#of every yikes in the dictionary of yikes

[lovinqmils]

ꜰᴀʀ ꜰʀᴏᴍ ʜᴏᴍᴇ┊ avatar x human!reader

Warnings: follows avatar twow plot (aka spoils the whole thing) , sfw, mention of weapons (guns, knives etc), bullet wound, some ooc, use of y/n, female reader

𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍...

you manage to get lost on your way home, you unintentionally get yourself caught in a sketchy science experiment...yikes. you wake up in a foreign land (or shall I say planet) that filled with 8-10ft tall blue...creatures?

I do not remember what happened the quaritch scene , and I can't find many helpful clips, so its probably inaccurate

I have no idea on what the houses looked like so bare w me

can also be found on wattpad: @lovinqmils

dictionary: fnawe'tu - coward┊kä - go┊nga lu fìtxan tstew - you are so brave┊dream walker - avatar ┊ mawey - be calm ┊ 'eylan - friend ┊tsahìk - spiritual leader/healer ┊ irayo - thank you ┊kea tìkin - no need to thank

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6

PART 3: "DETERMINED"

after almost a month and a half, you’ve developed a strong friendship with neteyam, lo’ak and spider. your language lessons quickly increased from weekly to at least 4 times a week. every lesson you did everything but learn the language, the two hours were spent making endless jokes and creating chaos around the lab.

today, neteyam was doing some 'eldest duties', as he'd call it, so it was only you, spider and lo'ak. the exact recipe for disaster.

normally you'd agree to any sort of adventure lo'ak would suggest, but this was the first time he'd asked you to leave the lab,

"no." you lightly shook your head and folded your arms

"what'd you mean no?! you literally go outside all the time." lo'ak exclaimed, flailing his arms around

"that's not the point! I've never gone that far from the lab before and you're far from a reliable tour guide." you turn to spider, who was sat on your bed. "you agree with me right?"

"come on y/n! don't be a fnawe'tu" spider teased, lightly pushing your shoulder

"if we get caught I know you'll be in trouble," you said, looking at lo'ak, "but if your father even says a word to me, I think I'll start crying"

"yeah, yeah lets hurry and go!" lo'ak rolled his eyes, grabbed your hand and walked out the door

°。°。°。°。°。°。°。°。°。°。

"woah.." you whispered, looking up at the scene in front of you. somehow, you, lo'ak, spider, kiri and tuk (who had blackmailed lo'ak into letting them tag along) had stumbled upon an old battlefield. you stood in shock as you examined a massive abandoned ship. it was covered in a thick layer of vegetation, meaning the battle had taken place at least 10 years ago.

lo'ak was the first to climb onto the ship, lending down his hand to pull you up, while spider and kiri stayed below to look after tuk.

"this is so cool!" lo'ak proclaimed, picking up one of the many weapons scattered across the ship floor.

you continued to walk deeper into the ship, stopping to look at every dead body you passed. you'd heard about a faraway planet on earth but you never really thought about what humans were doing on it, but after seeing so many lifeless bodies you concluded that what happened wasn't good.

"y/n! lets go look somewhere else," lo'ak called, putting down the gun he'd picked up.

"you guys go on ahead, I'll be out in a minute!" you replied,

"you sure?" lo'ak asked, a hint of worry in his voice,

"mhm, hurry and kä already!" you shouted, then you heard lo'ak jump off the ship and start walking off with the rest of the group.

°。°。°。°。°。°。°。°。°。°。

after five minutes or so, you decided that your exploring had come to an end and made your way off the ship.

"I know I told them to go ahead, but I didn't think they'd leave!" you sighed, looking around in disbelief. "if you're ever lost, just walk straight," you muttered, pushing a leaf the size of a door out of your way. you continued to walk forward, muttering to yourself, as you tried to find your friends or at this point anybody.

a loud scream pulled you from your thoughts, you hid behind a nearby tree and tried to look for the cause of the sound. it felt like your heart had stopped beating when you saw lo'ak, tuk, kiri and spider in the hands of a group of na'vi; no these weren't na'vi they had guns, which could only mean they were human.

you'd heard about humans with na'vi bodies, but seeing them in real life was terrifying.

'I'm not letting them kill my friends.' you thought, not noticing the strong feeling of determination growing in your gut. the tree you hid behind was closest to tuk, so you climbed onto a branch that was directly above the avatar that was holding her.

'my legs better not fail me now..' you positioned yourself on the branch so you'd be able to swing down and hopefully grab tuk. you picked a fruit from the tree and decided you'd smash it in the avatar's face so they'd let go of tuk.

'3..2...1!' you swung down and using all of your arm strength, smashed the fruit directly in the avatar's face successfully making them let go of the youngest sully. you grabbed up tuk by the waist and sat upright on the tree branch.

however, you had no time to rest, as countless bullets were fired at you and tuk. you tightened your grip around tuk and jumped off the tree, running away as fast as you could. once the gunfire ceased, you took cover behind a bush and tried to catch your breath.

you looked at tuk's petrified face, tears streaming down her cheeks, "hey, hey! its okay its just me," you used her thumb to wipe away her tears. "n-nyga..lu fìtsan..tstue" you tried your hardest to comfort her in a familiar language, but you both knew you weren't that advanced yet.

tuk let out a quiet giggle at your poor attempt, "I think you meant, nga lu fìtxan tstew" you chuckled sheepishly, promising to never try to speak a full sentence in na'vi again.

"stay here, if neteyam was doing his normal look-out route, assuming he is coming with your parents, they should fly past here in...around 8 minutes." you stood up and dusted yourself off, failing to notice the deep bullet wound in your bicep.

"wait! your arm-"

you cut tuk off not processing what she was trying to point out, "don't worry, I'm going back for your siblings, but do not move. your parents will be here soon"

°。°。°。°。°。°。°。°。°。°。

you hid behind a tree trunk, looking at the scene in front of you. one of the avatars was standing in front of lo'ak, you were too far away to hear what they were saying but you could tell that the conversation didn't seem too friendly. you felt your body tense as you saw a sharp knife pointed to lo'ak's neck, you frantically looked around trying to find anything that could you help the with current situation. you picked up a nearby rock and threw it with all your might, and to your surprise, it knocked the knife straight from the avatar's hand.

however this time you weren't able to get away.

a muscular blue hand tightly grabbed your left arm and roughly pulled you towards them.

the 'leader' avatar turned to you and let out a dry chuckle, "who have we got here?" he made a signal to the avatar holding you , making them kick the back of your legs, knocking you to the ground.

"aren't you an interesting one? you look like a human yet you've got no mask.." using one hand, he gripped your face, turning it side to side as he examined it.

"quaritch! let go of her!" lo'ak shouted, tugging his hands away roughly to try and free himself.

quaritch payed no mind to lo'ak's struggle and knelt down in front of you. "now you could be a good little girl and come with us, or you might lose one of your little friends."

"why would I listen to a grown man who had to find a whole new body, because he was so insecure of his skill level." you spat. the avatar holding you dug their fingers into the wound on your right arm, causing you to cry out in agonising pain.

"nothing...nothing, you do will change the fact that you're a w-" you were cut off by a strong kick in your back forcing your face into the forest floor.

"what a shame. either way, you will be coming with me." quaritch scoffed, clutching your hair tugging your head upwards to make eye contact.

an abrupt shrill sound caught lo'ak and kiri's attention, you'd never met their parents but you could tell by the look of relief that covered their faces mean that help has finally arrived.

not even a minute later, an arrow shot through the head of the avatar holding kiri. you used the opportunity to break free from capture and run mindlessly into the wilderness of pandora.

you kept looking behind you, trying to make sure nobody was following you. suddenly, you ran straight into a tall, blue figure.

"..ow! oh, neteyam!" you took a step back, smiling cheerfully at your friend

"y/n! your bleeding," neteyam took hold of your injured arm, examining the wound.

"..." you paused letting the remaining adrenaline vanish from your body. "I've been shot." your mouth hung wide open, looking at the scarlet liquid ooze from your arm. "I'VE BEEN SHOT!? WHAT DO I DO?" you let out a petrified squeal, holding out your arm in the air.

"mawey 'eylan, mawey" neteyam hushed, "get on my ikran, I'll get you some help." neteyam lifted you onto his ikran and got on behind you, wrapping an arm around your waist to keep you secure.

°。°。°。°。°。°。°。°。°。°。

"neteyam! what took you so long?" jake asked, turning to his eldest son

"I found y/n in the forest, she was shot," neteyam demounted his ikran then gently lowered you down.

"..uh I'm sorry for the...inconvenience..sir," you grunted, trying your hardest to ignore the throbbing pain in your arm.

jake looked at you in disbelief before letting out a stressed sigh, rubbing his temples, "..it's..it's fine kid. kiri, take y/n back to the lab. and take tuk with you"

kiri scoffed, looking her father up and down. it was clear she did not want to move.

"now!" jake yelled, not wanting to deal with her antics any longer.

"follow me." kiri sighed, rolling her eyes as she walked off. "i'm not gonna walk all the way back to the lab, so I'll take you to the tsahìk"

"does the tsahìk even treat humans?" you asked hesitantly

"I'll guess we'll have to find out" kiri dismissed, taking hold of your uninjured arm pulling you along

°。°。°。°。°。°。°。°。°。°。

you sat in front of the tsahìk letting out quiet painful groans as a healing paste was applied to your wound.

"I wouldn't normally do this for a human..but since you got hurt saving my family, I'll let you off," Mo'at mumbled

"y/n was so cool! she swung upside down like 'whoosh!' and beat up the bad guy!" tuk exclaimed, doing her best to act out the previous events

"I think that's a bit of an exaggeration.." you muttered embarrassed by tuk's praise

"be careful with that arm from now on. it should heal completely in a couple of weeks," the tsahìk said, putting away her medicinal paste and bandages.

"..irayo" you thanked, standing up and preparing to leave

"kea tìkin, it's my job after all" Mo'at reassured, smiling gently at you

°。°。°。°。°。°。°。°。°。°。

it was now the next day, you knew neteyam and lo'ak were probably grounded for life, but when they didn't show up to your 'language' lesson you couldn't help but frown.

"flo, please, please can I go out?" you begged, shaking her shoulders desperately

"the last time I let you do that you almost got yourself killed." florence reminded, her eyes not moving from her computer screen,

"you told me 'not socialising is bad for my mental health', but now you're trying to keep me from socialising! I won't do anything dangerous, please!"

florence paused for a second, before taking a deep breath and saying, "fine, but you need to be back in 2 hours."

"okay!" you chirped, skipping out of the lab doors

"I'm gonna regret that..." florence groaned,

neteyam's ears perked up upon hearing a knock on his front door. when he got up to answer it, he was surprised to see you standing there

"y/n? are you supposed to be here?"

"neteyam! hii! are your parents home?" you asked, trying to peer over his shoulder to see inside

"no my mother went out with tuk and kiri and my dad left to go over the lab 10 minutes ago," neteyam answered, still confused as to why you even knew where he lived

"great! can I come in?"

a/n: thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed <3

please comment to be added to the taglist!

#lovinqmils #na'vi #pandora #sully family #x reader #fanfic #avatar x y/n #avatar 2 #avatar #avatar way of water #avatar x human reader #avatar spider #avatar fic #avatar twow

[amica-aenigmata-naboo]

Aeterna Amantes

Astarion x Y/N - Chapter 5 - 1.4K WC

chapter 1

chapter 2

chapter 3

chapter 4

chapter 5 (you are here!)

Masterlist

Warnings: mention of thinking of sex, implied blood drinking, Astarion and reader slowly falling in love, sappy af, TENSION LIKE A MF, like talk about slow and painful, yikes, pray for me y'all because its gonna get filthy next time , slightly steamy here in a victorian love kinda way

-----------------------------

They had never left you alone at camp for this long. You started the campfire by yourself, played with the Owlbear and Scratch until you grew tired. The sun had been down for so long and you couldn’t help but worry. You had no way to know where they had gone, Moonrise Towers was the objective for days but the new environment of The Shadow Cursed Lands was difficult to map out. You paced around camp, trying to find things to do. Practicing your writing and reading the dictionary had proven mind numbing enough that you didn’t hear the metal clinking as your companions rushed back to camp. You only realized they were back when you heard them yelling and shuffling into Shadowheart’s tent. You could see Gale and her attempting spells but fizzling out as they were so exhausted they couldn’t muster the magic. That’s when you saw it. His white curls, spattered with blood. His eyes rolled back, he was unmoving. You sprinted to Astarion, tripping over yourself in the process. Your knees were bleeding but you didn’t care, you just needed to get to him.

“What’s wrong with him?” you asked, hands shaking as you were afraid touching him would somehow worsen his condition. 

“Drow poison.” Karlach said as she doused his many cuts with antidote.

You moved close to him, holding his head still. You could see his eyelashes flutter every so often but he was growing paler by the second which was concerning given his already undead state. “Wake up.” you said as you shook him slightly. 

Nothing.

“Wake up!” you yelled as you felt tears brim in your eyes. 

Nothing.

The others stopped, completely spent from whatever had gone on that day. They all watched you with sadness growing on their faces, knowing how you had attached yourself to the pale elf. 

“Y/N… there’s nothing we can do… we just need to wait for whenever Withers shows up.” Gale said gently, trying to pull you out of the gloomy tent with the others. 

You snatched your arms back, “No!” you yelled, walking back to Astarion. Your eyes were glowing the color of freshly forged steel, a blazing shade of orange.

Gale shook his head, walking away. This would be your first encounter with death, maybe that was something you needed to experience alone. 

You thumbed over Astarion’s cold face. You wanted him back. No - you needed him back. Your heart felt as if it was vibrating due to the sheer emotion of the situation. Its glow was illuminating the whole tent. 

“Wake up!” you cried softly, “Please?”

To no avail, he remained unmoving. Golden tears streamed down your cheeks as you moved closer to his face. “I’ll find a way to bring you back, I promise.” you swore to him before swiftly crashing your lips onto his. Your lips stung as if a zap of lightning had hit you mid-kiss. You pulled away quickly. Astarion shot up, he sucked in a deep breath before coughing. You backed up, fingers flitting to your lips to smooth over them. 

Astarion looked around in shock, “What happened?” he said curiously.

He was back, really back. Your tears picked up again, glittering as they cascaded down your cheeks. You pulled him into a hug, nestling your face into the crook of his neck. “You died.” you mumbled. 

Astarion’s instincts took over as he hugged you back tightly. He pet your hair to soothe you, shushing you as you gasped out little whines and hiccups. He held your face gently, “Hey… hey… you know I wouldn’t leave you all by your lonesome.” he whispered as his thumbs smoothed your tears away. 

You nodded quickly before noticing his lips were slightly glowing. You reached out, softly swiping at them. The shimmer spread over him like wildfire. The glow was barely perceivable but you noticed it before it dissipated settling in his very bones. 

“What was that?” he asked, looking himself over to see what had just happened. 

“I don’t know.” you whispered.

“How did I come back?” he asked, looking around the tent, trying to find scrolls or potions. 

“I… Everyone left… You… I… I didn’t want to leave you. I told you I’d find a way to bring you back… and then I…” you gulped as the last of the sentence tumbled from your lips.

“Then I…?” Astarion said with a tinge of confusion in his voice. 

“I kissed you… to seal the promise…” you couldn’t look at him as you said any of this, embarrassment flooding into you. 

“Your magic…” he whispered to himself, “Your heart brought me back.” he said with confidence.

You looked down to the glowing infernal contraption. “Arcane magic.” he said as he placed his hand over your heart.

“What does that mean?” you mumbled, feeling your chest grow hot due to his hand resting there. 

“It… ummm… you can, well…” how does one describe arcane magic, he thought to himself. “You can manipulate energies to bend the fabric of reality, giving you whatever you desire.” he said slowly, ensuring his words somewhat made sense. 

Your eyes widened, you had no idea you wielded that kind of power. It scared you honestly. If you can bring people back from the dead what else can you do? You backed away from him, looking down at your hands, watching the golden blood pump through your veins. Your mind felt overwhelmed, every thought trying to shout over the previous one. You looked back to Astarion who was already watching you. You didn’t know what to do with how you felt, you just wanted to be alone. So that's what you did, you walked back to your tent without another word. You heard his soft steps trailing you. You covered your ears as you slumped down onto your bedroll; you just wanted to block the world out. Your eyes clamped shut, embracing the darkness momentarily.

Astarion sat next to you, he nudged your shoulder with his forehead encouraging you to open your eyes. To no avail. “Everything you’re feeling is normal. I know this is a heavy burden to bear. Power is lovely but… it's so easy to taint. To misuse. Gods knows how I’ve used my powers for absolutely sinful things.” 

You dropped your hands to rest on your knees, but your eyes remained closed. “It's too much… This is too much… Make it not true…” you gasped out, anxiety gripping you. Tears brimmed in your eyes, this amount of power was frightening. You barely knew anything of the world having been in the Arcane Tower; you were learning everyday about the world around you and who you are as a person. Having such a small grasp of the reality of total freedom to do all this. And now being told you can change the world around you, the very fabric of reality. It was suffocating, crushing. 

You leaned your head against Astarion’s, exhausted completely. You felt his cold hand caress your cheek. You peeked at him, he smiled seeing just the smallest reaction from you. “You’re going to be just fine darling. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now but you will. And I’ll be here to make sure you do. I’ll… I’ll always be here for you.” he said, whispering out the last bit, almost as if he was promising this to you. 

You tilted him up by his chin gently. His gaze was piercing; a beautiful shade of crimson that drew you in. You rested your forehead against his, lips inches away. Your breaths mimicked his after a moment, calming you and yet riling you up in a sensual way that had you buzzing with curiosity. You couldn’t stand it, you attached your lips to his. Something primal in you needing him and only him. He responded immediately, hungry for you. His hand trailed from your cheek to your throat, thumb ghosting over the two little scars on your neck he gifted you with. You moaned at the contact and it took everything in him not to take you then and there. 

“Wait… darling, we shouldn’t.” He said as he begrudgingly pulled away from you. “Not like this, not when you are this vulnerable. This is the last thing you need to be thinking about with everything you're dealing with.” he sighed, feeling guilty. 

“I know what I want.” you said bluntly, emotions might be somewhat new to you but you felt this in your bones. “You.” you said firmly. You pulled Astarion into a feathery light kiss, waiting for him to deepen it if he so desired. He indulged in you; your sweet, soft self. He wanted you in a way that burned him from the inside out.

-------------------

Naboo's Note:

Back from the dead!! Sorry this took so long to post I was in my feels and work was exhausting I worked and 18 hour shift and that absolutely FUCKED ME. But I'm gonna try to get out a few fics even if they're smaller ones. Thank y'all for your patience, your comments encourage tf outta me <3

#baldurs gate 3 #astarion x tav #astarion x reader #bg3 #bg3 wyll #writing #gale of waterdeep #karlach #lae'zel #isekai #astarion bg3 #bg3 fanart #bg3 tav #bg3 astarion #bg3 spoilers #bg3 art #tav #baldurs gate #baldurs gate astarion #astarion #baulders gate 3

[dramalets]

2024 Watch List pt1

Here we go again!

To sir, with love - This is a lakorn so it's appropriately dramatic. The mothers are absolutely foul and do an awful lot of scheming and yelling. Jam/Film are intensely watchable and make wet fish kisses look terribly romantic. Tongtong Kitsakorn as Yang was a revelation. I'm sad he's pm just a lakorn actor/pop star because he is so watchable. I loved that, though they were evil and insane, the mothers all felt fleshed out and realised. You understood why they were yikes. 3½/5 (2/1/23)

A Boss & a Babe - I quit this at episode 2 and then decided to go back to it. I don’t regret doing so. This isn’t top tier but it’s also not shit tier. Cher, the very dictionary definition of toxic positivity, and Gun, an autism coded cat man, enter into an extremely quick romance (like seriously, it’s taken hard worn lesbians longer to say I love you) the catch being they’re intern and company boss. Honestly in another drama that would have been the the huge hiccup of the series, keeping them apart, but it’s consistently shown to be more of an issue for others that it is for them. This is very low conflict, mostly romcom fluff with two weirdly intense, barely explored side stories for support characters. I didn’t loath Force in this and would actually like him to be given more roles where he’s just a soft simp and not a boring sarcastic one. Book does some good comedy work here. 3/5 (4/1/23)

The day I loved you - I know this won’t work for everyone. It’s a bittersweet ten episode love story between a boy with ASL and the ‘rebel’ exchange student at his school. Pinoy BL, for me, either really hits or really misses and this hit. It does use a questionable model of disability, namely the inspiration model, but I cant nit pick too much when this is only ten 15/20 minute episodes. I enjoyed it a lot, you may also if you’re okay with a bittersweet ending vs an out and out happy one. 3½/5 (12/1/24)

VIP Only - Well this was adorable. Slow as molasses and just as sweet. This probably won’t be for everyone, very slow and not much happens other than character growth and a love story, but it worked for me. The edit is horrendous in places and I do wish Taiwan did longer episodes, but those are my only gripes. 3½/5 (19/1/24)

I cannot reach you - I don’t really watch Jbl. There are just styles and tropes that I don’t enjoy watching that Japan uses a lot of. It’s a taste thing more than it is anything else. So keep that in mind. This is full of a lot of the things I don’t like; over action, randomly running everywhere, sudden non-con. But it’s also endearingly sweet and very well acted, so I did find myself enjoying it. I don’t think this’ll awaken a desire to watch lots of Jbl but it has made me consider some others. 3/5 (20/1/24)

Last Twilight - I had a lot of fun with this. The dialogue and acting were all top notch and, as ever with Aof productions, it was stunning to look at. It weaves the story of two broken people healing one another very well with Jimmy & Sea doing beautiful work as Mhok & Day. I think this came a little unstuck at points in the end. I liked most of the romance movie style ending but I remain a little unsure about Day’s ending. Still, this is a show that I enjoyed every week and will have no issues rewatching. 4/5 (26/1/24)

Old Fashion Cupcake - I’m working on trying out more JBL to get a feel for what I do and don’t like. This? This I like. We don’t have enough stories about older people anyway and this does it well. Togawa’s slow courting of Nozue through shared experiences and casual intimacy is delicious to watch. 4/5 (4/2/24)

Pit Babe - I love when I show wholly knows what it is and doesn’t try and be anything but that. This knew it was a big ol’ fanfic and leaned wholeheartedly into that. Whether it was the breeding program subplot or the consistently dumb toothpaste and sausage ppl it handled them both with equal aplomb. It’s also worth noting that was largely really well acted too! Pavel, Nut & Sailub particularly impressed me but there was nobody bad. 4/5 (9/2/24)

Our Dining Table - My journey into JBL continues and this was the best one yet. Soft pining between two sad boy leads with a gorgeous found family story woven in. The treacle slow courting between these two won’t be for everyone but it was wholly for me. 5/5 (17/2/24)

Cooking Crush - The edit on this was criminally bad at points, sometimes I truly felt I’d skipped a part and I hadn’t at all, but it still served up a good little story. If you’re visiting this for the romance it’s not really that, the story is in the friends and their lives more than it is in Ten & Prem’s romance. I loved the comedy in this, it hit those notes well and was never over the top. (Lots of puns that I expect are super good if you speak Thai.) Nobody is bad in this, everyone delivers, but OffGun are as watchable as they always are and the few kisses they do have are perfect. 3/5 (18/2/24)

The Novelist - When I say I don’t love JBL it’s usually because the tropes are just too tropey for my tastes. Apparently I’m a lying liar who lies because this is extremely Japanese and I loved every moody second of it. Kijima is a sad, lonely, messed up man who doesn’t think he’s deserving of anything good and it’s wildly compelling to watch. 4/5 (18/2/24)

Mood Indigo - Fucked up 4 Fucked up. Two broken, sad, lonely men mess up repeatedly, and erotically, that’s it that’s the show and I ate it up with a spoon. Deeply flawed assholes being toxic together, when it’s well written and well acted, is so disgustingly watchable to me and this certainly was. 5/5 (18/2/24)

The Novelist: Playback - Continues where The Novelist ends. I watched the clean version of this, it was what was available to me, and was still deeply entertained. So if you think people watch this series for the heat then you’re incorrect. This is another instalment of Kijima Rio being a horribly broken fuck up of a man. I loved it. 4/5 (21/2/24)

Tokyo in April is… - I love a good destined to be together trope when it’s done well and this is done beautifully. Kazuma and Ren fall in love as teenagers and are separated before finding one another again as adults. The pacing on this is a little rough, I get what they were doing with the sub-plot but it felt mildly unneeded and time would have been better given to exploring our leads generally or even Ren’s painful family issues. This is still a lovely drama that I wholly recommend. 4/5 (21/2/24)

#jen rambles #to sir with love #a boss and a babe #the day I loved you #VIP only #I cannot reach you #last twilight #old fashion cupcake #pit babe #our dining table #cooking crush #The Novelist #Mood Indigo #playback #tokyo in april is...

[justmenoworries]

Lore Olympus Episode 239 Spoilers

Okay, something positive first. Credit where it's due, the new designs shown in this episode slapped. I really liked Morpheus' new look, Persephone's Dream Realm dress and haircut and holy shit do I adore Erebos! (At least I think that at the end was supposed to be Erebos. It seems likely, since they show up in the flashback right after Persephone ate the pomegranate.)

Aaand, that's it for posititivy! Back to our usual program!

This whole episode seemed extremely rushed. Like, one episode prior we were making fun of Leuce for making the moves on Hades (yikes, btw) and now suddenly it's all "By the way, we found a way to explore the Dream Realm, we have no real idea how anything works or if it's dangerous or what the consequences would be if something were to go wrong, but we're just gonna send the Queen of the Underworld right in with no prep or practice runs whatsoever."

This all looks so poorly thought-out from Persephone's side.

Like, I'm glad we're finally doing something about Kronos and the child deity he's holding hostage, but this really needed some more build-up. Scenes of Morpheus training, Persephone consulting several specialists inculding Hecate on how they should utilize this, maybe even discussing failsafes for an emergency, like, oh, I don't know, Kronos noticing the fertility goddess he's been after is in his head and trying to take advantage of that by pulling a hostile takeover???

Quick question, why couldn't both Hades and Persephone go into the Dream Realm? When you're exploring unknown, possibly hostile territory, isn't it better to move in a group, so you can have each others' backs? It would also be an opportunity to show us that hxp are a power couple that work well together, instead of just having them tell us that's the case. But nah, that would take time away from the story once again drooling over how oh-so-special Persephone is.

God, Hecate's exposition dump was painful.

"As you know" is a widely mocked stock phrase for a reason. If the person you're talking to already knows what you're going to say, then why say it? You're basically admitting that you failed to convey the following information to the audience organically, so you're just gonna have a character talk to the camera for the next twenty minutes.

I'm also fairly certain this is the first time we've heard of this mysterious "interloper" who could be sabotaging/has sabotaged trips to the Dream Realm. Is that just their term for the child? That's kinda weird. If the child is reaching out through dreams, that's not them interloping, that's more them sending out a call for help, no?

Seeing Persephone have a positive memory of Demeter was sweet, but of course they immediately had to undercut it by switching to a memory of her and Hades doing it. And naturally that's the memory she has a hard time letting go of to move one, not the one with her loving mother whom she recently had a fight with. Makes total sense.

Gotta love how an ancient being like Kronos uses terms like "dumb fucking bitch" for insults. Did somebody just take an urban dictionary to Kronos's cell every view centuries, so he could stay up-to-date on the slang?

#anti lore olympus #lore olympus spoilers #lore olympus critical

[fierceawakening]

I am indeed trying my hand at turning the thing into original fiction. I really do have Stuff to Say about disability identity (and trans identity) and sci fi concepts like the cyborg, and that’s probably going to be easier to say more clearly if I’m not restricted by using a preexisting setting/culture/blah.

Not sure how far I’ll get but how about this? If people want to see it, dm me with an email I can send it to, and I can send each chapter as I finish it.

Or I could stick them on the Google drive I made for the dictionary and just give the link to that group.

(For anyone worried I don’t plan to stop writing the fic at this point. I still really like Phyrexia specifically and there are still things I can do with that setting and backstory that make me want to continue the fic too. And not every project I start works out.

Also if I wanted cool language bits in the origfic I’d have to invent my own damn conlang, and yikes, no. Maybe if I didn’t have to work.)

[elainemorisi]

thinking about that thing in scifi where it’ll throw in this retroactive or but-of-course-never flirting/what could have been moment between the [always?] male protagonist and a science-fictionally-nonbinary character to, like, wink at how Openminded And Advanced he/the author is and never, ever, ever even consider the possibility of taking it somewhere

there’s no further point to this post. it’s just ew

#this is apropos of my friend texting me about this woman she's dating #first text: 'I'm dating someone who dislikes The Fifth Season do I dump her?' #me: mostly unserious yes of course does she like sff in general #she: yeah she loves Bujold #me: ...I'll be honest that's not ideal #she: yeah she finds TFS 'too hostile' #me (and she): red FUCKING flag for actual real holy god #Too Hostile I /ask/ you folks #that book's entire... I mean entirety but especially its start is pretty much #'here is some near-unimaginable trauma to go with this unbearable pain and would you care for a side of gruesome suffering' #it is entirely reasonable to not enjoy it or not want to read it (especially these days) #but HOSTILE #of every yikes in the dictionary of yikes #that book is not HOSTILE that book is SUFFERING #anyway I was just ruminating on how fucking creepy and unpleasant the Vorkosigan universe is #and remembered the above-described thing in addition to all my usual gripes #(to be clear I also enjoyed reading those... when I ignored the deeply creepy shit #they're fine books! #well written! #but to have that be the sff you love when that's your reaction to TFS... yeaaaaah) #ANYWAY #to also tagramble about what I'll next reblog #the above-described is somewhat what LeGuin did too #but not totally #Left Hand absolutely ends how it ends out of authorial cowardice #slash failure of imagination #but it's not doing it for the wink wink look at me reason #it is I believe a pretty honest failure

[corvidii]

i feel very sad and noodley after finishing all of tid

#it is so early 2010s #but i just ska *pulls out saxaphone* idk i got that from watcher puppet history but pretty much im sad and das not fun #and das also not good because i have two math assignments due in one two days and a form to fill out #its where i sign up for another 'hoighrr leavel oaf edaucaation' thing because my previous one was shut down #and it has a bunch of questions like 'why would teachers b glad ur in their class???' i dont bother them and get most of my work done ontime #wow ill just do it here then lol im so bored though nd tired bht just in the way that i dont love quarantine its getting annoying now #i would really like to just be a specter for life ghost time sounds fun i was raised on youtube videos and das not healthy #haha im bored still and prob should stretch im still not fully over my box even after one ish months on pointe yikes #vut im very sad fine fellows a brummagen sort of sad idk dictionary. com gives terrible words of rhe days #pun time pun time to distract from the hole of sadness id hate to hamper you but could you point me to the nearest laundromat? haha funne? #or i got another better one: did you hear about the haunted house? they say its the gHoul est place around :) #my greatest enemy is a skeleton. ive still got a bone to pick withem >:( #i really wish we could just say puns irl just like talking about sweaters and someone gets mad whoah dont get a knit in your stitch darling #im really channeling my inner western cowboy today because I heard abt this nevada town that basically acted out those cowboy cool scenes #every time travelers came around #anyways wild west woot its so romanticized but really its just ...west #ok i have responsibilities i dont want now so instead of frolicking in a medow with my dog (<3) #i am going to do some boring math and kiss my school faculties a88 :) UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN

[i-love-side-characters]

hot take for the aoas fandom but i don’t ship curaday. not bc i just don’t like the ship but bc i don’t like how faraday was curie’s previous mentor. idk... it just seems manipulative and predatory to me that they ended up together with the power dynamic so unbalanced.

hmm i definitely see where you're coming with that. and don't worry its fine that you don't ship them!!! that's perfectly acceptable!!!

i have to say a few things first on the predatory aspect, if that's alright. also disclaimer this is quite rambly, i'm sorry i'm just very tired.

additional notes:

important points/things i want to stress in bold

quotes are italicized

thunderhead + the toll quote used!!! not really spoilers, but careful if you haven't read books 2 and 3!!!

if you're not a coward here's my askbox

now in my opinion, there are a few things that might make it seem as though curaday is a very predatory relationship. one, the mentor/apprentice problem. two, the age gap. three, the essence of their romantic relationship. because you didn't state why you felt it was predatory, i'll adress those issues.

1) the nature of their relationship during the mentor years

the "original" curaday as such wasn't really a romantic relationship. there was no hint of the relationship between the two while faraday was mentoring curie. at the time when their relationship was only mentor/apprentice and indeed adult/minor, there were no requited feelings from faraday.

"....then tore [the journal entry] out the next day, when i broke down and confessed my love with eyeball-rolling melodrama. [...] [scythe faraday], on the other hand, was a gentleman [...] and let me down as easily as he could." ― scythe curie, (page 347, scythe)

just to be thorough, here are several definitions of "let down." all links in sources.

convey bad or disappointing news in a considerate way, so as to spare the person's self-respect. ― idioms free dictionary

to try to give someone bad news in a way that does not upset them too much. ― macmillan dictionary

an unrelated expression is let someone down easy. this phrase refers to breaking up with someone in a relationship in such a way that they are not devastated of overly sad. ― writing explained

so it's clearly implied that faraday said no to her. after curie confesses her feelings, she describes what happen after that.

"i lived in [scythe faraday's] house, and remained his apprentice, for two more awkward months." ― scythe curie (page 347, scythe)

note that there is no mention of there ever being a romantic relationship between the two scythes during the remainder of the mentorship. this shows that no adult/minor predatory behaviour had occurred between the two scythes.

just to add on, some thoughts from my friend ref. ( @jam-is-my-food )

"if their romance took place when or anytime around when curie was his apprentice, yes. absolutely that would be a tilted power dynamic and uncomfortable and Not Good."

this, as well as the quotes, removes the "predatory" aspect of your concern. but that's just my opinion!!! you can still believe that is an unhealthy and wrong relationship. but personally i don't think the mentor/apprentice concern is a factor, since the romantic aspect took place much later.

2) the age gap during the years of their romantic relationship

there is a 5 year age gap between the two scythes. according to the wiki, at the start of scythe, curie is 219 years old, and faraday is 224. during scythe curie's explanation of her crush on faraday, she pinpoints their exact ages.

"i was seventeen and full of righteous indignation at a world that was still heaving in the throes of transformation." ― scythe curie (page 345, scythe)

"i was seventeen, remember. childish in so many ways. i thought myself in love." ― scythe curie (page 346, scythe)

"but at twenty-two, [scythe faraday] was just as inexperienced in such matters as i was." ― scythe curie, (page 346, scythe)

the five year age gap during the mentorship would have made it an adult/minor relationship, but as they grew older that simply isn't the case.

"then, nearly fifty years later, when we both had turned our first corner and were seeing the world through youthful eyes once more―but this time with the wisdom of age on our side―we became lovers." ― scythe curie (page 347, scythe)

they became romantically involved until fifty years had passed. which would put curie at around 67, and faraday at around 72. curie even outright says that they had "the wisdom of age on [their] side." this shows that curie believed that both parties were mature in their starting of a romantic connection.

here is some more input from ref. ( @/jam-is-my-food )

"and, adding on to [the earlier statement], if faraday was the one who had liked marie when she was his apprentice. even if a lot of years had passed, that would i think still make it inherently predatory and yikes.

but the thing is, that's not what happened. all that happened when she apprenticed for him was that marie had a crush on michael.

and he turned her down. because she was a kid. and that's the end of it."

this, i would say, addresses the general complaint of the age gap between the two. most often people believe that because faraday apprenticed curie that he was a lot older but that's not true. the gap is only 5 years. now that absolutely does not make their relationship "not predatory", but it does show that both parties were mature in their decisions.

3) after their romantic relationship + friendship

now this part is less technical than the others. this is mostly my opinions. but just to start off, i want to look at their relationship after the 7 deaths and 70 years.

your feeling of their relationship is that it is "manipulative and predatory". now i've never been in an unhealthy relationship before, but i don't believe this is one (please correct me if i'm wrong! i am not speaking from experience here and could easily make a mistake!).

out of everything, their treatment of one another after the romantic relationship stands out to me the most. personally if their romantic had been unhealthy in that sense, i don't believe they would have stayed friends as they did.

i had written an essay a while about curie and faraday together. if you could read it that would be great! however i'm linking my friend nisha's ( @genyyasafin ) reblog of it, as she adds in a small bit at the end about how faraday humanizes curie. [ here ] is the link.

as i was saying, i don't think this is a predatory and manipulative relationship simply from the way they act afterwards. they are described as old friends constantly, and that friendship seems natural, to me at least. now you could be saying that this is a manipulative relationship and neither of them notice, but i don't think that's true.

“seven deaths, and seventy years later, many things had changed. we remained old friends after that, but nothing more.” ― scythe curie (page 348, scythe)

"i have observed the rise and fall of the romantic relationship between [scythe curie and scythe faraday], as well as the many years of devoted friendship that has followed." ― the thunderhead (page 383, thunderhead)

these two show that even the thunderhead, which is an incredibly knowledgeable force, does not seem to be troubled by their relationship.

not to mention this quote:

"other scythes―the ones i'm friendly with―will call me marie." ― scythe curie (page 235, scythe)

and through that quote it is shown that both curie and faraday are comfortable around each other. this isn't every instance in the books, but the ones i found quickly.

"marie―scythe curie that is―...." ― scythe faraday (page 371, scythe)

"and you, marie." ― scythe faraday (page 383, thunderhead)

"where are you my dear marie?" ― (page 102, the toll)

i didn't add in any quotes where its the reverse and she calls him michael, because he never mentioned his policy for first-name-basis, but this shows how comfortable curie is around faraday. not to mention it is implied that curie and faraday talk often, as curie knows about an event that only faraday, citra, and rowan know about.

"didn't you already attend a family wedding?"

citra wondered how scythe curie knew that, but wasn't about to let herself be derailed. ― scythe curie - dialogue, citra terranova - narraration (page 231, scythe)

the comfort in which they speak to and reference one another suggests to me, at least, that there is not a manipulative intent or feeling in the relationship.

4) conclusion i suppose

if you read all the way here, then i applaud you for your dedication and i thank you very much. that seriously means so much to me.

to anon: this essay was a whole 1,429 words. i am so sorry. however i do disagree with your opinion but i hope i've voiced mine in a somewhat coherent manner. thank you so much for reading all this way!!!

5) sources:

scythe curie wiki

scythe faraday wiki

arc of a scythe - book one: scythe

arc of a scythe - book two: thunderhead

arc of a scythe - book three: the toll

let down - idioms by the free dictionary

let down - macmillan dictionary

let down - writing explained

#not main content #arc of a scythe #aoas #mine #scythe curie #hs curie #scythe faraday #hs faraday #curaday #otp: is it true you died seven deaths for her? #otp: and her for me #long post #im very sorry anon this is quite long #i just found your opinion very interesting #i hope i didnt come off as rude that wasn't my intent #also i know its a mess im sorry #its not coherent at all

[realwizardshit]

oh man it’s been a while since ive seen some lolita drama but here it is. i got invited to a “big sisters of lolita” fb group which is for like. experienced peeps to give advice to new people. this person made a post that was like hey, ive never actually worn lolita but i wrote this article introducing people to it, and linked to the article, and was like is there anyone here who i can interview? but.

the article. is so bad. because this person is as stated an outsider, they dont fucking know anything, and they did NOT do a lot of research. everything is rather ignorant, as if everything they know about Japan is from their 2008 high school history textbook, tinged with a little bit* of racism, and this is nitpicking but for a Professional Researched Article the grammar is like, high school level.

*actually a lot

some highlights as i read it:

“We know Japan’s strictness with their way of life in terms of day-to-day life. The way of the Samurais, [...]”

“[...] the World War ending barely two decades before with the falling of the nuclear bomb. This led to America throwing millions of dollars to help Japan get back on its feet” HEY PAL???? WHO DO YOU THINK DROPPED THE BOMBS??????????????????

this is a whole sentence: “Resistance by reading manga (comics) instead of University books.”

they go on to explain in basic detail how lolita came from harajuku streetwear which is fine nothing wrong with that

a picture of Gwen Stefani dressed in a gaudy ass mismatched outfit that’s too small for her standing in front of three Asian girls in matching outfits which seems a bit yikes(tm)

“But as a Lolita, they can be young forever and disregard all these norms and rules put forth by society.”

OF COURSE mentioning the Nabokov novel because we can’t have nice things on this earth

“Because why not have some guy on the internet with no background in the field talk about it?” why not, I wonder?

*takes a shot because the author got racist again* “[...] let’s get scientific a bit.” then goes on for 2 paragraphs talking about, i shit you not, the genetic condition known as neoteny and how, quote, “most East and Southeast Asians carry this gene which gives them that childlike look.” an ignorant as fuck pseudoscientific, vaguely eugenics ish paragraph about selective breeding and what Humans find attractive

“So you can say Cuteness/kawaiiness is built into the mind, body, and soul for over 35,000 years for the Asian people.”

more talk about genetics why is this the hill you want to die on oh my god

author is from India and probably not a native english speaker. i retract my roast about their grammar its not that big of a deal, up to now i thought they were american

talking about big sisters of lolita. is this the only community they know about?

they also wrote a Starter Guide to Lolita and Ouji Fashion, let’s take a look....

wrote “J*p” instead of “Japanese” or “JP”

“Also, I’m not the right person to ask about every word in the Lolita dictionary.” Why the fuck did you write this then?

calling Taobao pieces from resellers [Reseller] Brand

a weird obsession with the military lolita substyle, like mentioning it more and before than sweet/goth/classic which is a little 🤔

on ouji (the boyish counterpart to lolita, literally translates to “prince”): “But they have more of a shota feel to the whole set.” OP I DONT KNOW IF YOU KNOW WHAT THAT WORD MEANS 

"Since Lolitas is to make oneself doll-like, [...]”

“How to act as a proper Lolita (TLDR)” two paragraphs on how you’re supposed to Act Girly and Proper which has absolutely not existed in any of my experience and really undermines OP’s half-assed attempts to characterize lolita as feminist (it is, but neither of these articles do a very good job of showing this)

“When going to tea parties, remember to carry a cupcake. It’s customs.” What?

“The guy who wrote this and the previous article is someone who has zero experience in Lolita fashion and culture and the studies of genes.” WHY DO YOU KEEP BRINGING UP GENES IT’S CLOTHES??? WHAT DO CLOTHES HAVE TO DO WITH GENETICS??? YOU FUCKING CREEP????

anyway i’ve taken lethal psychic damage. everyone in the comments is rightly roasting this guy.

#long post #egl #HOOO mama this was bad to look at #i feel like i know this guy's entire political beliefs and they're NOT good

[we-are-inevitable]

toxic relationship hcs you say?? 😈 i adore this au so much jac

- sometimes they’ll just. argue about nothing into the early hours of the morning, then have hate sex and go to bed angry. jack’s favourite non-apology is to come home with a baggie of coke or something and be like “would this make you feel better babe?”,, whereas davey is probably more likely to actually say he’s sorry, even if he wasn’t really in the wrong in the first place

- davey gets so possessive and jealous when it comes to jack, even when it’s just with his friends that he’s not remotely romantic or sexual with. he knows he’s being irrational, but sometimes he finds himself guilt-tripping jack about it anyways :/

- ok on a slightly different note. not sure how hard of drugs they do in this au,, but some good angst fuel could be one of them ending up in a k hole and the other having absolutely no fucking clue what to do about it. like jack’s completely dissociated and confused and hallucinating so bad that he can’t even move, and davey is pretty high himself and he’s never seen someone get like this before, so he’s freaking out. maybe he even ends up calling one of jack’s friends to help, even though he knows they don’t really like him

kath i hope u know that i am actually in love with you holy SHIT

also just in case, but:

TW: drugs, alcohol, discussion of sexual topics, toxic relationships

okay so right off the bat: jack using drugs to make make davey Not Pissed Off is something that can be so personal,

i feel like i should also establish- for anyone reading this- that jack and david are absolutely horrible people in this au, by the way. i'll get into more on that later.

but yeah, jack knows davey, and jack knows that davey is happier when high, so when davey is high, davey is happy, and davey tends to get high after they fight. it's a constant cycle of anger and drugs and numbness and "i love you" and it's almost disorienting, but they're both too far gone to care at that point.

so, when davey is angry at jack, jack will let him take the first hits from a blunt, or splurge and bring home the "good" coke, or offer to help him shoot up in the bathroom.

BUT when jack is mad at DAVEY, jack tends to be a bit more selfish with his shit. davey's "apologies" are basically him just apologizing so jack will get high with him again, or fuck him again, or smoke with him on the balcony again.

all in all, jack pacifies davey and davey tells jack what he wants to hear. neither are actually sorry.

MOVING ON:

davey getting possessive over jack is ABSOLUTELY something that happens. because, well, davey... doesn't really have anyone else?

he went low contact with his family for jack. he rarely stays at his own dorm when they're first starting their relationship- he's always at jack's- so he doesn't really get along with his roommate anymore. he doesn't talk to people in his classes and lectures. he spends every moment he has with jack, because jack is the only person giving him the attention he needs.

it gets worse when they actually move in together, once they can move out of the dorms.

he gets upset when jack goes to a party without him. he gets upset when jack spends a lot of time with his friends. on the rare occasions that jack's friends want to get high (on weed; they don't do harder shit like jack), david is LIVID when jack comes home smelling like weed- because david wasn't there.

david has a lot of codependence issues.

FINALLY:

alright so full disclosure: i DID have to look this up on urban dictionary.

i imagine that ketamine isn't something that they get their hands on often, but they probably do it a few times; just when jack feels like changing things up a bit.

as for a bad experience: YES

and it would be an interesting role reversal, too, bc jack is usually the one to take care of davey while davey's high. jack is just naturally more experienced; hes been playing with fire since he was fifteen, and davey is still relatively new to this, so more often than not, it's davey who pushes a little too far bc he doesn't know his limits yet.

but thinking about davey having to help jack through a bad trip... GOD kath your MIND

and if davey DOES end up calling one of jack's friends, it's basically futile. they'd insist on getting jack checked out, or taking him to a hospital, or trying to talk jack into getting clean and going to rehab (again), and as bad as it sounds... davey doesn't want that.

jack is his gateway into everything. sex, drugs, alcohol, parties. his entire new lifestyle. davey is, quite literally, addicted to jack.

this is going to sound cliche but

jack is his drug, and david isn't ready to get clean.

also, i'm going to go into some more NSFW stuff down below the cut, so just be warned! (the actual fic isn't going to be sexually explicit, but there are some scenes that are very heavily implied and will be tagged as such.)

so, as you said, the hate-sex is very common.

also okay so like. in this au, davey isn't exactly a virgin when they meet but jack absolutely brings a new side of sex to the table- a side that david has never experienced before.

i'm not going to go into specifics, but jack is just a lot more possessive and aggressive than anything david is used to.

and this isn't just in sexual situations! it's very much applicable to their relationship as a whole.

(i want to clarify- when i say aggressive i don't mean in a Yikes! way, but you should also know that, even though this situation is shitty, david knows his limits. david knows what he wants to accept, and he's very willingly accepting the aggression that jack carries with him. again, not to be graphic, but david is into it. just to clarify!)

but yeah the rough sex is like. their normal

and they're only soft and slow when one of them specifies that it's what they need in that moment- which does happen a few times! particularly when one of them is just,, having a sad day. that's sad sex to them

i am going to stop this here bc i don't want to get too explicit with this answer, but you mentioned hate-sex and i just. have feelings about the sexual side of their relationship (which the fic will get into), and i guess we can use this as a warning for some of the content to come when i actually start posting the fic ?? idk

thank u so much for this ask !! i'm sure this is way longer than u wanted !! but i had so many thoughts !!!!! also feel free to ALWAYS talk to me abt this au because WOW i love it

#thank u kath !! #jack kelly #david jacobs #davey jacobs #javid #javey #newsies live #livesies #right person wrong time au #wsttlt au #jac writes #ask a jac ! #kath tag

[ackerfics]

what are your thoughts on the other aot boys?

ooooh this sounds like a fun question 🤩 since i love every single character in aot, i'm going to limit this around the 104th ☺️

long post ahead !! woot woot 🥳

let's start with eren. sighs. this man, istg, somebody hated on me a while back for defending him while the final season kicked off. i think behind the facade of this impassive persona he has to portray in season 4, he's still the passionate, determined eren we grew to love since the beginning of aot. at first, i actually didn't like him mainly bc he nearly made me deaf 😭 buuuut i admire him for that tenacity he has in achieving his goal of having a safe place for his family. i think this personality of his will still show in the modern au. i see him as this person who brings out the talkative in you bc he's so comfortable to talk to. as if he knows how to gauge your mood to adjust his responses.

ngl, armin is my little sister's favorite character and she cried at what happened in s3 🥶 armin tho is someone i want to protect, like i know he's stronger and smarter than me but he has this atmosphere where you want to give him all the attention. it's those blue eyes, man, they make me weak in the knees. you can't help but love him at first glance bc he has this childlike wonder whenever he learns new things and that's mainly why i like him as a character. for sure, i'm never going to talk to him in the modern world, he's this amazing student that i probably would look stupid if talk to him, much less sit beside him. yikes. nonetheless, i think if you're friends with him, he'll be your platonic soulmate, where everyone thought you're dating but you're really not.

JEAN. yes in caps. JEAN MF KIRSCHTEIN. he's my first guy crush in aot. the moment i saw him appear on my laptop screen, i was ready to fight for this man 😔 he's so handsome like what the actual fuck ???!! i have been thinking on this for a while — all of the male characters in aot are pretty but the exception lies in the form of jean (cough and erwin cough but we won't talk abt this fine man bc it's jean's time). if you search the term handsome in the dictionary, his face greets you. putting aside my dying crush on this man, he'll be the best guy friend you'll ever get aside from armin. he knows his boundaries and learns not to overstep on the line you created for the sake of your friendship. just imagine him knowing about your period cramps and he comes knocking at your door with your favorite foods. MARRY ME.

ah, connie. there's never a dull day if you're with this guy. every day will be an adventure when i think of connie. i also want him as a best friend bc i need to do stupid yet exhilarating things to spice up my boring life ankdkwj don't come at me but i think that his trio with jean and sasha remains superior. istg, they're so fun if i think about it. i think connie will be the type of person to send you random memes late at night or invite you in a video call, on any platform mind you, whether it's zoom or Facetime, he'll be announcing that you two will be calling — just accept it. he's such a fun character. i will never forget how he made me wheeze while making that eren jaeger joke in s3, that shit made me laugh to this day.

reiner. i had a phase where all i think about is reiner. he's such a teddy bear to my eyes ??? i think that's just me but the moment i saw him in the timeskip, i wanted to bury myself in his chest. and i wanna hug him so bad :((( the guilt he carries and the burden he has to endure while being sent to paradis at such a young age, that shit still hurts me, man. i will never forget one of my facebook friends for hating on him for no reason whatsoever, i was about to defend him in the comments even tho that friend of mine is just a schoolmate but the way that they seem like they're woke makes me so mad. fucking hell, this guy wanted to shoot himself and they're thankful for it. JUST ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT. in short, reiner is a husband material, caring for your worries while being empathetic enough to prioritize mental health in your relationship (no matter what kind it is 🧡). all the hugs won't be enough for me to comfort him. agh, i love him so much tho.

in short: i love all of them and the rest of the boys who i didn't mention 😌

#I WENT OVERBOARD SHIT #NDIWJSJDK THIS IS LONG #AND ITS STILL FIVE CHARACTERS #MIGHT MAKE A PART 2 eep #rorytalks #anons 💌🥰 #🦋✨🦋✨

[currywaifu]

𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: hidden side 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩: chigasaki itaru/reader 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: sfw 𝐰𝐜: 3.4k words

𝐚𝐧: Thank you for the request ♡ Lowkey based off similar experiences from school lol ~♪ I had so many different ideas, but I wanted to write this one for a while so here we go! P.S, happy belated birthday @starryneve​ :> ♡

Normally he’d be able to withstand not opening his phone every few minutes— he’d always make sure to clear all his AP, LP, SP, BP, whatever P before heading to work. Stamina bonuses were never a problem too, either he’d head to the comfort room or log-in during lunch break.

However, events were simultaneously running right now and he’d be damned if he wasn’t gonna rank in the top 1%, no, 0.1%.

Itaru discreetly looked around the office, and as soon as the coast was clear he opened up his desk drawer. His phone was stored inside, his team of expensive waifus auto-battling against the enemies for this event.

They weren’t doing bad at all, but he trusted himself a little more than the AI.

As he went over the best skills to use on the final boss, he heard a knock against the divider separating his desk from his co-workers.

“Code red, Chigasaki-san.” You muttered, volume low enough so only he’d be able to hear you.

Yikes, a red so early in the day? His boss must want something done immediately.

He hastily shut the drawer, sighing in relief that the metal filing cabinet barely made any noise.

“Thank you,” he said gratefully as he watched his boss approach from the corner of his eye, already looking agitated with a word yet to be spoken.

“Chigasaki, I need you to work on a new project,” his boss drawled on with the details; Itaru’s ears somehow being able to pick up on the necessary information despite all the words blurring in his head. Something about a presentation being needed and closing a deal— he’ll just check his email for specifics.

He continued to nod, pretending to absorb everything when in reality he was just looking forward to finishing the battle and getting his rewards.

However, hearing your name halted his movements. As you peaked over from your desk, Itaru could tell even you looked a little caught off-guard at the sudden mention.

“Yes, sir?” you questioned, swiveling your chair to face the two men.

“Since you’ve dealt with GeneSys before, I’m assigning both you and Chigasaki as the heads,” he explained, “there shouldn’t be a problem with this arrangement, right?”

“No, sir,” you replied.

“Not at all. We’ll start on the project as soon as possible,” he sent off his boss with a polite smile as the both of you watched his back disappear.

The silence restored in the room, you let out a quiet laugh to break the tension. “Honestly, thank god I’m partnered with you,” you sighed in relief, before humming thoughtfully “although I might get some envious stares for a couple of days.”

He pursed his lips.

“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” he said, but by the twinkle in your eyes, he could tell you knew he wasn’t being truthful.

Not that he minded. It would be an understatement to say he was pleased you were the one assigned to help him; if he could set a favourite co-worker, it’d probably be you. Not only were you dependable with work, but you didn’t bother him needlessly either. Even so, the two of you weren’t exactly friends, at least not until a month ago.

“Thanks for saving me. If he found out I was using my phone…” he trailed off as you shook your head understandingly.

“It’s fine, Chigasaki-san. After all, you’ve saved me a bunch of times as well,” you reminded him, “so what were you doing this time?”

Oh crap, he probably should get back to the game. He shouldn’t keep his waifus waiting, right?

“Oh, just messaging my troupe mates. They wanted to know what time I’d be home for practice,” he lied, pulling the drawer open and quickly selecting the skills and moves to beat up the final boss.

After collecting his rewards, he saw the little red exclamation point by the bento box icon. Lunchtime stamina bonus time~

“I didn’t realise it was 12 already,” he mentioned off-handedly, missing the way you jolted up for a second before pulling open your file drawer as well.

“Should probably have lunch in a while,” you said, unknowingly opening the same game Itaru was playing. “Want to eat lunch together? I’ll go over my previous experience with GeneSys Tech Corp.”

“Sure. The faster we get this over with, the better.”

‘So I could get back to my games in peace,’ the both of you thought.

Corporate slaves needed more rights. The project wasn’t so difficult that he’d collapse in exhaustion, but he was definitely frustrated with all the demands that needed fulfilling.

Should he game to destress? Ah, but he once he starts he might not be able to stop-

Itaru’s phone screen lit up, and he would have thought it was a game notification if it wasn’t for the ringtone blaring. As soon as he saw your name, he wondered if you somehow picked up on the fact that he was planning on slacking off taking a break.

“Good evening,” you greeted him, voice calm and not at all angry— right, he can strike off the ‘my co-worker has a 6th sense?’ theory. “Sorry to disturb you, just felt like checking in. How’s work going from your side?”

He looked at the graph currently shown on his desktop, already feeling a headache incoming. “Not too bad, could be better,” Itaru answered vaguely, not wanting to give you a bad impression.

He couldn’t figure out whether you believed him or not, the only tell being the hum you let out.

“Same boat, then. Seriously, for a company whose most relevant success is a video game in the 90s…”

Itaru immediately perked up, pressed at the mention of the game. “Right? Then again, what do you expect from them after that total disappointment of a sequel that-“ he suddenly stopped.

If he said any more he totally could’ve been in trouble just there.

“Oh, how’d you know about the video game? GeneSys rebranded themselves a couple years ago, so I didn’t think you’d know about it,” you questioned him, leaving Itaru to scramble for the best excuse he could think of.

Yeah, he’s not about to take the risk and assume you knew the game because you’ve played it before.

“Did some research on the company’s past endeavours,” he began, sounding as nonchalant as he possibly could, “I suppose I got a bit invested.”

That was one way to put it. He still remembered being upset as a teenager that the long-awaited sequel was a total cash-grab.

“Pfft,” you let out a small laugh, and for a moment Itaru felt frantic— did you somehow figure him out? He wouldn’t put it past the you who caught him using his phone, when no one else had, a month ago.

“This oddly passionate side to the princely Chigasaki Itaru-san is really nice.”

He was eternally grateful to whatever higher being (beings?) there was that this conversation was taking place over the phone. Despite the air conditioning, his face began to warm like his phone would overheat after playing for too long.

Seriously, all you said was that side of him was nice— not that you knew the full extent— so why did he feel like a cliche otome MC? Wasn’t he past the stage of getting flustered over stuff like this?

“Chigasaki-san, are you still there?” you called out, and Itaru calmed himself down to the best of his abilities before answering.

“Yeah, sorry. Connection got cut for a bit. You were saying?”

If a smile had a sound, he was definitely hearing it right now. “Oh nothing~ I was just thinking that your fans would be so jealous if I told them I got to see a hidden side of their prince just now,” you teased.

Probably not. It’s not exactly the definition of charming, not even urban dictionary worthy, but he’ll indulge you.

He didn’t even bother covering up the huff that escaped him. “And who knew my dependable and quiet project partner was so chatty? Keeping a guy up this late and distracting him from work?”

It was your turn to be silent, and before he could apologise you beat him to it.

“I didn’t realise it was so late! Sorry, I wanted to chat away the stress,” you explained, “should probably stop disturbing you, right?”

He looked at the time. He’s not sure what he’s doing exactly, but he doesn’t need to go in-game until the reset at midnight— might as well refill his irl stamina too, right? Well, if he could be the bento box that helped you refill your energy, why not?

… Yeah, that sounded better in his head.

“I mean, we could probably talk about work on call… or,” he paused for dramatic effect, “we could just talk.”

Itaru’s equally as relieved as you when you breathe a sigh of relief. Oh thank god, he didn’t want to actually talk about work. It was only the first day of the project, both of you had time to kill. Probably.

“Why do I have a feeling you’re gonna end up sniffing out my secrets?”

He snickered at your suggestion. “Then I’m not the co-worker you should be worried about then,” before you could question who he possibly meant, he continued, “though since you got to see a quote, hidden side of me, unquote, shouldn’t I know more about you?”

“Hmmm? Like what?” you asked.

“Like what you even do on your phone anyway? You’re on your phone just as much as me,” as he uttered those words you were voiceless for a split second, not unlike the momentary silence committed by Itaru minutes ago.

You tittered, your awkwardness not going unnoticed. “Mostly reading e-books, nothing too special.”

Okay, but the way you made it sound gave off the impression of it being fan fiction or something. Not that he’d judge, just a little surprising for you he guessed.

“Oh? What’s it about?”

His suspicion died down quickly enough as soon as you went off about the plot and characters of the story you were reading. He made a noise every now and then to let you know he was still listening, moving to his bed as he slipped on his headphones.

As you ranted about some complicated love triangle he figured would be popular in TV dramas and reverse harem routes, the more he found it undeniable that he enjoyed seeing this side of you, too.

He felt the tension of the workday slip off his system, your voice washing it away. Who knows? Maybe you’d consider a career in streaming or ASMR or something.

A couple of minutes pass by, and Itaru’s wordless responses died down after a while.

“Chigasaki-san?” you asked gently, not wanting to disrupt him should your suspicions be correct. When he didn’t respond, you smiled to yourself. Well, midnight just struck after all.

“Good night, sweet dreams,” you whispered before ending the call.

Imagine finding out from a 17-year old brat that his ranking dipped because he fell asleep listening to his co-worker’s voice while waiting for the reset. He was a little upset at having to spend diamonds just to climb back up the leaderboard, but at least he’s in the top 0.1% again. It was nothing a bunch of grinding couldn’t fix.

What he was mortified about, however, was falling asleep in call. He was the one who suggested staying in the call in the first place, yet he dozed off on you. You didn’t send him an angry text or anything, but he was still prepared to press an f in the chat for himself.

Itaru found that you were already sat at your desk by the time he arrived, prodding at the phone inside your drawer. While it was mostly hidden, if he looked close enough he’d probably be able to see what you were doing.

… Not that he was going to, of course. You were mutuals in this we-secretly-use-our-phones-at-work tendency, he wasn’t going to betray you now! Still, he was a little curious. A peek over the shoulder wouldn’t hurt, right?

“Chigasaki-san, good morning! You looked like you rested well~”

Mission failed. We’ll get ‘em next time.

“Aha, my apologies. I suppose I was more tired than usual,” he paused, feeling something off— by the way you narrowed your eyes slightly at something behind him he could tell people were probably eavesdropping.

“Don’t worry! It was getting too late to discuss the upcoming project anyway,” you replied, putting emphasis to deter any rumours. Though you weren’t shouting by any means, the sudden volume definitely got you the response you wanted by the upwards pull of your lips. “We can continue working on it now that you’re here.”

As he sat down, turning his chair to face you, Itaru was unable to mask the small grin he sported on his face. “Very cool of you. So you have this side to you as well?”

“I’ve always wanted to try out a scene like that! Though I always imagined myself more on the MC’s side than the ML’s.”

“Hm? MC? ML?” he asked, feigning ignorance to the terms used. Not that those terms were limited to use in games, but still it was a teensy bit suspicious.

“Oh? Uh, MC for main character and ML for male lead,” you explained to him, not knowing that he already knew what they stood for. “Reviews for novels use those terms a lot, so I guess I picked up on them.”

… damn you right, though.

“Didn’t peg you for an office romance lover,” Itaru said, watching you shrug your shoulders.

“What can I say? I’m a versatile person with many interests~” you grinned, the sudden flash of your teeth a little blinding.

Unexpectedly all it took was one late-night phone call for you to be more comfortable around him; he finds himself feeling much of the same. Still, weren’t you getting a little bolder with your vague responses?

Well, if his dating simulators taught him anything, it was clear that you were begging for a response. For an unathletic man, his heart rate increased steadily like a man on a morning jog— the anticipation similar to what he felt when a game continued to throw him pleasant surprises.

“Really? What else are you interested in, then?” he asked, keeping his voice low so that only the two of you could hear each other. On the outside, the two of you probably (hopefully) looked like you were discussing work; at worst, conspiring a business scheme together— the glint in both of your eyes said otherwise.

“Wouldn’t you like to find out?” you laughed quietly, almost tricking Itaru into believing you wouldn’t say any more. “For starters, I’m interested in you,”

He’s, well, more than a little dumbfounded. Shellshocked might be the appropriate word for it. Seriously, who told you it was okay to be so direct? Illegal, absolutely illegal. Someone arrest you already.

Still, his face is as calm and relaxed as ever; you wouldn’t have noticed anything was wrong if not for the colour beginning to dust his cheeks.

“What specifically about me?” He could be digging himself a deeper hole, but all the same, he could use this to turn things around.

You rolled your eyes at him, as though the answer was obvious. “Everything, pretty much— though especially your, let’s call it the non-princely persona. I’m onto you, Chigasaki-san~”

He resisted the urge to laugh, pushing down the bubbling feelings of excitement that threatened to leave him.

“Not if I expose you first, sweetheart~” he threatened jokingly.

Thus began a game that would end sooner than both of you expected.

“Chigasaki-san, is it alright if we end our planning session early today?” you asked him, picking up your mug and placing it between your lips. He found himself mirroring you, drinking his coffee as well before responding.

“Sure. You have something you need to do?” He asked curiously, the dip in his smile showing the slightest disappointment on his features.

Work was still stressful as always but your presence, especially over the past week, had made things bearable if not enjoyable at points.

“Yeah. I have to pick up something from a store and I don’t wanna rush before closing time,” you explained, setting the now-empty ceramic down. “Thank you for the drink, Chigasaki-san. It’s easier to work with no one to bother us, you know?”

“Don’t mention it. You treated me yesterday, so it’s my turn now,” he waved off, shutting his laptop to begin packing up his things. “Need me to drive you to… wherever?”

The two of you exited the coffee shop, the cool breeze hitting your faces as the two of you descended the stairs. As you turned to greet him farewell he fought to keep his hand still as he looked at your wind-blown hair, slightly unruly but endearing at the same time.

“If I didn’t know you better I’d say you just wanted to be around me a little longer,” a soft, airy laugh escaping your throat. A smile touched the corners of his mouth and played in the laugh lines beside his eyes.

“Who’s to say you’re wrong, though?” he watched the red creep from your cheeks to your neck, half reveling in his success and half wondering if it went any further. He’s only a little dismayed that you hastily wished him goodbye and ran off to who knows where, but there was always tomorrow.

By the time you enter the game shop you’ve calmed down, for the most part, hair still a little disheveled but otherwise alright. Did playing around and teasing him finally come to bite you in the ass?

Ugh, that felt like a moment in otome games where the MC decides to tease the ML and the comeback has them all flustered and they run away.

Okay, that’s exactly what happened.

Seriously, you were an adult, what were you doing acting like a teenager? Did the dating simulators infect your brain or something?

You browsed through the new figurines to distract yourself, waiting for the inventory manager to retrieve the game you pre-ordered a while back. Once you and Itaru Chigasaki finished this deal with GeneSys you were going to immediately put in all your free hours into playing the game.

From the corner of your eye, you could see a familiar character, his figurine hidden a couple rows back.

“Damn, haven’t seen you in a while,” you muttered to yourself, grabbing the figurine. Shitty sequels aside, the OG game was totally fun. Maybe it was due for a replay of the game? You could probably dig up the cartridge somewhere in your room.

Distracted by your nostalgia, you wouldn’t have noticed him if it wasn’t for the narrow space causing you two to bump into each other.

“Ah, sorry…” you apologized for blocking the way, about to put back the figurine and move on until you heard your name.

Shit, you knew that voice all too well.

“Chigasaki-san?!” you exclaimed, taking in his widened eyes and knowing your expression wasn’t too far off from his own.

Once the initial wore off, rationality and relief took place. To think you were hiding the extent of your, uh, gaming obsession when in reality he wasn’t too far off, as far as you could tell by the sleek, limited-edition controller he was holding.

Yeah, he might even be worse than you.

“When I implied wanting to spend more time with you, I didn’t think it’d be like this,” he said, a good-natured laugh leaving him. Despite your original embarrassment, you followed suit soon enough.

“I guess we both ended up seeing each other’s secret pastimes at the same time, huh?” you replied, shaking your head at the ridiculousness of it all.

“I was right though,” you began, watching Itaru’s eyebrow quirk upwards.

“Right about what?”

“Liking this hidden side of you,” you smiled in delight as he looked at you uncontrollably fond, finally getting to fix your hair with his free hand.

He’ll ask you out properly some other time, but for now…

“Just the hidden side of me?” he teased, his hand sliding from the top of your head to poke your cheek. “Meanwhile here I am, liking all of you.”

You huffed, rolling your eyes in faux exasperation. “I like all of you, too.”

want to order again?

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Chapter 11: Make Yourself at Home

“So, this is the place you were talking about, huh? I’m not going to lie, it’s much better than I expected.”

“Aw, thanks! It’s my momma’s cabin. She owns a bunch of places around here, but this is the closest one to school.”

“A bunch of places? What a lucky woman.”

“Wait ‘til you find out what else she owns.” Nott draped her coat over the nearest hook. “Lucky doesn’t even start to cover it.”

The rest of the gang filed in through the door.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Beau began with a grin, “I wouldn’t mind staying the night in a—"

“Anyway,” Fjord coughed into his hand. “Isn’t there something more important we should talk about?”

“That is right.” Caleb turned to Molly. “Namely, what it is we should do about…well, you.”

“Is that so?” Without looking back, their newest cabin-mate strode into the living room. He threw himself across Beau’s favorite chair. “Good luck with that, then. I’ll be here in the meantime.”

“In the meantime? What’s that supposed to mean?” Beau followed him in and made a mental vow to steal her seat back as soon as possible.

Molly waved his hand. “I was under the impression that your…angel would be taking care of things. That’s her new job, isn’t it? To mask me from bikers?”

“Only for now.” Yasha met his gaze with a stern frown. “I cannot look after you forever. I will not even be here for much longer.”

“Which would be our second problem,” Caleb sighed. Behind him, Jester—and for some reason, Caduceus—danced around looking for bedsheets and extra toothbrushes, the hallmarks of an excellent host.

“Right,” said Beau. “We sort of left off on a…I hate to say it, but sort of a dead end.”

“Really? Weren’t you working something out?” Nott asked. “What about all that stuff with the dictionary, Caleb? And those star charts?”

“Those are only a start,” he shrugged. “With our current level of information, it is not enough. Like I said…when was it now, yesterday?”

“It felt like years ago.” Fjord combed dirt out of his hair.

“Regardless,” Caleb continued, “we need more clues. Something. Anything. At this point I would even take subjective commentary. Like the way the sun felt. Or if there was much sun at all, Yasha.”

“You mean like if she was on the moon?” Nott asked.

“I mean like if there was a lot of shade. Like in a jungle.”

They turned to Yasha. She sighed.

“I’m not sure, I…” she squeezed her eyes shut, “…I think…yes, the sun. It…felt warm.”

When she opened her eyes, they were still staring. “Er….”

Caleb came to her rescue. “Okay, perhaps I should have been less literal. Sorry, Engel, but that was not very helpful.”

“Pajamas!” Jester spun back into the living room. Behind her, Caduceus was holding a tray of tea, topped off with a little jar of honey. “Here you are, Molly!” She leaned over the couch. “And let me say again, welcome to our house! Demon of not, I think you’re great. I’m excited to hang out with you some more!”

“Ah, you’re a darling,” he flashed her a smile. “I can already tell you’ll be my favorite. Although, perhaps, I think I’ll be better company once I’m clean. If you all are going to keep talking about…whatever important thing you’re talking about, I’d like to use this opportunity to shower.”

“Oh, yeah, here,” Fjord quickly stood up. “You can borrow my shampoo, the bathroom’s there—"

The two of them wandered off. Caduceus handed everyone else their mugs.

“Let’s keep going tomorrow,” Caleb said, trying on his most reassuring smile. “Who knows? We might find something after all. And with more time, Yasha, you might regain more memories.”

It was small, but Beau noticed Yasha skip past his gaze to stare deep into her cup.

“Maybe,” she said. “I hope so. Otherwise…”

“It’ll be okay,” Caduceus smiled. “In my experience, the best things come with time.”

— — —

Beauregard lingered by herself in the hallway outside their room. Currently, Jester and Fjord were giving a freshly-washed Molly the grand tour of the cabin while Caleb and Caduceus—with varying degrees of contribution—rearranged their room to accommodate him. And since Nott was calling her family in the living room, this would probably be Beau’s best chance to talk to Yasha alone.

She breathed in.

Nearly every conversation they’d had since the initial fall had ended in a tangled mess. Not to mention, Yasha’s situation had changed dramatically in the last few hours. On top of that, Beau was still roiling in guilt for lying to her all those days ago. It was very likely that neither of them would be in the right headspace for a heart-to-heart, and that wasn’t even taking into account how nauseous Beau felt at that very phrase—“heart-to-heart.”  

Something else was poking at her too, something she’d had to shove aside earlier but now couldn’t shake away: it had been a while since she’d seen Yasha’s wings, but she knew for a fact that the first two times, they had been…well, they had been white—

And coupled with the fact that the angel only recently had started acting so anxious to leave, whereas before she’d been confused, but way more relaxed…

Beau breathed out and stared at the floor. Maybe it was time to stop wondering about what her own motivations were. Caleb, Fjord, and Jester had all made valid points, but truth be told, she was starting to get the sense that right now, how she felt wasn’t as important.

Still, the question did remain. What would she rather do?

“Yasha?” She tapped her knuckles on the doorframe. Sitting up, and dimly framed in moonlight, Yasha’s mighty silhouette turned.

Maybe she’d always known the answer.

“Beauregard. Hello. Is it time for bed?”

“No, uh…no, probably not for a while.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “I think Jes is showing off her mom’s jewelry. Fjord tagged along—it’s probably to be polite, but also to make sure Molly won’t steal anything. They’ll be at that for an hour at best.”

“It is good for Fjord to be careful,” Yasha nodded. “Though I am more worried about your souls being stolen than jewelry.”

“Yeah, uh, that thought also crossed my mind.” She made her way inside. “I mean, I’m mostly…not worried at all, but—wait, should I be worried? Do you think that’ll happen?”

Yasha thought about it. “He already knows your names, which is…not great. But as long as you do not make any promises, I think you should be fine. Do not shake his hand. No matter what he says.”

“Really? Like…metaphorically?”

“Either. Both. Deals are bad.”

Beau sat down on the wooden dresser beside Yasha’s makeshift cot. Even at this angle, Yasha was still taller.

“You’ve said stuff like that before,” she remembered. “You told me that ‘your kind’ had been corrupted that way. Right? Because they dealt with us?”

“Sort of. There is less blame on you, it is…just that mortal souls are powerful.” Yasha ran her fingers through her hair. “Basically…the short version is that there are pieces of light that exist inside you, light from the very essence of our world. It fuels us, and it keeps us alive, but too much and it can drive us mad. We lose sight of everything else in pursuit of more and more and…more of that light.”

Beau let her words sink in. “Yikes.”

“Yes. That is why we have so many rules. Why demons are dangerous. Why I am risking so much by staying here.”

Beau tilted her head. “Do you feel mad?”

Yasha didn’t answer right away. And then Beau steeled herself, she said—

“Your, uh, wings—"

Yasha went still.

It would not have been hard to miss. But Beau had spent so much time together with her in the last few days that when her breathing stopped, her shoulders stiffened, her eyes affixed to the sheets—

“Shit, I-I’m sor—"

“You know what is happening then?”

Yasha’s voice was a quaver. Beau paused.

“I…really don’t know a lot about angel stuff,” she said slowly, “but I do remember what I…saw. And I know that it isn’t the same as what I saw the night you landed. And then…I started thinking about how panicked you were about ‘interfering,’ and…well.”

She avoided Yasha’s gaze. “It’s my fault, isn’t it? It’s because I convinced you to stay with me—with us. Instead of just letting you go.”

The silence lingered on. Beau bunched up the edge of her shirt and waited, dreading, the answer—

“…I don’t know.”

Her head shot up.

“You…what?”

“I, ah.” Yasha’s shoulders drooped. “I really do not know. Nothing like this has ever happened before. On the one hand, in all my visits to Earth, this is the first time that I ever talked to mortals. But…at the same time, I—I don’t actually think I’ve done anything to…to justify a fall.”

Beau opened her mouth. She closed it again.

“So…huh. Then that’s—you really don’t know.”

“No,” Yasha sighed. “Although, you should know that I do not think you could blame yourself in any case. I would not have stayed if a part of me did not want to, Beauregard.”

Beau actively worked to shut down her facial features. Her reply, a pitched, “Oh.”

“One thing is definitely certain, though,” huffed Yasha, unaware of the battle raging in Beau’s mind. “The longer that I remain on Earth, the…the worse things could become. My wings are not…all that good, but…I still have them. That means I am still an angel. That…I am still an angel.”

Beau nodded, and managed to re-focus. “Then…then I bet it’s alright,” she said. “I mean, you aren’t out of time. And you know how stubborn we all are, there’s no way we’ll give up now. We’ll make sure you find your way home. You’re one of us now, Yash, we’d do anything for you.”

Yasha’s mouth twitched. “Thank you, Beauregard.” It was a smile. “For everything. Really. I…can never express to you how grateful I am. How lucky I was to land in front of you.”

Beau’s eyes flew wide, and Yasha backpedaled. “I just mean—no—well, no, not no—I didn’t—that was—that is—all of you. Everyone. You and your friends. Are good people. I…thank you.”

“Well, hey,” Beau’s arm shifted as if to almost reach out, and then she thought better of it. “My friends are your friends too,” she said, quite awkwardly, instead. “You’re one of us. And we’re friends. We’re…all friend, here.”

“Right, er, right,” managed Yasha; it was getting hot in their room. “Yes. Exactly. We are friends. Uh—"

In a fit of absolute panic, she stuck out her hand. Amazingly, Beau took it.

Their hands shook. Neither of them looked.

“Th-thank you,” said Yasha, when they finally broke away. “Besides, um…you know, I’m not leaving yet. I still don’t’ know where I’m going. There’s also the, uh, the—Mollymauk. I do not want to fly him across the world with me.”

“Right,” said Beau. “Yeah, that’s…we…we’re all kind of following your lead on that one.” Then she hesitated, and when Yasha blinked back in confusion, Beau suddenly inhaled so sharply it almost hurt.

“Look, uh, look, there’s something I gotta say from a while ago—it was a, well, a—Yasha, I owe you an apology.”

A beat.

Yasha stared at her. “Me?”

“It’s…really dumb,” Beau blurted out. “Not that—no, not that—you weren’t dumb, I was, I did—I lied to you. Back then.”

If anything, she looked even more perplexed.

“You…did?”

“Sort of,” her eyes fell to the mattress. “I, uh…when you told me about auras, that one time, I…freaked out and told you a lie. I, uh…I don’t know if you’ve noticed at all, but I kind of like being…mysterious. God, no, not mysterious, it’s just…look, I was feeling conflicted about some stuff. Stuff that I wasn’t…ready to share. So when you told me that you could see my aura, I panicked. I told you it was shitty of you to do that, which…that was really shitty of me.”

“Oh,” said Yasha. “Is that…then, does that mean humans are okay with me reading them?”

“I’m pretty sure humans aren’t aware of it enough to actually have an opinion. The point is,” she sighed, “I lied to you. You had way more reason than I did to be confused, and upset, and…and just unsure. But when you reached out to, like, understand me, I pushed you away. I…don’t ever want to do that.”

She risked a glance up. “I’m sorry.”

And then, to her shock, Yasha nodded.

“It’s okay.”

Beau blinked. “It…is?”

“Er…yes,” said Yasha. “I think it is. You were just being protective of yourself. That is alright. Especially if you…were not ready to share things. And you did not mean to hurt me, yes?”

“Did I hurt you?”

Yasha considered this. “To be honest, um, no. You didn’t, not really. And if you did, then I forgot about it when Caleb told me I was missing 6,000 years of my memory.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. Er…is that ‘yikes’?”

Maybe it was the relief, the sheer drop from such panic, or maybe it was the way Yasha’s eyebrows were bunching, but Beauregard could not keep herself from bursting out into laughter.

Yasha looked startled at first, but she recovered when Beau gave her a grin.

“You know what? I think it is time for bed.”

“What? Oh,” Yasha still looked puzzled, but she nodded. “Oh, er…sure. Yes. No problem.”

— — —

There was just one problem.

Jester groaned, pressing her face into her pillow. “I take it back. I take it all back. This is the worst thing in the world and we should call that circus right now.”

“Can’t,” muttered Nott. “Don’t have their numbers.”

“Maybe we can put up posters,” Beau suggested. “Let the evil bikers know where he is. They can have him.”

There was a rustle in the darkness. “Yasha,” said Nott, “are all demons like this?”

Another rustle followed. “Er…I have heard that the most fearsome demons plague their victims with visions of hellfire and ruin. But I think there are many ways to torment people.”

“Where the does not shutting up come in on that list?”

Yasha also had a pillow on her head. “The very top, I think.”

From the other side of the all-too-thin wall, a flood of music poured through. Fjord had made the crucial mistake of telling Molly to “make yourself at home,” and since Molly’s only home had been a crowded RV full of mostly-drunk carnies plunging down the highways of America at midnight, he’d said it was impossible for him to sleep without some “background noise.”

“Oh, sure,” Fjord had said. “Background noise should be fine.”

“He’s a guest,” sighed Jester. “We basically kidnapped him. I felt bad, and I didn’t think…I didn’t think he’d be like this.”

“Maybe someone will come to our rescue,” said Beau. “Maybe Caleb will finally snap and kill him.”

“Oh, if anyone would do it, it would be Caleb,” Nott agreed. “Fjord’s too weak. Or…maybe Cad, the quiet ones are always murderers.”

“It wouldn’t be murder,” Beau called sleepily. “It would be a civic duty.”

“Maybe we can plug our ears.” Yasha rolled over to look at the other girls. “Do any of you have some beeswax?”

The deep pause that followed would have been silence if not for the blaring—let’s have a party there’s a full moon in the sky, it’s the hour of the—

“I wanna die,” said Nott. “If he doesn’t, I will.”

“I can try to find some bees if I must,” Yasha pressed. “I feel guilty. I am the one who dragged him into your lives—"

She jumped when something brushed the side of her leg.

“We don’t need bees,” said Beau, who was slapping around the edge of her mattress, totally blind. “Here, I’ve got extra. Everyone, come get some. Earplugs. They’re not enough, but…helps.”

Yasha recovered quickly, reaching over to accept the little pieces of orange foam. There was some general shuffling and muted “thank yous” as Nott and Jester acquired pairs as well.

“Nice,” said Beau, rolling over on the floor. “Adds a pop to your monochrome.”

Yasha couldn’t tell whether that was addressed to her. But when it seemed clear that Beau had just passed out again, she carefully pressed the earplugs in. Then she sat there a moment longer, staring at her leg, surrounded by the muted blare of a hundred trumpets.

Off in the distance and dulled, Nott said, “I’m gonna go threaten to cut his head off.”

— — —

And then, eventually, there was quiet.

— — —

See:

Not…not a storm at all. Not even a lingering cloud.

Instead, there is just the blue and endless sky.

Somewhere, she is…lying down. The sun is warm. She is…somewhere. She is somewhere where a field of green-turning-gold-turning-russet wild grasses ripple slow.

There’s a gentle brush against her leg. She looks down. It’s a little white flower.

It’s…it’s being held in…someone’s hand.

Her head jerks up.

“Wait, who are y—"

— — —

Her eyes focused on a face.

“Huh?” said Beauregard. “Was that for me?”

Yasha sat up so quickly that Beau had to jump backwards. “Whoa, there—"

Yasha ignored this, whipped her head around, took in two unmade bunks, a mess of blankets, golden sunlight—

The curtains by the window rippled slow.

“I…but…”

“Yasha?” Beau frowned. “Hey, Yash, is everything okay?”

“But I…there was…” Her hands dug into the sides of her face as she squeezed her eyes shut. “There was…a field,” she bit out. “Grass. Under the sky, and a flower, and a p—"

She froze.

“Uh…Yasha?”

A…person. There had been a person. Someone—but who? It was someone…important…

And then the thought—no one can know.

“N-nothing,” Yasha blurted, though she didn’t quite know why. “It was…it was nothing. Er…but there might be something more I have for Caleb to work with.”

Beau’s concerned expression vanished. “Oh, what? Oh—hey, that’s awesome!” She closed the distance, even went to clap Yasha on the back. “That’s great! He’s gonna be totally thrilled! And that’s one step closer to you getting to…go. Oh.”

They both fell silent. Through the door, the clattering sounds of the rest setting a table.

Beau’s hand fell back to her side.

“Of course, we always knew you were gonna leave at some point. And…you know, you were ready to bolt, like, two days ago, so it stands to reason that you…should be happy to leave…”

Yasha looked up at Beauregard.

A person. Someone important…

“Beau, um…Beau, I think I—"

The door burst open. Nott shoved her head in, eyebrows raised.

“God, what’s taking you two so long? Cad made pancakes! C’mon, we’re waiting!”

— — —

A thick slab of blueberry-laden goodness landed in the center of Yasha’s plate. A sweet, buttery, slightly tart aroma wafted through the kitchen.

“So, I think I still have a bit more catching-up to do, don’t I?” said Molly, who was sitting in a chair with a slouch so bad it looked like his spine was broken. “For one, it seems like I’ve missed the book club meeting that made you all friends.”

“We met in college,” said Fjord, rubbing his eyes. “Not a book club.”

“Same difference,” Molly shrugged. “It’s just that I can’t help but feel a tad bit excluded from your pre-existing lovefest.”

“It would be easier to include you if you knew how to be quiet sometimes,” Nott grumbled.

He stuck his tongue out, and it was stained with blueberry.

“I think we are overdue for a proper meeting anyway,” said Caleb, spearing his pancake. “A lot has changed in the last twenty-four hours. We should review our goals and priorities.”

“Get home,” said Yasha. “Do that by finding ȣɿɕƺᶋɷ.”

“What the hell,” said Molly.

“Later,” Caleb sighed. “Right, okay, that’s item one on our list, our continuing mission to find Iothia. And once we do…?”

Yasha shuffled. It was quick, almost missed, but she glanced at Beau.

“Er…then I…leave,” she said. “I fly there, and I can return home.”

“Aw, really?” Jester pouted. “You’re really just going to leave right away?”

If anything, Yasha’s next expression was even more complicated. She fidgeted again. “I, er, sort of…sort of have to. As…quickly as possible, I think.”

“Man, that sucks.”

Yasha managed a tiny smile. “I know.”

“But you can’t go until you’ve taught me repression,” Molly said, quickly waving his fork for attention. “I need to get back to my circus, my dear. And I can’t do that safely until I learn to hide.”

“Which means you’ll be sticking around a little longer, Yasha.” Caduceus down the plate of pancakes and took a seat. “Isn’t that nice?”

“And you’ll be hanging out with me,” Molly grinned. “I expect we’ll get to know each other very well.”

A loud thump shook the table and everyone’s heads suddenly turned to Beauregard.

She blinked. Then she looked down.

“Shit, uh…sorry. I think I missed my plate.”

“Jesus christ,” said Fjord. “That’s an inch into solid wood.”

Beau gripped the handle of the knife she’d sunk into the table. On the second try, she managed to yank it free.

“Sorry, uh…sorry again,” she said. “Jes, your mom can bill my dad.”

“Are both of you rich girls?” Molly asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” she shot him a deep scowl. “You just worry about…about learning to shut up your aura, or whatever. Then Yasha can get on with stuff that’s actually important, and you can finally leave us all alone.”

“My, my, someone’s touchy, isn’t she?” Molly folded his hands over his lap. “Anger issues are bad for your health.”

“You know what else is bad for my health, asshole? Not being able to fucking sleep ‘cause someone needs a rock concert every night—"

“Okay, okay, okay,” said Fjord, holding his hands up so fast he almost knocked over the milk. “Alright, I think that’s enough, you two. Molly found headphones eventually, right? And now he knows better.”

“What am I, a child—"

“And we’ve got to be a little more understanding of a man who’s just had their whole life turned around. It’s not every day we find out we’re not even human.”

“Not a man either,” Molly added.

“Ah, sorry—"

“It’s alright, dear.” He sighed. Then, with a swoop of what could only be described as exaggerated magnanimity, he turned to Beauregard.

“Truce? Not surrender, just armistice.”

She rolled her eyes, but did concede. “Yeah, whatever.”

“Back to the matter at hand, then,” said Caleb, as that piece of breakfast theater concluded. “Yasha. Even though your sense memory from last night was…for lack of a better term, undescriptive, it gave me the idea that we could perhaps try to use images of natural places to trigger more. Jester’s mother has a number of picture atlases in the study, after all. Perhaps we could start there today.”

Yasha lowered her fork. “Actually…while I was asleep, I remembered something more.”

This was followed by a chorus of clattering and hurried exclamations, the loudest being Nott’s, “What, really?!”

“Er…yes, but it was very small,” Yasha said. “I…remembered lying down. In a field of golden grass. And, um…there was a flower. It was, um, white.”

“Is that all?” Caleb said after a while.

She hesitated.

Then, “Yes.”

“Well, that’s not too bad,” said Caduceus. “It might even be a great, actually. Most flowers only grow in specific climates anyway, and if we’re lucky, it might only be native to a certain area.”

“Ooooh, oh! What did it look like?” Jester asked. Then her eyes lit up. “Oh—Yasha, you should draw it!”

She jumped out of her chair and was running back from the living room with her sketchbook before they even processed this.

“And you’re getting so much better at art too,” she squealed, “this’ll be great practice—"

“Jester, are you sure—"

She pushed Yasha’s plate aside and handed her a pencil triumphantly. “Close your eyes! Picture it! Then draw!”

Even Caleb seemed reluctant to argue with Jester. He shrugged and said, “But also please describe it to us, please.”

Yasha put her fork down. She took the pencil.

“I’m really not good,” she said, weakly, but she did her best to envision the flower. “Okay, um, it was small…very small, and it had seven little points like this…”

A moment later, everyone leaned in to see the drawing.

“Aw, it’s so pretty!” Jester beamed. “Good job!”

“Ah—thank you.”

“Any idea what it is?” Fjord glanced at Caduceus. “Have you seen this before?”

Cad scratched his chin. “I can’t say I have, but…it shouldn’t be that hard to find. You said it’s white?”

“And small,” Yasha added. “As big as someone’s—someone’s fingernail.”

“My momma has tons of books on flowers,” Jester supplied. “Maybe those can help?”

“I’m sure they will. And Caduceus is right,” Caleb added, “this is an excellent jumping-off point. If we have this drawing too, Yasha, I can take over from here. That will give you time to help train our newest...divine associate.”

“You don’t have to lay on the flattery that thick,” Molly smiled. “Though I appreciate the compliment.”

“I meant that literally.”

“Why, thank you—"

“I can help you too.” Beau was determined to silence Mollymauk quickly. “Again, it’s not like I’m doing much anyway. At least this time there’ll be pictures, right?”

“Are you sure?” Yasha leaned backwards. “If you don’t want to—"

“No, no, really. I’ve told you, Yash, and I’ll say it again, I really don’t mind any of this. I want to do this. And you can’t stop me.”

Yasha met her gaze, then nodded. “Okay. Thank you.”

“Exactly,” said Beau, and raised her chin in a display of satisfaction. Then she hesitated, turned towards the rest. “But if the rest of you don’t feel like helping, I mean…I’m a deadbeat, but Fjord, you’re supposed to be reading for a summer class. And Nott, you’ve got stuff for your job, right? And Jes—"

“How about we clear up the living room and do what we need to do together?” Fjord asked. “Solidarity. It’ll be like…like study hall!”

“I’m game!” said Nott. “As much as it sucks, I should probably get on that.”

“Me too,” Jester clapped her hands. “It’s not as fun as fishing or introducing Yasha to fries, but studying won’t be so bad if we’re all together!”

Molly stared at her incredulously. “Are you—really?” He turned to the rest, aghast. “You’re all really going to sit down and do…do work? Willingly? Nevermind, this is much worse than a book club.”

He leaned over and nudged Yasha in the shoulder. “My goodness, aren’t we lucky to be divine? I’d rather do anything than, ugh, read.”

—

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#critical role #critfic #fic #fanfiction #beauyasha #critrole #cr2 #jay writes #a storm is blowing in from paradise #fanfic #text #long post #thank you thank you for reading gang!! #i hope you're having funnn <3 <3 <3

[ligbi]

Hecate or Hekate

Usually a titan goddess daughter of perses and asreria, though sometimes of zeus by asreria, or zeus and demeter, goddess of crossroads and magic, sometimes the dark moon Has a pack of dogs, controls ghosts, can impart wisdom and magic but hell hath no fury like a goddess who does not believe you are deserving Hecate suppers are held by worshipers of black female lamb, Honey, and dog, and the leftover are left at crossroads on a full moon She is often times seen as a triplicate goddess, both the new moon with selene the full moon and artemis of the cresent moon, and the sky goddess with artemis's earth and persephone's underworld Hekate is associated with the underworld and saw persephone's capture by Hades from a cave Pre hellenistic time she may have come from an asia minor country before becoming a respected titan during the hellenistic era, and worship of her persisted through the medival era when she was villainized by the church

Source 1: early greek myth timothy gantz Daughter of Peres the ravenger titan (noted for his wisdom) and Asreria a titan of the stars, though sometimes zeus is stated to be the father, she is goddess of the crossroads Hesiod says she helps men in victory and success If She Wishes it, is honored by zeus, general helper of men, but no early association with the moon Usually ahows up in any given telling of the rape of persephone to tell demeter of what she saw when persephone was taken away by hades Homeric hymn to demeter ends with hecate becoming attendant of persephone, and shes been seen on pottery escorting persephone back from the underworld She is also associated with iphigenia the daughter who was being sacrificed at the start of the war with troy that was saved by artemis, as iphi is sometimes called artemis of the road or artemis einodia, an enoida by the 5th century was a title of hekate Some sources seem to link hecate and artemis in a one and the same capacity, like how she has been said to be the child of leto who is traditionally the mother of artemis and apollo Euripide's Medeia calls her a patronness of drugs and poisons A 5th century piece portrays her as a tripple goddess, but with herself not in the lunar triplicate we usually associate with her. Theres a suggestion of the triple form having her lower body turned into black dogs, much like scyllas lower half was transformed to, and in some sources she is the mother of scylla, and sometimes is hecate is deemed the child of nyx the primordial night goddess, though she is called a daughter of demeter in orphoc tradition Tl;DR for all this, crossroads goddess heavily associated with persephone and artemis, not the moon, yes poison, helps people when she wants to, lineage as with all gods a questionable mess Going back to source 1 for a moment-oops- iphengenia was a sacrifice for a fast expedition to the war at troy/because her dad agamemnon pissed off artemis through bragging,, and artemis swapped the girl for a deer last second, and in some tellings is made immortal, and the author pausanias says she was turned into hekate  The einodia term associated with hecakte is also used of demeter and persephone Hekate has long standing association with artemis but not as an aspect of Bonus the term hekatos means far darter is is sometimes applied to apollo 

Source 2 Guide to the gods- marjorie leach Goddess of underworld and the night, daughter of nyx and tatarus or asteria and peres, mother of scylla Magic powers and sorcerery bestows prosperity and wisdom, this cites her as an early thracian moon goddess A goddess whose powers extended to all regions ( heaven earth sea underworld), protective of doors and gates, crossroads and travelers, can be malevolent scares men w/ghosts and demons, can bestow honor victory fortune wealth but witholds them from the undeserving in her eyes Magic includes divination and oracles Source 3 dictionary of comparative religions s.g.f. brandon Cthonian and pre hellenic, 3 faced, associated with the uncanny and ghosts, worshiped at crossroads which are traditionallh haunted by the dead, hecate suppers are monthly offerings made at the crossroads usually included dog flesh Her cult survived till the middle ages It was mentioned in source 1 a woman(hekabe) during the fall of troy was turned into a dog and is sometimes said to belong to hekate

Source 4 the new book of goddesses and heroines patricia monaghan Crossroads, sacred dogs, bearing a torch, night, offerings left at three way crossroads, some say she has 3 heads serpent horse and dog While hecate walked, followers gathered insidd for their hekate suppers over which they swapped magic knowledge and secrets of sorcerery, sacrifices of dogs honey and black female lambs. This implies you had a meal and then offered leftovers at the crossroads Calling her a snake goddess Another mention of thracian origins, argument that she is a form of demeter, argument she is a form of persephone Sometimes a titan but still respected by zeus which basically never happens so shes a big deal Mention of worship into classical times, both hekate suppers and public sacrifices celevrated by great ones (caberioi) of honey black lady sheep, dogs, and oh yikes black human slaves Said to be the crone of persephone demeter trio or the dark moon in the artemis and selene trinity, rules spirits of the dead, powers of regeneration,can hold back ghosts, greek women evoked hecate for protection when they left their houses by putting up a threefold image at their door Trying to find more qbout caberioi but so far google only gives me this exact source as source. Look further into later....

Source 5 the women's encyclopedia of myths and secrets barbara g walker Trinity, deruved from the egyptian midwife goddess heqit/heket/hekat, who evolved from the tribal matriarch of pre dyanastic egypt heq, a wise woman in charge of mothers words of power Heqit delived the sun god every mornong from his mother hathor, her totem is the frog, symbol of the fetus, still associated with her when christians 4k years later declared her queen of witches Trinity crossroads underworld, hekate trevia or hecate of the three ways Offerings left on full moons Invoked by those setting out on journies Called the most lovely one, which is a lunar title, this says her triplicate is hecate selene of the moon, artemis the hunter on earth, and persephone the destroyer in the underworld Hecate selene the far shooting moon, mother of dionysus (who while eventually having the mortal mother semele, is a child of zeus and persephone zagreus which is a whole thing i like to yell about ) which is a wild pull but if you say hekate/selene/artemis/persephone are the same person then I Guess Here shes mentioned as the crone to hebe the virgin and hera the mother Symboyl of the new moon figure in white robes, golden sandals, torches lit, a basket of crops she made grow Middle ages queen of the ghostwprld or queen of witches, diabolized by catholics who hate midwives And now for anoter wild pull: hekate was helping a woman in labor, the gods feared magical contagion and put her in the river acheron to wash away birth mana, the river took her underground where she married hades. ...what also a mention that hecabe the queen of troy transformed into hekate's dog, a black female one names maera mara or moera (the destroying fate) Source 6 the new century classical handbook catherine b avery Triple goddess with persephone and artemis, persepbone attendant, powers over ssa eartj sky, gave riches and good fortunes, lead the souls of the dead, associated with ghosts magic and witcjcraft Invisible to mortals but dogs can see her, passes through the night with spectral hounds, dogs sacred to her, crossroads goddess, triple bodied back to back, romans call her trivia, also associated with demeter rhea and persephone Rhea of course being mother of zeus hades posideon hestia hera demeter Cult of rhea associated with fertility rites, has her own mysteries like dionysus, helped her persephone topside after the hades thing, associated with the asian mother goddess cybele, roman magna mater and ops Trivia: roman epitget of hecate and diana when shes associated with hecks Guide to gods called trivia goddess of crossroads streets and highways can be malicious

Source 7 Whos who in greek and roman mythology david kravitz Goddess of underworld, daughter of asteria and perses or zeus and demeter, taught magic to medea her priestess, pictured with torch, epithet for luna, diana, and persephone, other eputhetos enodia the wayside goddess, trioditis goddess of meeting of three routes, also possible crantaeis whose the mother of scylla Trivia is mentioned here as epithet of diana

Source uhhh 8? Dictionary of ancient deities patricia turner Underworld night darkness queen of ghosts and shades, controller of hidden things of nature, presides over birth life death streets and gates, taught medea her pristess magic, only worshiped at night by torchlight, dogs sacred, has a pack of hounds, sacrified to her are black lambs and dogs, shown sometimes with 3 heads: dog horse and Lion Possible moon goddess, standard perses are asteria and zeus and demeter maybe heritage May be the indian Ekata Associated with artemis and persephone and selene The name Brimo used for hekate persephone demeter and rhea Hekate used as epithet of luna/selene and diana and persephone Also known as akitiophi artemis brimo crantaeis diana enodia proerpina selene trioditis Crantaeis loops back to hekate, more redirects for brimo as with aktiophi No entry in here for ekata Just says trivia is name for artemis No mention of ekata in previously sourced books and my only indian myth books are stories and mythology of all races: 6 indian iranian which has no index and isnt a handy alphabetized list .....might have meant native americans let me cross check those Also naught India india has three water god brothers one names ekata Googling qnd saying a goddess from asia minor carian so says a guy whose book from 87 i dont have

Source 9 classical mythology mark p.o. morford Hekate put the fury tisiphone in charge of guarding the grove of avernus Hekate sometimes resembles the furies in appearance and character Medea met jadon at a shrine to hekate Source 10 lost goddesses of early greece charlene spretnak Dark moon cthonic associations gjosts, hekate suppers, food offered as a form of purification, image used above the house to ward off evil, mother of witches, some sites in greece her torches carried around freshly sown fields to promote fertility Zeus and hera kid (???) She gives heras rouge to europa and hides in a house where she midwifes which makes her impure (hey this story again) Standard stuff but covens await hekate near drooping willow trees where she appears and imparts magic knowledge, nest of snakes in her hair, her form became human and animal, favored herbs black poppy, smilax, mandragora, aconite Without death there is no life gonna skim a few more to see if anything else not already mentioned but... Nope.

Source 11 myths of the female divine goddess david leeming From the dark moon she brings soma, unwelcome truth Was in a cave when she saw persephone kidnapped She can heal and teaches magic, more snakes in hair, a necklace of testicles...... once showed up as a boat to kill her love /son and restored him on a new moon

Source 12 a guide to the gods richard carlyon Goddess of moon magic riches wisdom victory flocks and navigation Defends children, associated with regeneration, honored in asia minor and boetia, shows up as crossroads tombs and scene of crime

#hecate #hekate #mythology monday #roman mythology #greek mythology

[cats-moss-gays]

@terflies

You’ve been all over my posts so I’m just going to consolidate into this one. I’m tired of scrolling past your long and quite frankly boring responses. This post will be divided into sections. If you’re going to respond please say something interesting. However I doubt either of us will ever change the other’s mind. These are kind of like closing statements and I doubt I’ll make anymore major responses because I’m trying to stay focused on offline things.

1. Unanswered Questions

There are some questions and statements in my reblogs that you conveniently ignored.

Definition of a woman? You responded with some generic bs that very clearly isn’t an answer. I’ll be more specific, what should the dictionary definition be? Any ideas?

If I don’t feel like a woman am I allowed to identify as one? You said you weren’t going to humour this question but it is applicable to me and many other gc women. I definitely don’t have any internal feeling of womanhood, or any gender. Does this mean I have to be agender? Is the female gender label restricted to a certain feeling? Or is there absolutely nothing that women have in common?

What is the feeling of womanhood? You kind of answered this but I have a follow up question. You say the feeling of womanhood is enjoying being perceived as a woman. If I feel indifferent to this does it mean I’m not a woman? Additionally, many women feel uncomfortable with being perceived as a woman because of the misogyny associated with the label, does this make them men?

2. Inaccurate Statements and Lies

I don’t believe any “TRAs” define women by gender roles

You may not but there are many who do. It’s also important to point out how deeply ingrained gender roles are in society; you can’t stop them by just saying your choices exist in a vacuum. I’m sure you think I’m just making this up for fun, so here are some examples ;)  x - x - x - x - x - x - x - x - x - x - x - x - x - x - x - x

So this whole…thing is dishonest from the start. Gender does not replace sex.

In another post you said that laws should be based on gender instead of sex. So which is it, either gender isn’t replacing sex or it is. When feminists talk about sex based oppression they’re called terfs. When gay people say their attraction is based on sex they’re called transphobic. When people were saying that only females get cervical cancer, they were called violent transphobes. Gender is absolutely attempting to replace sex as the basis of legal protections, safe spaces, political movements, etc. Two of the top post on my blog are more extreme example of this. x - x

BONUS: You’re saying TERF rhetoric

3. The “Questions” Post

You seem very confused about how to define biological sex and to some extent I understand that but you have to stop playing dumb. There must be some way that doctors are able to identify the sex of a fetus before it’s even born in the vast majority of cases, right? And before you try to say I’m just ignoring the existence of intersex people or trying to deny science, I’ll point out that I have watched and read a lot of “sex is a spectrum” stuff. I understand that DSDs exist and that biology is complicated. Our disagreement is mostly not over the facts but over how to define them. I know that however I explain it you’ll pretend you don’t understand it, so instead I’ll just link you to some other sources that explain it more in depth. x - x - x - x - x - x - x - x - x

A third sex—and many creatures have more than two—does not necessarily mean a third gamete. Mostly this question is a childish distraction, but if you were to use a strict, gamete-based definition of sex the answer would be “none”.

So all infertile people are a third sex? To be female you have to be able to bear children? And you call me regressive, yikes. This can be debunked with the same sources from above but I wanted to feature it in my post because I want people to know that you think there’s a third sex.

I made a quick little chart to compare all the things gender has been compared to! The difference is that while many are socially defined, gender is socially constructed. If someone never interacted with other humans, they would still have a skin color, have or not have specific abilities, have a sexual orientation, and be male or female. They would not have an observable gender identity.

1 - You refuse to humor my questions about being a woman who doesn’t feel like one, however this is not in bad faith; I do want to know what you think. Many gc/radfems, including myself, and many women in general do not have a specific feeling of gender. This is especially true for gnc women, who often feel a disconnect from the feminine gender role and subsequently, the feminine gender. The solution is to realize that there are no standards to conform to to be a woman, no clothes or interests or feelings, just the biological reality one is born with.

2 - You say “the feeling of womanhood is enjoying being called a woman” but what does that mean? It’s circular reasoning, a fallacy called begging the question. How do you know you are a woman? If I gave up being a terf on tumblr, how would you advise that I identify if I don’t think I feel like a woman? My current plan was to just pick the mogai flag with the prettiest colors, but I’m thinking maybe there’s more to it than that...

3 - See my explanation above. Sex is comparable to race or disability or sexuality; gender is not.

4 - You say genders are social classes. If they are indeed social classes, they are unnecessary ones that reinforce oppression. They are undefinable when not based on biological sex or gender roles. The other example of classes I can think of is wealth. Wealth classes have obvious divisions, you can’t just identify into more money. Gender has nothing that is shared by every woman, man, or nonbinary, so you can just identify in and out of classes. Additionally, if there are like 100 genders, are there 100 classes? 

4. The “Biological” Sex Post

Gender does not replace sex

Then why are TRAs trying to say sexuality, legal protections, bathrooms, spaces, political movements, etc should be based on gender instead of sex? You keep contradicting yourself; you should talk to your fellow trans activists because many would disagree. Also see my response in part two.

A number of points here aren’t factually wrong but simple (*simply) irrelevant

So you would agree that biological sex is important and that it is relevant to many conversations? Then why were people getting mad about this?

Or this?

On to the specific examples. This post is long enough already and I’m not going to spoon feed basic biology to you because you’ll probably just ignore it. I referenced a variety of sources earlier. I’ll just reference Invisible Women since it’s an amazing book.

1. This first point is, appropriately enough, true in isolation; it just doesn’t support Paradox Institute’s argument. Listing it leads the audience to believe that truth is on their side, but PI do nothing at all to justify that.

So nothing here is true? They’re just lying? Here are their sources btw.

2. Generally irrelevant, but not entirely biologically accurate, either. It isn’t that ‘male’ and ‘female’ are categories intrinsic to nature that produce small, motile and large, immotile gametes respectively; ‘male’ and ‘female’ are labels we assign (generally, but not always) according to gamete size.

So it’s not relevant that one sex has the ability to carry children or menstruation or get an abortion? It’s not like there’s any issues women face specifically for that, right? So we assign the labels male and female to gametes. If you want to play semantics, sure, we created the words, but the gametes themselves already existed. Not really sure what you’re trying to say here other than disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing and moving some words around. Are you implying that the categorizations of gametes are subjective? Are you saying there’s a spectrum of gametes?? Are eggs just big sperm and sperm just small eggs??? Genuinely have no idea what the fuck you’re trying to prove here.

3. Whatever your opinion of evolutionary psychology, this does not preclude gender. (On the contrary, we ought to include gender in our understanding of cultural development with respect to sex.)

The only gender in history was gender roles, and both were tied to sex in most cases. Sex absolutely came before gender and is more integral to our existence. In any time before the last few decades, gender and sex were basically synonyms.

4. Entirely a straw argument. And, to the contrary, precision greater than two sex categories would be beneficial (i.e. specific sex characteristics, history, endocrinology etc.).

Obviously doctors don’t just diagnose based on sex, they factor in medical history and other traits. Precision is irrelevant because it still focuses on sex not gender. If it’s “entirely a straw argument” why did someone else reblog your response with this?

Speaking as a member of a medical family, the medical one fucking OFFENDS me.

Blood type HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH GENDER. Or biological sex! Both are totally irrelevant! And medication dosage is determined by AGE and SIZE. A 25-year-old 160-pound person with a penis needs the exact same dose as a 25-year-old 160-pound person with a vagina. In fact, possibly LESS of a dose, if the person with a penis is 5’10” and the person with a vagina is 5’5”. (The taller person may be underweight.)

This is just. UGH. I could scream.

@prismatic-bell​ this is one of the funniest and dumbest replies I’ve ever gotten. First of all “member of a medical family” tf is that lmao. This reminds me of that post where the “medical worker” tra turned out to be a garbage collector guy. I have no idea why you brought up blood type when it is literally never mentioned in the original post. Strawman much? Fucking obviously blood type isn’t affected by sex, and you’re completely missing the point if you think gender has anything to do with this. Medication dosage is decided by age and size, yes, but also biological sex. This is like basic medical science, dumbass. Mandatory reading from Invisible Women as punishment for your stupidity crimes:

People called her a terf for this :)

5. How sports are best divided is a far broader question than this point implies. We could, for example, segregate sports by relevant physical attributes (as is already the case in some sports) rather than by sex or gender. This point also presupposes (but does not justify) that a woman having an advantage in women’s sports by dint of being trans is significantly greater than an advantage any woman might have by dint of her natural attributes (which, empirically, she does not) and hence would be unfair. That said, enforcement of “female” sports is already marred by racism and perisexism.

You agree sex and gender are different, yes? So then why should males be in female sports? You’re trying to distract me with that stuff about physical performance and whatever. Focus on the question at hand, should males be allowed into female sports? We cannot eradicate sex-segregated sports because female athletes will be even more systematically disadvantaged. If you were truly a feminist you’d understand that female sports are the result of the movement you claim to support. More Invisible Women facts plus some interesting info about the plough hypothesis:

6. Simply untrue. Excluding trans women from statistics about women on the basis that doing so would affect those statistics is arbitrary at best. Those statistics may change, but that does not mean they are unsuitable or inappropriate. The exclusion of any subset of women can be justified in exactly the same way.

Nope! Stop trying to use women of color and intersex women as justifications for why we should let men pretend to be women. You’ve seen the hundreds of receipts of trans women committing all sorts of male violence. Has anyone found anywhere near a comparable number of trans men doing similar things? They have not, even though if trans men were truly men they would be much more violent.

7. The majority of single-sex spaces are, functionally, just as much single-gender (owing to the traditional equivalence of ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ and to the majority of the population being cis. Trans people have been using spaces appropriate to their gender for decades, whereas concerns about them doing so are based on speculation and hypotheticals rather than fact. (Aided, as with a lot of bigotry, by bad and manipulated statistics.)

I’ve spoken about my opinions on the bathroom debate before. If a passing trans person uses the bathroom of their choice I don’t really care, but there have already been many examples of men making women uncomfortable in their bathrooms, or worse. Making all bathrooms gender neutral is by far the worst idea, but unfortunately that seems to be where we’re headed. More Invisible Women, just for fun:

8. This is the worst red herring, exploiting violent misogyny for the sake of argument. It is another straw argument, too, since—even ignoring trans-positive feminism in practice and assuming trans people act only in self-interest—trans people are concerned with addressing such injustice.

Sure, many trans people are supportive of feminism. But we can’t effectively dismantle the patriarchy if we can’t accurately describe the (sex-based) oppression involved. Women are routinely silenced when talking about our biology, even when there is no “transphobic” language involved. “Trans-positive feminism” also often reinforces misogyny by supporting sex work and porn, and by shutting down analysis of things like femininity and makeup because “some women like it.” See also from trans activists: misogyny racism homophobia + lesbophobia

9. Similar to (7) there is no consistent distinction between sex and gender across law. Even so, this is another red herring as it is possible to recognise both sex and gender in laws and policies. Some laws already do (at least functionally, if not explicitly).

You can deny it but the TRA train is leaving without you and they’ve been clear about their goals. As you’ve seen in this post, gender is intended to replace sex. Those who bring up sex-based issues are silenced as “terfs” who deserve the hatred thrown at them.

Sorry for making such a long post but I was on a roll so I just kept writing. I don’t expect @terflies​ to respond to all of this but I wanted an excuse to make some sort of masterpost that links to a lot of my other posts and can be used in the future. Online school is going pretty well and I’m trying to start some doing some hobbies that are better than tumblr blogging.

#my posts #discourse #factfem #receipts #masterpost #there's so many things mentioned in this post i'm not going to bother tagging them all #debunking anti terfs #terf

[msyuksanh]

[Hyorotto Danshi Article Translation]

“Nishiyama Kotaro to Umehara Yuichiro: “You’re an immature person!”, and Nishiyama Kotaro feels comfortable when pressure is applied to him”

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From the broadcast on May 24th, we hear about Umehara Yuichiro’s current state of affairs, and we hear stories from the two of them about their commutes to high school.

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“Nishiyama Kotaro to Umehara Yuichiro: “You’re an immature person!”

Umehara talks about how lately he’s been playing “Splatoon” with his relative’s elementary school kids. Since it looks like they play every night, it seems the kids are improving in their skills.

Umehara: “Honestly, I can’t win anymore. They can just beat me normally.”

Nishiyama: “Wha? Up until now I thought you were kicking their butts”

Umehara: “Yeah, yeah, I was beating them so bad. Generally we’d be on a LINE call together and I’d say “I won again, hahaaaa”.

Nishiyama: “That’s so immature! You’re an immature person, seriously (lol)”

Umehara: “(lol). Weeell, I can’t win anymore anyway.”

Umehara has said from the start he’s not good at games. When he spoke about how fast the kids are growing up he thought, “I should keep this is mind” ...

Umehara: “Right now we’re playing “Splatoon”, but since they’re elementary school kids I figure they’re probably gonna get in on the trends and start playing “Fortnite”, so I tried the game out. That’s why lately I’ve been practicing “Fortnite” to get good (lol)”

Nishiyama: “In anticipation (lol)”

Umehara: “Someday the kids are gonna play “Fortnite”, and when they say “Play with us, uncle”, I’m gonna beat them so badly.”

Nishiyama: “No-no, hold on, that’s unfair! I don’t want any of this underhanded side of you (lol)”

Umehara: “(lol) Yeah, well, I need to anticipate and prepare [for when that time comes].”

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“Nishiyama Kotaro feels comfortable when pressure is applied to him?”

There were messages from listeners saying “Please tell us about when you both went to school”, so they talk about their high school days. It seems it took about 2 hours for Nishiyama to get to school...

Nishiyama: “When the train was crowded, it kinda felt comfortable when I was squished.”

Umehara: “Ahh, like, on the other hand you were leaving your body to be held up by other people.”

Nishiyama: “Yeah, yeah. Weell, it’s not like I was leaning, but my body felt like it was in fixed in place, and I didn’t hate that. For example, when you have a Kojien (single-volume Japanese dictionary), and you rest it on top of your hand and you feel its heaviness...do you know what I mean?”

Umehara: “Well, it’s not like I don’t get what you mean... That was a very unexpected example (lol)”

Nishiyama: “It seems like I don’t exactly hate pressure being put on my body.”

Next, we have a story from Umehara’s commute to school. During Umehara’s high school days, he took the same train as the “Girl’s Group”, and it looks like he got their contact info.

“This is the first time I’m hearing such a story!”, Nishiyama was taken aback. However, it looks like Umehara “was never going to message them” anyway...

Umehara: “And then, god, the next day! So I was on the same train. And the “Girl’s Group” were constantly giving me dirty looks. And they were whispering to each other like, “Why didn’t he message us? He sucks”. There are 2 stations near that school I went to, so I changed my station the next day.”

Nishiyama: “Yikes...”

“That only ever happened once, though. How nostalgic”. And that was Umehara reminiscing about his high school days.

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(Thanks for reading! I loved reading these stories!)

#hyorotto danshi #hyoro #nishiyama kotaro #kou-chan #tarori #umehara yuichiro #umehara yuuichirou #ume-chan #the bae #the husband #seiyuu #seiyuu article translation #mytranslation #i've been to those stations ume-chan's been to!