#in which case this is less of an admission

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Donald Trump’s shortlist for his running mate is full of the right wing’s worst political stars—aside from himself, that is. But reported vice presidential hopeful Kristi Noem has one skeleton in her closet—er, in the woods—that will not be helpful in the polls.

The South Dakota governor admits to deliberately killing her 14-month-old pet dog Cricket in her upcoming book No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward, reported The Guardian, which obtained an advance copy of the book, on Friday. The book is due out next month.

“I hated that dog,” Noem writes, calling her “untrainable,” “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with,” and “less than worthless… as a hunting dog.”

After repeated failed attempts to train Cricket as a hunting dog, the straw that broke the camel’s back was when Cricket mauled a family’s chickens when Noem stopped at their house following a pheasant hunt.

Cricket had escaped Noem’s truck and attacked the family’s chickens, “grabb[ing] one chicken at a time, crunching it to death with one bite, then dropping it to attack another.”

Noem wrote that she repeatedly apologized, wrote the family a check “for the price they asked, and helped them dispose of the carcasses littering the scene of the crime.”

“It was not a pleasant job,” she writes, “but it had to be done. And after it was over, I realized another unpleasant job needed to be done.”

Noem recalls getting her gun and leading Cricket to a gravel pit before executing her.

Critics were quick to point out that the fault was not with Cricket, but with Noem herself. A 14-month-old dog is a “baby that doesn’t know any better,” Dan Lussen, a professional hunting dog trainer, told Rolling Stone.

“To me, it’s a lack of guidance by the owner, or training by the owner, or discipline by the owner,” he said, explaining that training a young hunting dog is a lengthy and slow process. “There’s a lot of steps that you take before you take it to a field and shoot birds over it.”

Noem’s record as governor of South Dakota isn’t clean, either. Several Native tribes in the state have banned her from their reservations over her racist assertions that Natives in the state work with drug cartels and neglect their children. Plus, Noem’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a high number of cases in the state, and she tried to prevent Native tribes from implementing their own COVID safety measures.

Her attitude towards canines may not put her in Trump’s VP doghouse, though. He has repeatedly called his opponents dogs as an insult, mentioned on multiple occasions about how much he doesn’t like them, and famously avoided having a pet dog as president because he said it “feels a little phony to me.”

#us politics #news #republicans #conservatives #gop #donald trump #gov. Kristi Noem #south dakota #No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward #the new republic #the guardian #rolling stone magazine #Dan Lussen #tw: animal death #2024

[krispycreamsicle]

step ??? in the villain apologist to defense attorney pipeline is complete.

that is to say. i got into law school :)

#krispy's personal tag #technically i've gotten into a few schools over the past couple of months but i've more or less finalized my decision on where i'm going #it's one of my top choices! and i got a full ride scholarship! and it's where i want to be so like! it was a pretty easy decision kjhghjk #i was trying to keep an open mind and hear back from every school (which i havent) but like. i got a full ride to the best school for me so #it's the best case scenario and i'm just sooooooo relieved and grateful. this last year's been pretty wild and it's just a nice to be done #with all the nonsense that is law school admissions. which there's a whole lot to say about law school admissions (in the us at least) but #that's a rant for the tags of a different post. but for now i'm just gonna be happy it's over kjhghjk

[gender-trash]

I would be very interested in hearing the museum design rant

by popular demand: Guy That Took One (1) Museum Studies Class Focused On Science Museums Rants About Art Museums. thank u for coming please have a seat

so. background. the concept of the "science museum" grew out of 1) the wunderkammer (cabinet of curiosities), also known as "hey check out all this weird cool shit i have", and 2) academic collections of natural history specimens (usually taxidermied) -- pre-photography these were super important for biological research (see also). early science museums usually grew out of university collections or bequests of some guy's Weird Shit Collection or both, and were focused on utility to researchers rather than educational value to the layperson (picture a room just, full of taxidermy birds with little labels on them and not a lot of curation outside that). eventually i guess they figured they could make more on admission by aiming for a mass audience? or maybe it was the cultural influence of all the world's fairs and shit (many of which also caused science museums to exist), which were aimed at a mass audience. or maybe it was because the research function became much more divorced from the museum function over time. i dunno. ANYWAY, science and technology museums nowadays have basically zero research function; the exhibits are designed more or less solely for educating the layperson (and very frequently the layperson is assumed to be a child, which does honestly irritate me, as an adult who likes to go to science museums). the collections are still there in case someone does need some DNA from one of the preserved bird skins, but items from the collections that are exhibited typically exist in service of the exhibit's conceptual message, rather than the other way around.

meanwhile at art museums they kind of haven't moved on from the "here is my pile of weird shit" paradigm, except it's "here is my pile of Fine Art". as far as i can tell, the thing that curators (and donors!) care about above all is The Collection. what artists are represented in The Collection? rich fucks derive personal prestige from donating their shit to The Collection. in big art museums usually something like 3-5% of the collection is ever on exhibit -- and sometimes they rotate stuff from the vault in and out, but let's be real, only a fraction of an art museum's square footage is temporary exhibits. they're not going to take the scream off display when it's like the only reason anyone who's not a giant nerd ever visits the norwegian national museum of art. most of the stuff in the vault just sits in the vault forever. like -- art museum curators, my dudes, do you think the general public gives a SINGLE FUCK what's in The Collection that isn't on display? no!! but i guarantee you it will never occur, ever, to an art museum curator that they could print-to-scale high-res images of artworks that are NOT in The Collection in order to contextualize the art in an exhibit, because items that are not in The Collection functionally do not exist to them. (and of course there's the deaccessioning discourse -- tumblr collectively has some level of awareness that repatriation is A Whole Kettle of Worms but even just garden-variety selling off parts of The Collection is a huge hairy fucking deal. check out deaccessioning and its discontents; it's a banger read if you're into This Kind Of Thing.)

with the contents of The Collection foregrounded like this, what you wind up with is art museum exhibits where the exhibit's message is kind of downstream of what shit you've got in the collection. often the message is just "here is some art from [century] [location]", or, if someone felt like doing a little exhibit design one fine morning, "here is some art from [century] [location] which is interesting for [reason]". the displays are SOOOOO bad by science museum standards -- if you're lucky you get a little explanatory placard in tiny font relating the art to an art movement or to its historical context or to the artist's career. if you're unlucky you get artist name, date, and medium. fucker most of the people who visit your museum know Jack Shit about art history why are you doing them dirty like this

(if you don't get it you're just not Cultured enough. fuck you, we're the art museum!)

i think i've talked about this before on this blog but the best-exhibited art exhibit i've ever been to was actually at the boston museum of science, in this traveling leonardo da vinci exhibit where they'd done a bunch of historical reconstructions of inventions out of his notebooks, and that was the main Thing, but also they had a whole little exhibit devoted to the mona lisa. obviously they didn't even have the real fucking mona lisa, but they went into a lot of detail on like -- here's some X-ray and UV photos of it, and here's how art experts interpret them. here's a (photo of a) contemporary study of the finished painting, which we've cleaned the yellowed varnish off of, so you can see what the colors looked like before the varnish yellowed. here's why we can't clean the varnish off the actual painting (da vinci used multiple varnish layers and thinned paints to translucency with varnish to create the illusion of depth, which means we now can't remove the yellowed varnish without stripping paint).

even if you don't go into that level of depth about every painting (and how could you? there absolutely wouldn't be space), you could at least talk a little about, like, pigment availability -- pigment availability is an INCREDIBLY useful lens for looking at historical paintings and, unbelievably, never once have i seen an art museum exhibit discuss it (and i've been to a lot of art museums). you know how medieval european religious paintings often have funky skin tones? THEY HADN'T INVENTED CADMIUM PIGMENTS YET. for red pigments you had like... red ochre (a muted earth-based pigment, like all ochres and umbers), vermilion (ESPENSIVE), alizarin crimson (aka madder -- this is one of my favorite reds, but it's cool-toned and NOT good for mixing most skintones), carmine/cochineal (ALSO ESPENSIVE, and purple-ish so you wouldn't want to use it for skintones anyway), red lead/minium (cheaper than vermilion), indian red/various other iron oxide reds, and apparently fucking realgar? sure. whatever. what the hell was i talking about.

oh yeah -- anyway, i'd kill for an art exhibit that's just, like, one or two oil paintings from each century for six centuries, with sample palettes of the pigments they used. but no! if an art museum curator has to put in any level of effort beyond writing up a little placard and maybe a room-level text block, they'll literally keel over and die. dude, every piece of art was made in a material context for a social purpose! it's completely deranged to divorce it from its material context and only mention the social purpose insofar as it matters to art history the field. for god's sake half the time the placard doesn't even tell you if the thing was a commission or not. there's a lot to be said about edo period woodblock prints and mass culture driven by the growing merchant class! the met has a fuckton of edo period prints; they could get a hell of an exhibit out of that!

or, tying back to an earlier thread -- the detroit institute of arts has got a solid like eight picasso paintings. when i went, they were kind of just... hanging out in a room. fuck it, let's make this an exhibit! picasso's an artist who pretty famously had Periods, right? why don't you group the paintings by period, and if you've only got one or two (or even zero!) from a particular period, pad it out with some decent life-size prints so i can compare them and get a better sense for the overarching similarities? and then arrange them all in a timeline, with little summaries of what each Period was ~about~? that'd teach me a hell of a lot more about picasso -- but you'd have to admit you don't have Every Cool Painting Ever in The Collection, which is illegalé.

also thinking about the mit museum temporary exhibit i saw briefly (sorry, i was only there for like 10 minutes because i arrived early for a meeting and didn't get a chance to go through it super thoroughly) of a bunch of ship technical drawings from the Hart nautical collection. if you handed this shit to an art museum curator they'd just stick it on the wall and tell you to stand around and look at it until you Understood. so anyway the mit museum had this enormous room-sized diorama of various hull shapes and how they sat in the water and their benefits and drawbacks, placed below the relevant technical drawings.

tbh i think the main problem is that art museum people and science museum people are completely different sets of people, trained in completely different curatorial traditions. it would not occur to an art museum curator to do anything like this because they're probably from the ~art world~ -- maybe they have experience working at an art gallery, or working as an art buyer for a rich collector, neither of which is in any way pedagogical. nobody thinks an exhibit of historical clothing should work like a clothing store but it's fine when it's art, i guess?

also the experience of going to an art museum is pretty user-hostile, i have to say. there's never enough benches, and if you want a backrest, fuck you. fuck you if going up stairs is painful; use our shitty elevator in the corner that we begrudgingly have for wheelchair accessibility, if you can find it. fuck you if you can't see very well, and need to be closer to the art. fuck you if you need to hydrate or eat food regularly; go to our stupid little overpriced cafeteria, and fuck you if we don't actually sell any food you can eat. (obviously you don't want someone accidentally spilling a smoothie on the art, but there's no reason you couldn't provide little Safe For Eating Rooms where people could just duck in and monch a protein bar, except that then you couldn't sell them a $30 salad at the cafe.) fuck you if you're overwhelmed by noise in echoing rooms with hard surfaces and a lot of people in them. fuck you if you are TOO SHORT and so our overhead illumination generates BRIGHT REFLECTIONS ON THE SHINY VARNISH. we're the art museum! we don't give a shit!!!

#so anyway i love going to art museums-- #the trashcan speaks #long post

[semisolidmind]

So, in your college au, assuming catnap does end up murdering y/n, why? for what reason would the prototype ask for y/n's execution?, also how would dogday and the others feel? does dogday ever find out who murdered y/n or if he was even murdered? are they just reported missing? does catnap get away with it?, and if he doesn't and dogday ends up finding out, what's his reaction towards his brother's actions? Sorry if this was long I got questions and they need answers😭

ive been thinking about it, and i think that the prototype (which is a demonic entity in this au) wouldn't really have a good reason to command catnap kill y/n.

y/n is good to catnap. you'll see after i finally draw him, but cat is skinny. mans forgets to feed himself, and the red smoke drug throws his mindfulness and metabolism all outta wack. y/n, good friend that they are, reminds catnap to eat. they'll bring him food that they make. they let him "steal" food from their plate at lunch time. (dogday, being a good brother, does these things too, but it's kinda his job so it doesn't make as big of an impact).

the "angel" is keeping his executioner functioning when he can't, so the prototype shouldn't have a reason to want them dead. unless, perhaps, he thought that they were making the executioner soft. that's not the case (he does his job just fine regardless of any growing attachments), but if it were and catnap was slacking...

the prototype would take over. he'd have his acolytes send catnap a very high dosage of the red smoke drug, allowing the demon to take hold of him fully. catnap would black out.

the next morning, he startles awake in bed to the sound of his brother's cry of anguish. he goes into the kitchen to see dogday clutching his phone to one ear, hunched over and crying. the canid can't speak through his tears for a long while. catnap stands awkwardly, waiting for him to speak as the dread creeps up his spine.

catnap's heart stops with dogday's stuttered admission of what has him so upset; y/n is dead. the police found them this morning.

the feline says nothing, does nothing, but feels the sting in his eyes, tears on his face, and the impact of his brother's arms solidly embracing him.

why...why would the prototype do this? there was no reason to kill the angel, they hadn't done anything wrong, they weren't in the way, hadn't crossed him, there shouldn't have...

he doesn't understand.

when he goes to the bathroom later to freshen up, catnap notices the small flecks of blood under his claws. he feels like throwing up.

but he doesn't. he washes the blood away, and leaves the bathroom.

catnap remains as silent as he always has. he says nothing when he and dogday are inevitably questioned by the police (as two people who were close to y/n), the grief (and the prototype's voice) rendering him unable to even write out a response. they let him go, accepting his alibi. he was home all evening, of course.

he attends the funeral in a daze. he stands and watches the casket be lowered into the ground, far away from his body. he can still feel the fog of the prototype's influence hovering in the back of his mind.

for the first time in a long time, catnap's faith in his god is shaken.

———

dogday is never the same after y/n's death. the light in his eyes is gone. after the funeral, he isolates himself, only leaving to attend class and complete errands. he barely speaks to his friends, though they continue to visit him and offer their support.

eventually, each of the critters is murdered by catnap at the behest of the prototype. these murders are completed by a much colder and less caring catnap, who, after y/n's death, has no mercy left to spare (the prototype takes advantage of his vessels' grief to take further control of him).

dogday's reaction to each death becomes angrier and angrier.

he's wanted to find the killer ever since the string of murders started, but now he's searching with a single-minded purpose.

he gets better at wielding a pistol, better at wielding a hunting knife...he takes self defense and fighting classes. dogday slowly turns himself into a weapon.

dogday finally figures out where the cult is hiding. an abandoned mine system in a nature reserve a short drive away from town, converted into a "holy site" and the place where the cult sacrifices their victims. he drives out there to confront their executioner.

when he finds out that it's catnap, his own little brother...it's too late for sentimentality. his friends are gone. the love of his life is gone. countless others have lost their lives to this... this thing wearing his brother's skin.

at this point, the prototype has almost fully possessed catnap. the transference into the felines' body is almost complete, and during this time he is most vulnerable...but still incredibly powerful.

the fight between the dog and cat is climactic and bloody. a clash of claws, knives, and a struggle for dogday's gun. the forest floor beneath the struggle is spattered with blood, both men covered in open wounds.

it's a close battle, but catnap, despite being nearly fully under the prototype's influence, breaks the hold long enough to allow himself to be killed.

it's the least he can do, after all the trouble he's caused.

dogday pulls the trigger. a clean shot through the heart. killing catnap kills the prototype.

dogday glares down at the body that once housed his little brother. there is nothing of him in the battered corpse before him now... aside from the small, satisfied smile on his muzzle.

dogday finally allows himself to break down. he sobs over the many great losses he's suffered. but...but he has to get out of there. the cult members will be there any minute, and he can't be there when they do. he calls from a campsite phone booth to report catnap's body, and leaves it in the woods.

dogday does his best to recover.

months pass. with their god dead, activity from the cult peters out.

#this is a tragic turn for this story to take #this is why yn cant die first #i see this playing out like an old slasher movie since i am in that headspace recently #this stopped weird but i ran outta steam #sc college/slasher au

[vivvangel]

rly rly fluffy with niki comforting a sobbing s/o? (s/o gets stress rly easily and its admissions test season) 🙏🥺

viv's note 💌: thank u for the ask, sorry it took me so long! my first niki work🥺🫶🏻 ✧ warnings: niki x reader, admission szn stress, angst slightly, fluff, reader sobs, pretty much it.

"i don't know what to do" & "i'm so fucking stressed" are the only two sentences your brain could blurt out every other minute. you wouldn't be lying if you said this was the most stressful time of your life.

you were applying for all the big name schools, but making sure to apply to other places, just in case, as a backup plan. you sighed, typing away on your laptop on niki's bed. niki leaned against the doorframe, sighing to himself as he sees your brows furrowed together and murmuring the same two sentences. he asked you to come over to spend time together, but he can't blame you for being busy with college apps.

"you okay?" niki softly says, walking into the room and plopping down next to you, with a mug of hot chocolate in his hands. he motions it to you, and you finally spare him a glance. you take the mug from him, breathing out a quick "thank you" to which he smiles. you let out a big sigh, and his smile drops immediately, being replaced with a frown. "is everything stressing you out?" he asks, brushing a strand of hair out of your face.

"i'm just dealing with this anxiety of not getting into anywhere I wanted to -- i'm probably overthinking and stuff but, i'm so fucking stressed, and i feel like i'm less of myself everyday, y'know?" you rant out, and niki's hand makes its way up to your head, patting it. "i'm sorry, is there anything i can do to make this better?" — "not really" you choke and stumble over your words, your eyes swelling with tears -- immediately worrying niki to the brim.

"ah, baby.." he murmurs, pulling you close to him, and you bawl your eyes out right after hearing his voice, laced with concern. "i don't think, i-- can't do this, niki". he sighs, "you're so so strong, y/n. you have no idea how much you're capable of, and i know how much this means to you, but it's not worth making yourself sick over it," he continues, "you're an amazing student, and an even better girlfriend" he pauses, smiling at you. "i'm always, always here for you, pretty"

#ㅤᵕ̈ vivster #enhypen #enhypen niki #nishimura riki #riki nishimura x reader #niki nishimura #nishimura riki fluff #niki fluff #enhypen riki #enhypen niki fluff #enhypen fluff #enhypen angst #niki angst #enhypen soft hours #enhypen soft thoughts #niki soft hours #niki soft thoughts #niki x reader #niki #niki is so <3 #my son fr #kpop soft thoughts #riki fluff #riki x y/n #riki x reader #riki #enhypen nishimura riki #college applications

[mariacallous]

Salman Rushdie has just published Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder. In August 2022, he was giving a talk at the Chautauqua Institution in New York. Hadi Matar, a 24-year-old from New Jersey, rushed the stage and stabbed him 15 times. It was astonishing that Salman survived. He lost the sight in one eye and sustained terrible injuries, but he’s still with us and he’s still writing, and unlike Hadi Matar, he’s still worth hearing.

We think of fanatics as stalkers with an obsessive knowledge of their targets.  Like the antisemites who compile lists of Jews in the media or the homophobes who so focus on the details of gay sex they might almost be closet cases

Most terrorists and bigots are not like that. They are like soldiers in an army who kill and hate for no other reason than tradition or men in authority have told them to kill and hate. If we were less fascinated by the pseudo-glamour of violence, we would see them for what they are: dullards and jerks.

In Knife Salman is almost as angered by the sheer lazy stupidity of his wannabee assassin as his violence.

“I do not want to use his name in this account. My Assailant, my would-be Assassin, the Asinine man who made Assumptions about me, and with whom I had a near-lethal Assignation … I have found myself thinking of him, perhaps forgivably, as an Ass.”

The ass “didn’t bother to inform himself about the man he decided to kill. By his own admission he read barely two pages of my writing and watched a couple of YouTube videos”.

That was enough, apparently, along with a little light indoctrination in the Levant.

We know from Matar’s mother that her son changed from a popular young man to a moody religious zealot after visiting her ex-husband in the Hezbollah-controlled town of Yaroun in Lebanon, a mile or so from the Israeli border.

“I was expecting him to come back motivated, to complete school, to get his degree and a job. But instead, he locked himself in the basement. He had changed a lot. He didn't say anything to me or his sisters for months.”

Salman quotes a wonderfully perceptive line from Jodi Picoult

“If you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it’s not because they enjoy solitude. It’s because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.”

Rushdie is openly contemptuous, as he has every right to be.

“I see you now at twenty-four,” he writes, “already disappointed by life, disappointed in your mother, your sisters, your father, your lack of boxing talent, your lack of any talent at all; disappointed in the bleak future you saw stretching ahead of you, for which you refused to blame yourself.”

This has always been the way. Readers old enough to remember 1989 when the Ayatollah Khomeini ordered Salman’s execution for writing a blasphemous satire of Islam’s origin story in the Satanic Verses,will know that Khomeini had not read it. Nor had the furious demonstrators in the streets or the regressive leftists and Tory ministers who upbraided him for the non-crime of causing offence.

Those of us who had read the book pointed out that it was a magical realist fiction which contained sympathetic accounts of the racism Muslim immigrants in the UK suffered. Indeed, the Tories of the day loathed Salman, we continued, because of his confrontations with official racism.

But after a while we fell silent. Pleading with his enemies felt demeaning. It gave them undeserved credit, as if they were reasonable people, who could be swayed by evidence rather than just, well, pillocks.

In Knife Salman attempts an imaginary conversation with his persecutor.

OK, he says, Islam, unlike Judaism and Christianity, holds that man is not made in God’s image. God has no human qualities, it says.

But isn’t language a human quality? To have language, God would have to have a mouth, a tongue, vocal cords and a voice, just like a man. The terrorist’s understanding is that God cannot be like a man, however. So, God could not have spoken to Gabriel in Arabic. Gabriel must have translated his message when he came to the prophet.

The angel made it comprehensible to Muhammed by delivering it in human speech which is not the speech of God.

Thus, the version of Islamic instruction Matar received in his basement when he switched from playing video games to listening to Imams was an interpretation of a translation.

“I’m trying to suggest to you that, even according to your own tradition, there is uncertainty. Some of your own early philosophers have suggested this. They say everything can be interpreted, even the Book. It can be interpreted according to the times in which the interpreter lives. Literalism is a mistake.”

For a while, Rushdie says he wants to meet Matar again at the trial, as if he wants to have the argument in the flesh.

He tells a story about Samuel Beckett, which could only have happened to Samuel Beckett.

Beckett was walking through Paris in 1938 when he was confronted by a pimp named Prudent, who wanted money from him. Beckett pushed Prudent away, whereupon the pimp pulled out a knife and stabbed him in the chest, narrowly missing the left lung and the heart.

Beckett was taken to the nearest hospital, bleeding heavily. He only just survived.

You will never guess who paid for his treatment. James Joyce, of course, he did.

Anyway, Beckett went to the pimp’s trial. He met Prudent in the courtroom, and asked him why he had done it. This was the pimp’s reply: “Je ne sais pas, monsieur. Je m’excuse.” (I don’t know, sir. I’m sorry.)

But the more he thought about it, the less Rushdie had to say to his enemy. The idea that you can have theological arguments with a man who wants to kill you for writing a book he hasn’t even read felt ridiculous.

Although popular culture is full of stories about murderers, and true crime podcasts top the charts, killers and fanatics are nearly always less interesting than their victims. More often than not they are just thick. Nasty and vicious, but thick first of all.

We are about to see the stupidity of fanatics deployed on a mass scale. Two thirds of Republican voters (and nearly 3 in 10 Americans) continue to believe that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump, and that Joe Biden was not lawfully elected. They think it because that is what Trump told them to think.

Islamists told Matar that Salman was an apostate, and that was all he needed to know. Trump told Republicans the election was stolen and ditto.

If Republicans were consistent people, they would not vote for Trump in 2024. What would be the point? They would have every reason to fear that the deep state would rig the 2024 presidential election as it rigged the 2020 presidential election.

But they will vote for him because, once again, that is what he tells them to do.

In the end there is a limit to how much attention you can pay the vicious and the stupid.

They are not interesting enough, as Rushdie concluded with marvellous disdain as he contemplated the life sentence Matar will face.

"Here we stand: the man who failed to kill an unarmed seventy-five-year-old writer, and the now 76-year-old writer. Somewhat to my surprise, I find I have very little to say to you. Our lives touched each other for an instant and then separated. Mine has improved since that day, while yours has deteriorated. You made a bad gamble and lost. I was the one with the luck… Perhaps, in the incarcerated decades that stretch out before you, you will learn introspection, and come to understand that you did something wrong. But you know what? I don’t care. This, I think, is what I have come to this courtroom to say to you. I don’t care about you, or the ideology that you claim to represent, and which you represent so poorly. I have my life, and my work, and there are people who love me. I care about those things.”

[mistress-ofmagic]

Around the Realms in 80 days - chapter 22

Pairing: Reader x Loki

Story summary: You have fallen through a portal during the convergence into Asgard and come face to face with Thor, and his brother Loki. With no way to return, you must travel with the two men and their hoard of asgardian soldiers to get back home. Things get from bad to worse when you have to share a tent with the god of mischief himself.

Notes:

Okay I don't know if any of you guys are still out there and still wanting an update for this story but I'm providing one anyway! I really do hope that you're still with me (and if you can't remember what happened that feels like a good time for a re-read right??)

Read this story on a03!

find all parts to this story on Tumblr here:

You’d had better days, you mused. 

Better weeks, months, years…

“If you continue pulling that face it will get stuck and you’ll get wrinkles” Loki chimed behind you. 

You glared up at him, scowling even harder out of spite. 

He grinned down at you.

After Loki’s admission two days ago, his mood had been…interesting. He had stayed beside you in the hospital when he could, but he kept swapping between being distant and being close. 

No real change there then, you thought.

You hadn’t brought the whole being a frost Giant thing up again, despite your thousands of questions in case you pushed him too far and he got annoyed with you and decided to stop visiting. 

Now however, he seemed to be in a good mood although you felt that had more to do with the fact he was currently pushing you around in a wheelchair. 

His eyes had lit up when the nurses had suggested it, despite the fact you felt well enough to walk really and for most of your journey you would just be in the lift anyway. You had protested multiple times but now Loki had got the idea in his head there was really no persuading him otherwise.

“Isn’t this nice?” He asked, too jovial for your liking. 

You put your tongue out and rolled your eyes when you thought he wasn’t looking. 

“I saw that you little chit.” 

He rocked the wheelchair like he was going to tip you out. 

“LOKI!” You yelled, gripping to the sides of your chair. 

The lift attendant had looked pale when you’d first stepped in, and now he looked rather green.

Loki roared with laughter. 

“Oh come on darling, you really think I would throw a vulnerable maiden out of her chair?”

Before having to face that your answer to that question might actually be no and that you knew Loki would never do anything to hurt you, or the fact that this was the third time he had called you darling, the doors of the lift opened onto the floor where you were meeting with Stark and the Avengers. 

Apparently Tony had wanted to wait until you were a bit better before doing a debrief on what had gone down on Muspelheim.

Loki wheeled you down small corridor and into the large meeting room. Like many of the rooms in Stark towers, the windows were completely glass and looking down onto the city below. It was as far as being outside as you had got in the past few days and you stared out, longingly. 

Distracting you slightly from the view, was the Avengers sat around the table. Thor was there of course, as well as Captain America, Natasha and Dr Bruce Banner. A smaller cohort that had welcomed you in when you had first arrived. 

Natasha seemed to assess you with cool eyes, but Bruce shot you a sympathetic look which you felt was a lot to do with the fact you were wearing a very cool and flattering nightie with Shrek’s face all over it as it was the only thing that could fit over your bandages. 

Loki wheeled you into a space that had been left chair-less for you as he took the one next to you. 

Tony gave you a tired smile.

“How you feeling kid?”

“Better thank you. And thank you for the care on your wards too!” 

He brushed you off with a wave of his hand. 

“I suppose I should thank you for saving Rock of Ages life too.” Tony shot Loki a disgruntled look. “He is helping us with this situation after all.” He said, as if he wasn’t particularly happy about it. “Its nice to see you taking your babysitting duties very seriously, although next time I’d appreciate it if you stay away from certain death, he’s not worth it.” 

Loki gave a half shrug, “that’s one thing we agree on.” 

You scowled again. 

“Plus now you are officially hired as a member of my workforce, it reflects badly on me.”

You snorted, “If the babysitter club ever want a new member i’ll be the first in line. And don’t worry, I have no desire to face certain death ever again.” 

Although I would save Loki again, a little voice in your head added that you pushed down into the depths of your subconscious. 

“So, Wonderland’s still with us, but we still no nothing about the current alien threat to Earth.” Stark said gloomily. 

“Well, we found out Surtur’s made some sort of deal with someone to er…cause something.” Thor supplied.

Stark pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Next to nothing then. Natasha?” 

She shrugged. “Nothing at any of the reported sites, no sign of anything coming in or out.” 

“We did learn that they are taking humans for something.” You piped up. 

Everyone stared at you and you immediately regretted speaking at all.

“One of the fire demons told me.” You mumbled.

“Is there no help from your…lot?” Steve asked to Thor. 

“Sadly, Ragnarok is a myth across the other realms too, not just on Midgard. There will be many that don’t take it seriously seriously. And, no one would be bothered enough about a few missing humans to get involved in an intergalactic war.” Loki shrugged. 

Stark scoffed “A few?”

He pulled up a page a hologram of various news stories over the past few weeks, of humans going missing, seemingly vanishing without a trace. 

It was worse than you thought, and it seemed the rates where going up by the day. 

“The fire demon I spoke with, he told me I could go with him, somewhere where they could make me more powerful.” You spoke again. 

Tony and Bruce swapped concerned faces. 

“Did he say anything else?”

“No, not really, just promises of a greater future or something.”

“Well it might not be much but, good work.” Steve said, and flashed you an all American pearly smile and you blushed in spite of yourself.

“Yes, Latte has proved herself to be truly courageous on this trip.” Thor agreed. 

“Oh well, I don’t know about all that.” You murmured feeling your face burn up. It was only an accident anyway that you had found anything out, it’s not like you’d stormed up to a fire demon and demand he speak to you. 

Nevertheless, you were only a few beats away from kicking your feet and giggling but you refrained yourself.

Loki muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like “suck up” and you glared at him, taking a long swig of water to cool yourself down. 

“You reap what you sow kid, I’ll be recruiting you to do further missions with Loki if you’re not careful. Who knew the worlds rudest goth could make friends? And a lowly earthling at that.” Stark challenged.

You tensed. You weren’t really 100% sure if Loki actually did consider you a friend, or if he would take offence at the insinuation. 

But Loki leaned back in his chair, “We are friends, friends with benefits.” 

You choked on your water and it spilled down Shreks face as Thor gave you a pat on the back that nearly sent your lungs through your mouth. 

While you recovered no one knew what to say, Steve and Bruce looked alarmed, you weren’t sure if that was at Lokis statement or the fact you had spat out half a glass of water and Starks mouth was hung wide open, his eyes open comically large, Natasha looked mildly amused.

“Its not…” You said between coughing. “That’s not true…Loki…Loki doesn’t know what that term means…he…he can’t….”

You turned to him.

“Where did you even hear that being said?” You spluttered. 

He narrowed his eyes at you. 

“You deny that we are friends in front of Stark and his goonies?”

“I’m not denying were friends Loki, I’m denying were friends with benefits. That doesn’t mean what you think it does it means something really specific on Earth. What…What benefits does our friendship bring?”

Loki shuffled in his seat “Well…you have taught me how to use a midgardian communication device and I have taught you…”

You cut him off “Great, expect thats not what friends with benefits means here it means…” You blushed heavily again. 

“It means friends who…” you tried again. 

Loki was watching you carefully with an eyebrow raised, the corner of his mouth starting to twitch and your uncomfortableness.

“Friends who fuck.” Natasha finished off helpfully. 

You felt your face grow even redder if that were possible. 

“Ah.” Loki said, in a measured tone although you thought you noticed a very light blush across his pale complexion. “I understand now that that might have been misleading.” 

“Well thank God we cleared that up.” Stark sighed, “I thought we were going to have to admit you to the psych ward instead of the burns ward.”

You stared down to avoid eye contact with Loki, feeling a bit awkward. 

“What’s the plan?” Steve asked. 

“Asgardians?” Stark aimed at Thor.

“We won’t get anything more information from Surtur…”

“The people of this planet are disappearing! Into thin air! And some Alien thingies are the culprit! How can I be the protector of the human race if I don’t even have any leads!” Stark yelled. 

Thor and Steve swapped looks. 

“There might be more information we can gather across the other realms” Thor shrugged, “If the true enemy behind this is thought not to be human then they could potentially come from another Realm.”

“We would have no idea where to start though, it’s not like the nine realms are a small area to cover.” Loki argued. 

“Doctor Foster does a lot of research into the nine realms, will she have any information for us?” Tony asked Thor hopefully.

“I…I can ask her to see what she has found.” Thor placated. 

“In the meantime, we have our best scientists searching the skies for any sign of alien invasions.” Bruce added. “Tony I’m sure we will find something, we’ve got people going to sites where people have disappeared and looking into traces and signals that have been left behind, something is bound to flag up. And the researchers will keep monitoring the fire demons.”

Stark sighed. And you got a feeling that until this thing was settled he was never be satisfied, knowing the people of Earth were in danger. 

“Meeting adjourned or whatever… I need a fucking drink.” 

                                                                         ***

“13 down, 7 letters, a drawing intended to explain how something happens.” 

“Diagram?” 

Oliver nodded, writing it down. 

“Okay… 5 across, 5 letters, spaghetti for example that’s got to be pasta…what about this one, 8 letters, endurance.”

“Stamina? No wait, that’s only 7…patience?” 

“Yeah, has to be.” 

It was the day after Starks meeting. Loki had wheeled you back into your hospital room after the meeting and then he’d had to then leave pretty sharpish, stating he had something he needed to do although you wondered if he still felt awkward about the whole friends with benefits thing. Then again, you wondered if Loki ever really felt awkward about anything, or if he was immune to embarrassment.

After the meeting you had been so damn tired that by the time he’d wheeled you back you’d been nearly asleep. The meeting was the most you had done since the attack and it had exhausted you. 

Plus you were still pretty drowsy from all the pain medication you were on. You’d expected him to call over a nurse but instead he’d actually gotten you the medication you needed and then to your extreme surprise, he’d picked you up from your chair bridal style and put you into bed. 

You were almost too sleepy to have noticed what was going on, but shockingly you were certain he had left a featherlight kiss on your forehead before he left. 

Maybe you had imagined it in your sleepy state, after all he hadn’t been in to see you today.

The nurse had visited today and checked you over, changing your bandages. She had assured you your burns were healing nicely, and Loki’s fast thinking of applying his cold skin to your stomach and chest had saved most of your skin resulting in you only needing a smallish emergency skin graft.  

You’d also been joined by Oliver, who had come prepared for the nurses recommendation of resting as much as possible by providing cross-words. 

“You’re pretty good at these.” He gave his lopsided grin. 

“Symptoms of a misguided youth I’m afraid. I might not have gone to Harvard but I am pretty nifty with a crossword.” 

“Harvard’s overrated.”

“Alright for you to say Mr Ivy League.”

Oliver chuckled. “Wait this is a cryptic one, it says ‘to tantalise the left is a plant.’

“Huh? Wait let me see.”

Oliver stood up from the chair and brought the book over to you. He perched himself on the edge of your hospital bed and you moved over to give him more room.

“Do you need any more medication?” Oliver suddenly asked. 

“I should be good thank you.” You smiled at him. 

Man he was so sweet. Loki had done the same thing yesterday but still. It was nice to have someone else here who cared about you. 

You caught his blue eyes. He had nice looking eyes you noticed, but they missed the tint of green you were used to seeing in Loki’s eyes. 

Actually, why where you thinking about Lokis eyes at all?

Oliver placing his hand over yours on the bed brought you back to the present moment. 

“I was thinking, maybe when you’re feeling better I could take you….”

Before Oliver could finish his sentence, the door to your room opened and Loki strode in. 

Loki took in your close proximity to Oliver, and the fact you were holding hands and his eyes narrowed. 

There was a moment of awkward silence, and for some reason your natural instinct was to jump back sheepishly from Oliver. Despite having no reason at all to feel guilt, you still felt…something.

“I had come to see how you were faring, but I see you have company already.” Those blue/green eyes you had just been thinking about were harsher than you had seen them in a while. 

“We were just doing cross words.” You said, lamely. 

Instead of keeping your mouth shut you continued like an imbecile. “Erm were stuck on a cryptic one if you wanted to help…”

“And intrude on this…personal moment.” He sneered.

“That wasn’t…I mean we were just…” You started and then sat up further in bed, trying to look authoritative, which was harder than you might think for someone attached to an IV drip. “Actually I don’t have to explain myself to you.” 

“Oh, I see.” His voice was cold, and it felt like the room got colder too.

“What do you see?”

Loki ignored you.

“Get out.” He directed at Oliver. 

Your temper started to rise.

“Hey, he doesn’t have to leave we were in the middle of something.”

“Look, um maybe I should just go.” Oliver spoke up squeezing your hand before standing up. 

“I’ll leave the book here for you for when you get bored. I hope you feel better, I’ll come visit again soon and bring some more stuff.” He gave you a quick kiss on the cheek. 

Kudos to Oliver, he walked past Loki out of the room without crying or screaming.

After he had left, Loki breezed into the room and arranged the flowers at the table at the bottom of the table like he hadn’t just yelled at your friend to leave. 

“Dude what is wrong with you?” You directed at Loki. “I am allowed to have friends!”

He rolled his eyes. 

“He clearly wants to be more than friends.”

You made a funny noise in the back of your throat. You wouldn’t be totally against Oliver having more than friendly feelings, a distraction from these insane feelings for Loki that keep creeping up out of no where might be a good thing, right? 

Not that you had any feelings for Loki, obviously.

Loki studied you closely before clearing his throat. 

“Are you and this mortal…friends with benefits?” 

“Loki!” You glared at him.

His facial expression remained calm as he continued staring at you.

“I’m simply asking."

“No! No, God I wish you had never learnt what that term meant. Also I am sleeping next to you every night where would I find the time?”

“Yes, you are aren’t you.” He said, too smugly for your liking. 

“Although I do have every right to explore…you know, that side of things with someone if I want to.” 

His eyes narrowed again, and stood up taller.

“We are in the middle of a crisis here. Is now the right time to be engaging in a dalliance?” 

“You can’t be serious!” You said indignantly. 

“I’m being very serious!”  He matched your tone. 

"Are you giving me a lecture right now on my love life?” When he didn’t say anything you continued. 

“You don’t even care about humans, why are you even bothered about this crisis suddenly?”

“You’re being ridiculous, you can’t seriously mean to engage with this… mere mortal. ” 

“I’m being ridiculous? You’re being ridiculous! In case you forgot, I happen to be a mere mortal too!”

Loki kind of did look taken a back for a second, as if he had actually forgotten that. 

“What I get up to is not even any of your business.” You told him

“Fine.” He sneered, walking towards the door.

“Fine!” You shouted back. 

He slammed the door behind him as you threw your puzzle book at him. 

“Ah!” You screamed to yourself. 

The cheek of that asshole to have a go at you for letting yourself engage in some dating when he was the one that slept with Ylva while you were touring around Asgard. 

You tossed and turned around in your bed, but eventually the drowsiness kicked back in and you managed to fall asleep. 

                                                                     ***

One moment, you were fast asleep, the next moment you heard an explosion. You sat up quickly, disorientated and confused. Another explosion sounded and you got up and ran to the window.

You blinked and blinked again. 

A piece of metal fell seemingly from the sky and you looked up. 

The tower was under attack. 

Notes: I hoped you guys enjoyed this and are still liking the story!!

Taglist:

@creationsbyme  @kikster606  @slytherinintj13  @th0rswh0res  @huntress-artemiss  @jannieka394 @stefffrs  @misswimberly @thedistractedagglomeration  @yoongissidebitchh  @purplekitten30 @mischief2sarawr  @johnmurphys-sass 

@lonadane  @imalovernotahater @lokisgoodgirl  @laliceee @dlwrish  @paetonnn  @lovelysizzlingbluebird   @reas-writing  @buttercupcookies-blog @acidcasualties @alialiclouds 

@buckybarneslovesteve @evelyn-rathmore 

@Im-a-slut-for-fluff  @jainaeatsstars @mypainischronicbutmyassisiconic

#loki #loki x y/n #loki x you #loki x reader #loki smut #loki laufeyson #loki marvel #loki mcu #loki of asgard

[triviallytrue]

I'm trying to write this post about identity-blind admissions/hiring vs affirmative action and I keep running into the idea that this is mostly just lipstick on a pig; I care about fairness and diversity in the abstract, but equalizing the racial makeup of the US ruling class just isn't a political priority to me.

It's good to try and eliminate the explicit racism in the system, but as long as a racial gap in socioeconomic status exists, a racial gap in ability will as well - between two equally talented student populations, the one with greater access to resources, less proximity to violence, more stability and support, etc will always perform better, even in the absence of explicit discrimination.

Even if you construct a perfectly "fair" system, it will ultimately just replicate the material inequities that exist in the broader society. If you construct an equitable system (ie, one that creates a ruling class that matches the racial distribution of society at large), you still won't have fixed the underlying issues that caused the discrepancy in the first place, and by fiddling with the system, you'll piss off a bunch of other people (in this case, Asian Americans) in the process.

The liberal theory seems to be that if we find the Barack Obamas of the world, who would've been denied admission to elite institutions due to racial discrimination, and elevate them instead, the material problems will work themselves out. But I'm just not convinced this is true - it seems to be operating on a sort of pseudo-ethnonationalism where minorities in power will work to the benefit of "their people" and eventually even things out.

But with the way ruling classes work, it seems like most of the time the ruling class becomes "your people" for new inductees, and everyone else becomes, well, everyone else. Without leaning too hard on a Marxist framework, it seems like the ruling class empirically has a strong sense of class consciousness.

And even when this isn't true, when you encounter people in power who seem to genuinely want to change the world for the better, it's hard to imagine any racial divides being magically healed without some engine of economic redistribution behind it, and this is a task that requires more than just individuals who care about it.

None of which is to say that it makes sense to just throw up your hands and say "society is racist, so I guess it's okay for Harvard to be racist too." By all means, hold their feet to the fire as much as you can. But it's hard for me to write about this without feeling like it's all downstream of the central goal of the leftist project, making a more equitable world.

#politics #not sure if i'm really saying anything interesting here #mostly just throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks #long

[derkem]

unleashing my autism on bocchi's les paul custom

i've seen a lot of speculation about bocchi bocchi the rock's guitar and like... i am about as neck deep in vintage guitar lore as your average blues lawyer or retiree in a lynyrd skynyrd cover band so i have Opinions

the mangaka has stated that her choice of guitar was mostly/exclusively based on the colour - i haven't seen her comment specifically on the model/year beyond it being a Les Paul Custom, and I doubt she made any definitive decisions about this early on given that by her own admission she "couldn't tell the difference between a guitar and a bass" at the time

that said, it's a fortunate choice in that the flashy, expensive Gibson isn't just a great colour match for Bocchi, but serves as a great projection of the mismatch between Bocchi's "guitarhero" persona and ambitions, and her anxious, awkward personality - a flashy "tuxedo" guitar on a fidgeting teenager in a tracksuit

anyway in this post i will make the case that a) there is not a definitive answer to "what model of Gibson Les Paul Custom does bocchi bocchi the rock play" and b) there are a couple different pertinent answers, none of which take clear precedence

so unnecessarily comprehensive history of the electric guitar, the les paul custom and where bocchi's fits into it

if you don't care about guitar nerd diatribes (it will get more relevant, but not much less nerdy) skip to the *

(cut down from a much more unnecessarily detailed version XD)

over the first half of the 20th century acoustic guitars are in an arms race to get louder as the guitar gains popularity as a solo instrument and individual guitarists are playing to larger audience and playing a larger role in ensembles - in particular, resonator guitars and archtops develop during this period - but in the 30s and 40s various companies and individuals are increasingly experimenting with using electromagnetic pickups and electronic amplifiers to achieve greater volumes than are possible with purely acoustic methods, and as time progresses more people have the idea to forgo soundboxes and acoustic resonance entirely in favour of just electronically amplifying the string itself, to avoid the feedback issues inherent to hollowbody electrics

most notable are Rickenbacker who develop both the first electric guitar outright, a lap steel model for Hawaiian music in 1931, and the first electro-Spanish model (i.e. what we'd consider a conventional electric guitar) with a bakelite plastic body in 1935, and Paul Bigsby, whose custom builds for country legend Merle Travis in the late 40s are the first recognisable modern electric guitars

in the midst of that is jazz guitarist Les Paul, who develops his own prototype called "the log" based on an Epiphone hollowbody, and approaches Gibson with it in the mid 40s, though at the time they aren't interested

at the end of the 40s, radio engineer and inventor Leo Fender had been collaborating with Doc Kauffman - their joint venture saw Kauffman build electric lap steel guitars while Fender built amplifiers for them; when the pair go their separate ways, Fender decides to make his own solidbody guitar (which many would argue takes obvious cues from Bigsby's) which becomes the 1950 Esquire, shortly followed by the Broadcaster, renamed to the Telecaster sometime after

the Telecaster is big news because it's designed from the ground up for mass production - the materials are readily available woods like ash and maple, the neck is bolted on, and the electronics are all mounted in cavities routed onto a flat slab of wood for a body

and it's a hit

so suddenly Gibson wants a slice of the pie, and by 1952 they've brought Les Paul back in and released the first iteration of their Les Paul Model - with a carved top, decorative binding, a metallic gold finish, rosewood fretboard, and separate controls for each pickup, it's obvious Gibson fancies it a more premium product than what radio engineer Leo Fender could come up with, but at first it kinda sucks

the '52 les paul has shortcomings in its design and construction that really undermine it as a product, but over the course of the '50s it undergoes changes, first corrections to the neck angle, the introduction of an adjustable bridge in 1954 to improve intonation, the addition of more powerful, hum-cancelling "PAF" pickups in 1957 and a translucent "burst" finish in 1958, completing the archetypal 1958-1960 "burst" models which, owing to their low production numbers and popularity with famous guitarists, are now the most valuable vintage guitars in existence, with examples selling for the better part of a million dollars

*

alongside this, in 1953 Gibson releases the premium "Les Paul Custom" model, supposedly on Les Paul's own request as he wanted a classy guitar that looked "like a tuxedo" - so it featured a black finish with multi-ply binding and gold hardware - this is the Bocchi guitar in its original form

we know hers is a genuine Gibson and not one of the myriad copies made by other brands because the headstock logo is clearly shown, and we know it's a Custom because the black finish, gold hardware, inlays (block markers on the fretboard including the 1st fret, and the split diamond on the headstock), and binding are all archetypal Les Paul Custom features that only appear all together on the Custom model

the Custom developed alongside the Les Paul Standard, receiving the same updates; most Customs from the 50s have three pickups, but this layout is somewhat obstructive for players without offering all that much tonally, so later reproductions overwhelmingly favour the two pickup configuration which was less common on originals

anyway, this develops closer and closer to what we can recognise as the Bocchi guitar - we get the PAF pickups and Grover "keystone" tuners around 1958 and in 1960 we get the "reflector" style control knobs (more on this later)

'58-'60 Customs aren't quite as eye-wateringly expensive as the Bursts, but you could still probably buy a fairly nice house if you sold one

1960 is the final production year for the original Les Paul - the body style is replaced from '61 with the smaller model now known as the SG and then reintroduced in 1968 owing to increasing attention on big names who were still playing the "burst" models - guitarists you may recognise from your grandad's record collection; Les Pauls after this point can be regarded as "reissues" of the original model in some capacity

the Custom is reintroduced at the same time, with the most noticeable difference being the availability of new finish colours (not really relevant) and the change from "reflector" style knobs to "amp" or "witch hat" style knobs, which is something i'm gonna harp on about a little bit because it's important to my Bocchi thesis

the basic knob timeline is thus:

1954-1960 customs use all-black "top hat" knobs (left)

late 1960 customs use "reflector" style knobs, with silver or gold-ish inlays marked "volume" and "tone" (middle)

1968-1973 customs use "witch hat" style knobs, which are similar to reflector knobs but with a narrower shaft and a wider, flatter flared base where the numbers are written (right)

1974-1979 customs use reflector knobs again

1980 onwards customs overwhelmingly revert to top hat knobs, until the late 90s when Gibson starts producing models designed to closely replicate specific vintage model years, at which point you start to see the 1960 reflectors and the late 60s witch hats reproduced in relevant reissues

so the above info is most of the basis for my takes on this, let's move on to the bocchi guitar itself

there's two very important reasons i don't think it can be definitively identified, which are somewhat interconnected

the first reason is the pickup selector switch - the version of the guitar that appears in the anime, as well as a lot of the manga art, features a gold "poker chip" ring around the switch, along with a gold tip on the switch - where on a stock model the ring would be black, and marked with the "rhythm" and "treble" positions, while the tip on the switch would be either cream, an orange-y amber colour, which is the result of fading on 1950s plastic and sometimes imitated on modern repros, or black on some later models

^manga, anime and IRL

i would argue that at this point, this detail is well-established as canon, and that's significant because it means the guitar has been modified - a switch like that has never been stock on a Les Paul Custom, and frankly this means any details which could clearly identify Bocchi's guitar beyond "a Les Paul Custom" are things that could easily have been changed, leaving us nothing much to work with

but that's boring, so let's move on

the second thing which confounds identification of Bocchi's guitar is the fact the guitars are really hard to draw (my friend lauren @fabdante tells me they're like horses, because they have very specific unique proportions and look fucked up if you draw them slightly wrong)

that being the case, i think that the gold switch accoutrements developed either as a practical shortcut, or from referencing the guitar based off its first appearance in the manga - where the positions marked on the switch chip are somewhat visible, but the switch nut and washer being somewhat out of proportion makes those look like the switch chip, and i wouldn't be surprised if the gold tip was adopted either for simplicity, or simply referenced from an image where the amber switch tip appeared gold against the other gold hardware; anyway, here's that appearance

i would tend to agree with the fandom's consensus that this particular image is referenced from a reissue of a '68 model, something like this:

the knobs look like witch hat knobs, the binding is heavily yellowed as we see on a lot of reproductions, and the pickguard has the "Gibson custom" promotional sticker on it

...but i don't think this is a good basis for establishing the "canon" model of Bocchi's guitar

the numbers on the knobs appear to be written on the body, rather than the knobs themselves, which suggests that this was mainly referenced from an image like the one above, where some details aren't clearly visible - likewise the indistinctness of the switch ring

and the promotional sticker still being on the pickguard? did bocchi's dad even play this thing?

we know Hamaji was new to this stuff at the time - I would argue she was working from an imperfect reference here and hadn't really hashed out a lot of the details

i think it's more useful to look at the narrative overall, and later depictions of the guitar where its appearance is more settled, to get a better idea of this guitar and its provenance

all this to say that i would make the case, if you look later in the manga and the anime, while aspects of the guitar continue to be drawn somewhat off-model, as it were (particularly the pickguard and, early on, the position of the selector switch), it's much more common for the knobs to appear with the proportions of 1960-style reflector knobs:

now, again, we're somewhat lacking in details to go off - the knobs are pretty much all we have, but the case i would make is that as the design becomes more established, it becomes more established in favour of a 1960 (reissue) model

that being the case, we can go ahead and eliminate some possibilities i would argue are at least "less likely" on the basis of reasonable context:

an actual 1960 model, especially with the rarer 2-pickup configuration, would be worth about 10 million yen or more - if bocchi's dad had one he a) wouldn't let his teenage daughter learn on it and take it to skeevy central Tokyo live houses and school concerts in a gig bag and b) would live somewhere much nicer

while i don't really see the promotional sticker on the pickguard in the guitar's first appearance as canon (the anime omits this detail, and the idea of bocchi's dad at least at some point having been into guitar enough to buy such an expensive model and then never bother to take the protective film off the pickguard, but also let ~12 year old bocchi play it... wouldn't really make sense) it seems fair to assume it's at least a 21st century model

the only "vintage" examples post-1960 that use reflector knobs are the 70s models, which bocchi's dad doesn't seem anywhere near old enough to own from new, and while this less desirable period of vintage Gibsons is a more plausible secondhand buy for an average dude presumably in his 20s than a 1960s model, there's no particular sign of the guitar being that old

anyway, maybe that stuff goes without saying

let's go over some facts and speculations to get to the conclusion

with regard to bocchi's dad, he seems to be in his 20s or 30s as best i can tell given his lack of a face, so realistically he bought the guitar at some point in his 20s, probably in the 2010s

there's no such thing as a cheap Les Paul Custom, the lowest prices are probably around 2-3000 USD or around 300k JPY

of modern historic reproductions, 1960 and 1968 are both years that have been reproduced, but in relatively small numbers since the 1960 model is not substantially distinguished from other 1957-1960 models, except by its knobs, and post-'68 Les Pauls are nowhere near as desirable as the original run

historic reproductions are generally significantly more expensive than the "regular" Les Paul Custom model that doesn't have a historic year attached to it

not of particular significance to you, but of great annoyance to me, is that modern repros are a pain in the ass to google because all the historic reproductions are "Custom Shop" models even if they're not "Les Paul Custom" models, and the Burst models are far more widely reproduced

anyway to conclude:

official manga and anime depictions of Bocchi's Les Paul clearly depict it as a Gibson Les Paul Custom, but are neither consistent enough nor detailed enough to determine a more specific variant definitively - it could be any model of "Black Beauty"-style Custom, without more textual information, which is somewhat frustrating, but also (in my view) worthwhile to acknowledge that there is no definitive answer more specific than "Les Paul Custom"

the most likely candidates are: a "regular" base-model Custom from around 2000-2020, a 1960 reissue model Custom or a 1968 reissue model Custom

probably the most realistic option is the basic Les Paul Custom - this is the Custom Shop's flagship model and already a very expensive guitar, but they can be had for prices that would probably be relatively manageable for someone with a decent job (someone who hasn't had kids yet, anyway) - the knobs would have to have been replaced, but as I've mentioned we already know that the pickup selector hardware is aftermarket, so why not the knobs as well? this is a realistic answer, I just find it frustratingly vague

i personally favour that it's a 1960 reissue - it's not a huge year for reissues but there have been some in the past decade or so and I would argue it's the reissue year that most closely matches the details of the guitar as they appear through most of the run

the consensus in favour of the '68 reissue has some foundation - the first appearance of the guitar definitely seems to be referenced from a '68 reissue, as well as some other early illustrations; however, i would argue that few depictions specifically resemble the '68 as the manga progresses, and none in the anime

#bocchi the rock #hitori gotoh #btr #sally rambles for 2500 words only to tell you (spoiler) that there isnt a clear answer

[breathe-2am]

hey idk how to tell u this but the big cliffhanger in s1 isn’t the crew being separated it’s stede going out to find ed when ed has fallen so deep into heartbreak and self-loathing that he’s destroyed stede’s ship and split up their crew. the cliffhanger is about “how will ed and stede fix their relationship after stede broke ed’s heart and ed went off the deep end?”

bc what’s going on with the crew is not the main storyline. the main storyline is the romance between ed and stede, djenks has said this many times. the main plotline is the development of ed and stede’s relationship. the show didn’t “shove most of the characters into 1 minute scenes between much longer gentlebeard arcs” in 2.04, the crew was just part of the B plot that episode, which is to be expected because they are all side characters who are always in B or C plots if they’re not part of the plot with the main characters (ed and stede). the main A plot of 2.04 is ed and stede making up now that they’ve finally been reunited, and the show develops this storyline in a rewrite/adaptation/homage to the play who’s afraid of virginia woolfe.

it’s fine if u don’t like gentlebeard or if your main enjoyment from the show is izzy/the crew, but if that’s the case for you then unfortunately you’re always have a harder time enjoying ofmd bc the writing in the show is always going to prioritize gentlebeard over the other characters. the crew reuniting was always going to be much less important than ed and stede reuniting and making up. that’s what david jenkins meant when he said “the show is the relationship.”

Heyo! I see my meme has breached the side of ofmd tumblr I usually interact with, which is really cool! Thanks for stopping by haha

I think your response is so emblematic of the shift the show went thru from season 1 to season 2- namely, that season 1 was an ensemble show and season 2 was not. Stede was the main character, yes, and he got more backstory and focus than a lot of the crew, but the story of the show in s1 was that it was a bunch of people with conflicting personalities shoved onto a boat together. Stede’s the center, but every other character gets focus as well. This show, by djenks own admission, was not originally intended to be a rom-com romance between stede and ed. He said that he didn’t commit to actually have them be together until filming season 1 episode 6- more than halfway thru the story of the first season, and that it was mainly due to rhys and taika’s acting that made him change it from an unrequited love to a relationship. So while the story is a lot about gentlebeard, saying that every other character is secondary to them and their romance isnt true.

I think a great example to bring up would be season 1 episode 7, the episode that solidifies (via lucius) that yes, this is happening. This is a very relationship heavy episode, but crucially gb isn’t the only focus.

Here's a breakdown: we start w a 1:00 gb scene, then roach comes in asking about the oranges, which leads to a 2:00 scene w the whole crew that sets up the episodes plot (swede has scurvy, we need to get more oranges). Jim protests going to st augustine, which is followed by a 1:00 scene between jim and olu, including a jim flashback. Stede and lucius return with the treasure map, there’s 1:30 more of the whole crew, then we go into the captains cabin for 1:00 of stede, ed, and lucius. 6 minutes into the ep flashes to the crew on land, a 0:50 conversation between jim and olu, then 2:00 of the whole crew, ending then nana invites them all to eat some cake at 8:15. We then go to stede, lucius, and ed in the marketplace until the 9 minute mark (abt 0:45), then back to the church where olu and jim talk to nana for 1:15, including more jim flashbacks. Back to the adventure w stede ed and lucius, which is 2 scenes back to back, totally about 3:00 (the “oh my god this is happening” scene). Then back to the church for jim olu and nana, a 1:00 jim flashback inside a 3:00 scene. Then back to the captains and lucius for 1:30, then to jim and olu, more jim flashback, then the a and b plots converge at the 2:30 mark when jim sees stede digging up their tree. Stede, ed, and lucius exit the scene after 1:30, jim and olu have a conversation for another 1:00. We see the crew leaving, then olu and nana talk, which all takes 2:00. Back on the boat, ed and stede become co-captains in a 0:45 scene, then the final 1:30 of the ep is izzy at jackie’s with 1:30 credits

Gentlebeard: 9:00, whole crew: 5:30, Jim and Olu: 11:35, Izzy: 1:30, credits: 1:30

I would say that s1e7 is the most overtly gb episode before the kiss in s1e9. But as you can see, it’s not just gb. There’s a lot of focus on jim, who gets multiple filmed flashbacks, there’s scenes w jim, olu, and nana, there’s scenes of the whole crew together, stede and ed are really only oncscreen together for abt 9 minutes- not even 1 third of the episode. And this is the ep that says directly to the audience “yes, they have a romance building”. I’m not trying to say w this that every member of the crew needs to b given equal screentime, bc that didn’t happen here obv, but everyone is doing something, and the plot is moving forward propelled by more than just the gb relationship.

Now this is very much changed in season 2.

S2e4 starts with 0:20 of stede waking ed up, then 0:45 of stede and the crew, 0:30 of ed and buttons, izzy’s w the unicorn for 1:00. The crew kick ed off the boat in a 1:15 scene. Now at the 2:25 mark we get to the plots splitting. Ed has a 1:15 scene on land, 0:45 is spent talking to a bunny. Stede and buttons find anne and mary’s antique store after 0:45 of walking. The scene in the antique porch is 2:15. Back to the revenge where there’s a 1:00 scene where wee john, roach, and pete talk about how the kraken crew, lucius, and izzy are different, and the kraken crew thinks they’re plotting to kill them. Already we go back to anne and mary’s where theres various conversations for 3:00. We go back to the revenge for a 0:45 scene where the revenge crew scare the kraken crew and lucius by trying to surprise them. Back to land, where anne and stede and mary and ed talk for 2:00. Back to the revenge for a 1:45 scene w the crews, izzy enters at the 1:00 mark and then crawls away. Well that’s that, we go back to the dinner on land for 1:00, then ed storms out and he and stede have a conversation on the couch for 2:15. Anne and mary reenter, followed by a 3:00 argument that ends with anne burning down the house and they don’t kiss for some reason. We have a 0:20 scene of the crew preparing the unicorn leg, izzy is in his room and received the leg in a 0:40 scene, and well it’s been a whole minute on the revenge, time to go back to ed and stede for 1:00, ed and buttons talk end when buttons turns into a seagull after 1:30. Ed and stede talk for 0:30, and then we end w izzy the new unicorn for 0:45. Credits are again 1:30.

Gentlebeard: 19:50, whole crew: 5:05, Izzy: 3:10, credits: 1:30

To illustrate my point, i made some graphs

You don’t even have to think very hard to see the change in distribution of screentime season 1 vs season 2. And i’d argue that this is absolutely to the show’s detriment, because that ensemble cast is given way less time to shine, grow, or even speak. Notice how for the second chart there isn’t a jim and olu section? Yea that’s cause Jim has 10 lines this whole episode, and Olu has 5. Two characters, whose relationship, backstory, and plot takes up more screentime than gentlebeard’s in season 1, have a combined 15 lines between them, only 4 of which are longer than 1 sentence- 2 for jim, 2 for olu, and those lines are two sentences long. god bless us every one.

I get that there’s a large subset of the ofmd fandom that only cares abt ed and stede. I get that that’s how u find enjoyment in the show, and u know what? All the power to u. I’m not saying stop liking the show, stop liking gentlebeard, stop caring abt these characters. I don’t like gentlebeard, but i used to, and i remember really really loving ed and stede and their relationship in season 1. That changed in season 2 because of ed’s abusive actions and stede pivoting from being an independent character to just basically following whatever ed says (but that’s a story for another day).

But let’s be honest with each other, and with ourselves: season 1 was an ensemble show. Season 2 narrowed its focus to gentlebeard, while also making it (for some people) harder to like. That’s why a lot of people (myself included) didn’t like season 2 as much as season 1.

Also, just to focus back in on the original issue, the meme was not about gentlebeard. It was about Anne and Mary. And there is literally no way you can convince me that they were used as well as they could have been, or that they were implemented into the story in a smart, necessary, or even respectful way.

Because i'm a nice person, i made a brand new updated meme just for u, anon!

:-)

#ofmd #our flag means death #ofmd critical #ofmd s2 #ofmd season 2 #ofmd fandom #ofmd meta #asks #thank u for giving me the floor to explain my dumb meme in detail! #i love being right #this is your captain speaking

[utilitycaster]

I'm just thinking about the line from one of A Crown of Candy's Adventuring Party episodes (Ep 14: Dom or Be Dommed, for those wondering) in which Brennan talks about how fighting - not even specifically combat, but arguments in RP and more generally in improv - is incredibly cathartic and meaningful because people so often have to suppress their anger. He also notes that said conflict can be difficult or even stressful, but it often makes for a better story than one without it.

That feels especially true to the combat with Bor'Dor, though admittedly it's a little odd to apply a statement that was made about players to characters. The two people most willing to listen were the two barbarians, and that's not actually that surprising! Ashton and Deni$e express their anger all the time. They're comfortable with it and with the consequences thereof. They also, and this isn't specific to barbarians as a class but is true of Ashton and Deni$e, are deeply cynical people, though Ashton is beginning to probe that within himself; they expect very little and aren't surprised when they get even less.

Prism and Laudna, on the other hand, have been dealing with fairly tight control, whether external (Prism) or mostly self-imposed (Laudna). They don't get to express frustration, let alone anger, or regularly unleash the full extent of what they can do, and they've been this way for a very long time, so when they're betrayed and nearly killed (in Prism's case for absolutely no reason, no less) it does come as a shock and it does unleash that rage they've been holding back. As Laudna points out, she's finally in a situation where she is the one who can be in control - even if it comes with a simultaneous loss of a different type of control.

(Orym falls between these extremes - he does keep himself on a pretty tight leash, but I also don't see his actions as being the same clear unleashing of pent-up anger as Prism's or Laudna's. This is much more a step towards pragmatism over an idealism that's been failing him for some time, and an admission of what's necessary, and it's still a very controlled response.)

#critical role #critical role spoilers #bells hells #anyway that entire scene was fucking great. top notch rp all around.

[weixuldo]

Allow me// ch 8

Vader x Reader

a/n: so sorry for the wait on this chapter- ive been on vacation this past week oops! But never the less, HERE IT IS!! hehe just a reminder, Vader has become more vulnerable with his emotions in his older age (just as he began to open up to luke in rotj) so if he seems too “kind” or “emotional”, that’s why. I hope that doesn’t ruin him for u :( but trust- he will have some iconic Vader moments later on in the series....

You get a strange visitor looking for some comfort. 

warnings: cursing, anxiety, self hatred/loathing, cannon disabled character, emotional vulnerability

_____________________

Your admission to Lord Vader came as a relief; he held out a small shred of hope that you would accept his offer, but he wasn't too sold on the fact that you would actually agree. So when you did, his heart fluttered.

In the weeks following the encounter, he became much more present in your daily life. 

Before the standard day started you would often wander into his quarters and feel out his location throughout the force (though you knew he was intentionally putting out  a special signal just for you).

After shifts were done you would have debriefing chats with him, which mainly consisted of random conversations and his adorably flustered comments about or to you. 

In your earlier days of working for the sith, you always assumed he was busy every minute of the day; he always seemed in a hurry when he strutted down the cold halls.

But as he dedicated more and more time to you, you found that it wasn’t the case. 

Yes, he did have a great many things to do, but he was quite proficient at his job; after all, he had been doing it for over a decade.

Anyways, who would dare attempt to question him about his whereabouts other than the emperor?

No one. 

He was one of the two most feared men in the galaxy- he would be just fine if someone noticed him spending more time with the mechanic than usual.

In the more recent days he had been inviting you to join him in his meditation chamber for some peaceful time away from curious workers.

You would enter the chamber as if you were going to work on his pod but you would actually just wait until he came in a while later. 

The pod was small and truly only built to accommodate his large frame, so when you were there he would take a seat then call for you to climb onto his lap.

Once you were settled he motioned for the chamber to close so the only thing to focus on were the two of you in the small capsule. 

Once you were in there it seemed much more spacious than the outside portrayed, his seat was soft and so were his thighs (apparently, they were one of the only parts of him that was left human).

You would sit in his lap and rest your head on his chest or straddle his lap to speak with him face to face (or…rather face to helmet).

Though you had basically proclaimed yourself to the Sith and spent a multitude of time with the man, you never were awarded the gift of seeing his uncovered face.

It wasn’t for your lack of trying, but most times he would respectfully decline or attempt to divert your attention. 

__________________

Today Vader had been pretty busy, so after your shift you just went back to your chambers and got ready for bed.

You drifted in and out of sleep for a few hours until you heard a knock at your door.

Who could that be? It was the middle of the night.

The tile was cool beneath your feet as you gathered a blanket around your shoulders and headed for the door. You clicked on a lamp that lit the room with a warm glow. 

You were barely to the door when it swooshed open to reveal a familiar figure; you tilted your head to the side with a confused look. 

“Vader?”

He looked down and asked “may I come in?”.

You nodded, allowing him to enter and closing your door, “Is something wrong?” you asked, thinking something needed fixing.

“No, no. Everything is alright. I just wanted to see you” he admitted, standing awkwardly in the middle of your room. 

Your shoulders relaxed when you realized it wasn’t an emergency and you smiled, “well here I am! it’s nice to see you, i missed you today ”. 

You walked to your bed and patted the space beside you; he sat next to you but continued to look forward. 

“Are you sure everything is alright?”.

He sighed, “It’s my master. He is asking me to have an audience with him tomorrow”.

Your brows furrowed, didn’t they meet often? Why was this perplexing him so much?

“What's so bad about that?” you asked innocently.

“He thinks I have made a mistake. I worked with an enemy- well, not really an enemy, just someone who isn’t on the empire’s side” he explained, resting his head in his hands. 

You rubbed his back and decided it best not to pry, “I’m sorry Vader, Is there anything I can do?”.

He was thankful you didn’t ask details- you comforted him so well.

If he were to explain why teaming up with Sabe was so problematic he would have to explain who Sabe was to Padme and why Padme was important.

The stress of facing his master tomorrow was far too taxing to also reveal his past to you; he couldn’t do that tonight. 

“No, but I appreciate the offer,” he said. 

Silently, you knelt on your bed and wrapped your arms around him, holding him close in your warm embrace. No words were exchanged, yet you could feel his exhausted relief from your touch. 

You opted to rest your head on his shoulder as you rubbed your thumb over his bicep. His heart cried as you held onto him- he hadn’t felt this safe in years; he didn’t want you to let go. He reached for your free hand and held it tight. 

“Thank you, y/n” he said as you sat back and he finally faced you. 

The blanket had fallen from your shoulders and your sage green nightgown was now visible; it wasn’t scandalous or anything crazy, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of you. Your beauty was eminent and demanded his attention. 

“It’s alright, Vader. I just want you to be ok” you spoke.

His heart yearned for you and the love he knew you would give, but how could he have you when being with him would just put you in danger?

“I haven't felt that in so long…” he trailed off.

What hadn’t he felt? You became confused by his words. 

He turned to look into your eyes, “I haven’t felt cared for. Truly cared for”.

His voice wavered and you gave him a sad smile before resting a gentle hand on the side of his helmet. 

“I do care.. So, so much” 

His breathing filled the otherwise silent room as he placed a gloved hand over yours. 

“I know you do”

You looked over at your clock and it was in the early hours of the morning now, you were tired and he probably was too. 

“It’s late. Why don’t you stay for a while? We can lay down.” you offered, reclining on your bed. 

Any other night he would have politely declined, not wanting to get more attached than he already was, but tonight he needed someone. 

Without hesitation he agreed and took his place beside you in your large bed (another perk of being Darth Vader’s personal mechanic, you got an upgraded room).

He grunted as he laid down, his armor poking into his body irritably.

You gently tapped his shoulder and offered him a solution to make him more comfortable, “Why don’t we take some of your armor off? Wearing that can’t be pleasant”.

He agreed and allowed you to help him unlatch his stiff guarding. Once it was all off, he laid on his back and you scooted closer to him and laid your head on his chest above his chest box. 

“Vader- will I ever see your face?” you asked out of the blue after a few minutes of lying with the Sith. 

You felt him shift under you, “Why would you want to see that?” he sounded genuinely confused.

You gazed up at him, “because, I want to appreciate your beauty. ”

“There is nothing beautiful under this mask, I assure you. You are all the beauty we need here” he said, lying his head back down. 

“Plus you already see me.”

You frowned, of course you heard the stories of vader being more machine than man, but you didn’t care. 

“I see your suit- the same suit everyone else sees. I want to see you, I want to see the man who shares these tender moments with me” you cooed , running your hand along his side. 

“I am sure if you see my face, you will no longer wish to… be mine” 

A bittersweet feeling washed over you: it was such a rush to hear him refer to you as “his”, but at the same time it pained you that he was so ashamed of his physical appearance that he would shield himself from everyone…including you. 

“Alright, I won't keep pressuring you… I just want you to know, I would never leave you”.

At that, you could sense the smile that adorned his covered face. 

You and Vader stayed like that for a while, just discussing random things that came to mind until you got on the topic of first impressions. 

“As soon as I saw you I was intrigued. I could assess the physical beauty but once I found you in the hallway after your mother passed, I really saw you as another individual- not just another worker.” (Vader went on to apologize for his close minded opinions of average imperial officers). 

“Huh? When I first started seeing you around, I thought you were going to kill me” you said to him as you ran your hand along his chest. 

“What?” he asked, worriedly.

You sat up and tilted your head. 

“Back when I had that spat with the trooper outside of your meditation chamber all that time ago. You killed them later that night- I heard it.”

“I knew I sensed you,” he said to himself.

“Yea, I couldn’t sleep, then I saw that and headed back to my room. I was sure you were going to kill me because the rumors were associating me with you.”

He tilted his head and his tone became more serious. 

“I killed those troopers because they were harassing you and spreading false information, they did not deserve to be on my ship.”

“You probably could have just had them transferred. What made you angry enough to kill them though?”

“They disrespected me and they disrespected you. I could not have that. They were not even worthy of speaking your name.” he spoke with such a passion… you hadn’t seen him like this before. 

Vader seemed genuinely upset that they had been bothering you for so long. 

“It was alright, nothing I haven’t heard before” you offered

He turned his head towards you with an unreadable look, “as long as you are with me, acts such as those will not go unpunished”. 

He was serious. 

“Vader, it is alright, they’re just scummy people anyway-”

He gently took your hands into his and looked into your eyes, “That is not alright. Allow me to do these things for you. Allow me to protect you”.

Maker, he really did care about you. 

You offered a small smile, “I will allow it, only because it was you that asked”.

He seemed to relax at your blessing. 

“But I want you to know I don’t need protection, I’m a big girl, I can handle myself” you joked which garnered a smile from the man beside you under his helmet.

“Of course, my dear” he confirmed as he gently brushed his thumb over your cheek. 

Never in a million years would Vader have thought that he could be this intimate with someone again; only a few years ago he would have laughed in your face if you told him he would be able to feel this way again. 

His past haunted him in his early years of his time as a Sith, which made him cold and ruthless.

But as the years went by and he grew older he became a little less harsh (though he would never admit it).

Maybe he missed feeling wanted or appreciated or maybe it was because he genuinely wanted you- after all, he couldn’t imagine feeling this way for anyone else he had met as Vader. 

On the other side of things you never imagined that the feared Sith could be so gentle and kind.

He was still an intimidating figure, but you felt so safe with him- so cared for.

His emotions were so strong that you trusted he would do what he said he would. 

You wanted him to know that you were here out of genuine interest, not a scheme to access his power or to use him… you could imagine others in the past had attempted to cultivate meaningless relationships with the agenda of abusing his influence.

“V” you called, shortening his name. 

You turned your head to look his way but found him already gazing at your beautiful face. 

“V?” he asked.

A blush crept up your cheeks and you shyly smiled, “Yea, it's an endearment, is it alright?”.

“It is quite alright” he confirmed, which brought a smile to your face. 

“Alright” you smiled

“I just wanted to let you know…” you trailed off as you traced your fingers down his chest and around his chest box. 

“I am here because I care for you deeply- I have no other motives other than the own interests of my heart.”

You paused for a moment and he sat there bewildered at your bluntly honest statement.

“I want to see you, V” you said softly, looking into his lenses.

“I do not want to burden your beautiful eyes with my hideous face”.

Your heart fell, “You are not hideous, there is no possible way…” you said, hoping to reassure the man. 

“My dear, you have no idea what you would be seeing,” he said sadly. 

“But I do- I would be seeing the face of a man who has shown me nothing but kindness, the man who has looked out for me when no one else would, the man who sees himself in me”.

With a brush of your hand against his chest and your endearing words, something in the Sith caved. How could he keep denying you? 

Eventually you would see him, being his personal mechanic and all, so why not just rip the bandaid off now? 

He sighed and nodded his head, “Alright, but I cannot be without it for long- my lungs aren’t suited for it” he seemed almost embarrassed. 

“I know your meditation chamber is pressurized, would that allow you to keep it off a little longer?” you asked, standing from the bed. 

“Yes? But we cannot go there now, not like this” he motioned to your nightgown and his unarmored body. 

“I wasn't suggesting that'' you laughed as you dug through your tool bag on the floor. 

“What are you up to?” he inquired as you tinkered away at a switch near the door. Soon there was a noise that sounded like a vacuum seal.

A smile dawned your face as you looked up towards the vents and stood; you checked the screen near your bed and pointed towards it, “I was working on that”.

Vader looked at the stat’s screen and saw the air pressure level had increased.

“You did that just now?” he asked, amazed. 

“Yes” you smiled, taking your spot back on the bed with him. 

“I would go to extreme lengths to be able to bask in your presence” you said as dramatically as you could; a stupid grin plastered on your face as you awaited his response.

His head tilted to the side as he moved his hand to the side of your face, “I do not deserve your kindness, y/n.” he said sadly. 

Cool air brushed against your cheek as he began to remove his hand, but before he left entirely, you placed your own hand over his and returned him to your cheek.

“You deserve every ounce,” you responded.

He exhaled and drew your hand to his chest. 

“I will ask one final time, do you truly want to see me?” his voice wavered.

“Yes, I do”

“I understand if you wont want to hold this position anymore after this- But I just don’t want you to be afraid of me” he rambled. 

“V, I never want to leave your side, you won’t scare me…I promise” 

He relaxed at your words and nodded.

“Alright”.

***

a/n: lots of exposition… but he’s abt to take a huge step 😭 he’s whipped frrrr- also the bit abt sabe is a nod to what’s coming up soon (the thing about including the vader and palpating comic- cause the whole reason vader was punished was cause he helped Sabe) I HOPE YOU ENJOY!!!

taglist: @vadersassistant @sxoulohvn @khaleesihavilliard @kashasenpai @darling-murdock @beautifulbearpolice @salvatoresister1 @lune-de-miel-au-paradis @blueninjablade3 @jujuba096 @missmannequin @jellydodger @mirastark @wyvernthekriger @duckyhowls @monada43 @lauriidoesstuff @vienettacream @ray-rook @itswhatever06 @ilovenielperry

#darth vader #darth vader x reader #vader #anakin x reader #sw darth vader #anakin #darth vader fic #star wars #star wars x reader #anakin x you #allow me #anakin fanfiction #vader x reader #lord vader #darth vader headcannons #darth vader x you #darth vader x y/n #vader x you #vader x y/n #sw x reader #sw x you #star wars x y/n

[n-fblog]

Reo, Nagi, and Differences from the Main Manga

Thoughts from Episode: Nagi, chapter 17

Reo:

This chapter was kind of needed for him to "abandon" his ego of becoming the best with Nagi (and we can see it sort of fading in the textbox) -- and simultaneously get rid of that growing attachment he has to Nagi. Really sad to see him say, "thank you" as if he doesn't even have the strength to break them apart himself (and he didn't)

The chameleon makes its first chronological appearance so we can clearly see him start to 'adapt' his thinking and playing even though it's not fully fleshed out yet, which is exciting! I wasn't sure if that was something he made up with Shidou before, but it's hilarious to know it all started with Nagi, AGAIN. Or maybe this is the manga trying to convey that he's changing himself to help Nagi walk away lol

His inferiority complex with Nagi makes itself kind of known here, with the monologue- "Those are the words *I* wanted to say,," but was unable to...

Somehow, Nagi being able to encourage Reo makes him the stronger one mentally -- which is tough for someone who subconsciously already thinks he can't go very far without Nagi skill-wise.

Poor guy... and he still has so far to go before he starts to think he can fight on his own.

Nagi:

Man, this chapter pretty much confirms that their mischaracterization and miscommunication goes both ways lol. Nagi spitefully admonishes that he isn't Reo's 'toy' when Reo flips from "wanting to be the best" to "wanting to stay together"-- These guys have such a hard time acknowledging their friendship outside of football, it's actually painful.

I can't tell if he made any sort of connection betweey 'toy' and being Reo's 'treasure'. But that's almost definitely a metaphor on Reo's part. What a lot of people misuse is that Reo calls Nagi his 'treasured possession' when I really, truly don't think he meant viewing Nagi as a literal object. But how else do you expect a rich boy who's only been shown love through material things to describe something he values? *(see tags for a rant on this lol)

I do wish we'd gotten more insight into how he felt when he heard what Reo said in the moment, but this chapter was already long as it is. I do think Nagi's expressions sort of speak for themselves.

I mean, he straight up looks like he's about to cry here. 

I would argue that part of Nagi's promise to 'stay together' during the entrance actually includes 'believing in each other' like he says here:

 And if that's the case, then what did Reo's claim of abandonment mean to him? Was it that Reo didn't believe in Nagi's newfound drive to win? Or was he mad that Reo didn't believe in himself? I think it's a bit of both, but I really want to see more thoughts in the manga or from the fandom

Blue Lock vs. Episode: Nagi

So... Nagi definitely seems more angry in this chapter, right? When you revisit Ch. 76, you can see that Nagi is a lot more apologetic towards Reo

( Here you see him lament not growing alongside Reo, but fired up and excited to work with Isagi)

vs. what we saw this chapter

(Nagi saying sorry and acknowledging he's changed, but looking less toward the future and more resisting the past)

Maybe this is just a difference in translations, but "I can't [am not able to] go back" feels a little different from "I won't go back" -- the former just feels like an admission (to Reo), while the latter feels a lot more confrontational, a downright refusal to go along with what Reo wants.

And that's fine, but it does reshape how I thought about Nagi, and I think it really emphasizes just how pissed he was at Reo by the end of 2nd Selection.

This reframes their interaction during U-20 tryouts for me. I originally thought it was mostly setting up Reo's chameleon style defense and Reo's internal conflict (which it is) but EpiNagi really just shows that Nagi also has a ways to go before they reunite in Manshine

I think this could be the panel (from Ch. 107, 3rd Selection) where Nagi forgives Reo -- it's the point where Reo sort of shows he understands Nagi's drive to win, and that he doesn't value staying together over improving anymore. After that, they have no issues (in Nagi's eyes) so it was probably easy to imagine walking up to Reo during MC v BM and asking for his help ... but man, we still have a long way til then, and I can't wait for EpiNagi to probably prove me wrong :p

#idk i wrote this all at like 2 am whenever ch. 17 first came out #RANT: I know it's obvious to Reo fans but this mischaracterization of Reo is such a pain every time. Of course he was using his talents for #but his main draw to Nagi was literally the fact that Nagi treated him normally/even coldly #as well as Nagi's obliviousness to his own skill #now that Nagi can recognize how amazing he is: that uniqueness is no longer a 'treasure' of Reo's #honestly the treasure thing could mean so many things it would have to be its own post #Rant over lol) #blue lock #bllk #nagireo #reonagi #EDIT: i forgot like a whole paragraph in my 3rd section lol

[cat3ch1sm]

Spider gwen x reader hcs pls 👀💞

💚~ hi!! idk what it is about spider-Gwen these days but ive been thinking abt her nonstop. ion even like her that much since the last movie but she’s just been in my mind rent-free 😩

note: i’ll be uploading more often because ik ive been really flaky for a while now and i feel really bad :(( also idk why these got kinda angsty lmaoo

fem!leaning reader but no specific pronouns are mentioned

𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐫-𝐆𝐰𝐞𝐧 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬 <𝟑

- for these headcanons i’ll be using some letters from the sfw alphabet!

s- security: how protective r they, how would they protect you, how do they like to be protected?

i don’t think gwen would be with anyone who is really dependent, so most of the time she doesn’t feel the need to step up and “protect” you unless it has anything to do with spider business- in which case, then she’s all over it. after peter, gwen is adamant that you stay out of spider stuff, and she won’t even allow you to know that she is spider-woman. but if you somehow do find out, she’ll probably start being slightly more distant in order to keep you safe, fearing that her enemies will find out that you’re someone important to her and somehow harm you. she might wind up accidentally pushing you away for fear of getting you hurt.

as for how gwen wants to be protected- she really doesn’t want to need protection at all. she doesn’t like to be vulnerable or have anybody think that she is. especially as a hero, gwen mistakenly believes she’s always the one that has to come to your aid and only worry about you rather than have you worry about her (which you do anyway).

p- patience: how easily angered are they?

relationship wise, gwen tries to be as patient as possible with you. she’s already generally stressed out, so she does her best to avoid problems with your relationship, which usually goes well. however, the one thing that always gets her temper bad is when you start asking about spider stuff, worrying about her life as spider-woman (assuming she’s told you/ you found out), because the last time someone close to her got involved with her business as a spider, someone died, and she doesn’t want to acknowledge that possibility again. so whenever you pester gwen about spider business she kinda snaps at you and ends the conversation quickly.

i- i love you: how fast do they say the l word?

it takes a while for gwen to get to the point of saying that she loves you, even though she knows she does way before she says it. she doesn’t want to say it too soon and risk you not reciprocating, and saying that she loves you would be an admission of attachment, meaning that if gwen ever lost you it would hurt way worse. so yeah, she’s very hesitant to say it, but be assured that it doesn’t mean that she doesn’t feel that way for you.

d- domestic: do they want to settle down? how good are they at cooking or cleaning?

at the moment, gwen’s life is all over the place, so settling down really isn’t a thought in her head. she wants to eliminate all her enemies and achieve some sort of stability both in her personal and professional life before she considers really starting a life with you. as for cooking and cleaning- gwen can’t cook for absolutely fucking shit and yes i am saying this because she is white. cleaning? she doesn’t really do it often- she’s kind of a cluttered person- but she can manage. for some reason i imagine her being really good at sweeping. homegirl can definitely work a mop, too

e- ending: if they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?

judging by her behavior towards miles in atsv when he found out the truth about his spider-man origins, i wanna say she’d be really shifty about it. you’d notice her becoming distant and dismissive, and when you ask her about it she’d sort of dance around it. gwen wants nothing less than to hurt you, which is why she takes so long to tell you straight out, but really it just winds up hurting more because of how much she kinda drags it out.

r- remember: what is their favorite moment in your relationship?

i think her favorite moment probably wouldn’t be from when you were officially dating, but maybe when you both were just realizing your feelings for each other- lots of awkward but sweet and silly moments where there’s just a lot of blushing and awkward laughter and absent touches like playing with hair or brushing hands while walking beside each other. it isn’t anything big, but it means a lot to gwen.

g- gentle: how gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?

gwen behaves sort of like a tomboy, so i don’t exactly picture her as being the type that’s super soft and gentle with you. also she is spider-woman and beats up villains twice her size on a regular basis, so her whole personality just isn’t all that “gentle.” she probably gives you a lot of a shoulder bumps and punches and unnecessarily hard high fives when she’s happy or proud. but when you two are alone she’s softer. you’ll find gwen’s fingers absently tangled in your hair or she might lay her head on your shoulder every so often.

emotionally, Gwen is mostly pretty careful about your feelings. she knows that her work as spider-woman worries you sometimes, so she makes sure not to talk about it too much. she tries to express her more negative feelings to you more often than not so she doesn’t wind up taking it out on you later- which is a difficult step for her to take. but she can be slightly inconsiderate when she talks about her other friends who are spiders- gwen can sometimes talk about them a little too much and her escapades with them, making you feel left out- and sometimes the way she talks about Hobie or miles can irritate you a little.

w- whole: would they feel incomplete without you?

gwen has learned to put herself together alone after the shit she’s been through, so it would take you two going through a hell of a lot together for her to actually really feel like you’re a part of her. not to mention she does have an unconscious fear of attachment because of what happened to Peter, and the betrayal of her father at the beginning of atsv (which was resolved i know but like it still scared her). but yeah, if you two have been together for long enough and her feelings for you are more enduring, she would feel incomplete if you left- but likely not for too long.

e- ending: what would cause them to break up with you? (ik i already did this letter but i wanna spell her name okay)

i imagine gwen would break up with someone for several reasons, but i think one of the kickers would be if you became too clingy. again, the attachment thing. if she feels like you’re smothering her you will definitely scare her off. gwen is also very independent, and she needs more of that time by herself than most people. it’s what she’s used to. violating that boundary will get you dumped real quick.

n- night: how are nights spent with them?

nighttime is when gwen is most active as spider-woman because that’s when a lot of villains like to come out of the shadows- so you don’t really get to spend time with her after dark. but you do like to peer out the window sometimes to catch a glimpse of her, swinging through the streets under the moonlight. if she sees you, she’ll definitely send you a smile or a brief wave before beating the hell out of her opponent.

#into the spider verse #across the spiderverse #gwen stacy x reader #spider gwen x reader #atsv gwen #gwen atsv #gwen across the spiderverse #spider gwen headcanons #gwen stacy headcanons #spiderverse fanart #gwen spiderverse #spider gwen #atsv headcanons #atsv imagines #miles atsv #spider man atsv

[uchihaharlot]

if you're taking requests, could i politely beg you for some Sasuke head *ahem* canons please 😫🥵😮‍💨 sfw or nsfw totally up to you... the way you write these Uchiha fellas is just damn perfect!! 🫶🏻 💐 💗

Nonny!!! You are officially my very first Sasuke-kun request!! I can't believe the day has finally arrived!!! Let's dissect this man to the fullest capacity, shall we?

Politely beg all you want, Sasuke couldn't care less. In fact, you'll get more out of him if you bitch a little. Not much, but enough (lol you clever slut, my gentle mind just got what you meant by 'Sasuke head *ahem* canons).

I also appreciate your praise!! I'm am merely just a vessel, spreading Lord Indra's will. Every single one of these fine ass men deserved better!!!

N/SFW; Sasuke-kun, please come back; bit of a weird AU here; just go with it

Sasuke, as we all know. Was the shadow throughout most of his childhood in the eyes of his father. His older brother took first place in many aspects of his traumatic life. I secretly feel like he wouldn't have liked being the favorite anyways.

He's so emotionally stunted, it's rather sad and embarrassing to him. Aside from the mostly 'brotherly' affection Itachi gave him and friendships of the few around him. Sasuke doesn't take kindly to your admission of want. Or belligerent desire as he calls it.

He doesn't really accept that he's taken an unavoidable liking to you either very well. Pity, really. Ask just about any Uchiha, catching feelings is like having the world's worst cold. So, Sasuke avoids you like the damn plague, but you're secretly on his mind. Which still pisses him off.

Gets so damn jealous if any other Uchiha talks to you. He knows how his family is. Especially his fucking cousin, Shisui. Despite his best efforts, Sasuke will never live this down. The moment you met, he knew you were his. Case in point. (Plus, Shisui only got your attention to prove a point to Sasuke, that his little cousin does want you.)

Dates, are not his style, but goes out of his comfort zone to hopefully garner your affections. The more he thinks of you, the harder it becomes to ignore these whims and feelings. That and your first 'date' wasn't entirely romantic or appropriate. Having his, 'emotional support fox' follow you from a distance was off putting. And creepy.

So here you are, Sasuke standing outside your door. Not capable of coping that his body is acting of its own volition. He's so on and off with his emotions. Can't decide if he is coming or going.

But in all honesty, he's very partial to coming in your mouth. Holy gods, yea. Doesn't even remember how it all led up to your gorgeous lips around the base of this cock as his hot seed slips down the back of your throat. Sasuke was so damn at war with himself that his body was on autopilot making all the decisions.

Could he really complain? Yea, probably. Though he doesn't, seeing you pop off his cock slow and cute as his cum drips a little down your bottom lip is more than enough to acquiesce his bitter mood. Cures it basically.

Makes it all the easier for him to just give in and push you flat onto the couch. A little more rough than intended, but you moan and writhe all the same. Even more so as the warmth of his mouth and tongue lavish you in a particularly primal way. Makes you question his virginal status, but not wanting to ruin the flow and your orgasm on his face. You leave it unsaid. The Uchiha are renowned geniuses, and the rinnegan really is the best at its craft. Ten times more powerful than the sharingan, its a no brainer that he holds all that raw power in the blink of an eye. Which was wielded to make you cum twice over again.

Heavy petting and lip service is what you get for the time being, I don't want top break your heart, but Sasuke is still heavily guarded...until the next time perhaps.

#sasuke uchiha #uchiha sasuke #sasuke headcanons #sasuke #uchiha clan #uchiha headcanons #naruto #sasuke smut

[merrywaanderer]

a rainy night on whickber street

aziraphale + crowley

synopsis: a soft little drabble, inspired by neil's admission that aziraphale doesn't know that crowley now lives in his car

warnings: n/a

word count: 2k

a/n: i've written a happy little fic to heal your hearts (and mine...), so hopefully, this has its intended effect. set during s2, but entirely spoiler free, as far as i can tell :')

⭒

It was raining on Whickber Street. 

Aziraphale was a self-proclaimed enjoyer of rain, finding that some things were simply sweeter against the backdrop of a grey sky, with a soft musical pitter patter for soundtrack — lamps with their warm yellow glow, hot chocolate and reading, listening to Shostakovich records. That sort of thing.

Maybe kisses, too, if Crowley was to be believed. Aziraphale still believed most in dancing at balls. 

Night had fallen earlier as the summer days had dawdled away, and in the dim light of the bookshop, Aziraphale yawned, the gentle notes of ‘The Swan’ from Saint-Saën’s Carnival of the Animals drifting from the gramophone, lulling him to sleep at too early an hour. 

Only a moment later, he yawned again. 

Maybe not so early, then, Aziraphale mused silently, and glanced up at the clock which sat upon his desk. 

His eyes widened behind his spectacles. 

So that was the time! High time to be going to bed, one should think. 

With a soft sigh, he rose from his chair and folded up his glasses, closing the book he had been examining, and settling the spectacles neatly atop the cover, ready for the new day. 

Humming to himself, he tidied the few things he always did before going to bed, switching off a few lamps here and there, all but enough to light his way upstairs, and then went about drawing the blinds for the night. 

He was just closing the last of them, when a strange sight beyond the rain-speckled window caused him to look twice. 

It was Crowley’s Bentley — well now, who else’s would it be? — parked at the kerb, as it often was in the day. But clearly, it was not day, and Crowley’s Bentley should have been parked by his flat. So where was Crowley, if the Bentley was here? It was hardly like him to let his beloved Bentley out of his sight. 

Aziraphale frowned. He resolved to investigate. 

He strode across the bookshop floor, and carefully — hesitantly, in case this was some fiendish trap of Hell’s making — twisted the doorknob and pushed. 

It was raining less now, only sprinkling, but the door creaked as though it were as hesitant as the angel himself to leave the warmth and light of the bookshop. But Aziraphale stepped out onto the pavement, peering into the night toward the Bentley.

He was still holding onto the door when a dash of colour caught his gaze. Red, like a flame behind the light from the bookshop, glinting off the windows of the car.

He frowned again, and let go of the door. He walked slowly toward the Bentley, now surer of himself, though still puzzled by the sight before him. 

But when he reached the car, he was certain of what he saw, albeit not why it was that he was seeing it.

Because there was Crowley, slumped in the passenger’s seat of the Bentley, head tipped forward so that his chin nearly touched his chest, dark glasses nowhere to be seen. 

His mouth hung open just a little, lower lip sticking out in a fashion which might have been pouty, had Crowley not been asleep, all the usual tension gone from between his eyes.

Something clenched in Aziraphale’s chest.

With a little shiver, Azirphale pushed aside whatever had just come over him, and knocked on the window, first quietly, then more insistently, when the latter proved ineffective. 

���Crowley,” he said. “Crowley!”

At last, Crowley started, head hitting the ceiling of the car as Aziraphale winced, before those pretty yellow eyes flicked at last to his angel.

The rigidity which had abruptly pinched Crowley’s shoulders left just as quickly when the demon’s gaze settled on Aziraphale, and he began to roll down the window. 

Aziraphale, knees bent, leant his arms on the windowsill, so as to match Crowley’s present height. 

“Angel,” said Crowley softly, before Aziraphale could speak. “What… mmm. What are you doing here?”

Aziraphale frowned for the third time in a very short span of minutes. “I could ask you the same thing, my dear boy.”

“‘S no crime to sit in one’s car, ‘sit?” Crowley mumbled groggily. 

“But it’s nighttime,” Aziraphale intoned. “You should be at home. Asleep.”

“I am at home,” said Crowley.

Aziraphale felt a warm laugh bubble up to his lips. “No, you’re not, silly. You’re in your car.”

Crowley didn’t laugh. He sighed. “Car’s where I live, now.”

The angel blinked, bemused. “What do you mean? What about your flat?”

Crowley shrugged. “‘S not mine anymore. Shax’s. Part of Hell’s consequences after our little escaping act.”

A sudden hurt gripped Aziraphale again, and his expression softened further, if that was even possible. “Oh, Crowley. Why didn’t you just tell me?”

Crowley didn’t look at him, only uttering a quiet, unintelligible noise which was in no way a word. But his meaning was conveyed all the same — he did not know what to say at this moment, nor, possibly, did he ever. 

“You’re always here,” Aziraphale murmured. “Why not just stay?”

In the silence, Aziraphale heard only his own breath, and the short stutter of Crowley’s, coming in waves. Crowley still would not look at him. 

“I, uh — didn’tknowthatyou’dwantmetostay.”

The confusion resettled on Aziraphale’s brow. “Come again?”

Crowley coughed. “I…” Again. “I didn’t know that you’d, um. Want me to stay.”

The last of his words had once more come out a tangled mess, but Aziraphale caught them all the same.

“Crowley…” Aziraphale reached a hand through the car window, and in the dim lighting of the street, his palm met Crowley’s solid chest sooner than he had anticipated. 

Crowley breathed in sharply, and Aziraphale nearly drew back at his misstep, but whether it was the lateness of the night or his desire to convey to Crowley what he meant, something stayed his hand, and he did not move. But it was at that precise moment that Crowley finally met his gaze, and Aziraphale felt his own breath hitch at their closeness, though a car door separated them still. 

The warmth which had been in his laughter now spread through his chest, and all throughout him, though the warmest part of him was his hand, where it lay on Crowley’s chest. 

“I always want you to stay,” he said softly. 

Crowley’s mouth dropped open again, and unwittingly, Aziraphale’s eyes strayed there.

Crowley, however, did notice. 

“Well. I, um,” Crowley felt the need to clear his throat again, “I’d like to.”

With a small smile, Aziraphale nodded once, decisively. He rose from where he had crouched, and opened Crowley’s door. “Then it is done.”

He stepped back as Crowley left the car to join him on the pavement, then shut the car door once more. 

He began to walk back to the bookshop’s entrance, aware of Crowley following along behind him, when a telltale scuff of shoes indicated that Crowley had stopped. Aziraphale turned. 

“Come along, Crowley. It’s raining, after all.”

Crowley pointed over his shoulder, “It’s just, uh, I forgot my glasses.”

Aziraphale shook his head. “You don’t need them here, darling.”

Crowley’s lips pursed, then fell slack once more. He nodded. 

They made it to the door, and Aziraphale held it open for his oldest friend, slipping inside and locking the thing securely once the two were safely indoors. 

He padded over to the blind he had neglected to close, and swept it shut, faintly aware of Crowley standing awkwardly, unusually silent, in the middle of the room. 

Aziraphale returned to him. “There’s the sofa,” he said meaninglessly, because he had only just now thought of it. “But it always gets so cold down here at night. Why don’t you just come upstairs?”

Before Crowley could say that he didn’t really feel the cold, it occurred to him that here was a better option. 

“After all, why not,” he murmured, and Aziraphale offered him a nod of approval. 

He trailed after his angel switching off the last of the lamps, picking up a single candle, lit in its holder. Aziraphale took the first of the many steps up the spiral staircase, then turned and extended his hand to Crowley, that small, familiar smile lighting his face more than any candle could have dreamt to replicate. 

Crowley slipped his hand into Azriaphale’s, his long, cold fingers softening in the surrounding warmth of the angel’s hand. 

And thus they made their ascent of the stairs, Crowley fighting the appearance of his own tiny smile. But there was no reason to fight, and so he let it be, let it take him over. Who was he, after all, to deny himself so small a taste of paradise?

At the top of the stairs they soon came to the room in which Aziraphale sometimes slept. Crowley himself found his desire for sleep infrequent, preferring to roam about the silent Earth in the quiet night hours. But this night, for whatever reason, was set apart from the others, and had been from the start. 

Aziraphale’s hand fell from Crowley’s as he went to set the candle upon his bedside table. Crowley, suddenly drawn by an insatiable curiosity to the bookshelves that prevailed even in Aziraphale’s bedroom, strode toward the books, running his fingers along the spines. These books seemed unlike the ones Aziraphale kept downstairs at the heart of the shop. On the contrary, it seemed that these books were where Aziraphale kept his heart; the spines of these volumes were decorated in his neat, tightly-lettered script, proclaiming dates to those who cared to read them. Though, Crowley supposed (or maybe hoped), no one but him had been brought here to see them. 

He tipped one carefully down from the shelf, and it opened in his hands, the spine oddly worn as though the book had been opened — read, again and again — many times. 

He was surprised to find his name, amongst all the words, more often than anything else. 

“You keep diaries — ” he began, at the same moment as Aziraphale said, 

“Don’t —”

He turned, shutting the book abruptly, and found Aziraphale by the bed, now in a long, white cotton shirt which was more of a gown, looking more angelic than ever. He looked ever so much as he had done the day Crowley had met him, with all the stars of creation in those eyes of his.

“Oh,” was all Crowley managed. Aziraphale, for some reason, blushed. 

Yet he seemed to recover quickly enough. “Come to bed, Crowley.”

Crowley all but forgot the book he had been holding, and only just caught and replaced it on the shelf before it fell to the floor. 

He approached Aziraphale slowly, as one does a frightened animal, though there was nothing of that sort in Aziraphale’s soft face. The rain pattered softly against the windows.

Crowley took off his jacket, and hung it over the low bedpost. With a brief glance at Aziraphale across the bed, he sat, and removed his shoes, and the thin silver scarf which was always around his neck. He discarded his trousers in the same pile, and turned to find Aziraphale with his legs already tucked under the covers, cradling the candle with a patient expression. 

Crowley mirrored Aziraphale’s attitude, and Aziraphale, seeing this, blew out the candle, and set it aside. 

In the darkness, Crowley lay down, and by the rustling of the sheets, heard Aziraphale do the same. He turned in his direction. 

“So,” he said quietly, “what now?” 

He thought Aziraphale shuffled closer. 

“Same as always,” said the angel. “We stay together.”

Then, to Crowley’s surprise, Aziraphale nestled his cheek against Crowley’s chest, and wrapped his lovely arms around Crowley’s waist. 

Another soft Oh fell from Crowley’s mouth, and Aziraphale sighed against his chest. Crowley’s arms, of their own accord, as if they knew nothing more natural, came up to draw Aziraphale closer, and Aziraphale’s warmth bled into his skin, and became his own. He felt suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling of great honour, because Aziraphale had chosen him, of all creatures, to hold in his arms.

“Good night, Crowley,” mumbled, already half asleep. 

“Good night, angel,” sighed — smitten, blissful, besotted. 

The rain continued to fall over Whickber Street, though angel and demon, wrapped up in one another, heeded it not.

⭒

good omens taglist: @killerqueen-ofwillowgreen

send me an ask to be added to my taglist! and please let me know what fandoms you’d like to be tagged for <3

#aziraphale #crowley #aziraphale x crowley #aziraphale + crowley #aziraphale and crowley #aziracrow #good omens #good omens fic #fic #tina’s writing