#that's usually how you refer to other people's husbands so it's already formal on its own but w -sama instead of -san no less

[visgrapplinghooks]

friendlinghood: a proposal

skip to "terminology" if you don't want the long explanation

QPRs are really difficult to talk about because of the way the modern queer community has kinda framed it as like "dating but without romantic attraction"

when that's not entirely true

I mean, you COULD say that's a kind of QPR but it'd be a mistake to frame all of it that way. this is in large part to internet misinformation and shit as well as amatonormativity from which a lot of relationship discourse is framed against

queerplatonicism, from my pov refers to what is essentially the natural byproduct of queer and neurodivergent people having close friends

the queer community has been aware for a while that its members would have close friendships that in some way violated traditional social norms for behavior outside romantic relationships or family, etc.

when you sit outside the neurotypical and patriarchal norm, the conventional social understanding of what relationships are kinda breaks down for you

you display levels of closeness and intimacy and affection that are "inappropriate" for neurotypical and patriarchal society. in most cases they're not formal relationships, but natural evolutions of friendships between queer and neurodivergent folks

cishet people actually do have variants on this like the concept of "blood brothers" where two men who love each other basically make a pact to always have each other's backs and be their support and they do the whole movie thing where they mix blood to bind them together (it's a very cinematic thing, but the point is it exists in the popular consciousness)

"romance" and "friendship" each refer to a set of social norms and expectations. there's like a whole narrative constructed around those concepts and people internalize and have their own versions of them

a lot of people probably have friends they want to fuck or kiss or cuddle or declare their undying affection for but it'd just be "weird" within the social boundaries of acceptability and so people pigeonhole their relationships into either friend or romantic partner.

queerplatonicism (from my pov) is essentially accepting or practicing relationships which are neither platonic or romantic or even strictly familial. many queer people have them with other queer people they're close to. if you know queer folks then you probably know what I'm talking about - the friends they have that they're not dating but seem intensely attached and close to. they usually have weird names for each other that go beyond friendship like they'll jokingly call each other wives and husbands and siblings and partners... but it doesn't feel quite entirely joking. they'll express a lot of physical affection in the casual way you might typically ascribe to romantic partners. they'll prioritize time with those people as much as any romantic partner they may have etc.

straight and cis people and neurotypical people obviously experience them to some extent, it's just that patriarchy was built around cishet neurotypicals in particular, so it tends to cling to their mindsets more strongly, and once you're already outside of the "bounds of normalcy" by being queer, ND, etc. then it's a lot easier to feel like it's okay for you to be in relationships that aren't "normal".

because like the idea of loving someone with your entire fucking being... it's so tied up in these cultural ideas on how to behave about those feelings and it never made sense to me, because if you just let yourself feel those emotions you start to realize there are people in your life that maybe you love so much more than friends. but "more than friends" is so washed up in romance that you force those feelings down and think "this is fine, I'm happy with being just friends, what else can we be?"

maybe I don't want to have sex or hold hands on a ferris wheel or get. married or kiss or any of that. maybe I just want to exist in the same room as that person know that that person is in my life and know that person cares about me just as much as I do them.

terminology

I've started to use the term "friendling" in my day to day life, now. the term is a portmanteau of "friend" and "sibling" and "loveling" (the english cognate of the German word "lieblings" which can mean "favorite", but is also a term of endearment).

to me, it's probably the most accurate way to describe the Everything All At Once feelings that are simultaneously your weird friends that are your found family and also "romantic" but twisted beyond recognition where the term stops meaning anything.

I'm just throwing this word and explanation out there for anyone who feels like me and wants to use it too. not exclusive to queer people or neurodivergence or anything, I just think it's often easier to be cognisant of those feelings when you are queer and neurodivergent.

that being said, I do NOT want this to be folded into another "attraction label". this is, as far as I can tell, not a unique form of attraction but quite literally the opposite. it's an abstraction of the core impulses of attraction that ALL humans experience without the labels or social structures built around it. I do not want the language that I've spent so long trying to find for my experiences losing all of its value and being reapporpriated into the amatonormative, allonormative, and cisheteropatriarchal framework.

"friendlinghood" - is what I see as an attribute of relationships and the extent to which they deviate from socially conventional definitions of a relationship.

"friendlingship" - used grammatically like friendship. referring to any complex relationship acategorically.

"friendling" - used grammatically similar to friend. referring to those involved in any complex relationship acategorically.

all of this shit is nebulous and doesn't really mean anything beyond what meaning you choose to give it. I think any relationship can have some amount of friendlinghood and I don't think there's a clear line between friendlingship and friendship or romance or family, because it's not a type of relationship in the first place. it's just silly words I made that helped me.

language and labels

so the biggest problem with terminology like this is you can end up creating labels. my point was to create personal terms for myself and my relationships because that's what helped me personally process my own feelings.

that's not to say everyone needs or benefits from them. you can just vibe and do whatever you want and many people are happy with that.

I don't think words like this being codified and standardized really helps anyone. it's unavoidable that we as humans like articulating feelings, but the entire point of my interactions with friendlinghood is about certain things defying labels and language. language in this sense is just a tool, it's a hammer for a nail. it's not embodying the concept itself, it's just useful shorthand.

I will still freely refer to friendlings as close friends, best friends, found family, and other words. as long as I know the intention behind it is all that matters. I just needed that initial bit of language to articulate the feelings before the other words felt right to me.

#romance #relationships #healthy relationships #friendship #neurodivergence #actually neurodivergent #actually autistic #lgbtqplus #lgbtq community #lgbtqia #aromantic #aromanticism #acespec #aspec pride #asexuality #aroace #queerplatonic #queerplatonic relationships #queer

[eijiroukiriot]

on this evening i am thinking abt this jpn krbk comic which i will translate under the cut BUT there is a little bit of a plot twist so don’t spoil yourself!! 

kirishima (narration): bakugou got married. 

(kaminari: WAAAH CONGRATULATIONS

bkg (laughing): get away from me, idiot!) 

kirishima (narration): the story that everyone was telling at the ceremony was that at the start, his feelings were unrequited, so for a long time, he kept them inside...thinking...thinking...and eventually, they both felt the same way. 

(cont’d): i was always by your side, acting like i knew you better than anyone else...

(ashido: kirishima! hurry up! we’re taking a picture!)

...but, the truth was, i had no idea. 

bkg: oi, husband. 

kirishima (narration): bakugou got married...

(kirishima: i’m so happy that i can’t stop crying!

bkg: so that’s it...) 

...to me. 

#i will put my actual commentary a few more tags down to avoid Spoilers #you guys know i love wedding stuff and angst stuff so it's just like. oooh what's it gonna be! #thoughts #okay. spoiler time. is that the 'oi danna-samaaaa' part gets me every time #bc when i first read it i thought it was bkg referring vaguely to like his unnamed actual husband #but NO that was him talking to KIRISHIMA calling him his HUSBAND and in a SLIGHTLY DRAWN OUT JOKING MANNER NO LESS #that made me melt instantly #to be honest i don't have the greatest grasp of husband/wife words in jpn bc there are A Lot of them and i've never gotten a sit-down lesson #on like the uses #but i was pretty sure i knew the connotation of danna-sama and i was Right #that's usually how you refer to other people's husbands so it's already formal on its own but w -sama instead of -san no less #so jokey so teasy so 'hey. love of my life.' #i like it a lot and keep thinking abt it!! #bkg also looks like a weird regency gentleman in this which is fun too #translation

[ibijau]

You’re a marked man, brother

A new ghost king emerges, and promptly marries a god A martial god's temples are being targeted by the Magpie King and it is up to Lan Xichen to deal with all this trouble

I am 100% blaming the xisang discord for this, since a large part of the plot was brought up by other people

This is a tgcf AU, not a crossover, so while I'm using some of the same settings and general rules, the characters front tgcf won't appear. I also don't think it's all that necessary to have read tgcf to enjoy and understand the story (I'm personally still just going through book 3) but since this is inspired by a certain arc in the novel, I guess this could count as spoilers.

Also on AO3

The news that a new ghost king had emerged from Tonglu mountain, thirteen years after its gates had last opened, spread like wildfire among ghosts and gods. Everyone stood anxiously to the side, waiting to see what this new Devastation would be like, especially when the Magpie King was already out there, causing all sorts of trouble whenever the mood struck him. Everyone watched as this new ghost king went to settle into the eerie Burial Mounds of Yiling and established himself there. Although nothing terrible seemed to happen at first, everyone who had breath still held it, waiting and waiting. A number of bold ghosts and demons went to Yiling to offer their service to this new king, or to beg for his protection. Some he accepted into his new domain, others he rejected, all according to criteria that no one could understand.

It was almost a relief when, nearly a year after rising from Tonglu mountain, the Yiling Patriarch created trouble and destroyed some temples belonging to a martial god. Finally, the new ghost king was living up to everyone’s expectations, acting with the sort of evil intent everyone had expected, and the world made sense again.

As far as Lan Xichen was concerned, it would have been better if the Yiling Patriarch had remained quiet. It had already been upsetting to see that Devastation take root so close to his own territory, but then the Yiling Patriarch was obviously trying to cause trouble for Lan Xichen personally with these attacks. Although the damaged temples were not his own, in some ways it would have been less troublesome if they had been. There were only a few temples dedicated to his friend Nie Mingjue on the lands Lan Xichen was responsible for, but these had been the targets of the Yiling Patriarch, which seemed a clear attempt to create strife between them.

Nie Mingjue, whose domain was up in the North, was a god with a short temper who did not take well to insult. He would have barged into the Burial Mounds without hesitation if Lan Xichen had not asked him for a chance to investigate the matter before making judgements against the Yiling Patriarch. After all, just by existing a ghost king would attract enemies, Lan Xichen argued, and it wouldn’t be impossible for some lesser ghosts to try to get rid of him by sicking a heavenly official on him before he could become too powerful. After the initial burst of burning anger, Nie Mingjue agreed that it would only be just to investigate this matter, and allowed Lan Xichen to take matters in his own hands.

As usual for matters concerning the mortal world, Lan Xichen sent his brother to check on this matter. Although Lan Wangji was only part of the Middle Court, he excelled at dealing with this sort of thing, always finding the heart of chaos and untangling whatever mess he encountered while being careful of the well-being of any mortals involved. Lan Xichen could not have asked for a better deputy than his brother, and still hoped that in due time, being involved in chaos this way would give his brother a chance to ascend on his own.

Nearly a month passed after Lan Wangji was sent down to earth to investigate, and no news came from him. Lan Xichen, at first, did not worry. It was not unusual for his brother to get caught up with things and not update anyone on what he was doing. After two weeks, this was only mildly concerning. After three, it was odd. After four, Lan Xichen started to fear for his brother’s safety. It ought to have been just a quick investigation after all, and Lan Wangji had been ordered to report to his brother without attempting to handle the situation on his own, since Nie Mingjue would probably wish to punish the culprit himself. Besides, although Lan Wangji liked the mortal world too well and could be wilful at times, he simply never disappeared so long, not once in the several hundred years he had been around.

Terrified that some evil had befallen his brother, Lan Xichen decided to start his own investigation, helped (or hindered perhaps) by his husband who he thought needed a break from his official duties. Jin Guangyao complained at length about this, pointing to the piles of work he had to do, information to collect and organise, prayers to answer, outstanding mortals to check. He also pointed out that anything which might have caused trouble for someone like Lan Wangji would pose great danger, and being a civil god rather than a martial one, he would be of little help. To this, Lan Xichen countered that Jin Guangyao was an expert in collecting information, and thus would surely help finding what had happened to Lan Wangji. As for the danger, Lan Xichen was a martial god, so he could take care of it all and keep his husband sage. Jin Guangyao, knowing how stubborn Lan Xichen could be when he’d decided they were overdue a vacation in the human world, gave in and agreed to come along.

Their first stop, of course, was the dreaded Burial Mounds of Yiling.

It was also their last one.

At the foot of the Mounds, a ghost village of sorts had sprung, where those who had been refused access to the Yiling Patriarch’s domain mingled with those who had just arrived to demand such a favour. It was a grim place, filled with the unresting spirits of criminals, demons on the lookout for their next devious plan, and a number of lost souls too hurt to move on and rejoin the circle of reincarnation. And it was there, among those miserable creatures, that Lan Xichen found his brother hanging out with the ghost of a young man toiling over a nefarious looking pot of soup.

Much as Lan Xichen wished to run to his brother, something about the scene stopped him. There was something not quite right about it, though he couldn’t find what until Jin Guangyao, equally stunned, pointed it out for him.

“I believe it’s the first time I see your brother smile,” Jin Guangyao said. “Do you think he might have been cursed?”

And that was the oddity, of course. Lan Xichen, who knew his brother better than anyone, could recognise the signs of an implied smile on Lan Wangji’s stern face, but to anyone else Lan Wangji appeared impassible and colder than ice. To see him smile outwardly was something entirely unheard of. Then, to make it worse, the young man in black and red said something that Lan Xichen couldn’t hear, and Lan Wangji laughed.

It wasn’t a boisterous laughter, nor indeed a very loud one, but even at a distance there was no mistake possible when seeing the slight shake in Lan Wangji’s shoulders: he was laughing.

Seeing this, Lan Xichen could no longer stay away. He walked toward his brother, Jin Guangyao just one step behind him. Lan Wangji stood a little straighter upon seeing him, while his companion grinned at them and waved his hand.

“You’re not the sort of people we usually get here,” the young man said, distractedly mixing his pot of soup. “I’m guessing you’re here for Lan Zhan? Ah, gongzi, could you perhaps be his brother? You do look the same.”

Hearing his brother and him be referred to so casually, Lan Xichen had to fight a smile, especially when Lan Wangji, usually so formal, didn’t protest in the least.

“I am his older brother indeed,” Lan Xichen confirmed. “I had asked him to take care of a certain business for me, but instead I find him here with you. Might I be so rude as to enquire about your name, gongzi?”

“Where are my manners?” the ghost gasped, just a touch too dramatic. He let go of his ladle, and bowed. “My name is Wei Wuxian, and I am most honoured to meet you. Am I right in guessing you two must be Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao?”

Both gods instantly tensed upon hearing that name.

There were a number of ghosts who didn’t use their name, and preferred a scary sounding title that would strike terror in the heart of enemies and future victims. Even after several hundreds of years, nobody knew who the Magpie King was, and so it had been initially expected that the Yiling Patriarch would do the same. But the Yiling Patriarch liked to do things his own way, and was well known to dislike this title he hadn’t chosen, and to prefer introducing himself under his true name: Wei Wuxian.

It was a shock for this power ghost king to be this sort of a casual looking young man dressed in plain dark robes. Certainly Wei Wuxian was very handsome, but neither his face nor his easy going aura fit what Lan Xichen would have expected from a ghost capable of rising to the rank of Devastation. And yet, it wasn’t a complete surprise either. All the other ghosts and demons around were keeping their distance from Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao, instantly guessing they were heavenly officials, and thus a danger to them, but Wei Wuxian didn’t appear particularly impressed with them.

“I imagine you’re here for that business with Nie Mingjue’s temples?” Wei Wuxian asked, his attention going back to his devilish stew. “I’ve already told Lan Zhan when he came here, this had nothing to do with me. I’m not interested in making trouble, and I’d prefer to keep away from Heaven’s business.”

Lan Wangji nodded firmly to this, so earnest looking that Lan Xichen couldn’t help smiling again.

“Then Wangji should have come home right away and given me his report on the situation.”

As expected, although Lan Wangji’s face remained impassible, there was just the slightest hint of pink on his ears. He looked away, while next to him Wei Wuxian burst out laughing.

“Well, that one is my fault!” he exclaimed. “See, Lan Zhan and I met when I was still alive, and then again a few times here and there after I died, and we became good friends.”

“Good friends indeed,” Lan Xichen noted with amusement, while his brother’s ears turned a bright red. Lan Xichen exchanged a glance with Jin Guangyao who was also struggling not to grin now that he understood the situation.

“Maybe more than good friends,” Wei Wuxian admitted without shame. “Poor Lan Zhan was very worried that I’d disappeared for a few years in Tonglu Mountain, and so now that I’m back, he decided he doesn’t want to lose sight of me again in case I do more stupid things; And that’s how we got married. I really thought he’d warned you,” Wei Wuxian added, lightly slapping Lan Wangji’s arm. “How rude. I didn’t think I’d married someone so rude.”

“Being around the Burial Mounds makes it difficult to contact Heavens,” Lan Wangji said.

“Then you could have gone away for a little bit, send your message, and returned!”

Lan Wangji shook his head. “Where Wei Ying is, I am as well.”

That simple declaration had Wei Wuxian groaning and whining as if he’d been mortally pierced through by a blade, and he complained heavily that Lan Wangji was unreasonable and unkind and quite clearly trying to murder him with words too sweet. 

Lan Xichen, at first, was shocked and disappointed to learn that his brother had married in secret, but ultimately decided that the decision made sense. Although he was only from the Middle Court, Lan Wangji was still a heavenly official, and so for him to marry not just a ghost, but one of such a dangerous level, was really scandalous. Lan Xichen dearly wished he could have been present for such an important moment of his brother’s life, but it would have been complicated to organise, and his own reputation would have suffered. Not that he cared too much about his reputation compared to his brother’s happiness, but Lan Wangji had probably wanted to be kind in leaving him in the dark.

As for the rest, if Lan Wangji believed that Wei Wuxian really was innocent of that incident with Nie Mingjue, it had to be true. Knowing Lan Wangji, if he liked a person he would stay at their side no matter what they did, but he wouldn’t close his eyes to their fault. If anything, had Wei Wuxian really been in disagreement with Nie Mingjue, Lan Wangji would have immediately said so to Lan Xichen so he could try to act as a peacemaker and resolve the situation.

“Will you be staying here then?” Jin Guangyao asked Lan Wangji.

Lan Wangji nodded. “Hm.”

“Then we would do well to find a way to explain your prolonged absence,” Jin Guangyao mused. “Let’s avoid creating trouble for everyone. If Xichen agrees, I will go back and prepare an assignment asking you to keep a close eye on the Yiling Patriarch for an undetermined period of time. That way, no matter what others say, it won’t be a lie to say that you are here on official business.”

Lan Wangji nodded again, but it was clear he did not care much what others said about his decisions. Even after so many centuries in Heavens, he still had the firm belief that a person’s actions should be the only thing they should be judged on, regardless of gossip or social expectations. Lan Xichen found that trait charming and infuriating in turns, and so was deeply grateful to his husband for giving Lan Wangji some protection against those who would speak ill of him.

Having decided this, Jin Guangyao promptly left so he could take care of this, while Lan Xichen chose to linger a little while longer and learn more about his new brother-in-law. Since he had such an esteemed guest to entertain, Wei Wuxian abandoned his stew and the ghost village, offering that they continue this conversation inside the Burial Mounds. He’d only come to the ghost village because some of those who resided inside the Mounds had complained at length against his cooking and he didn’t want to bother anyone who didn’t deserve it.

"Then you are kinder than I might have been led to expect," Lan Xichen remarked as they traversed the village. "I suppose your mounting reputation might have more to do with memories of the Magpie King's early days than your own actions." 

"Is he really so bad then?" Wei Wuxian asked. "I think I've met him once or twice over the years, he didn't seem so bad. That is, if it was even him. He never introduced himself, eh?" 

Lan Xichen refrained a grimace. "If he likes a person, he'll make their life easier. If he dislikes them, they'd better start praying to every gods in the Heavens because the Magpie King will stop at nothing to destroy his enemies."

In fact, even heavenly officials weren't quite safe. Right after reaching the rank of Devastation, the Magpie King had taken a sudden dislike to a few minor civil gods and ruined their reputation so thoroughly that their own followers, ashamed of ever praying to them, had torn down their temples and burned their broken fondations. Since those gods had all been revealed to be corrupt nobody had really missed them in the end, but civic gods had lived in fear for years after that. Even the most upright of gods had secrets they didn't want to see revealed. Lan Xichen still remembered that Jin Guangyao had been terrified his origins would be revealed, and that his followers would turn away from him if they discovered he'd been born the son of a prostitute. 

"Maybe it wasn't him I met then," Wei Wuxian mused. "The person in question helped me quite a bit back then, and I've always made enemies of the wrong people. If I'd met the Magpie King, he'd have hated me for sure, ahah!" 

"Maybe yes, maybe not," Lan Xichen replied. "Nobody knows why he chooses to like this person and hate that one, so it's possible…" 

Someone caught Lan Xichen's attention as they were about to exit the ghost village, a silhouette not far that sent his heart racing. Without thinking he abandoned the other two and ran toward the person, a young man leaning against a tree and deep in conversation with a headless monster. With trembling hands, Lan Xichen grabbed the man's shoulder, roughly forcing him to turn around so he could see his face. 

"A-Sang?" 

Assaulted this way, and by a high ranking god no less, the poor ghost shrieked and nearly fainted on the spot. He'd been given that fright for nothing, too. Although from the back the silhouette and posture had seemed to match, from the front it was clear that there had been a mistake. 

"My deepest apologies," Lan Xichen said, bowing to the terrified ghost. "I mistook you for someone else." 

"Are you looking for someone?" Wei Wuxian asked, coming closer. "An evil ghost maybe? We're family now, so I don't mind helping out." 

"No, the matter is a personal one," Lan Xichen confessed, his cheeks burning at having behaved this way in public.

"Then all the more reason to tell me!" Wei Wuxian insisted. "Who are you looking for? An enemy? An old rival?" 

"A friend." 

Wei Wuxian looked surprised, though less so than Lan Wangji who had never heard of his brother having any missing friends. Of course he wouldn't have, when Lan Xichen had kept this matter to himself. Even Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao had never been told about this, so it would have been foolish to tell this stranger Wei Wuxian. And yet, if there was just a slim chance… 

"Back when before I ascended, I had a very dear friend," Lan Xichen explained. "A few years younger than me, but we got along wonderfully and made plans to travel together someday. I remember he particularly wanted to go see the stone pillars in Wulingyuan. Before this could be done, I had to return home and deal with some things there, but as it happened, I ascended shortly after. I offered my friend a chance to join the Middle Court, but he declined for the present because there was no one else in his family to take care of his parents. He said he would gladly join me once they had passed away, but for now he was happier in the mortal world."

Lan Xichen sighed. To this day, he still regretted not having insisted some more. 

"A little while after that, someone slaughtered the entire household," he lamented. "Even the children and the elderly were all killed to the last, there was no survivor."

Lan Wangji took a sharp breath, to which Lan Xichen answered by a sad smile. 

"I know what you're thinking, Wangji, and you're right. It is the same as what happened to Nie Mingjue’s family after he ascended. It even happened around the same time, and the city was the same as well, so I think the two crimes were linked. And as for my friend, his soul was not among those put to rest after, so I believe he might have become a ghost."

"What was his name?" Wei Wuxian asked. 

Lan Xichen laughed awkwardly. 

"For how dear to me he was, I actually don't know," he admitted. "I only knew him as A-Sang. For some reason, I didn't even learn his last name either. As you can imagine, it has made it nearly impossible to look for him. Perhaps it's for the best anyway." Lan Xichen sighed. "What would I even say to him anyway? After so long, 'sorry' is a pitiful word, and anyway I am married to another now, someone who was fated for me. Still, I wish we could have had a proper goodbye." 

Lan Xichen sighed again, in spite of himself. He knew it was selfish to still miss this person, and surely Jin Guangyao would have been hurt to know his husband couldn't fully get over that old flame, even after centuries. It was why Lan Xichen had never told him, nor Nie Mingjue who would have been upset on his brother's behalf. But maybe he should have said something, because sharing this secret made him feel a little lighter. 

Still, this was a very grim topic to discuss with newlyweds, so Lan Xichen forced himself to smile more warmly and quickly changed the subject. Although the others were clearly curious, they understood this was painful for him and dropped the matter. 

Aside from that brief incident, the rest of the day was pleasant enough. Wei Wuxian was an eccentric character, and maybe a little self centered, but ultimately Lan Xichen figured this new ghost king should cause as many problems as the first one. Wei Wuxian seemed more interested in experimenting with his new power than in causing chaos, and apparently his goal with those powers was mostly to see if the notoriously nefarious Burial Mounds could be purified. That, and shamelessly flirting with Lan Wangji, seemed to be Wei Wuxian's only preoccupation. 

Still, a Devastation remained a Devastation. Although Wei Wuxian was friendly, it would be best to keep an eye on him. 

As night started falling, Lan Xichen took his leave. He promised to come visit again, and at Wei Wuxian's insistence he swore he would try to bring his husband, though it would be an arduous task. Jin Guangyao wasn't found of leaving his work behind, and had little taste for ghosts. 

All in all, Lan Xichen was in an excellent mood when he walked away from the Burial Mounds. But as soon as he was out of that place's area of influence, a panicked voice into his mind as Jin Guangyao shouted into their private communication array. 

"I'm here," Lan Xichen said, surprised that his husband had lost his calm so thoroughly. "Were you worried because you couldn't get in touch?" 

"Indeed I was," Jin Guangyao replied, already calming down now that he'd gotten an answer. "Xichen, you must return at once, the situation is urgent. More of da-ge's temple have been attacked, in his own territory, and this time the culprit signed his crime so da-ge went to confront him!" 

That didn't sound like something to panic over, Lan Xichen thought at first. Out of all the martial gods in the Heavenly Court, Nie Mingjue was the most powerful by far. Ghosts, demons, mortals, or other gods, there was nobody he couldn't defeat. 

Not unless the battle wasn't just a physical one. 

"A-Yao, the person who attacked his temples, could it be…" 

Jin Guangyao let out a deep sigh. 

"Yes, Xichen, it is. Da-ge went off to fight the Magpie King."

#xisang #wangxian #there's xiyao so be warned but they're not endgame #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #jau writes #marked man au

[pumpkinpaix]

Hi I don’t know if anyone has asked you this already, but do you find it strange that we are never given either of the Nie brothers’ given names nor Jin ZiXuan’s, when it’s common practice (at least in the show) to address yourself by your given and courtesy names?

Hey there! :D No, no one has asked me this yet, ahaha.

To be honest, I don’t find it strange, but that’s mostly because I think MXTX assigned names as it was convenient/as it suited her. I do think in some cases, you can try to find textual reasons, like limited POV (@hunxi-guilai made a post about how that might explain why Jiang Cheng is disproportionately referred to by birth instead of courtesy name here).

In the case of Jin Zixuan, I think that makes a lot of sense. Since mdzs and cql are largely from Wei Wuxian’s POV, and he clearly already knows Jin Zixuan, there’s no need for him to reintroduce himself, which is usually where we get people mentioning both their names. I don’t have any textual reasoning for the Nie bros’ lack of birth names ahahaha.

I will, however, use this as a springboard to mention a few things I find generally interesting about the way naming conventions appear to vary between sects/interesting points about address in general. There’s like no deep meta here, just like. “I noticed this thing, and I think it’s interesting”. (hope that’s okay /o\)

One: The Jin sect is the only sect that uses generational character markers (Guang, Zi, Ru). Establishing that convention makes Jin Guangyao’s courtesy name a massive slap in the face I think. (a, for giving him the wrong generational marker, which implies that he’s never actually going to be recognized as a son/that jgs really just didn’t care to even get it right, and b, for reusing his birth character instead of bothering to give him something new–every other character who has a birth and courtesy name gets two entirely unique names, but not jgy.) It’s a cool way of implying certain things about his status, how his father regards him without stating it outright, how others might see him because of that etc.

Two: The Wen sect appears to almost exclusively use birth name–in fact, the only two characters from the Wen sect revealed to have courtesy names are Wen Ning (Wen Qionglin) and…. Wen Ruohan. Well, and Wen Zhuliu, but he was originally Zhao Zhuliu, so idk if that really counts, since his courtesy name predates his induction into the Wen sect. Wen Qing, Wen Chao, and Wen Xu are referred to by birth name only by both themselves and everyone around them for the entirety of the story, which seems rather strange, given that all of them are high-ranking members of the family (Wen Xu is the heir??). Sizhui is not given a courtesy name by his birth family, but by Lan Wangji.

(an aside, it’s been mentioned before by others, but historically, courtesy names were bestowed upon adulthood; however, in CQL, we see Wei Wuxian picking out Jin Ling’s courtesy name before he’s born. it’s possible this is a practice that differs from sect to sect, but again, very little to no textual support for that speculation ahahaha)

Wen Ning’s courtesy name is used only once by Wei Wuxian in a moment of extreme distress at the Guanyin temple. It reads, to me, like switching registers to indicate the high emotional levels of the situation rather than anything about respect/social relations, in the same way that like, lwj switching between “wei ying/wei wuxian” can indicate moments where emotions are running high. I hc that the intimacy/distance of birth/courtesy names are switched in the case of Wen Ning/Wen Qionglin (ie, only people who are intimate with him would be expected use Qionglin) but that has absolutely zero basis in any fact, cultural convention, or textual evidence. I just like it because it warms my heart. feel free to roast me for it, i can accept that criticism.

Three: Both the Lan sect and the Nie sect address by courtesy name, even within their own family. (Lan Qiren calls his nephews “Wangji” and “Xichen”. Sizhui and Jingyi call each other by courtesy name. Nie Mingjue calls his brother “Huaisang”.) Why? we don’t know! We could maybe try and meta about it in the case of the Lan sect, I think (they’re more formal in general etc.), but we have so little knowledge of the Nie sect that I think it’s functionally pointless to try and dig there. I feel like trying to come up with any plausibly supported reason is going to be a stretch.

Four: A’Cheng vs A’Xian. Jiang Yanli uses Jiang Cheng’s birth name to form his diminutive, but uses Wei Wuxian’s courtesy name to form his. I’ve seen people ask why she doesn’t call him A’Ying, which would be more consistent, but I hc that this is because “Wuxian” was given by her father, so her using “A’Xian” is meant to strengthen that familial tie. “Ying” is from before he was part of their family. “Wuxian” is something given to him by the Jiang family, so using it, I think, is a subtle way of emphasizing how much she really considers him to be her brother. (If you’re curious, in the flashback when he first arrives at Lotus Pier, the audio drama has her calling for him as “A’Ying”.)

Five: Yu-fu’ren. I mentioned this on an addition to another post a while ago, but I’ll copy the relevant passage from chapter 51 here again:

虞夫人就是江澄的母亲，虞紫鸢。当然，也是江枫眠的夫人，当初还曾是他的同修。照理说，应该叫她江夫人，可不知道为什么，所有人一直都是叫她虞夫人。有人猜是不是虞夫人性格强势，不喜冠夫姓。对此，夫妇二人也并无异议。

Yu-fu’ren was Jiang Cheng’s mother, Yu Ziyuan. Of course, she was also Jiang Fengmian’s wife [fu’ren], and once cultivated with him as well. By all reason, she should be called Jiang-fu’ren, but for some unknown reason, everyone had always called her Yu-fu’ren. Some guessed that perhaps because Yu-fu’ren had a forceful temperament, she disliked taking her husband’s name. Neither husband nor wife raised any objections to this.

I think this is actually a pretty interesting microcosm of the themes of mdzs. We don’t actually know why Yu Ziyuan is called Yu-fu’ren; we’re given the equivalent of a rundown on local gossip and that’s it. I feel like it embodies a little bit of the “what people say about you becomes the truth and then influences your fate” theme that runs through mdzs. Did Yu Ziyuan WANT to be called Yu-fu’ren? Did she request it? Is her husband actually fine with it? The audience doesn’t get any of their internal landscape and is instead given a leading interpretation of the situation. How is our opinion of her then influenced?

To be clear, I don’t necessarily think that was necessarily the intention of this passage (maybe it was! or maybe mxtx just wanted to call her yu-fu’ren and realized she had to come up with some justification for it. i really couldn’t tell you); I just think that regardless of intention, its existence in relation to the larger themes of the novel can present a cool juxtaposition, if you dig a little bit.

Six: Song Lan, a respected cultivator, is more often referred to by his birth name, including people who are not intimate with him (normally, this would be rude), while Xiao Xingchen (who is intimate with him) calls him by courtesy name. Why?? We also don’t know. Does this lend support to my earlier headcanon about Wen Ning/Qionglin having a reversed intimacy/distance implication?? not… not really, but I like to think it at least kind of shows a precedent….. orz.

Seven: I find Xue Yang’s courtesy name, Xue Chengmei (成美), really fun ahaha. It comes from the phrase, 君子成人之美, an idiom that essentially means, “a gentleman always helps others attain their wishes”. Jin Guangyao gave it to him (not sure if this is canonical or extracanonical–i heard about it in an audio drama extra, much like how i get all my information orz) which I think is greatly amusing for obvious reasons.

Eight: Lan Wangji actually changes Sizhui’s birth name, even though you wouldn’t be able to tell just from hearing it. His original birth name is 苑, an imperial garden, but Lan Wangji changes it to 愿, as in wish (愿望) and to be willing (愿意), among other very beautiful sentiments. partially im sure to protect his identity, but also because. you know.

Basically all this is just to say, I think the naming/address conventions in mdzs are pretty weakly conceived, but you can find interesting things in them if you go looking! and we all know i love to go looking /o\

#the untamed #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #mdzs meta #the untamed meta #cql meta #mine #mymeta #wow this got long who's surprised -_- #sorry this isn't very coherent or like #well-thought out #it's just a jumbled collection of my thoughts #i didn't mean to spend too long on it but here we are #to be clear i am not an expert in chinese naming conventions #nor the ins and outs of the social implications of such things #so please take everything i say with a grain of salt #aaaahhh #Anonymous #asks and replies

[thecrownnet]

Queen enters 'twilight' of reign after farewell to Philip

Now that the Royal Family has said farewell to Prince Philip, attention will turn to Queen Elizabeth II’s 95th birthday on Wednesday and, in coming months, the celebrations marking her 70 years on the throne

By DANICA KIRKA Associated Press April 20, 2021

Photo: The Associated Press FILE - In this Monday, March 12, 2018 file photo, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II leaves after attending the Commonwealth Service at Westminster Abbey in London. Now that the Royal Family has said farewell to Prince Philip, attention will turn to Queen Elizabeth II’s 95th birthday on Wednesday, April 21, 2021 and, in coming months, the celebrations marking her 70 years on the throne. This combination of events is reminding the United Kingdom that the reign of the queen, the only monarch most of her subjects have ever known, is finite. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, file)

LONDON -- Now that the Royal Family has said farewell to Prince Philip, attention will turn to Queen Elizabeth II’s 95th birthday on Wednesday and, in coming months, the celebrations marking her 70 years on the throne.

This combination of events is reminding the United Kingdom that the reign of the queen, the only monarch most of her subjects have ever known, is finite. That has triggered speculation about how long she will remain on the throne, what the monarchy will look like in the future and, for some, even whether it should continue to exist.

“The queen is certainly moving now into the twilight of her reign and a new phase of her reign,’’ said Anna Whitelock, director of the Centre for the Study of Modern Monarchy at Royal Holloway, University of London. “She now is a widow, and it remains to be seen how she’s going to respond to that.’’

While most observers say the queen is unlikely to abdicate given her lifelong commitment to public service, she has already started to turn over more responsibilities to Prince Charles, 72, her eldest son. That process is likely to accelerate following Philip’s death.

Charles’ increased role began gradually, when the queen began cutting back on long-haul flights, resulting in Charles taking her place at a 2013 Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Sri Lanka.

Then in 2017, he represented the queen at the annual Remembrance Day ceremony marking the end of World War I, laying the monarch’s wreath at the foot of the Cenotaph in London. It was the first time the queen hadn’t performed the solemn ritual, other than when she was pregnant or out of the country.

Since then, Charles has taken on an increasing number of public engagements and been named the queen’s designated successor as head of the Commonwealth, a voluntary association of 54 nations with links to the British Empire.

“Symbolically, the transition towards the succession is already underway,” said Ed Owens, a historian and author of “The Family Firm, Monarchy, Mass Media and the British Public 1932-53.”

“I anticipate that we’re going to see a lot more of Prince Charles in the next couple of years so that we, as a people, start to see him in his future role as king.”

For now, the longest serving monarch in British history continues to reign. But she will do so without Philip, the man the queen called her “strength and stay,” a source of emotional support in her often lonely job.

Her loss was underscored by Saturday’s funeral at St. George’s Chapel on the grounds of Windsor Castle, where the figure of a widow in black sitting alone offered a glimpse of the next solitary phase of the queen’s reign.

“Constitutionally, Prince Philip’s death doesn’t change anything. But, of course, at a time when the queen is approaching her 95th birthday, she’s vulnerable and aging,’’ Whitelock said. “Clearly, Prince Philip’s death has begun this transition to the future and the beginning of the end of this phase of monarchy.”

Questions about the end of the queen’s reign will also fuel the debate over the long-term future of the monarchy, seen by many as a symbol of national unity but by others as an obsolete vestige of the nation’s feudal history.

The BBC received more than 100,000 complaints about its decision to pre-empt popular TV programs for round-the-clock coverage of Prince Philip’s death, the most it has ever received about a single programming decision.

And while there is enormous respect for the queen, the same isn’t necessarily true for Charles and other members of the royal family, said Graham Smith, chief executive of Republic, which campaigns to replace the monarchy with an elected head of state.

Philip’s death “serves as a reminder to an awful lot of people, who on the whole don’t think much about the monarchy from one day to the next, that change is coming,” Smith told the Express newspaper.

The queen’s reign began with the death of her father, King George VI, on Feb. 6, 1952. She was formally crowned on June 2, 1953.

During that ceremony, televised around the world, the queen promised to govern the United Kingdom and her other realms. Six years earlier, in a speech in South Africa, then-Princess Elizabeth made clear that her commitment was for life.

“I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong,” she said.

That is a pledge the queen intends to keep, said Robert Hardman, author of “Queen of the World,” which chronicles the monarch’s influence and stature around the globe.

Even as she mourned last week, the queen attended a ceremony marking the retirement of her Lord Chamberlain, who organizes all ceremonial events for the palace, and continued to hold conversations with Commonwealth leaders.

That shows she has no intention of emulating Queen Victoria, who retreated from public life when her husband, Prince Albert, died unexpectedly at the age of 42, Hardman told the BBC.

“The signal she’s been putting out during the last week is that this is going to be business as usual, that duty comes before self,” Hardman said. “She will continue with all her duties because … she took a coronation oath and she’s sticking to it.”

But she won’t be alone.

While her popular grandson, Prince Harry, has stepped away from royal duties, the rest of the royals, backed by professional staff and advisers, are likely to rally round the queen and take on more tasks. Sustaining the institution will be the bedrock popularity of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, who have a reliable ability to connect with the public.

The queen may also be helped by technology.

During the pandemic, Elizabeth has connected with the public through a series of Zoom calls. The appearances, released by the palace and posted on social media, have allowed people to see the queen speaking to schoolchildren, volunteers and health service officials — smiling, joking and making canny observations in a more personal way than the scripted speeches that have dominated her public life.

Last month, for example, she held a Zoom call with a group of children and scientists where she was asked about her meeting with the first man in space, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. The monarch, who invited Gagarin to Buckingham Palace shortly after his historic flight in 1961, was asked what the pioneering spaceman was like.

“Russian,” she replied with a smile. The audience chuckled.

Just another day of working from home.

“There’ll be a lot of emphasis as soon as the funeral is done on a return to normalcy. (For) the Royal Family, it will be the ‘Keep Calm and Carry On' sort of model, which they’ve been so good at promoting over the last 70, 80 years,'' Owens said, referring to the World War II-era adage.

“They’ll want a quick return to the normal program of royal service.”

#queen elizabeth ii #prince philip #the crown #platinum jubilee #social media

[jonismitchell]

Love dies in the city; or the romanticism v. modernism conflict on folklore

In my humble opinion, Taylor Swift’s 2020 album folklore is about the conflict between romanticism and modernism. It sets up the natural as a place of freedom and unrestrained love, contrasting this with the city (presumably New York) as a place of hiding and secrecy that ultimately dooms the integral relationship. In the end, Swift expresses her deepest desires to return to the natural world, to restart the timeline that began with her move to New York, something I will elaborate on when discussing “hoax” and “the lakes.” This storyline is the crux of the album, and the motif I’ve used to classify its songs into six distinct sections, which follow a vague plot that is not represented in the track list order.

the natural (seven, invisible string, betty) I would argue that “seven” represents the heart of folklore, containing what seems to be the album’s mission statement (“passed down like folk songs / our love lasts so long”) and describing the earliest point in Swift’s timeline. This song is the one most directly linked to nature, describing a childhood friendship that takes place in the woods. One lyric, “before I learned civility / I used to scream ferociously / any time I wanted,” implies that Swift found freedom in nature, when her secrets were mere promises to friends instead of the pain she had since hinged her life on. In addition, this song is pure romanticism. The interest in childhood is implied, we can reasonably assume both main characters to be seven years old. To support this, the song states “although I can’t recall your face, I still got love for you,” implying that much time has passed since the events. There is awe of nature (the “beautiful things” are the creek and the trees), emphasis on the importance of imagination (your dad is mad because the house is haunted), and a celebration of the individual (“just like a folk song, our love will be passed on,” where the love is the individual she speaks of). This is the dream that Swift wants to return to, and yet her characters already face conflict (the keeping of secrets, hiding in the closet, an angry father). She romanticizes her past into something she can escape into, creating a sort of mythos around an upset childhood.

Our next nature-intensive song is “invisible string.” She again makes a callback to childhood, citing a park where she used to read in Nashville. It would not be incorrect to categorize this as a love song, perhaps the most lighthearted one on the album. Swift emphasizes time and fate, both recurring themes in her discography. Like “seven,” “invisible string” draws attention to nature as a freeing and healing space, which sets the stage for her romance. Lines such as “gold were the leaves when I showed you around Centennial Park” draw attention to the ‘invisible’ connection the song depicts. In the bridge, she notes that there was “a string that pulled me / out of all the wrong arms, right into that dive bar,” implying a protection from the dangers of interpersonal conflict. Throughout the verses, mentions of any city stay tangential (“your first trip to LA… an American singer”) while the focus lies on her freedom. It is a dreamlike song, which implies that the city can be glimpsed but not detrimental, and showcases an utter belief in things working out. 

It is, then, rather ironic that the final song with unique ties to the environment highlights an unanswered apology after the foundations of romance have been shocked. “betty” is ostensibly narrated by a teenager, James, who plans to make up for her mistake in a garden. This perspective ties into the album’s greater focus on time, in this instance equating innocence (“I don’t know anything”) with a natural setting (the garden, which is explicitly removed from society). At first, James wonders if Betty will allow an apology, but wants it to happen without anyone watching (“if I showed up at your party… would you lead me to the garden”). She then casts this hope aside, dreaming about being able to broadcast her love to the world without fear of judgement (“will you kiss me on the porch in front of all your stupid friends”). It is also, then, relevant that the relationship is ruined when scrutinized (“rumours from Inez”). When considering how themes of secrecy and hiding come into the picture once the narrative travels to the city, it is interesting to look at how the hope of an public relationship prevails here. But in the end, James still dreams of going back to any relationship with Betty, no matter how private (“kissing in my car again”). Of course, Taylor Swift herself is James, and James is Swift, so we know that the secrecy dooms the relationship in the end.

the romance (august, illicit affairs) “august” describes a doomed relationship, perhaps meant to be the affair James has that prompts her apology to Betty. However, the story of a love that was never built to last has been referenced multiple times in Swift’s discography (“Wildest Dreams” and “Getaway Car”) and even expressly linked to summer on 2019’s “Cruel Summer.” These songs show distinct lyrical similarities to “august.” Hence, I feel comfortable describing this song in the context of those, rather than within the storyline of Swift’s fictitious love triangle. (Which is flimsy as it stands, but that’s for another analysis.) While there is no set location, this song describes one kind of coming-of-age (“whispers of are you sure”) and delves into the hope associated with a short-lived romance. Here, there is no secrecy to speak of, but a fear of what will come when a return to society comes (“will you call when you’re back at school”). My contrast for this song is saying it is “Cruel Summer” without the ‘happy’ ending. There is a privacy here (“meet me behind the mall”) but it is the instability of the romance that dooms it (“you weren’t mine to lose”). “august” is a time capsule, a reflection on the love that always would’ve ended regardless of the locale.

The next song, “illicit affairs,” is another one that ‘visits’ the city (for lack of a better term) but places the primary conflict in a largely undetermined setting. In fact, there seems to be a rejection of the urban (“take the road less traveled by”). In the sorting of tracks as they relate to different sub-themes, “illicit affairs” is the first song that says, without preamble, that secrecy is the death of love. While the word ‘illicit’ simply means forbidden, the verses describe sneaking around in a way that has been attributed to cheating since album release. There is virtually no acknowledgement of another character outside of the two lovers, save for the ‘him’ referenced in the perfume line. But it is not this person that the narrator seeks to hide from, it seems to be almost everyone. It could be construed as a song about adultery, but taken in the context of the rest of the album it reads as a lament for having to hide a relationship (most likely a romantic one between two women, but this is extrapolation).

the city (the last great american dynasty, mirrorball, mad woman) Now we approach the slew of songs that deal with the actual location of the city. The first song is “the last great american dynasty,” which seems the most removed from Taylor’s viewpoint and yet involves her directly (“and then it was bought by me”). We get an actual move to the ‘city’ (“Rebekah rode up on the afternoon train”) which is reminiscent of Swift’s own move to New York in 2014. Rebekah is immediately disliked by the people around her, blamed for her husband’s death to the extent where she flies in “bitch pack friends.” (1) Keeping with the theme of folklore’s similarity to a time capsule, one could see this song as Swift retelling her own purchase of Holiday House (and by extension much of the events from 2014/2015) through the lens of someone else’s life. Indeed, part of this theory is directly corroborated by the song through the lines “then it was bought by me” and “I had a marvellous time ruining everything.” In relation to the conflict between secrecy and survival of love, “the last great american dynasty” does not offer much insight. However, it effectively sets the scene for songs to come.

(1): I don’t know anything about Rebekah Harkness’ life, this is just how I interpreted the song. 

After the initial move, “mirrorball” establishes the new dynamic between the lovers. In turn, it introduces the performative nature of romance in the city (which is referred to and combatted with the line “all these people think love’s for show / but I would die for you in secret” from “peace”). Swift expresses interest in a lover who is “not like the regulars,” who wants more than to watch her turmoil. Still, this song finds her drawn into the nature of performing, consistently showcasing her tragedy to let others see themselves to the extent where she cannot even let her guard down when “no one is around.” Even after the circus has been called off, she seems to have entirely integrated with the role of the mirrorball. This provides some introspection on her viewpoint: digging into insecurities under the viewpoint of desperately trying to save a sinking ship. Almost as a counterpart to “seven,” the lyrics to “mirrorball” show some characteristics of modernism. Individualism is represented through the focus on the person who is the mirrorball, while unrelated characters do not warrant much elaboration. In terms of formalism and experimentation, the format and structure of the song deviate from Swift’s usual manner. The concept of a person being a mirrorball (shown in the music video as a disco ball) is both a symbol and verges into the absurd. All the imagery in this track is based in large crowds; featuring a disco, a circus, and masquerade revelers. It both establishes the setting where love dies and assures that the relationship will end (“the end is near”). 

“mad woman” is the final song which establishes setting more than storyline. It proves the city as a angry and dangerous place, one that is not sympathetic to “people like” Swift. We find her contemplating revenge on someone who has done her a great wrong, which is less attached to the general storyline but serves to depict the setting as actively hostile and worthy of contempt. When compared with other tracks, certain lyrics imply that the narrator is hell-bent on getting the last word (“they say move on but you know I won’t” / “you know I left a part of me back in New York”). There isn’t much else notable about this song in terms of what we are talking about, but it does frame several absurdist tendencies in the context of a destructive setting. 

the death (cardigan, exile, my tears ricochet, epiphany)  In “cardigan,” Swift reminisces on a long-past relationship, which has been interpreted to be James and Betty’s teenage melodrama. This is the first of many breakup songs, which idolize what has passed and mourn the loss. We observe many signs of the city (“chasing shadows in the grocery line”) and individualism (“I knew everything when I was young”). As referenced in “betty,” the cardigan becomes a symbol for the relationship at large. Moreso, the idea that the relationship was cursed to end as it begun is elaborated on here (“I knew you tried to change the ending”) even if it is not ascribed to secrecy yet. In reflecting on Swift’s past work, we see many signs of her being accustomed to this thought (“I can see the end as it begins” from Wildest Dreams and “I knew (...) we were cursed” from Getaway Car), but “cardigan” comes across with deeper pain regarding the whole affair. In tying different lyrics together (“back when I was living for the hope of it all” from “august” and “I hope I never lose you” from Cornelia Street), we begin to paint a picture of the true narrative behind the love triangle. Swift knew her greatest love would end—desperately hoped it wouldn’t, prayed they could ‘get away with it’—and finally channels her anger and sorrow into this retrospective. She almost accepts it: love dies in the city.

Another reflection on a past relationship is folklore’s only duet; “exile.” This song discusses an inability to communicate, the concept of determined endings (“I think I’ve seen this film before, and I didn’t like the ending”), and plenty of ‘hiding in the city’ imagery. This sees one narrator (Swift) faking a relationship (“just your understudy”) to hide her true lover (in this context, Iver). Both agree on various facets that caused fallout (“didn't even hear me out... never learned to read your mind… couldn’t turn things around”) until the final disagreement (“you never gave a warning sign / I gave so many signs”). So while the song is fundamentally about a miscommunication, it is evident that much of the misunderstanding comes from ways of signalling the secret relationship. Presence of the city is acknowledged through lyrics such as “I’m leaving out the side door,” “out here in the hall,” implying that the narrators share an apartment. Nature also gets a brief mention here (“breaking branches”), but this usage explains that the freedom of the narrators is fading, just like their connection to the natural. 

Most do not connect “my tears ricochet” to romantic fallout, but there is no denying that the song hinges around prominent death metaphors. Many metaphors used imply that the narrator has broken up with their lover, but still haunts the hope of what could’ve been. In the line “we gather stones, some to throw, some to make a diamond ring,” a connection to marriage is implied, divorcing the meaning from the loss of Swift’s masters. A crowd of people is repeatedly referenced (the ones in a sunlit room, for instance) and the lover must “save face” in front of them. This external pressure contributes to the greater theme of death of love in the city, which Swift equates to her own death. She describes herself as a recalcitrant ghost (“you know I didn’t want to have to haunt you”) but one her lover must have around (“when you can’t sleep at night, you hear my stolen lullabies”). This song is another one that recognizes Taylor Swift the writer within the lyrics; within this interpretation the “stolen lullabies” are the songs that the ex-lover inspired, work she can no longer look proudly on. While no explicit connections to the city are formed, it is obvious that some external pressure resulted in a damning betrayal, which was painful enough to describe as death. 

The final song in this death theme is “epiphany,” which does not discuss the romantic timeline at all. Instead, “epiphany” is the culmination of two sub-motifs on folklore: water and war. In nature, water gains a passing mention in “seven,” but does not truly become relevant in this organization until “the last great american dynasty.” In “epiphany,” the water reference is “crawling up the beaches now,” which serves to distance it from the overall storyline. The song also deals with the war motif (evident in most of the songs, but “ease your rifle” is very literal) and contrasts soldiers at war to doctors during the pandemic. All of this builds on this section’s burgeoning theme of death. It fits in with the album theme, but does not display obvious modernist or romanticist hallmarks.

the chance (the 1, this is me trying, peace) Opening the album is “the 1,” a frequently disliked song but a very telling one. It is similar to “cardigan” in that it reminisces on a past relationship, but the narrator feigns contentment with her current situation. If all of folklore can be considered a time capsule, “the 1” perhaps describes the headspace of the narrator before they begin reminiscing: convinced they are alright, but not holding up very well. This song involves much city imagery (“I hit the Sunday matinee,” “I thought I saw you at the bus stop”) and deals with the aftermath of many events in the album. It is interesting that this song was one of the last written, as one can imagine the narrator went directly from “it would’ve been fun” to “don’t want no other shade of blue but you” (as described in hoax). The love has died here; but there’s a desperate hope to return (“if one thing had been different, would everything be different”). 

Much like “betty,” “this is me trying” is another last-ditch attempt to save a failed relationship. Both songs find Swift in a doorway, ready to apologize, but “this is me trying” bears the weight of experience and less expectation that they will have a second chance. The increased maturity finds acknowledgement of faults without excuse (“my words shoot to kill when I’m mad / I have a lot of regrets about that”) and an attempt to come to terms with the death of the relationship despite pain. This, of course, breaks apart in the bridge (“all I want is you”) but, as Swift consoles herself, at least she’s trying. Setting-wise, this seems to be in a smaller locale (“the one screen in my town”) which calls to mind the “the only thing we share is this small town” from “Death By A Thousand Cuts.” There is also what appears to be a bar (“pouring my heart out to a stranger / but I didn’t pour the whiskey”) and an influx of people (“it’s hard to be at a party when I feel like an open wound”). It is not necessarily the city, but rather a recovery period that does not go well. 

If the painful instruction of “illicit affairs” acts as a foil to 2014’s “How You Get The Girl,” then the anxiety of “peace” complements 2017’s “Delicate.” While “Delicate” expresses the sufferance of an early, undefined relationship (“is it cool that I said all that”), “peace” begs the lover to reconsider the end one last time. As “hoax” makes undoubtedly clear, it wasn’t enough. We see the dangers of outside influence (“I’d sit with you in the trenches”) and the strength of the romance (“the silence that only comes when two people understand each other”). It is a final plea for someone to stay, a list of the success and a fatal acknowledgement of the worst. There is a declaration that sums up much of the album: “all these people think love’s for show / but I would die for you in secret.” As we’ve seen from other songs, it is the secrecy and the hiding that has doomed them. Swift sees this, she briefly suggests a return to the free and safe woods (“give you my wild”) but is ultimately stuck on the question of peace, which she wishes she could give her partner. 

the return (hoax, the lakes) The original album closer, “hoax,” finds Swift leaving a part of herself in the destructive city that has become home. She makes an attempt to return to her home, only to find that it is not the way she’s left it (“my barren land”). With her lover, she has gone through a journey that changed her too much to return to innocence (“I can go anywhere I want, just not home” from “my tears ricochet” contrasted with “you’re not my homeland anymore” from “exile,” where the lover becomes the homeland). She turns to a bleak setting, using sparse lyricism and simple constructs to describe her pain and betrayal. While Lover highlights themes of likening one’s love to a religion, the Swift we see on “hoax” has given up on any sort of healing coming from her romance. All she acknowledges is that the circumstances of her love have “broken her down” and “frozen the ground” (from which she hopes a “red rose” will emerge in “the lakes”). 

In “the lakes,” Swift tries to move forward but still sets her sights on the natural world, citing a deep desire to escape the scrutiny that destroyed her romance completely. This is a call to action for her former lover, a final request for shared freedom that reminds the listener of the lyric “would you run away with me?” from 2017’s “Call It What You Want.” Swift continues to call on aspects of romanticism she’s referenced on reputation and Lover to make her point. It then tracks that she has been inspired by this muse all along, and is finally asking for a return; both to the early romanticism her albums are built on and to her lover’s “homeland.” Her desire for a new home is evident, her conviction that her former lover should join her too great to be overcome.

The response of the muse to this, of course, is unclear. 

#arden speaks #my analysis #taylor swift analysis #this is more than three thousand words #arden's essays

[willowistic22]

The pleasure’s all mine... Prince Romeo

A grand party is held in the palace tonight, but one of the royal family member isn’t in the mood to indulge in it like how they’d usually be. Luckily, a stranger comes to save them. It just so happens that this stranger is so dangerously handsome. 

Word count : 4688

Part : -

Warnings : light mentions of alcohol, cursing, and that should be it. it’s nothing too serious. 

A/N: HIIII this is my gift for @s9da (well technically for paranormalsoup... i think you can piece in together why i asked you abt paranormalsoup in the wormsie discord server hehe) for the @newsiesgiftexchange i had fun making this bcs i absolutely love newsies royal au, so i hope you don’t mind i wrote a somewhat self indulgent fic for your gift hehe. it was still spromeo like you asked, but uhh idk i hope you like it bcs half of me think it’s not as great as i thought it was in my head. But anyways enjoy!!! :D

“Romeo! Get your ass out of there!” 

“How long does it take for you to get dressed?!” 

The two muffled voices turned into banging on the door. Romeo rolled his eyes, deciding to ignore his brothers and continuing to adjust his tuxedo in front of his full length standing mirror. 

His bedroom door swung open with no warning. In turns, two boys formally dressed came storming in. 

“Race! Crutchie! You could have at least waited for me to let you two in!” Romeo protested, adjusting sleeves under his dark blue blazer. 

“My God, Ro! You’re not even ready yet!” Crutchie commented, walking over as fast as he could with his crutch to get to where Romeo is standing. He takes the silver tie from the dresser and slings it around Romoe’s shirt collar, “The party is supposed to start right now and you know dad would want all of his sons to be present!”  

“He was probably too busy talking to the cat, weren’t you?” Race flops on the big bed, causing the dozens of velvet pillows to jump. It also seems to have awakened a huge white fluffy cat in the midst of the pillows. 

“Racetrack! Snowy was getting his beauty sleep!” Romeo protested, seeing the scene unfold from the mirror. 

Crutchie flipped both of his brothers off, telling Race to be careful so he doesn’t mess his own outfit up and making Romeo stand still while he helps him get ready. In under five minutes and Romeo is properly dressed just like his brothers. 

Crutchie places Romeo’s crown on top of his black locks, the magnificent silver object goes perfectly with the intricate silver curlicue designs on the shoulder and back of his dark blue blazer. With the tiny silver crown lapel pin and its tiny chain draping on the fabric to wrap up the dashing outfit. 

The three head out of the room. They strut through the grand hallway like it’s a fashion week runway, feeling confident with every step following the red velvet carpet till they reach the grand ballroom decked to the nines just like them. 

A huge chandelier hanging above the open space. A few tables and chairs neatly organized for the awaiting guests but still leaving enough space for a dance floor. The huge glass doors wide open to make use of the huge balcony for the party, also letting the evening breeze through the door. 

“About damn time you three show up!” Jack, the oldest brother exclaimed. 

“Jack! Do mind your language!” Their father protested. 

His three younger brothers walk up onto the podium, greeting their father who’s sitting on the only throne present. 

“It was all Romeo’s fault. He didn’t know how to tie his own tie!” Race joked. 

The brothers have their little silent squabble as they stand behind the throne. Crutchie decides to not get himself involved in it and tries to break it up, “Oh, grow up you guys!” 

Those words did nothing to help. In turn, Crutchie turns to their father in hopes to ignore those three. 

“Jackie-love! Listen to your brother, please!” A different voice chimed in. 

The three turn their focus away towards it and see Jack’s husband already fully dressed up. In a classy dark purple suit with a grey tie in the same shade as Jack’s own suit. 

“We’re celebrating our sixth anniversary and Sarah is finally home from her travels. The least you could do is to keep yourself presentable!” 

Jack pushes aside the squabble, switching on his loving smile for Davey. Romeo and Race pulled away from the squabble right after Jack. Their father silently sighed in relief to see his sons finally deciding to act like fully grown adults. 

He tells the royal guards to let the guests in. In under five minutes, the ballroom was instantly filled with guests in formal attire. Some fill their assigned seats for the dinner that was promised in the invitation while others mingle with each other. The band, playing lovely tunes loud and clear but it wasn’t time for the guests to get up and dance. 

The princes have also indulged themselves in the party. Jack and Davey can be seen mingling with the guests they’ve invited, listening to their congratulations on their sixth anniversary. Crutchie has gone to god knows where, which is surprising because he’s wearing a flashy yellow and black suit in the midst of all the mostly dull colored outfits in the ballroom. Race had gone off to fulfilling his promise to their father of introducing his new lover, the future king of Brooklyn. 

Romeo is left to slump on the round table with leftovers sitting idly on his plate. An odd thing for him to do, and he’s quite aware of it too. Romeo adores mingling, making new friends, or even catching up with some old friends that he has indeed spotted somewhere amongst the crowd this evening. Though, his energy to do so doesn’t seem to be there in this particular moment. 

The young prince watches from afar as his big brother finally introduces Spot Conlon to their father. Spot’s dark red suit is really contrasting to Race’s own outfit, a bright blue suit with golden curlicue designs on the shoulders and back which is a bit like Romeo’s. It matches perfectly with his blond messy curls and electric blue eyes. 

Romeo smiles, seeing his brother’s face lighting up as their father seemingly approves of the dashing Brooklyn boy that he has so helplessly fallen in love with for the past two years. Romeo doesn’t linger on it though. He returns his focus towards his empty table and plate, a sad smile painting his face as he observes his own reflection on the ceramic. 

“Well, aren’t you the life of the party!” A voice interrupted his thoughts, causing him to lift his head up, “But if I do say so myself, and I mean no offense to his royal highness, you’re quite the tragic sight sitting here all alone” 

His eyes landed on a gentleman standing proud and tall in a maroon suit, a black tie neatly tucked under his blazer. His complexion reminded Romeo of the topaz rocks in some of the castle’s intricate decorations, rich with brown but always glowing bright with the rest of the gems. In this case, his glow comes from the simple smile and the lovely brown eyes behind the silver framed spectacles. 

The initial comment brought a smile to Romeo’s face and a little laugh along with it. He fixes his sitting posture, eyeing the stranger with a head tilt while his head tries to figure out who this guest could be. 

“And you’re what? Here to be my savior from my little slump?” Romeo replied to match with the stranger’s cleverness. 

Seeing the success his opening line has brought, the gentleman pulls out an empty chair next to Romeo and sits himself down, “Well, you’re the prince here. Whatever it is you command me to be, I’m pretty sure I need to follow” 

Romeo lets out a small fit of laughter through his smile, looking away from the man’s eyes. It also makes the stranger laugh along with him. 

Romeo returns his sight back to the man in front of him. He walked right into a gaze-off he cannot look away from. In no means for intimidation, but a brief yet firm infatuation through the art of eye contact with the man he just met. Only now did Romeo realize how dangerously handsome this stranger is. 

“Romeo!” The call of his name pulled him away from the gaze and back to the world around him. 

He spots Crutchie zipping through the crowd. A smile painted on his face, just as bright as the yellow and black suit he’s currently rocking in. Romeo stands up to give his brother a hug. 

“I see you’ve met one of my friends from the lab!” Crutchie gestured back to the stranger Romeo was just previously speaking to, already slightly bowing his head to pay his respects to the two members of the royal family. 

“Oh, you work in the lab!” Romeo concluded, turning back to face the stranger who’s already on his feet. 

“Yeah. We call him Specs!” Crutchie giggled, making the other man laugh along while Romeo looks back to where he’s currently standing, “And Specs, this is my brother, Romeo!” 

Specs pulls up a simple smile for Romeo and a firm head nod. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you two!” Crutchie apologized, a few moments after remembering they were previously having a conversation. He adjusts his crutch to get ready to leave, “I’ll leave you two to it, okay?” 

Romeo watches as his brother walks away to mingle into another group. It leaves him with the previous gentleman he was talking to. The only differences now, he’s not much of a stranger anymore. 

“So... That’s what they actually call you? ‘Specs’?” 

“Well, it’s because, if you can’t already tell…” 

Specs gestures towards his spectacles that rests on the bridge of his nose. Romeo chuckles, playfully rolling his eyes. But the smile tells Specs he’s still in the clear from offending a royal family member. 

“What’s your actual name? Unless you don’t have one” 

He laughs, parting his lips to let it out before saying, “It’s Julian. But now people mostly refer to me as Specs” 

Romeo nods, staring directly into his sparkly brown eyes. Whatever is gleaming under it is very inviting, and Romeo isn’t opposed to this mysterious invitation. He’s rather pleased by its presence. Before he knows it he’s already engaged with it, letting his own obsidian gemstone eyes linger in the gaze. 

“A pleasure to meet you... Specs” 

“The pleasure’s all mine... Prince Romeo” 

- 

Soon enough the sun has fully set. The night sky takes over the heavens above, thread by sparkling pearls to break up the deep blue. But the party didn’t stop. The royal family’s favorite performer, Ms. Medda Larkin, has finally arrived in the most fashionably late way. Her grand entrance was welcomed with warm arms by King Denton himself. 

With the presence of the superstar, the band picked up its lack of entertainment as Ms. Medda picked up the microphone after a quick dinner. The jazzy upbeat tune sends all the guests roaring for the dance floor. 

Romeo though? He has his own entertainment, in the huge balcony by the bar with his own partner. 

“No dance?” 

Romeo pries his eyes away from the dance floor he’s observing from outside. He glues them onto Specs, leaning his shoulder on the shiny bar top while twirling his glass of scotch. 

Romeo shakes his head, making a semi weird face, “Not really up for it” 

“Huh, you’re nothing like what Prince Charlie says” Specs commented, taking a gulp from his glass to finish his drink off, “He says that you’re very energetic and flirty” 

The comment makes him scoff through his smile, “I can’t say that he’s wrong. But… I’m just not feeling it tonight” 

The little silence between them is giving Romeo the impression that he should explain even further. But he takes this chance to finish his own drink and change the subject, “So, you work in Crutchie’s lab?”  

The subject of Specs’ profession quickly did the trick. It also reveals some basic facts about him. As it turns out, Davey was the one that pushed him to work in the royal lab. He’s been friends with Davey since college and has been partners in crime ever since. Davey was first to get the job as a chemical engineer at Crutchie’s lab after a year of switching jobs to match his preferences, while Specs was still continuing his studies for a masters degree. Since he’s been an A+ student at a young age, the first application he sent got him the call for the job interview and got in quickly. 

Romeo was very impressed by the story. Half way through it he starts to question as to why he’s been given the honor to talk to Specs. There is no way Specs is anywhere close to Romeo's league. 

Regardless, Specs doesn’t seem to question all of that. While there’s a noisy ballroom in the background, they’re having a party of their own. Smiling, laughing, and basically having a great time in their private little universe. Romeo is very much infatuated by the gentleman and wouldn’t want anything in the world to ruin the moment. 

“Y’know, you should probably just drop all the formalities at this point” Romeo lightly mentioned, between sipping his third drink he had only touched after half an hour upon asking the bartender for one, “It’s just me” 

“Just you?” Specs questioned, lips wrapping up into a warm smile that makes Romeo’s heart melt. 

He froze in place, admiring the wonder to behold. It makes Romeo smile wider as he slowly nods at the question. 

Before he could say anything else, the loud sound coming from inside took over their center of attention. A loud cheering of guests over something neither Specs or Romeo knows about, as the view was blocked by dozens of backs. 

Romeo turns his head away from it, focusing back to where he is currently at. He glances over at Specs and says, “Let’s get out of here” 

Specs looks back at Romeo, a little confused with his offer, “And go where, exactly?” 

Romeo sips the remaining liquid in his glass, setting it back with a loud clang against the bar top. He spontaneously grabs Specs’ hand and drags him away, leading him to the stairs on the side of the huge balcony. With every step down, the twinkling Manhattan view slowly fades away from their eyes. 

It was soon replaced by the view of the royal garden in the dark. A cobblestone path stretching to as far as the eyes can see in the dark, pass the green trees with overgrowing plants hanging over it, and various shapes of bushes strategically placed all around the settlement. The smell of the grass is so fresh and different, unlike anything Specs has ever encountered before. 

However, Romeo drags him to the other direction. They walked under a dimly lit tunnel, under where the balcony and the ballroom is. They can barely see each other in this kind of lighting, though Romeo’s crown was able to let the tiniest ray of light reflect on its figure. At the end of the tunnel, they can see an opening which would lead them to the center of the palace where another garden is located. 

“Where are we going, if I may ask?” Specs returned to his previous unanswered question. 

“Just… around, I guess” 

The two smile at each other, Specs nodding along to whatever bullshit he was just fed but still getting entertained by it anyways. 

“So… are you gonna tell me why you decide to detach yourself from the party?” 

So he noticed. Well, it isn’t like Romeo has been sneaky about it but he was hoping it wouldn’t be brought up. 

“That party isn’t for me so…” Romeo started, fiddling the hem of his blazer, “... It didn’t felt right if I were to mingle in there” 

“Because that party wasn’t for you?” 

Romeo stops in his tracks, realizing how wrong that sounds, “Okay, wait, I take that back umm…” 

“No, it’s okay if you’re a little… self centered” Specs half teased. 

Romeo scoffs at that, playfully shoving his arms with his shoulders that sends the taller boy laughing. He recollects his composure and re-explains himself, “I mean… Jack, Race, and Crutchie are up there because they have…’something’” 

The two continue to walk through the tunnel, Specs fixated to Romeo as he explains himself. 

“You see Jack, already living up to his reputation from being a good leader. Charismatic, fearless, all of that. He’s just waiting for our father to step down from the throne so he can unleash his full potential” Romeo started out, which made no sense to Specs question but he kept listening anyways, “And then you got Race. However big of a dumbass and a troublemaker he is, he’s smart! He doesn’t work full time at the lab but you’ve seen him there a few times, right?” 

Specs nods, recalling the memory of him seeing prince Anthony while he was working. 

“A great problem solver. Despite being the one that causes the most problems in the castle” Romeo added, making Specs chuckle a bit. He lets himself smile at that but it didn’t linger long. 

“And you know Crutchie. He’s smart and wants nothing more than to help others. Hearing the voices of the little people” Romeo continued. 

He stops walking, causing Specs to do the same. They’ve almost made it through the tunnel, just a few more steps away. The moonlight can reach just far enough to illuminate their faces and highlight their main features. 

Romeo looks up to the other boy, “I’m almost 23 and I haven’t really done shit” 

Specs fully turns his body towards Romeo, his words from before finally clicking in his head. 

“I thought you were a performer” Specs said, “Isn’t that something to be proud of?” 

“It is something I’m proud of. But people talk, Specs” 

His older brothers are famous for what they’ve achieved that are viewed as ‘useful’ with their title as royalty. Romeo, on the other hand, is a famous Broadway performer. Whether it’s playing the lead role, a side character, or just a part of the ensemble, no one will deny his talent. But people still talk badly about his title mixed with his love for theatre. 

Specs stays silent while waiting for Romeo to continue. He let’s Romeo walk out the tunnel first, letting the glow of the night illuminate his whole body along with the garden he’s in. Though, his heart doesn’t seem to be enjoying it the way that he should. 

Romeo turns around to face Specs, already slowly stepping out of the shadows of the tunnel. He takes his crown off his head, letting it dangle freely in his right hand, “Living here has its perks. But the downside is people expect you to be a leader of some sort” 

The taller boy stands next to Romeo, observing one side of the castle. The bright lights from the chandeliers clear as day through the huge windows. 

“So you’re really going to let the stupid comments old people say about you affect the rest of your life?” Specs questioned, letting a small smile creep up his face, “I mean, you’re the one that gets all the girls drooling” 

“I guess, but I prefer guys anyways” Romeo half chuckled, his smile yet to return. 

“Then it looks like the odds are with me” Specs said in a cheeky manner, taking a few steps ahead of Romeo. 

It caught him off guard. He dumbfoundedly stared at the boy for a good few seconds while his back was facing him. Heart beating very fast. Heat rising up his cheeks. The corner of his lips picks up on the tiniest bit of joy and excitement his heart is indulging in. 

Specs turns around and Romeo shakes away any obvious adoration towards the boy, pretending to admire his crown in his grasp. 

“I mean, I think you’re a very talented actor” 

“So you’re a fan?” Romeo asked cleverly, looking up to meet his eyes again while placing his crown back on his head, “Is that why you came up to me in the first place?” 

“Among other things… yes” 

Well, that’s something to know. 

Romeo and Specs roam around the garden in the dark, though they stay quiet in fear that other people might hear their presence. The laughing felt more personal and heartfelt when it’s secretive like this. Somehow Romeo is falling out of his usual confident nature, getting shier with every giggle that escapes their lips or clever remark Specs added on to the conversation. 

Romeo brought up the idea for the two to head to his bedroom after spotting a glimpse of his balcony on the second floor. Well, from the ground it’s three floors up. Regardless, they were still able to utilize their environment to work in their favor on climbing to the balcony. 

Romeo avoided entering his bedroom because it was embarrassingly messy. So they stayed where they are, carefully sitting on the balcony railing and continuing their conversation. They picked it up so easily that they’re soon laughing together like before. This time, they get a view of the garden below, a glimpse of Manhattan, and closer to the night sky. The warmth of his bedroom through the open balcony doorway defeats the freezing temperatures from outside. 

Specs was interrupted mid sentence after an odd feeling came by his leg. Fluffy and warm, like it’s a living being. 

“Who’s this?” Specs looks down to see a white fluffy cat looking back up to him. He gently picks up the white furball and cradles it close to his chest with a loving smile. 

“About time he decides to wake up from his nap” Romeo commented, scooching closer towards Specs so that they’re shoulder to shoulder so he can pet his little feline companion, “His name is Snowy” 

Snowy purrs at the love he’s receiving, giving the two boys long and slow blinks with every pet they provide. 

“Do you have any pets, Specs?” Romeo asked. 

“My apartment doesn’t allow pets. It actually sucks because it can get a little lonely” Specs replied. He lets Snowy go after the cat starts stirring in his grasps. Specs cleans any excessive fur that got stuck on his blazer before turning back towards Romeo, “I’m glad I get to have my own space after needing to live in a foster home for the majority of the time. But I got used to having lots of people around so…” 

“Not courting anybody?” Romeo asked again, “You look like the kind of guy who’d win a lot” 

Romeo you fucking idiot. His mind was yelling at him for saying that. No one with common sense would blatantly say that to someone they just met that day. 

Specs chuckles through his smile, staring at Romeo with a little twinkle hidden in his brown eyes. It could just be the stars from the sky reflecting in his eyes, but it’s not possible because there was a meaning behind his glimmer. 

“Not really my style” Specs replied, a flirtatious smirk making its way up to his face, “Though, I met a guy recently and… I’m trying my best to impress him” 

Oh. My. God. 

Romeo didn’t realize how close their faces were getting. Hot breaths circulate the small gap between their faces. Romeo diverts his eyes away from Specs’, but it absentmindedly went to stare at his lips. He imitated the way Specs has his lips slightly parted. 

“A-and how’s that going for you?” Romeo dared to ask, stopping the gravitational pull towards each other. Any closer and Specs might know how fast his heartbeat is going. 

“Not sure” He replied breathlessly, “You’ll have to tell me” 

If stomach butterflies could explode then that is definitely how Romeo is feeling right now. But they stayed still. Neither quite seem to have the courage to take the next step. 

Specs took the initiative, slowly guiding his hand up to cup Romeo’s cheeks. He then whispers, “Can I-” 

“Romeo!” A muffled voice interrupted their little moment. They quickly pull apart and stare at Romeo’s bedroom door inside the dimly lit bedroom. Violent knocking followed after the voice and it continued, “Romeo, are you in there?” 

It didn’t take long for Specs to catch on to what’s happening. He scrambles himself away behind the brick wall of the balcony, just next to the doorway. Romeo fixes his suit and answers the door. 

Just as he expected it, it was Race. No one in the family knocks as violently as he does. 

“My God, Race! Can I ever get some time alone in my room?” Romeo answered the door. 

“Why are you even in here? You’re supposed to be at the party!” Race said, “Dad was looking for you, y’know” 

“I just needed a little air but I’ll be right there, I promise” 

He flips Race away and turns around, seeing the previous boy he was with coming out of his previous hiding spot. He smiles sheepishly at Specs, which was met with his own chuckling. 

“Guess, we better head back” Romeo said, looking up to meet Specs’ eyes, “But you’re gonna have to use the balcony” 

“I figured” 

Specs sits back on the balcony before swinging both legs over the railing to climb down. Romeo leans his body against the railing, held up by his arms. It’s only polite to wait for Specs to climb down before he leaves to get to the ballroom himself. 

“By the way… thanks for keeping me company” Romeo felt like he owed him a thank you. After all, Specs could’ve had some fun or gained more than just a casual get-to-know-me conversation if he were to fully participate in the party. 

Specs looks up from minding his steps down, back up to Romeo’s eyes with a loving gaze towards him, “Of course. When else will I get the chance to be this close to you?” 

Rome looks down to his hands to hide away his blush and bashful little smile. He notices Specs hands are still on the railing, placed quite close to his own. 

“But how did I do? Were you impressed?” 

Romeo looks up, finding the other boy’s face is already two inches away from his own. The exact same position they were in before getting interrupted by his brother, just this time Specs is hanging on the balcony.

“Is that something you want to know?” Romeo questioned back with a little giggle following it. He thought it would be fun to tease him around before they finally part ways. 

“It’s not usual for me to straight up ask but… “ Specs caught on with the teasing, “... technically you were the one that ask” 

Romeo giggles along with him. He nods to his question and answers properly, “Yes. I was very much impressed by you, Specs” 

The next seconds were filled with silence. The high from their little banter turned into adrenaline to do something with how they’re positioned now. They both realize it, as both smiles slowly fade to parted lips with hot and heavy breaths hitting each other’s faces. Romeo glues his eyes on Specs’ lips, he could only imagine the other boy did the same. 

“Do I get the permission to kiss you?” Specs asked, barely above a whisper while his hands traced up Romeo’s arm until it reached his cheek once again. 

Romeo stuttered through his next few words before replying with a little giggle, “Permission granted” 

Specs wasted no time, softly crashing his lips on the other boy’s. Fireworks set off in their heads as the feelings developed for each other from this short period of time are released in one gentle kiss. Romeo moves one hand to hold his neck, as a means to deepen the kiss and to secure Specs from falling. 

They part with heavy breaths escaping their lips. The heavy breathings turned into giggles and giggles turned into goodbyes. 

Romeo watches as a giddy looking Specs makes it to the ground and walks towards the previous tunnel. Before finally escaping his vision, Specs glances back up to Romeo. Despite the distant Romeo can see a stupid grin on his face, which only made him laugh. 

As Specs finally escapes his view, Romeo lets out a long and adoring sigh and melts into the moment. Lowering his body and placing his head on top of his hands that are gripping on the balcony. 

He hears his beloved fur ball meow near him, but he’s far gone for that boy to even care what the cat wants. 

“I know, Snowy,” Romeo said, as if understanding the language his cat speaks, “He’s such a dream…” 

#random writing #spromeo #spromeo newsies #newsies #specs newsies #romeo newsies #tw alcohol #tw cursing

[resilientmama]

Starting with the basics...

I’ve been told I am resilient. 

And I guess people viewing me in this light could be a good thing. But from my eyes, I just see a plethora of other people who are out here testing how much I can take. What will be her breaking point? When will she finally give in and go away?

If you’re one of those people, and you’re reading this; I’d like to formally let you know that once again you didn’t win. 

There has been no “winner” here. We’re all losing something in this scenario I’m going to layout. We’re all sad at the end of the day. I’m still here, without some of the things I love the most. And you’re still here, wondering what in the hell you have to do to make my existence disappear without being put into a prison for murder.

I’ve cried to the people that meant the most to me a number of times, “What do they want from me? To kill myself?” But this wasn’t suicidal thoughts or idealizations. Because I, Vanessa Green, don’t want to kill myself. I want to live. I want to watch my children grow. I want to enjoy my older years with my husband. I want to complete school and have the career I love. I want to laugh with my friends and continue to build a better relationship with my parents. I’m not going to sub-come to anyone else’s wishes, ever.

What got me to the title of resilient, strong, tough? PARENTAL ALIENATION.

What is parental alienation?

“Parental alienation describes a process through which a child becomes estranged from a parent as the result of the psychological manipulation of another parent. The child's estrangement may manifest itself as fear, disrespect or hostility toward the parent, and may extend to additional relatives or parties.”

The onset of PA can be derived from a variety of instances: a messy divorce, a partner with domestic violence problems, money and/or property, not wanting to pay child support, a preventative to keep an ex partner from carrying out a new romantic relationship, underlying mental health issues, social judgement, ETC. The list is literally endless.

But what is very clear if you do any type of research is that it is a form of abuse, to the child and the alienated parent.

I have been alienated from my children since 2016. It was a slow process. It usually is. Those RESILIENT little minds that children have are not as easily molded as you believe they could be. 

How was I alienated? 

I believe in my heart that the Father’s Rights Movement organization was the ultimate nail in my coffin. The organization has a forum post titled “The List” that gives a play by play account of how to manipulate the mother into a maniac state of emotion to make her look mentally unfit to care for a child/children. It then details out how to get your children involved, coaching techniques, the kinds of psychologist to take them to, top notch father’s rights attorneys in your area. I have this page bookmarked and I will link it in another post.

My alienation started with false allegations reported to DHS not by the other parent, but by his new partner. The key is to never get any blood on your own hands so if it all falls down, and it will, the blame can be put on someone else.

When the allegations about myself weren’t picked up, they had to move on to another victim. They chose my partner at the time. Granted, he wasn’t an amazing guy, but they still chose an innocent bystander.

I will never know the exact details of what happened the day the alleged abuse happened. So it is not my place to speak with complete confidence on what did or didn’t happen. 

Emergency custody hearings occurred, at the expense of both parties and guess what happened. I got my children back into my care. Sole custody renewed.

Then a custody modification. My life was turned upside down. I moved back in with my parents and hoped for the best. 

With over twelve witnesses subpoenaed to testify against me, my attorney advised I agree to joint custody. It was put into my mind that I was being alienated and this was not the last time that I would be in a courtroom with these people. 

So I had to watch my children be permanently moved to another state, accepting I would only see them every other weekend and for holiday breaks.

It went well for not even a year. I started having visitation denied, denied phone conversations, access to school information. At one point I was even told I wasn’t allowed to attend their school events because I made the new partner uncomfortable. I found out my children were referring to her as their mother now. 

It started to make sense and I braced myself for the impact.

Then came the storm of a lifetime. 

At this time I was twelve weeks pregnant with Logan and suffering from a hemorrhage of sorts due to my placenta not properly attaching. I was on bed rest and Paxton was having to temporarily live with parents. I was only allowed to get up to use the restroom and grab quick things to eat out of the fridge.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK. Its my local DHS caseworker.

“Yes, Vanessa...I’m here to speak with you about your children. We’ve had a report filed that they have been sexually molested in your home.”

I thought I would die right then and there. 

I explained to her about the bed rest and she immediately asked to come in and helped me get settled back on to the couch. At this point in time I was in such a hysterical state that I couldn’t even breathe. 

I knew they were going to pin it on Taylor. 

After all was said and done the allegations had moved from Taylor to my previous partner whom was already the alleged physical abuser.

Two days later she called back to inform me that the reporting party had ultimately decided to push the allegations to myself and a VPO had been filed against me, in another state in which the alleged abuse didn’t even happen.

This was just the first half of my alienation. Way more was to come in the following years. My stepchildren, my now husband’s ex partner was involved, other members of my family were named for other alleged abusive acts.

I will go into more detail on the investigations of my ex partner that was originally used as a pawn on the upcoming posts.

This is a twisted web. And if for a second you think there’s no way all of this happened...it did. 

I want to clarify that I haven’t seen, spoken to or even been sent a photo of my children since March of 2018.

I was kindly sent a mother’s day present in the middle of the investigation. I had to respectively return it as I was not going to accept anymore psychological abuse.

This is just the beginning to the foundation of my story.

Thank you for taking time out of your day to read this, and bare with me as I navigate how to properly construct this blog into something that I feel represents me in a way that I feel is honest and fit.

Disclaimer: I will not disclose the names of my other children and stepchildren, along with anyone else involved without their permission. Do not send hate, threats or make disparaging comments to anyone involved in my story. My goal is not to cause harm. My goal is clarification and my opportunity to tell my story.

#empoweredmother #parentalalienation

[beansthembo]

I need to do a bit of a vent about the new Star Wars movie. Spoilers below.

I’m having some trouble processing what happened. If you’re reading this, you probably are interested in my opinion on it, and you probably also know that I was a big fan of The Last Jedi. By no means was it a perfect movie, but it took the chance of distancing itself from the rest of the series by springing off of what was established in TFA and building something new. A lot of people weren’t too pleased by this, and there are plenty of legitimate criticisms, but being completely transparent, I can’t listen to most critics of it because most of the people I know in real life who didn’t like it are racist or misogynistic.

TLJ tried to introduce people to the idea that, in reference to the new canon, just because it’s new and different, doesn’t mean that it’s bad. Kylo’s/Ben’s line, “Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to,” finds meaning in this, though a bit extreme. TLJ was going to learn from the past films and move on, for better or worse. TROS is determined to wallow in its past. As a lifetime fan of Star Wars, I can’t bring myself to hate it outright, like many vocal critics of TLJ, but I find myself severely disappointed by the decisions made in it.

I’ve honestly spent too much time composing those last paragraphs, as if I’m a legit critic or reviewer. I’m just kind of going to present my nitpicks and criticisms as they come to me.

So, first a few nitpicks:

-The opening crawl seems... poorly composed to me. The first line is “The dead speak!” Correct me if I’m wrong, but they don’t usually use exclamations in the opening crawls. I know I just spent the last couple of paragraphs defending new ideas, but the opening crawl always seemed as though they were meant to present information formally from a neutral perspective. Not a major criticism, but it did bother me a bit.

-What happened to Kyle’s TIE Silencer? I mean, it could’ve been destroyed in the previous movie, but I don’t really remember that happening. Either way, it seemed to me that they made the decision to make his ship more similar to the Interceptor, as, like, a ‘safer’ choice, but I don’t see why they couldn’t have just had the same ship.

-The Falcon has a round dish again? You know, now that I’m thinking of it, the dish may have been blasted off in TLJ. I just was surprised by that.

I may add to that list later. the actual problems I had were:

-Rey is sort of obsessed with ‘earning’ Luke’s (and Anakin’s) old lightsaber. Which has been repaired, by the way. She doesn’t actually ‘own’ it, even though she’s been using it for the past two movies, she’s just been borrowing it from Leia. I was really looking forward to seeing her make her own (or already have her own) lightsaber, which she does, but she waits until the end of the movie to show it off. And it’s rad as hell! Wtf? why couldn’t she have been using that the whole time! It’s one of my favorite lightsaber designs now and they show it for a whole two seconds!

-They finally give Snoke a backstory, and it’s... that he was Palpatine’s puppet the whole time. I’m gonna say, not the worst backstory they could have done, but they really tried to make him just not matter at all. I mean, yeah, the way he was done off with in TLJ was pretty unceremonious, but I always felt that meant that the real big bad was meant to be Kyle all along. Instead, the Skywalker saga becomes the Palpatine saga. I’m not opposed to the concept of Palpatine surviving and attempting to resurrect the Sith, but that’s something I’d expect from a novel, not the main story of the final movie in the franchise. And, honestly, regardless of whether or not Snoke was secretly Plagueis, I always thought he was supposed to be some other ye olde sith master, not just some sort of failed clone(?)

-Kyle rebuilds his fuUcking helmet. Why? What purpose does it serve? He doesn’t even wear it most of the time. The longest period he wears it is when the First Order officers comment on it. He’s just being dramatic. Which, I suppose, would be in character, but after the scene in which he shatters it in TLJ, it seems pointless.

-Another nitpick, but when they expand upon Rey and Kyle’s ability to connect through the force, it seems a little... disjointed. I do like that they took the time to expand upon that, even though I thought Rey closing the Falcon’s ramp on him at the end of TLJ was symbolic of her cutting him off, the way they presented it seemed, well, off. Like, it makes sense if you take it at face value, but if you start to think about it at all, it sort of... weird. I dunno how to describe it. Like, they interact with each other’s environments, but can’t see what they can interact with until they interact with it, and they can trade items, and... yeah.

-The big one... Rey’s a Palpatine. Her father was Sheev’s son. (When did that happen, huh? Who’d want to get with that wrinkly mess?) Why the everloving fuck couldn’t Rey just have been Rey? Why did she have to be related to someone existing in the franchise already? JJ’s going around saying that this was his plan the whole time, which is bull fucking shit, because otherwise they would have communicated this to Ryan, and I’m pretty sure TROS was originally going to have another director in the first place, and ALSO I’m pretty sure JJ did say at some point that Rey’s parents only mattered to her. While I’m on the topic of fan theories and origins, nobody in the movies was ever concerned about who Snoke really was. They knew who he was-the Bad Guy. Nobody ever cared who the Emperor really was in 1983, so why was Snoke’s death and non-explained origins such a big deal? I have more conflicted thoughts than I can even put down, so i’m gonna move on.

-Oh, before I forget, they just completely write off Rose. She’s present, but they minimize her screen time. I get that a lot of people didn’t like her, and there are some valid criticisms of her that aren’t completely rooted in racism and misogyny, but I never found any problem with her. I actually felt she was pretty relatable. She meets a hero, trips over her own words, and then learns why you should never meet your heroes. Disillusioned, she’s about to turn him in but they come up with another plan, and together they visit a world full of people she joined the Resistance to get away from. I’ve got that same feeling about those sorts of things-while I do enjoy a decent amount of privilege, I still, you know, fight against the system that gave it to me. And I can’t stand to see people abuse others just because they don’t have that privilege, so hearing her speech about wanting to punch a hole through that city did mean a lot at some level. Then, at the end, when she’s like, “this is how we win. Not by fighting what we hate, but saving what we love,” I can even relate to that. It’s when, like, you explain to a kid how you hate something, and they jump on the bandwagon, and get real angsty, and then you’re like, “no no no that’s not what I wanted you to learn!” It’s hard to describe it with my rapidly deteriorating attention, but I never thought she was a bad character.

-DJ wasn’t in it! I mean, he wasn’t the most important character, but I still wanted to see him again.

-They have this fake out where they pretend Chewie was dead for a whole 20 seconds. I totally called it, too-the ship he was supposedly in blew up (or rather, Rey blew it up with force lightning accidentally), but since he didn’t die on screen in front of us, I knew it had to be a fake out. And it seems like the only reason for that was so they can find out that Hugs was the traitor, who is only betraying the First Order to see Kyle lose, which I mean fair, but then he’s unceremoniously killed off by the new big officer guy who we’ve never seen before but was supposedly one of the Emperor’s top men. I don’t think his name was even mentioned in the movie-or if it was, it had zero staying power. Also, they have this part where Threepio had his memory erased for a while before being backed up by Artoo. The lead up to it was very dramatic- Threepio’s generally been a comic relief character up to this point, and now he’s got to give his life for the cause (He had a translation of some Sith runes in his memory, but his programming prevented him from saying the translation aloud, and his memory needed to be wiped in order to access it), but as soon as his memory is wiped they do not give two shits that one of their best friends basically died right in front of them. Then Artoo brings him back and still no one cares.

-Poe and Finn do have a nice dynamic in the movie, but then we find one of Poe’s exes and he starts flirting with her and its like no Poe your husband’s right tHERE POE DON’T DO IT (and don’t dismiss this as shipper nonsense because John Boyega and Oscar Isaac both wanted FinnPoe to be a thing and acted through the movies like it was already don’t you say this is the first you’re hearing of this)

-The way that Rey defeats Palpatine is by crossing lightsabers in front of him to deflect his lightning?

-Reylo is canon NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO (Insert the gif of Vader yelling no at the end of ROTS)

-Also why does it always have to be a planet destroying superweapon? I know legends did that a lot but there doesn’t always have to be one for there to be stakes.

I think there was other stuff, but my brain is too scattered at this point to make any more cohesive thoughts. I mean, there was a lot of stuff I did like about it- Lando’s back! And i think Wedge is too, but he was on screen for about a second and a half, so I couldn’t tell. It was confirmed that Leia had force training, and even had a lightsaber! And I do like that they’re taking some inspiration from Legends, but I’m pretty sure Dark Empire was not one of the most popular series’ from it. I also did like Ben seeing a vision of Han; It’s not entirely clear if it was a force ghost thing (I am of the belief that Han was at leas a little force sensitive) or if it was just Ben sort of coming to terms with his actions, but the scene was pretty well done in my opinion. Also, Rey taking the name Skywalker at the end. That was nice, like she chose her family.

Now I just remembered a couple of things-Finn was basically confirmed to be force sensitive, but the way they did it felt very ham-fisted. Like, they weren’t like “he felt a disturbance wink wink nudge nudge,” they were like “HERE IS SOME SUBTEXT THAT ISN’T ACTUALLY SUBTEXT SEE HERE” like they never outright say it but it would have been less insulting if they did. Also, they introduced a force healing thing, which has been a more of a thing in the games, but we’ve never seen it on screen before. But like, Rey dies at the end and Ben brings her back and then [REDACTED] and then he dies, even though, like, a lot of things. I don’t know I’ve been typing for way too long I need off.

Anyway, it felt good to vent, thanks for reading if you did. I give TROS 6.5/10.

#Star Wars #star wars spoilers #the rise of skywalker #the rise of skywalker spoilers #vent

[inwintersolitude]

- May 15th 2020 -

Do you ever wonder how Atheist people raise their kids? Probably just like anyone else, but with an emphasis on rationalism, freethought, and the belief that one can be ethical and morally upstanding without being religious.

If you're atheist, would you raise you kids believing in God or not? I am an atheist, but I don't want children.

How long does it usually take you to finish answering a survey? That entirely depends on the length of the survey and the depth of the questions. But I typically don't rush through them, I like to spend some time musing over my answers.

Do you spell it gray or grey? Gray. Unless I'm referring to Earl Grey tea.

If you make surveys, how do you decide about its title? N/A.

When are you going back to school? N/A. I'm in my 30s, I've been out of school for quite a few years now.

If you don't go to school anymore, what do you do? I worked in aviation for 7 years, but I've been dealing with chronic/incurable medical problems the past few years, and my husband makes enough for us to live very comfortably on one income, so I don't work anymore. I'm cautiously hopeful that an effective treatment for my most disabling condition will be developed in the coming years, so that I can get back to a career of some sort.

Do you care about other people's status messages? Status messages? Like on Facebook? No, I rarely go on there anymore.

Do you like reading self help books? There are a few that I've read, about the psychology of forming habits, and about productivity.

What is your opinion on sex change? I mean... you can change how you present yourself, and you can get your genitals operated on and reconstructed to resemble the genitals of the opposite sex, but ultimately you still have either one X chromosome and one Y chromosome, or two X chromosomes. People can present however they want, and they shouldn’t be treated badly because of that, but it's delusional to think that one can change their biological sex.

Do you think that this will take away the essence of gay pride? No? I don't see how people identifying as trans would “take away" from gay pride? Not entirely sure what this question is getting at...

What do you do when you tell a really bad joke? You mean, if I tell a joke and no one laughs? I might lightly tease them and joke that they have no sense of humor.

If you're still a virgin, how important is your virginity to you? I'm not a virgin. I don't see it as something that holds any importance, though.

If you have lost it already, do you regret it? No, I don't regret it at all. In fact, it's a very happy memory.

Do you think you were completely ready then or do you wish you've waited? I was ready.

Do you believe in marriage? Why or why not? Yes. I wouldn't be married if I didn't. I believe in it as a formal recognition of a couple's commitment to each other and their love for each other, and as a partnership that ensures legal benefits (next-of-kin laws, estate planning, tax-related benefits, etc). Also, I grew up in a family full of happy, successful marriages - parents, grandparents, aunts/uncles - I grew up seeing marriage as something that that brings happiness, and I've never had any reason to not believe in it or see it as something negative. But on the other hand, I also recognize that marriage isn't for everyone. It's not the only valid way to go about having a long-term partnership, and some people are happy to not have a partner at all. To each their own.

Do you like having a huge group of friends or would you rather have few close friends? I'd rather have a few close friends.

Do you have any goals for this summer? If so, what are they? No, none of my goals are specifically for this summer.

Or do you plan on getting a summer job? Or do you already have one? Getting a “summer job” is something teenagers and college students do.

If so, where do you work and what do you do? -

Do you watch the TV Show Skins? If so, who's your favorite character? No.

And which generation do you prefer? Or do you equally love both? -

Do you know someone who still typpe thiszz wayy? No, thankfully.

Would you take a break after graduating from high school (like, postpone going to college for a year or so)? I didn't. I started college right away.

Do you feel tired after stretching? No.

Can you get a strike at bowling? Probably. I haven't been bowling in about 15 years, but I remember being pretty good at it.

Do you use Facebook? If so, what is your favorite application there? I have an account, but I hardly ever use it anymore.

It seems like everyone's addicted to Twitter these days - are you? No, I only go on there maybe twice a week.

#survey #surveys #personal blog

[completeoveranalysis]

TRC Translation Notes Volume 11 (Chapters 74 - 82)

Here we are with the first installment of the new Translation Notes from @giniroangou, picking up exactly where she last paused at Chapter 74. 

Highlights include: a return to Piffle, the restoration of Fai’s parenting skills, high school detectives becoming more competent, Nick appreciating Tomoyo in the distance, and general spousal vibes.

Chapter 74

p.2 - The chapter title that has been translated as “Your Power” I feel would be better rendered as “Your Strength.” The word “power” has some connotations in English that I don’t think are intended here.

p.7 - I don’t think this quite came through in the translation, but the banner here is worded like a general advertisement, so something in the vein of: “Leave it to us! Piffle Guard, for all your security needs.”

p.9 - The text by Kurogane that says “Angry guy” was originally just “Tsukkomi,” which I’ve covered before but can certainly be difficult to translate. It’s basically just indicating that his, “What the hell?!” is meant to be a comeback to hearing yet another ridiculous ship name.

Sakura’s “I can do better than this!” would be more accurately translated as, “I have to do my best too!” which I think gives a stronger sense of her drawing encouragement from the rest of her family and just has a more positive ring to it in general.

p.24 - The translation has Fai saying, “How could we ever doubt you, Sakura-chan,” which kind of gives the impression that they were doubting her at some point, but in the Japanese line he uses the word “sasuga,” meaning, “As expected of Sakura-chan.”

Chapter 75

p.33 - Kurogane’s line to Fai, “I told you not to slip alcohol to the kid and the princess,” was originally just, “I told you not to let the kid and the princess drink alcohol.” The Japanese version makes it sound less like Kurogane is accusing Fai of being a deliberately irresponsible parent.

p.35 - Kurogane’s “You little brat” is less harsh in the original text - he just says “kozou” (kid), as usual.

Fai’s “Daddy” nickname that has evoked so much hilarity and horror is “Otou-san” in Japanese. Not only is this more formal than the translation would indicate, it also doesn’t have the same kinky connotations as in English. That being said, there is a subtext here that I don’t necessarily think Fai intended but would definitely come across to Japanese readers. It’s quite common for married women with children to refer to their husbands regularly as “Otou-san,” so while Fai is probably just trying to needle Kurogane about his fatherly attitude towards the kids, he’s inadvertently giving off major spousal vibes at the same time.

p.36 - There are a couple little mistranslations in this conversation that make it sound more awkward in the English version. Kurogane doesn’t say that Sakura’s faster drunk than she is sober (as beautiful as that concept is) - he says that she got drunk faster than the last time (in Outo), which leads more naturally into Fai’s next lines where he theorizes that her happiness over her victory speeded up the process, and finishes by saying, “She really gave her best, after all.”

p.41 - In the translation Tomoyo says that the race was already being investigated for gambling issues. In the original, she says that the race was already the target of gambling, but she’d let it slide until now because it had caused very little damage.

p.43 - Kurogane doesn’t actually treat the “Daddy” nickname as a joke here - he just tells Fai to drop the subject. I wouldn’t have thought of it if it weren’t for the difference in translation, but I kind of love that he’s not actually denying that he’s the Team Dad. He just doesn’t want to hear about it.

Chapter 76

P.51 - The translation says that Shougo is a regular winner of the Dragonfly Race, but the original line just says that he’s a regular top-placer. We learn later that he won the previous year, but he didn’t necessarily place first on any other occasions. Who knows though.

Chapter 77

p.68 - Nokoru is not the Imonoyama Company owner’s eldest son, he’s the owner’s youngest brother.

p.69 - Shougo describes himself here as a “Guardian,” which quite rightfully raised a lot of questions. In the original text, the reading of the word he says is indeed given as “guardian” (ガーディアン), but the kanji below it reads “jikeidan” (自警団), meaning “vigilante corps.” Shougo declaring himself the member of the country’s vigilante corps makes a whole lot more sense given his earlier behavior.

When Shougo complains about Nokoru’s behavior, he’s not just referencing his treatment of Sakura - he says that every time they meet a female finalist Nokoru declares her innocent.

p.73 - A minor change that helps make sense of the flow of the scene here and everyone’s reactions: When Nokoru tells Sakura, “But of course you’re innocent,” his line would be better translated as, “I knew you were innocent,” or, “I see you were innocent after all,” so it indicates some kind of realization rather than just sounding like he’s repeating himself from earlier.

p.75 - This whole conversation is a little off in the translation, so to summarize from the original text: Sakura and Syaoran both registered as surprised but not panicked, indicating that they aren’t the culprits. Nokoru says that he has confidence in his device, though he can’t claim that it’s perfect - it’s still hard to discover lies told by people who have convinced themselves of their own fabrications OR by those who are truly wicked.

p.78 - You were critical of the choice to refer to the potential culprit as “he,” and I can assure you that this was purely a translation choice. It’s always good to keep in mind that Japanese is light on pronouns, so it’s very rare for anyone to specify gender in that fashion. I personally think it’s best to assume that all gendered pronouns in translations are merely inferred.

p.79 - Fai’s line about Syaoran’s face being tight is intended as an observation rather than a question, and of course is a direct reference back to their conversation in chapter 71. I don’t think I mentioned it last time and it may be clear enough from the drawings, but Fai appears to be referring not to Syaoran’s entire face but specifically his forehead scrunching up.

Chapter 78

p.89 - Sakura’s lines here are translated in a way that creates some unnecessary distance, IMO. In the translation she says, “If it was just one person alone, I’m sure it would have been awful, but… we’re all travelling together.” Her original lines are closer to, “If I were alone I’m sure it would have been difficult, but… we’re together.”

p.90 - When Sakura says, “I haven’t been much help to anyone yet,” your response was, “There better be a ‘but’ following this statement,” and I am happy to report that there is! Her Japanese line ends with “desukedo,” which is a common way to trail off at the end of a sentence and doesn’t necessarily serve as a rebuttal to her first thought, but it does allow room for disagreement.

p.92 - Inexplicably, the translation has Mokona saying that she thinks Yuuko is “really really” mad - there are no “really”s in the original.

p.93 - A clarifying point: Mokona tells Syaoran that certain countries have traditional White Day gifts rather than certain worlds. I don’t know anything about White Day traditions outside of Japan, but I do know that it’s celebrated in multiple Asian countries, so I assume this makes sense.

Chapter 79

p.111 - I don’t know if this is at all clear in the translated version, but the lines reading, “Isn’t that great,” are coming from Fai and Syaoran. They’re both saying, “That’s amazing,” Syaoran in a polite way and Fai in a casual way. I haven’t been pointing it out regularly, but it’s actually a fairly common occurrence for two or three of these characters to say the same line in slightly different ways, and it’s always a fun depiction of their different personalities and modes of expression.

p.112 - I can tell the translator tried to convey this through the word choice, but as a clarifying point, Tomoyo consistently speaks in a fashion that is both very feminine and very formal. In light of this, there’s a lot of humor in the scene where she asks Sakura to use casual language with her and claims that she’s already using her most comfortable speech style.

The translation has Fai comment on Sakura and Tomoyo’s “gentle eyes,” but his original line is that they’re “easy on the eyes.” In Japanese this saying is bit more literal - it doesn’t imply a level of attraction the way it does in English. He just means that they’re pleasant/soothing to watch.

Chapter 80

p.133-134 - The translation takes a more generous and group-oriented approach to Syaoran’s lines here, but I would interpret them on an individual level; “I have to get Sakura’s feather back, and to do that, I need to win.” The lack of pronouns in the original text means this is all up to personal interpretation, but that final panel of Syaoran zooming ahead of Sakura while she’s struggling feels like a depiction of his occasional single-minded focus on her feathers - to me it implies that he’s willing to do anything to reach that goal, even if it means abandoning her. Of course, I’m not saying he should have stayed behind to help her in this situation, but there is a bit of potential darkness to that scene that doesn’t quite come through in the translated version.

p.136 - Fun fact: the part of the course that includes buildings and billboards is referred to as the “public skyway” (一般空路.) I presume this means Piffle has regular air traffic outside of its racing events.

Chapter 81

P.157 - This becomes clear in the next chapter, but the line that’s been translated as, “There are only four badges left,” was actually, “There are still four contestants left,” indicating that the two flying behind Sakura are the last of the group and giving a clearer picture of her position in the overall race.

Chapter 82

No comments on this one - we’re ending on a high note!

#Look at these wonderful wonderful notes #Look at these beautiful piffle memories #try not to think of where we are now #think only of piffle #Giniroangou #who is the actual best #liveblogging the reservoir chronicle #I can't believe daddy has been defeated and Spousal Vibes has taken over #I'm so happy #vol 74 #vol 75 #vol 76 #vol 77 #vol 78 #vol 79 #vol 80 #vol 81 #vol 82

[the-skooma-den]

threw together a couple headshots of Syke cause i wanted to do a proper profile of her, so anyone curious about the character i spend so much time ranting about and drawing thats gonna be under the read more

Part 2 here 

directory to all posts about her and her siblings are here

Real Name: Ava Aurelia Cassia Camoran Tharn Latona. she has an untold amount fake names and identities for a wide variety of purposes, Nowadays she mainly goes by Syke Ivywood, and thats what most of the Dominion knows her as (and is also her in game name)

Age: turned 28 right around when the main plot started. I assume years pass through the DLC’s, including one year where she does the mages and fighters guild quest as well as a bunch of quests.

Race: Imperial. Her father was a bosmer and she takes heavily after him. Her grandpas a Khajiit, which is only relevant here because her dad took heavily after his dad. Hence syke’s weirdly golden eyes and slightly to sharp teeth. 

Class: Nightblade, focus on siphoning magic

Personality: One might look at her usual scowl and her serious demeanor and assume she's the typical lone wolf edgy assassin, and they’re only really half wrong. She’s not a loner by choice,she doesn’t hate people really, shes just not great at interacting with people. Anyone who knows who she actually is tend to be scared of her (even other members of the brotherhood) and that's not great for ones self confidence. In a few words, she’s just awkward and extremely introverted. That being said she is kinda grumpy, but if an evil god stole your soul you would be to.

As for the series Demeanor, that really just her face. She’s just not a smiley person ya know? She just as an incredibly flat affect and it either takes really strong emotions or a lot of effort on her part to break it. She’s actually pretty damn nice, even if she doesn’t really “get” a lot of social norms.Being raised in a assassin cult worshiping the void can do that to a girl.

What also does not help the usual perception of her, is her Bad temper and very very low bullshit tolerance. She’s not hard to piss off and it can be explosive. Usually not the yelling and screaming explosive but the getting right up in your face out of nowhere and quietly informing you that if you say one more word she’ll individually break every bone in your hand type way.

She’s what her mother would kindly call “strong willed” and what everyone else would call debilitatingly stubborn . Keeping in mind this is a woman who was wronged by what is essentially the demon god king of domination and then decided “I’m going to kick his ass” and then did. For good or ill she rarely if ever gives up.

Due to the fact she is technically a noblewoman, she tends to be extremely private as well. The other Cyrodilic nobles know of her and her family, but just know them as the family that for the most part gave up their titles and have no intention of trying to get them back, they have no idea that theyre a whole family of assassin in the Dark brotherhood. That does not mean that they ignore her or her family as even if her family doesn’t want the titles the fact they exist can mess up others claims to the throne.Especially Ava who suffice to say has a pretty decent claim to several very important titles. This has lead her to take on a variety of different fake names and wearing different masks to avoid being recognized both in her daily life and in jobs for the brotherhood...at least at first.

As it turned out she's a natural actor with one hell of a flair for the dramatic. She may have issues interacting with people as herself, but she finds it easier when pretending to be someone else. She got so into it that she has whole characters that she pretends to be for all kinds of purposes, like say if she needs access to mages or fighters guild resources or if a particular job for the brotherhood calls to act as a maid for a little bit.

as for how the Dominion crew know her, well they actually come closer to knowing her then most. When Raz dragged her out of the ocean at Khenarthis roost she was so out of it she was barely able to come up with a fake name let alone a whole character, so they all end up genuinely knowing her as she truly is. Turns out she doesn’t mind that as much as she thought she would.

Backstory (before the main plot): She’s a third generation member of the Dark brotherhood, and most of her direct family (siblings, parents, aunt and one set of grandparents) are apart of it. Her grandmother, A Bosmer noble named Cassa, married an Imperial nobleman when she was pretty young. Cassa wanted to get out of Valenwood and her husband was looking for a way to rebel against his family and found it in a hot bosmer lady. They ended up having one kid together, Lara

A few years later Cassa ends up falling in with and getting pregnant by a khajiiti baker her husband hired, and her husband is not to happy about that to say the least.  He fires and sends the Khajiit away and Cassa is less then happy about that as well. She kills her husband and so convincingly makes it look like an accident that if the brotherhood hadn't already had a contract out on him no one would have ever known it was murder. 

So Cassa ends up joining the brotherhood after her second kid by the khajiit man was born. She never really connected with the bosmeri pantheon or the Green pact, and she ends up taking to Sithis real well. She also as soon as she was able went to find her love and they were married as soon as possible. They all lived in Valenwood for a number of years and both her kids grew up in the brotherhood as well. 

 Eventually the younger one son, Tanis, marries an Imperial woman,Livillia. Also a runaway noblewoman,her mother was friends with Cassa and she was seeking sanctuary with her. Livillia is specifically one of Abnur Tharns kids, who no longer wanted to deal with the Tharn family drama. 

They have a kid together (That is of course Ava). Tanis’s older sister and Cassa’s first child, Lara, has a one night stand with an Altmer and has her own kid who she names Ceryneian (or Nia for short). And they all live pretty happily for a while, as far as anyone knew the family was just a bunch of nobodies, rich nobodies who kept all hours but still just nobodies. They had for the most part completely abandoned all noble titles, even if the nobles weren’t done with them.

When Ava was about 10 years old her great aunt Cilvia tharn found out that Livillia was still alive. She was well aware that if she tried to do anything to Elsweyr Livillia would likely act against her. Livillia may be a member of the brotherhood, but she wasnt completely evil. Cilcvia sent assassins after Ava’s parents, they missed her but her parents were taken by surprise and sadly killed. None of her family felt right staying in valenwood anymore, So Lara took Ava in and moved to the Gold coast where she had spent her early childhood and had inherited some estate.  Her grandparents Moved to Elsweyr and both Ava and Nia would spend summers there as kids. 

So Ava ends up “officially” a member of the brotherhood ,after toddling around the sanctuaries her whole life, at about 15 years old, and was never prouder. Normally they wouldn’t have let someone so young in but once again, she had literally been toddling in sanctuaries, they figured it was fine.

On one of her first genuinely dangerous missions, to kill a necromancer in Northern Elsweyr (chaperoned by her grandma of course), she came across one of said necromancers future sacrifices. This sacrifice happened to be a 13 year old khajiit boy named Thera (later going by Jo’Thera)  with some odd fur patterns, and fuck man he was just a kid (granted shes only a couple years older then him) and Ava couldn’t just leave him there alone. Ava saved him and took her back to Anvil with her after she killed the necromancer as according to the kid, he didn’t have a family or anywhere to go. Lara hears the kids story and is just like…. Welp… guess i got a 3rd kid now.  (as Thera grows up if there's one thing he gets from his adopted family its a love for drama and dramatic irony. He takes to necromancy pretty quickly)

That peace continued for a few years until she was about 19. At 19 years old she got the offer to join the Psijic order, Not because she was particularly powerful or even all that good at magic (at the time of course, she gets much better later), but due to her lack of formal teaching she had her own odd way of casting and working with it that caught their attention. Basically imagine that she did a really complicated math problem wrong, but ended up with the right answer and somehow accidentally discovered a new much easier formula to that particular problem, she did the magic version of that and showed a lot of potential even outside of that.

Then she said no, she was happy in the brotherhood and her current life and she saw no reason to leave

When Ava was about 20 years old, Nia ran away because, well she wasn't as fond of the brotherhood as her mother or cousin, and its not exactly something you can just quit and walk away from. It broke the whole families heart of course but Ava took it particularly hard. She had considered her and had been referring to her as her sister even before her parents death

What really set it all off though was when Nia popped up again alive and well in Valenwood using the last name of their grandmothers family. She didn’t send them a message or anything, it just got to them by word of mouth because Nia had disowned them and been talking shit about them. After she ran away she went back down to Valenwood to claim the title that was rightfully hers, it turns out that she had found proof of her birthright and between that and her uncanny resemblance to her grandmother she barely had to be questioned. 

So Nia is in Valenwood with her relatives and had completely disowned the entire rest of her family. Her grandmother, Her mother and her (now deceased) Aunt and Uncle, and Ava and their brother as well. she never made any concrete statement as to why per say outside of “Not wanting to go down the same path as the rest of her family” which most people assumed meant completely abandoning their noble heritage and titles, not to mention their bosmeri heritage as well (which was partially true, but it was mostly about the whole murder cult thing). So yeah, Lara was heartbroken and Ava was pissed off to oblivion and back and Jo’thera....he was just hurt, but all decided that if that was where Nia wanted to be they weren’t going to drag her back.

At about 23 Ava met her first real significant other, A Dunmeri noble. It didnt go well for either of them really, lots of drugs, lots of unhealthy coping mechanisms, lots of secrets. not a good time. 2 years later, The Dunmer actually proposes to Ava, and Ava not only says yes but Ava tells her everything about the brotherhood, her own noble status, all of it. The Dunmer seems okay with it at first, and admits she kinda suspected who Ava’s family was based on the little she spoke about it, The brotherhood was the real surprising part there. The knife in Ava’s stomach later that night Makes it clear what she thought about that. So it was a messier breakup then most.  

Ava doesnt like to speak much of the relationship, but it hurt her more then she lets on and makes her more nervous then ever to be in a real romantic relationship 

Well after that mess Ava threw herself back into the brotherhood hardcore and also into hardcore drugs and alcohol.for about 5 years. Over those 5 years between the Dunmer incident, a lot of self reflection, and all sorts of anxieties she’s an unstable mess. Like verge of a mental breakdown type of mess. 

When she was kidnapped and later sacrificed by the wormcult many who knew her assumed that she had offed herself for good. She was gone for long enough that even her own family started to assume the worst

#my art #syke #eso #somehow she's ended up one of my favorite characters ive ever made #tes or no #i honestly just like her #playing through the game thinking about how'd she react to events and characters #its just a blast #is she a mary sue? #dont know and couldnt care less #i just love her

[wolfpawn]

When Ghosts Come For Us

Chapter 42

NOTE This is based on the movie Crimson Peak, so if any of the subject matter in that was uncomfortable for you, you will find this similar. I will *NOT* be describing incest in this, it will only be implied, same as the movie.

As I have stated already, my laptop is broken at present so please excuse grammar mistakes and the lack of GIFs and pics.

Also, I do not own any image or gif used in this story.

HERE is the link to Chapter 1 on Ao3

Rating - Mature

Thomas watched as Charlotte placed their son in his bassinet beside their bed. “Will he be alright?” He asked worried, looking at their son who was still awake but quietly looking around.

“Why would he not be? He is simply resting,” she soothed. “Go deal with that paperwork of yours, we are just here.”

“I…” Thomas said nothing before walking out of the room. Charlotte shook her head slightly before continuing ready and tidy the room. A few minutes later she was interrupted by Thomas who walked back into the room, his hands full of paperwork. “I can do this here,” was all he stated before looking around.

Charlotte said nothing but walked over to the vanity table where resided her jewelry and removed them so to make room for his paperwork. She took some of it from him and placed it on the table for him. When she turned slightly again, he was looking at her with intensity that made her feel almost uncomfortable. “What is it?”

“How did I get you?”

“Your sister badgered you to do it for my money and I permitted it because of my own ulterior motives against her.”

The brutal honesty of her reply almost startled Thomas. “If I had approached you, as simply myself with no badgering by Lucille, would you have even entertained the thought me?”

“With or without my prior knowledge of your past?”

“Both.”

“With, no, never. Without, yes.” Thomas looked hurt. “I would have been incredibly stupid, more stupid than people think me to be were I to have been willing to come to a decrepit old house with a man to have had four previous wives and he to be only the age that you are and no sign of them since, but of course, not many know such. Would you have treated me as you did without motive and if I had not acted as though I had the intelligence of a gnat?” She asked.

Thomas shook his head. “If you had been as you truly are, I would never have had the confidence to even have attempted to introduce myself to you,” He confessed. “I could never attempt to have thought myself worthy of speaking to a woman as strong or as beautiful as you.”

Charlotte gave a small but loving smile before putting her hand to his cheek. “You are the first person outside of Edward and Cordelia to make me truly love them wholeheartedly. You have given me a happiness I thought was not possible for me, to give me our little son. I never thought I would know such an honour, all I knew before you was tragedy.”

“What about…?”

It took Charlotte a moment to realise Thomas was referring to William Hamilton. “William was over a good decade my senior and saw me as pleasant and plenty young wife to give him his heirs but love would more than likely never have even been possible, he had a woman he loved dearly but she was not to be his, she was too lowly to be his, he had to marry well. He was honest with me on this and even said that after I gave him a son or two, he would want her to bear him a child also but he would do what was expected first and foremost and had me under no false pretences. As I stated before, I saw a chance for Edward to progress to a better life and with his honesty in this matter also, I knew it to be my best chance of not ending up in a bad situation.”

Thomas's face was one of shock. “You never...why did you not say this before?”

“Because before, I had to play the grieving widow,” she explained. “I was saddened by his passing, he was a nice man, but I was not who he wanted and I will never speak ill of him, he never once hurt me and spoke to me as a person with respect and even said that should I seek happiness elsewhere, just give him his heirs and my life was mine.”

“So you never loved him?”

“In a way, yes, I did. But not as you may think. A different love.” Thomas nodded slightly. “Is that why you are uncomfortable referencing him because you are envious of some idea that I may have cared for him in some manner?” Thomas said nothing. “Against my better judgement, I have only ever loved you, Thomas Sharpe and I fear that does not seem set to change any time in the near future.”

“I hope not.”

Charlotte was about to respond when she realised Thomas was focusing on the bassinet. She watched as he went over and looked down at their son, worried by the expression on his face which was unreadable. “Thomas?” He did not respond. “Thomas?” He looked at her after the second calling, slightly startled. “Are you alright?”

“I thought he was crying.”

Charlotte shook her head. “No, he didn't.” She walked over. “He seems to be dozing.” They watched as their son fought sleep valiantly, shaking his head slightly to stop himself falling asleep but sleep won out in the end and his eyes fell shut. “He did not cry.”

“I must be overtired and hearing things,” Thomas dismissed.

“Get some rest,” Charlotte encouraged. “You watched over us last night.”

“I have to get this paperwork done.” He eyed the work beside him.

“Is there anything I can assist with?”

At first, Thomas was going to decline his wife, but on her offer to remain and knowing that she took interest in the mines and assisting him however possible with it, he thought it an apt opportunity to have her with him, to show further attention to her, for fear she would see him as pushing her away again when he only so recently got her back. “It is dull, I have to state but I really could do with it being organised.”

“Tell me what needs doing.” Charlotte asked.

An hour later, the room was in piles of paperwork, all neatly stacked and Charlotte organising them and filing them accordingly. She had went to the nursery several times with loads of paper and even brought down more to organise in Thomas's presence. Blake looked apprehensively at the door every time she left but refused to leave his newest master/his self-appointed charge. He would give a whine and look at Thomas as though indignant at not being given an explanation before waiting patiently for her to return.

Thomas left his completed paperwork to one side and watched his wife organise it in moments. “I did not think there was so much of it,” he confessed, rubbing his neck. He watched curiously as Charlotte placed the papers she had been dealing with in its folder and walked back to her husband, rubbing his shoulders before he groaned as she alleviated the ache in his muscles. “Lottie…”

She toyed playfully with some of his hair that had ceased to be tamed by his grooming regime. “I had not been aware you had so much either. But dealing with it alone is not good for you and though you are a meticulous man, your organisational skills with regards your paperwork requires some fine tuning.”

“Lucille usually dealt with that,” Thomas replied awkwardly.

“Well, that is of no use now. I had best get a formal system in place for this for you but... well, hello sleepyhead.” Charlotte became distracted by Thomas Jr looking around him curiously. On hearing his mother's voice, he looked around for her shadowy figure. “Give me a moment to ready myself.”

“I will take him up.” Thomas rose to his feet and walked over to the bassinet and scooped his son into his arms. For a moment Thomas Jr gave the impression he was preparing to cry, but on inhaling his father's scent, he settled and again started grabbing at his father's lapel. Thomas looked at his son's small hand and the sheer exertion he was using to try and hold onto his father. “I have you.” He knew Thomas Jr had no inkling what was being said to him but he spoke in a soft voice all the same.

“Keep onto him for a moment, I need to get more linen,” Charlotte requested before leaving the room, leaving Thomas completely alone with their son, a daunting and terrifying experience for the man.

After ten minutes, he wondered where she was and walked, with Thomas Jr in his arms, to the hallway. Worried something had happened her, he walked forward. “Lottie?” He looked around.

“Thomas, I am with Lucille.” She informed him from Lucille's room.

Thomas walked to the doorway worriedly. “What is it?”

“She is just having issues with some food, I need to clean her up before I do any more.” Charlotte informed him, her tone calm and relaxed.

Lucille had been focusing her attention of Charlotte, and to her now far less rotund stomach before looking to her brother, and more specifically, the bundle in his arms. She grunted at him.

“She's lucid.” Thomas realised. “Get back.”

“She's tied tight. We obviously risked a lot last night.” Charlotte went tidying Lucille's hair after cleaning spat up food from it but she noted the manner in which she focused on Thomas and Thomas Jr. After a moment, she looked at Charlotte again, her eyes not as hate-filled as they usually were. “What?” She glanced at Thomas and the baby. “A boy, four days old, Thomas Jr, his father's double.” There was a small whine from Lucille at that, and to Charlotte's bewilderment, a pleading look on her face. Charlotte frowned before looking at Thomas and their son l, then back to Lucille, who was focusing on the baby. She rose to her feet and walked over to Thomas who seemed wary. “Give him to me.”

Thomas's brow furrowed before he realised what she was doing. “No,” he pulled Thomas Jr closer to him. “No, we cannot let her near him.”

“She is tied and you can hold the opiate if you'd like, but please, give him to me, Thomas.” The look on Charlotte's face was one of certainty and part of Thomas wanted to trust it, the other part recalled Lucille's brutal nature, as well as her actions against the child they had created, he shook his head and held his son against him, not wanting the same fate to befall a second of his children. “Thomas, trust me, please?”

“She will hurt him.”

“She cannot.”

Thomas looked at Lucille for a moment, he also noted the odd look on her face. He sighed but handed Thomas Jr to his mother. “Stay here.” He ordered before walking over to Lucille and checking every strap twice as well as checking for any form of weapon on her person. His touches were cold and clinical, a far cry from their past behaviours together. Satisfied that she had no form of weapon in her reach and that she could not reach one even if she did, he looked her in the eye with a firmness and coldness she had never experienced from her beloved brother before. “If you dare harm either of them, I will drown you in the clay vats myself.” He snarled.

Lucille's face went pale, her eyes widened and her nostrils flared at his words before he walked out of the room for a moment. Charlotte remained in her position by the door, knowing where he was going and what he was acquiring. Upon his return, Thomas had his sleeves rolled up and a syringe filled in hand.

“Is that not more than usual?” Charlotte questioned.

“It's double,” her husband informed her, looking his sister in the eye as he spoke.

“Thomas, you know what Edward stated, too much….”

“Will stop her heart, I am aware but if she were to risk to you or Thomas, I will do it, in a heartbeat.” He swore.

Seeing Thomas's defensiveness of her and their son, Charlotte merely nodded and walked forward slowly. She sat close to the bed where Lucille focused intently at the contents of her arms. She gently turned the bundle so to reveal the contents of the blankets to her invalid of a sister-in-law before showing her Thomas's little face, one of curious intrigue. When she looked up again, she was startled, yet not completely surprised to see Lucille's eyes well with tears before they fell, the hate she held her brother and his wife in not visible as she stared at the baby, her eyes filled with a peculiar form of affection.

Gently, Charlotte moved so she could bring her son close to his aunt so she could see him properly. The entire time, Thomas stood close by, completely unhappy with the manner in which Charlotte was risking herself and Thomas Jr but also startled by the adoration in his sister's face. It shocked him beyond words to see her focused on the baby, when all she wanted for a time was to kill him. When Charlotte moved him away, she became upset.

“He requires feeding and changing.” Was all she said before leaving the room.

Thomas watched her leave before looking at Lucille at the guilty look on her face. “Nothing rights the wrongs of our past, Lucille. I can never change what occurred but I will not fail to pay heed again. Not when my son and my wife require me so. This is my chance to be better than I was.” He walked over and took her arm to put the needle in, Lucille silently pleading for him not to do it. “I wish it did not have to be this way. But I have to protect them from you.” He felt remorse as he pressed the plunger of the syringe down until it got to half way down the liquid that filled it before pulling it out again and looking at his sister as she fell into the delirium of the drug before checking the straps again and leaving her. Looking around, wondering what was causing his son to cry so shrilly. When he entered his bedroom, he was startled to see Thomas was not crying, merely suckling contently from his mother's exposed breast.

“Are you alright, Thomas?”

“I...Yes,” his tone was filled with his uncertainty but he smiled lovingly at her. “When he is finished feeding, I think we should go and read for a time, bring him to your art room perhaps?”

Charlotte barely thought for a moment. “But it will be cold in there.”

“I had Margaret put on the fire earlier.”

With an elated smile, Charlotte nodded and waited for Thomas Jr to finish feeding so they could do that.

*

Three days later, close to ten in the night, Charlotte and Thomas were relaxing as he continued to gently read the words of Blake as seemed to be becoming their new tradition, the canine namesake of the poet asleep beside them, Thomas Jr in his bassinet as Charlotte enjoyed her husband's low timbre voice as he eloquently spoke the words in front of him. When Blake shot up, his ears forward and alert, facing the room door, Thomas looked to Charlotte, who seemed almost fearful.

“Stay here and protect Thomas,” he ordered before he walked towards the hallway and to the top of the stairwell, glancing into Lucille's room as he passed to see his sister still very much asleep, as she had been an hour earlier when he had went to the bathroom. When he got to the top of the stairwell, he was startled to see Mrs Phillips rushing towards him looking somewhat confused with Mrs Davies, Edward's housekeeper, behind her. “Mrs Phillips?”

“Sir…. I…” Mrs Phillips began but then Mrs Davies walked past her.

“I must speak with Lady Sharpe this instant, Sir. It is of the highest urgency.” She pleaded, though if he was honest, Thomas did not think she would have been inclined to take no for an answer.

“She is up here, come this way,” He instructed, leading Mrs Davies down the hallway, the housekeeper following without delay.  “Lottie?”

Charlotte came to the door looking somewhat worried before seeing Mrs Davies and becoming all the more worried. “What is afoot?” She inquired.

“Lady Sharpe, I know it is a late hour but I must speak with you immediately.”

“Regarding?”

“Edward, he...I think him about to harm himself.”

Charlotte's attempt to not display sibling ties to the doctor fell immediately at the mention of such words. “Thomas…”

Thomas turned to see a confused Mrs Phillips nearby. “Mrs Phillips, have Parson ready the bigger carriage, immediately.” He ordered.

Tags: @ilovekingt @wolfsmom1 @lokilover9 @sigridlaufeyson @perpetual-fangirl @texmexdarling @whovianwookie86-captainxev

#When Ghosts Come For Us #chapter 4 #Thomas Sharpe #Lucille Sharpe #crimson peak story #crimson peak

[lovehotelreservation]

Itinerary

Summary: As Queen of Lucis, there is never a dull moment in your schedule. Especially when you have so many men wanting to take you and your time.

Rating: NC-17

Pairing: Noctis/Prompto/Reader/Ignis/Gladiolus, Reader/Ravus, Reader/Cor

[SKULL FACE VOICE] SUCH A LUST FOR OLDER FFXV GUYS ! ! ! M E E E E

Alas, my fic spam of mostly COMMUNITY LOVING has now drawn to a close~! I do hope you enjoyed this week of updates, as it was an immense pleasure to prepare them for your all to read, especially this one-shot! It was pure joy to work with a different style for this fic, all while I am feeling intense vapors from all the new content coming out from the Royal Edition (which I hope to finally play soon ; u ;)!

Thank you all for reading and as always, I hope you enjoy this fic!

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

The life of a Queen.

To co-rule all of Lucis alongside King Noctis imposed a great deal of responsibility on your shoulders, whether in the upkeep of your proper yet friendly decorum while out in public, or attending the many galas and parties to establish and spread goodwill between your kingdom and others.

Still, as busy as you were, your husband and his devoted Kingsglaive made sure that you were not too boggled down by schedule or deadlines, and that you had enough free time for leisure.

This was especially taken into consideration with your itinerary for your trip to Altissia, as was handed to you the afternoon. You were to be escorted to Galdin Quay and sail away for Accordo, where you would meet up with Noctis, who had been away on a tour through all the kingdoms of Eos to renew and negotiate peace treaties. With him, Prompto, Ignis, and Gladiolus away, the Citadel had been awfully quiet, even if you were still kept company the likes of Cor, Monica, and the rest of the Crownsguard.

A joyous excitement welled within you as you looked over your itinerary, all while standing before your desk with your hands pressed onto its smooth wooden surface.

6:00 AM - 8:00 AM: Wake up and prepare for the day

With the memories spent journeying with Noctis to fulfill his destiny, you held a soft spot for The Leville, always requesting to stay at one of their suites during any visit to Altissia. Your husband was always happy to oblige for the same reasons, in addition to the spectacular view of the city from your room's balcony.

The city was always so peaceful and calm at the break of dawn, making an early rise all the more worth it, a favorite pastime of yours while in Altissia. Even Noctis was willing to spare the extra hours of sleep.

Though, not so much to gaze at the gorgeous city view, but rather to creep up behind you during your admiration, his stubbled cheek nuzzling against your bare neck while his fingers slipped beneath your sleeping clothes.

There was ever the risk of scandal, but with your love and devotion for one another--intensified especially after time spent apart--neither of you were be able to resist from being intimate upon the balcony. Your hands gripping onto the railing, your moans and cries came out muffled with Noctis's fingers tucked into your mouth, his other hand latched onto your hip while he pounded his cock into you from behind at a ravenous rhythm. His lips grazed and nibbled around your shoulder blades, all while teasingly reminding you to not allow your formal decorum to falter.

Considering the notably long time span from waking up to breakfast, you had a feeling that this segment of your schedule took your usual morning routine with Noctis in mind.

8:00 AM - 9:00 AM: Breakfast--curated by Ignis

Though the Leville never failed to go all out with pampering you thoroughly during your stay, you were certain that your texts to Ignis about yearning for his cooking had a role in this portion of your itinerary.

Within the elegant decor of your suite, a feast of all your favorite breakfast dishes was brought and set upon your table, delivered by Gladiolus and Prompto with Ignis in tow. Each dish set before you was plated exquisitely, looking as delectable as it tasted.

However, you would not be able to enjoy your meal just yet, as you and Noctis--now clean-shaven for the sake of being more presentable--would receive a scolding from Ignis for your morning exhibitionism, which happened to be captured on camera by a grinning and nosy Prompto, who set before you a fruit platter along with photos of you bent over the balcony railing.

While Noctis absent-mindedly nodded along and even rolled his eyes over the admonishment sent his way as he lazily ate his food, you were left to be splayed over Ignis's lap while he remained seated by the breakfast table, his hand showing nothing but merciless discipline as he spanked your bare ass.

Queen or not, he would never allow your gentility to be degraded.

At least, in the public eye. Once it was just you and him--and the others, of course--much like now, he was fond of watching you act out at your most shameless and wanton behavior.

For Noctis, it was a deliciously amusing sight to watch you handle yet another round of discipline from Ignis.

For Prompto, it was a photo opportunity to add to his ever growing collection of all your discreetly lewd escapades as Queen of Lucis, meant for the viewing eyes of only him, his friends, and a few select others.

For Gladiolus, it was the chance to--after wolfing down his eggs, bacon, and ham--finally have you in his arms again. And show Ignis what a proper spanking sounds like once he lifted you off of his friend's lap to transfer you over to his, the rapid and harsh sounds of his hand smacking against your ass and your sobs of pleasure echoing throughout the room.

You would enjoy breakfast soon enough, albeit while you sat upon Noctis's lap as his fingers soothingly rubbed over your lower back, all while Prompto eagerly fed you.

9:00 AM - 10:00 AM: Get ready for the day and head for the First Secretary Estate to briefly meet with Camelia Claustra

Every harsh punishment would always be followed up by attentive, loving affection.

Thus was why your bath following breakfast would be handled by Ignis and Gladiolus, even if Noctis was noticeably grumpy that he would not get to join you in the tub.

There were never any qualms to such an arrangement on your end, especially when you had Ignis massaging your scalp while he lathered your hair and left kisses along the back of your neck, all while Gladiolus took great pleasure in gently scrubbing your body clean--though not as much as in sneakily fondling your breasts and toying with the entrance of your core.

As indulgent as this moment between the three of you was, both Ignis and Gladiolus would still make sure that you remained on time for your itinerary, with drying you off, as well as helping and watching you dress.

Having already showered and changed into his Kingly Raiment, at last, Noctis was at your side once again, his arm linked with yours before escorting you down to The Leville's lobby, your faithful Kingsglaive following close-by.

Upon the last step, you were all greeted by your appointed Altissian host for whenever you were in town, Salve. An older gentleman in his early 50s, wisps of dark stubble along his square jaw, the green shade of his wavy locks--kept up in a short and low ponytail--reminded you of wine grapes, which was fitting by how well he looked to have aged. Though he carried himself in a lighthearted and jovial manner, he still maintained a sense of elegance and status, even with allusions to an enticing mysteriousness to his character.

Still, Salve was always nothing but sweet towards you, his expression always brightening up whenever he saw you were around. Though he was all smiles while bidding you a good day, Noctis, Prompto, Ignis and Gladiolus exuded nothing less than protective, dominating auras in response, with each taking half a step closer towards you, maintaining this barrier of the sorts upon departing from The Leville to Secretary Claustra's estate.

Even well into her elderly years, she still exuded a powerful, no-nonsense demeanor, albeit one that waned as soon as you were near, her arms opening for a welcoming embrace. With a special photo to commemorate your and Noctis's meeting with her taken by Prompto, your husband was to spend most of the afternoon in discussion of peace policies and other important royal affairs with her and the rest of Accordo's council.

It was unfortunately time to part once more, with one last kiss exchanged between you and your husband before he disappeared into the meeting room, flanked by both Ignis and Gladiolus. However, you knew he was more than eager to make up for lost time, or so he purred into your ear while giving your ass a teasing pinch.

There was still so much in your itinerary to enjoy, and you couldn't wait.

10:00 AM - 12:00 PM: Go around Altissia for some sightseeing and candid photoshoots with Prompto

You were a queen of the people, as your Lucians so lovingly referred to you.

As you were not born of royalty, your common upbringing helped established a relatable and personal connection between you and your people, strengthened by the numerous pictures that Prompto would take of your daily life every now and then to post and share online through the official social networks of the kingdom. During trips much like this one, he was akin to your shadow, following after every step to take pictures of you, both candid and posed.

Meeting with awed Altissians, admiring the splendor of the floating city, enjoying local delicacies, strolling through the gorgeous streets--Prompto made sure to capture every moment with impeccable skill.

While he alternated between candid photos and others, you anticipated what kind of photos were about to be taken. If his trusty Lokton camera was drawn out, you were ready to hear him chirp out some directions on how he would like for you to pose.

However, if Prompto was drawing out his phone, you knew what was to soon follow.

When he wasn't taking pictures on his camera for the public to behold, he was always thrilled and ready to use his phone to document every flash of your panties whenever you walked ahead of him up a stairway, all for the private and personal enjoyment of himself and the others.

Playing photographer for you meant taking the reins from you as ruler, a mischievous smile on his full and pouty lips while he admired the sight of you kneeling before him, his cock sheathed fully in your mouth with an adoring look on your face after he guided you to an empty alleyway. Pictures, videos--he knew the best angles to capture and present your wanton lustfulness, especially while he recorded you flashing your breasts, lifting up your skirt, and doing your best to conceal your squeals while he drilled his cock into you from behind as you remained on your hands and knees, all meant to frustrate the others during their royal affairs after he sent these lewd visuals over text.

For all the many photos he took of you, one particular and favored theme of his never ceased to arouse him, namely you looking so gorgeously flustered while he had you smile towards the camera, your elegant appearance in disarray by his doing and his cum dripping out from your core, down your inner thighs.

12:00 PM - 1:00 PM: Lunch at the Square-Enix Cafe with Gladiolus

As king, Noctis had little time for leisure, even during vacations. Though you knew it was about time for him to break for lunch, he and Ignis would be joining Salve, Claudia and the rest of Accordo's governing power at Maagho's.

Though you would not get to join your husband for an afternoon meal, you still had the presence of a lover by your side.

While Prompto desperately wanted to enjoy the moogle and chocobo-themed treats with you, he had to go join Noctis for lunch and make sure his lunch meeting was covered for pictures. However, right outside the entrance of the festive little restaurant, he swapped out with Gladiolus--who was already there to greet you both--to keep watch over you.

Together, seated at the furthest table in the cafe space, the both of you enjoyed your meal together, with him asking about what you and Prompto got up to--especially with all your escapades detailed in the group chat--while you inquired how Noctis's meetings had been going along.

When it came time for dessert, Gladiolus did not have much interest in the cutesy, novelty treats. However, he was happily content with watching you enjoy the adorably plated confections.

Especially while watching you squirm and attempt to maintain your composure as he eased two of his thick, long fingers into your slippery core.

Your pictures with Prompto left him envious.

Switching between slow yet deep, and quick and fluid strokes left you flushed and breathless, the hold on your fork shaky while you tried to savor each bite.

By the time the check came, your dessert was finished, as was Gladiolus's while he licked his fingers clean, a proud and satisfied look on his face.

1:00 PM - 3:00 PM: Return to the First Secretary Estate for a private meeting with King Ravus--as per his request

Noctis was not the only royal visiting Altissia for peace negotiations.

Nor was he alone in wishing to spend a great deal of time with you.

Having finished with his share of meetings and negotiation talks, Ravus patiently waited for you in one of the many gorgeous living rooms at the First Secretary's Estate. Though neither bore true and earnest ill will toward each other, the air turned competitive between him and Gladiolus--moreso a matter of pride and possession if anything--once the two of you returned from lunch.

Still, by your assurance that all would be well, Gladiolus took his leave.

But not before planting a deep kiss on your mouth, making sure to stare defiantly into Ravus's eyes once the two of you parted, leaving you completely alone with the ruler of Tenebrae.

Though Ravus proudly abided to and carried out the responsibilities bestowed to him as king, he had grown weary over the early day and the near endless discussion of international policies and whatnot.

However with you, Queen of the Kingdom of Lucis, right before him, he was more than willing to spare a couple more hours in meetings, albeit with his lips claiming yours in a fierce, open-mouthed kiss while his hands--both metal and flesh--made quick work of your clothing, being mindful to not tear your attire apart in his desperation for you.

Distance made his heart grow fonder and his lust more rampant.

Though the fantasy of having you writhe upon his lap while he was seated upon the throne back in Tenebrae had yet to be realized for now, Ravus was more than pleased with having you ride his cock from his place on the couch instead. Clutching your hips, burying and nuzzling his face against your chest, there would be no relenting on his end while he sought to make up a great deal of lost time since your last intimate encounter.

And by how sweet your voice sounded while moaning out his name, how fulfilling it felt to have you cling to his shoulders, how exquisitely warm and tight you squeezed around his cock, he already knew that his addiction to you would only worsen once it was time for you to part.

Which occurred quicker than anticipated.

You heard the call of your name and your head flew back in surprise.

Ravus only smirked, his gaze half-lidded while he peeked around your body to see none other than Noctis standing in the doorway, his expression amused yet jealous at what was being presented to him.

Words were exchanged, the energy between the two reminiscent of earlier with Gladiolus and Ravus.

Noctis approached you both, his tone accusatory yet light as he remarked on Tenebrae infringing on its peace treaty with Lucis, to which Ravus only chuckled and mused that a king must always seize whatever opportunity would bring forth greater prosperity.

Albeit in this case, rather than for the sake of his people, for himself.

Were they in their foolhardy early adulthood, they would have settled this back and forth over the steel of their blades.

However, weapons were not needed with you serving as a mediator between them both, the most ideal for two kings who carried themselves pridefully.

No documents, no mulling over negotiations.

Rather you were subject to having both your husband and your paramour pound away at you simultaneously, the long and wide girths of their cocks pumping in and out of you with ferocious tenacity. You were left to continue clinging onto Ravus for support, shuddering as he continued to seize your waist and keep you still while he hammered his dick inside you. Your neck was meant to be marked by Noctis while he pushed into your ass, his means of further expressing his claim on you beyond wedding rings and formal titles.

Though Lucis and Tenebrae would continue to maintain friendly relations, their kings still had much of their pride to truly be soothed to peace by you, a task you were ready to uphold.

While your itinerary would continue on as scheduled, Noctis and Ravus ended up being rather late for their next scheduled meeting.

Schedule change 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM: Special Altissian spa treatment, courtesy of Salve

After some time spent in the powder room to fix and freshen up your appearance, you were supposed to have another hour of leisure to yourself. However, by the time constraints of your visit, it was Salve who urged and pushed for you to have you spend your hour at one of Altissia's glorious spas. Since hearing that you never tried one of the local massage treatments, he was left utterly aghast and had been insistent on having you experience it for yourself.

When Salve popped into the room to pick you up, he was met by both Gladiolus and Ravus, the latter of whom was about to attend yet another meeting. The two locked eyes, and you noticed that the king tensed and his eyes narrowed, both he and Gladiolus drawing closer towards you in response.

You gaped, asking what was wrong, but Salve only laughed in response, going on how admirable it was to see the Shield in action, along with the king of Tenebrae being so considerate of his ally nation.

However, with his height and stature matching theirs, he was not intimidated in the slightest. He was even so bold as to reach for your hand and draw you towards him, waving at the two goodbye before they could say much. As sudden as his actions were, you complied, finding his over the top nature charming, if not thrilling.

Following after Salve, you turned back towards Ravus and Gladiolus, smiling reassuringly as you remarked that you would see them later.

Voluptas, the spa that you were guided to, wasn't too far from the First Secretary's Estate, the location taken into consideration as he noted with a hum when he was tasked with preparing your trip itinerary. Truly, the building itself could have been a masterpiece on its own, if not a museum to house all of the breathtaking art pieces that Altissia was known for. With naturally chilled and heated baths encased in gorgeously decorated rooms, a whole row of saunas that each presented different steaming styles from all across Eos, and more, this spa was among the best in the world for good reason.

You already anticipated making another trip to Voluptas during your next visit, wishing to explore and try out every single one of the amenities and services provided. However, in the meantime, you were laid upon a massage table, your clothes already discarded and a soft and fluffy towel covering your naked backside.

While Voluptas was known for staffing some of the best in the world, you would not be treated by any of them for your massage. Instead, it was Salve who was eager to tend to your body, his voice prideful as he proclaimed to be even better than any of the well-seasoned masseuses working at the spa.

It was quite the claim to make, surely.

However, upon the initial touch of Salve's warm hands pressing against your back, the flats of his large palms kneading lavender-scented massage oil onto your skin, he had every reason to proclaim such skill.

His touch soothing but never too light to barely be felt. He was able to pinpoint knots and other tender spots without you even needing to speak, working and tending to them with ease. You even heard him chuckle ever so deliciously low with every mewl he managed to illicit out of you.

It was hard to not melt beneath his fingers.

Nor to succumb.

There may as well have been no reason to wear a towel for modesty's sake, with his hands groping your ass or--when he had you flip over to lay on your back--squeezing your breasts and dipping between your thighs. Your body felt hot, your senses left in a frenzy by his touch.

Strange that he, only one man, could reduce you to such a state when you were regularly loved and ravished daily by your husband and his close friends.

However, for as much of the boundary he was overstepping, never once did his fingers ease inside you, nor did the erection that was bulging prominently through his pants. Though it frustrated you and left you yearning to be fucked, his mindfulness was for the better.

Especially when your eyes peeked open while he was massaging your breasts. Though the lighting was dim, you could still make out his features.

Namely how Salve's hair looked to be a familiar shade of wine red instead, all while the grin on his lips was far too reminiscent of a ghost from the past.

However, with just one blink, his hair was back to its normal color, his lips quirked in a gentle smile instead.

It wasn't long before he finished, your massage now complete, your body now relaxed, yet your mind more confused than it had ever been in the longest time.

4:00 PM - 6:00 PM: Be escorted by Ignis to Vivienne Westwood's shop and be fitted for a custom made gown

It was common to be dazed yet tranquil after a relaxing session at the spa.

However, upon being lead out of Voluptas by an all-too pleased Salve, you were face to face with Ignis, who was waiting for you right at the building's entrance. Having hurried over as soon as Gladiolus got a hold of him--all while swapping places with being at Noctis's side during the meeting--he could not help but feel on edge to see you appear so friendly and close with your Altissian host.

It did not help that Salve had a few teasing quips--something to the effect of an old hound remaining ever so faithful to his masters.

You were startled by his remarks, for he never went on the snarkier side.

But Ignis was not fazed, rather he was calm, especially when he quickly took his place beside you, a protective hand wrapping around your waist.

There was clear tension between the two, two strangers who somehow already had a grudge towards one another. However things would have escalated, they did not in a violent way, for Ignis briskly offered a curt word of thanks to your host for the little excursion before remarking that the two of you best make your leave for Vivienne Westwood's fashion house, proceeding to immediately lead you away before more could be said.

Salve only smirked, noticing how Ignis's arm tightened around your waist.

Some things never changed.

As for you and Ignis, it wasn't too far of a trek to Vivienne Westwood's workshop. You could tell that Ignis had much he wanted to ask about your meeting with Salve, but there was no time to be spared for a private conversation. Before long, you arrived at last to the chic and stylish fashion house, whereupon you were greeted by the legendary designer herself and her team of protégés.

Measurements and modeling quickly went underway, as your gown was to debuted at an upcoming gala in Insomnia.

Having been so perplexed earlier, Ignis found himself put to ease while watching you look so lovely while you were fitted for your new attire. Though, never to slack in his duties, he took some notes on special sewing techniques, especially since he was quite interested in creating some clothing for you.

However, the more you were changed in and out of gorgeous dress pieces, your skin exposed and your physique emphasized, the more he found himself growing inwardly flustered and aroused.

Truly you were his queen, and there was nothing else that quite stoked his lust for you than watching you dress and carry yourself as one.

Towards the end of your visit, Vivienne and her team went to prepare all the finished dresses she wished for you to take.

At this time, you were in the center of one of the workshop's large fitting rooms, fumbling with the zipper of the gown slip you were wearing, in need to change out of it.

You did not need to even call for his name for him to stand right behind you, his voice low and calm as he asked if you would like assistance. Though, for as much as he lived to serve you, there was considerable delay in actually helping you slip out of your dress, considering how he proceeded to hike it up to your waist while tugging you towards him, the full and erect girth of his cock pressing against your backside.

Ignis murmured his apology for his hastiness against your ear, grunting and panting his words while he cradled your hips in his hands, pumping his cock into your core with uncontained desire. Before the both of you was a full-sized mirror, the reflection of your displayed love making inciting conflict within him. He did, after all, punish you with a spanking earlier in the day for behaving so lewdly with Noctis.

And yet, here was Ignis, doing the same thing in the late afternoon, with a staff of innocent ladies just outside the room.

Somehow, the contradiction only drove him on to fuck you even harder, to ruin and mar the exquisite perfection of his beloved queen in his own special way.

Ignis looked forward to doing this all over again during the next gala.

6:00 PM – 7:00 PM: Return to The Leville and get ready for dinner with Noctis and the others

With your dresses packed and secured in Ignis's arms, the both of you bid your goodbyes to Vivienne Westwood and her staff before making your way back to The Leville. Dusk had fallen, the orange glow of the setting sun cascading gorgeously over Altissia, which provided nothing short of a romantic and lively atmosphere as you and Ignis returned to the hotel.

As soon as you returned to your suite, you were almost knocked over by a bubbly Prompto, who feigned tears while nuzzling into your chest, bemoaning how awful it was to be away from you for most of the day. He was only dragged back by Gladiolus, who shook his head and tsked at him for not giving you the chance to have a breather after a long day out.

While Ignis went to put away your new clothes, you smiled towards the two, telling them that no harm was done, all while greeting them formally with a kiss. You were then met by two arms snaking around your waist while a chin rested on your shoulder. The soft teasing huff of "Where's mine?" fanned over your ear, bringing a smile to your lips.

You could never forget your husband.

Though the temptation to forgo your dinner plans--if only by an hour or so--to indulge in the passions of both your husband and your Kingsglaive was great, you knew it was better to freshen up and change into something a bit more formal than your dayclothes.

Still, reluctant to release you from his embrace, Noctis buried his face against the crook of your neck, rubbing his face against your skin out of adoration.

And then he caught the scent of lavender.

7:00 PM: Dinner at Suavitas

7:00 PM: Room Service

It didn't take much to piece things together.

Especially since Gladiolus saw you leave with Salve while Ignis watched you be escorted out alongside your Altissian host.

With four pairs of eyes on you--the same ones that could tell even the slightest hint of a mood change and whatnot with you--it wasn't likely that you could get away with a lie.

And they certainly would not allow for the same with the truth either.

The relationship you shared with your husband and the three men who lived to serve and protect you was as complex as it was simple. They were yours, you were theirs. While bouts of possession tended to be ongoing, there was no strife among the four—and even certain other individuals who you were enamored with. However, at the end of the day, at the end of this night, they would be sure to remind you of your commitment to them.

There was no better way to express this than by being pressed in the middle of pure and utter debauchery, with you being guided to ride up and down Gladiolus's thick, fat cock while Prompto took much glee in vigorously pounding into your ass. Your mouth was stuffed full with Ignis's dick while Noctis dragged the slick head of his erection over your cheek by means to show his claim on you. Even with all the opportunities each had with you throughout your excursion in Altissia, never were they going to tire of being able to call you theirs, ever eager to demonstrate such a claim in this way.

As long of an enjoyable day as you had already had, you knew your itinerary for the rest of the evening was only just beginning.

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

Having read all the way to the end of your planned schedule for your Altissia trip, your heart was thumping with glee.

And your lips parting open in pleasure.

Your hands moved up to the front edge of your desk, shuddering as you were made to lie on your front, just before a massive expanse of heat pressed against your back, grey, prickly stubble grazing over your neck.

"So then, is the itinerary to your liking, Your Majesty?"

Grunting against your ear, Cor squeezed your hips tighter while he continued to relentlessly hammer the sizeable girth of his cock in and out of you. Even as the queen he so dutifully served, his steely composure was prone to shattering whenever it came to you.

Perhaps it was in the sense that the only thing he would allow to utterly devastate you was himself.

That aside, knowing that he was demanding an answer--a quick one at that, else you risk earning a spank that rivaled Gladiolus's or Ignis's sturdy hands--you turned back to face him, your expression both enamored and eager for what was to come.

Both now and tomorrow.

"It's perfect."

#noctis lucis caelum #prompto argentum #ignis scientia #gladiolus amicitia #cor leonis #ravus nox fleuret #ffxv #ffxv fanfiction #final fantasy xv #reader insert #fic #super freaknasty writing #management will return in a queue minutes

[yamsfreckles-archive]

Omg I hope it’s not too personal to ask about ur experience leaving the Mormon church; I was going to an lds church for a hot second and just oh god no

Thank you so much for your patience with me taking so long to answer this! Moving is stressful af (Also I hope you don’t mind that I’m answering this publicly. I rarely talk about this huge part of my life, but I feel it’s important for others to know before making a decision on joining a religion)

I grew up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Usually called the LDS Church, or often just the “Mormon Church”). I was “born in the Covenant”, which is just a fancy way of saying my family was already members of the church when I was born. So basically, the mormon church and culture framed my Entire Life from the moment I was born until I officially resigned from the religion a year and a half ago. 

The core principal of mormanism is The Plan of Salvation - basically the idea that we were predestined in our pre-mortal lives to come to Earth and be tested, and if we remain faithful for our whole lives, when we die we will be exalted to the highest degree and have our family with us for all eternity. (Also there are three kingdoms of exaltation, and the highest one has three layers to it, and if you are in the highest layer of the highest kingdom then you actually get to create your own universe [if you’re a man] and become the God of that universe. If you’re a woman then your eternal duty is to bare children for your God-husband and populate that universe and never really be acknowledged lmao). Although that last fact isn’t super well known in the church doctrine. 

The mormon church follows the Bible like most Christian religions, but they also follow a separate book called “The Book of Mormon”, which the church authorities refer to as “the most correct of any book on Earth”. The Book of Mormon is all about how a righteous family left Jerusalem before it was destroyed and built a boat and sailed to the Americas where there was a war and half of the family descendants - the Lamanites - were evil and sought to bring down the kingdom of God, while the other half - the Nephites - were righteous to a fault. The Lamanites ended up getting struck with “blackness” for their sins so that they could be told apart from the white, and therefore good, Nephites. Church authorities in the past have claimed that the Lamanites were the direct ancestors of the Native Americans. Which is hugely racist and disgusting to say, because the book literally said that black skin would show “their abominations”. (But hey this church has been openly racist, sexist, and homophobic since its conception so big surprise there)

Anyway, there is a lot more doctrine and I could spend an eternity writing about it because it gets me so angry, but I feel this answer is already going to be fucking long enough so I’ll just leave those two points. Though if you want to know more about the church’s history with racism or sexism, let me know!

So like I said, I was born into this church and I was baptised at eight years old (the age of accountability) to become an official member of the church. I was completely in love with the church. It gave me purpose and friends. If you live in Utah or Idaho, Mormonism is the primary religion and you can’t go two blocks without seeing a church building.

When I got to high school I attended Seminary every day (basically church school for teens) and my senior year I was actually on the seminary council - a group of kids who got their kicks because they were the most righteous. That was the year I started to doubt, and doubt hard. Everything on the surface of the church seemed good and nice, but there were little things here and there that bothered me. I was told to “doubt my doubts before I doubted my faith” and that if I sought the Lord in sincere prayer, that he would answer me and I would know for sure the church was true. 

And I did pray. I prayed and fasted and did everything I could. I read my scriptures and attended church and did the best I could in my church callings. I never received an answer. And of course that made me feel like I wasn’t trying hard enough. So I doubled my efforts and ended up having a nervous breakdown because I was a doubter and God didn’t want to speak to me because of that. 

Around this same time I was also starting to come to terms with my sexuality which only made me feel worse about the whole thing, because homosexuality is a sin in mormonism, as it is in most major Christian religions.

Finally after a full year of radio silence from God despite my best efforts and humbling myself and truly wanting an answer, I started to research on my own. If God wasn’t going to give me the answers I needed, then I was going to find them for myself. And thanks to my research, I came to the conclusion that none of it was true. Which makes it sound like an easy process, but it took a long time and it emotionally hurt me reading so many contradictory things. Because I had truly loved the church. When I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t true, I honestly felt like a part of me had died.

After my revelation I went away to college and cut myself off from the church. I made some amazing friends who helped me realize how awesome being gay is, and that no religion can determine my worth. But I still felt the loss of the church and ended up in a huge depressive episode that ultimately made me drop out of college. I’m still trying to pick up the pieces of my life and consolidate everything I know with my relationships with my loved ones who still believe. The guilt-trips I got from family and “friends” when I stopped going to church were insane.

And then a new policy was released in November of 2016 stating that if a child of a gay couple wanted to join the church, they could not be baptised until they were 18, and they had to publicly disavow their parents’ lifestyle before they would be allowed to join the church. The church was literally making children turn on their loving parents to join a church. The effects of this policy were horrendous. There was a spike in Utah lgbt teen suicides as a result. I was horrified and disgusted, and that’s when I decided that, even though I hadn’t been to church in years and that I knew it was absolute garbage, I could not have my name tied in any way to this organization. So I drafted a formal resignation letter to send to the church administration building and demanded that they take my name off their membership records. 

I’m still facing repercussions for that decision from family members. To a lot of them, it’s like I’ve died. Because to resign from the church means you cancel all the effects of baptism and any saving ordinance you received while a member. Meaning, I won’t be exalted and I won’t be with my family forever when I die. And even though I know it’s not true, it was such a huge aspect of my life and personality from the day I was born, that I’ve struggled having an identity since I left. Having a spiritual crisis seems like an easy thing on paper, but it is so much more complex than a lot people make it out to be. Right now I don’t have the ability to see a future for myself where I am finally done being affected by mormonism, but every day I get a step closer if that makes sense.

This answer has been long enough, so I didn’t have a chance to touch on the abuses within the church, gaslighting, magical underwear, how the church is actively covering up and excusing sexual assault, how children as young as 12 are subjected to private worthiness interviews where sexually explicit questions may be asked by an adult man, how the first Prophet of the church who “translated” the Book of Mormon was a treasure hunter who had multiple wives and married girls as young as 14 years old, or eternal polygamy (not the same as polyamory which I fully support mind you). Plus much much more. My research was extensive.

But hopefully that gives you a “brief” explanation of my experience escaping from the mormon cult.

#cucorules #ER answers #this really was much much longer than i intended it to be im so sorry #i just started typing and it was like word vomit #guess thats what I get for repressing it and not openly speaking about it lmao #not hq