producerdaugther!y/n

⤑ Song:  Love Me ft. Drake, Future

⤑ A/N: I feel like every time I write jk on the blog he is an asshole lmao. IDK why I just love writing asshole/mean jk, it's actually a problem. hope you guys enjoy it! and that it matches the song well enough. i was writing one thing and then it turned into something else. oh well  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'm not gonna think too much about it just glad to be back writing on this account

“Don’t even think about it.”

Was the first thing Namjoon said to Jungkook as they walked out of the room. He didn’t ask what he thought about the opportunity, didn’t even ask if he was excited. With a serious glare, he just turned to him and lowly told him, making sure to repeat it a second time just for good measure.

“Don’t think about what?” Jungkook questioned playing dumb. He knew precisely what Namjoon meant. Jungkook had known what the older was gonna say to him from the moment you’d introduced yourself.

“I’m Y/n,” You spoke softly, your hand stuck out for each of them to shake. You kept your head down, fidgeting nervously with your jacket. 

“This is my daughter.” 

From the way the man smiled brightly as he looked over at you it didn’t take much for anyone to come to the conclusion you were the man's pride and joy. From the expensive things you wore to the pricey handbag clutched tightly in your hand it was quite obvious you were a daddy’s girl. You kept close to your father's side, barely even sparing a glance up and when you did, you were quick to put your eyes back to the floor. 

You were shy. Jungkook couldn’t help but smile to himself. 

Cute. 

“Jungkook,” Namjoon groaned. “This is a big deal. He’s a big deal. He came all the way from America just to help us with producing this next album. Don’t fuck this up because you can’t keep your dick in your pants. No amount of sorry’s will fix it this time if you do.”

“I’m joking. The girl’s off limits. I promise.” 

And Jungkook had intended to keep that promise. He really did. He didn’t want to piss off Namjoon or potentially ruin an opportunity for the rest of his bandmates but saying no was always a task that was much easier said than done. 

You always looked so lonely, preferring to keep to yourself and stay by your father's side. You never really spoke unless spoken to. Jungkook could count on one hand the number of times he actually heard you talk. After a while, his perverted interest in you died down and a more innocent one came to play. It was obvious you needed a friend and Jungkook was going to be that for you. 

A friend. Was what Jungkook told himself and at the time he had truly meant it. When he first started asking you to hang out with him it was with the purest of intentions. Hell, he rarely would even hit on you when the two of you went places. Of course, he didn’t never hit on you because he was still him but it wasn’t with the goal of fucking you it was just because Jungkook was a flirt and couldn’t help it. 

So how the two of you ended up like this was beyond him. 

Him seated on his sofa while you sat on his lap working his cock with everything you had in you. Your neon pink nails dug into his skin as soft whimpers left your plump lips. 

“Suh-so…so big.” You deliriously whispered. With his head leaned back against the couch Jungkook watched you with low eyes, a smirk resting on his lips. You were so pathetic it was cute. Your body shaking like a leaf as you grinded down on his cock. At this point, he’d lost count of how many times you’d come, and by the way your eyes went crossed every few seconds he was sure you had too.

 “No..no,” You shook your head pushing his hand away. “I got it.”

“You’re doing so good, baby.” Jungkook encouraged not missing the lazy smile that spread across your face. “Lift up your shirt for me,” Jungkook ordered. “Play with your tits.” 

Following his directions, you did as you were told squeezing and rolling each of the brown pebbles between your fingers. “Fuck…” Jungkook panted softly. 

“Mmm…am I-am I…doing good right Kookie?” You questioned softly. Jungkook nodded his head rolling his hips up into yours pushing his cock deeper into your wet cunt. 

“Please don’t ever be mad at me again.” You whimpered. Tears streamed down your cheeks as you looked at him with those big glossed-over eyes. “Don’t ever want to make you mad. Just want to make you happy. Be your guh-good girl.”

Your voice hitched at the last word, thighs shaking, as another orgasm ripped through your body. Your body fell forward convulsing against his chest, a loud moan falling from your lips. The way you looked was pornographic. Skirt bunched up against your hips with the signature dark eyeliner you always had on smudged down your face. 

“Just want to make you happy.” You repeated with a cry. “Want you to be proud.”

“Shush, shush.” Jungkook hushed. “Make me come. You don’t want to be selfish do you?” 

You shook your head. “Shit…” You swore beginning to move your hips again. “So much.”

“That’s right. You're doing good.” Jungkook encouraged. You shook your head again, another loud whine falling from your mouth. 

“Can’t…too much.” 

Jungkook rolled his eyes in fake annoyance. He could take over any moment easily flip you over and fuck you into the couch for as long as he wanted but he didn’t want that and that wasn’t what you’d promised. 

“Jungkook please,” You begged, following him around his apartment like a lost puppy. “It’s been two weeks. I said I was sorry. Stop being mad at me.”

In all honesty, Jungkook had no reason to be mad and he knew that. The two of you were just friends and he’d never really shown any interest in being anything more than that. Of course, he did but he was trying to follow the rules. The stupid rules that Namjoon had put in place that apparently only applied to him. 

“It’s just…Taehyung? You want to be with him.” Taehyung was just as bad as him. He fucked anything with a pretty face.

“No-I just…” You shrugged. “He’s been nice to me and we’ve been talking.”

“He’s been nice to you?” Jungkook repeated in disbelief. “Are you fucking stupid Y/n? He’s nice to you so send him your nudes? The whole company has been nothing but nice to you does that mean you’re going to fuck them too? Wish I would’ve known how much of a slut you were.” 

That last part was too much and as soon as he said it Jungkook regretted the words coming out of his mouth. He expected you to go off on him and finally react properly in the way you should have all along. But instead, your head just dropped in shame. 

“Shit Y/n…I’m sorry. I should’ve never-”

“I’ll make it up to you.” You cut him off. 

“How?”

“I’ll show you how good I am. I can show you that I won’t ever do it again.”

“Okay…” Jungkook’s voice trailed off. “But how?”

“Whatever you want. Just want you to forgive me Kookie.”

It was sick how quickly the idea popped up in his head. A sly smile filled his features as his eyes looked your figure up and down. 

“I’ve been nothing but nice to you too. I’m the one who started making sure you had someone to hang out with but Taehyung is the only one who gets rewarded?” 

For once the light bulb clicked in your head almost immediately. Your face grew flustered as you fidgeted around nervously. He almost expected you to say no but then your hands went up to your shirt slowly beginning to pop open the buttons. Within seconds your lacy white bra was on display.

“Didn’t think you liked me that way.” You said a shy smile filling your face.

 Despite being the one who initiated everything Jungkook couldn’t even make the first move. Too much in shock that it was actually happening he just stood there. He could hear Namjoon’s voice telling him not to do it but once your body was pushed up against his he quickly ignored it.

“I want to make it up to you. I want to be good for you.” Jungkook mocked you with a whiney voice. “You can’t even do that right.” 

“No, I’m sorry.” You apologized. “I can do it I promise.” 

With newfound energy, you slammed your hips down onto his cock. Your tiny pussy clenched tightly around his cock as you worked yourself through the overstimulation. Jungkook didn’t think you could get any louder, but you did, loudly moaning and repeating how sorry you were begging him to forgive you and promising that you wouldn’t talk to Taehyung again.

“I’m yours only yours.” You cried out. 

“Shit..shit.” Jungkook groaned. At your words, he could feel the tightness in his balls swelling up. “Say it again.” He demanded. 

“I’m yours Jungkook. I’m always going to be yours.” 

With that Jungkook came with a loud moan. This time it's his body that's shaking as the pleasure wracks through his bones as his brain goes black. By the time he comes too your body is laying slack against the couch. His lower stomach was soaked wet, something he would’ve just attributed to sweat until he saw an equally as big wet spot on the front bottom of your pleated skirt. 

“Shit,” Jungkook swore to himself. He hated that he missed that. 

A smile filled your tired face as you looked at him. Jungkook knows he should’ve felt the exact opposite as he looked at you right now but he couldn’t help the feeling of regret that began to settle deeply into his chest. Whenever you looked at him your eyes were always full of stars. Usually, it made him feel good, made him feel like he was important, but this time it only reminded him of what Namjoon had told him not to do. 

If it was any other girl Jungkook wouldn’t have cared. He got what he wanted and that was all that mattered.  But this was you and your dad was your dad. 

Clueless you reached over grabbing his hand and pressing your lips to his knuckles. “Think I love you.” You giggle tiredly.

#bts fanfic #bts smut #jungkook fanfic #jeon jungguk #jungkook smut #bts x poc #bts x black reader #bts fan fiction #jungkook x reader #jungkook x black reader #btshoneyhive

[beanghostprincess]

Bughawk is soooo underrated and it makes me so sad. Please tell me you see how grand this vision is

I am personally more of a Shuggy/Crocobug shipper but that's mainly because Mihawk isn't doing it for me much?? I love him and his gold autistic eyes staring into my soul and his classy attitude and vampiric looking aesthetic, but I wish he had more screentime to figure out his personality better and enjoy him more. But I do like him! I swear! And tbh one of my favorite ships is Cross Guild, like, the three of them together, even if I have a bit of a preference inside of the trio. I do love them and tbh I think Mihawk and Buggy's relationship would be really funny to explore. Especially within the fanon portrayals of the characters because god forbid Oda gives the cool edgy swordsman more than three minutes of screentime and more than five words per episode.

Okay, so doing a mix between fanon and canon and "whatever the fuck I want to see these characters as because I am the princess of this blog and I can do whatever I want": I think their relationship is fucking hilarious.

Unlike with Crocodile, Buggy doesn't really know what to do with Mihawk. Crocodile at least is easy to read and he's usually the one to make the first move, but what the fuck is Buggy supposed to do with the swordsman sitting in front of him, legs crossed and staring into his soul like he's about to bite his neck and suck him dry. Scary. And also very hot. But mostly scary. But turns out Mihawk is like, way more peaceful than what he thought. He likes reading. And classical music. And swords in a very weird obsessive way that the clown should not speak about. And not much, honestly. Cooking, too, apparently. Buggy keeps learning new things about him every day and the guy opens up little by little, because even if he's quiet, the very few words he says speak a lot for himself. He's also a fucking sadist and loves teasing Buggy all the time to the point of making him cry of frustration, but, well, when he's good he's really nice to be around <3

They both have history with Shanks. You know the movie "The other woman"? The one about this girl who discovers her boyfriend is married and then becomes besties with the wife and start hating him together? That's the energy I'm getting from this triangle. Stop making Mihawk cry over Shanks not loving him and a past love!! Make him go "Oh. Yes. Red Hair and I had something. Pretty sure he still felt something for you, clown, so I am not happy about that" / "What?! Why would you be angry at me for Shanks' shitty feelings that have absolutely nothing to do with me, by the way, our thing ended years ago when his stupid-" / "No, no. I am referring to him. Moron. I like you" / "You do???'' / "Sometimes. Sort of. Maybe. Your existence confuses me". And then they start dating because nobody can tell me Cross Guild isn't just a poly relationship doing business together.

I think Mihawk likes Buggy because it gives excitement to his boring life and also he's fun to bully. Besides, he's more than what he looks like and he actually has a dream and pirate spirit, so maybe he's not as useless as he used to think. He's still annoying, yes, but oddly comforting. Mihawk can't quite figure out what he wants with this clown, so he just sticks around with him. Buggy is like a chihuahua. A very loud chihuahua. Mihawk is definitely a black cat. They don't match. At all. Not in the slightest. And yet, Mihawk likes his company. And Buggy actually loves seeing all the soft and interesting sides of Mihawk and realize that he's not as scary as he looks like. I mean, he could slice him in half if he wanted to and he's still scary and hot but, y'know, he has a very domestic side that Buggy likes.

Thinking about them being established is pretty sweet because I think Mihawk would like reading out loud to him and Buggy would make the funniest comments about the story. And they would cuddle. And it would be so uncharacteristically soft of them and it's something they only do in private. Crocodile stares at them from the corner of the room and,,, He likes having them there. He's not alone and it's kind of sweet.

Also overprotective Mihawk with Buggy my beloved. In the sense of: He cooks for him because his eating habits suck. He makes him go on walks and do a bit of exercise. He makes him read, too. Listen to music that it's not only commercial pop or circus music or musical/Broadway tunes. He takes care of the clown when he's not bullying him. I think Mihawk treats Buggy like Sharpay Evans treats her dog.

And following the Shanks thing to end this post: Bughawk is really cool because I think it would break Shanks' heart and I love angst.

#yayyy cross guild asks make my day #i love them i love them i love them #sorry for saying mihawk wasn't doing it for me i realized while writing that i absolutely love him too #i just wish he had more content #one piece #dracule mihawk #buggy the clown #bughawk #cross guild

[thoughts-on-bangtan]

A Little Farewell

With about a week left to go we had our final OT4 weverse live today and it's safe to say, we were not prepared. But I'm very grateful that they did a live all together giving us a last dose of chaos, cuteness and giggles before we'll be left to fend for ourselves for 6 months before Jin returns to us in June 2024.

The live truly was a beautiful gift that kept on giving starting with Tae's new short haircut and JK hiding his now shaved head from us, Namjoon even claiming that JKs hair is shorter than his own (JK supposedly felt inspired to shave his head a little early after he met Usher, who has pretty short hair himself, and went for it), and Jimin practically getting offended by a comment saying they wanted to see him with a buzzcut. To be honest Tae's cute little haircut looks a little like he did it himself in the dead of the night but it also makes him look like we traveled back in time to 2013 or earlier. Adorable. After so long it was really nice to see them together again, and to generally have more than one Tannie in a live together.

Since the first leaks about their military service appeared a few days ago we've seen vminies talk among themselves, and not to mention the near constant fighting that's been going on between the two xkook camps, but seeing vmin being so cute together in this live, it felt reassuring. Whatever questions or worries we might've had, they were washed away. In a way it makes sense that Tae and Jimin didn't go together, even if we all would've loved to see them go together and make use of the buddy system, but that isn't the choice they made for themselves and that's okay. It's easy to see what vmin are doing more than just fine and that's all that matters. Admin 2 really hoped we'd get a vmin handshake or hand holding, and we got two! I mean, look at all this cuteness:

And then also Tae going home in five minutes flat and doing a small solo live which was basically just him being adorable and talking to Jimin, who was immediately in the comments, before leaving again. Love when we get to third wheel them, wow, I truly will miss that a lot.

At one point in the live JK mentioned that he'd wanted to go to the special forces as well, implying that for some reason he couldn't, which makes me wonder why. Was it because of his tattoos? Either way, it's nice that he'll instead get to go with Jimin and supposedly they'll be in the training camp where Seokjin is one of the trainers so that's cute.

Speaking of Seokjin, after so long it was adorable how often Namjoon brought up Seokjin in this live. Just Jin hyung this and Jin hyung that, very cute. And they also mentioned Hobi a bunch, how he's gotten cooler and more manly, which comes as a great reminder to basically all of us that the cute boys we've known until now, well, they'll probably fade away and get replaced by more mature versions of our beloved members in the next months and they'll return to us as a different set of Tannies. And that's okay. They're grown up men so it makes sense that eventually some of that aegyo cuteness will fade away and personally I'm very curious to see how things will turn out and what they'll be like in 2025.

And I'm very curious to see if idiots will respect Namjoon's and Tae's pleas for people not to show up for their entrance ceremonies. Especially since Namjoon asked for it in three languages to make sure everyone understood it. Unfortunately I have my doubts, since we know the maknae line have some of the most unhinged solos but here's hoping.

Now, what does this mean for us now? Well, it'll be quite a while until we'll see the members slowly returning one after the other so we'd like to take this time for a 'official' hiatus as well. Admin 2 is considering a temporary "rebrand" into a BL blog since they've gotten into Thai BLs in the last year, so that's something that might happen. Would any of you be interested in something like that?

But we'll still be ARMY, still love vmin and namjin, and once the guys will return, so will we, so don't worry, we're not leaving BTS any time soon.

Lastly, here's a blurry screenshot of a coconut headed JK running across the screen screaming THIS WAS BTS. A beautifully chaotic ending to this solo era. Let's see what the next months will bring us and what 2025 will be like when chapter 2 will come to a close and a new chapter of BTS and ARMY will open, eventually.

Thank you so much for reading!

#bts #taehyung #jimin #vmin #namjoon #jungkook #namjin

[natalieironside]

hello ms. comrade Ironside, longtime reader, first time caller.

as a fellow writer of queer erotica, I was wondering if you had any thoughts/spoons to share those thoughts on wordpress being swept into the AI debacle under automattic? (I think that’s what you use to host your cool website, forgive me if I am mistaken.) I’m trying to figure out where to set up an author website of my own so I don’t have to host my stuff on tumblr anymore, but I’m a bit gun-shy in the current moment. I know AI trawling is inevitable in today’s internet, but as someone who’s been doing the indie author thing for some time (and admirably!), is there something you would recommend, best practices or otherwise, to someone just trying to get their metaphorical kite off the ground? or anything you wish you knew when you set up your own author-type socials? any thought at all would be genuinely appreciated.

thanks for your time, and I hope you and yours are as well as can be expected 🖤

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but afaik nothing approaching best practices has been figured out yet; it's all already happening and there's precious little as can be done to put the toothpaste back in the tube. Of course I uncheck all the little boxes in settings and deny them my consent or whatever, but I don't think a gaggle of unimaginative piss-bellied technocrats who decided it was a sensible use of vast amounts of water and power to teach a computer how to write very badly are what I'd call trustworthy. I'm still gonna move all my website shit off of Wordpress because they won't let me get rid of the stupid AI assistant thing, but that's more a case of their UI being ugly and dumb than me thinking it'll actually do any good.

Best I can tell you on that front is to try to find yourself a niche and develop yourself as an artist from there; "Write the kinds of books you wish other people were writing" is good general advice, and a human operator is always going to be capable of things a predictive network just isn't. Other ppl are gonna disagree with that, but they're wrong. Their understanding of resource allocation and scarcity is just childishly naive and you shouldn't waste your time listening to people who think we're gonna solve climate change with apps or whatever.

Far as social media goes, this is still the best one for hocking books as far as I can tell. I'm hearing a lot of good things about Cohost and Pillowfort, but their user bases are still quite small, and I haven't found the indie author community on Bluesky yet. If Tumblr goes belly up I'll probably end up migrating to one of those first two primarily b/c I think longform blogging is the secret stuff for ppl like me who are just too crabby and agoraphobic to be Twitter influencers; I may not be any good at videos or regular quick posts or documenting the writing process (which is too bad, b/c a lot of my friends who do that stuff seem to be having fun with it), but I sure can Lay Out Some Thoughts in A Few Paragraphs and I like to think that's something ppl expect from a novelist.

Also, never get in a public argument, don't go posting Your Thoughts On The Issues unless someone asked or you feel like you've got something interesting to say, and be very selective with how much and what personal information you give out to the hoi polloi. Those are my 3 rules for how to do social media good.

[bethanydelleman]

Hi! Love your blog :) I saw your previous reply about Jane Austen and cognitive neuroscience and it reminded me of a question I have about Persuasion that still haunts me, which I can't seem to find a definitive answer for on the general internet. So after Louisa is injured, its like she undergoes a pretty massive personality shift, leading up to her falling in love with Captain Benwick etc. My question is, is that change (in your opinion) supposed to be a mental trauma reaction, or more of a physical trauma reaction? Like are we supposed to infer that the brain tissue injury changed her or is it more like, she was in mental shock and also an invalid with plenty of time to brood on her role in things and that's what resulted in her being in a state of mind to love some poetry & Benwick? I do wonder if the total personality change is temporary or permanent, because sometimes people who undergo near-death experiences often have mental trauma-based reactions including apparently 180 degree personality shifts, but those don't last and as they heal from the trauma, they become closer to their older selves. In Louisa's case that would make for an interesting dynamic in her married life with Benwick if she goes back to her earlier personality eventually.

I personally think Louisa and Benwick's marriage is the most questionable one in all of Austen's works! Forget age gaps, no one should be getting married a few months after major brain trauma... I mean unless they were already engaged... maybe.

These are the two quotes about Louisa after the injury that are important here:

She saw no reason against their being happy. Louisa had fine naval fervour to begin with, and they would soon grow more alike. He would gain cheerfulness, and she would learn to be an enthusiast for Scott and Lord Byron; nay, that was probably learnt already; of course they had fallen in love over poetry. The idea of Louisa Musgrove turned into a person of literary taste, and sentimental reflection was amusing, but she had no doubt of its being so. The day at Lyme, the fall from the Cobb, might influence her health, her nerves, her courage, her character to the end of her life, as thoroughly as it appeared to have influenced her fate.

and

He answered rather hesitatingly, “Yes, I believe I do; very much recovered; but she is altered; there is no running or jumping about, no laughing or dancing; it is quite different. If one happens only to shut the door a little hard, she starts and wriggles like a young dab-chick in the water; and Benwick sits at her elbow, reading verses, or whispering to her, all day long.” Anne could not help laughing. “That cannot be much to your taste, I know,” said she; “but I do believe him to be an excellent young man.” “To be sure he is. Nobody doubts it; and I hope you do not think I am so illiberal as to want every man to have the same objects and pleasures as myself. I have a great value for Benwick; and when one can but get him to talk, he has plenty to say. His reading has done him no harm, for he has fought as well as read. He is a brave fellow. I got more acquainted with him last Monday than ever I did before. We had a famous set-to at rat-hunting all the morning in my father’s great barns; and he played his part so well that I have liked him the better ever since.”

So firstly, Louisa was already into the navy and Wentworth, she has retained that interest. However, we will recall that Louisa's interest in the navy sprang to life in moments after meeting the handsome captain. But she's 19 years old, so sudden interests in things that a handsome guy likes are perfectly normal! I'm sure she's learned to appreciate poetry in all the time she had to be quiet and still.

Secondly, what Charles observes is likely lingering effects of brain trauma or what we might call post-concussion syndrome (Louisa had a worse injury than what is commonly called a concussion). Louisa's brain is still healing. She will probably begin to dance again at some point, depending on what damage is long lasting. This is the tricky thing with brains, permanent damage can be extremely varied. One person ends up with aphasia (trouble speaking), another with ataxia (trouble with muscle coordination), and a third with memory problems and so on. However, Louisa is young and her brain is still plastic (adaptable); hopefully she will recover completely without deficits.

Lastly, I included the part about Benwick being a great rat-hunter because we have to remember, he's not all poetry. He is in the navy, he is apparently competent to be promoted so early and we know he has a good fortune. He's a good guy, he's passionate, I'm sure he wants to make his wife happy.

So... I think they'll be fine. Louisa was going to mature no matter what, Benwick is a good person, and they will grow more alike. If not, navy wives weren't always able to travel with their husbands, so Benwick might be away for long periods of time and Louisa might be home with the kids.

But I still advise anyone to wait at least a year before marrying after a major brain trauma! (semi-expert advice, don't sue me)

#question response #jane austen #louisa musgrove #captain benwick #bad life decisions

[pamicakery]

hi there your blog is just lovely so there is thing at my current school I dont have any friends there therefore I find it really dreadful to have to go there and believe me ever since the beginning of this school year I have been trying everything to manifest my dream friends and euphoric social life and I almost feel burnt out from trying to manifest so can you suggest me a fast and effective manifestation method if you can tysm<3

Hello sweetie! Don't worry I got you on this!

₊✩‧₊˚౨How to make friends ৎ˚₊✩‧₊

My advices will help you for sure because I manifested wonderful group of friends during my teenagers years.

I used to be the new girl in college when I was 11, 14 and 17.

When I was 11, it was one of the worst year of my school life. I used to eat alone and stay in the toilets because I had no friend. No friends at all.

But I wanted to change that, when I was the new girl when I was 14, 1 or 2 weeks before I imagined myself being surrounded by friends. I used to watch My little pony and imagined myself with friends.

I started my 9th grade with a new girl as well. We were quite friend but due to a misunderstanding, she talked bad about me and told everybody that I was a mean girl.

I still imagined myself having a group of friends. I would listen to the My little pony opening and imagined myself with friends and drawing what my friend would look like.

I told myself '' Don't worry, I'm the new girl now but I will have my friends very soon. It will be the best friendship ever ''

One day, one of my classmate introduced me to her friend who shared the same interest than me. We became friends and she introduced me to her group of friends.

I had the best school year of my life. To be short, I occupied the state of having friends. Don't seek them in the 3d, I know it's difficult to feel like it when you are alone. But, at night, occupy that state, that you have friends, you laugh, you smile, you chat with them. In the 3d, visualise, daydream and tell yourself '' I will have my group of friend, Pami told me how she did, it will and it's working for me ''Don't ask yourself when and how they will come. You are already friend with them, walk on your day with the premise that everything start in imagination, the true reality. Fulfill your Inner self with your friends and don' t worry they will come in the 3d.

I was alone for 3 years at middle school, trust me, when you occupy the state of having friend they will come to you.

#loassumption #robotic affirming #loa tumblr #manifestation #law of assumption #loa blog #loa assumptions #affirm and manifest 🫧 🎀✨ ִִֶָ ٠˟ #affirming loa #affirm and persist

[mar3ggiata]

professional help, c5. preview

simon riley x original character.

abstract: hi this is Simon. okay, before you read this, I'm gonna say this once and never repeat it again. maybe she was right. don't tell her I told you, and don't you dare even remember anything I said in this stupid chapter. 

trigger warnings: violence, sexual assault, mentions of rape, trauma, sexual themes, swearing, use of alcohol and drugs, awful deaths.

song to listen to when reading this: Heartbeat, Childish Gambino.

He had thought about Jude quite a bit. He knew nothing about her, but she made an impression on him. She was interesting. He wanted to know if she was still angry at him, for what he said. He thought a lot if he had been too rude, and he always settled on a no. He had fun, played a bit, picked a little fight. He was sure she could handle it, she didn't seem like the type to get offended easily.

He made it a mission to find out things about her. He wanted to know if she still lived in that apartment he saw a year prior, the layout of her house. Did she live alone? Maybe she had a boyfriend. How old was she? Knowing so little about this girl drove him mad. She had an intriguing presence, she was captivating. And she always seemed to crash important events. This time she didn't bother knocking on the briefing room door. She came straight in. This time she really looked like death.

'He didn't show up' she said, not waiting for anyone to speak.

Jude interrupted him, and frankly, ha quite hoped she would. 'I'm going with them'. Him and Price spoke at the same time 'You're not'. We're not out here playing spies. She didn't flinch. 'I am!'

'You're gonna tell us if you see him, 'kay?' he instructed, strapping his vest tighter on his chest. 'Sure'. They were passing by a few shops, a gas station, a mechanic shop. 'How long have you been working here?' Gaz was really interested into making conversation hu? Simon was driving silently, his foot lingering on the brakes just in case he spotted something. 'Two years' she replied. Her tone was soft unlike when she had talked to him. Her voice was warm. Not really the time to get to know each other, guys...

notes: hi... I'm very tired. I've been thinking about LIFE a lot lately. I've worked all weekend (waitressing) I'm still trying to deal with having a million exams, my ex is messaging me and I don't like one of my girlfriends anymore. life feels weird these days. I can't really get which emotions I'm feeling. I feel like I've neglected this story, I'm still posting chapters that I wrote months ago but I will have to continue at some point... and I love this story and I love Jude and I want to continue, it's 9.11 pm and I'm ready for bed guys I'm not playing with you. I'm sorry if chapter four was a bit shit. and I don't have a picture for chapter 5, I promise I will make one asap. and try not to explode. have a good night/day, full chapter on Saturday!

love, mare.

taglist:

@ummmmmwat @ghostlythots @sweetfemmefatal @natxpat @chavarriakeren647 @ravenmoore14 @farther-than-pleiades @internallyscreamings @hwromi @atoxicrat @cuti3maddi3 @deafeningkittenblaze @its-celeste @serene-hills @lexidoll12 @poohkie90 @lunatiquess

@warmedbythebody @katzykat @iristhemuse @azkza @keiraslayz @abbyandermine @jennyjencakes @dest-nai @corset-briefs @nutze-kekse @ilytsukiw @b3anspr0ut

@pondsblog @missyouzoe @fallenkitten @bigauthorrascalturkey @bethtay @angelynn-nicole @starluv @stargirlisworld @giyuuslittleslut @impossiblecupcakelight

@rkrivees-blog @ghosts-hoe @kam1snotverysmart @gauky76 @freyjaaasstuff @spicyspicyliving @scottpilgrimvsmyfists @courtney0-0 @shinchanboi @darling006 @my-therapist-hates-me

#cod mw2 #cod x reader #simon ghost riley #ghost cod #ghost fanfiction #ghost headcanons #simon ghost x reader #call of duty #cod fic #cod modern warfare #simon riley #simon riley x reader #simon riley x you #simon ghost x you #simon ghost smut #ghost call of duty #ghost #john soap mactavish #john price #captain price #141 headcanons #task force 141 #tf 141 #cod 141 #mw2 141 #cod #kyle gaz garrick #modern warefare 2 x reader #modern warfare #modern warefare ii

[being-of-rain]

My blog tells me that I finished reading The Adventuress of Henrietta Street around 4 years ago. That was around the time that I finished uni (and the pandemic happened) and I just stopped reading novels. Before then, I was reading the EDAs on-and-off all throughout high school and university, and got around 70% of the way through them. It's a really important series to me for a whole number of personal reasons.

So I'm really very happy to say that I finally finished a new EDA! 🎉🎉🎉 My first, shortlived attempt at Mad Dogs and Englishmen was 4 years ago, but now I've finished it! Here's hoping many more EDAs follow it. And the rest of my massive to-read list.

Mad Dogs and Englishmen was classic Paul Magrs, so it was good that I went in expecting none of it to make a whole lot of sense. Magrs really does like focusing on aesthetics, meta-commentary, and sometimes emotions over realism or strong plot logic. I really don't mind those kind of focuses, but I much prefer them with some grounding in realistic emotions and a coherent plot, which is why I'm not sure Magrs is quite as high in my list of favourite Who authors as other EU fans. I appreciate what he does with his stories, they're just not my favourite. For example, in this novel a bunch of seemingly normal clay figurines come to life for, unless I'm forgetting something, no reason at all. It's a cool sequence, but not really much more. Then the monsters lead to the kinda awful death of a minor character because the protagonists... ignored him? Forgot about him? And the novel brushes past that pretty quickly. So yeah when I read a Magrs novel, I just need to switch off my mind's logic (including, sometimes, emotional logic) and just enjoy the ride.

But having said all that, I did enjoy the ride quite a lot! Definitely more than The Blue Angel, which I remember dragged a little for me. Mad Dogs, on the other hand, really held my attention, especially when I got to the point where the Tardis team had split up on their own adventures, and all three of them were equally entertaining (A rare EDA achievement!) It's always a joy for Iris to turn up, though I wish she could've been in more of the book, and Fitz's reaction to figuring her out was so entertaining. Also, does Iris' new body in this book make her one of the first Time Lords(ish) in any media to change skin colour? Just two months before Don Warrington made his first appearance as Rassilon (It's always fun to figure out what the comics and audios were doing at the same time as the novel I'm up to.)

Anyway, the premise of the Doctor and his team investigating the various stages of a novel's adaptation into a movie to find out how and why it was temporally interfered with to turn it into propaganda for another planet's politics is fantastic. Noel Coward having such a large part in the plot was a little surprising but fun. It's interesting how Anji still feels like she doesn't quite fit this life after 10 novels now, the poor girl. And the infamous scenes where the Tardis team are stripped naked, collared, and made to crawl around by dogs, and only Anji is at all upset about that is hilarious (That just happened to be the bit I was up to when my girlfriend asked me to read aloud to her to help her fall asleep. She ended up asking me to stop because what I was reading was 'too interesting' for her to sleep to 😂)

#my thoughts #edas #eight #fitz #anji #iris

[decepti-thots]

character ask: idw springer?

First impression: what's this guy's deal. i can't quite put my finger on it.

Impression now: I really, really like Springer in the Wreckers saga. I don't actually talk about him nearly as often as some other characters because I still never feel COMPLETELY sure I have a perfect grasp on the answer to my original question, hah. But he's a very interesting character who I enjoy very, very much! I think Springer is a really great character because the narrative is using him to tell a story, and he's telling a story about himself very persuasively, and those two stories overlap but are not a perfect match. The gaps in between are where the interesting stuff is happening, I think. The Wreckers saga as a whole is a little bit about the distance between narrative and reality, and that's really obvious in Pova and such, but it runs through basically all of Springer's arc IMO. (I am saying again: Springer in Last Stand is way more interesting if you have read Zero Point, and I'm really annoyed forever it's only in the hardback/omnibus.)

Favorite moment: Hmmm. Maybe when he and Verity talk about nightmares in Sins, which is a really small moment I know. I just really love any moment those two get to themselves, tbh. It makes me wibble, haha. But I also like that it's a moment that doesn't like... get "resolved", it's not set up for a cheap payoff later where the problem goes away. It's just there, acknowledged between the both of them.

Idea for a story: I still want to ruin the very good Theme of the ending by taking the time travel shit and really running with the fact we know it's not something IDW1's universe would allow. Just really see how far the doomed to fail at breaking cycles theme there can be taken if you are so inclined.

Unpopular opinion: Do enough people express IDW Springer opinions for there to be one..? Oh actually. I think Kup was probably the best mentor figure in Springer's life for sure, but I also think he was probably still like. One big part of how Springer wound up a trigger-happy soldier who is convinced of his own moral righteousness by way of violence? Like yeah, he was the most formative influence on Springer from practically his first moments alive he remembers- which mostly revolved around being Springer's commanding officer as someone built for war. So…

Favorite relationship: Verity. 100%. I absolutely love their strange little friendship. Everyone who reads my blog knows this, lmao.

Favorite headcanon: Springer wasn't actually designed with an alt mode built in. (Ostaros clearly isn't intended to have one.) I think it would be interesting if Prowl sort of just slapped his artificial spark etc in an MTO body and his not-quite-Cybertronian systems never 100% gelled with it, and Springer is always silently wondering if everyone else feels Weird about transforming and stuff, because the tiny little division between his processor/spark and his body makes everything just… mildly off.

#ask meme