#within my parameters of course

[emry-stars-art]

That’s it, first person to draw aftg mers or royals for me gets a cuddle/kiss chibi request they want done next thing

#within my parameters of course #I am tired and getting a cough and I would like to see the children #I try not to ask for stuff but today #I am asking pls forgive me #(this is me also accepting sketches and doodles as holiday gifts and decently early bday presents #although no pressure obviously) #(bc I can’t help but feel borderline selfish to ask at all) #okay feel free to ignore I love you all #not art sorry guys

[ot3]

The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere

What is it, and why you should read it.

(Art by purple)

The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere is a currently updating webserial by author Lurina. It's one of my favorite things I've read in a long while and I'd like to convince you all to give it a chance.

My elevator pitch is this: A time-loop murder mystery directly inspired by Umineko, with a lot of similar vibes to the Locked Tomb Trilogy - partially due to it's meditations on grief and mortality and partially due to it's far-future magical sci-fi world where we follow a fucked up lesbian necromancer on a task she is determined to see through to the end. A deeply complex, unique, and believable world that plays hosts to one of the best interpersonal dynamics I've read.

In a future so far-flung that it is past the heat death of the universe, humanity has constructed a new society that is post-scarcity but not post-stratification. Utsushikome of Fusai is one amongst a class of prodigious young medical arcanists (essentially grad students) who are invited to visit a recently legitimized conclave of top-of-the-line researchers studying immortality. Accompanying Su is her best friend Ran, a fellow arcanist. Over the course of the novel we begin to slowly unravel exactly what ulterior motives have brought them to this conclave and how events in their childhoods and years of working toward their shared goal has warped their relationship into what we now see. This relationship is the crown jewel of Flower's narrative, and getting to peel back the layers of it as you read is a delight.

Like Umineko, Flower is a murder mystery that prevents itself with in-universe Rules that dictate the murders' parameters, meaning there's a lot to chew on for anyone who likes solving mysteries. For those that don't, like myself, Flower offers instead a richly developed world and plenty of open questions about the sociopolitical and metaphysical implications of its own worldbuilding.

Below the cut, I'll go into more detail about the series (without spoilers!) for those of you whose interest has been piqued.

The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere is currently ongoing, updating every few weeks. It's several hundred thousand words, so if you're looking for something substantial to keep you entertained, you've got it. As you might expect from the length, the pacing is decently slow. I don't see this as a bad thing at all, because within this pacing Lurina dripfeeds the readers enough new and interesting information at a regular rate that it never feels like your time is being wasted. But if you can't handle slow burns, I wouldn't recommend this one for you.

If you enjoyed the Zero Escape series and liked that they stopped solving murder puzzles to infodump about fringe science, I think you'll get a lot out of Flower. Characters are frequently interrupting their life-or-death scenarios to have lofty, philosophical and political discussions. It's a ton of fun if you like reading characters argue.

'People have to sleep.' 'People have to work.' 'People have to die.' But those were just vague rules, phrasing I'd used because it had been easier in the context of that conversation. What really mattered, on the day-to-day level, was the idea that it was all for something. If someone invented a elixir that made people not to need to sleep, it would, in retrospect, recontextualize all nights everyone ever wasted sleeping as wastes of time. Not something that occurred for some inherent purpose, but whims of circumstance, a tragedy of when you happened to be born. If you accepted that all unfair things in the world could be removed, if only someone knew how - fatigue, labor, death - then to exist in the world we had now, with all its grotesque imperfections, was to know that you had been violated by fate.

Along those lines it's just got a sense of humor I really enjoy. Pretty dry and cavalier. It manages to keep the mood light without feeling like it's undermining it's own stakes. I'm particularly fond of Su's penchant for telling incredibly depressing suicide jokes that just Do Not Land.

The peer pressure cut into me like a hot knife. I hesitated a little, biting my lip. "Well, uh, okay. I'll just tell a quick one." I swallowed, my mind quickly scrambling. "Okay, so, there's a woman who runs a dispensary for second hand goods. She sees a man come in who's a regular customer. He's kind of a mess-- Has a big beard, a bad complexion. He buys a razor, and tells her he needs it to clean himself up, because he has a date." I could see that I now had Ophelia's attention and that Kam was looking pleased with herself, but Ran was watching me, too. I could see the look in her eyes. It screamed at me, with such vividity that it could be sold at an art gallery: You better not be telling a suicide joke right now, or we're going to have a talk. But it was too late. The wheels were already in motion.

As I mentioned up top, the relationship between Ran and Su is just one of my favorite interpersonal dynamics ever. Period. The author is playing some insanely complicated 5th dimensional yuri chess and I am absolutely here for it as someone who likes characters who are deeply devoted to each other in a way that is deeply deeply fraught. I cant emphasize enough how obsessed I am with what they have going on.

Additionally, as stated, the worldbuilding in Flower is top tier. The author clearly understands how every part of her world functions, which makes the moral quandaries and politics presented all the more impactful because they're very believable. It's hard to talk about Flower's world without spoiling too much of the specifics that get slowly revealed, but it doesn't fall back on any typical sci-fi standard fare and feels like a breath of fresh air amongst recycled and repetitive worldbuilding tropes.

A lot of really fun side characters. Strong voices for all of the supporting cast (♥♥Kamrusepa♥♥) and even though not every character gets their own arc, they all clearly have plenty of interiority. Once again, another thing that makes Flower feel very believable despite it's absurdities.

Autism

"Did you notice anything out of the ordinary with anyone?" She eyed him. "Anyone who seemed tense?" "Saoite, I'm not sure if you've noticed, but half of our class is so autistic that they constantly seem tense. You might as well ask me to find a specific turd in a sewer." "Just answer the question, please," she replied flatly.

Guys it's really good just trust me I don't want to spoil you for the more intricate plot beats but they're doing some crazy shit here. It's never a bad time to support an independent author's project. If you're sick of corporate mass-media and stuff needing to be marketable, getting into independent works owned and supported by individual creators is a great way to push back against that. I highly recommend it.

#media recs #the flower that bloomed nowhere

[astroboots]

Every You Every Me | Issue #7

COLLABORATED WITH @thirstworldproblemss

Pairing: Miguel O'Hara x female reader

Summary: You finally get some answers out of Miguel about who you are to him.

Word count: 5,700 words.

Series Masterlist | Spiderverse Masterlist | Astroboot’s Masterlist | thirstworldproblemss' Masterlist

[Previous] [Next]

"So let's take it from the top," you tell him, as you sit down and put down the Trenta-sized caramel flavored hot chocolate with extra whipped cream and chocolate syrup in front of the man named Miguel O'Hara.

The two of you are sitting across from each other at a small booth at the nearest Starbucks you were able to find, seeing as you're homeless now, and there's nowhere else you could think of to go.

He's dressed in a large fitted hoodie that drapes down to his thighs. Where he's managed to find something that is oversized in length on him, you don't know because he's not exactly short.

"I'm from a dimension known as Earth-928," Miguel says.

Before he can continue, you raise one hand, and you can see his right eyebrow twitch unhappily at the interruption. 

"Yes?"

"Just to clarify, so we don't have another ‘coffee cake’ misunderstanding. When you say Earth-928, do you mean a different version of the Earth we’re on now? Or is this a habitable planet in another galaxy that happens to be partially named Earth?"

"It's a parallel universe characterized by distinct physical parameters and initial conditions, accounting for the diverse manifestations of our observable universe. So still Earth," he says, sweeping his gaze across the café, nose wrinkling the way one does when there's something off-putting in their vicinity. "Just a little bit less primitive."

Of course he would say that, wouldn't be able to resist the jab would he.

You peer up at him across the table. He is very technical and thorough with his explanations. But as grateful as you are for him finally being willing to answer your questions, you hadn't expected those answers to be quite so information dense. You need to pick your questions more carefully or you are going to have to go down the street to buy yourself a notebook in order to keep up.

"How did you end up on this Earth?" you ask.

"Where I'm from, I'm a scientist, a researcher. One of the things I studied was the theory of physical cosmology and the existence of the multiverse. My work was concentrated on the theoretical ability to navigate between distinct universes within a hypothetical multiverse–”

Ah shit, you should've been more narrow in your question. Should have asked him to simplify it a bit more for you. Because now you're sitting here blinking up at him, pretending you understand half of what he's saying. 

It makes sense that he’s STEM. He speaks like the type. Smart as hell with none of the social skills to gauge whether the other person is following the conversation. 

Listening to him reminds you of that time in college, when you'd walked into the wrong lecture hall, wound up in advanced chemistry instead of your math class, felt too awkward to leave and just sat there drawing doodles with an attentive expression until the class was over. 

And he’s still at it, “– employing advanced mechanisms that manipulate or transcend conventional spacetime frameworks, enabling exploration–"

"Okay, wait, hold on a sec," you interrupt, once it becomes obvious he’s not going to stop any time soon on his own. "Can you... simplify, please?"

He stops mid-sentence, taking a deep breath as he looks up at the ceiling and considers your request, with a serious expression as if he's thinking really hard on it. "I’m a scientist. I study the multiverse. I built a parallel universe traversal device, it allows me to visit different dimensions." Your brain feels insulted that it clearly took more mental effort for him to dumb it down for you than to just give the supergenius version.

“So… a machine that allows you to jump between alternative universes?” 

“Yes.” 

There’s a pause between you as you run through the questions in your mental list you want to tick off now that he’s turned cooperative and talkative. But with everything that’s happened in the last handful of hours, a lot of the questions you previously had seemed outdated. The one question, the most important one, you’ve wanted to ask from the start though remains. 

"Who am I to you?"

Miguel takes the large sized drink in his even larger hands and somehow this big paper cup still manages to look tiny in his grip. "You and I were... involved," he says.

You frown. ‘Involved’ is such a vague term. It belongs in the trash with other useless terms to describe relationships: “situationship”, “complicated”, you hate them all. 

"So I was your girlfriend?"

"Yeah, something like that," he concede, fidgeting with the thin gold chain looped around his neck, his eyes not quite meeting yours, like he's embarrassed to use the term.

‘Something like that,’ you chew on his answer unhappily, sympathizing with your other dimensional self and how the other you seemed to have snagged a commitment phobe. 

Other-you, who isn’t here in this dimension with Miguel. You wonder why that is. 

"What happened to me?" you ask.

His eyes are glued to the table,  not looking up at you as he answers you in a voice so quiet you can barely hear it. "She died."

"Oh."

The revelation shouldn’t take you by surprise. 

Every time Miguel’s brought up your other self, it’s been tinted with earth-shattering sadness. It's not hard to put one and one together and come to the conclusion that whatever happened to you in this other dimension didn't end happily.

Still it's an odd feeling to know that out there, somewhere, a version of you has died. A version of you that was clearly very important to the man in front of you.

"I'm sorry," you tell him.

It feels silly to say. It's bizarre to give your condolences over your own parallel death, but Miguel looks so heartbroken. He’s slumped in his seat, large shoulders rounded until his frame looks so much smaller than you're used to, and you don't know what else to do.

"So what is happening to me now," you start, not sure how to word what the phenomena that you're going through is, "these continuous near-death experiences, is that how she died?"

"Yeah."

"And do you know why that... kept happening to her? Why is it happening to me?"

"I don't, and I don't know how to stop it. Believe me I tried."

He cradles the paper cup in his hands, the grip a little bit tighter now until he's creasing the paper and the caramel liquid oozes and leaks from the top.

"What I do know is that the universe isn’t going to stop trying to kill you, no matter what you do. And with every near death incident you manage to survive, these incidents will escalate in nature, until..." he stops, eyes flickering away from the cup to meet yours, but it's like he loses courage and doesn't want to say the last part.

"Until, what?" you prompt.

"Until your dimension collapses."

The blood freezes in your veins. "Wait, collapses!? What do you mean?"

"I can't guarantee it will happen again. But that's what happened last time. When the other you kept cheating death, the universe eventually started to collapse in on itself."

You slump back in your chair, trying to process what you've just been told. What does that mean? That even if you managed to defy all odds to survive, doing so would doom the rest of this universe as you know it?

"When will that happen?" you ask, and you're surprised you manage to get the words out because there is a hard lump in your throat that makes it hurt to even swallow.

"Judging from the trajectory and escalation of events, you have about three months give or take."

The two of you sit in heavy silence, for the moment you're not sure what else to ask him. Because it feels like you are trapped in a building looking for an exit sign, but all that’s tacked onto the brick wall is your death certificate, waiting to be signed and formalized.

There’s no way out. Nowhere to go.

"Give me your hand," he says, breaking the silence. 

You give it to him without hesitation, watching, puzzled, as he takes off his watch and secures it around your wrists.

"Why are you giving me your watch?"

"It's not a watch," he says, then he presses something on the face of it, and an image of a young woman flickers into existence in the space above your wrist, vaguely see-through. A hologram!

"This is Lyla," he introduces.

Wait, wait? Lyla? As in your mom Lyla? You watch the tiny woman floating above your wrist. Short bob-cut, and flashy heart-shaped sunglasses, with a twinkle in her eye. 

The hologram looks nothing like your mom. You part your mouth, about to ask about the name but you're interrupted by the energetic buzz of a female voice greeting you.

"Boss-girl! Long time no see. Want me to catch you up on the latest multiversal gossip? I compiled an edit of highlights set to Despacito."

"Lyla," Miguel warns, tersely. "Not now."

"Ruuuuude! You're the one who woke me up you know."

"Lyla, go back to sleep."

The female avatar grumbles, but then her image flickers away and the watch turns back into, as far as you can tell, just an ordinary watch.

"Why did you name the watch Lyla?"

"It's not a– " He cuts himself off, sighing with exasperation. "Lyla is an advanced A.I. she's going to be with you at all times. She's an added layer of security, built to protect you."

He didn't answer your question. Completely sidestepped it as if the two of you are having two different conversations.

Built to protect you, he'd said. Does that mean he still intends to do that?

"So you're not going to leave?" you ask him.

He leans back in his seat, eyes drifting towards the table. "No."

You look up at him, stumped. Not sure you're understanding what he's saying. Because not even a few hours ago, when the two of you were in your apartment, this man was adamant there was nothing to be done to save you. That he was going to leave and you were never going to see him again.

Right now though, his actions seem to be contradictory to that. You can't make heads or tails of him. Hot and cold doesn’t even begin to cover it. 

"Why not?" you ask, "I mean, not that I’m not grateful, but you seemed pretty set on the whole ‘I can’t save you’ thing. What changed your mind?"

“You did.” His eyes narrow as he looks down at you, crossing his arms ever his chest, "You told me you wanted to live. Have you changed your mind already?"

“Wha– NO! I just want to know why you changed yours.”

“I–” He hesitates, another wave of sadness passing over his face. “I’m a superhero. I save people… or try to. It’s what I do. I’m not gonna just leave you to die after you tell me you want to live.”

It’s a good answer, even if you don’t buy that it’s the whole truth. 

You look down at your wrist, and the shiny chrome of the not-watch he's just gifted you winks back up at you. "Do you think I have a chance of surviving all this?"

"It's pretty hopeless," he says, and there’s no break in his expression as he continues. "Your chances of making it out alive are pretty much mathematically impossible."

It's odd though. Even though he's outlining the futility of your situation, basically telling you to raise the white flag and surrender, there's something contradictory in the tone of his voice. 

"What do you want to do?" he asks you.

It’s a challenge, you realize. An encouragement. He has faith in you. It's all of these things rolled into one. As if he's telling you to prove the universe wrong.

"I want to live," you answer. "If the universe collapses in three months, then please stay with me. Give me time to solve this and find a way to stay alive."

His mouth curls into a hint of a smile. The very first you've seen from him since you've met. It's bright and boyish, erasing the harsh lines of his stern expression until it gives way for something much softer underneath that makes your heart leap in your chest with triumph.

You grin, a strange elation of happiness buzzing in you as you stretch out your hand to him, in an invitation for a handshake to seal the deal.

"Deal?"

Miguel leans over the table, clasping your hand in his much larger one as he squeezes it back gently.

"Deal." That small smile from before is still there. "So what's next?" he asks.

The thing you never realized, being an ordinary person bereft of super genes or other superhuman powers is just how convenient commuting can be if you have them. 

No longer do you have to brave the Lynchian nightmare that is the NYC subway system. Half-naked manic street preachers giving sermons as you’re held hostage, with nowhere else to go in the carriage. Being chased down by a drunk trumpeting Mariachi band. Instead, all you need to do to get from point A to point B (A: being the Chrysler building and B: the building formerly known as your home) is to hold on tight to Miguel as he swings you both above the city gridlock.

You imagine that this is what paragliding must feel like, except it's so much better because here you don't have to do the safety training beforehand or pay $3,000 for the privilege.

The city skyline is a dark evening blue, dotted with the sparkling lights of office buildings, cab roof lights and street lamps, as the wind ruffles through the fabric of your clothes.

It's such a different sight when you're flying above instead of walking on the streets below, that you don't even clock that you're in your neighborhood, until you see a building with a collapsed wall that's been blocked off, looking like a crash site. Only then do you realize... you're home.

Miguel carefully sets you down on your feet on a small patch of concrete that is clear of the rubble and destruction.

"Why did you want to come back here again?" he asks. 

It’s a good question. Now that you're here, standing in the middle of charred debris and cracked bricks, you're not sure either. You had some vague plans of seeing what you could salvage, hoping for some clothes, maybe your electric toothbrush, or really just any of your stuff. Something that’s yours, no matter how small, to hold on to after the events of today have ripped away life as you know it.

But there’s nothing left. The furniture, all your books and knick knacks, and even your dirty laundry piles have been demolished. Your home as you know it is gone. There's only piles and piles of rubble and traces of white fire extinguisher foam on the ground. The fire has been out for hours, but the pungent smell of smoke and sulfur still pervades the air. 

"You okay?" Miguel asks.

He's still standing at the outer edges of the apartment, close to where your window would have been if a helicopter hadn't crashed through it.

"Yeah... I guess the silver lining is that I didn't have anything expensive. Though it'd been nice if I could've saved my mom's Le Creuset set or at least the nanny-cam so I could return it and get a refund," you joke glibly. 

You nudge aside some concrete rubble with the cap of your shoes. There's nothing under there, no treasured memorabilia that's still miraculously intact. Just more burnt concrete and rubble.

"Why did you have a nanny cam?"

You turn around at his question, to see him hovering close to you, one eyebrow raised with an unhappy set to his jaw. 

From the displeased expression on his face, he's probably misunderstanding something here. Probably thinks you're operating a very unlucrative Onlyfans business, when what you've really been doing is spy on him and his nightly visits. You don't know which is worse to confess to, so you don't confess to anything.

"No reason," you say, ignoring the way his already raised eyebrow twitches with irritation at your lack of an answer.

"Come on, let's go," he says, and he waves towards you in a come hither motion like he's commanding a dog.

"Go?" you ask him. "It's past midnight. My place, as you can see, is wrecked. Go where exactly?"

Miguel shoots you a strange look. "A hotel," he says, like it's the most obvious thing, and– okay, he's not completely wrong in that assumption.

Problem is, you didn't have time to pick up your wallet or phone before your impromptu interdimensional visit. They’ve been incinerated along with all the rest of your worldly possessions, which means you don't have any way to pay for a hotel.

Plus Manhattan hotel prices average $400 a night. Even if you still had access to your debit cards, your budget’s pretty tight right now after all the capital you invested in your unhinged quest to trap the superhero before you. 

"In the city? I don't have that kind of money and it will take months for any insurance payouts to come in."

You should know. As an insurance claims adjuster, you know you’ll be lucky if your claim is processed before the end of the year. And, ugh, just the thought of the paperwork you’ll have to fill out is enough to give you an anxiety migraine.

"I’ll cover the room," Miguel says casually before holding out a hand to you, "Come on, let’s go."

When Miguel said he’d cover it, you expected a reasonably-priced room at one of the Days Inn across the river or the like. Hopefully a place with no rats or bed bugs, and maybe clean bedding over a somewhat comfortable mattress for you to pass out on if you were lucky.

You didn't expect this.

Standing in front of the Midtown Four Seasons, you find yourself on sleek marble so polished you can see your own reflection. You haven't even stepped a foot inside yet and there are two old fashioned doormen, wearing immaculately fitted suits, with an even more impressive posture opening the majestic double-set doors for you as you approach.

It's swanky as hell, and you can’t help gawking like a tourist, eyes glued to the decadent carved ceilings that must be at least 30 feet tall, soaring above you. Honey-colored limestone that looks like it’s been looted from Ancient Rome.

You feel more than a little bit out of place. This is way outside of your budget. You could probably work your job for a lifetime, and not have enough disposable income to stay the night at a place like this.

"Uhm, Miguel... this place is way too–" you start, turning towards him.

But as you were busy lamenting the state of the housing market, he's already walked away from you (for such a bulky guy, he moves swiftly and silently) and as you whip your head around to find him, he's already standing in front of the receptionist.

Damned antelope legged man, would it kill him to wait up for you once in a while? You run up after him and have to tip-toe in order to see over his shoulder because the giant mammoth is blocking the check-in counter.

And wow, even the receptionist here is of a different caliber than the ones you'd find at Holiday Inn. A fashionable bob-cut with razor sharp edges, looking like a model cut out from a Vogue cover.

"Do you have a reservation, Sir?"

You half-expect him to say no, and that the two of you would have to tuck your tail between your legs and walk out of here to the backdrop of a sad trombone playing.

To your astonishment he says your name. The receptionist tip-taps away at her keyboard and then she nods and smiles gracefully at you both. 

"Yes of course. After reviewing your reservation details, I am pleased to inform you that all necessary arrangements have already been made, including advance payment and verification of your identification. Your room is ready for you, we trust you will enjoy your stay."

She flashes you a pearly white smile so shiny it's almost blinding and hands you a hotel key card. 

When you turn around, to your confusion Miguel is no longer next to you. How does he keep disappearing like this? 

"Cielito," Miguel’s voice calls. The nickname doesn’t register at first. It doesn't even occur to you that he’s referring to you, until he barks it out a second time. 

Your head darts up to see him standing by the elevator, tapping his feet impatiently as he waits for you to make it over to him.

"How did you do that?" you whisper loudly to him as you step into the elevator. "Where did you get my ID? How did you make a reservation? How did you--"

He takes your hand, mid-sentence, turning your wrist upwards and taps the watch.

"The computer systems in this universe are child's play for Lyla to manipulate. Reservations, money, ID, she can take care of all of that easily," he explains.

"She can do that?" you ask, and Miguel merely nods at you as the elevator closes behind the two of you.

You tip your head down to inspect your gifted watch. In awe of this technical marvel that would make Siri look like it’s from the stone-ages. You wonder if she can boost your credit scores. She could probably hack any wi-fi password so you'd never have to worry about data throttling again. She could get you table reservations for Libertine! The possibilities are endless!

You turn to Miguel. "Can Lyla get me Beyoncé tickets?" you ask. 

He just shakes his head at you with what almost qualifies as an amused smile.

The room upstairs is massive. 

It’s easily three times the size of your little studio apartment, and the ceilings are twice as tall, with a hanging glass chandelier that’s sparkling bright enough to blind you. It looks like one of those places featured in Architectural Digest. 

Everything is in an art deco style, with expensive looking furniture and even more expensive art hanging on the one spare wall that isn’t covered in floor to ceiling windows. There are large shelves and a sleek looking kitchen, complete with an opulent looking velvet lounge chair of emerald green that looks like something a Roman emperor would be fed grapes on. 

In this colossal space of a room, there is only one bed. One colossal, plush-mattress-topped, goose down duvet and probably 1,000,000,000 thread count sheet covered bed.

You tense up, not sure what the arrangements Miguel had in mind. Did he want the two of you to sleep in the same bed?

Miguel did pay for the room, so you’re not going to start voicing objections. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time in the short time span that you two have known each other to do that. This bed is also a lot wider than your tiny double bed, so it wouldn’t be the cramped disaster it was last night. You’d just have to make sure to use the bathroom before bed this time so he doesn’t jab your full bladder in the morning again. 

Without saying anything, Miguel strides across the length of the room with impatient and determined steps. His hand reaches for the balcony doors and slides them open. 

"Wait wait, where are you going?" you ask him as you run up to the middle of the room. 

“I’m sleeping outside,” he says over his shoulder, and your mind boggles with that. 

“Why? Isn’t it better for you to stay here?”

"This is the 62nd floor. That’s about as safe as you’re going to get. I’ll keep a lookout to make sure no more helicopters come crashing in.” 

You’re not sure if he means the last part as a joke or not, but as you watch his broad back retreating as he walks away from you, a sickening sort of the deja vu twists through your chest. 

I can’t save you, he’d said back in your apartment, Nothing can. 

The feeling clawing at your chest feels alarmingly like panic. It screams that he’s leaving you. That he’s never coming back. That you’ll never see him again. 

You’re being irrational, and you know it. You remind yourself that he wouldn’t have done this much for you only to bail in the middle of the night, but that doesn’t stop the fear that’s festering, sharp and urgent, under your skin, or the way your heart races, your whole body flashing hot and cold at the same time. 

You want him to stay. 

“Miguel,” you call out, and he immediately stops and turns to look back at you, one eyebrow raised in a skeptical question. 

Please stay. 

You open your mouth, but the words won’t come out. You can’t ask this man—this big, sarcastic, rude hulk of a man—to have a sleepover with you because you’re scared to be alone in the dark. He would laugh you out of the hotel room.

“Uhm… thank you,” you say instead, but it’s no less sincere, “For everything.”

His eyes soften, the sharp narrowness of them easing up. “It’s fine,” he mumbles, and despite the cold chill of the evening, you think you can see a faint flush blooming in his cheeks, before he quickly ducks his face from you. “I’ll be right outside if something happens.” 

He turns back around and walks out, closing the patio doors with a gentle click behind him, leaving you by yourself. 

It’s quiet. 

You survey the empty room you’re in. Without Miguel’s large frame taking up space, it seems even bigger than it did before. 

It’s a beautiful room. Something that you’re pretty sure you’ve seen in a movie set. You don’t know why you’re not as excited as you were before. This is you living your Pretty Woman moment. You should be filling up the big jacuzzi tub you saw with bubbles. Heck, maybe ask Lyla to order you a bottle of champagne from room service. 

Instead, your eyes linger on the glass patio doors leading to the balcony terrace. You walk over to the bed, perching yourself down on the edge of the mattress, then flop down. 

Might as well try to sleep, you think to yourself as you climb under the covers and switch off the light. The best thing you can do right now is catch yourself some rest so you’ll be alert while trying to figure out your next steps tomorrow.

3 months… That’s what Miguel told you.

That’s all the time you have left. 

That means you don’t have time to waste, but you also have no idea where to start. The local library doesn’t exactly carry any resources on how to stop the universe from trying to kill you. 

The Universe. 

An infinite cosmos, grander than any human being can possibly comprehend. This vast space containing all the galaxies with its billions of stars and planets, where an individual being does not even register as a speck, and it wants you dead. How can you possibly fight against those odds? 

You lie wide-eyed and awake staring into the dark of the room, and the feeling of dread gnaws into you. 

You don’t want to be alone right now. Turning in the bed, your eyes find their way back to the blank slate of the pitched night outside the balcony doors. 

You really wished he had stayed with you. 

Sitting upright in the bed, you consider your options. You can lie back down. Suffer insomnia and the existential horror of knowing the universe is trying to murder you. Or you can man up, swallow down whatever tiny morsel of your pride you have left and ask Miguel to come back inside and stay with you. 

Flinging the duvet from your body, you get up to walk over to the balcony. You hesitate for a moment before tapping the window pane the way you might knock on a door, giving a polite head's up before you slide the balcony patio open. But when you poke your head out, turning your head left and right, Miguel's nowhere to be found. 

Okay, that’s weird. He said he’d be right outside if you needed him. You walk up to the ledge of the balcony terrace, leaning over the rail and peer down to see him dangling upside down, from the ledge of your balcony. The sight nearly makes you scream. 

"Miguel!” 

At you calling his name, he pulls himself up, one clawed hand gripping at the concrete wall as he climbs his way up and over to you. He makes it look easy, as if gravity does not exist for him, and it’s only a moment until he’s perched on the ledge of the balcony, facing you. 

“What’s wrong?” he demands, eyes concerned, and you’re suddenly aware of how very close he is. His face mere inches from yours, your noses nearly touching.

“What’s wrong? You’re hanging upside down from the 62nd floor! What are you, a bat?!"

“Why did you come out here?” he clarifies, and his words give you pause. You try to gather your thoughts after the bizarre sight you just walked into and remember what you came out here for. 

He’s still looking at you with his full and intense concentration that makes your skin prickle with warmth.

God, it’s embarrassing to ask. You feel like you’re five years old, asking your parents to turn the nightlight on, even though you know you’re a big girl now and aren’t supposed to be afraid of monsters hiding under your bed any more. 

You look down on your hands, where you’re wringing them together, then back up at him, and make yourself spit it out, "Could you… maybe… stay with me tonight?" 

His eyes widen at your question, but he doesn’t actually answer you and gives you no physical indication one way or the other. 

"I feel safer when you're with me,” you admit. 

“I am with you out here,” he counters, because of course he can’t make this easy for you.  

“I can’t see you out here.”

The line of his shoulder eases, and he ducks his head down with a resigned sigh. "Fine. Get back inside, Cielito. You're going to catch a cold like this."

You shuffle back inside to your bed, watching out of the corner of your eye as  he follows you inside and settles himself on the lounge sofa. He’s so tall that his feet are sticking out over the armrests, like a long-legged stork. 

Hiding a smile, you climb back into bed, wrapping the bedding all around yourself.

“Good night,” you call out, and he makes a grumpy noise of acknowledgment. 

Your head drops back onto the soft pillow, and you close your eyes, ready to sleep. It’s such a nice bed. The sheets are cool and soft against your skin and smell of fresh eucalyptus. The mattress is the most comfortable you ever remember resting on, firm but somehow soft at the same time. You feel like you’re sleeping on a cloud. 

Moments go by, and you revel in the sumptuous bed, waiting for the best sleep of your life to claim you. 

Except it doesn’t. 

Somehow… you still can’t fall asleep. Is it… too soft maybe? You turn in the bed, twisting your torso to get into a position you can comfortably sink into, but something doesn’t feel right. There’s no lumpiness like at home, but that should be a good thing. 

Except… despite the decadent softness of the bed. Despite the fact that the sheets probably have a thread count with more zeros than your checking and savings accounts combined. Despite all of the luxury that surrounds you, you still find yourself tossing and turning and wide fucking awake.

The bed is too big. You don’t know what to do with all this space. Your body is not accustomed to this sort of decadence. What if you suffocate sinking into this soft fluffy pillow in your sleep? What if you toss and turn until you fall off this massive bed and break your neck? Maybe that’s how out of all of the universe’s attempts to kill you, you end up dying? 

Fuck! 

You can’t sleep. 

You turn to your side and stare into the velvet lounge chaise on the opposite side of your room, where Miguel is. 

Quietly, you pad up to his still form until you’re standing in front of him and hunch over, trying to decide how rude it would be to wake him up again when there's nothing he can do about your stupid insomnia anyway.

In the dim light, you spot something glinting at you. Looking closer, you notice that the thin chain looped around his neck has escaped his shirt to pool on the fabric of the sofa cushion under him. You gently drag the loose end of the necklace toward you, and find a smooth golden band threaded onto it.

Picking it up cautiously, you flip it in your hand and find that there's something engraved on the inside.  It's hard to see in the darkness, but when you lean closer and squint your eyes, you can just make out what it says.

'MO'—undeniably the initials of one Miguel O'Hara.

Twisting the ring slightly, you find a tiny plus sign followed by your own initials, and your heart drops into the pit of your stomach.

Oh.

The memory of sitting across Miguel at Starbucks returns to you, when you had asked him who you were to him. You think of the avoidant gaze and how he couldn't look you in the eye.

‘Something like that,’ huh?

Guess the other you wasn't just his girlfriend after all, you think, chest drawn so tight it’s painful.

Holding the wedding band in the palm of your hand, you slide down to sit down on the floor with your back pressed against the chaise lounge.

Your heart aches for the man in front of you and everything he's lost.  You really, really hope you're not going to end up as just another regret on his list.

~ Next Issue

Dedication & Credits: As always to my best friend @thirstworldproblemss I am half asleep and running on fumes. I'm wording things poorly but I just want you to know that I am very happy I have you. Thank you for being my friend and for the time we get to spend together. I have the most fun when I'm with you.

Also to @guruan who is my muse, my source of inspiration. This chapter is dedicated to her because have you seen this beautiful piece of artwork she did for EYEM?!

#miguel o'hara x you #miguel o'hara x reader #miguel o'hara fic #miguel o'hara #miguel o'hara fanfic #miguel o'hara fanfiction #spiderverse #oscar isaac #across the spiderverse #marvel #spiderverse fanfiction #miguel ohara x reader #miguel ohara #miguel ohara x you #marvel mcu

[andhumanslovedstories]

A while ago at work, I had a patient whose condition rapidly deteriorated during my shift, which I believed at the time was due to me not monitoring certain therapies closely enough. Essentially patient had parameters that their oxygen saturations should be between 88-92%. The patient was on supplemental oxygen via a nasal cannula, and was having oxygen saturations of 95% or more. The patient later became lethargic, confused, and hard to rouse. The patient was in hypercapnic respiratory failure, where they essentially were not exhaling enough CO2, the waste product of respirations. Patients who have oxygen parameters of 88-92% tend to be COPD patients, and I'd been taught where giving them too much oxygen can result in CO2 retention.

We ended up having to call a rapid response on that patient who needed to go on the bipap (non-invasive ventilator) to help them breathe effectively, and I went home from that shift feeling certain that I killed this person. That I had triggered a terminal decline that the patient would never recover from.

(Perhaps some context here: my grandfather went into hypercapnic respiratory failure and then died within a few days. Maybe he would have passed either way, I think probably he would have, but the respiratory failure was the moment his decline started accelerating. After he went hypercapnic, he was non-responsive from that point on.)

I called in sick to my next shift because I couldn't face going in. I spent the day thinking about what I'd done, what my moral obligations were, how do you atone for something when you cannot reverse the effects of the original error, and how paralyzed by shame I felt. What did I owe the patient? What did I owe the family? What did I owe myself? How many times had this happened before and I just didn't know because the decline happened after my shift ended?

It was a productive if unpleasant day of trying to sincerely examine myself and the things I'd done wrong without flagellating myself. It'd be almost easily to complete condemn myself and to stop nursing because I'm a Bad Nurse than it would have been to acknowledge the many steps that led to this patient outcome, only some of which I had a hand in. But this was my patient. They were my responsibility. What was the right reaction to have? What should I be feeling? In the course of doing my job, I caused harm to someone I swore to take care of. I still think that I am a thoughtful, hardworking, and compassionate nurse. I don't think the hospital would be better off if I quit. But I hurt someone.

I thought a lot about how this outcome happened, came up with steps to prevent it in the future, and found a new commitment within myself for continued learning. (If you've got a timeline of my particular fixations, this is about when my determination to go to grad school began.) I also thought about how much shame was making me sick. When my patient started declining and I realized the effects of my actions and inactions, one of my first thoughts was genuinely, "Everyone's going to know what I did." It was thought with absolute horror. I'd hurt someone and everyone was going to know it. They were going to know I was bad at my job and bad as a person.

And I was struck by what an unhelpful emotion that was. How much it made me, if only for a moment, tell NO ONE what was going on and what I believed to be the root cause. That it'd be better to let the decline continue rather than intervene because if I intervened that'd be admitting that I'd done something wrong. I didn't listen to that voice that told me to hide what I'd done, but I instantly understood the power of it.

There's this thing called the Compass of Shame which is about the different ways people handle their own feelings of shame--they avoid the shame, they withdraw from themselves and others, they attack others, they attack themselves. I know my own reactions to shame and try therefore not to go with my gut instincts, which are always to say I'm an irredeemably bad person and no one can know about this and if anyone does not about what I've done wrong, I deserve literally whatever punishment they could give me. I've had to learn I can both have failed to complete my responsibilities and still not deserve to lose my job or my flunk this class or give up on college or lose all my friends. But there is something appealing about masochistic shame. Like you can prevent others from judging and punishing you if you sufficiently judge and punish yourself. You'll still be a wretched monster, but no one else needs to know that.

That's actively dangerous for patients, who are the victims of healthcare errors, and it doesn't help prevent future mistakes if we are too ashamed to talk about what happened and why. We'll just keep fucking up in the exact same ways because no one else told us how they'd fucked up that way in the past and here's how we've changed the process because of that. I therefore have an ethical obligation to not internalize shame when I make mistakes at my job. I have tried to remember that while also trying my best to not make the same mistakes twice.

And then a week later, I was sent back to the same floor with the patient who'd declined on my watch. Because I'm a float RN and therefore don't have an assigned unit, I go to different floors every night (occasionally multiple floors on the same night). I see patients for 12 hours and then almost never see them again. Since I was back on the floor, I girded myself and went to go visit the patient, who to my surprise was alert and upright and about the same as I'd seen her at the beginning of my shift before they'd gotten bad. I said hi and asked how the patient was doing, and the answer was that patient was doing about the same as they'd been doing for the last month.

This was not good news for the patient, who was still medically complex, still dealing with an extremely difficult to address condition, but they were also not in the ICU, dying, or dead which is what I'd feared. And with the new knowledge that the patient was, if not okay, than at least stable as ever despite my actions, I could look back on that shift and see it differently, namely that this patient kept continuing to go into hypercapnic respiratory failure with or without oxygen. And then I looked into what I thought I'd been negligent about before and found that the scholarship on it was more complicated and divided than I'd thought. That the mechanism of action that I thought was driving the hypercapnic respiratory failure was in fact waaaaaaaaaaay more complicated than just over oxygenation, particularly in this patient who had a number of muscular abnormalities that made much more of an impact on ventilation than the oxygen would have. And while I still had to improve my practice, upon more reflection I could no longer say there was a direct one to one of my actions and the patient's decline.

I felt simultaneously forgiven, absolved, and humbled. I cannot describe to you the almost sheepish relief that rushed over me. Nothing that bad had happened. What did happen was only ambiguously my fault.

There's a power fantasy to shame sometimes, that you are uniquely bad and that your actions have monumental consequences. My actions on the job can have monumental consequences, but usually they are little things, little cares, little turns, little med doses, little therapies, little steps, little tasks, little jobs, little kindnesses or little cruelties that help a patient move forward or which hold a patient back. I'm there for 12 hours and never again. I can do a lot in that time, but I'm not gonna cure them and I'm probably not going to kill them. It's a relief, and it's a strange disappointment. We want to be important, even in bad ways.

While I can certainly fuck things up for patients, while I can certainly kill patients or traumatize them or withhold care or misuse my position, while I can do all those things, I don't actually have that much power over life and death. Everything that goes wrong isn't my fault. And sometimes something is your fault and nothing really happens except a few people have a bad night and you try not to do it again. I think that last bit is the most important part. I still should have titrated her oxygen down. I'm more careful about that now. I'm trying not to fuck up in the exact same way. I'll find exciting new ways to fuck up, and then I'll learn from those too.

#nursing tag #this is like waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more detailed that i typically like to get with a post about my job #but i've been really thinking about it #this is the long post i said i'd reward myself with btw

[underestimated-heroine]

The fact that radfems spread this post around is actually really interesting--infuriating, but interesting. Because what they've really done here is tell on themselves.

This is the shrimp guy story:

From an anonymous green text called "shrimp saved my life" [emphasis mine]:

>be depressed, suicidal xanax- addicted incel >one day I go to my /aq/fag uncle's house for some shit >he has pet shrimp, never seen anything like it before >he offers to get me some 53 KB JPG >throw them in a barely cycled tank with some shitty rock >several shrimp die >realize that I killed them with my apathy >realize I need to take responsibility for once in my life >do research, learn about water parameters and so on >eventually I have a beautiful planted tank with no more deaths >notice a female shrimp carrying eggs >haven't felt this excited about anything in almost a decade >the eggs disappear and I once again think I fucked up >a few days later I see a tiny transparent baby shrimp >l suddenly know how the shepherds felt as they gazed upon the newborn Christ >by this point I live and breathe shrimp >all my spare time is spent on shrimp research and watching shrimp videos >l spend most of the money I had saved from my last job on shrimp products >quit the Xanax to support shrimp spending >start putting effort into college in hope of getting a good job for my shrimp >grades improve, no longer facing the prospect of dropping out >relationship with parents improves since I am finally passionate about something and applying myself >l see genuine happiness in their eyes when I talk excitedly about my shrimp >for my birthday my mom makes me a shrimp cake >it even has fondant legs and little chocolate eggs >cry like a little bitch when I see it >mom hugs me and tells me she's always been proud of me >college dorm neighbours demand to see my shrimp >shit they're gonna think I'm autistic >they actually think my shrimp are really cool >they start inviting me to their social events >start interacting with girls, get told by girls for the first time in my life that I'm fun and smart >l think my shrimp would be proud of me if they knew >We're gonna make it bros. Even if you can't do it for yourself, do it for the animals that depend on you.

He did address his relationship with women. By finding a hobby and passion and working on himself--"touching grass"--he stepped away from the echo chamber that filled him with all this rage and convinced him women were to blame for all of his problems. As someone once wisely observed, "the cure is going offline and realizing it's just. really not that big a deal."

And that is what radfems have not done, so of course they didn't spot the quiet flashpoint of shrimp guy's personal development within his story.

Edit: it's been brought to my attention that the version of the greentext post I lifted the text from was censored by someone else. My bad for not realizing that, tbh it was done so well I thought shrimp guy had done it himself, but that's an important part of the post. I've gone back through and un-censored it. The reply which was spread around with the original post addressed the words themselves well, I think; however distasteful and fucked up the incel rabbit hole is, it doesn't diminish his growth.

#posts i actually wrote #cw radical feminism #cw transphobia #incels

[ozzgin]

So @moonthundersoldier requested a Predator x Reader headcanon and I have to say, I took my time with it as an excuse to watch Prey and whip out my dusty old comics. I‘m a big fan of Alien and Predator and this was my chance to finally try my hand at it! Hopefully it turns out alright.

Various Predators x Predator! Reader Headcanons

Featuring various Yautja types that independently find and court a mysterious reader raised by humans.

Part 1: Meeting

Part 2: Courting

Part 3: Mating

Backstory

The earliest memory you have of your parents consists only of their wide backs as they hastily controlled the ship, looking for a new hunting ground. You were born to a pair of bad bloods that have been exiled by their clan. They were loudly typing in the parameters for the landing, which so far wasn’t looking gracious. Just as the ship brushed against Earth‘s atmosphere, a foreign vessel appeared behind. Judging by the angry growls of your parents, it wasn’t a good thing.

You of course don’t recall any of it, but what followed was a swift battle once the landing jets touched the ground. The second ship opened up without delay and several Predators in stark white armor marched their way out. They were enforcers, dispatched to hunt down criminals such as your parents. As they finished their gruesome task, they noticed the remaining heat radiating from the cockpit. Had they missed a member? Then again, the overall shape was too small for a regular man. One of the officers climbed into the collapsed remains of the ship and spotted you. Troublesome. He nonchalantly grabbed your carrier and walked out, showing the cause of mild concern to the others. The important things such as weapons were to be returned to Yautja Prime, anything else destroyed. So, what were they supposed to do with you?

The answer was found rather quickly, as their helmets notified them of approaching life forms. Most likely wild animals, in which case you would also be taken care of. The suckling of fugitives could hardly integrate back in the clan. This was for the best. So they quickly discarded the remaining wreckage and boarded their vessel once again.

“Oh God, what is that?” a tall man shouts as he approaches your abandoned carrier, holding tight onto the shotgun. “Some sort of creature…Be careful!”

The plump woman with a sunburned face that had followed behind was now just a few inches from you, bending over with genuine curiosity. “Are you serious right now? Put that shotgun down, it’s a baby!” Seemingly unperturbed by your unusual appearance, she picked you up and briefly analyzed your features before lifting your carrier and turning around. “Let’s go, I’m not leaving a child behind. We’ll figure it out.”

Reader’s countryside life

And so you were raised by honest, loving and - most importantly - human farmers. Since you’ve been equipped with proper, superior intelligence, it has been easy for you to acquire the human language. The clicks and growls were slowly replaced with fully articulated words. Save for your reptilian appearance, you are otherwise an authentic member of the family.

You might have the docile, caring behavior of a human, but your predator instincts have not been discarded. You’re taller and stronger than your “relatives”, and the more dangerous labor of guarding or hunting has been in your hands for many years now. The old shotgun now serves as a dusty wall decoration, it could never compete with your claws, speed and ferocity. Your heart remains that of a hunter.

Eventually it becomes a vague gossip within the cities of Yautja Prime that one of their own might be roaming Earth, completely unaware of their roots. A Predator woman, trained by humans. What would the outcome be? Curiosity peaks for certain Predators and they can’t help but wish to see you with their own eyes. Maybe the different backgrounds would provide future younglings with unknown exotic advantages.

Your peaceful life comes to an end when the first of many suitors descends onto the bizarre planet and manages to track you down. The first encounter leaves you speechless: are there more individuals like you out there? You feel relief flushing over you as the knowledge of similar creatures settles in. You weren’t alone, after all. And soon enough you even learn to describe what you’ve always questioned about yourself. You’re a Yautja, a Predator.

Predators meeting the reader

You’ve really caught the feral Predator’s eyes. He has parted ways with modern technology a long time ago and prefers to hunt with minimal tools. He finds your way of surviving very similar to his tribal lifestyle, relying more on strength and agility that have been polished in raw nature. He’s the one that teaches you the native language and tells you about the Homeworld, though he suspects you come from a different hemisphere. He likes to observe the tactics you’ve developed to hunt the animals of this world and shares his own experience and tips with you. He has grown fond of the wilderness on this planet and plans to propose that the two of you build a family away from the needless hassle of cities. If there’s such a thing as a soul mate, then Black Warrior has entrusted him to be yours.

The visit you receive from an elite Predator is not as cozy. He watches you from afar and notices your interactions with the humans. His guide marks them as targets, so why are you acting all chummy with boring prey? They don’t seem to have combat skills and yet you bring them game and offer protection. He refuses to believe that you’ve been in some way enslaved, bringing shame to your kind. He decides to confront you and demand answers. Having learned the language, you explain that this is your clan, the family that raised you. You’re a bit annoyed that this complete stranger is bringing in his hierarchies and social constructs as some sort of universal law. You do not care for his philosophy of power and warn him to be respectful of the customs here. Aha, there it is. Your imposing figure and assertive threats confirm to him you’re a proper Yautja despite the circumstances. His initial frown is replaced by a satisfied expression. Don’t worry, your potential won’t go to waste in this dump of weaklings. He’ll take you home with him and show you the true meaning of a Predator family. Even if he has to fight you a little for it.

This fugitive bad blood has finally found you. He’d known your parents for a long time and heard about their demise, but he never expected they’d leave an offspring behind. He scans your figure with a certain impertinence, pleased by what he sees. Should he kill the humans and capture you as his mate? It’s certainly the most entertaining option. He smugly shows you his trophy belt, bearing the skulls of defeated prey, and asks you if your little creatures deserve a spot. You assume a fighting stance and erratic clicking sounds erupt from his chest, most likely a laugh. You have no tools and you’ve only ever fought…what…little Earth piglets half the size of a Predator Hound? But it’s alright, he wants a feisty mother for his children. Give your best shot.

By far the most challenging admirer has been the Berserker. You can see the similarity between the two of you, but the blood red eyes are unlike all the other Predators you’ve encountered before. Merely seconds after discovering your presence, the creature attempted to dominate you and you had to trash your way out of its grasp. You try to assess the situation but have little time to contemplate before the next attack occurs. He’s heavier and larger than you or the other Predators and as much as you hate to admit, taking him down could prove difficult. What does he want? He thankfully hasn’t redirected his aim towards your family, and if he so desired he may have killed you by now. He retracts his claws and turns to face you once again. He’s mocking you, not even keeping his guard up. But there’s something else in his eyes, a primal urge that sends cold shivers down your spine. He’s going to make you his.

#predator #predator x reader #yautja #prey #monster x reader

[littlejuicebox]

The other kind of kink.

Written as a giveaway prize for @chaoticgoodstuff! Hope you enjoy the final version posted here! <3

Pairing: Spawn Astarion x Female Tav

Summary: Astarion didn't quite know how to form a relationship with Tav after she rejected him at the tiefling party. But he begins to realize that perhaps he has other expertise that may be of use to the woman. Namely, curly hair care.

Word Count: 4K

Tags/Warnings: fluff, sweet astarion, brief mentions of astarion's trauma/past, lightly ooc astarion, idk what else it's mostly fluff tbh lol

-----

“So which path do you think we should take, soldier? Underdark or Mountain Pass? Either way, I’m ready to slash some baddies!” Karlach says, swinging her ax for show as the two warrior women chat while Gale finishes cooking dinner. 

It would be at least another hour and the women were starving.

“Hmm…” Tav murmurs, looking up at her tiefling friend from where she had been sharpening her great sword. It certainly needed a bit of attention, after slashing through so many goblins a few days ago, “I haven’t decided yet, any suggestions?” 

Karlach shrugs and shakes her head before turning to look at Astarion, where he is perched on a log, filing his nails, not more than a few feet away, “Oi! What do you reckon, Fangs? Underdark or Mountain Pass?”

The silver-haired elf glances up from his task momentarily, assessing Tav and Karlach, scarlet eyes narrowed in thought, “Both sound equally atrocious. But if the great Archdruid Halsin said the Underdark is the safer route – which I find impossible to believe – then, I suppose that is my vote. Work smarter, not harder and all that.”

Tav nods, considering the rogue’s suggestion, and with a final rub of whetstone on metal, sheaths her great sword as she says, “Astarion’s right. Underdark, it is.”

“Well of course I’m right, darling! Aren’t I always?” Astarion responds with a pleased little chuckle as he tucks away his nail file. 

Inside, his confidence glows at the small bit of validation from their camp leader. He’d felt as if her view of him may have changed after the very awkward encounter they’d had at the tiefling party a few days ago, when he’d drunkenly propositioned her and she’d adamantly refused. He’d thought their relationship – could he call it friendship? – all but ruined after that blunder. Apparently he’d somehow misread the signs, and she wasn’t looking for sex like every other individual he’d ever known. 

Astarion had considered their prior interactions dancing on the border of flirtatious, but Tav indicated she preferred to focus on their cause, not on intermingling with her campmates. He thought Tav a bit odd after that interaction, and admittedly felt a bit insulted in the moment. He was gorgeous, why wouldn’t she jump at the opportunity he dangled in front of her? 

But, in the soberness of the following morning, Astarion decided he could work within her parameters; he’d just have to find another way to secure her favoritism. In fact, in some ways he was thankful she rejected him. 

“Yeah, yeah, you’re a genius,” Tav responds with a laugh, rolling her eyes at the rogue as she stands and stretches, “Well, I’m off to clean up before dinner, if either of you care to join?”

Karlach waves her hand dismissively, “Nah! I’ll do that after dinner. But can I borrow your whetstone for my ax?”

Tav nods at the tiefling, watching as Karlach grabs the stone and walks off toward her tent, ax in hand, before turning to address her other campmate, “And what about you, Astarion?”

The silver-haired elf shrugs and nods; at this point he’s taking any opportunity he can to spend time with Tav. The more he’s with her and gets to know her, the closer she will get to him, and the more secure he will feel. 

Or at least, that’s his only Plan B. Since Plan A went up in flames. 

He crouches to gather his bathing supplies from his pack before coming closer to the warrior woman currently waiting for him, “I suppose I could do with a bit of a bath. It isn’t hair wash day, but–” 

“It isn’t hair wash day?” Tav interjects, her eyebrows furrowing at the vampire, “You don’t wash your hair every day? Isn’t that… gross?”

The rogue pauses and blinks at the woman, tilting his head just a fraction as he assesses her, “Darling, please tell me you are not washing your hair every day. I understand on the days we are soaked in blood and guts it is a necessity… but, certainly you haven’t washed your hair every single day for the past three days when we have done nothing apart from lounge in camp and prepare to move onto the next part of our journey… right?” 

Tav cocks her head to the side, mirroring Astarion’s bewildered expression as she asks, “Should I… not be?”

That explains quite a bit, Astarion thinks, as his eyes roam over the unruly curls springing from the crown of Tav’s head. He’d thought it was perhaps an odd stylistic choice, or she simply did not care about the state of her hair, but maybe it was merely ignorance. Perhaps no one ever showed her how to care for the red, curly locks cascading like a lion’s mane around her face.

A small wave of sympathy crosses Astarion’s heart; he internally smashes it down before the wave grows into a tsunami. Best to not care too much about this woman, she could turn into a mindflayer at any moment, after all. And then he’d have to slice her to ribbons, as previously agreed upon.

“Ah.. well, darling. It isn’t wrong, exactly,” He starts, his eyes shifting away from Tav’s face as he tries to delicately address the matter, “It’s just… with a hair texture like yours, you aren’t doing yourself any favors.”

Tav simply blinks in response, her expression vacant; she is not understanding Astarion’s meaning.

The rogue sighs and shakes his head slightly. Well, he at least tried to be delicate, but that did not seem to sink in. More direct, it is. 

A vague gesture to his friend’s red curls and then Astarion explains, “Your hair is dry, Tav. That is why it is difficult to maintain and why you’ve broken more than one comb trying to drag it through that unruly mane.”

A flicker of embarrassment crosses Tav’s face and the rogue groans. He doesn’t know how to navigate feelings and friendships; his relationships with his siblings had been much less work… not that he particularly enjoyed those relationships or cared if the other spawn liked him. But he wanted Tav to like him, if only for his own motives, of course. 

“It’s really… not all that bad, darling. But perhaps I could help you, give you a few pointers? I think your hair could be quite gorgeous – your best feature, even, given the proper care. It’s rare to see a natural redhead like you, it already captures a lot of attention… let’s make it something awe-inspiring.” Astarion says, gently, his hand coming out to tug at one frizzy curl as he tries to smooth over the insult he just threw at his campmate. 

But, hells, someone had to tell her eventually. Even his siblings wouldn’t let him walk around with such unruly locks. 

“O-oh, sure, okay,” Tav agrees, still trying to overcome the embarrassment as her own hand comes to rake through her hair and gets caught in a nest of tangles, instead. She grimaces; Astarion had a point, it seemed, “Do I need to bring anything special?”

“Let me go back to my tent and grab my hair washing supplies, I’ll meet you down by the river in a bit, hm?” Astarion responds with a small smile before turning back toward his tent and disappearing within the shelter to rummage through his vast collection of shampoos, oils, perfumes, and soaps.

Tav merely hums in agreement and then heads in the opposite direction, toward the camp-designated bathing spot, towel in hand. As she’s walking, she pulls a curl in front of her eyes and examines it with a new perspective. Gods, it really was dry.

*

When Astarion makes his way to the river, he finds Tav waist-deep in the rushing water, still in her smallclothes and soaping her arms. Her back is turned to him, and the sun is catching her hair in a flattering light. Autumnal colors of red, orange, burgundy, and wine dance around her crown in the form of spiraled locks, and the elf cannot help but admire the natural beauty bestowed upon the woman.

Her hair was a gorgeous tone, reminiscent of the warmth of a fire or a deep, satisfying vintage wine. But it wasn’t just Tav’s hair that was attractive… she really was quite striking. With the woman unaware of his presence, Astarion took a quick moment to admire the rippling muscles in her back and the strong, lithe arms she used to carry her greatsword.

No one with working eyes — or eye, perhaps, —  could deny that Tav was attractive. After all, there was a reason Astarion had chosen to proposition her over the others in the first place. 

But, sex or not, the woman certainly seemed to favor him, which meant more than once since their journey began, she’d sliced clean through an enemy at his back, and fed him servings of her own blood. 

So now, it was his turn to repay her somehow, some way. And if Tav didn’t accept his physical talents, well, then at least she would accept this. 

“Hello, darling,” Astarion calls, causing the woman to turn and acknowledge him with a small smile and wave. He quickly places his bathing kit on the river bank and undresses to just his briefs before tentatively placing a foot in the water. It was warm enough to be tolerable, so the rogue shrugged and grabbed his wooden comb and conditioner before sinking into the water and wading toward his campmate. 

“Alright, now, get down into the water,” The elf directs as he shakes the small bottle of conditioner in his hands, prepping the contents.

“But I thought you said I’m not supposed to wash my hair every–” Tav begins, eyebrows furrowed in confusion as she eyes the bottle, before the displeased glare from Astarion causes the question to die on her lips. 

“Do you want my help, or do you want to continue to look like a sheep desperately in need of shearing, darling?” Astarion asks with a soft sigh as he pops the top of the bottle open and gives it a whiff, “Just bend down and trust me. Oh and here, hold these for a moment.”

Tav grabs the comb and bottle she’s offered and then does what she’s asked. When she’s shoulder-deep in the water, she feels Astarion’s hand guiding her to tip her head back. She follows the directive and is soon greeted by the vision of Astarion’s face hovering above hers, scarlet eyes intensely concentrated as he drags his hand through her curls.

“Your hair texture is a bit different from mine…” He muses idly, as he works to fully saturate the thick locks of hair on his companion’s head with water, “But this conditioner should work, for now. We’ll have to find something better suited to you, when the opportunity allows.” 

Astarion takes the comb from Tav’s hand without a word and uses the tool and his own fingers to work out some of the ever-present knots in the woman’s hair. She watches him for a moment before closing her eyes and simply allowing Astarion to work at the task. Before long, the elf is gently guiding her head back up, into a straight position, and trading the comb for the bottle.

“Close your eyes,” He directs, and Tav obliges again as the vampire places a generous amount of rosemary-scented conditioner in his hand. Then he gives the bottle back to Tav, rubs his hands together, and begins to work the creamy liquid through her hair, starting at the ends and slowly wandering up toward her scalp. About midway through he’s reaching for the bottle again, “Who knew your hair was this thick? You’re about to use up all of my favorite conditioner, darling.” 

Tav frowns slightly at this comment, trying to turn and face Astarion before he quickly redirects her head with a soft click of his tongue, “I’m sorry… I can buy you more when we run into our next merchant.”

“Oh, it’s no matter. I stole this bottle anyway– I’m sure I can steal another along the way,” Astarion says with a slight dismissive flip of his hand, “Besides, I think you need it far more than I do, right now.” 

His fingers trail up to the crown of her head as he speaks, and Tav’s eyes flutter closed once again as Astarion begins to massage the product into her roots. He moves in sections, parting her hair every few inches and attentively working the conditioner into her scalp. The sensation was quite enjoyable; if the water were a bit warmer, Tav might have fallen asleep under Astarion’s gentle, methodical touch. 

Far too quickly for her liking, Astarion completes the task and gently pats her shoulder to signal he’s done for now. He grabs his comb and what little remains of his favorite hair product from the woman. 

“You need to let that sit for a few minutes, at least, little sheep.” Astarion directs before wading back to the river bank and dropping his supplies with the rest of his things. Tav watches as he grabs his own bar of soap and begins to bathe himself.

“How did you learn about all this?” The woman calls to the rogue as she wades through the water, mostly for something to do as she waits. 

Astarion hums as he considers the question; there is a pause in the conversation as he drops his bar of soap back along the bank and uses his hand to rinse the soapy remnants along his body. Tav cannot help but follow his fingers as they graze along his chest and arms, dispersing droplets of water that drizzle down the lines of his abs and back into the river. 

“I wish I could tell you how I learned, but I can’t recall…” He murmurs, his voice sounding a bit far away as he thinks, “It feels like something ingrained in me like speaking Elvish or the ability to read, for instance; someone must have taught me… I suppose one of my parents, or someone else in my family.”

A small look of sadness flits across Tav’s face but she quickly hides it before her companion notices, knowing that Astarion will balk at anything resembling pity. She often forgets how little memory he has of his past before Cazador, how much he’d endured until now, and how much of himself he’d lost in the process of it all. He was so good at pretending to be normal and happy-go-lucky… but then, they were quite alike in that aspect, weren’t they? It was easier to be the unbothered goofball than to be anything that resembled fragility, wasn’t it? 

Tav chooses to not respond to his answer, knowing nothing she says can truly make his situation better, and instead grabs a conditioner-covered curl, “Can I rinse this now?” 

Astarion nods as he climbs out of the water and begins gathering his own things, “Yes, go rinse it out – make sure there’s none of that left in your hair, and then come find me back at camp for the next part. I’m going back — it’s growing a bit cold.”

“Next part?” Tav responds with a soft whine, watching as Astarion towels himself off, “There’s more?”

“Darling, if you want your hair to look even close to as good as mine, there is a lot of work involved. Now hurry up, so we can be done before Gale is ready to feed you whatever disastrous concoction he’s made tonight,” Astarion says, his tone a bit joking as he begins slipping into a new set of camp clothes.

The woman groans and obeys the rogue’s directions, turning away as Astarion strips off his undergarments to replace them with new ones, and wading once again toward the deeper water. Tav dunks herself down into the river and begins running her fingers through spirals of hair, massaging out any slippery residue she finds along the way. With the amount of hair she had, it took several minutes, and by the time she was finished, Astarion was already gone. The sun was just beginning to kiss the earth in its descent toward night.

Tav quickly toweled herself off and dressed. Then she wrapped her hair up in the towel, twisting it around her locks in a turban-like fashion before collecting her belongings and making the short journey back to camp.

*

“There you are, darling,” Astarion calls as he catches sight of Tav, before patting a stump near his tent, “Come over here so I can finish defining your curls.” 

Tav furrows her eyebrows in confusion, because she has no idea what Astarion means, but she’s learned to simply shut up and go along with whatever he says for this entire endeavor. As she comes closer, she notices the elf has laid out even more supplies for her hair.

Did it really require all of this?

She sighs and takes a seat. Astarion immediately sets to work, placing a dollop of some sort of creamy pomade-like mixture in his hand and working it through her hair again. After that, he begins sectioning her hair into pieces, directing Tav every once and a while to hold this or that piece as he combs through her locks. 

“Ouch–” Tav hisses as the elf seems to be pulling at the base of her scalp. She moves to jerk away and Astarion huffs impatiently behind her, one of his hands coming to press against her forehead and prevent her movements. 

“Darling, for gods sakes, hold still.There isn’t beauty without a bit of pain, and honestly, for such a warrior, you’re being a wimp,” he chastises before continuing on with the task.

“What are you doing?” Tav asks through a sharp intake of breath, scrunching her eyes closed as she tries to endure the uncomfortable sensation of her hair being repeatedly tugged at the root. 

“Defining your curls, dear. I’m twisting them around my finger, see?” Astarion responds before coming in front of her and pulling a piece so he can demonstrate the process. Tav watches with a mixture of interest and confusion as he continues, “This will help all your curls to look more uniform. But seeing as you’ve done very little to your hair in all this time, I suppose it would make sense that you’re a bit tender-headed. I promise I am trying to be gentle.” 

Tav grimaces as Astarion continues his task, letting out little squeaks of pain that the rogue pointedly ignores. Eventually, Karlach comes over to return the whetstone she borrowed. The tiefling lingers to chat, which distracts Tav just enough to mostly forget about the pain in her scalp. When Astarion announces he’s done, the woman is genuinely surprised and moves to touch her hair; she is met with a quick swat from the elf.

“Ah-ah!” He admonishes before grabbing a bottle and spraying her hair with another rosemary scented product, “You can’t touch it until it’s completely dry.” 

“Why the hell not?” Tav groans again, suddenly growing impatient. Her stomach growls, and she sighs as she realizes she is also growing hangry. 

“You’ll undo all my hard work! Just wait.” Astarion responds as he stows away all his beauty products, “And anyway, it looks like Gale is just about done with dinner. We can go sit by the fire as you eat and that will dry your hair faster.”

*

Dinner was… acceptable. Gale did the best he could with the two rabbits Astarion hunted that morning, a handful of potatoes, one onion, and a couple of carrots. They did not have the luxury of seasonings most of the time, so it was quite typical for the nightly stews to taste gamey… tonight was no exception. 

Astarion takes a few drinks from Tav’s wrist after she finishes dinner. Once he retracts his fangs from her flesh, he lifts his hand to gently feel her curls. After a moment assessing his creation, he grins at the woman and says, “They’re finally dry, darling. Took long enough, hm? Now, let’s get you in front of a mirror so you can see my masterpiece.” 

Tav is flabbergasted by what she sees in the mirror. For the first time in… well, ever, her hair looks like it belongs to one of the beautiful maidens in an oil painting. Her hand comes up to gently touch the soft, spiraled locks and confirm that this perfect head of hair is, in fact, on her head and not somebody else's. 

“What do you think?” Astarion prompts, his voice containing the smallest bits of apprehension as he lifts a hand to fuss with Tav’s hair, placing it just so.

“It’s great,” Tav responds, her face breaking into a wide smile that causes the tension in Astarion’s shoulders to dissipate, “Thank you… really.” 

Astarion smiles and nods, suddenly unsure how to respond to the genuine gratitude in Tav’s voice. So instead he chuckles a bit and rolls his eyes before saying, “What on earth would you do without me?”

“Continue to look like a sheep in need of shearing, I guess,” Tav jokes, sticking her tongue out as she gently bumps her elbow into Astarion’s rib in jest, “That was mean, by the way.”

“I prefer honest, darling,” Astarion quips with a small chuckle, his fingers still fussing with the woman’s curls, “And anyway, you no longer look like a little sheep. You look beautiful.” 

Tav is not used to being called beautiful. Strong or brave, perhaps, but beautiful… never. Until now. The compliment catches her off guard and her eyes widen for just a moment. The elf notices her shock and his brows crinkle as he pauses the primping to analyze the woman’s face. 

“Certainly you know you’re beautiful…” The rogue continues, his hands starting to work at the curls again, “I’m sure I’m not the only–”

Astarion trails off when Tav shakes her head from side to side as her face begins to blush, the shade of her skin suddenly resembling the shade of her hair. Her voice is quiet, and crackling with a bit of emotion as she says, “No one says that. They just call me strong, or brave… or fierce.”

The elf tilts his head to the side as his eyes roam across Tav’s face once again. How interesting, he thought, to be lauded for things apart from your beauty. He’d never experienced such a thing, himself… though he thinks he would like to. But it almost appeared as if Tav had the reverse experience to his. 

“Well… surely you can be strong and beautiful, hm?” Astarion asks with a raised eyebrow, trying once again to smooth out the awkwardness he felt creeping between them, though he didn’t exactly know why it often felt like that. He moves to affectionately tug another lock of Tav’s hair and smiles playfully, “And with hair like this, dear, no one can deny your beauty. It would be an insult to my skills, frankly.” 

Tav snorts a laugh at this, eliciting a genuine, fang-filled grin from the rogue. Then he produces a bandana from his pocket and flourishes it in front of the woman, “Now let’s get your hair wrapped up. I’m exhausted and I want to go to bed, but I will not allow you to ruin my masterpiece overnight with all your thrashing about in your bedroll. You’re quite noisy, you know? And you snore.”

“I do not!” Tav protests as Astarion clicks his tongue at her and shakes his head, all while bundling her curls into the bandana and deftly tying a knot to keep it all in place. 

“You’re a terrible liar, dear, I’m surprised your nose isn’t growing this instant,” The elf murmurs, his finger coming to affectionately boop the woman’s nose before he bids goodnight and wanders back to his tent for bed.

Tav rubs her own nose as she yawns and heads back to her own tent, on the other side of camp. She tucks herself into her bedroll and smiles as she stares up at the canvas ceiling of her shelter. Someone really said she was beautiful; a small giggle escapes her lips as she thinks about it. 

Before long, Tav falls asleep. And for the first time in a while, she sleeps peacefully, without any thrashing about or snoring. Perhaps it was because her hair – and her heart – were both impeccably well-taken care of tonight. 

#astarion fanfic #astarion fic #astarion x tav #bg3 fanfiction #astarion x female tav #astarion x tav fluff #astarion fluff #astarion oneshot #astarion fanfiction #tav x astarion

[janearts]

Loved reading your thoughts for Roisia's companion quest! Do you have any thoughts on how Roisia would resolve the situation with her father while she is the protagonist? Would one of her companions (like Wyll or Karlach, perhaps) notice that her father is unhappy as he is and remark on it, which could help sway her in one or another direction? Or are you just letting all of the possible resolutions live as nebulously-canon at this point? (I'd be so curious to know how she'd feel about the Avatar of Kelemvor asking her to kill Astarion who she romanced, were she put in that situation.)

[The ask refers to these thoughts on Roisia as a companion.]

Thank you!! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I've answered your questions below the read-more.

Do you have any thoughts on how Roisia would resolve the situation with her father while she is the protagonist?

Roisia would be oblivious to the fact that her father is deeply unhappy with the current state of affairs. Roisia is too fixated on the fact that he's here again and she gets to have more time with her father (her gain) than on the fact that his life in the here and now is fundamentally different from how it used to be (his loss).

Unfortunately, Roisia would not resolve the situation with her father because she's not aware there is a situation to be resolved.

Would one of her companions (like Wyll or Karlach, perhaps) notice that her father is unhappy as he is and remark on it, which could help sway her in one or another direction?

I thought that Wyll would gravitate to Roisia's mother since they're both monster hunters or Yasmin was at one point anyway. (Yasmin can show him the trophy room!) I see the same thing happening with Karlach. I thought that Shadowheart or Halsin would be more intuitive when it came to Jairus, but I also considered that Astarion might clue in as well as an "undead creature" himself. I don't know if any of them would remark on it to Roisia, however. If they did, my concern would be that Roisia would persist in the belief that the solution to her father's unhappiness is the true restoration of flesh and bone rather than asking him if he would prefer a merciful death at this point.

Or are you just letting all of the possible resolutions live as nebulously-canon at this point?

100%. As far as I'm concerned, all of the resolutions I outlined are possible, but none of the resolutions are canon. (Or they're nebulously-canon as you've said.) I scripted what I thought could happen if Larian were to say, "Hey, I need you to write a companion quest for Roisia that has a beginning, middle, and an end." But as an artist outside of that hypothetical scenario, I definitely like to live in the middle of the story.

(I'd be so curious to know how she'd feel about the Avatar of Kelemvor asking her to kill Astarion who she romanced, were she put in that situation.)

By my own fictional parameters, I played a game in which I encouraged Roisia to pursue Necromancy, which means that she is deeply, deeply familiar with the spark of humanity that lies within the undead. She has tried to wheedle information out of Withers, reunited Mayrina with her undead husband, freed Thrumbo and his zombie compatriots from their mummy lord, she's talked with ghouls and ghasts, and has freed Astarion from his vampire master.

So even if she hadn't romanced Astarion, she would still deny the Avatar of Kelemvor because the undead aren't just glorified field experiments to her, they're fully-fledged people in their own right, worthy of care and having a voice in their own destiny.

The fact that she romanced Astarion just adds angst to the picture because she would be asked to choose between two [undead] people whom she loves very dearly. She so very badly wants to restore her father to how he was when he was alive and a part of her still wants to be a Cleric of Kelemvor, but she wouldn't be able to bring herself to kill Astarion. (Which he knew. Of course. Naturally. Didn't have a single doubt or a flicker of fear in his mind at all.)

#Baldur's Gate 3 #BG3 #BG3 AU #BG3 Roisia #Astarion #Astarion Ancunin #BG3 Spoilers #Act III Spoilers

[left-reminders]

(Below are broad vibes for each of the numbers. They are not meant to represent every opinion one could have within those parameters. Some aspects of the description may apply to you while others won't. If you picked a number with a description that doesn't match your perspective, let us know what your actual perspective is in a reblog comment! Comments in general are nice too, of course 👍)

(You also might notice a bias in favor of 5; or at least a far deeper description of what it would entail when compared against the other four. This is partly just because I wanted to soapbox, but I hope it doesn't detract. I genuinely want to hear the perspectives of the 1s, 2s, and 3s, if you're out there and don't appreciate my potential oversimplification!)

1 — It does not factor in at all. Much of the discourse around green politics is a liberal distraction and/or a roadblock holding us back from organizing for socialism. Economic development and human concerns will always matter more. Capitalism was a necessary/justifiable component in the march of history towards socialism, even if it did have certain negative impacts on the environment. The ideal society looks like Star Trek or fully-automated luxury communism (FALC) — one where we overcome "the state of nature" and become masters of our own fate.

2 — It doesn't factor in much, even if I may recognize the reality of climate change and/or the need for environmental protections. We can solve the biggest climate problems with advancements in green technology or perhaps expanding resource frontiers into outer space. In general, other social issues take priority when building socialism.

3 — I care about combating climate change and solving ecological problems, but I find other issues to be more important in my life and I will leave most discussion of it to people more knowledgeable on the subject. The world could be doing far better on these issues and changes are needed, but most of the modern civilizational infrastructure should remain unchanged (albeit organized under a socialist mode of production).

4 — It is very important to my politics. We can balance socialistic technological development with the dire needs of a planet in crisis. Certain human activities and production methods will have to be curbed or eliminated entirely if we are to find this balance (fossil fuels, widget production, private jets, etc), while others will have to be uplifted (renewable energy, public transportation, shared living, etc). Modern civilization is ultimately redeemable, but it needs to undergo a radical transformation.

5 — It is among the most important factors in my politics. I take influence from eco-socialism, social ecology, degrowth, post-civ, anti-civ, deep ecology, or any number of other political perspectives which are ecologically-focused. Locally-organized economies; drastic reductions in working hours and energy throughput; rewilding of the land; emphasis on non-consumptive forms of leisure; an end to consumerism, growth-based economic metrics, and imperial conceptions of "development"; agroecology and polyculture as core methods for obtaining food; and a vast deconstruction of much of the civilizational edifice are all pieces to this puzzle and are required if we are going to have a habitable planet for the generations to come. The ideal society looks like a Miyazaki film, that yogurt commercial, or lightly-automated comfortable ecological socialism (LACES) — one where we "don't seek to become larger within socialism, but rather more realized" (Joel Kovel).

[dwellordream]

female adultery in ASOIAF and why it's not akin to modern day cheating

frequently fans insist on treating adultery within the world of ASOIAF as it it were the same as modern day infidelity. this, of course, ignores the fact that most marriages among the nobility of Westeros are arranged.

this does not mean every marriage is miserable, of course, but there is significantly less emotional attachment between the couple beforehand, unless they have known one another since childhood.

with that said, fans quite often do use this argument in defense of adultery- not for wives, but for husbands. a frequent claim put out is that men like Rhaegar, for example, don't owe their wives any loyalty because the marriage was not their choice. while technically, yes, no one is mandated to love their spouse or to respect an inherently broken marriage system, this ignores the fact that a woman like Elia is not free to carry on an affair the way her husband would be. women's bodies and sexualities are far more policed than men's in Westeros.

even with her husband's permission to take a lover on the side, most women would face extreme social ostracization and scorn if they were found out to be having affairs. and especially for the wives of princes and kings, this carries the weight of treason, because it puts into question the parentage of any royal heirs. Elia could have been outright killed if she was found to have a lover, regardless of Rhaegar's personal feelings on the matter.

the vague exception to this rule would be in the case of a woman like Genna Lannister, who is considered to have been forced to marry 'beneath her station', to a Frey, and thus, the jokes and insinuations that she may be cheating on Emmon do not carry quite the same weight. yet even so, I doubt Genna Lannister would ever openly announce she had a lover or directly discuss having an affair with her husband.

to go back to my original point, I am far more interested in female adultery than male. this is primarily because one of the few ways most Westerosi noblewomen can fight back against a forced or arranged match, or against an abusive or neglectful husband, is to secretly pursue their own pleasure and ambitions with a lover.

that is not to say that I think cheating is moral in these situations, but it is certainly not the same as a modern day woman having a fling while her husband is oblivious. a woman like Cersei, for example, did not choose to marry Robert. she was initially happy to become queen, but she quickly became disillusioned with her marriage, and Robert proved an extremely abusive and contemptuous husband.

Cersei cannot divorce or leave Robert, and even if she attempted to, would likely lose all contact with her children. nor does her family support the idea of her ending her marriage. given these parameters, Cersei cheating on Robert is simply not the same as it would be in a modern AU.

similarly, Rhaenyra is often bashed by the fandom for likely carrying on an affair with Harwin Strong during her marriage to Laenor. while there is zero indication in F&B or HOTD that Laenor was ever abusive or cruel to Rhaenyra, we know she did not freely choose to marry him. while HOTD presents the match as something Rhaenyra accepts and tries to use to her advantage, in F&B, Rhaenyra initially strongly protests the marriage until her father threatens to disown her if she does not accept Laenor as a husband.

in F&B, Laenor and Rhaenyra's marriage is depicted as stable but distant. the couple does not spend much time together and while Laenor appears to have tolerated Rhaenyra's relationship with Harwin, and to have had his own lovers, he obviously expected Rhaenyra to still have children who would be publicly presented as his offspring.

outside of any arguments over Rhaenyra's actions during the Dance or her time as reigning Queen, was Rhaenyra wrong to pursue a relationship outside her marriage, and to claim the children from that relationship as legitimate? I don't think so. 'legitimacy' is a construct of the feudal system in ASOIAF. while this doesn't mean it doesn't cause real trauma and pain, both to children raised knowing they are bastards, children who are accused of being bastards, and women who are expected to silently tolerate their husbands potentially pitting their own children against one another, it is not, actually 'real'.

Rhaenyra's sons are still her sons. her sexuality and personal autonomy shouldn't, outside of the context of the story, actually be something she is judged on. so it is strange to me when people insist that Rhaenyra having an affair or claiming her sons as legitimate is openly tyrannical or malevolent. there is plenty to criticize her character on- much as there is plenty to criticize Cersei on- but choosing to defy the institutions around her is not one of those critiques that should be valid.

#valyrianscrolls

[comradekatara]

What are the ATLA ppl's fav pseudoscience?

okay so this is a really funny question because obviously many of the atla characters do already strongly believe in things that we would classify as pseudoscience, but also because they live in an entirely different cosmology, some of what we label pseudoscience (see: ty lee's whole deal) is in fact plausible within the world they inhabit. and there are also degrees of plausibility. we see phrenology practiced (by professor zei in "the desert") but we as the audience are expected to be critical of the practice (at least... i hope!), or while katara buys into fortunetelling wholeheartedly, sokka's skepticism is also given credence. and then the concept of qi is like. integral to the fabric of the show. so i'm instead going to frame this as "their favorite pseudoscience within my modern au" because otherwise it would simply get far too confusing.

aang would probably be into cryptozoology. i don't really have much to say here, i think he'd just believe in nessie and sasquatch and mothman because why not. makes the world more magical, yknow?

katara obviously buys into astrology and palm reading and stuff of that ilk. but it's not just a fun little game for her, like she does genuinely believe it's 100% real. and she has gotten into some really terrible fights with sokka over this. (almost as bad, in fact, as their blowout fight over whether or not pluto ought to be reclassified as a planet, wherein katara was so deeply offended by sokka's claim that "the classification of pluto is not a social justice issue, except for perhaps in the sense that you sound like a conservative right now" that she dramatically declared that she was disowning him as her brother.)

sokka's role is basically to personify/embody the scientific method so him believing in pseudoscience is antithetical to his mo. that said, i guess you could say he believed in gendered bioessentialism, but even then he changes his mind the second he is presented with data that disconfirms his paradigm, so it's more honest to state that he wouldn't really "believe in" anything since that's not how he approaches the world in the first place.

toph tries acupuncture with aang in "nightmares and daydreams," and also is a walking polygraph, so let's just go with that.

suki's a dyke so she knows the basics of her birth chart just by nature of being in those circles, but she also knows better than to mention that around sokka, because she fears that he would dump her on the spot if she admitted to knowing that she's a "taurus moon."

zuko becomes convinced over the course of his life that iroh knows everything there is to know about everything, all because of that one time iroh said "maybe you shouldn't live with your father?" and zuko was like "YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!!!' and ever since he has regretted that argument so much that he has fully bought into tcm, but also doesn't really understand it himself, so he kind of just blathers on about "hot versus cold foods" or whatever, but in a way that it's clear that he's just putting words together in a poor man's facsimile of his uncle.

mai likes to fuck with people by claiming that she genuinely believes in humor theory. she'll be like "my, doesn't someone possess an excess of black bile today?" and revel in alienating everyone around her. i mean, she doesn't actually believe in it, but by the parameters of your question, it is nonetheless her favorite pseudoscience.

despite what you might be expecting me to say, ty lee's favorite pseudoscience is actually psychology.

and azula's favorite pseudoscience is eugenics, obviously. she can't get enough of the stuff.

#bigpansy #asks #the gaang and #modern au #sort of #i think this post is gonna alienate everyone actually #so youre kind of sick and twisted for asking it of me in the first place #although maybe thats on me for answering it #lmao

[i-am-the-oyster]

I can’t remember where I heard it and it’s driving me a bit insane and was wandering if you knew since your like a Beatle encyclopedia. Have you heard or know of a quote that said Paul had Linda on a “tight leash” and that she felt unhappy but stayed for the kids ? And something along the lines of Linda not having money of her own cause paul was in charge of all of it ?

Hello nonny! Thank you for the lovely compliment. Unless you meant to say that, like any Beatles encyclopedia, I am full of inaccuracies and unjustified opinions. :)

I must admit I am very skeptical of a lot of the negative takes on Paul and Linda's marriage. They get accused of claiming it was idyllic, but the only times I've seen either of them speak about their relationship it was always in very realistic terms like: "we're not perfect", "we argue", "we have to work at our relationship".

I have heard references to Paul being controlling and tight with money, but not from any sources I considered particularly reliable.

It is my firm belief that despite their unique circumstances, they had a reasonably normal relationship that they worked hard on. Did they sometimes upset and disappoint one another? Of course. Did they go through phases where one or other thought they might leave? Most likely (show me any 3 decade marriage where no-one ever considered leaving). Is Paul a bit of a misogynist? Yes, but within normal parameters for the time he grew up, and with some really remarkable streaks of empathy.

Was Paul monstrous towards Linda? I just don't believe it. Linda doesn't act like someone on a tight leash, in my opinion. She shows confident resistance to Paul's bullshit in plenty of Wings interviews, and his response is not (as far as I can tell) that of an abuser who will get her back for it later.

As someone who has also chosen to prioritise caring for my kids over my own career goals, Linda is a bit of a hero of mine. I object to the way her choices are treated (in some corners of the fandom) as something imposed on her.

#i hope that answers your question nonny

[clove-pinks]

Once again I am asking you to read fashion historian Cassidy Percoco's Twitter thread about changes in men's fashion in the 18th and 19th centuries.

It's a quick read and informative! In brief:

Men's fashion became more subdued over the course of the 18th century

Beau Brummell had nothing to do with the move away from earlier styles

I quote: "Brummell made his name by wearing the hell out of what already was considered fashionable - working within the parameters of normal dress"

Colourful men's fashion was a thing for most of the 19th century!!!! It didn't go away in the Regency period!!!!

Stop with the long-debunked "Beau Brummell ruined men's fashion" canard, I'm begging you.

I looked up this "Great Male Renunciation" concept, since I have never heard of such a thing even in books dedicated to the history of men's fashion, and surprise! It was coined by a psychologist in 1930!

One of the sources cited by Wikipedia is Nicholas Storey's book History of Men's Fashion: What the Well-dressed Man is Wearing, which I own, and it's so dull and lazy and awful that I still haven't moved it to my new apartment. The author is literally a British barrister with no academic background in dress history, who openly admits to not owning more than two fashion history books in a 2013 interview, and that checks out with what I remember about his book: his opinionated blather on what he thinks is a good man's suit, as a rich lawyer guy.

I'm not saying that you couldn't find more respectable sources to support the "Great Male Renunciation" idea, but I don't think it's very supported by the historical record. You can say a lot about changing fashions and ideas about masculinity without setting up an over-hyped and dramatic break from past styles.

#fashion history #dress history #beau brummell #great male renunciation #historical men's fashion #18th century #19th century #also if OP sees this hi i am one of the Appear in an Illustration supporters of dandies & dandyzettes #love your work!

[deathbypufferfish]

Here's the second list but for story ideas for the sims!

This list is comprised of ideas that have to do with storylines, scenarios, character dynamics, conflicts, character attributes, and more! Of course you can technically do whatever you want in a sims story, but this list is curated to story ideas that can in some way be played out in-game. Whether it's through the game, mods, or imagination. A lot of these are not wholesome lol, if you are looking for more wholesome story ideas I recommend my gameplay list. Please feel free to add to the story soup! Just note in your ask it is for the soup and keep it within the parameters I mentioned above. (To keep the post from getting too long I'll make a contributor list into a compressed image later on for those who send off-anon.)

If you are looking for sims gameplay centered ideas check out the Gameplay Gumbo list here!

🍲 Soup below the cut! ⬇

Conflict:

Money loss from gambling

A character is addicted to shoplifting

A huge fight at a wedding, funeral, large event etc.

Financial difficulties

Miscommunication

Drop out of or fail university

Drop out or fail out of high school

Shit talk a friend/family member

Loss of job

Failed business

Blackmail

Death of family member/friend/love interest

A character is caught cheating on their partner and is blackmailed for it.

Arson (fireworks indoors)

A character steals money from another/asks for a large loan and never pays it back

Betrayal from a friend

Character spirals after a break up

Evicted from home/apartment

House fire

Love:

A forgotten anniversary

Meet Cute: two characters meet on a train

Side character is caught cheating

Meet Cute: two characters meet when one of them finds the other’s lost pet

Child out of infidelity (keep it a secret for a long time or get caught)

Divorce (amicable or messy)

A celebrity character falls in love with their bodyguard

A potential love interest is rich kid looking for someone to make their life more “interesting”

Have a couple have a huge fight and makeup

A rejected proposal

Best friends/siblings have feelings for the same person

Character has a fear of commitment

A best friend is moving away and your character has to confess their love to them

Enemies to lovers

Competitive coworkers turned lovers

A couple breaks up over one of them losing all their money

Start a throuple/open relationship (Open Love Life Mod)

Be the other person in someone’s affair

Have an affair

A reluctant partner abandons their partner when they get pregnant (Good with Relationship & Pregnancy Overhaul Mod)

Runaway bride/groom/partner

Bridezilla

Running away together

Meet the parents

Affair

Partner lied about who they are

Accidental kiss

Fake relationship

Enemies to lovers

Forbidden love

Give an old relationship a second chance

Unrequited Love

Divorced couple getting back together (possibly secretly/affair)

Secret Admirer

Vegas/Drunk wedding

Secretly in love with partner’s friend/family member

Love triangle leads to throuple

Rocky marriage

Couple that refuses to divorce

Have a one night stand (Simda Dating App)

Friends who are in denial about being in love

Trophy Wife/Husband/Partner

Couple wants different things

Couple from different social class/different worlds

Married because of an unexpected pregnancy

Married too young

A couple married for a long time having intimacy problems

Happy or unhappy couple has separate rooms/beds

A marriage doesn’t last long

Bromance turns into romance

Childhood friends to lovers later in life

Clingy, jealous partner

Family:

Someone abandons the family

Annoying/Terrible in-laws

Overbearing/Overprotective parent

Neglectful parent

Having to choose between your partner and your family who dislikes them

Bad sibling relationships

Conflict-avoidant family (buries all their problems)

Disagreeing on how to parent

A child is getting bullied by their peers

Strained Parent/Teen relationship

Teen Pregnancy (Supportive or Unsupportive family. Good with Relationship & Pregnancy Mod)

Found family

Blended family

Multi-generational family

Tension between step-parent and step-children

Tension between step-siblings

Chaos children

Tension between the favorite child and their siblings

Sudden or unexpected baby (possibly from one night stand/fling)

Secret baby from old relationship

Amicable exes who co-parent well together

Nepotism

Dysfunctional family

Breaking the cycle of bad parenting

Cool Uncle/Cool Aunt

Children being raised by family other than their parents (aunt, uncle, sibling, grandparents)

Single parent

Divorced parent who spoils their kids

Disowned child/parent

Embarrassing Parent

Parent prioritizes work over family/partner

Family Curse

Humble parents, spoiled kids

Child wants to be nothing like their parent(s)

Platonic co-parenting

Secret family

Sibling jealousy

My Favorite Mods for Storytelling:

Simda Dating App

Contextual Social Interactions

First Impressions

LGBTQIA+ Mod

Open Love Life

Relationship & Pregnancy Overhaul

Wicked Whims (18+, mod not linked)

Basemental Drugs (18+, mod not linked)

Resources Used

List is added to when I have new ideas so check in time-to-time for more!

#the sims 4 #ts4 #ts4 ideas #ts4 story #sims 4 #simblr #sims 4 ideas #ts4 resource #ts4 inspo #ts4 gameplay #puffer's story soup #another fat ass list for y'all #you can see why i split the lists #because they're long #and this one has blackmail and the other one has movie nights so

[morose-marble]

Incoherent ramble bc I have the brain worms about Apo

I am very annoying and also unwell, which is why I have taken to scrubbing through a not-insubstantial amount of episodes from Apo's lakorns (without subtitles) to form some kind of picture of what kind of roles he was cast in while employed by channel 3, and sending screen caps to literally anyone with a messaging app in my immediate social circle (they are in hell, thanks for asking). So, now that I have run out of people to torment with my obsessive tendencies, I am left with posting into the void on good ole tungle dot com.

So far, it seems that Apo's bread and butter was a wholesome, boy next door, nong type character (this is based on quite shaky interpretations of Sut Khaen Saen Rak, Buang Banjathorn, Chaat Payak and Prakasit Khammatep) with some exceptions, such as Tiang in Chat Suer Pun Mungkorn, a hot-headed young gangster. These aside, I have not yet formed a comprehensive understanding of his profile as an actor, as I can't seem to get my hands on some of the dramas at all.

The aforementioned roles were all supporting ones, and I could only find episodes for one of his two lead parts, that of Pong Khun Boon Jirakit in Pra Teap Rak Hang Jai, an enemies to lovers story(?). His character sells artisanal traditional Thai silk(?) and ends up falling for a rich woman (Preeyakarn Jaikanta) down on her luck who needs to become independent and better herself as a person(?). Quite a straightforward premise. (He wears a bunch of plaid in the show, he looks uncomfortable.)

Now. What I have noticed about Apo's career in supporting parts is that the male leads he supports are very...narrowly masculine, in comparison to him. Apo has talked about having faced homophobia/general cishet discriminatory nonsense in the industry at that time, and flicking through these shows really illuminates how rigid the concept of a lakorn romantic male lead was (maybe still is, I don't know). Obviously, I gathered that lakorn gender roles were a tad more conservative, but I still struggled slightly with understanding why Apo was treated the way he was, bc I feel like he is relatively conventionally masculine (my european perspective impacts my perception of what constitutes normative gender roles, I know) to the point where picking up on any ~queer~ vibes would be a gays only event. However, I feel like I get it a bit better now.

Apo is very handsome. He is also beautiful in a way that a lot of these leads aren't. They are pointedly conventionally masculine, not necessarily hypermasculine, but going towards that direction, something that is emphasised by their role in the narrative and acting style. Lots of stoicism and displays of quiet suffering and anger. I know, it's very reductive to place gendered presentations onto a spectrum etc etc, but if one were to operate within rigidly delineated binary requirements for gender presentation that exist in media (and society, there's nuance), Apo does not quite fit the criteria of a leading man within the given parameters. Which is terrible, of course. I can absolutely understand why Apo got fed up with the industry and decided to leave it all behind.

Additionally, as pointed out above with the repeated archetypal character traits, I feel that he did not get to flex his acting muscles in the narratives of these shows, which is another thing he has commented on, though maybe not in those words exactly.

Thinking about all of this makes his recent successes with Kinnporsche and Man Suang terribly interesting and delicious. I recognise that narrativising a celebrity's experiences as an affective story like this is mad parasocial brain rot behaviour, but the idea of him taking something that he was disparaged for earlier on in his career (perceived queerness) and turning it into a factor of him surpassing that which held him back is very attractive in a story sense. Like, what a triumph?

I'm not sure if any of this makes sense or if this is completely old news to everyone, but for some reason I had to get it out somewhere. I'll probably read this back in the morning and cringe mightily.

Anyway. What an interesting time to follow his advancement and the changes in the Thai BL industry, namely the increased attention from the government. I have fears, but I don't know how to articulate them yet. Therefore, I will focus on enjoyment for the time-being.

#apo nattawin #man suang #shine the series #kinnporsche #kinnporsche the series #mileapo

[blu3cl0v3rs]

Heyyyyy. I have a Ninjago theoryyyyy.

So, I'm pretty sure it's said/implied in Season 14 that FSM didn't create the realm of Ninjago, but rather he showed up and then created the continents of Ninjago and the Dark Island, which eventually split to seal away the Overlord.

Now, we also know from Season 6 that sister realms exist, because the Cursed Realm and Djinjago are sister realms. I read somewhere that people think these two have no similarities, but that conversation will be shelved for now.

I think Cloud Kingdom and Ninjago are sister realms.

Why do I think that? First off, the only destinies we've seen Cloud Kingdom work on so far has been people in Ninjago or the Cloud Kingdom. Not saying that it isn't possible that they write destinies for other realms, just thst we haven't seen it yet.

Now, remember that conversation we shelved? Yeah, my cat knocked it off the shelf and splayed it out on the table, so now let's talk about the "relations" (?) between the Cursed Realm and Djinjago, and how that can sort of apply to Cloud Kingdom and Ninjago.

First off, let's think about what the Cursed Realm and Djinjago literally are. The Cursed Realm is the place where you get sent to when you've done many horrible things in your life, and get placed into what I assume is a brutal, choiceless dictatorship, judging by the cages and chains we see. Djinjago is a land filled with djin's, people similar to genies that can grant three wishes for you.

The Cursed Realm strips you of your choices, while Djinjago essentially makes your choices limitless (within the three wish parameters, of course). Their inhabitants (from what we've seen from Seasons 5 & 6) are very cruel and manipulative. They have strong similarities and opposites.

So, how does this apply to Ninjago and Cloud Kingdom? First off, Ninjago and Djinjago rhyme, and Cloud Kingdom and the Cursed Realm are two words, thee first word starting with a "C" and the second word being some form of big location. Second, Ninjago was originally a realm completely covered by water, and Cloud Kingdom is literally a kingdom in the clouds! What's more opposite than the sky and the sea??

Speaking of the sky and the sea, the two elements the FSM never mastered were wind and water. Wind being sky aka Cloud Kingdom and being very tied into destiny (cough cough Morro who literally rewrote destiny and Euphrasia who is a destiny writer cough cough), and water being sea aka Ninjago. Yeah, Wojira basically controlled both, but she's a serpent that has dragonlike wings.

My conclusion? Cloud Kingdom and Ninjago are sister realms, because I've found evidence that supports my theory and none that disproves it.

Sorry for any typos, I am eepy.

#ninjago #lego ninjago #morro ninjago #morro master of wind #euphrasia ninjago #ninjago theory #theory #ninjago season 5 #ninjago possession #ninjago season 6 #ninjago skybound #ninjago seabound #cursed realm #cloud kingdom