#I cannot be saved from this old fixation

[lances-wormhole]

The Klance brain rot is slowly overtaking me again. It’s too late for me now

[shirefantasies]

Hi 🍄your work is so incredible! You’re literally keeping my hobbit/Tolkien hyper-fixation alive. I was wondering if you would want to write a first kiss situation with thorins company/hobbit characters? I hope your surgery goes well and you have a easy and speedy recovery!

Thank you what an honor omg!!! Man the surgery itself was ok but everything after was NOT IT 😭 so glad to be doing better now! This is a great idea & I sure do want to write it🫡😁 sorry it took so long because this request is apparently like 5 months old 🥲

Warning: loooooong post lololol, minor blood/injury mentions, some suggestive jokes/moments, corny at times hehe

Your First Kiss With the Hobbit Characters

Balin

“You can’t keep running off like that, you know.” Fingers closed around your wrist, but not so tightly as to provide entrapment, rather a secure anchor. Secure as the comfort of Balin’s deep brown gaze, something deep sparkling in his eyes you could never find elsewhere. Beads of sweat slid down your back as your breathing slowed, the adrenaline of battle washing away. Balin knew that feeling, saw it in you. “I know,” you answered, chest falling with a hard exhale, “But I can hardly leave everyone resigned to their fate when I can help.” It was then Balin’s turn to sigh. “I know, too,” he told you, rotating his grip around your wrist so the back of your hand was enveloped in his palm, “I suppose I am just being selfish.” Some number of seconds of you gaping passed before you managed to stutter out three words. “Does that mean…?” “Aye,” was all he said as he squeezed your hand, glancing down until you cupped his cheek, bringing his gaze back into yours before tugging him into your lips for one last adrenaline wave.

Dwalin

"You?" "Were you expecting Mahal himself?" You chirp in response, leaning on your hand and giving Dwalin a catlike smile. Unfazed, he continues. "What are you doing here?" "What do you think?" You answer with a question of your own, this one far less teasing. Softer. "You can't keep coming back. This is dangerous." Dangerous, he says as if it is not he who lies in a healer's tent with a broken arm freshly set and Valar know how many other bandages. Pain and pity cross your expression as you peer down at the warrior, rest your palm over his tattooed hand. "I can't lose you, too," he adds, gaze drifting from yours and eyelashes fluttering downward sheepishly, "You are far too precious. Too pure." Rosy glow overtakes you, shining outward through your smile and into your fingers, which spread to interlock with Dwalin's. "And too foolish, I suppose, for you, Master Dwalin, will never be rid of me. Do not let yourself be taken by such folly, for nothing is purer than you deserve, my hero." You feel his hand flex beneath you; his eyes finally flicker back upward before darting back shut as he leans up, cupping your cheek with his free hand. You taste salt and breaths of anticipation, war, relief, and love all in one. Pure indeed.

Thorin

A gasp startled you out of your dazed stare into the night, fire flickering at your back as you watched over empty hills. Turning your back to it, you returned your attention to those whom you presided over, protected for the night. The sight of Thorin bolting upright gave you pause, but soon you were at his side. “Are you alright?” “…Yes.” The king-to-be would not meet your eyes, his gaze falling into the shadows the fire cast upon his countenance. “Look at me.” Your command alone was enough to snap his head up; never had you spoken so to him or used do broken a tone. Thorin’s brows furrowed. “Worry not. It was just a dream.” “That was no dream,” you shot back, all but whispering. “No.” Thorin smiled wryly. “Sometimes it all comes back. I see it in the night when I cannot fight. I am helpless to it all. They cannot be saved. Then I wake and I wonder if it is to be so.” “No,” you laid your hand over his, “This weight is not yours alone. All of us are here with you, right? I am here with you.” A genuine smile crossed Thorin’s face, a shake of his head in wonder followed by a slow nod. “Thank you.” “Of course,” you answer. As you shifted, Thorin tightened his grip on your hand. “Stay.” “I will,” you told him, “I will.” “Good.” Not another word passed between your lips before they connected, passing over each other in moonlit words unspoken.

Oin

You hadn't even realized you were wounded at first. Shock overtaking you, you had run across the battlefield in pursuit of your comrades, only for them to gape and point at the blood seeping from your leg. You were fine, you assured them, but having none of it they hoisted you up over one shoulder each and dragged you over to a healer's tent, by which point a sharp sting had begun coursing up the expanse of your right leg. You were lowered down onto the tent's cushion-lain floor with it extended, and only when you looked up were you made aware of the familiar face before you. "Oin!" At your exclamation, the healer looked up and gave such a smile of recognition that your heart flipped. He spoke your name, too, although he did not match your enthusiasm, instead calling out with worry. "It's all right," you reassured him, "Not much more than a scratch." Rolling up your trouser leg, though, Oin winced at the blood before he began cleaning it. His bearded face fell into something much more serious than you were used to; for once he wasn't joking around as the jolly dwarf you knew and loved. That facade, the great focus, lasted the entire time he tended to you in fact. His hands were so dedicated and gentle as they worked over your torn skin. Upon completing your bandaging, he peered t you, dark eyes now intent upon yours. "You'll be fine." "Were you worried?" You couldn't help chuckling a bit. No healer were you, but the wound was nowhere near grievous or life-threatening. "Of course I was," Oin agreed without hesitation, "You know how much I care about you, don't you?" "I-" Lips parting, you stuttered for a moment. In your hesitation, Oin's hand found yours and gently brought you closer until his lips hit yours, beard tickling your cheeks. "Maybe now you do," he told you, smiling as you separated, "Now get some rest, alright?"

Gloin

“If you two do not stop acting like children," Gloin called to the princes, "We will treat you like children!” “What’ll you do,” Kili countered with crossed arms, smiling at his older brother, “Put us in the corner?” “We absolutely will,” you chimed in, mirroring the younger prince’s posture, “With pleasure, you ruffians!" "You two are like an old married couple," Fili tutted, shaking his head. "That's right," you agreed, grabbing Gloin's face with both hands and yanking him into a quick kiss that had one prince whooping and one calling out in disgust as they ran off. "What in Mahal's name was that?" Gloin asked you as you separated, auburn brows raised in distinct spite of the fact you'd felt him kiss you back. "Sorry, too much? I knew it'd scare them off. Might make them talk as well, though." "I wanted to kiss you first!" Gloin complained, pouting beneath his beard and prompting you to giggle as he took your hand, ready to make a more serious confession.

Bifur

Feet thudding against the ground, you ignored the shocks to your ankles and sprinted further. Dust clouds kicked up, but you clamped your mouth shut and ran, scanning across the black splatters of orcs’ blood and sheens of fallen blades. None of it stopped until you caught the sight of familiar braids, of black hair spilling out beneath a head trickling blood. “Bifur…” You whispered. He took your hand, gazing up at you with sad eyes. Muttered something faintly in Khuzdul…did you catch the word love? Your answer came in the way he leaned to press your forehead against his, ignoring the fresh wound and the axe still embedded in it. “I’ll take care of you,” you promised, “I love you.” Your lips met with all the passion of admission and promise and hope of recovery.

Bofur

“Come on now, won’t you have a drink?” You reached out a hand, wrapping it around the tankard over Bofur’s own gloved fingers, though you didn’t accept it straightaway. Instead, you kept your hand where it was and leaned in over the liquor. “Are you trying to get me tipsy, sir?” You teased. “Why, what’ll you do if you do get tipsy?” Bofur shot back with a playful, lopsided grin. “Use your imagination,” you replied, loosening your grip on the tankard and subsequently Bofur’s hand. The dwarf, however, was not giving up so easily. “Well, as a tipsy person myself, I suppose I would imagine something like this.” Tugging your hand back into his, Bofur ignored the tankard completely in favor of pressing his lips to yours, his mustache tickling your cheeks as you surrendered to the reverie of his lips’ sweet dominance. When you finally pull away, you both wore his playful look. “Alright, now I’m trying to get you tipsier,” you told him.

Bombur

“Wait, come back!” For a moment you thought you would finally get to thank the mysterious gifter of sweets, the one who left baskets of baked goods at the edges of your garden. Always tied with a different patterned bow, this time a gold-edged ribbon of maroon. Standing up, you’d made to follow the sound of footsteps only to see a form rounding the corner, just a wide bit of cloak trailing. “Please!” You turned around one way then whipped back the other when a skidding scraped the walls of your ears. Facing you was a very stocky, flaming-haired dwarf with his hands folded politely in front of him and rocking on his heels. "Since you said please," he said, his voice simple and sweet and a little bit scared. "I've really wanted to meet you," you told him, stepping forward, "To thank you." “Are you disappointed now?” Your gifter asked. “I promise I can do more than bake, I can fight, I will fight for-” Resting a hand on his shoulder, you shook your head. “You’re sweet enough for me just as you are. Never before have I had a secret admirer- someone who went to so much effort. That alone is amazing. Enough.” “You’re too sweet for me.” Pulling him closer by the hand upon his shoulder, you pressed a little kiss to his lips. “Just. Enough. Now, can I know my baker’s name?”

Dori

Of all the company members, only one of them supplied you with a spool of his own thread. Thick thread glittering with slivers of metallic sheen interwoven between lighter strips of the tiny cords. "So it matches the rest of my coat, you know," Dori explained, eyes flitting a bit sheepishly. "Ah," you set down your usual spool, a plainer brownish roll you'd just been using on one of Kili's pockets, "I see." You'd barely glanced up from your work, from ensuring you did not strike the thimble upon your finger, until you noticed the way Dori wouldn’t meet your eyes. “I…I know I’m a lot to deal with,” he said, “But it’s just that I know how I like things! I can’t help it.” “I do not think you’re a lot to deal with,” you replied, giving the dwarf your fully undivided attention, “I would be happy to deal with you.” The way his blue eyes widened, you could tell Dori was nowhere near expecting such a response, natural as it came to you. “Would you really?” “More than happy,” you added with a nod. “Well,” he fiddled with his hands, shifting closer to where you sat, “I would be more than happy to care for you in return.” “You already do,” you told him, eyelashes fluttering, “That is what I love about you.” Your allure got to Dori then, all glitter of threads fading in favor of your eyes, which he fell into, and your lips, which he leaned into.

Nori

“Get back here!” Chasing after Nori, you called out to the dwarf, who looked back over his shoulder with a cheeky grin. Of all things, he’d chosen to nick your undergarments, the fiend. Of course. Wheeling about, Nori ran up to a large rock and jumped up to the top of it, finally towering over you. He leaned down, your undergarments clutched triumphantly in his gloved hand as your noses nearly brushed. You could feel the warmth of his breath upon your face as you gazed upward, frown faltering and words failing at this new development. Nori, of course, still looked quite smug and had no trouble speaking. Remaining exactly where he was, he remarked, "Well, this is fun, isn't it?" "No," you answered, arms crossed, "It is not. Give those back!" "You're gonna have to make me, hm?" Fine. Two could play at that game. Frustration roiled in your chest, a fire burning as you eyes met Nori's. This whole charade had you quite ready to sacrifice whatever shred of dignity you had left to fight scoundrel with scoundrel. Taking the dwarf roughly by the collar, you yanked him into you and joined your lips. He fought back quickly, far less stunned and more passionate than you'd have expected. You were happy to escalate...at least until your hand slid down, felt his relax and drop the stolen article entirely. Jackpot. All but shoving Nori back, you mirrored his earlier smirk as you strode away, taking your turn to triumphantly brandish your undergarments. "Thank you, sir."

Ori

On the edge of your seat is the only phrase you could use to describe your position as you leaned over to watch Ori's work, the way his thick fingers slid so lightly over paper, creating shadows and the faintest of lines with subtle variations in that gentle pressure. Your eyes darted between his hand and his profile, staring as if keeping the focus in those brown eyes burning with the heat of your gaze. It is amazing that Ori can do that; you tell him as much. "Want to try?" He invites, profile swiveling to face you. "I can show you." You gave a nod, reaching out a hand in anticipation of pencil's weight. Thus it fell, but around your newly-filled palm his hand closed, coarse and warm fabric closing yours and lowering it to the paper. Several layered flushes of joy radiated through you as Ori glided you around, completing the lines of leaves upon a tree. "How's that?" An uncertain amount of time passed before he turned again to face you, this time inches from you given your shift and joined hands. "...Good?" The hitch of his breath and the quietening of his voice snapped something in you. Ori, too, for he leaned in and met you halfway through the inches, his lips connecting softly, joyously, to yours, only intensifying that soaring feeling.

Fili

"What's wrong?" "Can't sleep." "So you thought you'd bother me instead?" "Bother you?" You feigned offense. "Is that what my presence does?" "Your presence, no," Fili shook his head, "The way you keep kicking at my boots? Needless to say, yes." Grinning wickedly from your seated position, you gently darted out your foot to nudge his again, leading the dwarf to lean down to your level. "Do you want us all to get in danger? Is that it? I'm on watch, you know. You're risking the lives of all of us by distracting me." "Is that so?" "So it is." Nudge. This time, your foot slid along the length of his boot's side after you gave him your little kick. "That's it." Whirling around, mustache braids swishing with the motion, the golden-haired prince knelt down, his face inches from yours. "If you don't stop, I'll make you." Backing down was not in your vocabulary. "Make me," you commanded, voice low and expression smug and satisfied as ever. Before you could get another breath in Fili's lips were crashing onto yours, his facial hair tickling your cheeks in contrast to the hard, fast contact you made. His legs quickly wrapped around your waist, entrapping you beneath him as he cupped your cheeks in his hands, diving deeper and exploring your depths as far as he could for what felt like minutes until you finally parted for need of air. Fili's light blue eyes pierced yours intently, hungrily, as you stared back at him with much greater satisfaction than ever. "You're risking the lives of us all getting distracted," you repeated his words back to him, tracing a finger along one of his coat flaps. "I'll risk my life for you any day," Fili replied, cupping your cheek again and pulling you close, this time for a much slower, sweeter kiss that finally, finally, had you speechless.

Kili

“I’m bored,” you half-jokingly whined, eyes rolling back to look at Kili from the log you had draped yourself along. Straddling the log, he turned, leaning down to fix you with that glittering brown stare you loved. “What do you want me to do, hm?” Heart flipping, you swallowed, but painted a flippant smile across your face. “Entertain me.” “Entertain you?” He repeated, his own expression blooming with mischief. “Lot of ways I can do that.” “Well,” you crossed your arms, blood rushing to your head just as much from him as your upside-down position, “Choose one, then.” “Alright,” Kili hovered closer, his breath fanning your already-heated cheeks, “Let me know how this works, then.” The moment his lips crashed into yours, you responded, reaching up to tangle your fingers in his flowing black locks, which had a few leaves caught in them but still remained soft. As you gave them a little tug, Kili parted your lips for deeper entrance. You enjoyed your upside-down kiss right up to the moment you parted for breath, panting as he smirked down at you. “Still bored?”

Bilbo

Fog overtook the corners of your mind, dusting all your intents and purposes with a haze of questions. What were you doing in such a musty old place anyway? A voice at your side expressed a need for air. Why, you wondered as you jumped, startlement pumping pure adrenaline into your blood, were you with someone with a piece of axe blade protruding out of his head? Would the same happen to you? No, he was important, wasn't he? Think, think... Before you could get much thinking done, a hand clasped around yours. This time, the warm weight didn't have you jumping as far but it did pull you along, right along to the edges of the trees where you found yourself climbing after... Bilbo! Bilbo, the hobbit, the burglar, of course! The higher up you went, the more your lungs swelled and your head steadied with relief. How could you have been scared of sweet Bifur or not recognized Bilbo? Laughter sounded a bit above you; climbing faster, you burst from the treetops and squinted as you met the sun. Joined Bilbo's sweet mirth of relief and wonderment as light scattered over the clouds, illuminating the wings of gorgeous blue butterflies streaming out of the rustling leaves. "This is beautiful," you remarked, forgetting yourself and all the troubles of the forest as suddenly as they'd come on. "I'm glad you came with me," Bilbo told you softly. Turning away from the butterflies, you faced him only to see his grey eyes peering at you with the most utter sincerity. Had he drawn closer? A wave of emotion crashed over you, cresting as you closed the gap completely, feeling him gasp against your lips before he dove in himself. Sweet, gentlemanly, Bilbo never forced entry, his focus dedicated to a loving embrace of your lips alone. Giggling like a schoolchild as you pulled away, you grinned at the hobbit, whose expression you could only describe as starstruck. "I... am very glad you came with me," he remarked.

Thranduil

The king needed no advisors. Long had it been since he would have desired them, but concerns had grown and Thranduil did nothing if not care ruthlessly for his people. Thus, members of the nobility like yourself had come together as a council for the Woodland Realm’s ruler. Thranduil had been willing to listen, but your words grated against his like a block sharpening a blade; it seemed as though your every policy fought his in some way. Twice the meeting devolved into the two of you going back and forth across the table from your seats, which were quite unfortunately directly opposite one another. Such a scene it had felt to be that the king tarried in his room of council to speak to you at meeting’s end. “Do you take some form of issue with me?” Looking confident as you had in the meeting, you crossed your arms, smirking. “I take issue with your policies.” Thranduil must confess that in that moment he was shocked by the opposition, brows raising at your bold statement. “And you think you know what is best for our people?” “Maybe I do. They put me on your council, after all.” “You,” with great resounding taps the king crosses the room to stand before you, his face mere inches from yours, “would have us put at great risk right as we hit a point of prosperity.” “I would have us realize the threats at hand,” you replied cooly, tilting your head but balking not at all from the proximity. Thranduil moves ever so much closer, shaking his head and almost brushing his nose against yours with the motion. “Reckless warmongering.” “Hiding in fear,” you challenge back, smirking. “Do you wish to be shown your place?” “Do you need to ask?” A guard crossed briefly into the room, soft address of ‘my king�� dying upon his shortened breath at the sight of said ruler embroiled in a passionate battle for lingual dominance against one of his councilors.

Bard

You were never sure how the bowman felt about you. Certainly he was friendly and enjoyed spending time with you enough, but to what end? Perhaps you were doomed to live a life upon the edge of questioning. And yet the worst part was, you had yet to discover why you didn't entirely mind. Why, in fact, you found yourself in his barge once again, paddling out beyond the horizon of cobbled together buildings leaning into each other. Just as you could lean further into the thick brown furs of Bard's coat, perhaps even feeling it against your cheek as you lean against his shoulder. As it was, you simply stood at his invitation to take up steering, moving to the other side of the boat. Unbeknownst to you, however, Bard had left one of his fishing nets on the floor; shoe’s edge catching on the tightly connected loops of rope, you tumbled forward and made an unfortunate pitch into the cold lake. Swirling into the water and kicking back up through it did not last long, and soon Bard’s hand reached out to grab yours and pull you back into shivering safety. “Are you hurt?” He asked, hands hovering over your folded legs, the ankle you’d caught. Heart swelling over the look of concern in his dark eyes, all you could do was shake your head. Folding himself, Bard dropped to his knees at your side. “Good. I was worried about you.” “You were?” You asked dumbly, ready to blame shock over such a foolish question. You needed not, though, could not- not when his lips fell immediately upon yours.

Beorn

Neighbors minded their own business. This was a simple fact of making one's home out in the far woods, out also where more and more orcs and foul things had begun to roam. Thus you had always been left to wonder who the owner of the wonderful cottage you passed by was, never seeing a single soul beyond the great deal of livestock and pleasantly plump bees flitting about the immaculately-tended flowers. Was it a woman? A man? Some sort of trap like in the old tales where places and faces so fair were always the deadliest? But who, then, would be twisted enough to craft a trap so admittedly perfect in your mind... Such thoughts did not penetrate the desperation clouding your mind the day your beloved cow, the one you'd had from a young age, strained with the aching struggle of a birth gone wrong, your feet carrying you straight to your neighbor's door. If she died, you would lose a major source of subsistence alongside one of your few friends in the whole lonely woods. The look in her big brown eyes was all you could see as you rapped on the door, your look of pleading meeting yet another big brown stare, this time upon a man with a stern face and a great mass of brown hair. Brows furrowed in confusion and perhaps slight annoyance as they were, he had no chance to speak ill before you were begging him to come help your cow, you'd seen the shape his were in after all and you could tell they were loved, please, you needed his strength- she did. The unspoken promise that the man would see you this once, then never again, hung in the air as you led him to your home, to your pasture, to the dear friend whose life he saved. “Thank you, truly,” you told him as he made to leave, “You may not wish it, but you are welcome here anytime.” Before he could say anything, you leaned up to press a kiss to his cheek. Not realizing, of course, that he was turning his head, connecting your lips for the briefest of moments before you stared at him wide-eyed. “You might see me again,” he told you with a small, wry smile.

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[tj-dragonblade]

[Fluffbruary FIC] You'll Know You're Defenseless

Fandom: The Sandman Pairing: Dreamling Rated: G Word Count: 1067 Tags: Fluffbruary, Fluffbruary 2025, Turbo Lover AU, Human AU, Mechanic Hob, Rich Guy Dream, floriography, pining, willful failure to communicate

Notes: Another fluff entry for Turbo Lover, though it's a little bittersweet. Title of course from the Judas Priest song that I named the series after.

Fluffbruary 2025 prompts: Day 13: jealous | rose | narrow Day 16: aquamarine | impress | interlude Day 17 : yearn | salty | reality

Summary: Mechanic Hob might. Possibly. Be pining. Just a little bit.

On AO3

There's a florist he passes on his way home from the garage.

Hob slows his stride as he draws even, today.

He is no stranger to looking over the window displays as he walks by, seeing what's new, snapping pics to look up later and cross-reference to flower language websites. Floriography is fascinating, okay, and also. He is not immune to daydreaming about crafting a custom bouquet to give Dream. Calla lilies for his beauty. Ranunculus; 'I'm dazzled by your charms'. Pink carnations; 'I'll never forget you'. Red camellias to say 'You're a flame in my heart'. Some fern fronds for sincerity and fascination. Blue orchids for enchantment, or maybe lavender roses—those would probably coordinate with the reds of the bouquet better. Maybe, if he's really daring, some sunny yellow jonquils for the old-fashioned sentiment 'I desire a return of affections'.

Because yeah. He really does, god help him.

Not that he can just say so.

He could send a bouquet anonymously, of course, from a secret admirer. But maybe that wouldn't mean anything to Dream, who has plenty of money and probably dozens of prospects for romance. Some anonymous bouquet would not impress him, would probably just wind up on a shelf somewhere, unremarked until it wilts, thrown out without another thought—meaningless to Dream.

Even as he thinks it, though, Hob is remembering the way Dream warms toward the smallest signs of affection, the way he blooms when Hob lavishes him with endearments, and he knows it's more likely Dream would obsess over such a bouquet. He would study it, disbelieving of its sincerity, researching the blooms to look for hidden meaning, finding only the message that Hob had meant to send and fixating on the idea that a stranger might feel such things about him but lack the courage to approach him directly.

So, Hob could maybe send a small bouquet. If he saved up a few pounds.

But he doesn't want to send anything anonymously, is the problem. One, there's also the slim chance it might actually set off alarm bells, make Dream worry about stalkers and strangers watching him. Hob doesn't want to accidentally trigger that kind of anxiety. But two, what he really wants…well. He wants to lavish gifts on Dream the way he thinks Dream deserves, wants to send him the biggest bouquet of compliments and swooning sentiment and declarations of intent; he wants to send roses, dozens upon dozens of ruby-red blooms proclaiming his love so loudly that Dream cannot help but see it, know it, feel it.

He definitely doesn't have that kind of money though. He's priced the sort of arrangements he dreams about and they're significantly beyond his modest budget.

And for all that he can see Dream craves affection, he's still…

See.

Dream is so, so very far out of his league. Romantically speaking. Dream's never said or done anything that indicates Hob could be anything more than this casual hookup and hangout arrangement that they've got going on. He gives Hob a taste of finer things and Hob gives him the best sex he could ever want, and they're both happy. It's perfect. It's amicable. It's tidy and delicious and uncomplicated except that Hob and his stupid helpless heart have always got to go falling farther than they ever should, getting attached and invested and—

Fucking—

Love. He's in love with Dream, he can admit it to himself. And it doesn't matter that it'll never be the storybook romance he'd like it to be. It truly doesn't. He can be happy with what he's got, happy being Dream's boy-toy, his favorite bit of rough, his arm- and eye-candy. That's their reality. He can be happy meeting whatever needs Dream will let him; it's better than not having Dream in his life at all. He can yearn all he likes but he can't expect someone as…as everything as Dream would ever truly consider a long-term life with Hob as his partner.

But oh, the florist's shop is calling him today. And maybe…maybe, if he's careful, he can give Dream a tiny, fleeting gift without giving himself away.

~

Hob is waiting at the curb when Dream pulls up outside his flat a couple hours later, the Porsche jerking to a stop in a way that makes Hob wince. He hides his grimace in a welcoming smile; Dream tries his best to follow Hob's advice about operating the manual transmission but ultimately he'd rather just let Hob drive when they're together.

Dream climbs gracefully out of the idling car and Hob stops him as he crosses in front of it, holding up the single red rose he'd picked out at the florist's with its little plastic tube of water and nutrients snug on the cut end.

"For you," he says, lightly, casually, presenting it with a showman's flourish.

"For me?" Dream sounds delighted, takes it delicately, but there is a little crease in his forehead that Hob can't quite interpret.

"Customer Appreciation Day at the shop," he says quickly, easily. "Handed 'em out to everyone who came in. But this little guy was left all alone when we closed up so I thought to myself, y'know, I'll just. Take it for Dream." He grins, his most charming, rakish grin. "So yes, for you. A small token of affection from your favorite bit of rough." He winks.

A little white lie and a little red rose. He's fucked if Dream ever comes to the shop and talks to Matthew and mentions this customer appreciation day Hob's just made up.

Odds are extremely low that would ever happen. But still.

Dream smiles, his mouth tilting up and his eyelashes sweeping down in that way that makes Hob's stomach swoop. "I thank you for thinking of me, Hob Gadling. It is indeed lovely." He touches Hob's arm briefly and continues on to the passenger side of the Porsche.

Hob follows suit, rounding the driver's side, sliding behind the wheel and adjusting the seat, flicking on the signal to pull back out into traffic. There's excitement fizzing in his blood at the message he's just sent, satisfaction at successfully flying it under Dream's radar.

He glances over at Dream as he drives, sees the soft smile on his lips as he buries his nose in the velvety red petals, and Hob's heart thumps happily in his chest.

= Started: 2/15/25 Drafted: 2/16/25 Posted: 2/17/25

Previously in the series, in case AO3 is down: Customer Service With Every Nerve Alive Loyalty Rewards Program Shift to Overdrive Love Machines in Harmony Without Warning Something's Dawning (Listen)

[johnwickb1tsch]

bittersweet ~ a yandere!John Wick x fem!reader sunshine/grump coffee shop AU... Part 29 all chapters

WARNING: NSFW, SEXUAL CONTENT, YANDERE SH!T. Plz take care. I luv u all. 😘

-You dare not put it down on the big tablet on your easel where John will see, but you can’t stop yourself from drawing it out in your smaller sketchbook-journal that is easier to squirrel away under clutter, putting down marks like you mean to exorcise her from your memory. You draw her like a ghost in her field of happy white flowers, and write in the margins in your looping script, I’m sorry. I don’t know how to make him forgive you. You want me to save him but I don’t know how. I don’t fucking know how.

Maybe she’ll actually hear your plea and do something useful about it, like haunt John’s dreams instead of yours.

Maybe you’re losing your damn mind. 

You find that either way, you’re not brave enough to mention her to your captor again.

She becomes an obsession, and you keep drawing her in your little sketchbook. You’ve only ever seen one picture of her. It was in the den, but has since disappeared. Still, you feel you know the lines of her face, the brightness of her eyes. You go back to your old fixation with the ladies of Mucha, sketching her out as the Lady of the Daisies with flowing auburn hair surrounded by her stylized flowers and flowing lines.

You strive to cover your true fixation by putting down anything as quickly as you can on the easel, knowing your captor will be by for inspection. You draw sunflowers, your favorite summer bloom, something fun but you can do with your eyes closed with colorful, juicy strokes of oil pastels. You hope to keep John off the scent of the book that holds your heartfelt neuroses that you bury under piles of all your new art supplies and anything else you can find.

It was stupid, of course, to think you could really hide anything from him.

One day you find him in the chair with his legs crossed, perusing your sketch journal with one of those magnificent thunderheads of a frown.

You are certain you are fucked, when he asks, “Is this your idea of a joke?”

Trembling as you imagine what he’s going to do to you for this infraction, you answer truthfully, “No.”

He closes the book with a snap, crossing the floor to stand before you, his powerful body moving deceptively slow, the way a tiger appears slothful in the jungle.

You know he can snap you up with one bite.

You cannot stop shaking, as he peers down that straight nose at you, pinning you with black eyes that somehow burn. He does not touch you, but God. He sees everything. You just know that he sees everything, and you find you are terrified of how he’ll react.  

��Have you been snooping through my things?”

“No.” The irony of him holding your sketch diary is not lost on you, but wisely you hold your tongue.

“How did you know what she looked like?”

“You had a picture out of her, ages ago.” At least, it felt like a like a lifetime ago.

“How did you know about the daisies?”

Now you know he’s going to flip his shit. It sounds fucking absurd, even to you. Your voice can barely rasp past what feels like dried twigs in your throat to whisper, “I saw them in a dream.”

You expect him to scoff and call you a liar. But he just searches your face, his eyes a little too wild for your liking. Here we go. He’d been damn near stable the past few days, but surely this will set him off.

You close your eyes, unable to watch the unfolding of your doom. This is it. He’s going to lock you up forever. You’ll never see the light of day again. The trembling in your frame kicks up to ten, and you hug yourself just to have something to hold on to.

When his next question comes, he could push you over with a feather.

“What does she say?”

You shake your head, realizing your cheeks are wet with tears.

“Nothing. She just…offers me the flower.” Going for broke you add, “She looks so sad.”

It is the sound of tearing paper that opens your eyes; with horror you find John making confetti of your art nouveau sketch that took hours to do. However, any protest dies on your lips—if destroying the drawing appeases him, maybe he won’t take it out on you.

Without another word, just a hard look, he stalks from the room.

Only when the sound of his footsteps fade down the hall do you let out the breath you didn’t even realize you were holding, your knees quivering like leaves in a storm.

However, you are not foolish enough to believe you’re in the clear just yet.

-Later, there is no dinner. You find the kitchen cold and empty. Not sure what to make of this, you graze in the fridge, before returning to your bedroom. Not sure where John has gotten off to, you shower, then go to bed, finding yourself lying awake in the dark without him beside you, almost itchy without his steady presence in the evening at your side.

Part of it might be that you fear something is brewing, and you can’t stand the waiting…but part of it might simply be that you miss him, as fucked up as that is.

In the end, against your better judgement, you go looking.

You search the house, until the only room that is left is the garage. Silently you open the door, slipping through without a sound. You too are learning how to move quiet as a wraith. The smell of rubber and oil assaults your nostrils. Classic rock is playing low on the radio. In the far bay, the hood of the Mustang is open, and John is bent over inside, wrenching on something and muttering to himself. There is a partially empty bottle of Blanton’s Bourbon on the workbench behind him, and an empty glass.

Unable to stop yourself from committing what perhaps might prove to be suicide, you creep to the other side of the Land Rover, using it as cover as you eavesdrop on this man grumbling to the ghost of his deceased wife.  

“What do you want from me? I loved you. I loved you with every fucking fiber of my being, but you left me. I died with you the day you left me, and she is the only thing that makes me feel alive again. I need her, and she never would have come to me on her own. She never would have stayed. She never would have stayed.”

He says this to himself over and over, and it wrenches your heart, because you know it isn’t true.

You think you manage to creep back out again without him noticing, Led Zeppelin on the radio disguising the sound of the door.

When at last he comes to bed and wraps you in his arms, holding you too hard for comfort, you feign sleep, smelling the bourbon fumes on his breath. You can’t help but tense, wondering if he will forget his promise this deep in his cups.

But he just sighs into your hair, crushing you as he pulls you even closer, and you don’t know why it breaks your heart all over again.

[vampirtulpe]

I don't know why, but I have the headcanon that Don was literally the biggest fan of Bald Bull as a child. So, here are some wholesome headcanons for it:

(This is long, sorry about that 😅)

-Just imagine 10 year old Don, alone at home one day and channel surfing and stopping at boxing and deciding to watch out of curiosity. He was instantly hooked when he saw Bald Bull doing one of his rushes and knocking his opponent out, it was the coolest thing ever for him -Back then he didn't really know any english. He only knew that Bull meant Toro, so he would call him that until he was old enough to be a little better at speaking english

-Wasn't watching the match unless Bull was one of the fighters and would get irrationally angry if he lost the fight, would throw actual mini tantrums and scream at the TV until his Dad yelled at him to shut up

-Actually started boxing because Bull inspired him. His family was pretty happy about it, Don had been struggling to find a sport to really get into and they were elated he finally found something he was so passionate about

-His mom was indulging his fixation so much, she even saved up money to go with Don to america to watch the final Match between Doc Louis and Bald Bull for Don's birthday

-Bull lost that match and Don was crushed, but to Don's absolute delight, Bull actually heard him calling out to him again and again and actually approached him. Bull towered over him, but Don wasn't afraid, he was so over the moon, he almost passed out.

-There was a huge language barrier between them, all Bull could really gather from that kid was that he was supposed to be Toro and that he seemed to be a fan. Luckily for Don, he was absolutely adorable and endearing as all hell, so he did not only get an autograph and a picture, but also a permanent spot in Bull's memory

-That incident was also one of the reasons paparazzi began getting much more aggressive with him, not caring that it was a one-time thing for a young fan

-Don framed that autograph and the picture, he even still has them and always takes them with him when he travels somewhere

-Unfortunately he never had the opportunity to watch one of Bull's fights live again, but it strenghtened his resolve to become a professional boxer to maybe one day face him himself

-And well, he was successful, getting into the WVBA at a very young age and once again getting to meet his idol. You cannot believe how giddy he was, he didn't sleep for like 2 days-

-Believe it or not, Bull recognized him almost right away, even if they hadn't seen each other in like a decade. He had watched Don's first fight out of sheer curiosity and the memories came flooding back when he watched Don fight and heard him provoke his opponent with a "Toro!" the first time. Sure, Don‘s voice got deeper, but the way he said it was the exact same. And once he recognized the voice, he also recognized the face -Don was absolutely elated when he found out that Bull remembered their encounter, recalling how it was one of his key motivators to become a professional boxer and even showing him that he still had the picture and autograph.

-Bull had teased him that he still looked like that little kid that got his attention back then (But he's secretly so proud and moved that he was one of the key motivators for Don to start his career. It’s just a special feeling to know you had such an impact on someone’s life)

-Despite them now being on almost the same level, Don is often seen trailing after Bull like a puppy, always looking for guidance and advice or just a small conversation. Bull would be annoyed if it was anyone else, especially with Paparazzi and reporters constantly chasing after him, but there was just something endearing about Don doing it that made him a lot more patient and tolerant towards him.

-And now that they are both a little better at english they can actually have proper conversations (or rather Don yapping at him and Bull responding sometimes)

-Bull became almost a mentor figure for Don, a lot more than his actual coach ever was (who Bull would find out actually sucked real bad, but this is a wholesome hc dump, so maybe I’ll talk about that the next time)

-Don comes to him regularly for guidance or just to talk and they would sit in one of their rooms, share some food and a drink and just talk. Sometimes not even that, they would just sit silently and enjoy the others company.

-They sometimes train together, but not as often as they would like to

-Bull is the hard but fair type, he doesn’t handle Don with kid gloves and can be pretty hard on the guy. But it’s only because he knows how much potential Don has and doesn’t want him to squander it from him turning into an arrogant little shit, he tries to keep him down to earth. (Or at least as down to earth as Don is capable of)

-Don still really likes watching Bull's fights, he never misses a match (unless he is in one, but then he goes over right after and asks Bull how the match went)

-Despite them being friends now and Don having gotten on Bull's good side, he trains hard every day in hopes of being able to face off against him one day, he wants to live up to the legend. (He already does, but Bull doesn't outright tell him that, can't have Don stopping his efforts after all. He kinda hopes Don succeeds one day, but he won’t make it easy for him)

[hrizantemy]

Hot Take Alert 🚨

I’ve seen a lot of TikTok posts about Rhysand actually being in love with tamlin and them being a pair back before Feyre came into the picture. What is your thoughts on that? I have to say I am seeing what they mean, Rhysand is obsessed over Tamlin always have been and always will be. He says he wants the man to die but in actual truth, the day that happens and I’m hoping never. Rhysand will literally self destruct or become super depressed. He hates him but can’t see to leave him alone. Even at the man’s lowest due to his immature mate and his court, he still finds ways to be in Tamlins face or find a way to make conversation about Tamlin. It’s giving very much I’m so gay and hot for Tamlin but he doesn’t feel the same and now I want to make him suffer like I am. I think Rhysand is inside Feyre mind and forcing her to act the way she is acting for him but in reality she is not over Tamlin. Yeah sex might be super great with Bat boy but Tamlin was a freak in them sheets and if Rhysand is still obsessed over him centuries later than Feyre know deep down she is too! The man can shape shift into anything.. anything. It’s no one she or Rhysand can try and downplay Tamlin.

OH YOU CAME IN SWINGING—and I am absolutely here for this spicy take.

Because… listen. You’re not the only one who’s noticed the suspicious amount of energy Rhysand devotes to Tamlin. For a man who’s supposedly over it? He brings Tamlin up constantly. Like. More than necessary. More than normal. More than anyone sane would, especially considering how many other courtly and personal responsibilities he has. And the venom he reserves for Tamlin? It’s got layers.

Let’s unpack.

“I hate him” but make it homoerotic.

Rhysand literally cannot let Tamlin breathe. Even when Tamlin is at rock bottom—alone, emotionally wrecked, grieving his court and reputation—Rhys still can’t stop circling him. Still can’t stop dragging him in front of others. Still can’t let Feyre let him go, either.

It’s giving:

• “I hate him but I know his trauma.”

• “I hate him but I remember the way he used to be.”

• “I hate him but he was once my friend and maybe more.”

This level of fixation doesn’t come from nowhere. Rhys doesn’t talk about Beron like this. Doesn’t even give Koschei this much screen time. But Tamlin? Tamlin lives rent-free in his frontal lobe.

Feyre = Tamlin proxy?

And then there’s the possibility that Feyre isn’t just Rhysand’s “mate”—she’s his revenge, his reconstruction, his reclamation of something he lost in Tamlin.

Think about it:

• Rhys was obsessed with “saving” Feyre from Tamlin.

• He knows Tamlin’s “type.” Knows how to break him.

• The mating bond comes after Tamlin hurts Feyre.

• And Rhys can’t let her forgive him—not even for closure.

It’s not about Feyre’s healing. It’s about making sure Tamlin never gets her back.

Now pair that with the theory that Rhys might be influencing Feyre’s mind (he is a Daemati, after all), and you start getting into genuinely eerie territory. It’s not just “he wants her.” It’s: he wants Tamlin to suffer by watching the woman he loved choose the man who hates him most.

And Tamlin? Quiet. Withdrawn. Repressed.

Say what you want about Tamlin (and I have), but the man’s grief after Feyre left wasn’t just about losing a lover—it read like abandonment trauma. And his refusal to lash back at Rhys during ACOWAR, when he had every opportunity? That wasn’t weakness. It was complicated.

There’s a lot they aren’t saying to each other. And in another life—pre-Feyre, pre-war? That might’ve been the story. Two High Lords, both broken by the same trauma (the War, their families), locked in a cycle of obsession, power, and bitterness because what they could’ve had never worked.

TL;DR: You’re not wrong. It is giving “I’m obsessed with him because I loved him first and he didn’t love me back.”

And Feyre? Caught in the middle of a centuries-old gay breakup with violence.

This is the kind of energy that fanfiction lives for. Honestly, someone should write the Enemies to Lovers to Mortal Enemies fic of Rhysand and Tamlin’s “relationship” before Feyre ever enters the picture. Because there’s a lot of tension there—and only some of it is straight.

[grimprotector]

Be thinking about Rex’s character today and Im gonna yap about some of it here. Some headcannons and character study basically. :)

First thing is I believe that Rex is super particular about his appearance. Even though it’s fun to call him a smell, mangy cat you find in a dumpster, he’s very fixated on how he presents himself. He pretty much built up the “Rex Dangervest” persona and wants to match it. He could be real fixated on the way his hair look and even his stubble length or how thick his eyebrows are, and even how his physique looks. Wanting to keep that “dashing, chiseled, 80s, space action anti-hero” look and persona. His idea on how his persona reaches to how he carries himself and how he speaks. His appearance and behavior obviously so he can get as much away from his old identity.

Which leads to the second thing, he has a marking on his back from the Piece of Resistance. I’ve shared a bit about it before, where I’ve believed for a long time that Emmet has a marking left on his back from the Piece of Resistance. For Rex, who’s trying to get as far away from his old identity as Emmet, sees it as mocking his efforts. No matter how much he’s changing himself, he cannot change the marking on his back. It’s the only thing on him he cannot change and it’s his one of his biggest insecurities.

This next paragraph is a long read so I apologize.

My last thing I was thinking about is that Rex hates Emmet. He hates the idea of Emmet. A lot of it stems from his time in Undar. He so desperately hoped his friends would come rescue him. But they never came, seeming more focused on what they’re doing. Emmet could end up believing that his friends never liked him, only tolerate him. Which ends up with him hating himself. So once he escapes Undar he makes up a whole new identity opposite of who he once was. Rex plans to cause Armamageddeon to, in a way, get back at his old friends and everyone, and he decided to do so by manipulating Emmet to make it hurt worse for them. From the moment we see Rex interacting with Emmet he’s getting Emmet to trust him, so he can manipulate him. First he saved him from the asteroid, then he tells Emmet that he’s his “biggest fan” or “I started wearing vests cause of you” but he doesn’t really think that. He’s probably thinking “He’s believing this, look at this gullible, naive idiot. What a joke.” He tells Emmet his only part of his backstory to get Emmet to feel sympathy for him. And thus, trust him more. In the scene where he “meets” Lucy, it feels like he’s showing off and one-upping her to sound cooler than her. Part of it could be that he’s silently saying “Is this what you wanted?” Rex tells Lucy that Emmet has gotten tougher, in a way, buttering Emmet up to trust him more, especially over Lucy. Later, when Lucy reveals her undyed hair momentarily, Rex seems to test Emmet by asking “Are you sure we can trust her?” Later from there, Lucy loses her headpiece, Emmet is trying to check on her, but she isn’t responding. Rex plants the doubt in him that “Lucy seems to more brainwashed than we thought.” And, of course there’s when Lucy is trying to stop Emmet from destroying the universe. She admits that she never really wanted Emmet to change who he is. Rex could hear that through Emmet’s microphone. He’s probably a bit shocked. All he knows is that his most trusted friend wanted him to change, to get tougher. He has, and he’s making his younger self the same as him, even giving Emmet a spare vest. “She never even wanted him to change? What a liar.” Then Rex hears, “The real Lucy would never say that.” He knows that his careful manipulation worked. And Emmet starts Armamageddeon. Rex snatches Emmet while everyone else gets sucked into the void. From there, Rex reveals that he once was Emmet, and wanted Emmet to completely become him and forget about his friends. “They’re just pieces of plastic.” But Emmet stands his ground and Rex ends up sending him to Undar to break his spirit. Rex even goes to Undar to completely break his spirit. Making Emmet believe that his friends are coming to save him, even making his raptors hold everyone off. Scarily, he almost succeeds. Taunting Emmet as he just about gives up. But Lucy manages to make it. Saving Emmet and defeating Rex before Rex can escape and try again. Rex “back-to-the-futures” and slowly fades away. He accepts it, and he’s probably the most genuine as he dies. And after, he says “No Regrets (except not trademarking it).”

In summary of the last paragraph, Rex dislikes Emmet. Hates him even. He only sees the negative in Emmet, gullible, weak, naive, only cause that’s what he ended up believing during his time in Undar. Emmet was also a nobody, but “Rex Dangervest” is a somebody. The new persona is what he believes is his ideal identity. Cool, badass, reckless. An action, 80s, space anti-hero. But he’s also cold, heartless, and he doesn’t care for anyone. He decided to have dinosaurs instead of people on his spaceship. Not only does it look cool, but loyal animals that’ll listen to him and won’t argue? Even better.

Also, it’s a common headcannon, but Rex is of course intolerant to laundry machine noise due to ptsd of being stuck paralyzed in Undar.

Anyway, wanted to yap about my favorite bastard and decided to do it here. The paragraph about how Rex hates Emmet ended up going on longer than I thought, and that’s my bad. But I felt I wanted to go in depth about it. Have a good one ya freaks and sillies.

[oneslimybastard]

Ghetsis facts:

>At least two grunts are scared of him (musharna being able to spook them off with visions of being scolded by Ghetsis)

>His speeches does in fact convince some people to release their pokémon or at least second-guess their view on the trainer-pokémon relationship

>Tells the grunts to give Bianca's Munna back

>Persuasive enough to essentially wiggle some of his Guys out of arrest in Driftveil, even if Clay does it reluctantly

>Knows Reshiram and Zekrom would not fuck with him so he picks up a miracle child from the forest to do it for him instead. Raises said child kind of like his own but also kind of not, there's a deliberate distance put between them

>Did make this wonderchild who can speak to pokémon and are clearly very empathetic towards them hang out with pokémon who had been mistreated for the purpose of instilling an ideology in him.

>Randomly has 3 ninjas who are just ride or die until the end of time for some reason

>Lots of team plasma is ride or die for him actually, otherwise Neo Team Plasma wouldn't have been a thing

>He rubs the death of Alder's partner pokémon in the mans face. All cheeky beaky like. Because he can.

>He will tell the teenager his Adopted I Swear Not Related Promise son is fixated on as a rival all about how he basically groomed say son into doing all of this dragon bullshit while having them cornered on a bridge. Then just casually walks off. His ninjas are there too.

>Will also happily tell said teenager they probably aren't that special or chosen or whatever, lol lmao, seems like ur dragon haven't woken up yet, dw maybe it will, lol.

>Cannot take an L to save his fucking life. Will lash out at everything and everyone around him and build a stupid airship with a stupid laser powered by the crinkly old grandpa of the dragon trio and do a terrorism before taking an L

>Refers to himself as being PERFECT while inhaling massive amounts of copium

>Needs a cane in bw2 and is only ever seen using one of his hands, so probably physically disabled to some degree

>Strong enough to jam the butt of that cane into the solid frozen earth of a cave. Probably just kind of a visual metaphor for him being threatening but also Hear Me Out What If He's Fucking Built-

>N is ride or die for him enough to still try and get through to him during the bw2 climax despite having been utilized as a silly little pawn yet again. This does not work, because as previously mentioned, man just cannot take that L

>When faced with literally no other option but to take an L, he passes out. His ninja squad punctuates this with him probably not being a threat anymore.

Ghetsis interpertation:

I think all of these things weave together into just a very fascinating person when you look at them a little deeper. Someone who's clearly charismatic enough to acquire that much loyalty, love, and fear — but also not equipped to handle the shame of failure in the god damn slightest. When threatened he devolves from a calculated cult leader above it all to a snarling animal fighting for its life, because he's probably rotted away behind a mask of perfectionism for years rather than done any significant growth as a person. He's clearly intelligent, probably highly emotionally intelligent because if he wasn't he wouldn't be able to pull this shit, but all of that shatters and breaks and splinters with one (1) crucial failure. He tries to recuperate but can't, the survival instinct is breathing down his neck because to him the shame of being a human like the rest of them rather than the perfect ideal he's been forging is scarier than anything that could actually physically kill him. He blames N, he blames MC, Colress, just about anyone and anything that doesn't end up pointing back to his own shortcomings.

And still! N probably loves him! And it's probably genuine! He wants to connect with him and breach that gap and give him ibuprofen because even if he's shown himself to be cringe, that's still his father, which is something he values enough to try and hold on to. And the ninja guys remain ride or die, so there's clearly something to him other than schemes and trickery, something genuine and beautiful that might not in practice be worth fighting for but it sure feels like it.

A beautiful man who's warped himself into a demon because he couldn't stand his own humanity because he's probably autistic and traumatized from his undefined childhood, and when he's beat down, rather than taking that L at long last, he'll curl up in his little cage, continue to snarl and tell himself over and over that this is what he is. What he will always be. He couldn't become god so he resigns to dying a devil. Because even still, that is preferable to him over taking that L, admitting to himself he is just a little guy like other little guys with problems he couldn't cope with, and that it caused hurt and destruction.

Devils don't feel regret or shame, humans do. And he'd have a loooot of that to chug through if he decided to face it. So he won't.

which is just very sexy and milfy and babygirl of him i think. this is my "why ghetsis is like so sexy actually" manifesto, without even tapping into the juice that is him going "nuh-uh" over his own dang disabilities but that too ties into how he can't cope with his own imperfect humanity so u know. Also that he's just kinda sassy and petty. Amazing. 10/10 best written character not in the games but in my brain.

[echodrops]

Why do m/f ships are often regarded as boring and plain in comparison to m/m and f/f ships?

I think it's a combination of things:

1) Over-saturation. M/F romances have been the bread and butter of mainstream media for literally thousands of years. (Although the world's first known work of literature was pretty gay, so there's that lol!) Anyway, because of this, it's easy for M/F stories to repeat old plots, or for audiences to feel as if "there are no new stories to tell." After consuming M/F romance media for a while, people can start to feel like "I've seen this before." When the market is saturated, it becomes harder to find new twists on old tropes, fresh voices, etc., and there's no longer as much sensation of mystery or the unexpected--if you see a hot main female character and a hot main male character in a movie, chances are they're guaranteed to get together. When things become "given" in media, the stakes vanish, and it's much harder to generate interest from readers or viewers. ("This ship is going to be endgame anyway, so why bother worrying about whether they'll get together?")

Conversely, when the romance is M/M or F/F, it still has an element of "newness." Perhaps we haven't seen this particular romantic comedy plot with a queer couple before. Maybe adding the extra element of societal response to being gay changes up how an old trope will play out. Because queer romances haven't been grafted on to seemingly every possible trope and scenario in media (yet), there's still chances for surprises and intrigue. Basically, M/M and F/F have the benefit of newness.

I think it's worth pointing out, though, that this will likely not last. An inevitable side effect of queer romances becoming normalized in mainstream media is that, over time, all those tropes and cliched plots will get played out with both M/M and F/F ships, and we'll one day reach over-saturation on queer romances as well, making many of them feel just as bland as the stock of M/F romances in media too.

2) A lot of M/F writing is just really bad. I've discussed at length many reasons why M/F romances tend to be more poorly written in a lot of mainstream media, and the many reasons are too varied to go over again (misogyny, inexperienced male writers, sexual fixation on the other gender resulting in objectification, etc. etc.), but I think it's key to remember that a lot of stories which contain romantic plots weren't actually intended to be romances at all. They just have a romance because society treats romance as obligatory. Writing a horror story? Wait, you mean the hot male protagonist and the hot female protagonist aren't going to bond over their life-threatening situations and end up together? Writing a movie about the horrific tragedy of the sinking of the Titanic? What do you mean it won't center around a forbidden romance between people of different economic classes? Your high fantasy epic doesn't have a princess for your knight to save?! Huh?

The problem is that a lot of people who can write well in one genre cannot write well in other genres. You can have the best horror writer in history... and that person may be completely incapable of writing a romantic plotline to save their life. You can have the most accurate historical political intrigue researcher ever--and then that person has zero experience trying to build effective romantic tension. Unlike other genres which don't have to cross over with each other--your crime drama doesn't have to become a historical drama; your YA fantasy novel doesn't have to become a comedy--writers of practically every genre are expected to be able to throw romance plots into their works and sell them.

When romance is so ubiquitous, it's inevitable that a lot of it is going to be written by people who aren't skilled at writing it, and thus a whole lot of it is going to just be kind of poorly written.

Conversely, we're still at a moment in time when queer romances are regarded as somewhat controversial in mainstream media. It's growing less so over time, but we're still at the point where, if there's a queer romance in a piece of mainstream media, it's because the authors really wanted to put it there. It's not there because of a sense of obligation or viewer expectations, but because someone producing that work really wanted to tell a queer romance story. When you're adding a romance plotline because you really want to write a romance, that plot is (usually) better simply because that plot is more important to the writers.

Furthermore, because queer romance plots are still scrutinized much, much more than M/F romances by editing boards, shareholders, etc., it is likely that these stories are held to a higher writing standard that M/F romances currently. They will be subject to greater editing and require greater "justification" in order to sell decision-makers on the necessity of including the pair. Therefore, across the board, queer romances in mainstream media are likely to receive more of the writers' time and effort than M/F romances.

Once again though, this is a product of media's current situation and not something that will last. Give it a few more years in an LGBT+ friendly administration and M/M and F/F romance plots in shows, books, etc. will become normalized to the point that including one won't be remotely controversial. The level of scrutiny and focus on such ships will fall, and eventually they'll become just about as obligatory as M/F ships, complete with the matching drop in quality. 😂

[gegengestalt]

Listen. Listen. Parfyon Rogozhin and Souji Mikage are fundamentally the same species of guy. It may not seem like it because Rogozhin has that feral thing about him and Mikage is computer- like, but hear me out. For starters, they both live in an ominous building with a dark past. Rogozhin lives in the dark and old Rogozhin house that has been inhabited by them for generation and has connections to the Skoptsy sect. Mikage lives in the Nemuro Memorial Hall, a relic of the past tied to a past tragedy involving people who participated in a secret experiment. They are tied to specific and narratively significant locations representing a cycle and that is also important to their characters as I'll explain below.

Both characters also embody stagnation and disconnection to the world. Rogozhin is decadence and extremism, and his obsessions isolate him from the rest of people. If he didn't become obsessed with Nastasya, like she said, he'd pick something else like money and spend his days counting money in his house. He never learns anything. Mikage is similar in that regard, he's tied to the Memorial Hall and unable to grow up, chasing a ghost.

Speaking of growing up, one of the most interesting parallels I've found that is probably a coincidence is their relationship to emasculation. You heard that right. Emasculation. The symbolism can be found in Rogozhin's first name, Parfyon, which means Virgin, and his indirect association with the castrated skoptsy. He has lived his whole life with an authoritarian father who was a source of frustration in his life, even getting in the way of heterosexual fulfillment. The completion of the masculine ideal as heterosexual consummation escapes him as he can't make Nastasya his completely, in body and soul. Souji is also a figure tied to a failure to live up to that ideal. Tokiko is his first adult heterosexual fixation, but he is emasculated when Akio takes her from him and becomes the one in control of his life. From that moment, Mikage becomes unable to grow up and redirects his fixation onto Mamiya, Tokiko's brother. Rogozhin, too, takes out his frustration of Nastasya eluding him on Myshkin (both characters go towards spiritual fulfillment in a homoerotic relationship that is ultimately doomed).

Myshkin and Rogozhin are also mirror images like Utena and Mikage. While Myshkin and Utena are idealistic and prince- like figures, Rogozhin and Mikage are the distorted image of the chase for that ideal, the eroding of the heart in the desperate need for an ideal to exist. Here I am going to dive into both The Idiot and Utena spoilers so if you care, keep scrolling. If you don't, keep reading if you want to.

Utena/Myshkin see in Anthy/Nastasya someone to be saved, an act of altruism mixed with an affirmation of their place in the world, they pity her, but they don't know her (yet). Wanting to be their princes means chasing something sublime. On the other hand, Mikage/Rogozhin's pull toward Anthy-Mamiya (let's remember Anthy was pretending to be Mamiya for the entirety of the Black Rose arc)/Nastasya is one that leads to death. Rogozhin cannot possess Nastasya entirely, so the outcome of his failed accomplishment is death. Mikage, too, searched for "eternity", wanted to save Mamiya, but his obsession resulted in nothingness and death. His intention is to "kill" the Rose Bride because eternity is something he must take by force. Maybe I could go on but this is what came up so far. Rereading The Idiot after a Utena rewatch, I was fully expecting seeing Anthy/Nastasya connections, but finding Mikage in Rogozhin somehow was a surprise.

[just-sp-in-inginthevoid]

Let's review everything, yeah?

Shikaba and Taira have always, or almost always, been together.

Shikaba used to give Taira his food even when he was himself starving. There was care here.

Shikaba appeared since the beginning of the manga, as a carefree chaotic easy-going guy. He's almost always been smiling, and is dressed less proper than the other Yotsurugi.

In this arc, we got to see him more — and how chaotic and battle-thirsty he is! He has a weird fixation on Hibaru, too. He keeps on nicknaming him, which nobody else does.

He keeps on complimenting him. He was sent in the Yotsurugi family by Tendo to become the boss - and yet he shows liking toward Hibaru? The goal changed to making sure he'd be the next boss(which, he was closed to at some point? He was the third in command, before Torazo took on that role), including by killing the rest of the siblings if need be(and need is needed in current canon) - and yet, Hibaru who should be embodying one of the biggest threat as the biological son, doesn't get resented on? Hated?

We know Shikaba as someone who smiles a lot – but he doesn't smile so much when there's Tendo around. He was raised very strictly by him, as a kid the only time we saw him smile was at Taira, when it was only the two of them. As an adult, he smiles in the bleachers, even with Tendo near, but he smiles at *Hibaru* mostly.

The first important moment we see him dropping his smile was in the restroom. He tells Hibaru he killed Kongo (which is another matter but also needs a lot of clarification we have yet to see), but wasn't that meant to remain secret? Why would Shikaba tell Hibaru that, when Hibaru has already three strong motivations to be here and win the tournament (Daybreak Ore, saving Hiyohiko's sister, and - even if he doesn't believe that could be achieved this way - try to rule the country out of chaos)? Why invite Hibaru in the tournament, giving him a chance, even so slight, to win against him?

The restroom was the only place he could meet with Hibaru without Hibaru being aware he wanted them to meet. Up in the bleachers, Tendo is too near for Shikaba to actually do as he pleases. Any interaction will be seen and judged. There's none of that in the restroom. But Shikaba wasn't there to have a whole conversation – he was there to tell Hibaru he killed Kongo.

He continued to antagonize himself to Hibaru.

His actions so far do make him a bad guy, but there's something off here, to me.

We do not know Shikaba's motivation so far, beside being pressured by Tendo to take control of the Yotsurugi Clan and get rid of the other siblings. We only have Taira's account on the facts. But i assure you Shikaba doesn't have the same — or if it's the same, his perceptive has a lot more information and potential to grant us understanding. It cannot be white-and-black.

Shikaba shows Hibaru he could kill him. Break his skull open may not do it anymore, Hibaru has 'gotten stronger', but he can slit his throat or behead him. Could have. He doesn't. 'Come to the ABR, we'll fight there' he says. Tendo asks why Kongo's brat is here. 'Don't think about it too much, i just love chaos that's all' Shikaba answers.

What a liar.

He's scheming, and he's counting on Hibaru to carry an important part of the task. If Shikaba came to love chaos so much to cause it and feel free enough to do so, it was with the Yotsurugi. He spent more years with them than Tendo. And with Tendo, no chaos seemed to be present. No extravagance. No loudness. When he got adopted with Taira, Hibaru was a baby - at most, a toddler. That's Hiba-chan. Hiba-chan is determined, kind, and survives 6 months by himself at 9 years old from Hokkaido to Tokyo.

Hiba-chan will move when he'll step forward to cut Taira in half. Taira he gave his food to when they were 7. Younger. Older. Taira, Taira, Taira. Taira that got pushed into this world because Shikaba didn’t want to leave him behind at the institution. Or because he didn't want to go by himself, all alone. Who knows, who cares. Taira that got sent alongside him to the Yotsurugi, with a similar mission.

Shikaba moves to cut Taira – Tendo is near, he can't act as he wants and say the things he wants. Hibaru is near. Hibaru is kind. Hibaru's arm has stopped Taira's katana attack during their entire fight.

Hibaru would move to protect Taira. Even without this new arm of his, he would've. That's how Hibaru is.

And then, Hibaru moves.

Shikaba who has been smiling before attacking and then after, doesn't when he was about to slash. (There's also a thing with which of his eye is shown at which moment/panel but. I don't have an explanation yet.)

And when Taira and Hibaru were still fighting, he didn't smile one bit. (He even sat correctly for once, back straight)

But when Taira and Hibaru fought, back then in the Yotsurugi dojo, Shikaba didn't show the usual smile we're used to see from him - grinning, eyes wide with chaos. No. It was a soft, tender and affectionate smile. That's the smile he gives Hibaru and Taira, even with Kongo near. I don't think he would ever with Tendo. Taira and Hibaru are alike personality-wise. I wonder how bittersweet Shikaba feels when he sees Hibaru acts in a way Taira would've, had he not repressed himself for Shikaba's sake. — Shikaba smiles at Hibaru and whatever he embodies for him, hope perhaps, but for what exactly? Shikaba doesn't smile at Taira, their shared history weighing on his shoulders and back.

'I don't need you anymore' that's some bullshit. And even if he didn't need Taira, that wouldn't stop the love and care. As kids, Taira was safer by his side, now, he's safer away.

But that also means *you have no more use to Tendo*. Taira, little Taira to whom he gave scraps of food at the detriment of himself — is finally freed of that old man's grasp Shikaba unknowingly trapped him in all those years ago.

Also, the thing with Shikaba's astro it's that he became impossible to beat and wound because you cannot touch him. He cannot be hurt because he'd recover as soon, Phoenix he has become. So the tournament is rigged from the start – supposing beating him is the point (and it has been presented as such). But how could it be. You cannot win against him. Or maybe he's actually looking for an exception? If anyone has to do it it's Hibaru. And if so, then Tendo won't "need" him anymore - not if he loses to Kongo's son. Shikaba cannot fulfill Tendo's wish of being the/leader of the Japanese Yakuza Association anyway, only Kongo's appointed successor can so that means that power is in Terasu's hands. (Lmao)

We lack the information about Shikaba's motivation. He's been under Tendo's influence since he was a kid, so the idea he's feeling pressured could work — drilled habits don't go like that. Still, his POV would change the perceptive we have on the situation, quite literally.

But here he goes again, un-graspable, out of reach...

Anyway, yeah, I don't believe in the theory Shikaba doesn't care for Taira. I may paint him more 'good' than he actually is, though - and I'm aware of it.

- > Lastly, please consider the parallels there are between those two and Izana & Kakucho, if I didn't manage to convince you of my view on the current situation. And also the fact Izana didn't show signs of caring for Kakucho until his death.

(Also, and I promise I'll stop afterward, please look at how happy he is after Hibaru claimed he'll destroy the association:)

(He's so happy Hibaru is fucking shit up and creating chaos. Like he has asked of him. And most likely things Tendo fucking hate)

[humanpurposes]

Sweet Dream, Teaser

The Sandman AU // Main Masterlist

Dream!Aemond x unnamed female character

Warnings: 18+, gore (very briefly), more to be added including death, smut

Words: 800

A/n: Thought I'd treat you guys to a quick teaser. Let me know if you would like to be tagged in the actual fic :)

The cellar is more like a crypt, an expansive room sprawling under the house, held up by pillars and arches. In the low candlelight she makes out a set of markings on the floor in the heart of the room and this is where the Order of Ancient Mysteries gathers.

The shapes and symbols are unfamiliar to her, painted onto the flagstones, twisting and curling over each other to form a circle. Roderick stands at the very edge of it by a brass lectern.

She watches, half hidden behind a pillar as they stand around the circle and Roderick opens the book, his desired page already marked and studied in the hours since it has been in his possession. 

“Tonight,” her father says to his congregation, “we will achieve what no one before us has attempted. We will summon and imprison Death.”

His eyes meet hers through the shadowy space, heavy and sunken with age, grief and months worth of sleepless nights. They glisten slightly too. 

He holds his hands out and looks down at the markings on the floor. “Here, in the darkness.”

The others echo his words, softly and melodically at first. Here in the darkness. Here in the darkness.

And so the ritual begins.

“I give you a coin made from a stone,” Roderick says, presenting the object to the ceiling as though the eyes of God are looking down from the heavens, through the house and the earth, and drops it to the floor, inside the circle of markings.

“I give you a knife from under the hills.” He holds up a thin blade and lifts his other arm so the sleeve of his robe drops to his elbow. “I give you the blood from out of my vein.”

She winces but does not look away as he draws the knife along the skin of his forearm, until dark droplets begin to fall and stain the markings. 

“I give you a song I stole from the dirt and I give you a feather,” he says, raising a white feather that almost seems to glow through the gloom, “pulled from an angel’s wing.”

And all the while the voices persist. Here in the darkness. Here in the darkness.

He drops the feather and it drifts gently down, landing in the very heart of the circle. 

The room is still and she holds her breath.

The feather starts to move. It twists in a circle and floats up, lurching and turning as though it’s being blown about by a breeze she cannot feel or hear.

The voices raise to an urgent chant. Here in the darkness. Here in the darkness.

She clenches her fingertips against the stone of the pillar. She tries to meet her father’s eye again but he is fixated on the feather flying above their heads.

He calls over the chanting, “I summon you with poison,” and the moment he does the feather flickers like the striking of a match. “I summon you with pain. I open the way. I open the gates. I summon you in the name of the old Lords, we summon you together. Come!”

Suddenly the feather bursts into white and golden flames like the flash of a camera. The heat of it rushes over her face and burns her eyes.

And from the flames a body falls to the floor.

It thuds as it hits the ground, silencing the voices save for a few gasps and murmurs. She feels the flagstones rumble under her feet, sees the edges of a black cloak spilling across the floor and a head of long silver hair trailing from its head.

This isn’t an illusion. Roderick Burgess has brought forth a tangible entity, plucked from God-knows-where, lying motionless. For a moment she wonders if he is dead, until she sees a slight movement in his chest, but even then she fears she could be imagining it.

She takes a few unsure steps to where Roderick stands and the man– he is a man as far as she can tell– is further revealed to her. She can see his face now, his pale skin, the angles of his jaw and cheeks, the curve of his lips, but beyond that she finds herself unable to look beyond the jewel that sits where his left eye should be. It is a bright, deep shade of blue and dotted with silver specs, like the vast expanse of twilight when the stars are out but the sky is not quite black. The eye is framed by twisted, red flesh and a scar, slicing from his brow to his cheek. It takes her a moment to realise his other eye, closer to the ground, is closed. 

The only other parts of him she can see are the tips of his fingers, clasped around a small pouch.

“Is this… Death?” she utters.

“That remains to be seen,” Roderick says.

Tags (comment to be added)

Sweet Dream taglist: @solisarium

General taglist: @randomdragonfires @jamespotterismydaddy @theoneeyedprince @tsujifreya @dreamsofoldvalyria

[queenaryastark]

So you think you find a post with accurate commentary:

Yes, this is true. Exactly zero members of House Martell and zero Dornish characters have any animosity toward House Targaryen. They rightly blame Tywin and Gregor Clegane for what happened to Elia. They also avidly support Targaryen Restoration, eagerly trying to marry Arianne to Viserys and then trying to marry Quentyn to Dany. They even speak positively of Rhaegar, who did not abuse nor abandon Elia. House Martell are among the Targ loyalists in Westeros.

Sadly they didn't stop there.

In short, this person, like the rest of the fanon crowd, did not read any of the chapters Aegon is featured in. They also don't seem to have read the books in general since we know that Rhaegar was anything but indifferent and scornful toward his son who he believed was a hero out of prophecy and gave him a king's name since he saw Aegon as the future king. Plus, anyone who has actually read Tyrion and JonCon's ADWD chapters where Aegon appears will know that Aegon is 100000000000% in as a Targaryen.

Aegon claims Rhaegar as his father by name and mentions Elia (not by name) in passing as part of his own supposed backstory. Aegon even asks for info about Rhaegar, but not about Elia.

He's also all in for the Targcest as he wants to marry Aunty Dany.

He refers to himself as a dragon and hopes to ride one.

He's also misogynistic toward women in power, which is very unDornish of him, but a reflection of non-Dornish Westerosi values.

Tyrion considers Aegon’s temperament as proof of his Targness. He also uses the lure of emulating Aegon I to manipulate the current Aegon into doing what he wants, which works bc Aegon is proud of his Targ heritage.

Seriously though...

Aegon mentioning Elia:

“That was not me. I told you. That was some tanner’s son from Pisswater Bend whose mother died birthing him. His father sold him to Lord Varys for a jug of Arbor gold. He had other sons but had never tasted Arbor gold. Varys gave the Pisswater boy to my lady mother and carried me away.” -- Tyion VI, ADWD

Aegon mentioning Rhaegar:

“Your father knew the dangers of being overbold.”

“Did you know my true father?”

“Well, I saw him twice or thrice, but I was only ten when Robert killed him, and mine own sire had me hidden underneath a rock. No, I cannot claim I knew Prince Rhaegar. Not as your false father did. Lord Connington was the prince’s dearest friend, was he not?”

Young Griff pushed a lock of blue hair out of his eyes. “They were squires together at King’s Landing.” -- Tyrion VI, ADWD

----

And then Prince Aegon spoke. “Then put your hopes on me,” he said. “Daenerys is Prince Rhaegar’s sister, but I am Rhaegar’s son. I am the only dragon that you need.” -- The Lost Lord, ADWD

The difference in how he talks about his parents couldn't be more different. This makes sense because he was raised by Rhaegar-loving and Elia-hating JonCon. Had Aegon been real and raised by the Martells, he likely would have cared about both of his parents and felt connected to both Houses he's descended from.

As someone who wastes a considerable amount of time on the content Aegon is featured in, I have to wonder why these people fixate on him. It reminds me of how Stansas use Jon while knowing exactly nothing about Jon Snow. They take the somewhat outward trappings of the character -- able bodied king candidate -- and project inaccurate ideas onto him. They should hate Jon bc he is sexist against women like their fav and has more sympathy for the grown man who married her than he does for his 12-year-old sister. Similarly, fanon!Elia stans should take issue with the fact that Aegon focuses considerably more on his father and being a Targ than he does on his "mother" who supposedly worked to save his life. As an actual Elia fan, I know I consider Aegon's apathy toward his "mother" to be a flaw of his.

[mariacallous]

It’s a greyish Saturday afternoon in late August, and alongside other street party attenders, I’m watching two flamboyantly dressed women, one clutching a flute, backed by three male musicians while they shout out the lyrics to their new song, Kiddy Ska Party.

“I told you about my stitches / I told you about my stitches / Stop talking about my stitches / Stop talking about my stitches,” one is yelling. In the front, her almost-two-year-old daughter gestures towards her while an audience of adults, from old blokes with beers to young parents with prams, look alternately elated and amused. Somewhere near the jerk chicken stall my son runs up and down, having never played on a street without cars before. The scene is one of beautiful, eccentric mayhem.

This is postpartum punk, the ethos behind the band Pushy Pushy Pushy, “two fresh mothers and three sound candies”, on what they hope is a journey towards the Pyramid stage. Lead singers Ania Poullain-Majchrzak and Florence Devereux, who play alongside John on drums, Andrew on guitar and George on bass, were making music before they had children, but it was motherhood that liberated them creatively.

I spoke to the duo in a pub local to us. “I don’t want to swear,” Devereux grins a bit sheepishly, as though there are kids listening, “but you give less of a fuck, in a way. When you become a mum, your tolerance for caring becomes a lot less. So it kind of unleashed us.”

Considering all the screaming, bodily fluids and late nights, it’s ironic that punk and motherhood aren’t exactly known to go hand in hand (though Nico and Siouxsie and the Banshees wrote the occasional song about it, and Patti Smith collaborated with her daughter). But generally, as in the field of visual art, women with children have historically struggled to make space for themselves and to be taken seriously – despite the fact that every single human life on the planet is born of a mother, so it’s hardly the artistic niche it’s made out to be. Pushy Pushy Pushy have made it a personal mission to carve out space for mothers in the music industry to subvert this inequality.

Poullain-Majchrzak says that she used to censor herself, but after having a child she felt more free “to take the lid off and let it out”. I know that feeling well. There have been times since becoming a parent where I have wanted to go into the kitchen and scream. So why not scream into a microphone? The loss of identity, time, sleep, social life can make you feel rageful, certainly – but it can also make you feel as though you’re bursting with more creativity than you’ve ever possessed before.

“After giving birth, there’s that sense of desperation, in a way, around the limited time you have to express yourself,” says Devereux (a pertinent lyric: “I’m in a prison of my own making / Gave birth to my girl when I was shaking”). “That scarcity of time means that you cherish it even more. It focused our minds, it focused our energy,” Poullain-Majchrzak chips in. “You are desperately trying to save yourself, because you are under the pile of nappies.”

In refusing to buy into a picture-perfect vision of motherhood, Pushy Pushy Pushy are the antithesis of the tradwife movement and its fixation on home- and baby-making. I first saw them play a year ago, at another local street party, and though it felt cathartic, it was also huge fun. Their stage presence owes a lot to performance art: at a gig earlier this year, the band put together a Punk Mother Chaos Choir which they assembled by putting posters outside local stay-and-plays (I cannot tell you how much I love this, and how much seeing such a flyer would have felt like a life raft alongside all the notices for weaning workshops and breastfeeding groups).

“We had people who had children, who didn’t have children, who had different genders,” says Devereux. “Anyone who feels connected to that kind of, yeah, the primal energy of birthing.” It was a powerful moment being joined on stage. “They just basically … there was no rhyme or reason. They were just screaming and hitting the different instruments, as I remember. It was just chaos.” They now want to run regular jams with other mothers.

As a blueprint for maternal creativity, Pushy Pushy Pushy inspire. They recognise that you need art to survive, and that to pursue it requires two vital conditions: the time and space without children to write and record, and the entourage of friends and family who care collectively and free up that time. It should be comforting to any mother with art ambitions who feels she is treading a tightrope between care and self-expression. They dream of one day playing the Acropolis (“the day I hit menopausis”, according to their song Ciao Darwin), but their more immediate plan is to design a child-friendly tour bus. Will it one day take them to Glastonbury? They are certainly pushy enough to get there.

What’s working I am enjoying Helen Charman’s vital, meticulously researched Mother State: A Political History of Motherhood, which as well as telling the stories of the mothers fighting for change over the past 50 years in the UK and Ireland makes a radical case for liberated, collective mothering. I have a feeling it might end up being to our generation what Of Woman Born was to the women of the 1970s.

What’s not My boy isn’t sleeping well and hasn’t, really, all summer. I’m completely exhausted and trying to hold it all together, but at times it’s really, really hard. To all those sleep-deprived parents out there: I see you. Solidarity. I hope we all get some kip soon.

[skaruresonic]

Lakeside

Lakeside - Chapter 1 - benignmilitancy - Silent Hill (Video Game Series) [Archive of Our Own]

Fandom: Silent Hill Characters: James Sunderland; Douglas Cartland; Heather Mason; Paul Scheible (Homecoming) Relationships: Douglas Cartland & James Sunderland (platonic); Douglas Cartland & Heather Mason (platonic) Genre: Angst; mystery; psychological horror; partial epistolary POV: Third-person present (alternates between James, Douglas, and memos)

Content warnings: Blood

Summary:

James Sunderland doesn't remember why he'd driven his car into the lake. He can't explain why he was rescued, or what led to his decision, but he clings to the hope that someone will help him piece it together before hell freezes over. Douglas Cartland swore he'd never set foot in that godforsaken town again. That vow gets tested when Toluca Lake begins freezing in the middle of summer, against all logic and reason, and resurrects the drowned man he'd given up for dead.

Or, "Nature is healing. Hell is freezing over."

Prologue.

"What you see behind me isn't water. It's frost.

"Late yesterday afternoon in the town of Silent Hill, fisherman Joseph Wylam was angling near this spot over Toluca Lake when his boat capsized, its bow torn on a treacherous patch of rock.

"Wylam climbed a safety raft and tried to paddle his way to shore. However, when he lowered himself into the water, it wasn't the mild fifty-two degrees as is the average median temperature around this time of year, but a startling eight degrees Fahrenheit.

"Wylam suffered immediate shock and would have drowned had it not been for the intervention of his boating partner. Unfortunately, this wasn't enough to save him, as he later passed at Kindred Hospital of complications brought on by aggravated hypothermia. Wylam was fifty-six years old at the time and had no known next-of-kin. The partner, who prefers to remain anonymous, is expected to be discharged with a clean bill of health.

"Today, a light sheen of frost has laid across the entire lake surface, and is solidifying even as I speak with no apparent signs of stopping. As you can see, various forms of wildlife have fled the area.

"To say this is bizarre is an understatement, baffled locals claim. Researchers brought in to study Toluca Lake have called it the strangest phenomenon they've witnessed in years. Although they cannot yet determine why, they hypothesize the rock that overturned Wylam's boat may have been, in fact, a detached ice floe.

"We'll bring you more details as this investigation continues."

---

James Sunderland, who was declared missing along with his wife Mary in June of 1994, shivers in the thick vapor blanket paramedics have draped over his shoulders. The lake's sediment and composite minerals have bleached his hair a sickly bluish green.

Moisture caresses his grayed flesh. He's sat in the water for so long that most of his clothes have unraveled at the seams. His right jacket sleeve curls on the ground beside him, dwelling in the puddle he grows with the droplets he sheds.

They're attempting to pry the shell of a broken boat from an old vehicle. James watches machinery crack open the crushed and sodden remains of a teal Chrysler, watches flotsam spill over the pavement in a wash of decay, and asks whose car that is.

Yours, Mr. Sunderland.

James blinks, readjusting his swollen eyes to sunlight. Liquid overflows and runs down his gaunt, wrinkled cheeks, pinkened by blood.

I don't remember.

An EMT pulls down his lower eyelid, shining a beam directly into his socket. The iris takes a moment to get fixated, and the pupil's dilation response time is rather delayed.

What day is it? James asks.

Tuesday.

He nods, as if the answer holds some meaning.

One paramedic nudges the other. We've got to get this man to a hospital.

It's 2002. Commute thins as the roads wind through the hills. The firs surrounding the neighboring valleys sweep low, burying their roots deep within the slopes.

For a town whose reputation hinges on misfortune, this morning proves an extraordinarily rare and beautiful exception. Clear skies shine while local flora bursts with the green blossom of summer.

No mist radiates from Toluca Lake; today it resembles a placid mirror, reflecting the passing houses and various boats drifting on its surface. Police cruisers keep sentry for miles along its circumference, where officers standing before fluttering tape deny access to disappointed tourists.

The town basks in August beauty while ice creeps and crackles over the surface of the lake.

---

"Since yesterday, more floes have emerged, bewildering residents and investigators alike.

"Despite the torrid weather, a thin sheet of ice has completely covered the lake and appears to be expanding outward, reaching an estimated speed of 0.48 inches per hour. Where this ice came from, and why it has started a push, remain to be seen. Right now, those who live close to the shore are urged to evacuate inland until the state withdraws its declaration of emergency.

"The invasion appears to show no signs of slowing down. Here at Rosewater Park, brickwork and parts of the observation deck have already been claimed by ice. I'm finding it increasingly difficult to keep my balance on the slick ground, and you can feel the rapid plunge in temperature the closer you approach.

"All traffic to and from Silent Hill has been gridlocked for the time being."

[lucillewalterblack]

Wait a minute, I hear you say. Why are we starting with Felicity? She’s neither the first girl to be released (that’s technically a three-way tie, but the honor is usually given to Kirsten) nor the earliest chronologically (that would be Kaya). What is it about her that means she deserves the first entries in this project?

Well, she might not be the first for Pleasant Company, but she was the first for me. In 1998, when I was five years old, I saw a single volume of one of Felicity’s books in a spinning book rack at a Hallmark store, and I asked my mother to buy it for me based on the cover art and the title (it was Felicity Saves the Day, and the cover features her riding a horse and looking determined but frightened). I read it in the car, and then read it again, and read it again. I was already fascinated by history and specifically by material history, by books about ordinary life in the past and books about artifacts and customs. An Usborne book about life in the medieval era was one of my favorites, alongside another Usborne book about world geography that talked about languages and religious beliefs. I also loved children’s-aimed history books and movies like An American Tail, even as much of the subtle commentary went over my head. I loved The Wizard of Oz and its period setting, and this was also the year I discovered Annie through the 1998 Wonderful World of Disney adaptation. In 1999 I became hooked on A Little Princess and The Secret Garden, and Cosette from Les Misérables and a kids’ graphic novel adaptation of Oliver Twist. I had a box set of the Little House books and had a favorite (On the Banks of Plum Creek, if you were curious. Yes, I’m aware of the irony of being indigenous and liking these books as a kid, but my parents were more concerned with making sure I never watched the turboracist Westerns when they came on TV, and by comparison the near-absence of Native people in the Little House books was pretty tame).

Essentially, I was exactly the kind of person who’d become fully fixated on the American Girl books, and on opinionated and spunky heroines like Felicity in particular.

So. Who is Felicity Merriman?

Felicity Merriman is the eldest child of Edward and Martha Merriman, who live and work in Williamsburg in 1774. Edward Merriman is a genteel tradesman who owns a prosperous general store, and Martha is the daughter and probable only surviving child of an unnamed Virginia planter who owns a substantial estate called King’s Creek. Felicity’s younger siblings are Nan, William, and Polly. Her best friend is Elizabeth Cole, a recently-arrived new colonist from England whose family is deeply loyal to the British crown. Her books are primarily about struggling to find her place as a straightforwardly masc-of-center tomboy who prefers crossdressing and working in the trades to mending and cooking, and about the social divides caused by growing anti-monarchist sentiment in the American colonies and how her friendships and morals are impacted by the political turmoil.

Felicity Merriman is also a slaveowner, from a slaveowning family, and at no point do the original six books manage to address this. In fact, they actively avoid it – the status of her father’s assistant Marcus as an enslaved person is only confirmed in the “Looking Back: A Peek Into the Past” section of Meet Felicity once, and while it’s acknowledged that King’s Creek Plantation is a slave-worked plantation with slave quarters, the text of Felicity Saves the Day never states outright that she interacts with slaves despite the illustrations depicting her in the fields alongside them. There’s a darker-skinned woman named Rose who assists her mother domestically, and unlike Marcus she is never confirmed to be either enslaved or free, forcing me to come to the conclusion that she’s probably also owned by the Merriman household and thus by Felicity.

This is the original and damning sin of Felicity’s books and character concept, and it cannot be escaped. Felicity’s social status protects her from a lot of misbehavior and allows her the luxury of a leisurely girlhood with easy education and no expectation that she work for a living beyond being a genteel housewife. She has to pitch in around the house along with her mother and Rose, but she has plenty of time to ride horses and play with her siblings, and she gets away with doing nothing all summer while her laundry and mending and food are all magically done with no effort from her.

This is also one of the twin original and damning sins of America-as-settler-colony – the irony of slaveowners calling for and fighting for a narrow definition of freedom with broad ideals that they only want to take for themselves is at this point a very old topic of conversation. The other sin, the theft of land and the genocide of Native people, isn’t mentioned at all in Felicity’s books. Felicity Saves the Day is at least conscious of the casual cruelty of the Merrimans and devotes much of its Looking Back chapter to discussion of plantation life for slaves, but the only mention indigenous people get is a comment in Meet Felicity that we lived in North America for fifteen thousand years prior to European settlement. Where did we go? What happened to us? Pleasant Company isn’t that concerned with the question.

As a result, Felicity’s books are best read with something of a critical eye. Once you see how completely and how purposefully slavery is erased from her daily life, it becomes impossible to ignore, and kind of drowns out all the other things that are still excellent. And that’s a real shame, I think. There’s a lot to be examined here, about girlhood in the 1770s and girlhood in the 1990s, about class and gender and how those things impact and frustrate Felicity, about how she grows in confidence and about her sense of justice. Those things had an impact on me – I was inspired by her at five years old and I can recognize that fondness and desire to be just like her now, twenty-six years later.

Ultimately, I can love and appreciate what I, personally, internalized about her story and her journey to womanhood, but I’m never going to be able to uncritically lose myself in her world again. That’s the best and most comprehensive introduction I can give, and even that isn’t enough to effectively answer for what Pleasant Company chose to do. I can’t defend it, and I won’t defend it, but this was neither the first nor last book series I loved that was written by racists. I love it enough to say it fucked up badly, and I will be talking about this as it comes up (or doesn’t) in the text. That’s the best I can offer.

So let’s Meet Felicity.