#ive been looking for this pirates reference for months to make this

[rorywritesjunk]

(one day I'll post non-Sunny and Buggy stuff but right now isn't that day. Death mentioned, mourning, things like that. I needed to throw something in here that wasn't just fluff. I'll write the next part soon 😌 eventually I'll write when they have their first kiss)

pt i + pt ii + pt iii + pt iv + pt v + pt vi + pt vii + pt viii + pt ix + pt x + pt xi + pt xii

Sunny tapped her pencil against the blank page of her notebook. She didn't know what to write apart from little scribbles of outfit ideas for Buggy, what she thought his future jolly roger would look like, little things like that. Should she write about meeting Shanks and Thistle? Remembering how he was when Sunny first met him, how upset and angry he was, maybe he wouldn't want to know.

Instead she wrote down some thoughts: that she missed Buggy, wished she could see him more often, things like that. She wrote about how blue the water looked the other day, that it reminded her of the color of his hair. She thought his hair was so pretty beautiful. Wondered if he'd let her braid some flowers into it.

Oh, maybe that was a little... Much.

Sunny really didn't want to cross too much out in the journal. This was meant for her and Buggy to share what they had been up to when letters weren't an option. Would he get weirded out if she said stuff like this? Was this okay?

Maybe nighttime wasn't the best time to think about this. With a sigh, she closed the journal and tucked it under her pillow before turning out the light.

She hoped he was okay.

~

It had been four months since she last saw Buggy.

When one of Miss Pins' regulars came in, needing work on his jacket to get some holes fixed, Sunny heard why.

The regular talked about a pirate ship being attacked by a dangerous crew, one that enjoyed slaughtering others and causing destruction. They didn't care who they were attacking. They just enjoyed it.

Sunny listened as he described the destruction. There were no survivors left. The ship was left to float with the bodies of the crew remaining behind, to rot in the sun. The jolly roger was the only thing to survive: a skull wearing a large hat with a feather sticking out of it. Miss Pins glanced over at Sunny when the regular finished telling the tale before leaving the shop.

"You do know what ship he was referring to, don't you?" Her boss asked. Sunny shook her head. "That was the ship your friend had been on."

"What?" Sunny frowned. No, that couldn't be right. It could have been a mistake. "I don't... I don't think it is, Miss Pins."

"His captain has been a client of mine for years." Miss Pins continued as she closed her ledger. "That was his ship that was attacked."

It didn't make sense to Sunny. Why would the ship be attacked? Buggy had to be fine. He was going to walk through that door with his friendly captain and everything would be fine. She looked between the door and her boss, clenching her fists as she shook her head.

"I don't believe it."

"Sunny, that boy is dead." Miss Pins told her. "You heard that man. There were no survivors."

"How do we know?!" Sunny snapped, surprising her boss. The teen never spoke to her like that. "Well?! M-Maybe that man attacked the ship, you know? Or maybe it was the wrong ship! You know, Buggy, he-he could have changed crews or something before it happened! He's too stubborn to die like that!"

"Sunny."

"He's not dead!" Sunny insisted, glaring at her boss, tears forming in her eyes. "Buggy's made it this far, he won't be killed by some awful pirate crew!"

Her boss crossed her arms, fixing the teen with a look. Sunny sniffed, rubbing her nose on her sleeve as she tried to not cry. Buggy couldn't have been killed like that. She couldn't accept that.

"Take the day off and clear your head." Her boss told her, pointing to the door. "Don't come back until dinner."

"I'm fine! Why are you kicking me out?!" Sunny demanded, sniffling as tears rolled down her cheeks. "Buggy's not dead, okay? I refuse to believe it!"

"Sunny." Miss Pins kept pointing to the door. "Now."

Glaring at her boss, Sunny took a deep breath and turned, storming to the door. She threw it open and stepped out, making sure to slam it shut behind her.

Buggy was not dead. It didn't make sense to her.

~

She came back for dinner, barely ate anything, then headed to bed without a word to the others. Word got around of the attack and Sunny heard bits of it as she walked around town. Some said there were survivors, some said no one was alive. There was mention that the ship had been completely destroyed, sunk to the bottom of the sea, while someone claimed they saw it sailing away.

It was hard to accept Buggy could be gone. Would Shanks and Thistle find out? If Sunny met them again, would she have to tell them the news?

It wasn't fair.

She rubbed her eyes and grabbed the journal, flipping through it. There were little doodles Buggy did last time they saw each other: a lion, a flower, the sun. She didn't want to lose those.

Was it dumb to be this sad? They really didn't know each other that well, but she did like him. A lot. She wanted to be with him when he had his own ship, be a part of his crew, spend more time with him.

Sunny sniffed again and picked up her pencil, staring at the blank page. Maybe she just needed to write out how she was feeling. Maybe that could help process the loss.

#mini fic #buggy's older sister au #buggy the clown #buggy the clown x oc #buggy x oc #sunny x buggy

[bluezey]

#ive been looking for this pirates reference for months to make this #pixar luca #disney pirates of the Caribbean

[css1992]

Guilty Pleasure

[Porn AU]

Summary: Peter and Beck used to be a power couple in the porn industry, but after Beck dumps him, Peter is forced to start over. With no money, no family and nowhere to go, he doesn’t have much choice other than to keep doing porn, so he joins Just4Fans to get back on his feet and then one day he gets a very generous tip from someone under the username of YKWIM.

Warnings: 18+, explicit, references to past non-con/rape (not between main pairing, not explicit), daddy kink, Peter in lingerie, references to gaslighting and abusive relationship (not between main pairing, not explicit). The warnings are for the story as whole, not for this chapter specifically. I’ll add more in the future, if needed.

Read on AO3

Part I / Part II / Part III / Part IV / Part V / Part VI / Part VII / Part VIII / Part IX / Part X /  Part XI / Epilogue

-x-

“He can’t do this!” Ned slammed his hands down on the counter between them, as Peter took a swig of the cheap wine he bought with the last ten bucks he had in his wallet. “He isn’t even in all of the videos, at least half of the money is rightfully yours!” He kept going, stating the obvious, but Peter just sighed and shrugged.

“I’m not disagreeing with you, Ned, I’m just relaying what he told me: he’s not gonna give me anything. It’s his channel, his equipment, the money from the subscriptions goes straight to his bank account, so it’s his. It’s all his. His words, by the way.” He took another swig of wine straight from the bottle. He had been drinking from a small glass Ned offered him – he wasn’t a pirate – but it soon proved to be too small to quench his pain, so. Yeah. Pirate style it was.

“You have to sue his ass, Peter, he can’t get away with this,” MJ intervened. She was sitting next to him on a stool by the kitchen counter, so he turned to look at her with a deep frown on his face.

“Did you not hear me saying I just spent my last ten dollars on this bottle of wine? I have, like, twenty four cents left in my pocket. And that’s it. I can’t hire a lawyer, I can’t even feed myself right now!” He raised his voice a little, but quickly got himself back under control and apologized. His friends were not to blame for his predicament – they did try to warn him Beck was bad news, he didn’t want to listen. “And you know what? I don’t give a fuck. He can choke on all of it if he wants, the videos, the money, the subscribers, I don’t fucking care.” It wasn’t true, of course. Well, partially. He really didn’t care about the money, videos, subscribers, etc, but he cared about Beck. He would have given everything else up if it meant he could keep him.

Which was stupid of him, of course. But he certainly wasn’t winning any awards for being a great decision maker.

“It’s still not fair. I mean, I knew that guy was sleazy, but you’d think he’d have the decency to at least give you something, you know? You’ve been together for three years, he’s been making money off your ass for almost as long. How could he just fucking kick you out and not give you a single dime? After all the money you’ve made for him? It’s fucking sick, that guy is fucking psychopath if you ask me.” MJ’s face was turning red from anger, which made Peter smile a little. It felt good to know he was loved by someone, even if he hadn’t been the best friend to them for the past few years.

The thought made him close his eyes for a second, guilt creeping over him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d called either of them – maybe on Ned’s birthday, almost two months earlier. They used to be inseparable, the three of them; the three musketeers, as corny and lame as it sounded. For years, those two were the only family he knew, but when Beck came into his life, everything changed.

Stupid fucking Beck.

Peter used to think of him as his own personal super-hero – it did feel like he had come to save him, after all. They met when he was seventeen, he had been living in foster homes for almost seven years by then, after Ben and May passed away. At the time, he was with his fifth family, and there were so many children in that house, so many of them came and went, that their foster parents didn’t really keep tabs most of the time. It was easy to sneak out, and Peter did, often.

He met Beck on one of his night walks – and their first meeting should have raised all kinds of red flags, but for whatever reason, it didn’t. Beck slowed the car next to him, rolled down the window and asked how much Peter charged for a blowjob. Just like that. The teen gasped at first, but when he looked around for a moment, he realized he wasn’t in the most family friendly neighborhood. There were, in fact, some men and women around him who definitely looked like they were there for that, but Peter was in sweats, for crying out loud, and he definitely looked his age – or even younger than that.

His wide eyes must have given him away, because the older man quickly apologized and showed him a charming, white smile. He made up some excuse about mistaking him for someone else and the boy said it was ok. He was going to keep walking when Beck asked what his name was. Then how old he was. Then where he was going, where he ha come from.

Looking back, Peter knew he should have run. He should have left, because there was no excuse for an adult man like him to keep asking a teenager so many questions right after he basically offered him money to suck his dick. But that Peter, that 17-year-old boy, was still a bit too naive. To have such a handsome man showing interest in him – his kind, blue eyes smiling at him, warm and safe – was inebriating. He actually looked at him. And cared. At least Peter thought he did at the time. And he was so lonely back then, even that little bit of attention meant the world to him.

He should have run, but he stayed. Should have run, but got in his car. Should have run, but ended up giving him a clumsy hand job in the backseat, after just a few sweet promises whispered in his eager ears. Beck was so good with words, he could have convinced Peter to jump off a bridge that very same night if he wanted.  

They exchanged phone numbers. For weeks, they texted and called each other, until they could  meet again. By then, he was smitten. At twenty, he could see how innocent he had been, how trusting and open he was with a complete stranger. A 32 year-old stranger, at that. Ned and MJ, his only friends from school, warned him that it wasn’t okay. That it was weird for a man his age to be interested in a teenage boy, but Peter said they were wrong. He said he wasn’t just a regular kid, he had been through stuff they could only imagine. He was mature and experienced, and Beck could see that, which was why he liked him.

Looking back now, it was embarrassing how wrong he was. Beck was an illusionist. Sad thing was everyone could see the trapdoor but him.

“So what are you gonna do now?” MJ asked, fishing another bottle of wine from under the counter and placing it in front of Peter, who almost cried in gratitude.

“You mean besides crying myself to sleep for the next few months?” He wasn’t really joking. The only reason he wasn’t crying right at that moment was because he had spent almost three hours bawling his eyes out on a park bench close to their – well, Beck’s – apartment, hoping against hope that Beck would reconsider and come after him. When it became clear it wasn’t going to happen, he headed to the only place he knew he could find refuge – even if he didn’t deserve it.

“Yeah, besides that, obviously.” She opened the wine bottle and before he could take it and drink straight from it, she poured three glasses and Peter sighed, defeated.

“I have no idea.” He answered, only slightly surprised that he actually meant it. He had absolutely no clue what to do. For three years, he hadn’t had to worry about money – or anything, really. Beck took care of everything and he just assumed it would always be like that. That he would always have him by his side to take care of him.

He rubbed his eyes, taking a deep breath.

“Are you going to keep doing porn?” Ned asked, a worried expression on his face. Peter remembered he hated the idea when Beck first suggested it, as soon as he turned eighteen.

People are gonna lose it, Beck said. A pretty little twink and a hot daddy? We’re going to be a hit.

And they were. Their first videos blew up quickly, people were either disgusted by the thought of them together – because of the age gap – or completely enthralled. The haters helped them get more views, and Peter soon learned that there really was no such thing as bad publicity. Beck promoted their videos on twitter, where they accumulated thousands of followers. Peter remembered that, back then, many people sent him worried messages, saying he was too young, that Beck was a predator, that he was taking advantage of him.

In retrospect, they might have been right, after all.

He wasn’t too sure about doing porn when they first started, he knew once they released the first video, there was no going back, there was no way they could ever take it down – the internet was forever. Nothing was ever truly deleted. He wanted to be a dad someday, what if his children ever saw those videos in the future? What would have Ben and May thought? What about his parents?

None of this matters, honey, Beck assured him. These kids don’t even exist yet, don’t worry about them. And your relatives, well… They’re gone, sweetie. You can’t really disappoint them anymore.

So Peter did it. And he was terrified at first, he felt so exposed, people all over the world could see him in his most vulnerable moments, all of him, in every position Beck managed to put him in, in any outfit he thought the public might like, in any setting he thought might bring in more viewers, more subscribers, more money.

Soon, just the two of them weren’t enough. Their viewers wanted to see Peter with other people – other daddies –  and Beck saw another opportunity to increase his profit. Peter was strongly against the idea at first, it felt too much like prostitution, which was where he wanted to draw the line, but, again, Beck sweet-talked him into it.

It’s nothing like prostitution, honey, he said. I’ll be there the whole time, I’ll be the one filming and directing, I’ll be the one paying the other actors, all the profits are ours. How is that anything like prostitution? It’s just like what we’ve been doing so far.

So not only there were a bunch of videos of him and Beck out there in the world, there were also lots of videos of him with other men, some of whom were old enough to be his actual dad. There was even one video in particular that he was specially embarrassed by – and sadly enough, that was the most viewed one so far. It was fucking humiliating.

At some point, Peter should have realized it became all about money for Beck – and maybe it had been like that all along, he just hadn’t noticed before. Over the last few months of their relationship, they never had sex just for fun, just for the hell of it. There were always cameras, and lights, and roles to play. Beck never said he loved him anymore. Barely touched him. Barely kissed him. He should have seen it coming. He had been too blind, or just… Didn’t want to see what was happening right before his eyes. He ignored all the signs. The voice in the back of his head telling him something was off.

But anyway, porn. Could he still do it?

“I don’t know,” he answered, finally. He looked at his best friends and sighed with a shrug. “To be honest, it was never something I enjoyed, and I don’t know if I could ever do it without him somehow involved, you know? I did it with him because I felt… Safe? I don’t want to get involved in the actual porn industry, I’ve heard some pretty fucked up stories.” Peter had heard horror stories about other boys in the industry, and even though his own story was no fairy tale, there was nothing so bad that it couldn’t get worse.

“How about Just4Fans?” MJ asked and both Peter and Ned turned to look at her in shock. “What? You guys were pretty popular, right? You won awards and shit, so there must be at least a few hundred people out there who would pay money to see some dirty pictures of you, maybe some short videos. That way you won’t need to go into professional porn and you wouldn’t need a partner, but you could still make decent money. And fast.”

Well, it actually made sense. It wasn’t like there weren’t hundreds of videos of him being fucked raw all over the internet, anyway. A few dirty pictures couldn’t hurt. And besides, it didn’t need to be forever, just until he figured something out.

“That’s… actually not a bad idea,” he conceded, drinking the last of the wine in his glass. MJ sympathetically filled it up again and he mumbled his thanks.

“What do you think he will do now?” Ned asked carefully, and Peter shrugged for what felt like the hundredth time. There was so much he didn’t know.

“Probably keep shooting videos with his new boy-toy.” He managed to say it with a steady voice, but his eyes burned. He still couldn’t believe how… replaceable Beck thought he was.

When he noticed them interacting online a few months earlier, before the boy was even eighteen, Peter was alarmed, but when he confronted the older man about it, he said he was crazy and seeing things, picking up fights for no reason. He always twisted things in a way that, somehow, Peter was the one apologizing to him in the end.

Months later, just weeks after the kid turned eighteen, there he was – homeless, penniless and lost – meanwhile the other guy was probably getting comfortable in his bed. If Peter didn’t hate the kid, he would pity him. In a few years, he would probably meet the same fate.

“Do you think he would take the videos down if you asked?” Ned asked, and Peter scoffed.

“Yeah, right, those videos will still make him a lot of money monthly, he’d never delete them.” And Peter would have to live with the fact that he would always be just one google search away from complete humiliation and exposure. If he ever tried to get a serious job, those videos would stand in the way. If he ever managed to meet somebody decent and good, those videos would be a testament to what sort of person he was in the past. Fuck, some of them were really fucked up.

“So… Should we create fake twitter accounts to trash talk his short dick or what?” MJ was already grabbing her phone and Peter laughed halfheartedly, shaking his head.

“He’s not worth it. Karma will take care of him, I’m sure.” He drank the last of his wine and whimpered sadly. “So… Can I crash with you guys for a few days? I promise I’m not gonna overstay my welcome! I’ll be out of your hair as soon as the Just4Fans thing works out.”

“Of course you can, nerd, stay as long as you need. We’ve got your back, c’mon.” MJ got up from her stool and gestured for him to do the same. “Do you mind taking the couch?” She asked as she headed to her bedroom in the tiny apartment.

“Not at all,” he answered with a sigh of relief, then went to grab his suitcase by the door. Three years together and that was all he had to show for it. A single suitcase with a few changes of clothes, after being kicked out of the house on a cold February night. His eyes burned but he took a deep breath, blinking them rapidly to avoid the tears.  

“Then make yourself at home. Our casa es su casa.” MJ placed a pillow on the couch and handed him a thick, warm blanket.

“We’ll figure something out, okay?” Ned clasped him on the shoulder with a gentle smile on his face.

“Okay.” He sighed, feeling like a weight had been lifted off his crushed chest.

He waited for his friends to go into their respective rooms, waited to hear their quiet snores, before he allowed the tears to run freely down his face, replaying everything Beck said to him when he kicked him out.

Before he knew it, he was a sobbing a little, so he buried his face in the pillow to muffle the noise, as he tried to convince himself that things were going to be okay, that he was going to be okay. But at that moment, that was hard to believe.

#starker #peter parker x tony stark

[cienie-isengardu]

The Development of Law and Zoro relationship: Wano, ...and Law Is Not Happy About That

<Part I: Before Meeting>> <<Part II: Sabaody Archipelago, The First Meeting>> <<Part III: Punk Hazard: The Alliance (A)__(B)>>  <<Part IV: Dressrosa, The Breaking Point (The Plan Failed)__ (Saving Law)__(Protecting Law)__ (Birdcage, Pica and Doflamingo)__ (Aftermath)>> <<Part V: Zou, The Kindred Spirits (Traveling Together)__(Searching for Nakama)__ (Reunion)__ (Ninja-Pirate-Mink-Samurai Alliance)__(The Last Moments before War)>>  Part VI: Wano, Against Emperors (The Untold Journey)__(Luffy & Zoro Means Troubles…)__(…and Law Is Not Happy About That)

The fight between Law and Hawkins was stopped; Law didn’t manage to eliminate the enemy nor prevent information leakage about alliance presence in Wano. He almost was run over by a speeding cart with stolen food (another “crime” against Orochi & Kaido, which Straw Hats committed in his absence). No wonder why Law was so pissed of at Zoro (chapter 918):

➽ Up to this point, Law never have been so openly angry at Roronoa, nor aggressive toward the other man. Now, Law vented all frustration and anger while Zoro kept silent… and maybe felt some embarrassment(?) about Trafalgar’s unusual outburst, considering bubble speech with three dots and “sweat drop” expressing Zoro’s reaction in a more visible way.

➽ Another interesting detail is how calmly Zoro endured Law’s angry rant. He simply let the other man scream at him, and even tolerated grabbing his kimono and invading his personal space. When it comes to scolding, Zoro reacts differently, depending on the seriousness of the situation and who is scolding him. He either fights back in such situations or doesn’t respond to angry rants and taunts. For example, if Sanji started screaming and pointing his faults, Zoro most likely wouldn’t be so tolerable because those two like to antagonize each other. Seems like Roronoa opted for the calm approach with Law. Maybe Zoro knew that Law was right and his anger was justified. Maybe he simply figured it will be better if Law got all the anger and stress out of him. Or maybe he was just taken by surprise by the sudden outburst? 

↪ In all fairness, I think he perfectly knew what Law’s reaction will be, especially considering this ambiguous frame:

At first it seems like Zoro talked about Kinemon, what honestly would make perfect sense. He already mentioned Kinemon when repeated samurai’s warning to Luffy but couldn’t really say his name in front of just met Kiku. At the same time, he could also talk about Law, because at this point he was familiar enough with the man to predict his angry reaction. Law seems to be prone to stress and he likes planning everything ahead and Zoro not sticking to plan (letting Luffy smash enemy) would definitely earn Law’s ire. Righteous so. Then what was the point of arguing with Trafalgar? Even more, when the man, despite stress and rage, doesn't hold on such emotions for too long. Which really seems like the best way to deal with a pissed off Heart Captain was just let him scream until he cooled down and adapted to the new situation.

➽ Because Zoro did not stop Luffy as he should - as Law hoped he would - Trafalgar was blaming Zoro for the whole situation, even though Luffy was as much guilty, charging into unknown without care for consequences. Zoro not once tried to excuse himself or Luffy, did nothing to stop Law’s outburst nor remind Law he wasn’t his captain (superior) thus he wasn’t obligated to listen. He simply let Law scream and blame him for the mess.

Anime expended this moment by actually giving Zoro a chance to explain to Law why he screwed so badly. Which literally was “I met Luffy” what immediately refocused Trafalgar’s anger from Zoro to solely Luffy:

This extended scene fits well with already existing Law’s personal experience from Dressrosa - the usually stoic and reliable Zoro will throw away rational thinking in the favor of Luffy’s whim and craziness. Monkey D. Luffy has that kind of effect on Roronoa.

Also, another funny thing anime did with that scene is when Law was scolding his fellow Supernova, Zoro was maintaining eye contact.

But when he was saying “sorry”, he was clearly looking to his left, instead at Law. Which makes the apology feeling insincere. Zoro wasn’t really that sorry about the mess but he said it, most likely to placate angry (stressed??) Law. Seems like Roronoa is bad at lying; not on Luffy’s level of bad, but still not really into telling lies.

Law most likely could tell Pirate Hunter wasn’t sorry at all, which explains grabbing Zoro’s kimono and screaming more at the other man’s face.

➽ Zoro’s patience and lack of response makes an interesting contrast to Law’s unusual aggressiveness. We may only wonder if Roronoa already had some experiences with such an outburst from the other Supernova. Once again, there is little to no information how their relationship was affected by the journey and situation in Wano, nor why Zoro was so indifferent while Law’s level of stress so high.

➽ Manga and anime versions of the scene give us valuable informations. One: Law was aware that Zoro promised to not cause trouble, like not fighting with samurais and Kaido’s men. That of course was a rational thing to ask of Zoro, because the man is too bloodthirsty for his own good and is always up for a good fight. The manga translation makes it look like Law personally witnessed Pirate Hunter swearing to not cause any trouble. Yet Law’s screaming sounds a bit confusing. On one hand, he knew Zoro A) became a wanted man and B) was supposed to be in Flower Capital. So it seems Law was informed about Zoro’s mission of pretending to be ronin. Whatever Kinemon initiated him from the start or after the wanted poster was made public, Law understood the danger of drawing the enemy's attention to the alliance. Which may be the reason why he was so mad at Zoro and referred to him by surname or called in his mind an idiot. On another, asking Zoro - a wanted man - why didn’t he stay in capital sounds, well, kinda stupid (and interestingly, the additional symbol of irritation was added to this specific question / bubble). Roronoa killed in broad daylight an important person (magistrate), and either killed or injured the magistrate's samurais, so it is not like Zoro could wander through the capital or any city without causing more problems. Of course, wandering directless did not help the alliance at all but it was still the best outcome. As a wanted man, Zoro could either stay in capitol and draw enemy’s attention to himself - and in result, endanger Franky, Robin and Usopp’s missions and even alliance’s presence in the Wano or wander through the wasteland in which was easier avoid unnecessary troubles and, in case of fight, hide dead bodies without increasing the vigilance of Beast Pirates or Orochi’s samurais. As a wanted man, Roronoa wasn’t really in position to come back to Kinemon because of possible pursuit - though he managed to wander into Kuri region, but that is more lack of direction sense than anything intentional, I guess. Unless this is why Law was the most angry? That Zoro came too close to their main secret base of operation? Anyway, Trafalgar for sure did not hold back and vented all his anger and frustration at still passive Zoro.

Soon, the group made it into Okobore Town and gave the stolen food to starving locals while Luffy brought the fresh water with himself. Straw Hat told the happy people “I’m Luffytaro! If anyone asks, you tell ‘em my name!” (chapter 918). For the first time Luffy also noticed Law - now much calmer than a moment ago. Law made clear, that what Luffy and Zoro did was ultimately an act of rebellion against Wano (Orochi and Kaido) to which Luffy responded he was “repaying the favor” to Tama, who fed him, once again getting into additional trouble just because someone gave him free food. The serious note disappeared right away, when Luffy started screaming at the starving people to not eat all meat without him:

➽ The meeting between Luffy and Law is drastically different from meeting of Law and Zoro. Like was mentioned, Trafalgar didn’t show any anger or frustration, so either screaming at Zoro calmed him down or he already gave up trying to reason with Monkey D. Luffy. Taking into account all previous adventures from Punk Hazard to Zou, what in universe happened through what? One or two months at best? Law’s resignation makes sense. Luffy wouldn’t care nor bother to apologize for the pulled stunt, while Zoro, well, didn’t care much either, but at least didn’t try to argue back.

➽ Once the serious talk was done and Luffy literally jumped after the meat, Zoro and Law shared the same reaction (visualed by bubble speech with three dots, though the “sweat drop” symbolising embarrassment(?) is only on Zoro’s part). Despite the previous intense moment, both men were again on good terms and even in agreement toward Luffy’s idiotic/childish behaviour.

The next time we see Zoro, Law and Luffy, Trafalgar kept his distance from everyone else. He stood the closest to Luffy yet with back turned to him. Was that sort of ostentatious expression of dissatisfaction or did he keep watch in case of an enemy's attack, hard to tell.

Luffy loudly declared his intention about Wano to Tama (“By the time we leave this country, it’ll be a place where you can eat as much as you want, every single day!!!”). With a sigh, Zoro noted how because of Luffy’s action, the enemy will come after them for real. Law did not take such a comment from Zoro kindly, because the man ignored(?) his own part in the mess.

➽ Surprisingly, Law still was angry more at Zoro than Luffy, who was the main culprit. But it may be just Zoro’s uncaring attitude that provokes Law so much.

➽ Despite the still fresh feeling of irritation, Law decided to focus at the best course of action - moving on to safest place. In this case, to the ruins of Oden’s Castle, in which Kinemon and the rest of the alliance stayed in hiding. 

The group said goodbye to Tama who was taken to home by Horselina (a former enemy-turned-into-her-loyal-servant thanks to Tama’s devil fruit powers). Like always, Law kept his distance from others (in manga on one frame, he kept close to Zoro, on another, to Luffy). In anime, between sharing food and saying goodbye to Tama, Trafalgar was shown usually close to Zoro, similar like he did on Zou:

At this point, there is something to ponder a bit about Law and his (lack of) interaction with people. Like in the scene above, does Law keep close to Zoro (or Luffy) because of their bond (trust?) alone or is that partially due to his minimal social skills? As in, he keeps close to people he at least knows and doesn’t make contact with strangers unless it’s necessary. Zoro and Law both have some asocial traits (seen especially in their tendency to isolating themselves from too large group), but in contrast, Zoro and Luffy were shown through the Wano arc to interact and even befriend the local people while Trafalgar was interacting only with his crew, Straw Hats, samurai group (extended of Shinobu person) - the people he already knew for some time. Law isn’t going out his way to meet new people (like Luffy) nor bonds with accidentally met people (like Zoro with Tonoyasu). It seems in Law’s nature to avoid interaction with strangers as much as possible. Which makes me wonder if that comes simply from his introverted nature, general distrust for people or maybe even some social awkwardness created by childhood trauma and growing up in criminal organisation (Donquixote Pirates)? Because Law’s way to interact with people he just met is either ignore them (seen above) or act in cool manners around them, like in Punk Hazard with Straw Hats…  but frankly, Straw Hats freaked him there on so many levels it really makes Law looks like social interaction is not his thing. 

This reflection actually comes close to another detail. Namely, Law’s general feeling about Straw Hats helping starved people. Because the locals were truly happy and expresses that just before the departure of Three Supernovas (chapter 919):

Law has strong opinions about pirates, it seems. And it comes from a man that admitted he doesn't like to kill but yeah, doing nice things for (poor) people makes him sick. Was he so annoyed by the cheering people, or did he simply didn’t know how to react to such situation so he went with a grumpy approach?

Law expressed a lot emotions; the outbursts of anger departs from the image of stoic captain but at the same it makes me think that Law must feel okay around Zoro to be so open about his frustration (and lack of control over situation?). At the same time, Zoro let him take out all anger on him without a word. But the most important thing, no matter how much Zoro’s screwed up, no matter how much Law’s screamed and accused and was unhappy about, it didn’t change their already estabilished relationship. Once the situation calmed down, Law again kept close to Zoro and shared the same opinion about Luffy’s antics and in general they were okay in each company. 

Next part: Separated Again

#one piece #The development of Law’s relationship with Zoro #roronoa zoro #trafalgar law #wano arc #law & zoro #zoro & law #i loved so much this chapters #all law's frustration and anger #and zoro's calmness about the whole situation #my analysis

[his-kiss-the-riot-starts]

Hi!! :D For the ask game:

3. 4. 5. 8. 9. 11. 15. 16. 18.

I wanna do more, but I think I've done too much already, so any others you're free to answer! :D (also- you don't have to do all of the ones I asked ofc)

Last question: I've always been curious how people read "ofc" :] (cuz I think it means "of course", but I've seen people say it means other things and now I'm confused @-@)

Thank u for sending this ask!! It was rlly fun to answer all these questions (n nu nu, u didn’t send/ask too much! Heck, I’d love to answer more!! So feel free to send more wi this!) but I’m srry for taking so long to answer it! So yee! Thank u!

3: Okee this is a happy rant bc yeah!! Okee okee so like today I dyed my hair a very very pretty color n it’s my fav color n it’s bright pink!!!! Mixed with some streaks of violet!! I dyed the ends of mah hair it and it looks so nice and it’s bright pink and I love it for once I’m loving getting attention bc yes!! Look!! At!! It!! It’s gorgeous!!!! I’m excited to go out and I’m feeling more sociable than ever n I look so nice n I’m confident n I’m feeling happy bc I was feeling sad and then I looked down and I went :00 that’s right!! I got pink hair!!! Nothing can hurt me now!!!!! I’ve wanted pink hair since I was small and I never thought it was gonna happen and now it did and I get to keep it like this for a month?!!! I had just gotten over a big part of like internalised stuff about like how I shouldn’t be feminine bc I’m a boy n stuff for a long time before but now I’m better bout it bc I took the risk and I got pink hair which is like fem ig and I look bloody gorgeous and so what if I’m fem n boy I don’t give a fuck anymore bc all I know is that I look fricking epic!!!! I only dyed the ends but it’s just enough dye for me not to feel self conscious but also rlly confident like!! :D yeah!! I got pink hair!!!! My fav color!!! I’ve gotten lots of compliments about it which I like lots n so now I feel epic bc PINK HAIR!!!!

4: hm.. ive given this one quite a particular amount of thought before (I’m an hp fan) and I think it’s perfectly alright to enjoy the art, as long as you don’t end up supporting/giving money to the artist by doing so. Like, it’s cool to be interested, pirate stuff, read fanfic and support fanart, but if you directly buy from the main artist in question (in hp’s case, Jk.R*wling) then your directly supporting them. And that’s not okay. So yeah, in a way I think it’s okay, as long as your actions don’t lead to helping the artist.

5. 7!! This one is my main one, but I have a art-reblog-n-general-tips blog (@ smol-artblog)! A positivity blog (@alittlebitopositivity) a poetry blog (@theforgottenblueghost) a Janus stan blog (@itsrazzledazzleboi) a headcanon and imagines blog that I help mod (@ code-my-future) and random experimental blog to test out themes n stuff (@dungeons-and-more-dragons)!!

8. 3365- XD I know I know- it’s a lot-

9. Uhh I don’t rlly have one? I usually just buy clothes that I just generally think look cool, I don’t ever pay much attention to the brand ngl!

11. Uh this took a while for me to write, honestly bc I couldn’t think of any? I don’t have much “talent” and much less “unusual” talent! But ig I can lie seriously well (like. Very well.) and I can guess what people are gonna do/say/think/idk real good and quick!!! Idk if that makes any sense or sounds cocky so maybe I’m just a really good guesser and am right all the time wi it??? Hehe I like joking that I got a +5 on insight checks bc of it! (If u don’t get that joke it is fine tis a dnd reference!!)

15. “Is your hair natural?”

Oop two questions that I answered with hair related smth, uh sry bout that!! I didn’t realise! But anyways I get asked this basically whenever I meet someone new/go out. Because I got curly hair, n it’s not very common where I live! (In fact, I only know around 2 people in my school with it too, and my school is quite big!) I don’t blame anyone of course!! It’s just regular curiosity! But the amount of times I get asked this is crazy- I get asked this so much

16. Ooo!! Tattoos!! Aa! I know exactly how to answer this!! Ive wanted tattoos ever since I was little, n I want multiple!! But since the question didnt specify for multiple, I think it’s implying I need to pick just one! I’d pick an amazing big dragon that goes around the back of my shoulder n curling up onto my arm!! I think that would look so so cool!! It’d look so realistic but I want it to be black n white bc aesthetic✨n also that means I get to manually color it in with as many different colors as I want and as many times as I want!! Oo and other people/friends can color it too!! Whichever color they want!! So then I can look at thee tattoo and go! Yeah!! They colored that! They rlly made the dragon come to life!! Or if the color had gone away, I would think that yeah!! They colored it once!! And it was beautiful! But now I got a clean slate to work on! Just like every new day!! N I think that’s really cool!!!

18. Okee so I know this isn’t a musician per say bUT

MCR MCR MCR MCR MCR MCR MCR MCR MCR MCR MCR MCR MCR MCR MCR MCR MCR MCR- Greatest band ever!! I know it’s sort of known as “cringe” these days bc emo✨ but I swear their songs got me through a lot of shit! I used to listen to their songs for hours!!! Their super cool!!!! Lots of their songs aren’t as sad as people say they are, their actually very fun to sing along to and are epic to yell to!! The songs srsly hit hard sometimes! N that’s epic!!! My most fav song is called “Famous Last Words” (I recommend u listen to it!!! Maybe you’ll like it??) and the music video was full of fire n stuff n one of the band members got third degree burns from it but kept on singing?!!! Like!! Dang!!! The commitment!!!! It’s epic!! Their just! No! We keep going! AND AND AND they actually did one of their albums in a haunted building n it was insane but did they stop?? No!! They kept going bc vibes✨!!! Idk I think it’s smth rlly cool!!!! And when they thought they weren’t needed n they’ve finished what they started they just poofed! Gone! They split up, and from what I know, no one really knows all the reasons!! Mystery✨!! I get sad when I think of their breaking up, but there’s been rumours and clues that their going back together really soon!!!! And just!! Yes!!! Their gonna come back!!! And when I heard it was real I flipping cried n I might cry again thinking about it bc their gonna come back!!!! Their still here!!! They’ve never truly left at all!! And new songs!!!!

Extra question: I’ve always read n meant it as “of course” and actually just recently learned that some people think it means smth else!

#about-me-asks! #ask game! #asks #ooo I should tag you as smth #but what? #have I tagged u as smth before? #idk #I’ve forgotten #pls say what I can tag u as pls! #long post

[mysticaltigersorceress]

Insubstantial

This is a piece I did for @nakunakunomi 's Trope Writing Challenge. Somehow, the prompt generator just smelled the angst on me, I nearly died laughing when I got the prompt xD.

The trope was: Confessing your love to someone unconscious/in a coma, only for them to wake up.

Random Word I had to include: arrangement.

Hope you enjoy, and #sorrynotsorry. I at least decided to end happily.

Length: 1.9k

Warnings: reader gets injured (not described in detail, but blood mentioned), angst

Summary:

Ao3: over here uwu

Usopp would be the first to (quietly) admit that he was a scaredy-cat. Did it ever hurt to err on the side of caution when living such a dangerous life? (He would argue that no, no it did not.)

But when it came to you, there were so, so many things that scared him. Not that you were scary, you were just– Oh gosh, everything you did set free kaleidoscopes of butterflies in his stomach; a simple smile meant just for him was enough to stop and restart his heart faster than any battle or foe ever had.

He wanted to tell you so badly that he lo– lov– liked you, very much. Usopp had rehearsed hundreds of scenarios in his head where he told you how he felt. Of course, he had also envisioned what your response may be. Some days, he imagined telling you poetry he wrote for you and you would swoon over his words, showering him in adoration and begging him not to stop. Other days, he imagined you laughing at his silly serenades but accepting them anyway, perhaps even making up a ditty of your own for him.

Oh, who was he kidding? At the end of the day, you didn’t reciprocate his feelings, not in that way. He didn’t want you to hate him for trying to force something that wasn’t meant to be. Your relationship was fine as it was right now, wasn’t it?

Usopp would crack jokes he just knew would make you laugh (and nearly got strangled several times by the crew for some of his pranks), and you would tease him and make references to inside jokes with him. He would save your favorite snacks for when you would help him tend to his pop-green garden, and you would steal his hat while you worked in the sun. Usopp even strayed further into battlefields than he normally would like, just to make sure you always had backup. And even then, you would always watch out for him to make sure no one got too close to him, saying “a sniper always worked best with distance, right?” The unspoken arrangement he had worked out in regards to how your relationship worked was something Usopp decided he could live with. Perhaps it was not perfectly ideal, but good friends would just have to be good enough.

Until it suddenly wasn’t good enough.

Until suddenly, you were crumpled on Sunny’s deck, life slowly seeping out of you, hit by an unexpected attack.

An attack you had shoved Usopp out of the way of.

It wasn’t enough as he scrambled across the deck to you, whilst the Strawhat Pirates rained justice upon those who dared harm their nakama.

It wasn’t anywhere near enough as he screamed for Chopper, clutching you desperately in his arms, trying to get some form of consciousness to register in your expression. Pressing his hand then shirt to the wound, anything to try to staunch the bleeding.

Everything he previously thought was enough for him felt wimpy and hollow as you lay limp in the infirmary, breathing ever so shallowly. Chopper had to eventually kick Usopp out for repeatedly panicking, thinking your breathing had stopped.

The words and feeling that he normally tucked away in the back of his mind now screamed relentlessly at him as he collapsed outside the infirmary with the rest of the crew, waiting for word of your condition. He nearly totally cried when Chopper said you were stable for now.

Day after day was spent by your side, coming up with a million reasons to stay with you whenever possible, a million excuses more as to why he always had to be there. All of the reasons were technically true, however, he never said his biggest reason of all.

That he lo-

lov-

Of– of course he was worried about his nakama, you had saved his life! He wanted to be there when you woke up, to thank you (and perhaps to smack you upside the head for doing something so foolish). To ask you why you would let yourself get hurt for him, when you had so many strong nakama around you. If you, perhaps– no. You were his nakama after all. That's all it was. Concern for a fellow crewmate. Nothing more.

He'd tinker by your bedside, quietly narrating his actions (and occasionally making up your responses as well.) He could almost picture exactly how the exchange would go when you woke up. You would open your eyes, groggy but feeling considerably better. You'd see him there and ask him if you had your favorite snack in his bag (which he totally did) and cheekily ask if he’d been worrying this whole time about you (which he totally had been). Usopp didn't like to think he was that predictable, but maybe you two just knew each other that well.

So when he walked into the galley to hear the words, “They may or may not wake up”, he was filled with a fear and a fury he had not felt so strongly since he was told they had to continue on their journey without Merry.

“What do you mean they may not wake up?” Usopp growled, clenching his fists in a feeble attempt to keep his hands from shaking. Chopper jumped guiltily at Usopp's question, and he could feel the eyes of the crew turn to him.

“They’re in a coma, Usopp. They could wake up in a few days. Or it could be weeks, months, years.” Chopper spoke reluctantly. “We have to be ready in case they never–”

“DON’T SAY IT!”

Choppers face creased worryingly. “We don’t want it to happen, but–”

“BUT WHAT? You’re just going to give up on your nakama!?” Tears were forming in the little deer’s eyes as Usopp yelled.

“Usopp.” Usopp froze as his friend and captain called his name. No other words had to be spoken. Usopp opened his mouth, but his throat was tight. None of the words felt right. There were too many of them. They were too harsh. Too painful. Too little for everything he needed to express. So he ran out.

He walked into his little tinkering space only to walk straight back out again. He was quite sure attempting to work on any project would simply leave him more frustrated than he already was. He tried to water his Pop-Greens, but the garden was so empty without you there. Before he knew it, his feet had carried him back to the infirmary. He sighed as he let himself in, head hung low; you would probably be upset at him for yelling at Chopper like that. It wasn’t Chopper’s fault you were in a coma. He needed to go apologize to Chopper, to everyone.

“Usopp.” Usopp startled at Franky’s voice, not having noticed the cyborg when he entered. The heavy weight of Franky’s hand settled on Usopp's head before he could try to escape or squeak out an apology. “They’ll wake up when they’re ready. And we’ll be right here waiting for them.” He then ruffled his hair and walked out, shutting the door softly behind him.

Usopp dug his nails into his palms until they stung, furiously straining to hold back the emotion slipping through every crack. His cheeks were soon soaked and he tasted blood from biting his lip in his attempt to stay quiet. A soft sound caught his attention and his head whipped in your direction.

You were still laying exactly as you were before, quietly breathing. Something about seeing you calmed him, despite all the bandages and IV’s. He was able to let all the racing thoughts drift to the back of his mind, and sunk exhaustedly into the chair beside your bed.

A single hand rested atop your sheets, and he found himself taking your hand into his. Your hand was so limp. It was so easy to imagine you were– no! You would wake up, and when you did, oh no, what if you lost your memory, or what if you couldn’t make a full recovery? Or–

“No! Damn it!” Usopp cursed. He wasn’t going to imagine the worst. For once in his god-damned life he was going to be positive! He was positive you would recover! He was positive you would smile again! You would remember him, you would remember the crew! You would get back to perfect health, and you would live out your dreams! You would... be happy to see him.

Usopp rubbed his thumbs against the back of your hand. There was still a little scar there from when one of his plants nipped you, back when he first planted his Pop-Greens, when the crew reunited in Sabaody after two years apart. The quiet moment you both had in the Sunny’s garden was something he held onto dearly and thought about frequently. You had listened so closely as he told you about his new plants and time in the Boin Archipelago. A certain flower caught your eye, and before he could warn you, it bit your hand. Of course, it had to be one of the poisonous ones, and just as Heracles’n had taught him, he sucked the poison out of the wound and spat it to the deck then wrapped it with bandage. For a fraction of a second, there was something he couldn’t quite identify in your eyes, but then he told you that you should have Chopper look at it just in case. As you walked away, something in him screamed to tell you how he felt, but just as usual, he let you walk away. He let himself act cowardly, despite all his declarations otherwise.

And now, more than ever, he regretted the words he frequently swallowed. And, maybe, just once, since you were asleep, he could say them. It would be good practice, to see if they fit right in his mouth. If they fit right, being said to you.

“Y/n… Please, wake up. We miss you… We need you.. I– I need you,” He gazed softly at your face, before lowering his head and holding your hand to his forehead. “I know I’m a damn coward, but please wake up so I can tell you at least once to your face, whatever you may think. I– I–”

Usopp cursed himself for stumbling over these words. Why was this so difficult?

“You’re– you're everything to me. You’re my friend. You’re my sunshine. You’re confusing and addicting and I always want to be with you, and I want to make you as happy as you make me. I just– I– I love you.” Usopp finally whispered. “And it’s a stupid dream, but I hope you love me too.” Tears flowed freely down his cheeks again, and he squeezed your hand tightly.

And something flicked his nose.

Usopp jerked up in shock to see you wearily smiling at him.

“Aww, you missed me?” You croaked. Usopp began openly sobbing and yelling incoherently. Softly chuckling, you weakly tugged him closer and moved the hand he held to his cheek and brushed it lightly. “I’m sorry I made you worry.” You then pulled him toward you and hugged him as best you could, and (after getting over his shock,) he wrapped his arms around you as well, holding as tightly as he could without causing you pain.

You found your eyes welling up from the emotion in his declaration, and tightened your hold on him. “I suppose I'm a coward for not telling you before, but I love you too, Usopp.”

#one piece #usopp #god usopp #usopp x reader #cliche with hazel #my writing #mvwriting #one piece fanfic #reader insert #one piece fanfiction

[silkylious]

100 followers event!! + appreciation post!

Im sorry w h a t.

it hasn’t even been a full month and this blog has already hit 100 followers??? How?? why??? Im confusion????

Honestly Im overwhelmed by everyone’s positive feedback on my writing, Idek how to take this to be frank. Just thank you so much for everyone who has taken the time to read the writings I put out, I really do appreciate it from the bottom of my heart  💖💖

I wanted to take the time to thank some amazing writers who have inspired me to write and publish in the first place and have given me so much support and love and have welcomed me with open arms into this community, its unreal. I honestly adore the BNHA community on here, everyone ive talked to up until this point has been nothing short of kind and supportive and Im truly so grateful for that, I wish to give back to this lovely community just as much as It’s given me 💕 so thank you to the following amazing writers for supporting and/or inspiring me: @lady-bakuhoe @jojosmilktea @1-800-callmekatsuki​ @tamasoft​ @gallickingun​ @cutesuki--bakugou​​

and a very special thanks to my friend who has been nothing but supportive from the very beginning before I even considered posting anything, love you b ❤ @caeticactus​

Now for the event!!

I’ll be taking requests for the milestone event until the 8th of June (though i might extend it a bit), though my general requests are always open and you can still request outside the prompt list during the event, but i’ll probably put those on the back burner until i’m done with the event requests. I’m only writing SFW with female reader and no Mineta, these are pretty much the only rules, be as specific or general in your requests as you’d like :) So please flood my ask box!!

Fluff/angst dialogue list: 

“Great. Now you’ve gone and fallen in love with her/him, you fucking imbecile”

“You knocked on my door at 2 in the morning, to cuddle?”

“I wish I could stop loving you”

“Make me”

“I wouldn’t be here without you”

“Go on, I dare you”

“You should wear my clothes more often”

“Say it back”

“That’s a funny way of saying ‘I love you’”

“Shut up and kiss me already”

“We can go back to hating each other’s guts tomorrow. But let’s have fun, just for tonight”

“Don’t you trust me?”

“Is that a way to talk to your superior?”

“We can’t be together”

“I’ll never leave you”

“When have I ever let you down, babe? Okay, don’t answer that”

“What? You have a nice ass”

“Why are you staring at me like that?”

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer”

“Shit, She’s/he’s cute”

“Do as I say”

“I couldn’t care less what people think. I want you”

“Do you promise?” 

“I know a better way to seal the deal”

“Why did I have to fall for you out of all people?”

“You’re not so bad when you’re not being a jerk”

“Honey, come look! She/he is kicking!”

“I love you and that scares me”

“Your heart is beating really fast”

“I thought you loved me, but I guess I was wrong”

“I can’t sleep. Come over”

“Stay”

“I never stopped loving you”

“Baby, I love you, but you’re a fucking idiot”

“Oh shit... I am in love. Fuck”

“Your eyes are gorgeous”

“Shit, did I say that out loud?”

“Mmm, five more minutes”

“I don’t like you”

“I love you”

 “Next time. I promise”

“Guess I’m not the only one heartbroken here, eh?”

“Is that a picture of me sleeping?”

“What are you talking about? Your scar(s) is/are beautiful”

“Say my name again”

“You lost the right to call me that”

“Don’t look at me like that!”

“Why do you put up with me?”

“Stop fucking around with my emotions”

“Now I know why they told me not to let you drink”

“You deserve someone better”

“Has anyone ever told you that you have a funny idea of romantic?” (if you know that reference, i luv u) 

“Give me attention”

“You’re cute when you’re mad”

“You can sing?”

“Don’t leave. Please”

“I had a nightmare”

“You make me feel safe”

“Look at me”

“You’re warm”

“Can I kiss you now?”

AU/Pairing prompts:

Arranged marriage AU

Quirkless AU

Medieval AU 

Royalty AU/ Royalty x Servant/Maid Pairing

Workplace AU/ Boss x Assistant Pairing

Coffee shop AU

College AU

Fake dating AU

Band/Musician AU

Bar/Bartender AU

Vampire AU

Werewolf AU (or any other hybrid e.g. dragon, kitsune etc.)

Demon AU

High-school reunion AU

Model AU

Mermaid/man AU

Doctor/Nurse AU

Pirate AU

Soulmate AU (up to the request to decide the details of this one)

Domestic AU

Dancer AU

Flower shop AU

Frenemies/Rivals Pairing

Coworker Pairing

Childhood friends Pairing 

side note: these are just few to give you an idea, feel free to request AU’s/Pairings outside this list :)

Again thank you so much for reading my writings, it means a lot

#100 followers event #thank you so much 😭😭 #bnha imagines #bnha headcanons #bnha fanfiction #bnha x reader #mha imagines #mha headcanons #mha fanfiction #mha x reader #this is fucking crazy i still dont know how to take this- #You guys are too sweet #thank you 💖💖💖

[izaswritings]

Title: Faults of the Mind

Synopsis:  Having escaped the perils of the Dark Kingdom, Rapunzel finally returns home—but all is not well in the Kingdom of Corona, and the black rocks are quickly becoming the least of her troubles. Meanwhile, over a thousand miles away, Varian struggles with new powers and his own conscience.

The labyrinth has fallen into rubble. A great evil stirs in the world beyond. The Dark Kingdom may be behind them, but the true journey is just beginning—and neither Rapunzel nor Varian can survive it on their own.

Warnings for: violence, cursing, aftermath of trauma, references to past blood and death, references to past character injuries, and lingering effects of trauma. If there’s anything you think I missed, please let me know and I’ll add it on here.

-

AO3 version is here.

Arc I: Labyrinths of the Heart can be found here!

Previous chapters are here.

-

Chapter IV: The Question

.

.

.

At last, the radiant Sun met the lovely Moon—but in her excitement, she had unwittingly chased her away.

In the days that followed, their failed first meeting haunted the Sun, dimmed her light and joy. Though she had never been bothered by her loneliness before, now it ached deep within her, an arrow to her heart. No matter what she did, her mind drew back to the woman from the water, her soundless dance and her peaceful face. That instant in which they were in harmony—that single, breathless moment when song and dance were one—tortured her throughout all the coming days and nights.

The world did its best to comfort her, but Sun could not be consoled. Even singing could not ease the ache, for when she sang, her thoughts turned always to the lovely stranger, and her voice would falter and catch. And soon the Sun could not deny the truth any longer. She wanted to apologize. She wanted to explain herself.

But most of all, she wanted nothing more than to see that lovely moonlight woman once again.

The lovely Moon, however, did not agree…

.

.

.

Varian doesn’t know how long they run.

Time passes him by in a blur, the world distant and fuzzy to his eyes. Yasmin drags him forward, and Varian follows, his mind blank, his thoughts dead and cold. He is aware, distantly, of what’s happened—the pirates, the black rocks, Moon, escaping—but it’s a distant kind of awareness, as if belonging to someone else. He feels numb and uncomfortably far away, floaty without the freedom.

It must take ages to return to the house, but Varian isn’t cognizant for any of it. He blinks and the city is gone, replaced by dirt roads. Blinks again, and the sun is low in the sky, the coastal sand fading to farmland. Blinks yet again, and the sun is dark red against the horizon and evening is swiftly approaching them, and Yasmin is shoving open the door of her home, the shadows long and stark against her face.

She pushes Varian inside roughly, turns on her heel and closes the door with a bang. The sound makes Varian jump, but Yasmin drags him down the hall before he can even think to speak. The kitchen is backlit by a warm sunset glow through the windows, Ella and Adira both sitting down with food before them, and the quiet peace of it all makes Varian’s head spin.

It is a peace, however, that is swiftly shattered. Ella looks stunned by their rapid arrival, frozen still in surprise, but Adira stands outright, alarm flashing across her usually composed face. She looks between Varian and Yasmin, the blood on their clothes and the dust in their hair, and inhales sharply. “What—”

“Sit,” Yasmin says to Varian, ignoring her, and pushes him down in a chair before striding to the stovetops, a whirlwind of motion and focused intent. Varian slumps in the chair, feeling dazed. Ella’s eyes dart back and forth between them, and something in Varian’s expression must give him away, because she stands too, rushing to the cupboards.

“I’ll put on some tea—”

“Thank you, Ella, and if there is any food left, the boy needs to eat something before he passes out—”

Adira raps her hand against the table, her eyes flashing, drawing attention back to her. “Yasmin. What happened.”

“Pirates,” Yasmin snaps back, taking Ella’s offered cup of tea and downing it in one swallow. She snatches a heavier winter coat off a nearby hook and throws it over her shoulder, then goes to rummage through a kitchen drawer. From the depths she draws out a sheathed dagger, wicked sharp in the light, and hitches it to her side. “Pirates and cannons and unfortunately timed earthquakes, and your little Moondrop proving he is very much haunted by the gods after all, you goddamn liar.” She slams the drawer shut. “I am going out. I cannot say when I shall return.”

“Haunted?” Adira repeats sharply. Her eyes flash to Varian. He stares blankly at the floor, feeling her gaze bore into the back of his neck. A small loaf of bread is forced into his hands by Ella, and he picks at the crust and says nothing.

“Black rocks have sprouted all over the city. Few in the farmlands, from what I saw coming back, but Port Caul itself?” Yasmin shakes her head, as if unable to put the sight into words. “Watch him. He has not spoken since.” She turns to Varian. “Do not leave. Do not do anything to push yourself past your limits. If you summon the rocks out here, who knows what will happen?” Her eyes flash to Adira. “Keep an eye out for him.”

Adira stands, hand white-knuckled on the hilt of her sword. “I’m going with you.”

“No, you will do no such thing.” Yasmin tugs on the heavy coat, leaning down to relace her boots. “If this is what I think it is, what we discussed, then it is more important than ever that things continue as planned. There is no time to waste, Adira.” She straightens. “Please, old friend. I understand your feelings, but I would feel infinitely better if you stayed here.”

A tense silence. At long last, Adira gives a short nod, mouth twisted half-way to a grimace. “…Of course. I’ll keep them safe.”

Yasmin’s shoulders drop, a near-invisible relief. “Thank you.” Preparations seemingly complete, Yasmin steps towards Ella, pressing a brief kiss against her lips. The other reaches up and tangles her hand in Yasmin’s hair. For a moment they linger, foreheads pressed together.

“…Be safe,” Ella says, at last, voice tight. Her words are nearly a whisper, something soft and pained, and Varian looks away, feeling like an intruder.

“I will.” Yasmin presses one last kiss to Ella’s cheek, then pulls away, marching off to the door. “Stay close to the house, all of you! Watch the windows. It is unlikely the pirates will come this far out, but more unlucky things have already occurred today. I will be back as soon as I can.”

And then, just like that—the pound of her footsteps cut short; the door, swinging shut. Yasmin, gone again.

The others go quiet once the door shuts, caught in a stillness. Adira looks at Varian briefly and then shakes her head, marching away. Ella exhales soft and shaky and leans against the wall, eyes closed in something like prayer. Then she too pushes herself upright, inhaling deep and steady before walking out of the kitchen, her footsteps pounding up the stairs, her voice a distant murmur as she begins to mutter.

Varian alone is left in the kitchen. He stays there, feeling weak, chewing half-heartedly on the bit of bread still in his hands. It’s fresh, sort of salty, not too hard or too soft—and yet. It tastes like blood and ash in his mouth, and it takes all he has to keep eating it. It’s that or pass out, and—

Well. Varian can’t risk dreaming, not right now.

(If he has to see the Moon again, so soon, after all this—)

The world fades in and out of awareness again; he finishes the bread sometime between spacing out and waking up. Varian stares at his feet, breathing shallow and heart aching. His hand hurts. He is so tired he can barely stand, exhaustion like a stone tied around his neck, bone-deep and striking. He closes his eyes.

He doesn’t understand what’s happened. The satchel—Rapunzel’s satchel, and for some reason that fact is at the forefront of his mind right now—is heavy on his shoulders, the strap digging uncomfortably snug against the side of his neck. Inside, the hollow crystal and the alchemical materials still rest secure in their neat packaging. It’s—it’s almost laughable. This morning feels like something from a dream. His conversation with Yasmin—the market—

It feels like a different world, now.

It’s been so long. Six months! Six months since the labyrinth, since the Moon, since Varian took Rapunzel’s hand and the Opal with it. Six months of waiting, of moving on… of dreaming, of hearing that whisper in his ears, of feeling that echo of a presence by his side.

He can’t deny magic, anymore. Can’t deny that this is all way, way more than anything Varian’s ever dealt with, no matter the miracles he’s made through alchemy. But… he doesn’t want this. He doesn’t want any of this. Six months ago, when that whisper first started and the dreams first began… he’d felt a terror so deep and endless that he hadn’t known what else to do except ignore it.

And so. For all these past few months, Varian has pretended otherwise. He has ignored the way pain spasms up his hand—the hand he took the Opal with, the hand marked with magic, veins so blue it no longer looks natural—ignored the whispers in his ears, the presence by his side, the chills down his spine. Has ignored, for months, that—that feeling, that strange, immeasurable distance within him. The sense of a cliff-edge, of a darkness, and if he looked too far and for too long, he’d fall, and never be able to drag himself out…

Months upon months of pretending he was fine, and now it’s all come crashing down on his head.

That feeling—that awful pit, the hollow, the power unnatural—is gone now. Varian gets the awful, looming sense that whatever happened today, whatever happened in Port Caul… he has already fallen.

The voice, he’s heard. The—the sense of someone else there, he’s felt it. But this is the first time he’s seen the Moon. The first time her voice has rang clear and cold in his head, instead of distant and ghostly. The first time Varian has ever, ever summoned the rocks.

I did that, he thinks, remembering the way the pirate’s scream cut off, the way the rocks tore through the city. I did that.

His eyes itch. His tears burn down his face. Varian stares at his closed fist, white knuckles and red-half circles from where bitten nails are clawing into his palm, and thinks: I can never go home again.

Stupid thought, really. He can’t go home in general. But he can’t shake the feeling that this is it, the last line crossed. The final—hah! —black mark. The rocks that destroyed his life and his hometown, the thing that started it all… and now, they’re his. Varian’s problem. Varian’s fault. Varian’s.

It’s all very ironic, Varian thinks, half-hysterical, and lays his head down on the kitchen table in a useless attempt to stop shaking.

“Varian.”

He flinches, curling in on himself. He doesn’t look up. He doesn’t want to deal with Adira right now. He doesn’t want to deal with anyone.

“Varian.”

Oh, good. The No-Nonsense tone.

Varian forces himself to lift his head, well aware that ignoring her won’t make her go away. Adira, back from wherever she’d wandered off to, stands tall in the kitchen doorway, frowning down at him, her arms crossed. She looks the same as ever, despite everything—annoyed at him, bored with the rest of the world, etcetera—yet, somehow, there is something strangely off about her too. Something in the set of her shoulders, maybe, or the pull of her mouth, or the tension around her eyes. If Varian didn’t know better, he’d say she looks troubled, oddly restless, her eyes flickering back over Varian’s shoulder like the weight of her gaze can bore through the wall and reveal the rock-invested image of Port Caul on the horizon.

Varian stares dully back at her, unsure of what to make of it. Her heavy gaze makes him self-conscious; he shifts, uncertain, and scrubs at his face with his sleeve to wipe away the tears. To his surprise, his cheeks are dry. He’s barely cried at all, Varian realizes. It just hurts—a tension in his face, behind his eyes, like a dam built up full to bursting. He is—quite hilariously—apparently too anxious to cry.

Adira still hasn’t said anything. Varian drops his eyes to the floor. “What do you want?”

A pause, and then the soft rustle of her footsteps. Her shadow falls over him. “How long have you been moping here, Moony?”

The nickname, usually just annoying, makes him flinch. He grits his teeth.

Adira’s cheek twitches, an aborted wince. Something almost like regret shadows her face, but it’s gone by the time Varian blinks. “…I know this may be a hard concept for you to grasp,” she says, recovering neatly. “But overthinking this will just make things worse.”

“Oh, yeah?” Varian lifts his head, something bitter twisting in his gut. “What else should I be doing, then? If you know so much.”

Adira’s expression doesn’t even twitch, the spoilsport. Her jaw is tight, her expression firm and decided. “Not this,” she says, and steps back, gesturing him up with one lazy hand. “Head out to the backyard. I’ll bring the staffs.” She nods to herself. “Training will help.”

Training has never helped, but Varian is too tired to argue with her. Besides—even training must be better than his own thoughts, right now. He pushes up from the table and follows her to the backyard garden.

Still, his mouth goes dry. When Adira tosses him the training staff—dense, wooden, and blunt due to Adira claiming Varian would sooner stab himself on live steel than excel at it, in her own exact words—he almost fumbles the catch, his hands clumsy and slow. The staff weighs heavy and awkward in his inexperienced hands, still as graceless as he was six months ago when these training bouts first started. This is going to be a disaster.

Across from him, Adira slides into a stance. Varian mutely copies her, feeling like a puppet in his own body. The weight of the staff pulls hard at his aching arms.

“Begin,” Adira says, and swings her staff for his head.

The world falls away again, confined to this small patch of grass and the trading of blows. Adira hits him more than he dodges her, and Varian never manages a hit against her at all. The sharp rap of her staff against his knuckles and side are harsh but not painful. The worst he’s ever gotten from these sessions are faint bruises and sore muscles.

Still, every failure strikes him all the harder. He can’t dodge right. He can’t even hit her. He misses alchemy, he misses not fighting. His head spins. Adira’s staff smacks against his ankle, his forearm, his back. He’s doing worse than usual. He can’t remember what he’s supposed to do. He forgets how to block, the right way to parry. He can’t…

Varian misjudges a swing, and Adira’s next hit sends him crashing to the ground, flat on his back. He gasps for breath, dizzy and sick, and closes his eyes against the sting of tears. Oh, look, there’s the waterworks. Too little, too late.

Adira raps her staff against the ground. “Get up.”

He throws a hand over his eyes. “No.”

“Moony—”

“It’s not helping.”

“You aren’t even trying to let it help.” She sounds irritated. “What the hell happened at the market?”

“…I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Tough.” Adira bears down on him, and Varian only just rolls out of the way from a hit that would have ended with him wheezing face-first in the dirt. “What happened?”

“The rocks—the Moon—” Soft laughter in his ears, an echo of the wind—he almost trips. It’s his imagination. It’s his imagination. “There, there was this pirate, and she was in the mirror, the Moon was, and then—and then—the pirate—” He stops mid-motion, understanding striking him numb. His eyes burn. His words tremble. “I think I killed him.”

Adira pauses, then pulls back. Her expression is unreadable. “Moony—”

He turns his face away.

“You didn’t kill him.”

“I heard him scream.”

“If the rocks got him, if the rocks got anyone… then it wasn’t you.” He looks up, reluctant. Adira stares down at him, her expression grim. “It was the Moon. Maybe she used you as a conduit to do it, but it wasn’t your hand, and it wasn’t your fault.”

“But I was—”

“Summoning enough rocks to cover a whole city, on your first try, when you didn’t mean to or want to?” Adira scoffs. “Trust me, Moony. With a power that new, the only way that’d be possible is if it wasn’t you who did it at all. It wasn’t you.”

Varian looks away.

Adira sighs, and he sees the tip of her staff lower, digging into the dirt. “What else.”

His fingers curl. “That’s it.”

“You’re so goddamn tense you’re actually shaking with it. What else?”

He glowers at the ground, stubbornly silent.

Adira’s lips press in a thin line. “…Did the Moon say anything, when she appeared to you?”

Varian twitches, unable to stop himself. Hello, child. He tries to hide his flinch with a scowl, but by his side, his fists clench. “That’s… who gives a damn what she says, anyway?”

Adira shakes her head, frustration bleeding through her tone. “There must be a reason. Why now? Why not sooner? Why was this event the spark?” She scowls. “It’s been six months—so why did she show up today?”

Don’t go. Don’t go there.

You don’t want to be here.

The memory of this morning, that strange whisper, hits him suddenly. He turns his head away, unsettled, but the words echo, persistent in his ears. Soft and ghostly, and, if Varian is being honest with himself—familiar.

Hello, child.

Varian picks himself off the dirt and brushes the loose soil from his shirt. The sun has fallen entirely behind the horizon by now, only the faintest hue of burning red left to illuminate their not-quite training session. The shadows stretch long and thin, like reaching fingers—Adira and Varian both cast in darkness.

“I don’t know,” he says, finally, his voice quiet. “I don’t know.”

He wishes he knew. He mulls over the echoes, the dreams, the flashes in the mirror. Thinks back on that odd, ghostly whisper in the back of his mind at all hours of the day, the sudden shock-cold warning. This morning, as he walked to the city with Yasmin… he cannot deny it any longer. The Moon had tried to warn him away from the market—away from Port Caul.

He’s almost certain it was her. Varian just doesn’t understand why.

To be fair, though, he’s never understood the Moon. The tower, the Moondrop… the labyrinth, and why she trapped them there—whatever her reasoning, whatever her goals, Varian hasn’t a single idea.

Adira searches his face, then steps back. Her staff thumps hard against the ground, frustration given form. “Well. Don’t beat yourself up about it. I’ve been chasing stories about that stupid god for years, and even I don’t have much clue.” Left unspoken, but clearly implied: if even Adira doesn’t know the answer, then Varian has no hope at all.

“Mm.” He hates not knowing, though. How annoying.

Still. It’s not his only worry, and… and Adira’s being oddly talkative today. Oddly helpful, in her own frustrating way. He peaks through his bangs at her, wondering. Yasmin’s comment on him being the Moondrop… the way Adira’s acting… he wishes he hadn’t run away, that night. Yasmin’s right. He should have stayed and eavesdropped on all of their conversation, if all this change is what came of it.

He dares to ask. “Adira…?”

She turns to him.

“…What are we going to do now?”

Adira considers him. Settles back on her heels. “What do you mean?”

“I mean—” The merchants’ talk, the pirates, the attack on Port Caul. The way everyone in the market seemed terrified when the pirates had attacked… but not surprised. “This is happening all over, isn’t it? And now Port Caul’s been…” His throat closes up. “You’ve been chasing this, haven’t you?”

Adira tilts her head, expression oddly unreadable. “…I have.”

“So—” Varian bites his lip. “We didn’t get to Port Caul in time to help. So what now?”

Adira looks at him for a long moment. In the growing evening gloom, it’s difficult to read her face, but in the fading reaches of light, her dark eyes almost seem to glow.

“I didn’t come to Port Caul to stop an attack,” Adira says, at last. Varian almost falls over. Is she—actually telling him!? “I admit, I didn’t think one would happen this soon. I just came for the information.”

She pauses, grimacing briefly. “There’s something about all this that rings—false, to me. Yasmin agrees. The attacks on the port cities read less like a battle and more like…” She trails off, hesitating—then sighs. “Like practice.”

“Practice?” Realization strikes. “You mean—the market was just—?”

“A test run? Probably. You may have noticed it yourself. The pirates come in, kill a few guards, burn a few homes… and then they’re gone. Nothing stolen. Nothing gained. Just… brutality for the sake of blood.” She taps her staff against the ground, tracing a route through the dirt. “Yasmin’s sources all collaborate. The pirate attacks—instead of riches, they’re gathering threat, credibility, danger. Countries all across the continent are beginning to panic. Trade is life. These pirates are threatening that… and so far, they’ve yet to be caught.”

His mind races. Varian doesn’t know much about politics, but in this, he doesn’t have to. It’s like a logic puzzle. There’s really only one true conclusion. “They’re gearing up to take on a bigger target. A… large-scale attack.” Something in his own words chills him. “Worse than the market?”

Adira’s expression is grim. The sunset turns her bright face-paint to a bloody red. “Far worse,” she says, cold and certain. “Given what happened today… when the real battle starts, it’s going to be a bloodbath.”

Varian swallows hard. He feels like a heavy stone has fallen and sunk straight to his belly. His mouth is dry. He can imagine it all too easily. The chaos and destruction of the market, blown up to a city-wide scale. For a moment his mind flashes back, vivid and violent: the guard on the ground, newly dead, and the way the pirate looked up and smiled.

He bites his tongue against the bile, lightheaded from the memory. The wind howls up a storm around him, and Varian shivers in the evening air. “…What’s the real target?”

Adira doesn’t answer.

“Adira? Do you know?” Something cold settles in his chest. “Do, do we have to find out? But—if we don’t figure it out in time—”

“You seem oddly invested in this,” Adira interrupts, toneless. “Playing hero, Moony?”

“I—I’m not—” Varian flushes. “Well, you’ve dragged me into this, haven’t you?” Besides. “And after today, I don’t—I don’t want to see that again.” The pirate, smiling. The guard’s still form, blood scattered across the cobblestone. Like something from a memory.

It’s different. It’s different. It has to be. Varian’s attack on Corona’s capital with Ruddiger’s beast form may have ended in a lot of injuries, but no one was killed. Hurt, yes, but no one died. It’s not the same—

But still. His heart is lodged in his throat. “I don’t want that to happen again. Not to somewhere else. And, and if I can help…”

Adira looks down at him. There is something heavy about her gaze. Something oddly judging. “I see,” she says, and something firms in her voice. Her jaw tightens. And then—

“It’s Corona.”

Varian opens his mouth. No sound comes out.

“Yasmin is certain. So am I. Corona Kingdom is the greatest trade power on the western side of this continent, and further, the pirates are closing it in on all sides. Scuffles are already being reported on the Coronan border. The capital hasn’t been attacked just yet… but then, it’s only a matter of time.”

“Wait. Wait.” Varian can’t breathe. “That’s—it can’t—I—”

“What’s the matter?” Adira’s voice is light. Her eyes are hard. “I thought you wanted to help.”

“I—I do, I just—I can’t—!”

“Can’t what? How does Corona being the target change anything?” Adira slams her staff against the dirt, as if in emphasis. “I don’t plan on making my presence known. If you do as I say, you won’t be caught—so there are no worries there.”

“That’s not it! I just—”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“That’s—”

He fumbles for the words, not even knowing what it is he wants to say. The beginnings of fury flashes bright in Adira’s eyes, and deepens with every second of silence, a storm clouding her face.

“I can’t,” Varian says, at last, uselessly, and Adira’s patience finally snaps.

“This is your problem, Moony!” Adira whips the staff up and points it right at him, smacking him lightly in the chest. The force is enough to send Varian rocking back on his heels, stunned. “This, right here! You get upset—you get angry—and then you run, and nothing gets solved!” Her voice sharpens. “It’s been months. I gave you space, I gave you time to come to grips with things, but all you’ve done is ignored them more. Well, Moony, we’re both out of time. I’ve bought three days of sanctuary from Yasmin. Then I head to Corona. That is fact.” Her chin rises. “The question is, boy, are you coming with me?”

Varian is silent, struck speechless. His head spins. Whatever calm he’s managed to regain is lost, fallen through his fingers like loose sand. Trying to put these feelings into words is like trying to catch rain with only his hands; no matter how hard he tries, it slips away from him. All he knows is this—the sudden grip in his chest, the breath strangled in his throat, his dry mouth and his aching head and his sudden clammy palms. Corona. Corona, Rapunzel, Eugene, Cassandra—Old Corona. The King and Queen.

Dad.

It’s too much. First the pirates—then the Moon—the black rocks… and now, this? He can’t do this. He just can’t.

“Varian.” For all that Varian has always hated Adira’s nickname for him, somehow hearing his actual name from her is worse. “Are you coming with me?”

“I—I—”

The pirates. Corona. A bloodbath, Adira had said. Images dance behind his eyes. Blood on the cobblestone, still bodies in the streets.

I didn’t kill anyone!

But he’d hurt them.

(They hurt me.)

It’s too much, too soon. His vision swims. Varian backs away from her, shaking his head. “I—I don’t know.”

“Look, kid—”

“I don’t know, okay!” His hands rise, tangle in his hair. He tugs hard enough for it to hurt, but it’s not enough to distract from the sudden burning pain in his ear, the awful awareness of his own scars. “I don’t care!”

Something flashes in Adira’s eyes, an emotion halfway between anger and grief. “You should care. This is—”

“I don’t care!”

“Varian!”

“I don’t care!” He yanks at his hair, fingers catching on the knots, pulling hard. “I can’t—I don’t want—I don’t know!” His blood is burning. His torn ear tingles. “I don’t know, I don’t want to know, I—”

“Varian!”

Later, he will think—she probably didn’t mean to do it. Likely did not intend. Maybe she was reaching for his wrist, to stop him from yanking his hair; maybe she simply meant to shake him. Or maybe, he will consider, hesitant, unsure: maybe it was this. Maybe Adira was frightened too, and simply reacted.

It changes little of the facts.

In the end, the backhand takes Varian completely by surprise.

Adira’s hand cracks so hard across his face his head snaps to the side, his shouting cut off to a gasp. Everything blanks, his thoughts and emotions all snapped away by the shock. The force of the blow makes him stumble, just barely keeping his feet, and already, pain starts to creep across his face, bright and searing.

Varian touches at his face, his cheek already stinging, and feels numb. He doesn’t even breathe. She’s never—for all her training, for all their fights, Adira has never, ever hit him—

He looks up, and—he doesn’t understand it. He doesn’t understand the expression on her face. She’s gone pale, wide-eyed, and yet, that emotion—it’s not anger. He has seen Adira angry before, rolling eyes and snapped insults. This is something else.

Fear, Varian realizes suddenly, and ice bleeds through his veins, a sudden shock of cold. It’s fear. She is looking at him like she’s seeing something else in his place. She is looking…

…right past him.

Behind him.

No.

But already, Adira’s eyes have fallen to her hand, horror bleeding in her blank expression. She looks as surprised as Varian feels. Her eyes go wide. Her hand drops. She steps back. “I—”

But Varian isn’t listening anymore. Some awful shadow has fallen over him, a budding suspicion creeping its way through his lungs. He turns around, following her gaze, and the sight nearly brings him to his knees.

Oh. Oh.

The black rocks.

He can’t breathe. His cheek hurts, but this is so much worse. Horror snakes down his spine. It’s—it’s nothing compared to the city, but that almost makes it worse. Only three, only small, a tiny starburst cluster growing at his feet, but the rocks are glowing bright and blue and he had—had he—?

It’s too much. Tears burn in his eyes. Varian backs away from her and the rocks both, his head shaking, his hands trembling.

“I can’t do this,” he tells her. “I don’t know why you keep thinking I can do this!”

The back door is still open, and Varian almost crashes right into it in his haste to get away. The kitchen, now lit by soft candles, seems almost mocking in its warmth, a false sort of serenity. He practically slams into the room, running for the guest room, shoving past Ella as he makes for the stairs. Ella calls after him, her voice high and alarmed; Varian does not answer.

Adira doesn’t call after him at all.

Varian bangs through the guest room door, ignoring Ruddiger’s chittering. His breathing is loud and raspy in the room, and his crying has reached an almost wheezy pitch. He ignores it, falling to his knees by the cot, rifling through his small bag of stuff with shaking fingers. His thoughts are a mess, tangled like loose thread, looping around again and again. The black rocks. This stupid power. He’d almost—and if Adira hadn’t stopped him—

This lovely, tiny cottage nestled in the fields. That warm kitchen. The distant, endless horizon. Would he have destroyed that too?

He hates this. Corona. The Moon. The pirates. Adira is right, damn her, and he hates that most of all. Why now? Why him? Why is this happening to him?

He digs through the satchel—Rapunzel’s satchel, don’t forget that, don’t forget—with an almost mindless fervor, unaware of the way Ruddiger paws at his side. He brings out the crystal and the materials for the nightlight with shaking fingers. The memory of this morning is a warmth he clings to.

Alchemy. He still has alchemy, despite it all. Alchemy will help him. Alchemy will give him the answer he needs. Mistakes are easy, when its science. If he fails here, he can always try again. It’s the real world that isn’t so forgiving.

(Are you coming with me, Varian?

But maybe it is this, instead. Maybe it’s Varian who isn’t so good at forgiving.

Or at being forgiven.)

He shoves the intrusive thought away viciously, focusing desperately on the items in hand. The crystal, hollow; the paper packets of materials. He gathers them in his arms and sits down in the coat, laying them out in his lap. He barely even notices when Ruddiger climbs up his back and settles around his neck like a scarf.

He fumbles with the packets, tearing them open, measuring with only half a mind. He goes through the motions of making with numb hands. His mind whirls. His fingers won’t stop trembling. His cheek is really starting to hurt.

The pirates are going to attack Corona. Like the Port Caul marketplace, only worse. They’re going to attack, and Varian…

He thinks of the voice in the back of his head, whispering warnings on the breeze—the Moon, distant and spectral, right up until this morning. He thinks of the way all his tantrums and all his anger never once woke up the black rocks—not until today. Not until the pirates.

Varian doesn’t understand it. He doesn’t understand any of it. Why would the Moon try to warn him? What was she warning him of? How did she even know? They were pirates. Awful, sure, cruel and terrifying and only going to get worse—but they were just pirates. Only pirates.

Only human.

But suddenly he is not so sure.

Varian curls up on his cot and works on the nightlight without stopping. He hears Adira come back inside, but she doesn’t come up. No one enters the room. Ruddiger is heavy on his shoulders, grounding and firm. Slowly, his wheezing breaths start to ease. Slowly, the tremble in his hands starts to fade.

And far outside his window, in the growing evening gloom, the moon slowly but surely begins to rise.

.

“Not hungry, Rapunzel?”

Rapunzel startles from her thoughts, just barely managing to avoid dropping her fork. Curse her shaky hands. “Oh!” she says, and looks up sharply. “Oh, no, mom, I’m fine. Just thinking.”

Her mother smiles back, but there is something thin in it, almost fragile. This whole night Rapunzel’s parents have been looking at her like that: like she’s something distant and unknowable, and they can’t quite make themselves believe she’s back.

Rapunzel doesn’t really blame them for it. It’s nearing a whole week since she’s returned to Corona, and yet, this is the first meal Rapunzel’s deigned to join with them. Or perhaps, to put it better, it’s the first family meal Rapunzel has felt strong enough to sit through. Alone, unfortunately. She wishes Pascal were here with her, but… right now, he is the only one of them with any freedom in wandering the castle, and that means all the spy stuff is falling to him.

Even now, even here, Rapunzel still isn’t free from scrutiny. For all the finery of the dining hall, it’s hard to ignore Elias’s presence at her back. The poor boy is practically shaking in his boots.

It’s understandable. The tension is palpable, as heavy as their silences. Beyond the scrape of their forks against the fine china plates and muted pleasantries, conversation is sparse and awkward. Rapunzel’s father is unbearably silent, his words curt and oft one-syllable. Her mother is… doing her best, and usually Rapunzel would be grateful for that, except she’s too focused on trying to hold her fork properly to appreciate it.

It’s not that she’s… chosen to lie to her parents about her hands, exactly, her scarred palms and now limited mobility. She just—hasn’t told them. And after all these days, she has simply continued to just… not mention it. Let them think the gloves are fashion. Let them think her clumsiness nerves. It’s not that Rapunzel doesn’t trust them, but—

(She doesn’t really trust them. Cassandra, delegated to the dungeons; Eugene, only safe once he’d left. If they knew she’d been injured—if they knew how close Rapunzel brushed with death—

She doesn’t know what they’d do.

And she isn’t willing to risk it.)

Still, they are her parents, and they love her—and they are trying, Elias’s presence notwithstanding. Case in point: the determined cheeriness in her mom’s voice when she replies, light and airy, as if nothing is wrong. “Well, make some time for the food, Rapunzel. Thinking can always wait.” She reaches out and smooths a strand of Rapunzel’s hair behind her ear, and then shoots the King a pointed look. “Is dinner okay?”

“It’s perfect,” Rapunzel enthuses brightly. In truth it doesn’t taste much like anything; a lingering nausea has made eating harder than usual, and every bite feels like swallowing a spoonful of ash. But it is actually good food, even if she can’t really taste it, and besides. Rapunzel doesn’t want to worry her parents any more than she already has. “I really missed this.”

Her mother’s smile flashes bright. “Us, too,” she says warmly. She draws back her hand, looking across the table. “Right, Frederick?”

Rapunzel meets her father’s gaze with thin lips. He catches her eyes and sighs heavily, then straightens, refusing to look away. “Every day,” he says, with quiet genuineness. His expression is open, bare with regret and resignation, worry knotted into his brow.

Rapunzel knows they did. It doesn’t make this any easier.

She looks away first.

She’s missed them, too. In a funny way, she thinks she’s still missing them—missing the easy dinners, the casual conversation, the bask of warmth from being trusted and loved and uplifted. She hadn’t realized how deeply she’d relied on that until it was gone, and even now, the distance between them makes her chest ache.

But she’d promised. And she’d decided. She is their daughter, she is the princess of Corona… but she will always be that girl in the tower, too, and that time matters more than they know. Because it’s that time, it’s that girl, who looks at the castle and whispers, this is wrong. That girl who looks her parents in the eyes and thinks, I don’t know if I can trust you, after everything. That girl, that simple girl, who followed the floating lanterns, who broke Varian’s chains, who looked the Moon in the eyes and demanded a different fate.

I want to be happy.

And Rapunzel knows anger. She knows tension. She knows lies, and this castle is steeped in them. There is something wrong, something coming… and Rapunzel refuses to ever be taken off guard again.

She knows they love her—but she never wants this castle to become another tower.

Her hand tightens on her fork, the painful pull at her scars grounding in its own way. She takes a breath, remembering last night, her promise to Cassandra. The answers are all right there under her nose, and Rapunzel is certain she’s getting close. If she could just know what concord or deal that has Nigel and the castle so up-in-arms…

Well, Rapunzel thinks, trying to stay positive. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? She clears her throat before the quiet can turn awkward again, and lifts her head with a determined smile. “Um, actually…”

“Hm?”

How to broach the topic without making them suspicious? Cassandra’s voice echoes through her head. Start small, Raps. “I never really got the chance to ask—how are things, since I’ve been gone?”

There’s a beat of silence, an awkward halt. Behind her, Rapunzel can hear a sudden creak as Elias shifts in place, as if startled. Interesting. He might know something, too…

But right now, her focus is all on her parents. In response to the question, her mother pauses, glancing back at the King. He takes a moment to sip at his wine, and sets the glass down gingerly, every movement slow and careful. The moment stretches.

“Under control,” her father says, at last.

“Well.” Rapunzel keeps smiling, but her fingers tighten on the fork. Right. Of course it won’t be that easy. “Um, okay!”

Her father eyes her. “Why do you ask, Rapunzel?”

“I’m just curious.” Rapunzel’s eyes drop. She feels bizarrely shamed, which is ridiculous, because she wouldn’t have to do all this if they would just tell her. “Things have been… tense, these past few months. I keep feeling like… I’m seeing it everywhere else I go, too.”

The words are a little too honest, and Rapunzel winces. She forces a laugh. “Never mind! It’s, um… probably just my imagination.”

Her mother pauses. “Well—”

“Arianna.”

Her mother stops, and gives her father a dark look. “Well,” she says, pointedly. “It’s been a while, my dear. Give yourself time to adjust back to home.”

Right. Okay.

There’s a game to politics, Rapunzel has found. And it is a game that everyone’s playing. It’s sneaky and underhanded and quiet, things implied but never said, and—

And Rapunzel is terrible at this game.

If she’s going to get anything out of this dinner, then she’s got to stop playing.

Rapunzel takes a deep breath and puts down her fork. Tilts up her chin. Looks them right in the eyes, and dares them to tell her the truth.

“What’s this deal that’s got the castle so upset?”

Silence. Behind her, Elias makes a choked wheezing noise.

Rapunzel meets their gaze head on, and waits. She suspects they didn’t expect her to ask outright. Maybe once she wouldn’t have. But if Rapunzel’s time in the labyrinth has taught her anything, it’s how to stand her ground.

Her father’s voice is blank. “How do you…”

Rapunzel smiles at him. It’s almost genuine. “Ah, it wasn’t hard, actually. I just… looked.” Her smile fades. She meets his gaze and does not falter. “What is it?”

Her mother takes a deep breath. “Rapunzel—”

“Where is Eugene Fitzherbert?”

Her mother cuts herself off, and Rapunzel looks back to the King. Her hands tighten on her lap. The scars pull. “He left.”

That, at least, catches her father off-guard. “He—?”

“He didn’t feel safe here.” Not exactly a lie, even if it isn’t the whole truth. Gods, she hates this. Once she would have never considered keeping this from them. How did it all come to this?

Rapunzel steels herself. There’s no use in wondering. Here they are, and she has to make the best of it. She continues, merciless. “I’ve come to agree with him, actually.”

For a moment he almost seems to falter. “…Rapunzel, I—”

“What’s the deal about?”

The moment passes. Her father grits his teeth. “We are not here to talk about politics. We are here to have a nice meal, and—”

Rapunzel is undeterred. “What if I want to talk politics?’

“Rapunzel!”

“It’s my kingdom,” Rapunzel insists. “If it’s so important, don’t I have a right to know? How can I learn to rule if you won’t even let me—”

Her father stands up. His chair scrapes loud against the tile floor, and Rapunzel’s mouth snaps shut at the look on his face.

“It is none of your concern,” the King says, and his tone brooks no argument. “I have the matter handled. There is no deal, there is nothing to be concerned about, and until you can prove to me you can be trusted with state secrets—I’m afraid, daughter, that you simply have no room to talk about them.”

The rebuttal hits her hard. Rapunzel flushes. Her fingers curl. “Then be mad at me,” she cries, momentarily losing her composure. “Not Cass, not Eugene! I—I was the one who decided Varian’s fate, not them!”

Her father has already turned away. “Eat your dinner, Rapunzel.”

Useless, all of it. Pain radiates up her hands, a sure sign she’s pushed them too hard. Her head aches from sleepless nights, insomnia and nightmares both. But worst of all is the sudden flush, the awful shame, the sense of being small and childish and dismissed. After everything—after all she’s been through—and this one thing is enough to topple it, this one small thing—

Hasn’t she proven herself by now?

Can’t they trust her?

(Do they really think she would have let Varian go without thinking?)

But there’s no nice way to ask, no means to explain her reasoning in a way they’d understand. Cassandra and Eugene hadn’t really understood it either, after all. All these months, all her lessons, and still Rapunzel is searching for the words—how to explain that the girl from the tower and the princess aren’t so easily separated after all.

Her mother reaches out, placing a cautious hand on her arm. “Rapunzel, dear…”

Rapunzel tosses her napkin on her plate, pushing away from the table and her mother both. She can already feel the tell-tale burn behind her eyes, and the last thing she wants is for them to see her cry. She hates crying when she’s angry. “Excuse me,” she says, stiff, and marches for the door without so much as a goodbye.

Her mother stands too. “Rapunzel, wait!”

Rapunzel pushes through the doors, and two sets of footsteps follow her—Elias, breathless, looking fearful and shaking… and her mother too, standing tall, eyes wide and concerned.

Her father stays at the table. Head bowed. Shoulders slumped. Looking almost tired, old in a way that makes Rapunzel flinch to see it. She turns away from the sight of him, continuing down into the hall.

“Rapunzel!”

She wants to leave, so bad, but still—she stops. Elias, following after her, stops too; he is between her and the Queen, and looks terrified about it.

Her mother waits. Rapunzel doesn’t move. Behind them, pushed by a breeze, the dining room doors swing shut with a muffled thump, leaving them isolated in the hallway.

The Queen moves first, sighing heavy. “Guard,” she says, to Elias. “Leave us.”

Elias hesitates. The young teen looks spooked near out of his boots, but still, he glances to Rapunzel, wide eyes almost worried. His hands are shaking on his halberd, but still, he stays where he is, as if to hide Rapunzel from the Queen. “Um, y-y-your Majesty, I-I-I’m not, not supposed to—”

“It’s okay,” Rapunzel says, softly, almost touched. Elias stops mid-word, staring, and she offers him a weak smile. She hasn’t been sure what to make of Elias—he’s kind, but still meant to watch her, and is Cassandra’s replacement besides—but this odd act of support helps soothe some of the roiling tension in her gut. “I’ll… I’ll just be a minute.”

He bites his lip hard, but nods, reluctant. Giving one last glance between Rapunzel and the Queen, Elias hurries away down the hall to wait for her, out of earshot but not out of sight.

Rapunzel watches him go, and exhales softly through her teeth, trying to calm down. Her mother clears her throat, drawing the attention back to her. For once, the Queen doesn’t look nearly as composed—her brows are knotted, her lovely face set in a frown, seeming almost as troubled by Elias’s actions as Rapunzel is touched by them. Then that frown turns to Rapunzel.

“Oh, daughter,” the Queen says, at last, and the disappointment in her voice makes Rapunzel want to hide. “What has gotten into you?”

Rapunzel looks away, unable to meet her eyes. “I don’t want to talk about this,” she says, before the Queen can speak further. “Please, can I just be alone for a bit?”

“No. This has gone on long enough. Talk to us!”

“I have! I tried.” Rapunzel crosses her arms over her chest, trying to hide the tremor in her hands. “You guys just—you don’t listen.” She grits her teeth. “I’m… I don’t want to do this right now.”

She turns away, trying to flee before her mother can catch her in another argument. But for once, Rapunzel’s mother is faster.

Her fingers close around Rapunzel’s wrist, and pain flares bright as a spark.

The yelp is entirely involuntary. Rapunzel snaps her hand back purely on autopilot, pain radiating up her arm, down her palm. She backs away, arms held protectively to her chest—then goes still, horror flashing down her spine, as she realizes what has just happened.

Her mother is frozen. “R-Rapunzel?”

Rapunzel clutches her aching hand to her chest. Her eyes are hot. She blinks past the pain, and her fingers tighten on the glove. Oh, no. No.

She forces her voice steady. “…What’s the deal about?”

Her mother seems stunned. She stares wide-eyed at Rapunzel’s wrist. “I… Rapunzel, what—your hand, are you—?”

“Mom.” Her voice is tight. “Please.”

The Queen stutters to a stop. Behind her eyes, Rapunzel can almost see her storm of thoughts. “I… That is…” She trails off. Rapunzel waits. Her mother’s eyes fall back to her hand, and for an instant her expression tightens, almost pained.

And then she shakes her head, and Rapunzel’s heart drops down to her feet. “Your father is right,” the Queen says, sad, certain. Rapunzel feels ill. She looks to the ground. “Dear, it isn’t your concern. We can handle these attacks ourselves. You don’t need to get involved.”

And Rapunzel stills.

Attacks?

Rapunzel looks away, doing her best to keep her face blank. Attacks. But the streets, that night when she returned… it hadn’t looked that bad. No new houses being built, no signs of battle on the road. And she would have heard if such a thing had happened recently. But then, if not the city, what kind of attack could force anyone into an unwanted agreement…?

Think, Rapunzel! All those lessons on being a Princess have to pay off sometime. What part of Corona is the most crucial to the kingdom?

The answer comes to her in a flash of inspiration. The closed merchant roads. The lack of boats back to Corona, the closing seas; they hadn’t been able to catch a ferry across and there’d been a reason for that, because the waters weren’t safe anymore…

The boats. Corona is a trade kingdom. If someone had enough power to cut off the trade routes—

A hostage situation? No, maybe not—maybe it’s more than that. The castle is divided, and they wouldn’t be if there was a common enemy. So…

The deal. Take that, think it through logically. The docks might be attacked… and if Corona couldn’t handle it themselves…

A third party. Someone offering protection?

Rapunzel meets her mother’s eyes, stunned by her own conclusion. Could it be? “Someone’s blackmailing Corona into working with them?”

Her mother’s eyes go wide and shocked—and then narrow, her surprise hidden. She’s not quite fast enough. Her reaction is all the answer Rapunzel needs.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” Rapunzel realizes. She frowns. But then—why the division in the castle? Who could the guards possibly be so against working with? And why? “Who is it?”

Her mother draws back, linking her hands before her. “It isn’t your concern, Rapunzel,” she repeats, firm. “Your father and I have it handled. More importantly…” She takes a deep breath. “Why are you wearing gloves?”

This time it is Rapunzel’s turn to look away.

“You flinched from me, just now.” Her mother’s voice is hushed. Not quite scared, but close to it. “Rapunzel—”

“I don’t want to talk about that right now,” Rapunzel says, voice tight. She still can’t meet her mother’s eyes.

“Rapunzel. Listen to yourself! You ask for information but refuse to give it, surely you see—”

Yes, it is pretty hypocritical of her, isn’t it? And yet. Rapunzel looks up. “And what would you do, if you knew?” she asks quietly, cutting her mother off. “Ground me? Have more guards follow my every move?” She swallows hard. “Lock me away in a pretty tower, all in the name of keeping me safe?”

Her hands curl, involuntary. Her voice shakes. “I-I’ve heard that one before.”

Her mother exhales hard, as if she’s been hit. Her eyes are wide and stunned. “That’s not fair,” she whispers.

“Maybe.” Rapunzel closes her eyes. Her nineteenth birthday. Her coronation. Even now, even this, Elias’s presence by the hallway doors, ordered by the King not to let Rapunzel out of sight unless she’s in her rooms. “But you’ve done all that before.” Her throat is tight. “You’re doing it now.”

The Queen seems struck silent. Her hand falls. For a moment she looks at a loss for words.

“I don’t understand,” her mother says, at last. She almost seems to be pleading. “We love you. We aren’t doing this to hurt you. Rapunzel, why can’t you just trust us?”

And Rapunzel finally meets her eyes.

“Why can’t you trust me?” she returns quietly, and watches with a sinking heart as her mother falters to a stop.

The silence stretches between them. The Queen’s mouth opens. Her mouth closes. She takes a deep breath, a shuddering exhale, and in the end says nothing at all.

The moment passes, the last chance left untaken. Rapunzel gives her a watery smile, twisted lips and aching heart. “Thanks for the information,” she says, brightly, trying to hide the tremor in her voice. “It’s really helpful. I—” Her voice cracks. “I just wish you guys could have told it to me yourselves.”

Her mother has nothing to say to that. That’s okay. Rapunzel doesn’t have much left to say, either.

“Night, mom.” She turns to the end of the hall, where Elias is waiting, feeling tired, feeling trapped. The anger and hurt has faded. Now she just feels worn. “Let’s do this again at breakfast, I guess. See—see you tomorrow.”

Her mother says nothing.

Rapunzel leaves the dining room and her parents behind, and doesn’t look back.

.

Yasmin returns halfway to midnight.

Varian doesn’t see her; he knows only because the front door slams loud enough to reach him upstairs. He stays still and silent, sitting numb on his cot, listening to the murmur of voices turned indistinct and wordless by distance. Yasmin, sounding stressed and snappy; Ella, softer and sure; Adira terse and clipped. Footsteps thump. Lamplight flickers by his door.

With effort Varian drags his eyes away, back to his hands. The nightlight is half-way assembled, items spread out on the floor. The shimmering liquid is ready to be poured, glowing a soft and delicate pink, a pastel dim color like spring flowers. His hand tightens on the crystal. He finished the solution hours ago. He should have gone downstairs, talked to Ella, asked for something to seal the hollow crystal. He hadn’t. He’s been sitting here, fiddling with a finished product, waiting and waiting and trying not to fall asleep.

He hears footsteps on the stairs, approaching the room. A second later, and there’s a knock on the door. Varian lifts his head. He doesn’t speak. His throat is abruptly tight, strangled shut. If it’s Adira—

The door cracks open. Yasmin looks in.

Varian slumps, but doesn’t relax. Something in Yasmin’s expression gives him pause. He remembers the black rocks he summoned in her backyard and feels cold. There’s a shadow to her, to Yasmin—a darkness in her eyes, a tension to her shoulders. She meets his gaze and juts her chin. “Up,” she says, simply. She doesn’t sound angry, but he doesn’t know her well enough to really tell. “With me.”

Then, a pause. She frowns. “…What happened to your face?”

Varian brings a hand to his cheek, still tender. It’s bruising, he thinks, though it doesn’t feel too bad—molted green, maybe, instead of black or blue, but still unfortunate. He looks down and shrugs.

“…if Adira struck you—”

“We were talking.” His voice is dull. “I got upset, and… a-and the black rocks…”

Something like realization flashes across Yasmin’s face; she looks aside and grimaces. “Still. That is no excuse.”

Varian shrugs. He can’t put into words, really, his thoughts on it all—how the fact he summoned the rocks at all, of his own accord, had struck worse than the blow. He doesn’t even think Adira meant to do it. But still—he understands the logic of her worry, the emotion. He nods again, but he can’t quite bring himself to reply.

Yasmin looks him up and down, and her sigh is almost soundless. “As expected, I suppose,” she murmurs, and then gestures for him to stand. “Well. I will deal with it. Come, boy—I doubt you’ll be getting any sleep tonight, so might as well put the time to use.”

Varian stares at the glowing nightlight. Stares at the crystal. Stares at his hands, and slowly levers to his feet. Ruddiger winds around his ankles.

“The raccoon can come too, but do not pick him up.”

Varian doesn’t have enough energy to wonder about that. He nods, silent, and follows her beckoning hand.

She leads him across the hall into a large room, one he hasn’t seen yet. Judging by the big bed and stacked bookshelf, it must be her and Ella’s bedroom. He doesn’t have long to look around before Yasmin pushes him into the bathroom, a smaller room with dark wood walls and stone flooring. A bathtub sits in the corner, and a vanity with a mirror is set up to the side. She sets him down on the vanity chair, facing the mirror, and hands him a towel already soaking.

“There’s soap on the side table,” she says, turning away. “Wash your face. We’ll have to draw you a proper bath later, you are filthy, but for now this will do.” When Varian just looks down at the towel, blank and still, she sighs.

“Clean off the blood, boy,” she says to him. “You will feel better once it is gone. It’s hard to heal when you carry all the grime of the past with you, yes?”

“It’s too early for philosophy,” Varian mumbles in reply, and hides his face in the towel so he doesn’t see her laugh.

He scrubs the blood and dirt of the market from his face, hearing the clink of metal tools as Yasmin rummages through the bathroom drawers. When his face is clean she takes the towel back from him, and ties a new, dry towel around his neck, knotting it behind his head.

This, at least, gives Varian pause. “What…?”

“Your hair is a mess. Have you never heard of a brush?” Yasmin peers down at him, her gaze critical. “Do you have any problem with haircuts? You can do it yourself, if my holding the scissors makes you uncomfortable, but I refuse to have you walking around my house with a bird’s nest for a head.”

Ruddiger pats his foot, then scurries up onto his lap. There’s a beat. Varian looks at Yasmin. Yasmin makes a face.

“…Ugh, fine, the raccoon can stay, whatever. I give up. But do not let him on your shoulder, I refuse to cut your hair with that raccoon in my way.”

“His name is Ruddiger.”

“Wonderful for him. Haircut, boy. Your thoughts?”

Varian looks down. “I don’t have a problem with it.”

She hmms. “Good. Any preferences? I can keep it long, cut it short…”

He shrugs, and keeps his eyes on the ground. “I don’t care.”

A moment of silence. Yasmin exhales hard. “Very well,” she murmurs, and doesn’t push, just spins him to face the mirror and tilts his head down. Silver flashes in the mirror, and a lock of hair falls on the towel as Yasmin gets to work.

For a few minutes silence is all there is: the snip of Yasmin’s scissors and Varian’s blurry stare at his socked feet. The candlelight flickers bright and yellow on the countertop; the mirror is awash in a golden tint. Locks of hair scatter across his shoulders, soft and itchy against his skin. The back of his head already feels lighter.

“You should know,” Yasmin says, apropos of nothing. Her hands are secure and warm, holding his head in place. The press of her fingers is oddly grounding. “They are still gathering information, but… it seems as if there are fewer casualties than expected. The rocks chased many of the pirates away… and though the rocks’ appearance is unfortunate, it looks as if no townspeople were further harmed in the outburst.”

Varian’s hands are white-knuckled on his knees. “That’s…” His throat catches. “You don’t seem surprised.”

“About the rocks? Hm.” The scissors snap. “Adira is vexing,” Yasmin remarks absently, “but not so vexing as to keep dangerous information from me. She mentioned you had the Moondrop. It was not hard to assume from there…” Another snip at his hair. “Regardless. If you are blaming yourself for the city, I implore you, do not.” She sighs. “Though the rocks now in my backyard… well, we will deal with that later.”

Varian’s throat is tight. “I don’t understand.”

“Truly? I thought I was being quite forthright.”

“No, I—I don’t—” He gets the sense she’s laughing at him, but Varian can’t find the humor in it. “Why are you telling me this? Why are you being so…”

Yasmin is quiet for a long moment. When she speaks again, her voice is soft. “Why do you think you are here?”

“I told you—I don’t—”

“Don’t know, yes, I remember. But you are clever, child. A little foolish, perhaps, but no less clever.” She tugs a strand of hair straight and snips it. “Well? Why did Adira bring you here?”

His eyes drop. The shopping trips. The nightlight. Even this—the haircut, and Yasmin’s constant presence. She said she’d been paid to help him, but then, this is all help of a different sort. Good deeds that don’t quite fall under Yasmin’s job description, things that can’t be explained away as a whim.

“She brought me here to get me help.” He can’t help the bitter twist to his lips. “Intervention from a stranger.”

He is still looking down, so he doesn’t see Yasmin smile, but he can almost hear the echo of something amused in her voice. “See? Clever.” She tilts his head down further, starts cutting his hair closer to his scalp. “Though of course, that is not the only reason.”

Something unpleasant coils in his gut. “She came for information.”

For a moment, the snip of scissors by his ears goes quiet. “...Ah. She told you? Well, I suppose that explains my backyard.”

He grits his teeth. “Why did you tell her that Corona—”

“Because it is true.” Yasmin tugs hard at his hair— not painful, just firm, like a warning. “I know not how much Adira told you, but trade is being cut off at all corners of the continent, by pirates or natural disaster or both. Pirates attack one city, earthquakes take out the next… and one by one, little by little, the attackers cut off Coronan trade routes.” She puts down her scissors. “I have traced the paths myself. It is only Coronan trade routes. If Corona is not the main target, I will be truly astonished.”

Varian hisses a breath through his teeth, caught by something he cannot name. His throat feels strangled silent. He stares at his knees until his eyes water, and clenches his fingers in Ruddiger’s soft fur. The raccoon quietly licks at his hand.

Yasmin sighs, and when she speaks again, she almost sounds apologetic. “Listen,” she says. “I will tell you what I have told Adira—of all the trade powers, Corona is the kingdom that thrives on the sea. If it is not hit next, then it will be hit soon. Of this, I have no doubt.”

“I can’t—” His voice is hoarse. The words wither on his tongue, dry and aching. He clears his throat and tries again. “I can’t go back.”

“No one says you must. It is not necessary for you to go. But Adira thinks to warn them—I know the look in her eyes. She will go there, sooner or later.” Yasmin takes up the scissors again. “And you cannot stay here forever, I would go mad. So the real question, little criminal of Corona, is this—if you do not go back, then where else will you go?”

“I—” The words fail him. “I don’t—”

She is silent. Patient. Waiting. Something nasty curls in his chest. “I can’t go back,” Varian whispers, but instead of angry, the confession comes out—small. Aching. “I just… I can’t.”

Rapunzel, letting him go. Eugene, turning away. The echo of rage on Cassandra’s face, the hatred. And beyond even that—beyond the criminal charges, the King’s hatred, his own actions—his dad. His dad, dead in the amber, buried in the ruins of Old Corona.

No. He can’t ever go back. Not like this.

Yasmin is toneless. “I see.” Her tool scrapes down the back of his neck, cutting hair close and neat. “Is it that you do not wish to make amends, or that you are too scared to?”

The sheer audacity of the question momentarily mutes him. Rage loosens his tongue. “You don’t— you don’t even know me! What do you care?”

“Oh, I don’t.” Yasmin’s voice is cold. Her eyes, in the mirror, are dark. “But it matters not.”

“I can’t go back,” Varian insists, tight. “I don’t want to go back!” Never mind the ache in his chest. Never mind the fear. For all that he’s come to understand his own fault, this still rings true: Corona, Rapunzel, Cassandra and the others—they hurt him. They hurt him, and even now, Varian is not willing to forgive. “What they did—”

Yasmin tugs hard at his hair again; Varian’s mouth snaps shut. “I will stop you there,” she says, simply. “Do not tell me. A waste of breath, that’s what it is. Boy, I do not care why. I have no interest in your story. I am sure it was very interesting—but it has nothing to do with me.” She waves her hand dismissively through the air. “But really. It is not about what they did to you, is it?” Varian stills. “I think the problem is, instead… what you did to them.”

The scars on Rapunzel’s hands. The amber. The arrow.

“Am I right?”

His fingers curl tight into the arms of the chair to keep from pulling at Ruddiger’s fur. Ruddiger coos up at him anyway, a comforting weight on his knees, a grounding warmth. “…You don’t know anything about me.”

“True.” She pulls a strand out as if to measure it and lops it off with a casual twist of her scissors. “But I have known many people like you. Angry people. Prideful people. So certain they were right, and always struggling to be wrong, and so sure they could fix the world just by telling it sorry. Or, alternatively, by doing nothing at all.” She frowns down at the back of his head. “You know, Adira tells me that you want to be better. That you have reasons and need to become more. Is that it? Do you want to do better? Be better? Do you think going back will ruin that?”

He stares at his feet, lips thin, heart hollow. The scissors snip by his ear.

“Or perhaps,” Yasmin continues, merciless, “you want to find a way to make it up to people—to undo what has been done, and you refuse to return until you’ve found it. A usual narrative. See, I am guessing well, aren’t I? But I do wonder.” Varian looks up, sees a flash of her eyes in the mirror, dark and knowing. “What will you do, if when you finally return—good deeds under your belt, praise to your name—telling the people you hurt that you are sorry, so sorry, please forgive me…”

Varian sits up straight, suddenly afraid. Ruddiger whines at him, looking upset. “Stop it!” he says. “Stop—”

But Yasmin is undeterred. “What happens,” she says, so soft, so dangerous, “if their answer is no?”

He can’t breathe.

“What will you do if you cannot be forgiven?”

Ruddiger whines again. Varian stutters. “I—”

Nothing comes. The silence stretches. His eyes burn.

“Oh, child,” Yasmin says, and she sounds almost tired. “Why on earth did you think any of this would be easy?”

Varian says nothing. His throat bobs as he swallows. He has to resist the urge to hug himself, or hug Ruddiger to him; either action feels too much like showing weakness.

After a long moment, Yasmin shakes her head and pulls away. “I have met many like you,” she says, at last, quiet. “Do you want to know something? In the end, it was not going back that undid them. It was what they sought.” She pulls back his hair, and starts to brush it. “They wanted forgiveness, and when they did not get it, they fell back into every awful habit they had tried to outrun. Because forgiveness is never owed, boy… and if you depend on other people to redeem you, then you will never truly change yourself.”

She pulls up his hair, twists it back. He can feel the tug of a ribbon as she ties it up. “If you want to do better, boy, then it is my opinion that you must do better. Always. Every day. Every hour. Whether you are forgiven or not.” She tugs the hair tie secure. “To try again and again, without end, without resolution… it is not as pretty as forgiveness. Not as rewarding. But it is far better, I think, then to never try at all.”

Varian closes his eyes. He swallows hard, struggling not to cry. He curls his fingers back in Ruddiger’s fur, but even this softness is not enough. His torn ear burns sharp with remembered pain.

Yasmin sighs, heavy, and steps away. “Well,” she says, some of the hardness fading from her tone. “There are two days left, still. You need not decide what you’ll do right now. Just… think about it, yes?”

Varian stares at the ground. He nods, short and shaky. His hands are cold, and he brings them close to his chest, trying to rub feeling back into numb fingers.

A soft sigh echoes behind him. A hand threads through his hair, and tugs his head up. “Look,” Yasmin says.

Varian looks, despite himself. For a moment he doesn’t recognize the boy in the mirror. His clean face. His tired eyes, shadowed and bloodshot, irises bluer than he remembers them to be. The red mark on his cheek, the dark scatter of freckles against otherwise colorless skin. But it is his hair that draws his eyes most.

His hair has been cut near unrecognizable. A sharp and clean undercut in the back, while the rest of his hair has been kept long and trimmed, pulled into a high ponytail. A section of hair has been loosened from the tie, framing the side of his face opposite to his torn ear. He looks—older, like this. More controlled. Surer. Less like a boy crushed under the world, and more like someone surviving in it.

He doesn’t know what to think. His eyes fall, his chin lowers—but Yasmin takes his face in her hand and slowly tilts his head up again. “Look,” she says. “Look, boy.”

Reluctant, he does.

“Every time you see your face, you turn away.” Yasmin’s voice is quiet. “I have noticed this. And I understand. But one of these days…” She pulls back his hair, and meets the eyes of his reflection. “We all have to face the mirror at some point.”

Varian stares. He doesn’t say anything.

Yasmin lets go.

“Something else for you to think about,” she says softly, and then she turns and walks away. She pauses at the bathroom door, and looks back at him, and the usual snap is back again in her voice. “I will be back in a moment. Your nails look terrible, I cannot leave them like that, the hangnails alone make me shudder. Stay there.”

The door closes heavy behind her, and then Varian is finally alone.

He doesn’t move. His head falls, eyes lowered to his lap, his mind spinning. There are so many things to think about; so many thoughts swirling about in his head. The Moon, Adira, Varian. Corona, most of all. The questions ring around in his mind, a ceaseless echo. Can he go back? Does he want to?

He’s not sure if he can. If he’s ready. If he’ll ever be ready. If he can really go back as—him.

The rocks are a part of him, now. And more than that… that angry boy, that hateful boy, that boy with the arrow in his hand. He doesn’t want him. He doesn’t want this. He doesn’t want to be Varian, Moondrop, haunted by a goddess. Doesn’t want to be Varian, boy criminal, attempted murderer and dangerous alchemist, his father’s killer. He doesn’t want this. He doesn’t want this person to be him.

He's not sure if that person, if that boy, can ever go home again.

…And yet.

We all have to face the mirror at some point.

He takes a breath. He braces himself. He hugs Ruddiger to his chest, fingers curled in soft fur, drawing comfort from the raccoon’s soft crooning. He lifts his head and meets his eyes in the mirror, wondering all the while what it is that he’s supposed to see. The Moon, maybe. She’s done that before. Stared at him from amber and crystal and shopfront windows, smiling out from his reflection, cruel and cold.

But when he looks into the mirror, all he can see is himself.

It’s him.

It’s just him.

And when Varian closes his eyes, his cheeks are wet with tears.

.

It’s kind of funny, Eugene thinks, absently lifting the lantern a little higher. When he first left the castle, he thought it would take him weeks to find a lead.

Well, he supposes he wasn’t too far off. It has, at least, been a week. But still. This is perhaps the fastest amount of time Eugene’s found himself a spooky island, and frankly it’s freaking him out a bit. The creepy island is supposed to be the last clue he finds, not the first!

And yet, here he is: only a week after he left the castle behind and met up with Lance in the Snuggly Duckling, and very, very much stuck on a spooky island somewhere in Coronan trade waters.

It’s a weird place, to be sure—a small island lost somewhere between the Corona mainland and the sea, so small even the maps don’t bother to mark it. Beneath his boots, the ground is half sand and half stone, alternatively hard as rock or soft and giving beneath his feet. There’s no real border between sea and land, and the trees here grow thick and clustered, so close to the shore Eugene wouldn’t be surprised if even their sap was salty.

It’s an island abandoned, an island lost and left to grow wild and free… and that is exactly why Eugene is here. Because a place like this, so close to the capital and easily able to provide at least some harvest, fish, or lumber, would only be empty if people had paid to keep it that way.

Lance however, though Eugene knows for a fact he agrees with this logic, seems to be having some second thoughts. He’s a few feet ahead and looking like he dearly regrets that, shivering in the air like someone’s just walked over his grave. In the dim morning light and heavy fog, Lance looks near-ghostly himself.

And sure enough: “Eugene!” Lance says then, high and bright. He gives Eugene a smile that is half terror and 100% pleading. “Eugene, old buddy, pal, my best bud, are you… sure this is the place?”

“Ye-ep,” Eugene says, utterly unsympathetic.

“Because, you know, on second thought, my sources are terrible. Terrible, no good sources. This is probably a complete dead end, and our, ah, real lead is somewhere nice and warm and very public… like a beach! A nice beach, full of people, where the chances of brutal undiscovered murder are…” Lance glances at the trees, stick-thin and half-consumed by fog, and swallows hard. “Less. Less than here.”

“We’ll be fine!” Eugene dismisses, but notably doesn’t touch on their chances of being brutally murdered, because… Lance is probably right on that one. He switches tactics. “I trust your sources, Lance.”

Lance gives him a look. “You are very obviously flattering me, and I appreciate that greatly, but also.” He clasps his hands, almost a prayer, the lantern held between his palms. “Please. For the love of all the gods, please, let’s just… decide, this once, to not trust my sources?”

Eugene rolls his eyes and pushes past him, walking up from the beach into the trees. Behind them, the small boat they’d taken to get here sloshes silently on the shore. “Look, Blondie said she thinks Corona’s being blackmailed, right? We need to find out who before things get even more complicated. So: spooky island.”

“I mean, that’s a good point!” Lance follows after him, voice lowering to a hissed whisper. “You know what’s also a good point? Not getting murdered on a deserted island.”

“Lance, my friend! Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“With all my common sense, apparently,” Lance mutters, and sighs heavily, his shoulders slumping. “Oh, why did I agree to help you again?”

Eugene lifts the lamp a little higher, squinting off through the gloom. Are those the three trees he’s looking for, or are they just a random bunch of three trees? Only one way to find out. “Our long and undying days of backstabbing friendship.”

“Oh, yes, that. Hmm.”

Eugene grins despite himself, drifting further into the thicket of trees. He doesn’t blame Lance for his hesitance—it is creepy. But the men in the bar had sworn up and down that this was the island where they’d met their mysterious employer. One man got stuck with an illegal smuggling job. The other, paid to look for information on entrances and dock shifts in the capital city.

One meeting on a deserted island? Interesting. Two meetings, though, and both involving details that may or may not help an outside force attack the city…?

Well. Two is not quite yet three, so there’s no ruling out it could be a coincidence, but Eugene trusts his gut, and his gut says there’s something downright fishy about all this. Witness: the fact the thugs talked at all. No self-respecting freelance mercenary refuses a job, but to talk about the details after? Ohhhhh no. That’s a black mark on the mercenary name, and only done if the shady job completed in question is a whole new level of shady.

When the casually morally corrupt start getting cold feet, that’s when Eugene knows things are going wrong.

Plus, Lance had vouched for them. And, for all that Lance has a habit of making ill-fated judgments, he’s also got a good head on his shoulders. He’d promised Eugene his help in a voice gone serious and cold with all the weight of an oath, and Eugene believes him. Believes in him.

And so, here they are—on the empty island in the dead of blue early morning, hidden by the fog and the dark. A low mist tangles at Eugene’s ankles as he steps up; the lantern casts a dim and golden halo in the fog. The shadows seem almost endless, deep and dark like the pit of well. Eugene brings the light closer to a tree and hums. “What do you think?”

“What do I think? Three big creepy trees, big rock, spooky forest…” Lance trails off and shivers. “This was the meeting ground, that’s what I think.”

“My thoughts too.” It matches with the reports from the mercenaries, at any rate. Eugene drifts closer to one of the big trees, leaning in to check the bark. If they’re lucky, maybe there will be a symbol carved in here somewhere. “Anything catch your eye?”

Lance hums. “Not yet. The ground’s pretty clear… even the footprints are gone. Whoever hired them, they cleaned up good.”

“Mm.” Eugene scowls at the trees. “Bark’s clean, too. No convenient carvings.”

“Damn.” Lance straightens up, hissing a heavy sigh through his teeth. The lantern light casts a long shadow across his face. “We aren’t going to find anything here. If there are any clues left, it’ll be…” He shivers. “Deeper… inside… the creepy forest.”

“Took you a bit to get that out.”

“Gods, I regret ever saying it. I take it back. Dead end! Let’s leave!”

Eugene cackles at the look on his face, grinning out into the darkness. “Well, well… bar owners first.”

“Ha! Ha!” Lance places a hand square against his back and shoves. “Absolutely not.”

Eugene shrugs, hiding a grin in his sleeve, and lets Lance push him deeper into the woods. He even plays it up a little—fake staggering and stumbles, little tricks to try and trip Lance ahead of him. He’s a professional, okay, he can be sneaky and still have fun with it.

And it is, bizarrely—despite the creepy island and likelihood of murder—fun.

It’s been a week since Eugene left the castle behind, and as much as he misses Rapunzel and Cassandra… he can’t deny this week has been a breath of fresh air. He’s missed Lance. He’s missed this. The ease of talking, of not hiding secrets. There’s a freedom here the castle has lost in the time they’ve been gone, and as Eugene makes his way through the woods he makes a mental note to drag Cassandra and Rapunzel out here as soon as he can. Cassandra can suck a lemon if she doesn’t like it. Maybe what they’ve needed all along is a life-changing field trip with Lance.

The thought makes Eugene grin, and he is still smiling, even then, as he steps through the trees and lifts his lantern—and the light falls not on trees, but on a small, half-hidden house.

It’s just barely not a shack, and Eugene means this in the nicest way possible. The wood is pale and bleached and peeling, moss crawling up the sides, the door looking half-rotted off the hinges. It looks about big enough for one person to live in and three to stand, but too small to fit more than four through the door. The place is tiny, but also on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere, and it’s that fact more than anything else that makes Eugene’s eyes go narrow.

Behind him, Lance gives a low whistle. “Jackpot.”

Humor cools to a razor edge, and this time when Eugene walks forward, he is careful and conscious—where he steps, where he’s going. Lance is a silent shadow behind him.

He creeps his way to the door, lifting his lamp for a better look. No windows. He glances back at Lance, and gets a slow headshake in response.

Eugene puts his ear to the door. Nothing.

Lance slices his hand across his throat and then makes an ‘X’ with his arms, mouthing “NO” over and over.

Eugene ignores him, and pushes the door open.

It opens slowly. Extremely slowly. Slow, and with a long rising creak like nails on a chalkboard, and Lance covers his face and Eugene shifts his grip on the lantern, ready to strike—

The door swings open to a bare, empty room.

Eugene pauses. He and Lance exchange glances, and then as one, enter as silently as they can.

At first glance, it seems like a useless find. Small shack, barely big enough to fit one person… like a honey trap, Eugene thinks. The house to tempt—the truth to disappoint. But that doesn’t explain why it’s here in the first place.

Lance drops to his knees and starts feeling around the floor. Eugene blinks, and hisses a breath between his teeth. Trapdoor. Of course!

He kneels besides Lance, setting the lantern by his knees as he runs his fingers over the aging, splintered wood. Dust and leaves coat the ground, the shadows hiding any revealing marks. For a moment all is silent but for the shuffle of their feet and the whisper of their fingertips across the floor.

Five minutes later, Eugene’s fingers catch in a dent.

He inhales sharply, biting back a noise behind his teeth. Lance is by his side in an instant. Together they hook their nails beneath the floorboards and begin to pry the door up, except— it doesn’t budge.

Lance brushes a hand over the top again and mutters a low curse. “There’s a lock.”

“Could not make it easy for us, could they,” Eugene gripes, tasting dust, and starts digging for his lock pick.

The lock, small though it is, is high quality. Not a good sign. This isn’t just a random hideout—it’s a rich man’s random hideout. Someone paid good money for this, and it shows: it takes Eugene an extra ten minutes just to jig the lock, and it is, in truth, ten minutes way too many.

The sun is going to rise, soon. They’ve been here too long.

But they’ve come this far, and when Eugene looks up, it’s to see Lance looking back, grim and sure. Reluctant about it, to be fair, but in this they are agreed: they see this through.

They slide their fingers under the floorboards. This time, the door opens.

Eugene steps down first. The ladder creaks beneath his boots, dust drifting down around him like a dirty snow. He climbs down, lantern held high above him, and when the light falls on what’s inside, Eugene’s breath just about catches.

“Jackpot indeed,” he breathes, and Lance nods mutely beside him.

The underground room is small and cluttered, but also clearly lived in. There’s a bed and a locked chest by the foot of it, all dark wood and shiny brass décor. The bed is furnished with dusty but well-made sheets, velvety and rich. On the other side, shoved against a far wall, is a small desk and chair, papers strew along the top, a few drawers latched shut.

“Desk,” Eugene calls immediately, and makes for the papers. He can almost feel Lance rolls his eyes; where Eugene sorts through the papers, Lance heads for the chest by the bed, pulling out his lockpicks as he goes.

Eugene tunes him out, shuffling through letters and journals scrawled with unreadable code, flipping quickly through the stiff parchment. Legal jargon here, legal jargon there… a small book marking up current transactions, the two deals with the thugs who’d led them here marked out in neat ink script. Which, actually—

Something about the handwriting makes Eugene frown, makes a little alarm in the back of his mind twitch with recognition. He bites his lip, uncertain, flipping through some more, trying to see if the writings will jog his memory. A few drafts of an official letter catch his attention, words scribbled out and then torn apart. One scrap in particular catches his eye, and he reads, the city of Vardaros is eager and willing to offer you extra guard against possible harbor attacks at any point, King Frederick, if you—

The rest, lost to rage. The page is ripped beyond recognition.

Eugene’s lips thin further. “Looks like Rapunzel was right after all,” he says grimly, waving the letter scrap through the air. The uneasy feeling only increases. “Sounds like it might be a group in Vardaros—maybe the city itself, from the sounds of things. Though, if it’s just aid from another country, I don’t see why Corona is so averse to…”

A strangled gasp cuts him off. Eugene looks back, alarmed. “Lance?”

Lance doesn’t answer. He is staring wide-eyed and gaping at the chest, now open, looking pale around the eyes. He backs away briefly, then covers his face, swallowing hard. “Oh, man,” he says, in a tight, small voice. “You said… Vardaros? Oh, wow. Wow. That’s bad. That’s… this is really bad.”

A chill crawls down his spine. Eugene hesitates, then cautiously makes his way to the chest. He looks down.

His mouth runs dry. His fingers clench around the torn paper, crumpling it even further. His exhale is a shaky hiss through his teeth. All at once, Eugene knows exactly where he’s seen that neat little script before. He used to tease her about it, once upon a different time.

Because there in the chest, nestled between fancy clothes and gold-edged jewelry, a sheathed dagger lies gleaming—and a symbol, bright and bold, lies stamped ruby red into the sheath.

A spider inked in gold.

The seal of the Baron.

.

.

.

“A message for you, Miss.”

Gloved hands take the letters with a quick motion, waving the messenger away just as fast. The envelope is stiff and flaky from salt, turned crumbly and fragile from the sea. She unfolds the paper along the stiff creases, pressing it flat against her palm, her sharp eyes scanning the cramped handwriting.

The letter is short and to the point, much like the woman who wrote it. Two weeks. Be ready to open the door. –LC

The second letter is standard: another official decline of aid, signed by a no-name advisor. As stubborn as ever.

Her eyes narrow. For a moment her lips press tight, caught somewhere between smug and displeased, before easing out into more professional detachment.

She turns away from the garden, lush and green against the desert backdrop, marching back inside her mansion home. Her heels click sharp against the white marble floors. She walks through the winding halls with her head high and shoulders straight, little queen of the makeshift castle.

When she pushes open the door to her father’s study, she doesn’t even bother to knock.

“I’ve got news,” she says, sing-song poison, and waves the letters through the air.

Her father looks up from his desk, his brow creasing. His frown is set deep in his face, eyes dark with disapproval. “Manners, my dear,” he replies, ignoring her comment. “I taught you better than that.”

Her fingers go stiff on the doorknob. It takes effort to pry them away. “There are more important things to discuss, I think,” she snaps back, and her father gives her a sharp look. She backs down first. “…Sorry, daddy. But this is important.”

His sigh is heavy, but he turns to face her regardless. “And what matter would this be?”

She looks up. “I’ve received word from Corona about my offer of aid.”

“My offer,” he corrects, not unkindly, but his eyes are sharp. “And?”

“They refused,” she says, and stands up straight, lacing her fingers behind her back. “Quite rudely, in fact.”

“As I warned you. Your plan is ambitious, my dear, but it is foolish to assume—”

“I know.” Her voice goes sharp; her fingers clench. She takes a deep breath. “But I’ve received word from my ally, too. And you know? I think Corona will be changing their minds… very, very soon.”

She pauses, mulling over the words. She needs to step carefully, here, if she’s to get what she wants. She has a hideout prepared on that island, but she doesn’t want to go behind his back unless she has to. Not yet, anyhow.

“Though,” she starts, slowly, “I do think… all this could go much faster if one of yours could go there to help… persuade them. Someone you trust to sweet talk the kingdom, maybe?”

He looks at her, frowning deep in thought. All at once, a light steals over his face; something almost like a smile pulls at his lips. He sits up straight and turns to face her, looking pleased with his own idea. For the first time since the conversation began, he sets down his book.

In the pale glow of the lamp, a ring glints ruby red on her father’s bare hand, stamped with the symbol of a golden spider.

“Well, daughter,” says the Baron, “if that’s so… and you do seem to have a vested interest in this… why don’t you go to convince them?”

Her fingers curl to a fist around the paper. Finally, she thinks, and lets none of her thoughts show on her face. For a moment triumph burns bright as fire in her chest. Her shadow, cast long and thin in the dying daylight, flickers deep and dark.

Behind them, unnoticed by both, the lamp abruptly flickers and blows out.

“That sounds wonderful, daddy,” Stalyan replies, sweet poison, and smiles back with all her teeth.

#tts #tangled the series #rta #rapunzel's tangled adventure #varian #rapunzel #eugene fitzherbert #fic: faults of the mind #fic series: the long road back to home #varian tts #varian tangled #rapunzel tangled #adira tangled #iza fanfic #please reblog if u liked it!!! #it really helps me out 💖

[fart-gate]

SG1

Season 3 episode 18

"SHADES OF GREY"

Notes by me

- tollans are dumb have I said that already. Still not sharing technology

- "are you the commander of your entire nation?" According to the asgard yes

- he legit just rips it off the wall I'm cackling

- Jack stealing is a no no

- "shut up daniel" *moira rose voice* ooooo so moody

- not me sitting cross legged on my bed conducting the theme

- Daniel is so pissed off and Sam is just in shock

- "with NO due respect" im using this

- why is he so mad about all this now? After 2 seasons of not being mad about it?

- Jack doesnt usually act like this. I mean he can bend the rules sure but he doesnt become a fucking thief randomly for no reason? Something is Happening

- he had to tell tealc specifically not to listen to Jack bc he totally would still do what Jack says

- ah screw em! I never liked the tollans except for my cat dad Nareem

- if Jack and tealc fight it out my moneys on tealc

- "I havnt been acting like myself since I met you.....NOW im acting like myself"

What does this mean????

- jack: maybe if you nailed your shit to the floor more often then ppl wouldnt steal it

- he cant be retiring ive seen gifsets of him in later seasons

- another gnc outfit for Daniel in the books

- hes bitter about not getting a command??? Youre that petty??

- daniel: what about sharing cultures?

Jack: I want GUNS

- Jack saying their friendship was never founded on anything and Daniel just. Getting up and leaving

- did Jack just finally snap is that whats happening here

-

- "the mountain"

- barely paying attention to the conversation bc of jacks eyebrow scar

- "We're probably getting our fourth"

- Sam should have definitely gotten command but I understand her not wanting to argue. Sometimes its just not worth the effort

- Daniel fighting for her tho 💓

- Daniel values personality over rank and hes absolutely right. I dont care if your a colonel, will you get my Simpson's references

- lmao tealc not even interacting with makepiece. U arent worth his time bitch

- jacks choice of opera is making my ears bleed

- this whole pitch from maybourne seems extremely illegal and dangerous. Oh well! Somethings gotta fill the next 20 minutes

- ball Skype is all the rage now in the NID

- maybourne into some shady shit huh

- these are the people who tried to steal the weather thing!

- hes basically saying they are sg1s evil twin

- Jack hey......dont join them

- what did I just say

- jack: I hate retirement

Hammond: bummer < 3

- u wanna go back to that stupid lady you knew for 3 months???

- everyone saluting Jack as he leaves and then Daniel is just. In the back round with stink face

- evil sg1 looks like a bunch of pirates

- "its swell, harry"

- PX3595

- how do they know about all the failed negotiations of other teams? Do they have spies

- I dont trust ppl who say bingo when they find something

- an asgard protected planet!!

- theres a mole on one of the teams is it makepiece pls say yes

- "best way to understand a command is to do every job yourself at least once"

- uuuuhhhhhh when tealc hovered by the bag and Jack had a split second of wondering if he was the mole and then tealc walked away and Jack looked so relieved akdbeksbsjsnsj💖💖

- ITS MAKEPIECE he aint gonna be making shit when he gets caught

- ASGARD👽

- twas a ruse! I had a feeling bc of jacks utter calmness about all this

- tealcs proud face when he sees Jack again

- does holding a body part in the event horizon keep it open??? For how long????

- the tollans were in on it so no harm done

- Daniel and Sam are just O.O

- "We dont need their stuff makepiece! We need them."

- "they like me" they sure do!! Jack is the asgards favorite little friend

- Jack apologizing to Daniel for telling him they werent friends 😭😭💖💖

- "I do appreciate that you were the one to come and check on me"

"Oh.....we drew straws.......i lost"

ALDNESOSNDJWJDNDJFNFNFNF A TRUE FAMILY

#stargate season 3

[pink-rathian-official]

At the beginning of 2019, I mentioned I would keep track of every game I finished, and sum up my thoughts on all of them at the end of the year. And now I’m half regretting it because I’m gonna have to write out a short summary for each of these games. Oh well. You’ll be able to find all of them under the Read More, if you’re interested. Will be including an arbitrary score next to each game based on how much I enjoyed them.

Just some fun numbers before we jump in to the meat of the post- In 2019, I beat a total of 41 games. That’s an average of 3.41 games per month, which actually isn’t too bad of a rate!

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (5/5) 100% complete! Beaten twice! Without doubt, the best Smash game yet. You didn’t need me to tell you this- if you’ve got a Switch, then you’ve probably got Smash.

Bayonetta (4/5) A classic character action game, and an immense source of nostalgia for me. Play this game or I’ll break your knees.

Bayonetta 2 (4/5) I actually went into this game with low expectations, I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as the first game. Fortunately I was stupid and wrong and ended up loving it just as much as Bayo1.

Splatoon 2 (3/5) The story wasn’t particularly the most enjoyable thing ever, although I did sink a pretty decent amount of time into the multiplayer. Still not my go-to game if I’m looking for a quick match.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (4/5) It was enjoyable, although kinda started dragging on towards the end. The side content started feeling very repetitive, especially the shrines- but it was still a genuinely great time.

DOOM (2016) (3/5) I raged a wee bit, gonna admit. Although it was fun, I had a lot of frustrations with the late game.

Cthon (3/5) Doom, but a Lovecraftian roguelike. I’d recommend picking it up on Steam, it’s only USD$4.99 regularly, and USD$1.69 during the Steam sale currently going on.

Fire Emblem: Awakening (4/5) I suck at strategy games because I’m a smoothbrain, but FE:A is totally one of the best 3DS games ever released. Lucina is my daughter and the story made me cry.

Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition (2/5) I already played the 3DS version, and went into the DE expecting it to be a bit more enjoyable- and while it was, I did find myself getting bored rather quickly.

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (5/5) The best TES game ever released according to many fans. While I do still prefer Skyrim more, I can see exactly why so many love it. Planning on returning to do the DLCs soon.

Night in the Woods (4/5) I hate story-centric games, but I liked NITW a lot. The exploration was nice, seeing the town change day-to-day was nice, and the ending was freaky in a good way

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 (4/5) An incredibly fun game, very similar to Left 4 Dead but fantasy themed and with rat monsters. Launched my obsession with the Skaven.

Fallout 3 (2/5) Yeah just play New Vegas instead mate.

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag (3/5) If you separate it from the rest of the relatively mediocre AC series, Black Flag is pretty gud. I like being a pirate. I don’t like tailing missions. I really don’t like ship tailing missions.

Ib (3/5) I played this game a few times through during my obsession with RPGMaker horror games. Still holds up pretty strong, although it’s a wee bit short.

Amorous (3/5) 100% complete! Yeah it’s just a lewd furry dating sim. Does have a decent character maker that I use as a reference for my fursona now though!

Way of the Samurai 3 (4/5) I don’t know why this game slipped under everyone’s radar back on release. Just overall a very Nice samurai simulator, albeit with some combat that takes some getting used to.

Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate (5/5) The best MonHun released yet. World is great, but for some reason it just doesn’t hold me like GU does. Maybe I’m just a boomer.

Super Mario Odyssey (3/5) It’s definitely what you’d expect out of Mario. Not a bad game by any means, but I just didn’t really keep attached to it like most others seemed to.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (4/5) I like being a lawyer, and I love the serotonin rush that I get when cornering a criminal on their logic.

Resident Evil 7 biohazard (4/5) The first RE game I’ve played to completion. I don’t regret it at all, because it was super good. Got some great DLC as well.

SoulCalibur VI (Libra of Soul + Soul Chronicle) (4/5) Loved the character creation, loved gitting gud- did not love some of the side missions in LoS because holy Hell a lot of them are bullshit.

Borderlands 2 (4/5) I hated the first Borderlands, and went into 2 expecting more of the same. Ended up leaving surprisingly satisfied. Great loot n’ shoot all around.

Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition (4/5) It took me a few tries to really get into this one, but once I did I was totally hooked. The ending battle could’ve used a little more love, but it was still by all means a great game.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (4/5) Despite being a clearly rushed game with a drop in quality towards the last few hours, VtmB is still one of the most solid action RPGs I’ve ever played. Still not exactly gonna excuse the last couple of boss battles though.

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (5/5) This went from “tumblr meme game that I had no interest in” to “one of the best fucking games I have ever played, and it hurt me deeply.” I don’t think I’ve ever been so invested in a story before, and the trial system was very refreshing.

Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair (5/5) How did they make a story with twists even more mindblowing than the first game? While THH invested me into the series, GD solidified my newfound love for it.

Which (3/5) 100% complete! A very short experimental horror game by indie animator and developer Mike Inel. Not bad at all, and completely worth the free download.

Skullgirls: 2nd Encore (3/5) I never really got good at this game, although the story mode was still very enjoyable. Not particularly something I’m probably gonna be coming back to.

Hollow Knight (5/5) Absolutely spectacular Metroidvania that gives quite a unique challenge. Fell in love with this game so bad that I was constantly thinking about it at work. Please stop comparing it to Dark Souls, it’s such an amazing game on its own merit without needing that comparison.

Undertale (5/5) It’s Undertale, do you really need me to tell you how amazing it is?

Devil May Cry 3 (Dante story) (4/5) Extremely fun and challenging. If you haven’t played this game yet then you are wrong. Beating the first Vergil battle without being hit filled me with very unneeded confidence- the spectacular final battle against Vergil stripped that confidence away.

Ion Fury (3/5) Very challenging, but still super enjoyable. The heroine is a genuine badass, loved hearing her quips. The final boss was garbo though.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (5/5) Sekiro absolutely deserved the GOTY award. Loved the combat, loved the challenge, loved everything about this beautiful game.

Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age Definitive Edition (5/5) DQXI singlehandedly changed my opinion on JRPGs. A story that’s equal parts awesome and tearjerking, combat that feels truly satisfying, and a quirky world that had me hooked for all 98+ hours.

Danganronpa Another Story: Ultra Despair Girls (4/5) While it absolutely was a good game, something about it didn’t really hold the charm that the other Danganronpa games had. The story was still superb, and the twist at the end was hooh.

Spyro the Dragon (3/5) 120% complete! The nostalgia factor drew me in, the level design kept me. Except for Tree Tops, fuck you Tree Tops.

WarioWare Gold (3/5) Packed with the best microgames from WarioWare’s history, but not enough content to keep me there past the main story mode.

Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D (3/5) MGS3 is one of my favorite games ever, but the 3DS port’s framerate issues really killed the fun for me.

Halo: Reach (4/5) The story mode was good, but the multiplayer was absolutely sublime. I raged, I cheered, I had the fun I missed out on growing up without an Xbox.

#video games

[eddycurrents]

For the week of 4 March 2019

Quick Bits:

A Walk Through Hell #8 gets creepier as Paul tells his story, raising huge questions of how deep a conspiracy may go to have covered up his brutal history. Garth Ennis, Goran Sudžuka, Ive Svorcina, and Rob Steen are delivering one hell of an atmospheric horror story with this series.

| Published by AfterShock

Amazing Spider-Man #16.HU is really another prelude to the “Hunted” event, but this one gets its branding and special interstitial “.HU” suffix, from Nick Spencer, Iban Coello, Edgar Delgado, and Joe Caramagna. This issue follows Black Cat as she is sent to free the Owl from Taskmaster and Black Ant to square things away with Hammerhead. It does a good bit to redeem Felicia’s behaviour of recent years, explaining exactly why she’s more or less been acting out of character as a hardened criminal kingpin.

| Published by Marvel

Astro Hustle #1 is a pretty good start to this space opera from Jai Nitz, Tom Reilly, Ursula Decay, and Crank! It reminds me a lot of Barbarella crossed with Sword of the Swashbucklers, mixing space and pirates with some oblique sociopolitical commentary. Also maybe a bit of The Incal. This issue largely introduces us to Chen Andalou (yeah, I’m not sure if there’s a significance to the Un Chien Andalou reference) and the band of pirates he falls in with and it’s rather entertaining. Reilly’s art reminds me a bit of Moritat, Goran Parlov, and Goran Sudžuka and it works very well for the story.

| Published by Dark Horse

Avengers #16 continues the war of the vampires. I really like the new design for Ghost Rider from David Marquez. It’s more in line with how Vengeance used to be portrayed and the flame and shadow from Marquez and Erick Arciniega really works for a harder edged version of the character.

| Published by Marvel

Avengers: No Road Home #4 sees Sean Izaakse and Marcio Menyz begin their three issues handling art duties and it’s gorgeous. Like Paco Medina, Juan Vlasco, and Jesus Aburtov for the first three issues, the artists are really giving this story their all and delivering some incredible artwork. Great layouts and panel compositions as we get to see Nyx’s own side of the story.

| Published by Marvel

Batman #66 resumes “Knightmares” with an issue of the Question trying to get to the bottom of Selina leaving Bruce at the proverbial altar. Illustrated by Jorge Fornés, with colours from Dave Stewart, it leans hard into Year One imagery to begin with, evoking David Mazzucchelli, and just goes through Selina’s history with Bruce from there.

| Published by DC Comics

Black Hammer ‘45 #1 expands the Black Hammer universe out further with the addition of a Blackhawks analogue, along with nods to Enemy Ace and Rocket Red, from Jeff Lemire, Ray Fawkes, Matt Kindt, Sharlene Kindt, and Marie Enger. There’s a compelling mystery set up across the present and the past regarding the Black Hammer Squadron’s final mission and the art from the Kindts is gorgeous.

| Published by Dark Horse

The Black Order #5 concludes the series focusing on Ebony Maw’s betrayal, the end of the Grandmaster’s game, and Carlos Magno, Scott Hanna, Jay David Ramos, and Dono Sánchez-Almara providing the artwork. This has been an interesting series, telling a relatively simple story of the Black Order executing a contract to topple the Sinnarian Emperor, but Derek Landy has been telling it through issues each largely from the viewpoint of each of one of the members of the Black Order. It’s been a good insight into what makes these villains tick.

| Published by Marvel

Blossoms 666 #2 continues to be an entertaining read from Cullen Bunn, Laura Braga, Matt Herms, and Jack Morelli. This chapter lightly deals with the fallout from the disappearance of Ethel and Reggie, while setting up Betty to investigate. The story is definitely taking a slow burn approach, but it’s quite compelling. The horror of a devil cult infiltrating a small town vibe going on is wonderful. 

| Published by Archie

Champions #3 goes in a few directions as the new bigger team get some training in, an enemy from Sam’s past comes calling, Dust apparently didn’t get sucked into the Age of X-Man and is dealing with anti-mutant hysteria, and Miles is racked with guilt over his decision. I love the layers that Jim Zub is adding to the script and the art from Steven Cummings, Marcio Menyz, and Federico Blee captures the youthful action very well.

| Published by Marvel

Conan the Barbarian #4 might be my favourite issue of this series yet with glorious guest art from Gerardo Zaffino, evoking memories of his father’s work on Savage Sword, and presenting a gritty, visceral, and dark tale of King Conan alongside Jason Aaron, Matthew Wilson, and Travis Lanham. The idea of Conan becoming sick over peace is humorous and there’s a wonderful nod to the Punisher.

| Published by Marvel

The Curse of Brimstone #12 brings the series to an end with a final confrontation between Brimstone and a member of the “home office”, Infernal. The revelations about who Infernal is a twisted alternate version of is interesting, as well as their means of ingress into the regular DCU. The series also goes out with a bang with the very impressive artwork from Denys Cowan, John Stanisci, and Rain Beredo. Cowan is a legend and that shines through in this final arc. I do hope, though, that we see Brimstone and the effects of this series pop up somewhere else in the DCU in the future. 

| Published by DC Comics

Deadly Class #37 continues “Never Go Back” with the spotlight shifted back to Quan and Kenji, bringing back Saya in a pretty big way. The action in Wes Craig’s artwork (with colours from Jordan Boyd) is pretty much peerless.

| Published by Image / Giant Generator

Deathstroke #41 serves as a prelude to the “Terminus Agenda” crossover with Teen Titans, with Slade a fugitive in Gotham, trying to figure out the reason behind one of his recent contracts, from Christopher Priest, Fernando Pasarin, Cam Smith, Sean Parsons, Jeromy Cox, Carrie Strachan, and Willie Schubert. There are some interesting mysteries being set up here, even as Slade is being targeted.

| Published by DC Comics

Die #4 is another brilliant issue from Kieron Gillen, Stephanie Hans, and Clayton Cowles. The depth of the storytelling, character and world building, and overall narrative is staggering in this series. The amount of thought and attention to detail that seem to have gone into constructing the story is just amazing, as what feels like a fully-realized fantasy world cognizant of itself comes tumbling out.

| Published by Image

Eclipse #13 begins the final arc of the series, from Zack Kaplan, Giovanni Timpano, Flavio Dispenza, and Troy Peteri. If the spark lit in this issue is any indication, it looks as if the series is going to end in fire with a lot of death.

| Published by Image / Top Cow

Giant Days #48 gives us that rare issue also illustrated by John Allison, I think for the first time since the original series, for a wedding. Very funny look at some of Susan’s hang-ups and Daisy confronted by possible feelings for Esther.

| Published by Boom Entertainment / BOOM! Box

The Girl in the Bay #2 gets weirder as the younger Kathy navigates, from her perspective, the future. Melting doppelgangers, creepy old guys that killed you, ghosts of rock and roll legends, and flat screen televisions stymie her as the mystery deepens. This is some intriguing stuff from JM DeMatteis, Corin Howell, James Devlin, and Clem Robins.

| Published by Dark Horse / Berger Books

The Green Lantern #5 is more glorious madness from Grant Morrison, Liam Sharp, Steve Oliff, and Tom Orzechowski. Easily one of my favourite things to read every month. This issue dives headlong into Hal’s test of recruitment to the Blackstars, a trial of having to survive a gauntlet across the vampire planet, Vorr. Though definitely part of a larger narrative, I’m still impressed by how this series is being constructed through largely satisfying, mostly self-contained stories. And, of course, the astounding artwork from Sharp and Oliff. There’s also some wonderful vampire Easter eggs in this one.

| Published by DC Comics

Immortal Hulk #14 is one hell of an issue, burying Thunderbolt Ross (again) and giving us the reunion of Bruce and Betty. All with glorious guest art from Kyle Hotz, delivering some of his best artwork pretty much ever. Dark, moody, and evocative. This is a big one, once again underlining how sick, twisted, and downright evil General Fortean and the forces hunting Bruce really are, even if they’re supposedly the “good guys”.

| Published by Marvel

Justice League #19 begins the “The Sixth Dimension” arc from Scott Snyder, Jorge Jimenez, Alejandro Sanchez, and Tom Napolitano, as the League tries to get help from Mr. Mxyzptlk in regards to the broader problems with the Source Wall, Perpetua, and the nefarious plans of the Legion of Doom. Interesting bits of humour in this issue, especially since the end moments give us a rather dark turn.

| Published by DC Comics

Killmonger #5 concludes what has been an excellent series reintroducing a movie-influenced Killmonger back into the Marvel universe from Bryan Hill, Juan Ferreyra, and Joe Sabino. This finale shows just how brutal and calculating he can be when exacting revenge.

| Published by Marvel

Morning in America #1 is the debut of a new ‘80s teen horror drama from most of the Kim & Kim team of Magdalene Visaggio, Claudia Aguirre, and Zakk Saam, with Aguirre providing full illustrations on this series not just colours. It’s good, setting up our lead characters nicely and presenting a compelling mystery for the disappearances of the children.

| Published by Oni Press

Oberon #2 launches Bonnie on her quest, first testing her with a labyrinth, while Oberon and his man-servant deal with some complications. I’m loving the artwork from Milo�� Slavković, who is proving equally as adept with fantasy as he does with the sci-fi of Lightstep.

| Published by AfterShock

Red Sonja #2 is a bit more traditional in its approach than the first issue subverting some of the conventions of sword and sorcery, but is no less entertaining as Sonja prepares to defend Hyrkania from the Zamoran invaders. Mirko Colak’s art makes it seem like he was born to draw this sort of adventure.

| Published by Dynamite

Ronin Island #1 is an entertaining debut from Greg Pak, Giannis Milonogiannis, Irma Kniivila, and Simon Bowland, featuring an island of survivors who think they’re the only remnants left from the collapse of the Japanese shogunate. Great art from Milonogiannis and Kniivila, along with a very interesting twist as a cliffhanger.

| Published by BOOM! Studios

Self/Made #4 makes another turn as Rebecca manages to “fix” Amala’s data files and brings her programming online in the real world. I love what Mathew Groom, Eduardo Ferigato, Marcelo Costa, Mariana Calil, and Troy Peteri are doing with this series. It’s very good sci-fi, populated with some compelling characters, and raising some important questions about self-determination, creation, and the purpose of life.

| Published by Image

The Six Million Dollar Man #1 is a rather light-hearted take on the franchise from Christopher Hastings, David Hahn, Roshan Kurichiyanil, and Ariana Maher (with special thanks to Zack Davisson). Nice bits of humour in the start to this spy thriller.

| Published by Dynamite

Star Wars #62 begins “The Scourging of Shu-Torun” and what I believe is the final arc from Kieron Gillen. This issue is largely a gathering of the team, with Leia laying out the plan for the regular crew and then going on a recruitment drive of many of the faces that we’ve seen throughout Gillen’s run

| Published by Marvel

Star Wars: Age of Republic - Padmé Amidala #1 is another one-shot set during the Clone Wars, from Jody Houser, Cory Smith, Wilton Santos, Walden Wong, Marc Deering, Java Tartaglia, and Travis Lanham. It briefly touches on Padmé’s relationship with Anakin, but largely deals with attempting to secure a partnership with an unaligned world for the Republic. Things naturally don’t go as well as planned.

| Published by Marvel

Star Wars: Vader - Dark Visions #1 begins a mini-series written by Dennis Hallum and illustrated by different artists per issue, essentially giving us standalone stories from different perspectives on Darth Vader. This first one is from Paolo Villanelli and Arif Prianto, lettered by Joe Caramagna, and is told from the perspective of an inhabitant of an unnamed world that’s been ravaged by a kaiju. It’s a different take on Star Wars, but the art is wonderful.

| Published by Marvel

Vampirella vs. Reanimator #3 sees things get significantly worse for the planet as Herbert West enables Mictecacihuatl’s and Vampirella raises her husband to try to stop her. Things don’t exactly go to plan. I’m still loving the black and white art with spot colours from Blacky Shepherd, it really gives the series a unique visual feel.

| Published by Dynamite

Vindication #2 complicates thing a lot more, delving into Chip’s past and revealing that there’s definitely something shady about Turn, though there are hints that whatever problems he’s got himself in it might be due to protecting his criminal brother. MD Marie, Carlos Miko, Dema Jr., Thiago Goncalves, and Troy Peteri are doing a great job of creating a compelling crime story here, showing that pretty much no one in this story is squeaky clean.

| Published by Image / Top Cow

Witchblade #12 closes out this arc, mostly, and sets up a new world as a spell to get them out of their predicament goes awry. Though this story continues to move at a relatively slow pace, Caitlin Kittredge, Roberta Ingranata, Bryan Valenza, and Troy Peteri are still delivering a compelling, engrossing story as they build Alex’s rapport with the Witchblade and throw some unique complication at her.

| Published by Image / Top Cow

Young Justice #3 gives us a touching reunion of Impulse and Superboy, before explaining how Conner got to Gemworld. It still doesn’t explain anything about why these pre-Flashpoint variations (other than a possible hint that Superboy isn’t “our” Superboy, although it’s presented in such a way that it seems more like in-story misdirection), but it’s still entertaining. Brian Michael Bendis, Patrick Gleason, Viktor Bogdanovic, Jonathan Glapion, Alejandro Sanchez, Chris Sotomayor, Hi-Fi, Carlos M. Mangual, and Josh Reed continue to slowly tease out the main plot on Gemworld while giving character-specific flashbacks.

| Published by DC Comics / Wonder Comics

Other Highlights: Cemetery Beach #7, Doctor Who: The Thirteenth Doctor #5, The Dreaming #7, Female Furies #2, From Hell: Master Edition #4, Gasolina #16, GI Joe: A Real American Hero Yearbook 2019, Kill 6 Billion Demons - Volume 3, Meet the Skrulls #1, Night’s Dominion: Season 3 #4, Noble #16, Paper Girls #26, Unnatural #8

Recommended Collections: Avengers - Volume 2: World Tour, Curse Words - Volume 4: Queen Margaret, Detective Comics: 80 Years of Batman, Fantastic Four - Volume 1: Fourever, Justice League Dark - Volume 1: The Last Age of Magic, The Last Siege, Polar - Volume 0: Black Kaiser, Star Wars: Ewoks, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl - Volume 10: Life is too Short, Squirrel Girl, The Wicked + The Divine - Volume 8: Old is the New New, Xerxes

d. emerson eddy has seen the rise and fall of kings.

#This Week in Comics

[onlylovekpop]

I’m Back!

Hello, everyone. Sorry I’ve been MIA for a little while. The past few weeks have been a little hectic for me. I’m closing drabble requests now and have received lots of good ideas. Thank you to all of those who submitted! Also, two of the requests have turned into oneshots (this is a rare thing, but sometimes I get carried away and it happens lol.) The oneshots will be a pirate!au with some smut for Jimin and a dance camp smut with Yugyeom. I’m also finishing up my first Jungkook smut oneshot that I started working on ages ago and involves Netflix and chill. Hehe. Hope you’re all doing well and please look forward to the upcoming drabbles and oneshots! :)

(replies below the cut beware im drinking vodka while i answer to make my responses more interesting hehe (actually im getting as drunk as i can to deal with my vengeful uterus which is very unhappy i have not conceived any spawn this month and is giving me cramps from hell) you may notice my spelling grammar and punctuation get worse as you read please dont hold it against me)

anonymous asked: Hi Leigh we haven't heard of you since you mentioned having knee surgery the next day and I had this really bad feeling I hope you are ok? For some reason I am genuinely concerned and I don't know why so I hope everything went well??

Yes, all is well! I healed in pretty good time and am already out and about again. It’s a surgery I’ve had before so I knew what to expect and nothing out of the ordinary happened. Thank you for checking on me. Sorry if I made you worry :)

omg-mystarx-neoctech asked: Hell YES JOOHEON.

I SAY THIS ON A DAILY BASIS!

anonymous asked: Can I just say I fucking love the layout and look of your blog. Also I just read one of your smuts and holy shit im deceased.

Thank you! I’ve been revamping some of the pages but I only have a few of them done, so a few things may be blank at the moment. I changed it so fics are listed by member instead of type I hope that’s better but if anyone has opinions on the layout please let me know :)

anonymous asked: OKAY BUT THAT JOOHEON SMUT WAS FUCKING DELICIOUSLY SINFUL. I'M HAVING HEART PROBLEMS.

Jooheon himself is deliciously sinful tbh. I have heart palpitations every time I see a pic of him wearing tight pants. Or just pants in general. i aint never seen such pretty thighs before

neon-flamingos asked: I read Rhythm and omg i criedddddd it was so good i just can imagine Jooheon saying all those dirty thingssss my vayjayjay cries

look i recently saw that vid of him speaking english and his accent is so good which means i can totally hear him in my head saying all them naughty english things this is not good what have i done my lady parts also cry HELP

anonymous asked: Everyone is talking about the Jooheon smut and I'm here still crying because of how hard Chained up hit me

oh god that was not my best work but im glad you enjoyed it the thing never got edited i hope its not a hot mess haha sorry markiepooh but it still got the job done i think hehehe

anonymous asked: A part of me regrets reading Underworld AF....but it was such a good read too... that last chapter HURT but it was a good hurt

oh no dont regret reading it! that makes me sad! its a long ass fic i dont want you to get to the end of it and think holy shit i wasted so much time reading that horror flick i tried to bring it full circle in the end im glad you thought it was a good read i panicked for a second haha

honeyheonie asked: HOLY FUCK!!!! I have sinned. 'Rythm' was 👌👌👌👌👌

me too darling ;) thank ya

anonymous asked: Do you have a quote or prompt list we could use? :)

i do not. i leave it up to you guys that way you have lots to choose from

topaz-and-turquoise asked: For some reason, I only just got to binge-read the last 3 chapters of Underworld. Leigh. LEIGH. YOU ARE THE QUEEN OF BTS-GOT7 CROSSOVERS. YOU ARE THE QUEEN OF CROSSOVERS. THE QUEEN OF ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE AU'S. OF ALL AU'S. YOU ARE THE BEST AT WRITING TENSION AND HEART-WRENCHING SCENES AND THE COMPLEXITY OF PEOPLE AND JUST HOLY FRICK YOU'RE AMAZING. THANK YOU FOR THIS. I KNOW YOU ALREADY KNOW BUT THIS IS MY FAVOURITE KPOP FANFIC OF ALL TIME. I'M SAD IT'S OVER BUT I'M SO SATISFIED. YOU ARE THE BEST.

she calls ME QUEEN! thank you thank you I SQUEAL A LOT AT THIS im actually sad its over too. but im content with it. I HOPE IT IS FOREVER YOUR FAVE you stuck with me through the whole thing thank you i love you

statetheobvious04 asked: I've long been a follower for your underworld series and Jesus christ it's one of the best series of read ever. The storyline was so gripping and full of love and loss that by the time I finished the last chapter my chest was heavy and I nearly cried. Idk how you did it but I feel like I've personally lived through minas insane and perilous journey and felt every single emotion as if it were my own. It's een a while since I've read the earlier chapters but I feel like if I do il start 1/2 2/2 sobbing. You are such an amazing and talented writer that this story deserves to be developed into a book or movie but eve then those may not do it justice. But honestly, thank you so much for sharing and writing. And I’m so happy mina finally got the life she deserves and that everyone else managed to find peace in Iceland 💜💜💜💜

THIS MAKES ME HAPPPY YOU DONT UNDERSTAND HOW CAN I DESCRIBE MY JOY AT THIS MESSAGE you make me cry thank you for loving mina and thank you for supporting the story and thank you for telling me how it felt to read it i love you <3

anonymous asked: hi leigh! I have a question. I hope it doesn't come across the wrong way, I'm just curious! May I ask why you're not taking exo requests?

you’re good honey :) honestly im just not in an exo mood at the moment. i still write for them i still even have a baekhyun oneshot in my drafts idk im just not feeling like writing for them for drabbles at the moment if that makes sense

anonymous asked: Do you still open the drabble request?

they are closed now.

anonymous asked: I'm a Yoongi at heart but your story Underworld made my heart 'boom boom'. Seriously this is the best mafia /zombie apocalypse AU I have ever read and I read a lot of fan fiction. Keep up the good work. PS: Some drabbles based on Underworld wouldn't hurt. PSS: If you don't understand the heart boom boom reference , go see the latest Buzzfeed interview of BTS.

i can’t help but only hear got7′s boom boom boom though haha im down for underworld drabbles i think i mentioned before that any gang!au drabbles i do will be in the underworld universe before the zombie outbreak so far i only have the one for bambam i would link it but im too tipsy for something that level right now sorry :D

anonymous asked: I fucking love your angst writings, they get me emotional aha

thank you i love angst i like toying with emotions ehehe

anonymous asked: Underworld is amazing!!! One of the best stories I've read, even though it has me crying from Paris all the way to the end.😭😭😭😭 You done good. 😁

we dont talk about paris haha jk that one hurt too much thank you darling that its one of the best you’ve read means the world to me :)

anonymous asked: How can you write like thattttt!!!! I adore you. I'll always be your follower 💖

AND IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOUUUUUUUUUUUUU and i’ll always be here! i promise <3

anonymous asked: Who is that in your header gif?

It’s Suga :)

thewriterpixie asked: *squeals* I just finished reading the Suga father/daughter date drabble! It made my day!

Thank you! I love that one so much :)

anonymous asked:  Okay I was reading Wake Up and Play with Me and for some reason it reminded me of their song Paradise?¿¿ Now whenever I hear it I'm gonna associate it with this smut xD

Ooh i like the sound of that! i really love Paradise but I think Sign is my favorite on the album but how do you get your question marks upside down i thought the room was spinning for a second i kid you not lol

anonymous asked: Your Jooheon smut got me looking at Jooheony at a different way now 😏 thank you for writing such a quality one shot! You're one of the best of the best!

YAS come to the jooheon side we have thick thighs and adorable dimples you will not regret this ;)

taecmekai asked: hope you are ok and recovering well from your knee surgery :)

i’m okay! gained a few pounds from being stuck on the couch for a few days but idgaf hehe ;) i’ll get back to yoga when i feel like it

coppertopging asked: I just finished Underworld. holy crap the emotional coaster you took me on! I read the last 7 chaps today & i couldn't stop crying. I didn't when Jae died, but his 'funeral' got me with the reactions from everyone. & then Hobi?! That was the most painful. I had to stop & pull myself together. Yoongi made me laugh a little with his delivery. My favorite part of the ending was the Jk/Yugy part. The only thing I felt was missing was more detail into Namjoon & Jin. But this story was amazing!!!

yeah hoseok was the hardest for me too. i wanted to keep anything namjin related kinda vague and open to the reader’s interpretation that’s why there wasn’t much material there but im very glad you enjoyed the story thank you :)

anonymous asked: holy fucking shit. it's 4am and i just finished reading Underworld and i'm crying so hard there's so many emotions i'm feeling. thank you so much for that masterpiece. it's the first work of yours i've read and omfg you're talented as fuck. i'm actually a bit speechless still tbh it's only fully processing to me ...hobi... he's not even my bias but i'm crying so hard i need help wow SO MUCH LOVE FOR U AND UR WRITING THO

omg i cant believe you stayed up that late to read it i wish i could do that but in my old age i dont bounce back that well anymore (i just turned 27 and am very upset about it) anyway THANK YOU this makes me very happy

danphilandstuff asked: OH MY FUCKING GOD RHYTHM WAS SO FUCKING GOOD THANK YOU SO MUCH ITS ACTUALLY HOW I IMAGINED HIM TO BE IT FELT SO REAL IT WAS ACTUALLY THE BEST FANFIC IVE EVER READ IM CURRENTLY READING YOUR MASTER LIST. you're actually such an amazing writer thank you so much (Could I request more Jooheon fics? ((If you want and have time)) )

i will never stop writing jooheon fics. you have nothing to worry about there haha. WHAT DO YOU MEAN ITS THE BEST FANFIC YOUVE READ IT WAS SUCH A RAUNCHY SEX FEST I SHOULD BE ASHAMED lol just kidding no but in all seriousness THANK YOU I LOVE YOU IM GLAD YOU LOVED IT I HOPE YOU KEEP COMING BACK FOR MORE MUHAHA

anonymous asked: (1/3) Hey lovely! I came across your blog today after reading your monsta x all in one shot and i just wanted to say thank you for writing something so incredible! it had me gripped from start to finish and it was honestly one of the most (2/3) well-written pieces ive ever read, I would love to be able to write at your standard one day. I cant express how grateful i am, it put me through so many emotions and i actually had tears in my eyes at one point! So yeah, apologies for this (3/3) being so long but i just wanted to express my gratitude and say that you are an amazing writer :) x

oh my goodness this was ridiculously lovely. i am very proud of All In and how it turned out. i hope to finish the sequel soon. i keep getting writers block on it and i dont know why but anyway. thank you for sending me this and im thrilled that i could write something you enjoy very much. you are too kind thank you <3

#replies

[venturecompany]

I hate Apple

New Post has been published on https://www.venturecompany.com/blog/2017/06/i-hate-apple/

I hate Apple

“I hate Apple” was the phrase uttered by a member of my household when a wiped Mac computer reconnected to iCloud could not seem to recall any of the playlists stored in Apple’s cloud, playlists that remained accessible by other devices with the same login. Yet of course, such a failure of trust in technology would never be anything Warren Buffet could detect, for I doubt he even uses a Mac. In the same way Warren Buffet’s investment in Dairy Queen reeks of financial engineering more lucrative and pleasing than actually digesting the chain’s food (save for the excellent soft-serve ice cream). You know exactly what I mean when you are brave, or poor enough, to have to enter a Dairy Queen establishment.

Apple without Steve Jobs is slowly sinking back into the morass of mediocrity the company deflated to before Steve’s return. Even as it continues to capitalize on Steve’s vision and execution, yet clearly lacking his attention to detail in the delivery of a cohesive technology ecosystem. Apple today is like an orchestra without a musical director, composer and conductor. A company where newly minted fashionista inmates are tasked to run the increasingly complex insane-asylum of make-believe “innovation”, and produce discombobulated sounds yielding an irritating technology cacophony.

Tim Cook is the captain of Apple’s now bigger and messier ship, with in the words of Gil Amelio, widening holes in the ships’ bottom. Holes that do not surface to financiers and “greater-fools” riding the waves of technology just yet, but nevertheless yield compounding problems forcing its engineers to pump proverbial buckets of water from its hull over the railing. Apple products today are a mess (as evidenced below), even in their mindless optimization of Steve’s central ideas, littered with problems Apple’s leader should have detected way before such products are considered for market entry. While technical glitches are common-place in technology, the gravity of the errors reveal the omission of a higher, simpler and better normalization of strategy. An omission not uncommon for a company that has evolved primarily downstream since Steve Jobs’ passing. Apple employs some of the most talented engineers (I know, I have friends working at Apple) in the industry, but their skills die on the vine if they are not guided by a strong top-level strategic intent, compass and mandate. Trust but verify, must become Tim’s modus operandi.

On the design-front Apple is losing its mark too. Jonathan Ive’s influence, as Apple’s master industrial designer, is losing luster by not having a strong counterpart acting as both his adversarial and pushing him to extreme excellence. Major unchecked design mistakes now compound like a cancer spreading downstream to subsequently erode the unique and easy-to-understand user-experience of Apple’s latest and upcoming products, previously worthy of a premium price-point. As a result, Apple is slowly but steadily becoming a dull price-competitor rather than a prized value-leader, even selling old products wherever it can to still make a buck, in the throws of Wall Street’s antediluvian expectations.

And for all this mess, shrouded by the false positivity promulgated by a naive press, we should all be in awe of Tim Cook. Like we are all supposed to be in awe of Marissa Mayer earning $900,000 per week(!) for running Yahoo! into the ground. Evidence of how the definition of a “greater-fool” so saliently applies to the geniuses who let them. I absolutely love the potential of societal impact induced by technology, but I hate how our operating-systems of humanity do not prevent the cunning technology pirates from leading innocent societies down an ominous path, just to make a buck.

Money really does not equal societal merit. A realization the world and our governments must keep in mind.

You see, one aught not hand the reigns of human operating-systems and controls over to a company that demonstrates it cannot be trusted, and uses price-fixing to starve writers, artists and musicians from their livelihood, right under the veil of the company’s purported embrace. We better not be impressed by a company using modern-day slavery to feign a business-model otherwise incapable of persuading discerning buyers. One also better not make the mistake that a rat-race to please an incontinent Wall Street is demonstrably incompatible with a sincere compass of societal justice and evolutionary integrity. A reason why Steve Jobs was justifiably so aloof – if not ignorant – to the Street. But the Street has found a new friend in Tim, who in the slip-stream of Steve’s passing continues to give the Street growth short-term, and tailored his operational excellence to the needs of the Street, while under the surface has sucked the life out of the integrity, quality and longevity of product and societal value.

To wit, below is a list of problems I personally encountered using only Apple products for everything I do, collected over the course of a little over one (1) week. An indication not of the circumference of the proverbial holes in the bottom of Apple’s ship, but an indication of how quick and easy it is to get seriously stuck in one. Productivity and societal impact not helped, but increasingly harmed by technology.

Get it together Apple, stop releasing flash-in-the-pan products until the existing ones work as expected. Future-selling does not cultivate the brand that Apple once was.

  Apple TV

Black screen of death when playing video on library shuffle. Bad implementation.

Hitting enter during play should reveal pre and post play. Not pause to yield both. Bad use case.

Can’t immediately recognize selected item on screen, so no quick indication of where to move to until you move position. Bad design.

A screensaver flyover video of a grey airport? Really? Bad choices.

A search for a certain type of content is still restricted by who provides it. The false promises of Siri.

Apple TV content access is clashing with cable TV content, not integrated. A user should not need to care or know about where content resides. Bad implementation.

Unique logins per cable TV providers to yield overlapping content makes no sense, use case is insufficiently resolved. Bad implementation.

Music doesn’t start up from main menu, black screen. Restart. Functionally incomplete.

Rent movie on Apple TV, says this content can’t be played on Apple TV. But on close observance the rental period has started and we can play the movie, so it has been activated. Bad implementation.

Can’t purchase iTunes music on Apple TV? Wtf? Forced into Apple Music. Technology indoctrination.

Why can’t a folder stored in Photos be selected as screensaver folder? Ie. Have own selection of photos appear on rotation? Who is paying attention here?

Apple Music can’t have disparate login from iCloud on family atv? Dumb use case

——————

MacBook

Trackpad too close to edge, gets touched by clothing etc. Dumb design.

No edge on keyboard, hard to pick up laptop in opened mode. Dumb design.

Charging cable turns yellow. Shoddy quality.

Out of memory warnings, really? Ever heard of disk-swapping innate to Unix? With 128Gb disk space available. Bad core implementation.

Frozen OS at times in dashboard, reboot only remedy. Recurring in many versions. Bad implementation.

Keyboard letters break apart after one year of use. Backlight shiny through. Sloppy implementation

——————

iPhone 6

Selling old models of iPhone is eroding the brand of Apple, a post-Jobs era in which market penetration at all cost dilutes the top quality of (and price-point) the brand Apple used to stand for.

Back and forward in the top menu bar, not designed for it. Shoving pertinent information aside. Afterthoughts of “innovation”?

iPhone7 Red released 8 months after first model, definition of new?

Horrible looking Apple cases, including ugly one with battery. Erosion of design brand.

Battery drains quickly and reboots at less than 15% at times, fix is a fakeout with wrong battery levels reporting. Dirty fix erodes Apple’s brand

Dumb use cases for name recognition in texts, 5,000 contacts make you have to correct the auto correct every word you spell. Bad decisions on usability

Autorotate while typing, really? Define me the use case.

Rotation of image after picture taken incorrect. Define me the use case.

Dumb position of on/off button, counter pressure changes volume. Bad design

Dumb placement of audio jack, unusable in docking situations. Bad design.

SMTP setup too cumbersome. Fails periodically requiring reconfiguration. Bad implementation.

Bad use of the cloud, internet accounts is a mess. Bad implementation

ICloud status should be in status bar, not hidden in file system somewhere. Bad design.

Weird updates happen when you clear notifications on a per day basis, new notifications flying in from who knows where? Bad implementation.

Keyboard shows up on home screen without search. No way to clear it, except to go into text edit app. Bad implementation

Preview image doesn’t show up after taking photo. For the longest time. Bad attention to detail.

Connection unsuccessful, please pair this device again. Which device is being referred to? Clicking doesn’t allude, only close notification works. And now what? Bad attention to detail.

Lots of hiccups on audio playback, time slicing of OS messed up. Bad implementation of core functionality.

Silencing alarm in notifications goes to wrong place in alarms, not where alarm is established. Hollow call to action. Bad implementation.

Music still does not sync playlists across all devices correctly, some folders empty. Bad implementation.

——————

Apple Watch

Sideway sliding works sometimes, most time not. Bad implementation.

Inconsistent delivery of notifications, takes a PhD to figure out why. Yet another device to manage notifications. Bad use case.

App strategy for Watch is wrong one, purpose-driven device would’ve been better. Bad strategic choices.

Custom apps are generally mediocre, little compliance in terms of consistency and accuracy. They mostly seem to be asleep. Bad use cases.

Automatically opening MacBook with Watch very inconsistent. Bad implementation.

Watch disconnects from phone for no apparent reason, reboot didn’t fix. Unpairing. Bad implementation.

Repairing watch makes no sense. No option to repair on watch? Or recognize watch from iPhone. Bluetooth option on watch offers no resolve. You can’t repair an Apple Watch without deleting contents? Idiotic. Bad implementation.

Not activating Activity on new watch leads to disaster, as there is no apparent way to reinstate its setup. Bad implementation.

Open goal walk shows the milli-seconds jumping and updating in spurts. WTF. Cumulative time appears accurate. Bad implementation.

——————

OSX

Use case of full screen without proper app switching. Bad use case.

Gesture recognition inconsistent, too many false positives and false negatives. Bad use case.

Trackpad shouldn’t detect motion during click, for un-click inaccuracy. Bad use case

Apple Streaming to Apple TV works inconsistently after video ends, no persistent state kept. Bad implementation.

Large address book slows down imessage to a grinding pace. Basically making the computer unusable during a week-long process with 100% CPU utilization. Bad implementation.

Can’t change volume in FaceTime occurrences, not over headphones, not on MacBook. Status bar greyed out, after screen sharing. Bad implementation.

FaceTime and iMessage startup takes forever, indexing 5000 contact names? Bad implementation.

Autocorrect keeps correcting plain English with any name it can find in address book, annoying corrections needed to spell simple words. Bad use case.

Autocorrect is a disaster, not understanding very common words or context. Stale implementation.

FaceTime doesn’t startup on call receive from linked iphone. Bad implementation.

Cope and paste in Pages inconsistent, works sometimes, sometimes not. Paste yields paste before sometimes paste after in some cases. Bad implementation of core functionality.

iTunes is a gargantuan mess, full of inconsistencies, bugs, usability errors, first 30 second errors massive: Delete from library should not equate to delete from store, where is my media? Download limit on your own media, download every song manually? iTunes ratings demoted, how about 5000 ratings? Bad overly complex implementation, redo from scratch.

Sign in through App Store doesn’t confirm I am logged in. Shows same Signon screen as if I did nothing. Shoddy implementation.

Autocorrect is flimsy, if not incorrect, outdated linguistically and unadjusted to fluency of languages (hire Noam Chomsky for direction). Bad implementation.

Application switcher Command Tab works sometimes, sometimes not. Bad implementation.

Alerts about adding internet accounts, requiring password via notifications goes nowhere. Bad implementation

Other mysterious behavior of Internet Accounts, adding and deleting mess-ups. Bad implementation, strategically flawed.

Use case for new accounts and passwords badly thought out, accounts should be added in cloud then disseminated across devices. Wrong implementation decisions.

Search in finder window works incorrectly, file not found when files are there. Inconsistent implementation, dependent on how search is performed.

Renaming bluetooth mouse does not work. Bad implementation

Magic Mouse on/off button slides on too easily in a soft bag, running out of power. Bad Design

Slide mouse on its side to charge? Bad design

Why does it take half an hour to check for application updates? Bad implementation

Sidebar in Safari, Impossible to figure out how to close. bad usability controls. Incompatible with youtube playback.

AirPlay stops transferring to Apple TV while video continues playing on Macbook. Bad implementation.

LinkedIn doesn’t connect to address book to sync all 4600 contacts, CoreDAVErrorDomain error 1. Bad implementation

Signatures in Mail unlinked from accounts upon reinstall. Not saved in cloud, while signatures themselves are. Half ass implementation.

38 seconds to startup FaceTime, really? Bad implementation

Autocorrect does not understand linguistics, dumb technology.

iCloud Drive resync to old device takes forever, no automatic sync (like Dropbox) is activated. How will that affect backups from this device. Data integrity alert. Need to manually re-activate top-level folder download. Unreliable implementation.

#Apple #Apple TV #Gil Amelio #iCloud #Innovation #iPhone #iTunes #Jonathan Ive #OSX #Steve Jobs #Technology #Tim Cook #Wall Street #Warren Buffet #Yahoo #MacBook #Apple Watch #Dairy Queen #Apple Music #Marissa Mayer

[rememberthattime]

Chapter 20. Cornwall

In my Christmas post, I wrote about the months of travel Chelsay and I had booked before my busy season: from February through July, we’d fly to Lake Bled, Belgium, Amsterdam, Seville, Paris, Croatia, Lisbon, and the Azores.

Even with all of these trips booked though, we’d left one bank holiday weekend open… We couldn’t decide on the right destination, so it just stayed empty for months. April soon arrived though, and now only a few weeks out, flights were way over-priced. …And that’s how we decided on our first England vacation. By default.

Chelsay and I chose the country’s southwestern tip and the quiet county of Cornwall. Given its coastal location, I was expecting a leisure-filled weekend of tea & scones along the beach and sandy walks whenever the sun popped out. What we actually got (misty shores, mystical forests, and mythical castles) hit us harder than the salty Atlantic hits the craggily Cornish coastline.

Now 20 “chapters” in, I’ve developed a pattern for how I write each post: start by introducing where we went, share some brief context about what was going on in our lives preceding the trip, and then dig into our adventures.

For Cornwall, providing context of what’s been happening is just referring to the last post. There were only 10 days between our return from Seville and departure for Cornwall, but we still managed to stay busy. Over the weekend in-between, Chelsay and I enjoyed a massive lunch at our favorite restaurant over here (Dishoom), slowly strolled through Hyde Park, visited the London Design Museum for an exhibit on the Russian Revolution (showcasing  the radical but unfulfilled architectural blueprints for a Communist capitol city… see our Berlin post for my interest in the failings of Communism), sipped tea at Candella (a tearoom in Kensington that we’d discovered on our college trip to London), and walked through the city’s Little Venice neighbourhood on a rare sunny day. 

All that said, for a deeper context on our happenings before the Cornwall trip, we’d have to dig into a subject that weighs heavily on every one of my thoughts each day: the Bears. The NFL Draft fell on the Thursday night before Chelsay and I left for Cornwall… This year, the Bears went 3-13 (the worst season in franchise history), with the only positive being that we’d “earned” the third pick. With a pick that high though, I went to bed confident I’d wake up the next morning to see we’d added a future star.

I awoke at 2:30 AM sensing a disturbance.

Something was wrong… I turned over to check my phone and, to my horror, the Bears had traded half our picks to move up ONE spot and draft the only guy far from a sure thing: Mitch Trubisky. I was up for an hour ranting to my dad… I won’t go into the many reasons this pick is embarrassing, but only time will tell if betting the franchise on a third-team ACC quarterback with 8 total college wins that couldn’t beat out an undrafted free agent for the starting spot was the right call. Either way, I’ll remember that night for a long time.

Our road trip began the next day, and we picked up the car up from Reading rather than London to avoid traffic… driving on the other side of the road is tough enough outside of gridlock.

We’d intentionally reserved the smallest car possible to navigate the tiny Cornish lanes, but rental companies over here are just short on automatics… the only option available was an off-the-lot Jaguar XE: a win for style, but a boat in terms of size. I can’t drive a stick though, so I guess we were “stuck” with the Jag.

It was a pain navigating the boat out of the city, but we made it into the country and it was all open “motorway”, rolling hills, and colorful fields from there. Setting the tone for our mystical weekend, we passed Stonehenge to start the trip. …Chelsay handled maintaining the mood from there.

The adventures really kicked off the next morning, but not before a classic English breakfast at our charming B&B outside Dartmoor National Park. I write about breakfast in nearly every post… it’s just the most important meal of the day. If there is ever a post where I don’t write about breakfast, the trip probably sucked. Sincerely, my dream is to be reading this in 20 years over a plate of scrambled eggs, sausage, hashbrowns, and a cup of coffee. My dream is also that Mitch Trubisky will have led the Bears to five Super Bowls by then.

Speaking of fairy tales, our first adventure of the weekend would be Wistman’s Wood, a mystical, mossy glen in the heart of Dartmoor. To get there, we’d take a short hike through a valley of rocky tors and open heaths, spotted with (this sounds ridiculous, but I swear it’s true) wild horses and stone circles dating back 4,000 years.

Wistman’s Wood feels even older though… like, Jurassic. The glen is filled with gnarled oaks that battled to grow through grass-covered boulders. Each tree is so coated in moss that you’re sure they haven’t moved in centuries, but the place feels so haunted that I swear they could come to life at any second.

Continuing with the eerie theme, our next stop in Dartmoor was Lydford Gorge, which includes a cavern known as the Devil’s Cauldron. We couldn’t descend into hell on an empty stomach though, so we stopped for a phenomenal lunch at the Two Bridges Hotel, including tea & scones, butternut squash soup, and chocolate & banana cake.

Next was Lydford Gorge, which is another two-mile loop that included a 40 ft waterfall and the Devil’s Cauldron mentioned earlier. The waterfall is probably big by England standards, but having been to Iceland, it’s like following the Vatican with your local church. That said, the walk was especially pleasant (descending into the Gorge through bluebonnet fields and walking along the babbling creek at its base), and the destination, the Cauldron, was well worth the trip. It really reminded me of the Devil’s Pulpit in Scotland: moss-covered rock reaching up about 50 ft, with just a sliver of daylight between the tight walls. Like Scotland (and Wistman’s Wood earlier in the day), the Jurassic Park theme song played in my head.

After the Gorge, we left Dartmoor and headed for dinner on the coast. The forecast said rain the whole weekend, but it was dry at the moment, so we set aim for the prettiest Cornish beach town: St Ives.

St Ives could be any Italian coastal town… Cinque Terre, Amalfi, Positano, etc… it just need to be 40 degrees warmer. Its best feature is the shallow surrounding waters, which give the city’s bay a unique teal color.

We walked the town for a bit and had dinner (and hot chocolate) at a beachside restaurant, with seagulls barking and the smell of the salty Atlantic nearby. As the sun set, Chelsay and I went to play near the waves, getting as close to the break as we could before running away. After a while, we were the only ones on the beach… did we drive everyone else away? Do they all just go to sleep early here? Nope. I looked around and the waves were quickly starting to reach the buildings at the end of the beach… I see now, it’s high tide. Chelsay and I sprinted off the beach just before the waves could catch us. 

We retired back to our B&B for the evening, but one thing I want to make sure we remember is navigating the tiny country lanes that night. In our boat car, the single lanes left only inches between us and the hedges that framed the road. If I wasn’t already a pro at driving on the UK side, we’d have just slept in the car.

Luckily we made it to the B&B in Tintagel though, because breakfast the next morning was another treat. This place was even better than the last: with a higher quality full English, better coffee, and views of the King Arthur’s Tintagel Castle.

We’d visit the castle the next day, but the Sunday of our three-day weekend was already committed to exploring the many coastal towns of Cornwall.

Our first stop was Port Isaac, a salty fishing town not far from Tintagel. The weather was rough (misty rain and harsh winds), but the sea was rougher… Heavy waves crashed against the stone coastline, causing a rumble that sounded like thunder. We walked through the town, which hangs along a cliffside before descending into a small cove, and looked on as fisherman in their yellow, rubber coats waded out from the cove to judge the weather conditions. Based on the wind from the below video, my advice would be to wait it out.

After Port Isaac, we decided to head for Marazion and St Michael’s Mount. The Mount is famous for its causeway, which is only passable during low tide, but sinks under the bay at high tide. Chelsay and I happened to arrive at low tide so we stayed dry as we crossed, but we wanted to return to “walk on water” as the causeway disappeared.

The sun had returned too, so we decided to take a break for lunch in one of the towns overlooking the bay. Passing through Penzance (known for its pirate attacks), we stopped in a town called Mousehole and enjoyed soup, sandwiches, a shake, and famous Cornish ice cream at the Rock Pool Cafe along the coastline.

After lunch, we still had a few hours until high tide, but decided to head back to St Michael’s Mount and explore the beach in the meantime. The low water levels exposed barnacle covered rocks, which trapped several tide pools and some unlucky sea life. Chelsay and I poked around the tide pools for an hour, finding small crabs, snails, and colorful shells.

Eventually, the tide started to rise, and we walked the Mount’s sinking causeway, splish-splashing across as the path disappeared into the bay.

For dinner, we returned to St Ives, but were so exhausted after that we thought about just calling it a night. There was one town we hadn’t visited yet, St Agnes, but our comfy bed was calling…  It would’ve been so easy to just head back to the B&B, but our shared travel priorities (sites > sleeps) led us to St Agnes instead. We were rewarded with one of the top 10 experiences we’ve had in Europe.

While in St Ives, we plugged in the directions to St Agnes. We had to do this in every big city we visited because our cell reception was so poor once we hit the country lanes. I’d seen pictures of the specific site I wanted to visit in St Agnes (an abandoned tin mine on the coast), but figured we’d be able to find it once we got closer. Well, we followed the GPS but it led us into a residential area… Not what I was aiming for, but we didn’t have any cell service to course correct.

One thing I haven’t written about (and never thought I would) is Chelsay’s frequent need for restroom breaks on these trips. I don’t know if she drinks a lot of water or she just has a small bladder, but every time we board a plane, get off a plane, make it through security, make it to the hotel, leave the hotel, enter a tourist attraction, etc, she has to make a stop. St Agnes was no exception, so we had to park the car in this residential area for her to find a public restroom. I wasn’t sure how we’d find the tin mine, and with the sun setting quickly, we’d soon be out of daylight. Chelsay’s bathroom break must’ve been fate though, because the building she went into had a map of the town. I didn’t know the name of the site we were aiming for, but the map showed a mill logo just a few miles away.

With the help of Chelsay’s fateful bathroom break, we arrived at the Wheal Coates Tin Mine at 8:00… just in time for the show. I really hope that I can remember the excitement we shared that night. The barren brick mill stirred a sense of exploration. The rugged coast line and the teal waves thundering below reminded us of the size and power of our surroundings. The bursting wind nearly knocked us over, building the feeling of adrenaline. And the orange and pink sky, with rays of sunshine fading into the Atlantic horizon, provided the stage that hosted this magical setting.

The next day was the last of the trip… we were tired though, and slow to start. Breakfast nearrrlllyy matched the sunset from the night before, but the most valuable ingredient was definitely the coffee.

We managed just enough energy to head out for the day, starting with St Nectan’s Glen, aka Merlin’s Waterfall (with King Arthur’s Tintagel Castle nearby). There was some sort of “faery fayre” going on in Tintagel this weekend, and the pink and green-haired crowd eat up this type of mystical forest. Luckily we arrived before the crowds, but Chelsay and I knew we were in for something good when the ticket lady told us the waterfall was “charged” and that it “was giving off a lot energy.”

Beyond the “energy” though, our walk through the forest showed yet another side to Cornwall. On Saturday, we hiked through open heaths and rocky tors in Dartmoor. On Sunday, we explored salty Cornish towns and picturesque coastline. Now, on Monday, we were walking through a lush glen and wading knee-high into creeks to find a hidden, mystical waterfall.

Continuing with the Merlin theme, we decided to make our last stop Tintagel Castle, King Arthur’s castle… or sort of castle. Actually it wasn’t his castle, he was just born there. No, conceived there. What? Okay, whatever, the whole story is made up. Arthur’s or not, the castle ruins were very cool, and the misty rain and bursts of wind provided the perfect mood to explore the rugged remains.

The highlight wasn’t even the castle or coastline though. Just that morning, over our slow and late breakfast, I’d read about Merlin’s Cave, which sits in the bay below Tintagel Castle. The only problem is that you can only find the cave during low tide, which wouldn’t be until 2:00. Well, it was 1:00 when we were leaving the castle, so Chelsay and I decided we were close enough. We headed for the beach, and given our aggressiveness, were the first and only to explore the cave.

While the waves crept into the cave from both ends, I thought about how surprising of a trip Cornwall turned out to be. This was our domestic-by-default trip because flights had gotten too pricey! Like Iceland, Greece, Scotland, and Seville before though, this weekend still delivered something exciting and unique every single day. The mark of a great trip is the number of memorable activities… and between Wistman’s Wood, Lydford Gorge, St Ives, Port Isaac, St Michael’s Mount, St Agnes, St Nectan’s Glen, Tintagel Castle, and Merlin’s Cave, Cornwall certainly proved to be much more than a filler trip.

[akissatmidnight]

As we wait for season three of Outlander‘s TV show with bated breath, there’s never a better time to talk about book three in the series, Voyager. So, in this post, I’ll be discussing what real life events, people, places, and laws were brought into book three that we hope are mirrored in season three! And since I any chance to use my history degree, this will contain some historically accurate spoilers. So if you hate spoilers, or want to read Voyager before the show airs, read no further! This is a spoiler filled post that takes no prisoners.

Dun Bonnet Cave

I’ve talked a bit about the use of this real life story before here, but let’s revisit it, as it will probably get some major screen time in season three.

So, there was a real life Scot named James Fraser, the 9th of Foyers, who joined Simon, Lord Lovat, on the battlefield of Culloden in support of Bonnie Prince Charles. Well, as we all know, those who fought for Charles were basically killed, imprisoned, shipped off to the colonies, or lost their lands. Well, James Fraser was having none of that, so he found a cave near the waterfall of Foyers, where he hid for seven years.

Luckily, his people were rather fond of him, and kept his whereabouts secret from the redcoats, calling him “Bonaid Odhair”, which means, “Dun Coloured Bonnet”. And the similarities to the Diana Gabaldon tale don’t end there! A young boy, who often brought supplies to James Fraser in the cave has his hand cut off when he was caught by the redcoats. Sorry, Fergus!

Scotland and Slavery

This is something that many people don’t know much about, but it means that many Americans who have some Scot in their family history could have ended up in the States after their ancestors were sent there in chains. Although many families did flee willingly once strict laws were enacted and famine and poverty hit Scotland. By the way, the use of the word “slavery” is still under historical debate. This is because the Scottish people deported by the British often had an end date to their sentence, unlike the African slaves who often lived their entire lives in cruel captivity.

Anyway, the British government wasn’t too pleased with the Scottish after the Jacobite Rebellions of 1715 and 1745. But what to do with all the able bodied men who might rise up again if given the chance? Easy, ship them to the colonies to work the farms! They can make money for the crown and be far away from their comrades in arms.

It’s said that 1,5000 to 2,000 highland “convicts” were sent to the North American colonies or the Caribbean colonies every year after the 1715 rebellion. Mostly, they were given terms of three to seven years of hard labor on plantations, or other labor heavy jobs, to “work off their debt”, if they weren’t forced into servitude indefinitely. Some didn’t even gain their freedom until they fought for England in the American Revolution!

However, there were Scots who actively participated in the Slave trade who weren’t servants, but plantation overseers and paid workers. This is seen in Voyager as Kenneth MacIver, who was Jared’s overseer at his Jamaican plantation. While this is a dark part of Scottish history, it is part of history nonetheless. Some wealthy Scots, such as Colonel John Campbell from Inveraray, who owned one of the larger sugar plantations in Jamaica. Today, the Campbell name is widespread in Jamaica, although those Campbells may never know if they descended from owners, servants, or anything in between. There are also dozens of places within Jamaica that share the same names as places in Scotland, such as Culloden, Argyle, and St. Andrews.

Dress Act of 1746

On August 1, 1746 the wearing of “Highland Dress” was made illegal by the British crown. This included tartans, kilts, and shoulder belts. It was a way for the British to try and cut the ties that connected the members of the clans and seemed effective in breaking down some of the allegiances. What made it so effective was the harsh punishments that would be enacted if someone broke this law. For the first offense, the person would be imprisoned for six months and if they were caught again, they would be sent to the colonies and engage in hard labor for seven years.

The only Scots who could still wear the tartans were members of the British military, more notably in the Black Watch. The Black Watch was an infantry battalion that was originally made up of members from Clan Grant, Clan Campbell, Clan Fraser of Lovat, and Clan Munro. They were first tasked with keeping the highlands at bay by collecting weapons and policing for any signs of uprisings.

Use of the Dress Act can be seen in Voyager, when Jamie claimed a piece of green checked Mackenzie tartan that was found in the prison in order to save the skin of young Angus Mackenzie. For the offense of having this strip of plaid, he was sentenced to thirty lashes. This also means that we won’t be seeing many kilts or plaid this season.

Selkies

So this is something that’s talked about a bit in book three and stuck out to me, as I’m a huge fan of this particular mythical creature. The Scottish refer to them as “maighdeann-mhara”, or “maidens of the sea”.

There are many legends that surround the selkies. They are said to live in the sea as seals, but sometimes come upon shore, shedding their seal skins and becoming beautiful women, or even men. If someone hides a selkie’s seal skin, they can take the selkie as a husband of wife, and they apparently make wonderful spouses. But, as in many Scottish tales, there is often an unhappy ending. A selkie never feels completely at ease on land, and if they ever find their hidden seal skin, they will return to the sea, never seeing their human husband or wife again.

We hear a lot about seals and a bit about selkies, called “silkies” in Voyager when it comes to the hidden goldon the seal’s island…and even Jamie’s own mother. Jamie tells Claire that people used to say that his mother Ellen had run away from Castle Leoch to join the silkies, because his father, Brian, resembled one who had shed his seal skin to walk on land.

Real Jacobite Gold

As we all know, the Jacobite treasure in Voyager was given by the French and hidden away. But there is some real Jacobite gold that some say is still hidden in Loch Arkaig in Scotland.

Two ships called Mars and Bellona came to Scotland with 1,200,000 livres of French and Spanish money.  But the ships heard about the Jacobite defeat at Culloden and ditched the seven cases of money at a port in Loch nan Uamh. One case was stolen by the MacDonalds and the seven others were secretly taken to Loch Arkaig by Murray of Boughton, who started giving money to the Scottish clan chiefs. But when Murray was captured by the British, the money was taken over by the chief of Clan Cameron and then by the head of Clan Macphearson. Macphearson spent much of his time hiding in a cave at Ben Adler…eight years of time, in fact.

Anyway, Charlie hightailed it out of Scotland and into France, leaving his money behind. But a failed king is no good to anyone and old Charlie was beginning to pine for his gold. But it, apparently, was never seen again. It’s assumed that Macphearson kept it all, but no one knows. It could still be hidden somewhere in Loch Arkaig.

Pirates

When I started reading the series, I never thought that I would see a pirate ship in the distance. But as we’ve read, Young Ian is kidnapped off the coast of Scotland by a bunch of pirates aboard the Bruja, which is Spanish for “witch”. Long story short, the Bruja makes it to port in Barbados, and hands Ian, along with the Jacobite gold he was in the process of taking when he was captured, to Mrs. Abernathy. The ship is later destroyed, but the damage is done and they’ve brought the Frasers, inadvertently, to the Americas.

Piracy was slowing down in the 1760s, but was still an active thing in the Caribbean region. One notable Bermudian pirate was Samuel Hall Lord, who straight up plundered any and all ships that he crossed paths with, even swiping riches from stranded sailors. Hall was also a really smart guy. Outside his mansion, on the beach, he would hang lanterns so that unsuspecting ships would think it was the port and sail right into his clutches, wrecking themselves on the reefs. BTW, this pirate built himself a castle. Talk about flair.

Printing in Scotland

One of the most anticipated scenes in season three is the print shop scene. You know, where Claire finally finds Jamie again after 20…well, 200? 220? years have gone by and they’re finally reunited…it’s probably the part I’m looking forward to the most, but let’s take a peek at printing history in Scotland and get a feel for what Jamie was up to in Edinburgh.

In1507, Walter Chepman and Andrew Myllar were given the first royal license for printing in Scotland by James IV in Edinburgh. The first book ever printed via press was The first printed book from this press was The Complaint of the Black Knight by John Lydgate. While this seemed to be a success for them, printing wasn’t an instant hit in Scotland, with new presses being stationed in St. Andrews in 1552, another for a hot minute in Stirling in 1571, and another still in Aberdeen in 1622. After that, they became more widely spread.

The fist Scottish printers would have been trained in France, but as the practice grew, the Scots would have been left to their own devices. And by the 1760s, it didn’t get much easier, as the letters still needed to be set and inked by hand. To get an idea, here’s what Jamie’s printing press might look like…

Prostitution in Scotland

The brothel where Jamie does business, and often keeps a bed, is probably going to be a prime filming location in season three. But what would life have really been like behind the doors of Madame Jeanne’s establishment, you ask? Well, dear reader, let’s chat about the ladies of the night…

The the early and mid 1700’s was basically Scotland’s sexual revolution where prostitution was widespread and some of the best business and deals were made in the lounges and libraries of brothels. They weren’t as flashy as the French brothel we saw in season two, but the girls were kept clean, in good dresses, and as disease free as one can be in the 1700s. These establishments could be hidden down in alleyways or set right in the open in grand houses, while the local police turned a blind eye. I mean, it was such a favorite pastime of the wealthy Scottish that in 1775 James Tyler, a surgeon and editor at Encyclopaedia Britannica published Ranger’s Impartial List of the Ladies of Pleasure, which was basically a directory of all the brothels and their workers in Edinburgh.

Unfortunately, Scotland began to crack down on prostitution in the 1790s, with the girls being arrested on a regular basis and imprisoned. So, I hope Madame Jeane would have had a lot of money saved up for when the government started knocking on her door.

Rose Hall and the White Witch

This is a particular bit that I was eager to get to. I hope, very dearly, that they shoot on location for this one because the Rose Hall mansion is gorgeous! Anyway, we all know Rose Hall as being the home of Mrs. Abernathy AKA Geillis Duncan. Well, this manor home is a very real place, as is the ghost that haunts it.

Rose Hall is a Gregorian Mansion in Jamaica, was built in the 1770s, and was owned by a John Palmer. It was a large estate that usually held about 250 slaves and dealt mostly in sugar. It stayed in the Palmer family for a bit, then went vacant and into disrepair, finally being revived in the 1960s.

As for the legend of the White Witch (which has unfortunately been revealed as nothing more than a story) it centered around Annie Palmer, John Palmer’s wife. Annie was basically raised by nannies who taught her voodoo and carrid on her love of the dark arts into her marriages. Three husbands are said to have died at her hands, along with many innocent slaves. Remind you of anyone?

And Bonnie Prince Charlie

We can’t forget to talk about old charlie and what he did after Culloden…

Soooo during the Battle of Culloden, near the end, things weren’t going great. Basically, Charlie was ignoring the advice of commander Lord George Murray and just ordering whatever he wanted, which wasn’t going well. So Murray was basically like, “screw this, he doesn’t listen to a thing I say,” and drew his men back to attack from a different position. And Charlie, who again didn’t listen, finally noticed Murray was gone, he was like, “oh, Murray left? Well…I guess I’ll head out now,” and left the rest of the Jacobites on the field.

Even though the war was lost, the men never betrayed him to the British and helped him hide in the moors until he could escape the country. He finally did so when Flora MacDonald dressed him up as her maid, Betty Burke, and took him to the Isle of Skye, where a French Ship took him to the France. This is where the Sky Boat Song comes into play, although they leave out the dress and wig.

Charlie as Betty

Losing Scotland drove him to drink and conduct affairs. He was known for being an abusive drunk to the women closest to him, causing all of them to leave, even his own wife.

That’s all for this Saturday! Remember to check back every week for some new Outlander goodness and click HERE to read all out past Droughtlander posts.

♥♥♥

And if you’ve been following out journeys into publishing, you know that we’re really excited about our first ever published books! They’re currently available for preorder on Amazon, so take a look and see if you think our romance novels belong on your Kindle!

You can see more about my Scottish historical romance novel, Queen of Emeralds, and preorder it, now HERE!

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The History Behind “Voyager” As we wait for season three of Outlander's TV show with bated breath, there's never a better time to talk about book three in the series, …

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