#and then later on she is forced again to do it with the caveat that if she doesn't they'll just get elain to do it

[theladyofbloodshed]

Elain saying this downright nasty line to Nesta when she's at her lowest

“I went into the Cauldron, too, you know. And it captured me. And yet somehow all you think of is what my trauma did to you.”

Remember this scene from acomaf?

“It is your choice, ladies, whether you wish to remain here, or come with us. You have heard the situation at hand. You have done the math about an evacuation.” A nod of approval as he met Nesta’s gray-blue stare. “Should you choose to remain, a unit of my soldiers will be here within the hour to guard this place. Should you wish to come live with us in that city we just showed them, I’d suggest packing now.” Nesta looked to Elain, still silent and wide-eyed. The tea she’d prepared—the finest, most exotic tea money could buy—sat undisturbed on the table. Elain thumbed the iron ring on her finger. “It is your choice,” Nesta said with unusual gentleness. For her, Nesta would go to Prythian. Elain swallowed, a doe caught in a snare. “I—I can’t. I …”

Elain seems to forget that she stayed in the mortal lands for a guy and her sister stayed in the mortal lands for HER. Nesta gave up her chance of safety in Velaris to stay with Elain - but Elain feels absolutely no guilt. Elain spouts this completely tone deaf line that Nesta forget she went in the Cauldron when the only reason Nesta remained was FOR ELAIN. Nesta attacked the Cauldron and was saddled with powers that make her a target for Elain. She went in the Cauldron because she chose Elain over safety.

[penkura]

last forever [12/13]

Summary: Zoro only offered to marry you to keep you out of an arranged marriage with a man much older than you. You agreed with the caveat of ending it via annulment once you received word from your parents regarding the original engagement, despite your growing feelings for your close friend.

Pairing: Zoro x Fem!reader, mentioned Sanami later (like epilogue later so chill)

Warnings: Marriage of Convenience, Romance, Fluff, Confessions, Implied Sex

Note: The next to last chapter!! This was originally going to be the ending, but I changed it a little bit. The next chapter is the official ending with a small epilogue at the end!

Taglist:

@misfits1a | @alucardsdaddyissues | @louweasleymalfoy | @fluffybunnyu | @yerrimm09 | @eyes-ofhell | @emmaiscool22 | @xenop0p | @hank88999

[Ch. 1] ● [Ch. 2] ● [Ch. 3] ● [Ch. 4] ● [Ch. 5] ● [Ch. 6] ● [Ch. 7] ● [Ch. 8] ● [Ch. 9] ● [Ch. 10] ● [Ch. 11]

When you finally hear that Zoro and Luffy have woken up, you're still on the other side of the building with Sanji. Chopper comes running in to tell you both, and your eyes light up so quickly that when you look at Sanji, he's already smiling at you as you grin.

“Better go hug that husband of yours.”

You don't have to be told twice and you're running down the hall with Chopper, him holding one of your hands in his hoof while you use your other to keep the skirt of your kimono up so you don't trip. No need to see Zoro with a bloody nose, he'll think you're spending too much time with Sanji.

When you get to the room and Chopper throws the door open, he lets go of your hand and hurries to Luffy, while you catch your breath and watch the two, making up for lost time on their eating and drinking, of course. If you hadn't been so stressed and worried the last few days, you'd be laughing at them. When Luffy notices you, he says your name with a grin that makes you smile back at him, before you look over to Zoro and feel like you're about to start crying.

He's alive. Once again, he's pulled himself from the edge of death and come back to you. When he finally sees you, Zoro nods you over to him, pulling you to his side with an arm around your shoulders once you do reach him. You return the hug and bury your face in his chest, forcing yourself not to cry out of the happiness you feel right now.

You're alive. Thank God, I was so scared.

Almost as if he can read your mind, Zoro leans his head down towards yours, briefly brushing his lips against your head before whispering, “Everything's fine. We're okay.”

You nod a bit, pulling away to look up at him with a smile. You're just so glad he's all right, that he made it out of his fight against King mostly unscathed. Zoro moves his hand to your forehead, tapping the bandage for a second, before placing his hand on your back.

“What's this bandage about?”

“Oh,” you barely touch the bandage on your forehead, having forgotten all about it in your hurry to see Zoro, “A stray knife grazed me. Chopper says I'll be fine, no scarring.”

“Hope you cut the guy down.”

You nod, giving him a slight smirk. “Of course I did.”

��Yeah?” Zoro returns your smirk, pulling you closer to him, “Atta girl.”

That's my wife, I'm proud of you.

Zoro wants to say that aloud to you, but there's too many people around, and he hasn't been able to take you aside to tell you to get rid of those divorce papers,  to forget about your parents and how your marriage came about, to just stay with him.

He's back to drinking sake a moment later, but keeps you right next to him, even as Hiyori speaks up about how she'd help keep him (and Luffy of course) clean while they recovered. It makes your heart ache a bit, despite Sanji's reassuring you earlier, but Zoro doesn't say anything about it and keeps his arm around your shoulders, wanting you to stay there. Hiyori wasn't trying to upset you, you both knew that since she didn't know your relationship, but it stung a bit to know she was here when Zoro woke up while you'd been elsewhere.

He doesn't care, he cares that you're here now, safe and alive in his arms. Honestly, a few times he was worried for you during the raid, during the battles. Not knowing exactly where you were or how you were faring, until he started his battle against King, you were in the back of his mind. Even when that battle started, his mind would drift to you and silent hopes that you were safe.

Thankfully you were, and he knows you're more worried about him, just from how you hold onto him and don't look at anyone else, not even when Luffy and Chopper try talking to you.

“Hey, I need some help if anyone's free!”

Sanji interrupts a bit later, mostly expecting some of the guys to help, but you gently push yourself from Zoro and give him a smile when he looks at you.

“I'm going to go help Sanji.”

Zoro scowls for a second, making you laugh at his face.

“Curly brow can handle whatever it is,” Zoro pulls you back to him, kissing your temple briefly before letting you go, “but if you want to help him you can go.”

Smiling again, you nod before leaning up and kissing his cheek. “Thank you, husband.”

You don't miss the slightest blush on his face while you stand up, Zoro holding your wrist for a moment longer before speaking again.

“When we set sail…I want to talk to you alone, all right?”

Worry starts to take over your heart and head, but you do your best to hide it with a nod, going to follow Sanji and whoever else volunteered to help him. You fear Zoro is going to push you to sign the divorce papers, that despite how sweet he's been lately, it's all an act and he's going to end your sham marriage. It's what you've worried about ever since your crew's reunion in Sabaody. Even after the night you spent together recently, it still was in the back of your mind that he could choose to end your marriage.

While helping Sanji does distract you from your worry, there's still a small voice in the back of your head telling you that he doesn't love you, he must love Hiyori, that's all it is. He's going to end it there and that will be it.

You shake your head, forcing that voice to go away so you could continue helping.

Nothing you could do now except wait until you all board Sunny to leave again, and have your talk with Zoro.

Please don't end this….

+!+

“So, do you have feelings for her?”

Hiyori's question almost comes out of left field for Zoro, who simply finishes his drink and sets the bottle down, not making eye contact. You've gone off somewhere with Nami and some of the children to play games, which is probably why Hiyori chose to speak to him now, while you weren't around. It might make things easier for her to get some answers from him.

He has one, an answer, of course. He's known for a while now his feelings for you, how far they went and what he wants. It feels weird to think about telling Hiyori this, he can tell she has feelings for him too, but, he's pretty sure she already knows, even without having to ask.

“Your crewmate…the girl always hanging around you, um, [Y/N]?”

“Yeah, I know who you're talking about.”

“Is she truly your wife?”

Zoro nods, making Hiyori's shoulders slump a bit. She's heard Sanji call you “moss head's wife” once or twice or maybe several times to a few of the other Samurai, she believes on purpose whenever she was within earshot. Despite seeing you slap his arm and smile, saying you and Zoro were just really close, Hiyori could always see something like sadness behind your eyes and smile.

Truthfully, she wondered if it was unrequited love, that you loved him but Zoro didn't love you back. That's why she felt the need to ask before you all take off in the next couple of days.

“We didn't get married cause we were in love, if you're wondering.”

“Oh?” For a second she perks up, hearing that she now wonders if it was an arranged marriage, and that you two didn't have any feelings for each other. That would make sense, Hiyori thinks, until Zoro speaks again.

“I was keeping her from being sent home to an arranged marriage. Well…forced home, I guess,” Zoro doesn't even question where Hiyori got the bottle of sake she gave him, but he does thank her for it, “Thought after a few months we'd annul and move on with our lives. Didn't actually think we'd fall for each other.”

Her shoulders drop again, but Hiyori smiles anyway. There's something in the way Zoro speaks about you, as he tells her your story of how you two came to know each other, when you said you love him, and how he's come to feel the same way, after believing it would never happen to someone like him. It sounds like happiness, she realizes, recognizing it from what she remembers of her mother speaking about her father. Happiness and true love, it sounds like.

After a bit, Hiyori nods, still smiling.

“You love her.”

Zoro's quiet for a moment, before he simply nods. He's known this for a long time now, it's just been difficult to get alone time with you to tell you his feelings for you, despite how that sounded lame to him and something Sanji would say, despite your night together. He does hate that he never told you before that happened.

It's interesting how it feels to admit that, though, even with just a nod. To admit he loves you, when he was so sure love wasn't for him, that it would never find him and if it did, at one point he wanted to wipe his hands of it.

But you.

Of course, it would be you.

How you have changed things. You've convinced him that love isn't that bad, that yes, it's even for him, the self proclaimed king of hell. The once Pirate Hunter turned pirate himself, future greatest swordsman in the world. You've got him wrapped around your finger, got him thinking about what life after becoming the world's greatest swordsman and helping Luffy become King of the Pirates would be like. He's had thoughts more recently of you two settling down in his home village perhaps, maybe having a few brats of your own and living your life together.

It was crazy to him, to think about it, and know where he's come from with not knowing a real family or that kind of love, to wanting it with you. If he told his 8-year-old self about this, the brat he was would cringe and turn his nose up at the thought of marriage, current age Zoro would have to laugh at his younger self.

“It's not so bad. Yeah you have someone else to worry about, but, for some reason, knowing they worry about you too…it's comforting, really “

Taking another drink of sake, Zoro knows that later, once you've all set sail again, he's going to make things right with you. No more of you wondering what he was thinking about you and your marriage. No more beating around the bush, making excuses to be with or to avoid each other.

“Yeah. I love her.”

He's going to make sure you know that soon.

+!+

"Do you still have those divorce papers?"

Freezing up, you nod a bit before grabbing your bag, pulling out the crumpled papers you'd had for the last two and a half years, handing them to Zoro. The argument you two had gotten into when Robin first joined, where Zoro called you stupid for blindly trusting her and you called him an idiot for being so untrusting, had caused you both to seriously consider ending your sham marriage then, but you never ended up signing the annulment papers in time. If you wanted to end it now, divorce was your only option. You didn't think Zoro would ever actually ask for them, and you didn't want to give them to him, but he had asked and you did still have them.

He must've decided he didn't want to be your husband, sham or real. You'd seen how close he'd gotten with Hiyori during your time in Wano, especially after she gave him the sword Enma. Maybe he wanted to be with her, though it would be a long distance relationship you were sure they'd make it work. They'd be cute together, and–

Why do you hear papers being torn?

Zoro didn't say anything after you handed him the papers, but he ends up tearing them into pieces while you were running a million thoughts in your head, your eyes widening when you finally notice what he's done.

"What are you doing?!"

"What does it look like I'm doing? Ripping up these useless papers."

You can't get any words out, stuck stammering in confusion even as Zoro sits in front of you on your bed.

"Why did you do that? We can't get divorced without those!"

"Who says I want to?" The look on your face, one of pure shock and a bright red blush, makes Zoro smile a bit, mostly to himself. You two had such little alone time in Wano he never had a chance to tell you to rip up or burn the papers, that he didn't want to divorce you. Finally though, as your ship heads towards your next destination, he gets to tell you. "I don't want to divorce you. I've decided we're staying married and you're taking my last name."

You're still so in shock you don't know what to say or how to say it. Hearing Zoro say such a thing, and that he wants you to take his last name makes your face even redder. "W-what?!"

You end up slapping your hands over your cheeks out of embarrassment and to make sure you aren't dreaming while Zoro nods and places a hand on his chin like he was thinking

"Roronoa [Y/N]. Sounds pretty good to me."

"Wait. Wait, wait, wait. Slow down. I…I'm getting dizzy." Leaning against the wall, you hold your head in your hands and try to calm your pounding heart. This was all so much at once, he can't just tell you he's decided you two were staying married and you were going to be a Roronoa now!

Granted yes, it's what you've wanted the last two and a half years, but still. He could at least ask if you were all right with this!

"Are you…are you saying you…"

"Want to stay your husband? Yeah, that's what I'm saying." Zoro moves closer to you, putting his arm around your shoulders and leaning you into him, maybe that would help clear your head. "I won't divorce you or let anyone else marry you."

"But…what about Hiyori…?"

"What about her? She's nice enough and gave me her father's sword but…I don't…feel that way for her."

So you were wrong. Zoro didn't have any romantic feelings for Hiyori. You were never so glad to be so wrong before now. You can feel tears starting, but try to blink them away, sitting up and taking his hand in your own.

“When did you decide this?”

“A while ago, honestly,” Zoro draws you closer to him, the softest look you've ever seen from him as he places his forehead against yours, “I'm sorry it took me so long to tell you, I had to make sure it was right first. That this is what I wanted too.”

"You have no idea how happy I am to hear that," biting your lip, you look away with a slight blush, "but…are you sure you want me? I feel like you don't have a real choice here…"

"I made my choice when I offered to marry you to keep you out of that arranged marriage. You were my choice from the beginning."

You don't say anything else or give Zoro the chance to say more before you kiss him, no hesitation from him in returning it, pulling you as close as possible, into his lap just like your first kiss in Water 7 two years. It's been a long time coming, and you're just glad your feelings were finally returned, you don't have to worry about a possible divorce and the heartbreak that would follow.

No, you and Zoro are desperately in love with each other. It took you some time to get to this point, but you were here now. No need for an annulment or divorce, not even a need for you to find a place to get married, you're already several steps ahead.

"I love you, husband."

"I love you too, wife."

And you don't think you can be any happier.

+!+

Zoro wakes up the next morning to you digging through a drawer in your nightstand, muttering something like "where did it go" and "what did I do with it". He figures you're trying to be quiet, but you failed at that and woke him, though he isn't really upset about it.

It seems like Robin and Nami never came back to the women's bunks, something he's sure you're grateful for so they didn't walk in on anything they wouldn't want to see. Zoro won't ever tell you that he specifically asked them not to come by if they could, since he wasn't sure at the time how things were going to play out.

He lays there and watches you for a moment, until you seem to find what you had been looking for, happily pulling the item out of the drawer and checking whatever it was to make sure it was all right.

"Hey."

You scream a bit, not expecting Zoro to be awake and almost dropping the item in your hands. He just laughs at you so hard, you have half a mind to shove him off your small bed, he was near the edge anyway. Instead your face goes bright red and you punch his shoulder, making him laugh even more.

"You jerk, you scared me! When did you wake up?!"

"A couple minutes ago, while you were digging in your drawer."

You pout while Zoro sits up and tries to see what you have in your hands, you trying to keep it hidden and focus more on how he scared you. Of course you knew he didn't mean to, he'd never do that on purpose, but you were trying to keep something a surprise.

"What you got there, wife?"

"It's…it's nothing, husband."

The inflection you put on the word husband doesn't convince Zoro that it really is nothing. He knows you were hiding something you don't want him to see yet, to the point he pulls you into a kiss, keeping you in place by holding the back of your head while he reaches around you to take whatever is in your hands.

"Hey!" You push him back when you realize he took the item from you, and give him a glare. "You can't just kiss me and steal my stuff!"

"Thought husbands and wives weren't supposed to keep secrets."

"Surprises aren't technically secrets."

Zoro rolls his eye at you, ignoring the slight blush you have as you don't fight to get the small box back while he opens it. He's a bit surprised after all, looking from the box to you, who is trying not to look him in the eye.

Your secret item was a set of wedding rings it looked like, maybe just regular rings but they matched too well to just be random rings put in a box together. A plain, thick silver band and a smaller, thin silver band with a small jewel on it. Obviously, one for a man and one for a woman, definitely wedding bands.

When did you have time to get these though? Neither of you had acted on your feelings until after you'd all come together again, and even after that, no real confessions or anything had happened until the night before. Did you get these in Wano before your ship left, or had you gotten them a while ago? Zoro knew you would start talking the longer he looked at you.

"I," you bite your lip and keep looking away, your cheeks red out of embarrassment as you try to explain, "I found them in Loguetown…I know we weren't really together then but…I don't know, I couldn't help it…"

"You want me to put your ring on you then?"

"Huh?"

You didn't think Zoro would be willing to do something so romantic, but it is traditional and he leans more to that than you had originally expected.

Your marriage isn't traditional though, having gotten married at a backwater court house almost three years prior, only to save you from an arranged marriage. You'd nearly annulled your marriage, thought he was going to divorce you the night before, and spent two years apart.

The fact that Zoro, of all people, is willing to stay married to you and make it work, to actually make a life with you, it makes you happy.

"Then," you nod, smiling while Zoro turns to face you better, "I'll put yours on you."

You two are quiet for a bit, you looking at the rings you'd bought forever ago, honestly kind of amazed you'd reached this point. There was a time you thought they'd never be used, but now, as you watch Zoro take your ring from the box to put on your hand, you can't help but smile and laugh a bit.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing, it's just…weird to think we're doing this," a thought hits you, and you give Zoro a slight grin, "You know, you're supposed to say something when you put the ring on me."

He raises an eyebrow, while you blush a bit. Zoro had never been to a wedding, why would he know all the words said at those things? He always thought weddings were stupid when he was a kid, but now as an adult, he almost felt bad that you two didn't have a proper wedding, despite your insistence that it was perfectly fine and would be a fun story to tell your kids, if you had any.

"What do you mean? Don't I just put it on your finger and that's it?"

Giggling, you shake your head and take his ring in your hand to place on his finger. "So…what you'd do, if we'd had a real ceremony, is take the ring, and say, 'with this ring I thee wed.'"

Zoro looks at the ring now on his left hand, before looking back to you.

"That's dumb."

It makes you burst out laughing to hear that. Of course he thinks it's dumb, but you don't expect anything less from him. It does make you happy though, to give Zoro his ring and watch him look it over, getting used to it being there, before he takes your ring and your left hand in his. His face is red, and he looks like he's thinking about what you said, which makes you smile a bit.

"With…this ring…I thee wed."

Zoro barely speaks above a whisper, but you hear him. It's a vow, not something flowery or long winded, but still a vow that he's yours and you're his. The way he holds your hand, running his thumb across your fingers while staring at your ring. You giggle a bit at how shy he acted, repeating those words to you, giving him a kiss and a smile.

"I love you, husband."

"I love you too, wife."

"...you did put my ring on the wrong finger though."

"Damn it, [Y/N]."

[i-heart-hxh]

So I can see Gon wanting to reunite with Killua but feeling too guilty to initiate the reunion. As for Killua, as much as I'd love to believe he wants to be with Gon again, a part of me feels like he's letting go of their promise to stay together in exchange for staying with Alluka because she needs him more. We as the audience know it's temporary, but do you think Killua feels the same way? Maybe I've read too many fics of him trying to move on and leave his feelings for Gon behind (literally every reunion fic is Killua actively avoiding Gon and Gon has to go out of his way to find him and make up it's sad)

Hi!

First off, in canon I think it's likely they'll end up reuniting as a result of the plot bringing them back together, so in that case I don't think either of them will have to initiate it, necessarily, or if one of them does it'll be because they have a good reason to.

Putting that aside, I agree that Gon likely let Killua go with the idea that Killua will get to decide when they reunite (because Killua was likely the one who initiated the separation/had more reasons to separate and because of Gon's guilt about what happened between them), and that Killua may try to push himself to move on from his strong attachment to Gon. I think he'll fail at that over the longer term, though, especially once he heals from what happened a little more and finds pushing those feelings away isn't as simple as he hoped. (I also don't think he'd ever want to move on from his friendship with Gon, it's more the deeper feelings that I can see him trying to run from.)

If we're assuming the plot doesn't bring them back together, I could see them staying in contact lightly throughout being separated--and then gradually, as they both heal and think over what happened, increasing contact and missing each other more as they talk more until one of them finally is ready to initiate reuniting in spite of the anxiety around it. I also could see them eventually needing to be in the same place for some reason (Hunter-related event or something with their mutual friends, perhaps) and that kind of forcing a reunion--kinda similar to my "plot reasons" idea, but more mundane.

I do legitimately think both of them think of the separation as temporary, though, with the caveat that Killua knows he and Alluka are in danger from Illumi and he's devoted to protecting Alluka from that, so naturally that adds some uncertainty on his end. Even with all the emotional complications under the surface, the way they left off was pretty light outwardly and emphasized seeing each other later and staying in touch, and even with everything that happened I truly don't think either of them are done with the other even internally.

There would likely be some awkwardness/anxiety around initiating a reunion and how to time that (though again, I think canon might forgo that by giving them a plot reason to be together again), but that doesn't mean it wouldn't happen. I think they'll miss each other a lot during the separation and eventually something would push them over into initiating something even without any plot forcing them.

I do think it's Gon's "turn" to show Killua again how much he values him (and thus give Killua a chance to finally open up about his feelings), but I also don't think it's fair to see it as super one-sided. Even with all the pain and not being sure what to do because of the uncertainty in their relationship, I believe Killua wants to be with Gon, and his reasons for avoiding him would be more about not feeling ready than legitimately not wanting to see Gon.

[kithj]

quick reading wrap-up cus i haven't posted any in a whileeee

talking about Odd Girl Out, Merciless Waters, and The Weight of Blood

i finished Odd Girl Out by Ann Bannon and am taking a break before i keep going onto I Am A Woman. i DID like this book, but it comes with heavy caveats... it is very frustrating to read at times because it was written & is set in the 50s. the misogyny in this book is crazyyyy, on an institutional level from the college the girls are attending as well as on a personal level, from every single man we meet (and some of the girls, too). i hated Charlie, i hated reading his POVs where he jumped through hoops to excuse his aggressive behavior towards Beth, and i hated the way their relationship was written. i don't really fault the author for this, again this is just very reflective of the time period, and i do want to give her some credit, because some of it is definitely intentional with the way all 3 of the main relationships parallel each other in the book (beth/charlie, beth/laura, emmy/bud) and i really really liked the ultimate subversions of the typical lesbian pulp tropes at the end. i can really see why these books were so popular and how they would have meant so much to young, closeted lesbians back then.

after that i finally picked up Merciless Waters by Rae Knowles & read it pretty quickly (it's a short read). i go back and forth on this one, it was a blast while i was actively reading it, but if i think too hard about it, there are a lot of like. i don't want to call them plot holes, but just little things that don't really makes sense once you put them under the microscope. i was also a little disappointed in the ending, it felt like a cop-out, and i wish that we had seen more of Lily, considering she's the driving force behind the narrative and the focus of Jaq's obsessive love. that being said Knowles' prose is lovely and it was fun for people who love awful sapphic women (me) i also have Rae Knowles and April Yates' anthology, Scissor Sisters, which i'm hoping to get to later....

then i read The Weight of Blood by Tiffany D. Jackson cus i was looking for something easy to read. unfortunately i did not like this one..... i'm going to link this review because it honestly says everything i was thinking and i was happy to see it since otherwise this book is very highly rated. it's a retelling of Carrie, which i've never read (i don't like stephen king lol) but i DO like the og movie. and this book is SO derivative, which... yeah, it's a retelling... but it really gave me nothing. it's a shame, because i do think if you were to do a Carrie retelling at this point, this would be the way to approach it. but this book is a swing and a miss. and i could not believe the setting was 2014... of course, there absolutely are racist towns like this even now in 2024, but the time period was really the wrong choice for me, especially because it felt like it was only done so she could give the characters cell phones and twitter, but then she never really used the modern setting to her advantage outside of that. i also hated how much time we spent in the POVs of Maddy's racist bullies. i hated Wendy, i hated every POV from her... she's this books Sue Snell, but honestly worse. i do think her POV added something to the narrative, so i don't think it should have been cut entirely, but it also took way too much time away from Maddy who ultimately had no presence at all in her own story.

Kendrick was honestly the most interesting character with the most compelling POV, due to his own experiences dealing with the racism from his "friends" as well as grappling with his complicity as the "token" Black friend. however, even with Kendrick being the star football player, it didn't make sense to me that he was considered the "most popular guy in school" when said school was SO racist. i get that their interest in him was ultimately just so they could ride his coattails, but there was just a lot of dissonance in this story between just how explicitly racist some of the characters were in some instances but then not in others... i know racism has no rhyme or reason, but this just felt like inconsistent writing rather than anything intentional from the author. i also did not enjoy his romance with Maddy, for the same reasons as the other reviewer, but i'm glad he dumped Wendy for it so i'll take it, i guess.... overall, interesting ideas, but horrible execution. i really wanted to like this one but.... there's also a point where the author chose to name-drop Stephen King, thus implying that he exists in this universe along with all his works (they reference Firestarter in the text) but at no point does anyone say "Hey, isn't this case a lot like Carrie?" and that really broke the immersion for me lmfao

[grayintogreen]

WIP WEDNESDAY

It's Wippy Wednesday, my dudes. And it's a YCDHN week, so here's a juicy little snippet from Chapter 43.

-

The solution to wizard problems being more wizards was both a phenomenally terrible idea and somehow the only sensible one being offered. Most of the protests came from the actual party wizards who believed that no one, upon being awoken from centuries of stasis, would willingly fight in a war they had no stake in.

“But they would fight mage killers in their territory,” Lucien had grinned over their shoulders and that had shut up the debate on Essek’s end. Caleb had dragged his fingers through his hair and wandered off to pace.

The trouble was that these bubbles were resistant to average dispels. Even Cree couldn’t unravel the threads with hemocraft. Time was of the essence and they were violently throwing themselves at the one solution that still had caveats. This would work if they could break the bubbles and that if was becoming a dangerous gamble.

Lucien kept going back to the one in the center of the Viventum ward- the blonde wizard and her gaggle of frightened children. She was the one who would give them help, he knew that, felt it deep in his soul. The lone unselfish wizard who hadn’t tried to just save herself. He placed his palm on the bubble again and stared through the shimmering dome as if there was a secret hidden within no one had noticed.

The goggles around his neck felt strangely warm, drawing his attention. Mithril always ran cold even when warmed by his furnace-hot skin so for it to increase so noticeably in temperature was something to be regarded. He chewed on his bottom lip and slipped the goggles over his eyes.

What are you telling me? He adjusted the dials around the eyepiece, reaching through the connection he had with the Vestige. Click, click, click. Stop. He could feel it, a niggling in the back of his mind, like the hand of Danoth Oro, the man who had invented them and had his work exalted into the realm of legend, was whispering in his ear. No god had touched this Vestige, only a clever mortal who wanted to see the world that was hidden and prevent people from taking advantage of him with magic.

You’re a worthy successor, you keen-eyed scoundrel, the voice seemed to say. Use it for what matters to you.

Not use it for good. Of course not. Lucien was never going to be good. He was going to be better. This was a kindness he was doing, but it was also genuinely useful to him and no one ever said he couldn’t have it both ways. There was no shame in having an ulterior motive operating alongside your generosity. That was how the Nein saved the world- selfishly.

The Vestige opened up before him, all of its powers revealed to him, and he smiled, knowing why Fate had put this in his path. He’d give Her Majesty a firm dressing down in a mock prayer later. For now, he was thrilled to feel the power of reaching out to magic and simply dissolving it into useless strands of the weave again.

The antimagic field flickered into being with enough force that the dome shattered, knocking its occupants onto their asses on the ice. The children let out screams they had been holding in for years and threw themselves upon one another, clawing and clambering like puppies, scared out of their minds.

The blonde wizard’s form flickered with red crackles of arcane energy as the antimagic stole away her disguise, leaving her sprawled on her back, gaping like a fish. Gone was the pretty blonde thing and in her place was a leggy older woman with short brown hair that hung in greasy strands around her pinched, heavily lined face. She was rail thin and barely dressed in a low cut purple tunic that barely hit her knees. Fern-like veins of deep blood red lined her legs and arms and snaked up her throat.

She pushed herself up onto her knobby elbows, stared at her hand where a ring was sparking with dying arcane power. She tapped it a few times and then lifted her hand, as if to conjure something, and found that died to sparks too. She huffed.

The first words spoken by an Aeoran on Exandrian soil in hundreds of years was a profoundly deadpan (and in perfect Common no less), “Fuck.”

[vecnawrites]

Yang and Neo were a beautiful, strong relationship. Full of love and pleasure, and some fun moments where they play on their old rivalry.

This Halloween, there was a party at a local club that they were going to. Horse-Faunus-Futa Neo was going as a sexy farm ranch worker, and Yang was going as a hucow.

Although, to have some fun with her lover, she decided to spike the blondes drinks. After a while, Yang's bust would start to grow and fill, outgrowing her top eventually... But with how milky she'd be, she'd still easily pull off the Hucow look~

Yang laughed as she drank her drink, enjoying the atmosphere of the party that she had managed to finagle her girlfriend into coming to. Oh, Neo had resisted something fierce, but she had managed to wear her down about it, and had finally agreed, even if she had to give up costume rights for the night.

But then, it wasn’t bad, she thought, her eyes roaming over Neo’s body. She never knew that overalls could be sexy, but Neo managed to do it, somehow, being the sexist ranch worker that she had ever seen in her life.

The caveat, however...Yang felt the eyes on her and the breeze on her skin as all she was wearing was a cowprint bikini top, a horned headband, a matching bikini bottom with leather chaps and an attached tail, and some boots that were made to look like cow hooves. She was her ‘Sexy HuCow’. Not that she really minded, she was quite proud of her body!

Finishing her drink, she found another being set before her, Neo giving her a small smile, making Yang smirk back at her. “Wanting me a bit blitzed so you can have fun later? This outfit gives a lot of easy fun~” she teased, although she did know that Neo was likely to do it under the cover of her semblance. But she trusted her girlfriend, so she grabbed the drink and began to nurse on it, missing Neo’s devious little smirk.

~

Neo giggled to herself as she watched her girlfriends breasts swell in the confines of her bikini top, the very center of her ‘costume’ growing damp as the specialized dust that she had spiked her drinks with did its magic, making her breasts grow and making her rapidly produce milk. It also helped that she managed to mix it with drinks that were sure to get her drunk, so she didn’t notice her boobs swelling or getting nice and milky for what she was planning~

Already, she could see droplets of milk forcing their way through the thin fabric of the top~ It wouldn’t be long now~

~

Yang couldn’t deny that there was a dull ache in her chest now, but brushed it off, just enjoying the party that was going on around her. Even more when Neo moved over and tugged her out onto the dance floor, dancing and moving around her. The haze of alcohol and warmth filling her made her not even really notice the rivulets of liquid dripping down her chest and torso.

She didn’t even notice when Neo loosened the knot of her top and her growing bust made it fall to the floor, revealing her bouncy tits and leaking nipples to the club at large, droplets of milk flying as she gyrated around her girlfriend.

She did notice, however, when she Neo reached up and grabbed her breasts and squeezed, a squeal escaping her lips as milk squirted across the room, hitting a few of the costume clad clubgoers.

She stumbled back against a seat at the bar, her butt plonking down on it, nearly missing Neo hopping up on the bar behind her. She didn’t miss the girls legs pinning her arms down, nor did she miss her hands grabbing her tits again, beginning to squeeze and rub them in milking motions.

A fierce blush formed on her face, even as her bikini bottom soaked through from arousal from all the eyes, all the scrolls, on her as her girlfriend milked her like the Hucow she was on the bar.

There was only one thing to do.

Tilting her head back, she surrendered to the pleasure. “Moooooo~♥!”

[practickles]

hii!! for your ask game may i request ichinene?

Of course! And despite liking these two together a lot, I shockingly have never put much thought into them and tickling, so this will be a good exercise for me. (That comes with the caveat that they might not be as in character as they would with more polishing)

And oh my gosh I am so sorry this took so long. Real shocker that I lost motivation for the thing that was supposed to help me with my lack of motivation /s

1. Who has the cutest tickle laugh?

As much as I adore Ichika, I have to give it to Nene here. It's just so squeaky and soft. Nene has a hard time being sweet or vurnerable as much as she would like (tbh they both do, Nene just has it worse), so getting to see her all giggly and carefree makes Ichika really happy.

2. Who is ticklish in unusual places and where would that be?

I don't HC Ichika to be overly ticklish, just about average in the normal spots, so I don't think she'd have many. (Ankles? Maybe? If that counts), so that goes to Nene by default. I think her arms would be decently sensitive.

3. Who gets cheer-up tickles?

Nene really hates being tickled when in a bad mood, so if she gets cheer up tickles, it has to be like an hour after being cheered up in other ways. Ichika, however, loves it. If she's anxious or overthinking, she loves how being tickled is a nice distraction and a good way to get her out of her head and back into the real world.

4. Who takes advantage of the other one getting their arms stuck while taking off their shirt?

Neither of them would I don't think? Near the start of their relationship, they'd both be too scared to either initiate it, or as they get more comfortable with each other, scared of vengeance. I will say that Ichika is the more playful one and leave it there.

5. How did they discover each other’s ticklishness?

Emu told on Nene and Nene got revenge. Ichika and Emu would be just casually talking when Saki invited both of them to lunch or after a WxS show and Emu, not thinking for a second that Nene might want this kept a secret, would just say something like "Hey, did you know your girlfriend is super duper ticklish?" and Ichika would just laugh it off, not doing anything about it for fear of making Nene uncomfortable. A little later into their relationship, they'd be up late cuddling and talking about everything under the sun when Ichika mentions Emu and asks if it's true with a playful smirk and fingers barely ghosting her belly. Nene turns bright red and gets all defensive while Ichika tickles a little more before. Having her answer, Ichika would stop, foolishly lowering her defenses for Nene to destroy her in retaliation.

(wow that one got long lmao)

6. Who can’t take tickle bites?

Nene. If Ichika already has her in a position where she can receive the bites, she is already too far gone past the point of fighting.

7. Who has to be tickle-forced out of bed in the morning?

Again, Nene. She stays up far too late playing games and is consequently very grouchy and stubborn in the morning. She pretends to hate Ichika's method of solving that problem.

8. Who gives up in a tickle fight?

Nene has both the disadvantage of being significantly more ticklish, and having significantly less endurance. She's stubborn but not enough to override her body's natural weakness to tickling.

9. Who is in danger of getting hurt when attacking the other?

Ichika. Nene is less of a squirmer, more of a fighter. Though that's only if you get her REALLY bad. She can't help it but if Ichika is scribbling at her ribs, or God forbid verbally teasing her, she will push and shove as much as she can. Ichika is immensely glad Nene lacks a whole lot of physical strength. On the rare occasion Ichika ends up falling off whatever couch/bed, Nene does feel pretty bad. The pushing is, however, easily stopped by having her waist straddled/otherwise being put at a difficult angle to push at.

10. Who always provokes the other into tickling them and how?

Nene doesn't ever really have the active desire to be tickled, it's nice when it happens of course but she doesn't usually crave it. In addition, she is incredibly easy to provoke. Ichika has mastered the art of provoking her girlfriend into tickling her without actually upsetting her. Her secret is that all she has to do is tickle Nene without making her too weak to get her back.

[princeescaluswords]

What do you suppose drew Marin Morrell to psychiatry? Do you think she experienced something traumatic growing up that required her to see a counselor and that sparked her interest?

I think that what drew Marin to psychological counseling is the same reason she does anything: To Maintain Balance.

(Caveat: while I have taken courses in psychology, they were over two decades ago. I won't claim expertise in this area and any speculation I make should be considered valid for entertainment purposes only.)

One of the things I find interesting is that when Morrell interacts with Scott and his pack, she's never spends any effort on futile recovery, by which I mean counseling the characters to get "back to normal." She has insight into the supernatural, so it's apparent she understands that once they enter the supernatural world, there's no going back for them. (This is in line with one of Teen Wolf's themes: what you know makes you responsible.) She focuses on providing with the tools to find their own balance.

"Lydia, what's it gonna take to get you to open up?" Morrell is introduced to us through Lydia's visits to her in Abomination (2x04) and Venomous (2x05). Lydia is sent there by her mother to deal with the aftereffects of the horrific trauma Peter visited upon her on the lacrosse pitch in Formality (1x11) and, unbeknownst to everyone involved, Peter's ongoing possession. We understand later that Morrell is probably aware of what exactly happened on that field to some extent. What's really interesting to me is that Morrell never asks about the accident, remaining entirely focused on coaxing Lydia out of the mean-girl pose that Lydia uses as protection -- epitomized by the wonderful make-up-as-armor scene in The Tell (1x05). Lydia is only going to be able to come to grips with what happened is if she openly participates in the world around her. This is advice which Lydia takes, asking questions and demanding answers, even going so far as to show up in Allison's bedroom to do so. Unfortunately, the rest of the pack is too consumed with 'protecting' her -- they have yet to learn the lesson that there is no "chance to get back to normal" -- and this leaves Lydia open to Peter's manipulation.

"If it's about survival, isn't a little agony worth it?" Again, when Morrell is talking to Stiles at the beginning of Battlefield (2x11), she's not focused on forcing Stiles to be honest with her. She's more interested in giving Stiles the tools he needs for what's coming. She allows him to lie to her, to keep the illusion of control, but she also suggests that he has to be prepared to endure as well. As he will find out by the end of the episode, going back to his pre-Bite desires of wanting to be first line and pursuing Lydia is no longer an option. The supernatural world is coming for the people he loves, and he has to have a better tactic ready than "ignoring a problem until it goes away."

"Malia, you said something about guilt the other day." Morrell focuses on guilt when dealing with Malia because of the details of her life. She doesn't try to argue that guilt serves no purpose and Maila should try to banish: it's real and permanent. In fact, she reinforces the physical nature of guilt "visceral," which means it's something, like learning to control the shift, that she has to master through practice -- practice that joining with Scott and his pack can give her.

"Why are you bothering with me, Scott, when you know the clock is ticking?" While this sounds harsh, it is actually sound advice, and a complement to Deaton's earlier advice "Don't stop them; lead them." Finding the identity of the Darach is only part of the problem; a way to stop the conflict in Beacon Hills is by Scott accepting what others have already realized: he's going to be an alpha. Scott keeps looking for a way to save everyone without his eyes turning red, fighting against another responsibility he doesn't want and didn't ask for such as when he rejects the power in Frayed (3x05) and Currents (3x07). His power will remain only a potential that Deucalion fears, as he mentioned in Tattoo (3x01), until Scott chooses to embrace it -- harkening all the way back to the trailer for Season 3A when he drowns the child to become the man. Morrell's cold hostility is meant to impel Scott into making the decision he already knows he has to make but doesn't want to.

Morrell's guidance always has one goal: to help these teenagers not only accept what has already happened but to adapt to these events by moving forward. Regret, nostalgia, delusion, and hesitation is just going to cause more trauma; confidence is going to help them keep their feet, even as the ground is shifting beneath them.

[darkmasterofcupcakes]

Maybe a controversial opinion, but if Star and Marco had been forced to chose to live in one, non-cleaved, world and leave everything behind from the other (maybe have a slightly alternative situation where maybe their immediate family comes to, but let’s play the worst case scenario and say only one person can go through the portal to either side)...I think I’d ultimately say Marco should go to Mewni to be with Star instead of the other way around?

Because, really, neither of them has all that much to give them a connection to Earth? Outside of Janna, who would probably find a way to Mewni even without portals, they didn’t really seem to make any friendships that felt important enough to either of them that, if they couldn’t reconnect, I don’t see any hearts being broken for long? Heck, in the case of Star, it seems like nobody cared when she went back to Mewni with basically no warning and then they didn’t see her again for about a year? 

And even when it comes to Marco’s family....while in the early seasons, it did seem like Marco’s parents considered Star part of the family, I really did not get the feeling that they still felt the same way in the later half? I genuinely can’t remember any time they even mention Star directly, much less interact with her, outside of one instance of Rafael being a passive-aggressive jerk to her about Marco’s choice to go to Mewni to be with her. And Marco’s basically always been shown to not be all that close to his parents? Like, he cares about their safety, but the show makes it pretty clear that Marco is left alone the vast majority of the time, so I can’t imagine him being too bothered if he had to cut things off between them? 

The only thing that would kind of keep Marco personally tied to Earth is Mariposa, and, sorry to say, realistically I don’t think it’s all that likely that they’ll be anywhere near as close when Mariposa is Marco current age in canon as I think a lot of people like to imagine they’d be? I mean, there’s almost sixteen years between them; by the time Marco is probably going to be old enough that he’s moving out and possibly starting a family of his own, Mariposa is likely going to still be very young. And while I don’t think Marco would ignore her by any means, his main focus would be on his own life - which it should be, since it’s not like he was the one who asked to get  younger sibling when he was basically a legal adult? Obviously I do think Marco would miss Mariposa the most, and honestly, their relationship as siblings even when she’s a baby is the only reason I included the possible caveat of him or Star being able to have their immediate families with them. 

Meanwhile on Mewni, they both have friends that they’re actually close to, most notably Tom, Buff Frog and his family, and to a lesser extent, Ponyhead. And maybe it’s just me, but while Star’s relationship with her parents, especially her mom, could be...complicated, even before the events of the finale, it always did kind of feel like both Star and Marco were ultimately closer to Star’s family than they were to Marco’s? Particularly if you include Eclipsa (and baby Meteora) as part of the family. 

And even potential dangers wouldn’t really be that much of an issue, since we know that both Star and Marco can handle themselves well enough even if neither of them has access to magic. 

Again, I am happy that ultimately they didn’t have to leave everything behind to be together, but if they’d been actually forced to choose....I think Mewni would have ultimately been the better choice for both of them. 

[mermaidsirennikita]

ARC Review: One Cursed Rose by Rebecca Zanetti

3/5. Releases 6/25/24.

Heat Index: 8/10

Vibes: dark romance, fantasy x Black Mirror, stalker/virgin, dudes who speak Gaelic (if that's your thing)

Alana, heiress to a social media giant (in a word where tech and magic collide) is being forced to marry the heir to a competing family. That's derailed by an assassination attempt... and Alana being kidnapped by Thorn, head of a rival company. Obsessed with Alana, Thorn refuses to let her go. What he doesn't know is that she has no plans to submit; but she'll welcome the pleasure he offers.

So... yeah. I have really mixed feelings on this one, and I want to add a few caveats. First, I think there is an an audience for this. I'm just not that audience. Second, I think that Rebecca Zanetti has a style that for sure fits the fast, snappy pacing you want from a dark romance. And the sex scenes (while I have a quibble) are hot. I enjoyed how this went full camp in terms of the kidnapping, and there were some really cool touches.

However, this one has a LOT of world stuff happening. The world is run by social media! I mean, timeline. The social media is run on crystals! Kinda meta, I can see it. But there are mafia vibes, and a subplot about like, Thorn killing bad guys including pedophiles, and I think this suffered from Zanetti having to keep too many balls in the air at one time. If this had been a couple of those things versus all of those things, I think we could've focused more on the couple, and really developed the good things there.

Quick Takes:

--This actually got off to a good start for me! Thorn is a stalker. I love a stalker hero. (By the way: Zanetti offers content warnings at the beginning of the book; I did not take issue with any of them myself, and they do not impact my view of this book.) And you know what? I loved that he kinda stayed a creep. Thorn? Was weird as hell. We just went with it.

I do wish that Thorn hadn't been like... so hypercompetent with Alana, and so self-aware. When a hero's inner monologue in first person is like "I'm a sociopath, I guess"... it just feels very... edgy. It's not that I'm against a sociopathic or psychopathic hero. I just feel like that kind of awareness and acknowledgment is tough to sell in the first person. Maybe through dialogue? Not through the inner monologue.

--Alana is a nice heroine, but I don't think she was nearly as distinct as Thorn. A major part of Alana's personality seemed to be responding to Thorn and being a virgin. (More on that later.) I think that for me, a lot of the issue was that she really responded to him sexually far too early in the book, while at the same time being so inexperienced.

Now... I'll acknowledge that the "virgin jumps into shit after being kidnapped" thing has worked for me in a couple of books. However, it is a HARD sell, and it's a harder sell when a heroine is as inexperienced as Alana seems to be (I didn't get the vibe that she was a totally inexperienced woman, but I also didn't get the sense that she was an "everything but" girl, the way one virgin heroine who worked for me in this scenario was). She just moves REALLY fast on accepting Thorn and the type of sex he wanted to have. The sex he wants to have isn't crazy, but it's a lot for a girl on Alana's experience level.

--Now, the world here is interesting and high stakes. But again, I think there was just too much going on. I never really got what the magic system... was. And I kind of couldn't help but feel like Zanetti wanted to write a mafia romance (this read in a lot of ways as a mafia romance) but also wanted to connect it to fantasy and a higher concept. It's not a bad idea, and I can always appreciate a big swing. It just didn't really work for me.

--This is a very clear Beauty and the Beast retelling. I love that. But there is a character named Coggsworth here. I've gotta tell y'all: it is kind of a pet peeve of mine for retellings to directly reference Disney, versus doing a new spin based entirely on the actual fairy tale. It just takes me out of the story, and it definitely did here.

--Thorn has Lexical-gustatory synesthesia. It basically means that he tastes voices, and I REALLY liked that. It was unique, it added texture (he chews mints a lot when he's around shitty people because their voices taste bad, Alana's voice tastes like honey which also adds to why he wants to do Certain Things) and I haven't read it before. Do I know if Zanetti portrayed it accurately? I don't know. But in terms of the way it was portrayed, it was really interesting.

The Sex:

The sex was hot. I wouldn't say it's intense BDSM, but there's definitely flavor there--you have edging, orgasm denial, lots of spanking (and I did appreciate that Thorn used lotion to try to prevent bruising, I don't know that it was effective but the boy tried) and some rough sex with light dubcon vibes. It's well-written, and I won't lie, the sex scenes were probably my favorite part of the book.

What I did struggle with was the fact that this was set in a world pretty much like ours but with magical social media stuff... and there was SO much emphasis on the hymen. Like, I kind of let it pass when it was a part of this virginity test situation mentioned by the bad guys. But then Thorn continued to reference it, there was an anatomical reference during the first penetrative sex scene... I don't know. I don't mind some virginity fetishization, especially in dark romance, but the emphasis on the hymen SPECIFICALLY felt kind of dated. Couldn't he have just talked about her tight pussy or whatever?

Anyway--this wasn't for me, but I do plan on trying more Rebecca Zanetti stuff. She came highly recommended to me, I can tell she's talented, and I'd like to see a less crammed plot or world from her.

Thanks to NetGalley and Kensington for providing me with a copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

[pastrnaks-sainz]

ok I’ll try 😭😭 this is really emo for some reason don’t come at me

sway: joined the military at 18. considered a “failure” in school because he never really did well, but both of his parents were very sick so most of his time was spent working and looking after them. His mom wanted him to serve the country, since everyone in his town did it. He didn’t want to disappoint her, so he enlisted at 18. He was a really good shot because he used to hunt a lot, and he eventually became a SEAL and went into special forces

ully: also joined very young, but it was to get away from his parents. He lied about his birth year and during boot camp he got found out. They were already watching him very closely and thought that he was above average, so they took a gamble and let him stay. The caveat was that he knew that he could be sent home by them at any time, so he had to do everything he was told; no questions asked. eventually he was pulled aside with some of his peers about joining a special team. The guy running it told everyone that it was gov’t approved (it wasn’t). The team’s job was to go around basically interrogating and k!lling “suspects”. Ully would later find out that these people just knew too much about the leader. He kept coming back to deploy until he met a girl in a bar. It was basically love at first sight, so he went out with her a couple of times. She said she’d wait for him while he was at war and he went off again. When he got to base, he told one of his buddies he wasn’t going to re enlist, and the word got spread until the SPECOP leader figured this out. He pulled ully to the side and basically said “you will return until you die. I cannot afford to lose you, you are my best soldier.” Atp ully had a fuckton of pent up rage from doing this guy’s bidding and snapped. He finished his service and vowed to never go back. He married the girl and they had kids together, but shortly after his son was born he fell into depression from PTSD; he was convinced he couldn’t raise a child because of all the killing he’d done, didn’t know how to be kind. To help, he started looking into the operation he was in, and his angel of a wife stuck by him the entire time. when his kid was around 1-2, one of his old friends from the unit came to his house. he told ully to stop looking into these things, that it wasn’t safe and his family was being watched. His wife suggested they move, so they did. Ully stopped looking, and focused on family. That is, until he got some random ass email. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and Ully told his wife he needed to go back. She told him to be safe, and off he went again. In his year at war, he gained no information except that the unit had disbanded when he started to look into them. Confused and homesick, he came back. He came back to a home torn apart. He came back to his wife, tied to a chair with a bullet wound in between her eyes. He came back to his son, with a tear stained face and empty eyes and a white sweater turned red. He mourned for months, and by rotting he became vengeful. He packed up his life and went on a killing spree basically. He hurt anyone who could be connected to his family’s murder; including many government officials and soldiers from his unit. Caught in the crossfire were two undercover Americans. Word got out that the Americans were killed, and that’s where Sway comes in. Sway’s team was given the job of finding this guy. Sway’s particular job had been watching Ully for a few years now. I don’t wanna write out how they met, but they did. It was on a mountain overlooking the home of a Swedish military contractor. Ully was basically about to put a shot through this dude’s skull but Sway stopped him. He tried to fight but it didn’t work. One of Sway’s teammates hit him with a syringe and he passed out.

There’s sosossososso much more that’s not the end at all but I have to go to practice 😜 also there are more storylines Swaymark are not the only ones lol

Hi yes I’m going to need 60k of this injected directly into my veins

[29pageshomestuckeveryday]

Homestuck, page 2,196

Vriska: Check out cool drawing on wall.

You drew your own role playing character for fun, as many Flarpers are prone to do. She is the best character, and you wish you were her. Oh wait, you are her! Your wish has been granted. Probably as a special boon for being so great at everything. Her name is Marquise Spinneret Mindfang, scourge of land dwellers and sea dwellers alike, and worst nightmare to silly BOY-SKYLARKS everywhere. She has accumulated more treasure and gained more levels than any member of the PETTICOAT SEAGRIFT class ever. She gained all the levels. All of them. Yeah!!!!!!!!

Author commentary: --> She's constantly used that way, as the number-one wedge character, dropped into situations to stir up controversy, get people arguing, and fuel noisy divisions in fandom leading to heated arguments about morality, the motivations behind her conduct, and the dispensation of justice. Since serving as the ultimate troll, fandom wedge, and escalator of drama is an inseparable part of her profile, by extension the narrative has a way of constantly dragging her back into the spotlight to keep stirring the pot, ratchet up controversy, and continue forcing the plot forward by dint of her overbearing personality and need to be important. Whether she's the one forcing her way back into the spotlight all the time due to ego, or it's actually the narrative always pulling her back in as a preferred tool of effective melodrama, thus giving her a reputation as someone favored by the author as a vehicle for mayhem and controversy, is left for readers to decide. It's also left for them to decide if there's even a difference between those things. But one consequence of this blatantly evident favoritism she either enjoys or steals from the narrative is that, after enough time goes by, it becomes an indisputable point of fact that, without caveat, excuse, or even the slightest attempt at conveying any sense of shame about the development, Vriska is presented as the author's canonical waifu. Unfortunately this isn't a joke, and leads to major plot developments later on, with unspeakably dire consequences for everybody. Again, both inside the story, and out.

[penkura]

last forever [6/13]

Summary: Zoro only offered to marry you to keep you out of an arranged marriage with a man much older than you. You agreed with the caveat of ending it via annulment once you received word from your parents regarding the original engagement, despite your growing feelings for your close friend.

Pairing: Zoro x Fem!reader, mentioned Sanami later (like epilogue later so chill)

Warnings: Marriage of Convenience, Fake Marriage, referenced sex (waaaaaay later on), mutual pining, Zoro is bad at feelings but what's new there, eventual romance I promise, mention of past attempted assault (I'll warn in that chapter), creepy older dude later on

Note: This got away from me, it's over 6k words, I'm so sorry. But, here's Robin and a bit of development between our lovely couple, I suppose. I do love Zoro, I promise.

[Ch. 1] ● [Ch. 2] ● [Ch. 3] ● [Ch. 4] ● [Ch. 5]

“Looks like we've shaken them.”

A round of whines from your crewmates is heard, making you smile slightly.

“You guys should be happy.”

Another whine, this time making you giggle while Zoro stares at everyone else.

“Stop that. What's wrong with you all?”

“I miss her!!”

Leaving Alabasta the way you did, barely able to say goodbye to Vivi and Karoo, with her decision to stay in the kingdom rather than join you all at sea, it was rough. You missed her greatly too, but understood her choice and accepted it. You still had Nami, at the very least it wasn't just you and a bunch of boys.

“If you wanted her to stay, you should've taken her by force!”

Hearing the insults everyone throws towards Zoro makes you laugh, even as he looks up at you on the upper deck in annoyance. You wave with a smile still on your face before he looks away. Strangely, things haven't changed much between you since he told you nothing romantic would be happening. Sometimes you feel an ache in your chest when you look at him, thinking about it, but you've come to accept Zoro probably would never take back what he said or try to court you. Once you had some kind of response from your parents, you two would sign your annulment papers and move on, living as crewmates instead of faking being husband and wife for your safety.

“I do agree with Zoro, you guys,” your smile softens as everyone looks up at you in surprise, “I love Vivi too, but if we wanted her to come along, we should've just kidnapped her.”

“[Y/N]!”

“Of course, that would've made us worse criminals,” jumping down from the upper deck, you stand beside Zoro with your arms crossed, “so it's better we let Vivi stay like she decided to. We'll see her again.”

While the rest of the crew agrees with you, Zoro is surprised you're being so agreeable with him after your discussion the other night.

Well ‘discussion’ is putting it lightly and in more positive terms. Sanji confronted him the next morning and mentioned how you'd ended up in tears over what Zoro said to you, making your temporary husband feel bad for a bit. He hadn't meant to make you cry, he was just telling you the truth. Romance was the farthest thing from his mind, it shouldn't even be in yours right now. There are too many other things to worry about, your goals and helping Luffy become King of the Pirates were the main ones. Helping everyone else with theirs was secondary, romance or anything like that was so far out of his mind, he never thought of it being a thing he'd have to worry about.

When he looks at you, all you do is smile, before Zoro shakes his head to move on and get those thoughts that you're still upset out of his head. You probably are, but it's not something to worry about right now.

“Looks like we finally escaped the firing squad.”

“Yeah, finally.”

“Excellent work, swordsman.”

The newest voice makes you all freeze in shock before everyone starts to freak out. Your hand is on your sword but Zoro is in front of you before anything happens, the rest of your crew moving into position against the dark haired woman on board. You barely recognize her as Crocodile's partner Ms. All Sunday, and you're curious about her reasons for being on your ship.

While Sanji swoons over her, Nami and Chopper start to hide behind you behind Zoro, Usopp is shouting warnings, and Luffy is shouting questions, Nico Robin does little more than smile, before saying she wants to join the crew, giving her reason being that Luffy saved her life back in Alabasta.

“I was determined to die, and you saved my life. That's your crime. So I decided I would join you.”

“Well,” Luffy nods and crosses his arms, “Guess it can't be helped. Welcome aboard!”

“Luffy!!”

The next little while is spent with everyone quickly changing their minds about Robin, for the most part. Usopp interrogates her but still believes her to be dangerous, until she pulls a trick with her Devil Fruit powers making him, Luffy, and Chopper burst out laughing. Sanji is smitten simply due to her being a woman, and Robin handing over a bag of jewels to Nami has them in each other's good graces.

Zoro intends to hold out, he's not going to trust her so easily when she was out to get you all until just a few minutes ago. He halfway expects you to do the same, though he doesn't expect the next exchange between you and Luffy a few moments later, once everyone has settled and you're able to pull your captain aside.

“Luffy,” you stay quiet, only he and Zoro can really hear you while Sanji continues to fawn over Robin as Usopp and Chopper ask her to show more of her powers, “Do you really trust her? I mean…she did work with Crocodile.”

Luffy gives you a bright grin and nod, which you return slightly. “Yeah, it's fine! She's not a bad person! You can tell too, can't you?”

“Mm.” You nod, deciding to trust in Luffy and his decision. You climb up on the railing beside him, taking the extra fishing rod to help him get something for dinner. “I'll trust you then, Luffy.”

“Great! Now let's get something good for Sanji to cook for dinner!”

“Haha, right.”

No, you don't miss how Zoro doesn't say anything, instead turning away from you and Luffy, avoiding Robin as she attempts to speak to him before looking at Luffy and asking if he'd gotten any bites yet. She was trying to fit in with you all, Luffy trusted her and she seemed to trust him. You're willing to give her a chance, even if Zoro isn't.

You're sure there's going to be a discussion about this later, and you definitely aren't looking forward to it.

+!+

“You can't be serious that you trust her.”

“Zoro,” you sigh and shake your head, rubbing your forehead a bit. Your head is starting to ache at the thought of a possible argument, “I didn't say I trust her.”

“Oh, and what's your reasoning for not being skeptical? She was our enemy not even three days ago!”

“I get that…but it sounds like she trusts Luffy.”

Zoro sighs heavily and shakes his head at you this time. He's not sure what to do with you, he doesn't want to fight with you about this, but it seems to be the way it's going to go.

He just doesn't trust Robin and doesn't get why you, who seemed to have worse trust issues than he did, ever would.

“And when she betrays us?”

“She won't, Zoro.”

“You don't know that! She could be using Luffy saving her as an excuse to get information and take it to the government or another pirate crew!”

“Oh good lord,” You're nearly glaring at Zoro while he almost snarls at you over the situation, “you are the most untrusting, stubborn man I've ever met! I don't trust her yet, who I trust is Luffy!”

“Luffy doesn't know what he's doing with her! She said something she knew he'd like to hear, she's not safe!”

“Luffy is our captain!” You didn't know your voice could get this loud, nor did you think Zoro's ever would. The rest of the crew must be getting one hell of a show if they could hear you from the storeroom right now. Though, if they could, you're certain Sanji would have run in to defend you and Robin by now.

“What does that have to do with this?!”

“He makes the decisions! If he thinks Robin is safe, I'll trust Luffy!”

“You're being as much of an idiot as our captain is!”

No, he doesn't really mean it, but Zoro wants to get his point across. You should be cautious, wary of this new person who, yes, was your enemy just a few days ago. You get that, you really do, but if Luffy thinks she's a good person, then…

“Yeah, sure! I'm an idiot because I trust our captain's choice!”

“Yes you are!”

“And you're a stubborn, untrusting dumbass!”

Well you've never called him such a name before, and that's more surprising to Zoro than anything that's happened today. You've both said too many things, probably things you don't mean, but it's enough now that he's done with it all. Done with yelling or trying to talk to you about it. He knows you won't listen, you'll both just end up trading insults and he doesn't want that anymore than you do.

So instead, Zoro pushes past you to leave, stopping briefly for one more thing.

“I want those papers later. We don't need to wait on your parents anymore.”

Zoro doesn't let you respond before he's heading back up the stairs, Luffy calling him for something that he's more than willing to do if it means being away from you for now.

You, however, do feel bad for the names you called him, and wish you had stopped him quickly enough to apologize. Had you been able to properly get your words out, maybe Zoro would have listened instead of fighting with you about Robin's recruitment. Instead you both let your emotions take over, said things you didn't mean, and now he was wanting the annulment papers.

Way to go, [Y/N]. You're getting an annulment and probably losing your closest friend.

+!+

Robin finds you with the logbook a couple days later, while everyone else is off the ship checking out the latest island you've docked at. She's not that surprised that you're the one who's keeping track of your adventure, you just seemed like the right person to write out everything that happened. If it wasn't you, she would've expected Nami to be keeping track.

“Anything interesting to record, Miss Logkeep?”

Humming a bit, you nod and finish the sentence you were writing, leaning back as Robin sits across from you. You're still recording all the events of Alabasta, trying to find the words to put everyone's perspective into the log appropriately. Making sure you had all the information meant having to speak with everyone, and with you and Zoro at odds for the moment, it felt like somethings were missing, and you likely weren't going to get anything from him until you two made up somehow.

You haven't taken your annulment papers to him, he hasn't asked again since your argument. Honestly you hope he's forgotten and will let things be until you hear from your parents or he changes his mind entirely. Maybe it's useless to hope for that, but until he asked for them again, you're going to hold onto that hope.

“Yeah, trying to finish Alabasta but…”

“Need someone else's side?”

“Mm…” You nod again, and Robin gives you a smile.

She had heard the argument you and Zoro had, so she knew very well that you two weren't really speaking. Even though it was due to her presence, she didn't say anything to let on that she knew, instead deciding to keep that to herself to see where things went with the two of you. It sounded like you were extremely close, and she'd like to see what your relationship with Zoro really was like.

“Forgive me if I'm prying, but are you and the swordsman close?”

You bite your lip a bit, wondering if you really should trust her with such information. It's not like you have to reveal your temporary marriage to Robin, Zoro would likely demand the papers again and actually sign them this time if you did so. After a moment of back and forth with yourself, you sigh and nod, closing the log with your bookmark in place.

“Yeah, we traveled together before we met Luffy. About eighteen months, I think.”

While you start to relay your story of how you met Zoro, met Luffy, and came to suddenly be a pirate, Robin just smiles and listens to you. Though you and Zoro aren't speaking much right now, you seem happy to be talking about him, like there's something there that even Robin is missing. She's not sure yet, if you have feelings for him, but the smile on your face and the slight blush you seem to have tells her she's on the right track.

“He's saved me from drowning, you know.”

“Has he now?”

You nod again, still smiling. “Not since before we joined Luffy, but a few times. My parents didn't teach me how to swim, Zoro's tried a few times,” you laugh and look at Robin, “I'm not very good!”

Robin laughs with you and gives you a smile. “Sounds like you really like him.”

She has you figured out, Robin thinks, while you blush a little and smile slightly before nodding. You simply have a crush on Zoro, and it seems he doesn't reciprocate it right now. That might change, because she has seen how protective of you Zoro is, having witnessed it first hand when she showed herself on Merry and he was in front of you almost instantly. Although she doesn't yet know all the details of your relationship, she's keen to see what happens.

When Sanji calls you all for dinner, Robin watches you and Zoro. You may not be talking to each other, but you still stay close, seated by each other without much thought, though you don't say anything to Zoro nor does he to you.

Robin knows you two will make up somehow, eventually. It seems as though you've been through far too much together to let one fight come between you.

And if you all do make it to the sky island, there might be a decent chance of seeing how well you two work together in battle.

+!+

“Come on, it's not water.”

You stare at Zoro from the Merry's deck, unsure if you believe him enough to jump down and join your crew. Finally arriving at Skypiea was a weight off and on your shoulders, with how thin the air was you felt like you couldn't breathe at first. Once you were used to that, you thought you were away from the water enough that you didn't need to worry about drowning, until watching Usopp nearly drown to death in the endless cloud sea.

Even with seeing Luffy, Chopper, and Robin freely walk through the clouds without any effects, you still weren't sure about it. Of course, you had no real fear of the water, you'd be a terrible pirate if you did.

However, knowing your inability to swim, you try to be careful on the ship, and not knowing how the Sky Island was, you were more worried than anything, even with Zoro trying to coax you off the ship and say you'd be safe.

You two have barely spoken since your argument about Robin joining the crew, so seeing him try to help you is a surprise. You're both stubborn but Zoro more so than you, which is what led to you spending more time with Robin and getting to know her, trusting her and knowing that she's no longer a threat.

Zoro's not at all impressed with you and how you've avoided speaking to him lately, but leaving you on the ship was not happening in his mind, not when everyone else had left and others were even calling for you. Luffy shouting for you to hurry up, Nami promising it was safe and you wouldn't drown, and even Sanji calling for you and saying he'd found something for you (likely the same flower you'd seen him give Nami and Robin, but it was a sweet gesture).

After another moment watching you debate, Zoro sighs and sticks a hand out to you, making you tilt your head.

“I won't let you fall. You know that.”

He's right, so you finally decide to go with your friends. Stepping onto and jumping off the railing with your shoes in one hand, the other grabbing Zoro's so he pulls you to him and keeps you from hitting the ground immediately, his other arm around your waist to help with that.

“Told ya.” Zoro sets you down and lets go of you once he sees you're stable, turning to follow after the rest of the crew before you grab his arm and stop him. “What?”

“I’m…sorry, thank you.”

“The hell you sorry about?”

“Not talking to you, calling you a dumbass, and fighting with you about Robin. I…we can…sign the papers later…”

Oh, that's what it was. Zoro wondered for a few days why you hadn't said anything to him about your marriage or your fight, he thought you'd just bring the papers to him later and say you wanted the annulment, not worrying about whatever your parents may think. He would've signed them if you did, but hearing the way you spoke just now, the slightest bit of concern and maybe sadness in your voice, it makes him shake his head in response.

“No, just…just leave it alone for now,” Zoro sighs but places his hand on your shoulder, moving you to walk in front of him, “Let's just join the others.”

Nodding, you don't miss how Zoro slightly squeezes your shoulder, before moving to keep his hand on your back and guide you, likely so you knew he wasn't letting you go so you wouldn't fall. It's a strange but kind gesture, even after he'd told you that he didn't have feelings for you and you two weren't going to be a couple.

Part of you wonders if he's lying, whether to you or himself, you're not sure yet though.

+!+

With all the trouble that Skypiea has brought you all, a night of rest and drinking was greatly needed, in your opinion. You'd all split off the next day to search for the city of gold and make your way to the end of sky island, but for now, you'll indulge in some drinks and laughs with your friends.

While he's still busy making food and handing it out, Sanji does, at one point, notice you grab a couple drinks and almost run back over to Zoro to give him one, before you go back to Nami and Robin nearby. How strange you two still are, in his eyes. You fight to the point of silent treatment, then start speaking again just earlier that day, and you're back to your usual self, bringing the mosshead things whether he asks or not. You're far too kind to Zoro, he doesn't deserve you, even though Sanji knows and understands the two of you aren't together. You do too much for him with nothing in return.

Although, rarely, Sanji has noticed that sometimes, it's Zoro who brings things to you in return. You've asked for a book once, something to drink a few times, and more recently had voiced your want for a snack, and were surprised by it a bit later when Sanji brought it to you.

“I…didn't even come ask you yet.”

Sanji shakes his head, scowling slightly before saying “Mosshead came and told me you wanted something to eat. Said I should just bring it right to you.”

You're surprised, mostly because you and Zoro haven't been speaking since your argument the other day.

“I…see…”

The blond knows of your fight, you'd gone to him shortly after and maybe you cried a little while telling him everything, but Sanji's of the belief you two must've made up if Zoro came and asked him to bring you something.

“Guess you guys made up then.”

“No…” this time you shake your head, accepting the small plate of food from Sanji with a slight smile, “We haven't…but this was sweet of him.”

Sanji was surprised at that, but now, he's more annoyed than anything. While you talk and laugh with Nami and Robin, Zoro stays where you left him, every now and then, Sanji catches him watching you. He's probably drunk, that's the only reason Sanji can think of to explain the look Zoro has on his face. It's something soft and almost faraway, like he's thinking too much about something. It only stops when you look over and smile at him, like you had back in Cocoyashi Village, making Zoro look away quickly and down the last of his drink.

There's something there, Sanji knows there is.

He's just not sure what it is yet.

+!+

Robin fully believes she knows what it is between you and Zoro, after watching you two the next day. You'd gone with her to search for the city of gold, Zoro not thinking that was a smart idea but you convinced him you'd be fine and he relented. He didn't want to have another argument leading into a silent treatment event happen. Seeing you without Zoro around, you seemed extremely interested in whatever history Robin told you. You chose to tell Robin about your situation with your family, explaining up to your meeting Zoro and leaving off your current marriage to him. You'd tell her one day, maybe once you'd come to know her more and trust her fully. Robin, though, knows there's something missing from your story. She can see it in your eyes, but she can't see exactly what it is.

What she does see happens when Eneru is nearly about to electrocute the five of you standing before him, Nami hiding behind a bit of debris. Once again Zoro has placed you behind him, and Robin can hear him quietly telling you to go to Nami, which you deny.

“I'm not going anywhere, I'm going to help you.”

Zoro's trying so hard to get you to safety that he nearly misses Eneru targeting Robin, only really noticing when you'd pushed away from him and ran to her, only to be hit with Eneru's attack after you'd shoved her out of the way.

“[Y/N]!!”

Robin's by your side and making sure you're still breathing, relief washing over her when she sees you've just been knocked out. She's more surprised at your actions and how Zoro's sending the worst glare she's ever seen towards Eneru, placing himself between the three of you.

“Don't you dare touch her again.”

“She's likely dead now so that won't be a problem.”

Eneru’s comment nearly pushes Zoro over the edge before Robin calls him.

“Swordsman, calm down! She's still breathing!”

“Doesn't matter! He shouldn't…she shouldn't have…”

Watching Zoro fight for his words and grip his swords tighter, it makes Robin realize she just might be right.

She believes it more so when you all have defeated Eneru, and are recuperating afterwards during a celebration with the Skypieans and Shandorians. Zoro had stayed by your side most of the time, constantly checking to make sure you were alright despite his injuries being worse. You barely seemed to notice, but Robin definitely did. Eventually she sees the same thing Sanji had the night before. You'd gone off with Nami once again, but also Luffy, Chopper, and Aisa this time, the five of you playing some game the little Shandorian girl had come up with, and Robin sees Zoro watching you all, but mostly you. She sees his eyes soften just a bit, the slightest smile on his face while he watches you laugh, especially when Luffy tosses Aisa to you and you catch her, making her squeal in laughter as well. This was the most peaceful she'd seen Zoro yet, and it was all because of you it seems.

How sweet.

You two are the last to wake the next morning, before your abrupt departure, and Robin is sure her hunch is right seeing you snuggled up close to Zoro with one of his arms around you before Sanji kicks Zoro to wake him up. Of course this causes an argument as soon as Zoro is up and in Sanji's face, you barely awake and rubbing your eyes to figure out what's happening.

“What the hell, I was sleeping.”

“You and the swordsman were,” Robin starts to smile while your eyes widen and you feel a blush creeping onto your cheeks, “but we need to get going soon.”

“R-Right… did um… anyone–”

“Yeah you were really cozy with Zoro all night.” Nami grins and you have to hide your face in your hands, Zoro and Sanji still shouting at each other while Usopp, Luffy, and Chopper are gathering their things like it's a game.

Once you all do take off, as you're running to leave, you nearly trip over the ground to the point Zoro grabs you like the sack of gold everyone has and throws you over his shoulder.

“Wait, Zoro!! Put me down!!” You pound on his back a bit before he adjusts you over his shoulder better.

“Not if you're gonna trip like that!”

You don't even bother to fight him and just hang there the rest of the way to Merry, Zoro finally putting you down once you all get there, Robin hears the quietest apology from him while you shake your head and move to help get everything ready to go.

They're very interesting, those two…maybe he does actually like her.

+!+

Landing back in the sea did not go as planned for you. Your air filled octopus balloon friend let you down easily for the most part, until he suddenly ran out of air and the Merry was being quickly dropped into the water. You grabbed as tightly to the railing as you could while everyone else did the same, or grabbed each other in the case of Luffy, Usopp and Chopper, and Sanji not at all complaining as Nami latched onto him. The splash down flooded the deck with water, but once it drained enough, Merry settled and you were back as close to solid ground as possible.

“Everyone good?!” Luffy shouts a bit, Usopp and Chopper still holding onto him while most everyone states they're fine. He furrows his brow when he doesn't hear your voice or see you. “Where's [Y/N]?”

“Did she get swept out when the water drained?!” Nami feels panic seep into her bones while she looks for you in the water.

The second Nami's question reaches him, Zoro is in the water on the side of the ship you'd been on, making what felt like the millionth rescue from water he'd done in his life, most of them being for you due to your inability to swim. The first time it happened you'd been pushed in by one of your bounty targets before Zoro struck them down, quick enough that he was able to reach in and pull you out by your shirt collar like a cat by the scruff of its neck while you flailed about. You didn't eat a Devil Fruit, your parents simply never taught you to swim. Your brother attempted to, but only for so long before your parents heard and barred you from doing so. A lady didn't need to know how to swim, your mother tried to reason with you.

Zoro's able to reach you in time before you get too far down in the sea, grabbing you by the waist and pulling you upwards, surfacing not even a minute after he'd jumped in, making you gasp for air and cling tightly to him, almost suffocating your constant savior while you spit up water from your lungs.

“Zoro's got [Y/N]!! Let the ladder down!”

You hated this, hated needing to be saved anytime you ended up in the water. It's become so much that you aren't sure if you really are crying while you grip onto Zoro, or if it's just water dripping down your face, despite how hard you're biting your lip and tightening your hold on him. It's not like you had a good excuse, not like those who had eaten Devil Fruits.

Zoro puts an arm around your shoulders and stops for just a second once he gets the both of you to the ladder before starting to climb up.

“Hey,” you almost miss him speaking to you, even once he starts trying to soothe you by rubbing your back, “I've got you. You're all right.”

He's quiet while he speaks to you, whispering reassurances that all is well, you're okay, he's not going to let you go until you're on the deck again. You're alive, he's saved you again, kept you from drowning like he has Chopper and Luffy in the past. Like he always has.

Sometimes it feels like all you do is take and take and take from Zoro, from all of them. You wonder sometimes if your parents were right, when they said you were nothing more than a greedy child still, always taking but never giving back. Despite the fact you do your fair share on the ship, in battles, it feels like you shouldn't be here.

Once you're back on the deck, you still don't let go of Zoro, even when he tells you to at least loosen your grip before you choke him to death. You do, at the very least, release your grip on his shoulders and instead hide your face in his shirt, trying to keep your worried crewmates from realizing you are crying after all. Zoro simply holds your head in place, even with Luffy and Usopp trying to check you over while Chopper runs to get his bag and help you. Sanji is quickly throwing his suit jacket around you and trying to get Luffy and Usopp away so they don't cause you more distress, while Robin suggests bringing you to your bed, and Nami's run off to your room to get dry, warm clothes for you. Despite the slight distrust he still feels for Robin, Zoro nods at her suggestion, bringing Sanji's jacket around you a bit more before lifting you up in his arms, knowing you weren't letting him go anytime soon. You don't let go, not even for a second, until you're in your room and Zoro has laid you on your bed, telling you to wait for Chopper to get there while he tries to leave and change into dry clothes himself. He's stopped only by you grabbing his wrist, wanting him to stay, before Zoro promises he'll come right back. You only let go after that, giving a slight nod when he turns to leave you to change clothes yourself.

“Zoro?”

He's almost out of the room before you stop him, making him look over his shoulder to you.

“Thank you…again.”

He shakes his head, telling you not to mention it.

“I'll always save you if you need it, wife.”

+!+

You're struck with a nasty fever and congested cough the next day, blaming it on the unexpected swim you'd taken and the slightly colder area you were in. Chopper's given you all the medicine you can take for now, to try and bring your fever down, the rest was up to your own body to fight it off. Your crewmates were kind enough to take turns watching you, as you all had done when Nami was ill before you brought Chopper on board. She and Zoro are the ones to spend the most time watching you; Luffy tries to cheer you up with jokes, Usopp tells you more of his tall tales, Robin has taken to reading to you from a book she'd let you borrow, Sanji is mostly quiet so you can sleep, and Chopper is in and out checking on you and seeing if your fever has reduced any. Nami is almost as quiet as Sanji, working on a map while you rest.

Then Zoro.

He continues to reassure you that everything is OK, not constantly while he's there but he can tell, when you trail off in your sentences and look away from him, that you feel bad about something. He's not sure what, but he tells you everything is alright, you're alive and you made it out of a fight against a false god and a near drowning.

“‘M sorry you have to watch me…instead of doing your training.”

If he'd been any closer to sleep, Zoro would've missed what you said entirely. Luckily for you, he's awake enough to raise an eyebrow and shake his head.

“Don't worry about it. It's what crewmates do.”

It's what a husband does too…

“I feel like all I do is take from you…”

You don't look at him, finding your ceiling more interesting as you look over the wood pattern to avoid his eyes. You know he'll try to reassure you again, Zoro was good at that, despite his indifference to your pretend marriage. He'd never made you feel like you were a burden or less than, even if you really did mostly take and rarely give in return.

Zoro's not even sure why he always tries to make you realize things are okay, that you haven't done anything wrong. He knows about your parents acting like you should be seen and not heard, such a crappy thing to do to your own child in his opinion. Your parents were well off, they’d give to you and your brother constantly, then make you feel like you were selfish for not returning the “favor” by marrying who they chose for you. They really seemed to embody the “not every parent deserves a child” belief.

Thank God you had someone who cared for you though.

Before even saying a word in response, Zoro quietly takes hold of your free hand, letting you lace your fingers with his and making you look him in the eye again.

“Take all you want, I'll give you what I can. You can return it another time, all right?”

You want to cry, as Zoro strokes your hand with his thumb, and you nod a bit, swallowing down the tears before they can start. The things he does to you, even after telling you he isn’t here for romance. The way he acts, the way he treats you, it really makes you want to believe he’s lying to himself, lying to you to keep up his image. It gives you the slightest bit of hope that things could change one day.

“O-okay…”

We're not a couple…I don't know why you put up with me…

Once your fever is past, you're back to your normal routine of helping out wherever possible on the ship, spending your free time in the kitchen with Sanji, helping Nami with a map, or staying near Zoro while he goes back to training. He doesn't mind if you quietly sit near him, whatever book you've borrowed from Robin in your lap. It feels almost domestic to him, and Zoro has to brush that thought away quickly, lest he start fantasizing about keeping you as his wife. He stops any random thoughts of you two sharing a bed permanently, of taking you out somewhere on the next island for a date, or convincing you to stay up with him during his night watch, just to talk about your relationship and future. No, those thoughts can't be entertained, not now at least, he can't be distracted by such frivolous feelings like wanting to hold your hand all of sudden, or expecting a good morning hug or whatever. Romance isn't in his plans, it's not on his radar. You being his wife isn't supposed to be permanent.

Still though, a thought lingers despite his pushing the others out, when Zoro catches you dozing off in the corner, still fatigued from your body fighting off that fever.

Would it really be so bad to stay married to her?

He's not sure, even as he sets his weight back in place, wiping away any sweat he can and putting on a shirt before settling himself next to you, gently leaning you against him as you sleep. You stir a bit but he quickly quiets you.

“Just me. Go back to sleep.”

“Mm…’kay…”

Despite the scent of steel and sweat, you snuggle closer to Zoro, him wrapping an arm around your shoulders to keep you still. He lays his head on top of yours, closing his eyes and letting those thoughts come back, not stopping a single one this time.

Thoughts of a possible future where you two stay married and act like it, where you treat each other as husband and wife, where you've both reached your goals, where you're settled down somewhere safe enough to have a child or two perhaps.

Thoughts Zoro never once imagined entertaining, but now they take over his dreams to the point he's started changing his mind.

Maybe not so bad.

[farb3yond]

FIRST LOVE, IN FIVE PARTS.

*Coug* *Cough* Sorry, this blog is a little dusty.

My one caveat for this poem is that it was written to be read out loud to an audience, so reading it here doesn’t quite match the intended effect.

FIRST LOVE, IN FIVE PARTS.

So I have this friend right and I heard he started seeing this girl. So when I met up with him I asked him. I said, “Hey man, how are you? What’s going on with this girl you’re seeing?”

He said,

Our love is a game of hide and seek in the nude. We are both trying desperately to catch a glimpse of the other, but it's hard, because we're terrified of being caught naked. It's a slow dance on a tied-rope strung between ecstasy and destruction. And I’m so nervous I only think about jumping. It's Texting and not texting, Calling and not calling. It's playing games while we're awake, It's falling asleep while facebook stalking. It's the unplanned love-child of hope and fear. And just like the two of us, it didn't ask to be born, but fuck it's here. Like the sunrise on the last day of your life, or that feeling when you look to the left, and you look to the right, And realize that you accidently became an adult. And just like that, what once seemed impossible, Suddenly feels inevitable.

So I was like, “Wow! You're in trouble holmes.”

Anyway I met him again a few months later, and he was a ball of energy! I went to ask him how he was when he interrupted me saying...

The way she makes love shakes my convictions. It makes me cynical of my cynicism, It re-baptizes my beliefs, it revises my revisions There's a subtle safety in her promise, and it provide sanctuary for softness. And within halls filled with the florescence of her essence, I'm resurrecting a part of me I forgot was dead. And with that... One who is so used to punching problems and breaking things, is mending bridges and making things. All because… Her irises blaze like the beacon of a lighthouse, a bright, steadily shifting metronome. Silently saying that all the seas and storms are over, and that you, my love, are finally home.

And I looked at him and I was like, JESUS CHRIST...

He's not such a close friend of mine so we didn't meet till several months later. When we did he wasn’t looking as good as the last time we met. I asked, “How are you man, how is she?”

And he said,”

I don't know man... It's like someone changed the sheets while weren't paying attention, or maybe something changed because we weren't paying attention, or maybe what changed, is we stopped paying attention. Like loving felt so easy I thought I could do it blindfolded, and so I tried. Like giving felt so easy she buried all thoughts of sacrifice, along with any hope of compromise. So now I have a second secret lover, You might know her? Insomnia? I heard she gets around. Thing is though I don't quite like the way she eye-balls my dreams, And in 2 weeks with no sign of HER, and no sign of SLEEP! I'm thinking of sending out a search party, you know: Lost: 'Hopes & Dreams' Last Seen: ‘Somewhere between her broken promises, and my muffled screams.' Till then I'm just injecting every 'hello' with a latent 'goodbye'. As destiny slips through my fingers, and I can't quite figure out 'why?'. I'm locked in this prison of past patterns, though I don't quite understand the crime, I'm forced to kiss the person I love every time, like it might be the last time.

My friend kinda turned into the kind of person you wouldn't want to be friends with after that.  I ran into him this one time and couldn’t get away from him so I awkwardly asked, “Heyyyy how are youuuu…?”

He said,

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck FUUUCCCKKK FUUUCK FUCK FUCK… fuck…!

And I was like, “…Fuuuuck…”

We didn't speak again for a while. To be honest I feel like no one really heard from him in a while. I suddenly heard he'd crawled out of his cave and was making appearances in public. So I called him up and said we should meet up.

I apologized for what happened saying, “I’m sorry about everything that happened bro, how is she? Do you guys still talk?”

He said,

Yeah... She called me after reading the Fault in our Stars, Talking about love and loss. I said the pages of great books feel like mirrors. chapters feel like memories, and characters; friends. She said don't be so dramatic, it's not like we're dying. But I said anyone who says we're not is lying. This human horror show is a cosmic tragedy with an unoriginal ending. I'm not trying to be condescending, but we're all dying. But when the two of us lived as one we illuminated this reality. We filled its spaces with serenity, and sang songs into its silences. We transmuted its mundane and morphed its melancholies. So it’s almost poetic, that we'd be undone by such trivialities. I'd like to say we were doomed, I'd like to say we were young, But the truth is you were selfish, and I was dumb. So though fate never did us any favors, and our stars are full of shit. We are the unplanned parents of our own destruction, and it’s time we took responsibility for it. I would have loved you for a lifetime, but that's damaged beyond repair, still, don't despair, Perhaps 'almost' can be our 'always'.

[mariacallous]

Small steps and all that. The Tory party conference may be on life support in the ICU – most delegates have written thank you letters to Mick Lynch for Wednesday’s rail strikes that have given them a gold-plated excuse for leaving early – but things aren’t quite as bad as they could be. It was probably more luck than judgment, but Liz Truss finally got through an interview relatively unscathed. Put it like this. It wasn’t a total car crash. More a minor scrape.

There are caveats, of course. For one thing, the interview with Nick Robinson for the Today programme had been prerecorded the day before. So we might just have got a moment in time when a version of Radon Liz existed that was not quite so catatonically hapless. There was no way of knowing whether another iteration of Truss that was live at 8.10am on a Tuesday morning would have given the same interview. Things have turned unusually existential in Birmingham.

Some things don’t change though. Librium Liz still didn’t manage to say anything that would reassure doubters – ie everyone – that she knew what she was doing. She was still clueless about whether to cut benefits to pay for the tax cuts. The very concept made no syntactic sense to her software. The whole point of announcing unfunded tax cuts was that they should be unfunded. There were also still long silences as various neurons clunked into life. It can take an age for one thought to emerge from barely connecting synapses.

Right at the start, Robinson had begged Truss to confirm that there would be no U-turns between this interview being recorded and it being broadcast. She had form, after all. “Of course,” Radon Liz insisted. Come the end, Robinson was forced to add a line that another U-turn was on the cards. That the chancellor was planning to bring forward the date for his medium-term fiscal event from 23 November in order to reassure the markets that he did have a plan after all. Or at least a plan to have a plan. Which would be better than where we were now.

It couldn’t last, of course. Not in the ongoing Tory psychodrama that presents itself first as farce and then as tragedy. So it wasn’t long before the government was backpedalling. Making a U-turn to a U-turn. Both Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng were adamant that the next fiscal event was again back on for November. Because what the markets needed was increased uncertainty.

Now the star-crossed lovers had the country where they wanted it. Scratching its head and wondering what the hell was going on. This was the Tory party we had come to know and endure. Because the mere announcement of a U-turn to a U-turn was a definite signal that in a different space-time continuum – one that would surely come, if it wasn’t here already – we would soon be presented with a U-turn to a U-turn to a U-turn. Reality was only a figment of the imagination. A lie, a truth waiting to happen. Time present and time past. Both present in time future.

Which isn’t to say there will be no room for slapstick. With two clowns in charge, how could it be otherwise? First Librium Liz twice refused to say whether she trusted her chancer chancellor. Only to later say that she did trust him. So which is it? Both positions are equally absurd. Why would she trust him? Yet why wouldn’t she? So you can take your pick. Choose a Truss and write your own story.

Meanwhile Kamikwasi was also set on self-destruct. He declared that the only thing wrong with his mini-budget was that the Queen had been selfish enough to die at the wrong time. So he’d had to do it in a rush. It hadn’t occurred to him to wait a bit longer to nail down the missing billions. It had been what the Queen would have wanted. Tanking the economy had been a mark of respect.

While our two idiots unsavant were causing havoc, it was left to other members of the cabinet to fill the void. So take a bow, Jacob Rees-Mogg, for almost single-handedly keeping the show on the road by appearing at almost every fringe event.

In the optimistically titled Think Tent, Jakey was unusually shapeshifting as the sanest person in the room. Then again, he was being interviewed by Mark Littlewood, the batshit-crazy director general of the Institute for Economic Affairs. Littlewood sounded appalled when Rees-Mogg suggested that regulations banning child chimney sweeps were a good thing.

Which left us with Suella Braverman. The home secretary started the day by declaring that all those who didn’t want unfunded tax breaks for the richest had effectively led a coup against Truss. Stop talking Britain down, Suella. We’re not a failed state, yet. Though we’re getting there. She then launched a counter coup of her own by deciding that Librium Liz had not been nearly tough enough to resist the coup. If she had been leader, Michael Gove and Grant Shapps would have been summarily executed. As would Truss just for good measure.

This was just the sort of no-nonsense insanity that would go down a storm in the main hall later in the afternoon. After a stellar array of charisma-free speakers – it’s sheer organisational brilliance to gather every minister who can’t read a teleprompter in the same place – the half-full auditorium came alive for Braverman. She told them that the police were too busy being nice to trans people to investigate proper crimes. She told them Labour wanted to disband the police. She told them she had a dream of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda. The first flight out would be the best day of her life.

Towards the end, Braverman became almost emotional as she spoke of her desire to do anything that woke people disliked. Who cared about the government falling apart when there were culture wars to be fought? It was almost as if she were on a loop. Returning to her and the members’ comfort zone. A place where almost no one else existed. In return half the audience gave her a standing ovation. Largely because they thought she had finished. We were in yet another universe. Untold wonders. Just push open the doors and step on through.

[purplemninja]

The Tragic Story of Six

We all know that a Little Nightmares protagonist never makes it past one game, that is except for Six, who has suffered alongside the other protagonist kids throughout the whole journey. And we’re going to be exploring the tragedy of her tale.

Some points I need to caveat before we dive in:

1- None of what I will say justifies Six’s bad deeds, but does explain why she did the bad things she’s done.

2- Six is only nine years old. So Six isn’t even in the double digits yet when she goes through everything in this post. And since we don’t know how much time has passed between LN2 and LN1, she could have been only eight years old in VLN or LN2 for all we know.

And 3- Even though most of the instalments are played by one of the other kids, the overall LN narrative is telling us Six’s story, since she is present throughout the whole series.

Here is some music that I believe is fitting for this subject so that you can play it as you read:

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The story of Six is a tragic one.

It begins with her entrapment at the Nest. We don’t know what happened to Six before this, how Six got there or how long she’s been there, but it’s safe to assume that it wasn’t pleasant for her because she hides in places where the monsters can’t get her and that she wanted to escape at the end. This is also Six at her most innocent.

During her escape, she encounters RCG and decides to team up with her but unfortunately gets betrayed by her. She finds another way to escape the Nest and is saved by RCG this time and tries to save her in return. But sadly her attempt to save RCG failed and all she could do was watch as RCG and the Pretender fall into the sea to their deaths. This moment left Six with survivor’s guilt.

Having developed survivor’s guilt, you can better understand why Six was hesitant to help Mono at the beginning of LN2 - she doesn’t want to help someone only to lose them again (that and him chopping down the door with an axe wasn’t exactly the best first impression). Over the course of LN2, Six learns to trust Mono and even actively puts her own life at risk to help him several times, as does he for her. And the ending of VLN makes the part where Six finds the raincoat hit differently.

Later, through Mono’s actions, she gets kidnapped by the Thin Man and taken to the tower where she tortured and later distorted (as evident by the part where Mono tries to pull her out of a TV, she doesn’t want to be there and is clearly in distress).

But, even when she’s been tortured and distorted in the Signal Tower, she still offers her music box which is her escapism and the fantasy that the tower has hypnotised her with, meaning that she wanted Mono to join her in the fantasy. The LN Twitter hinted twice that breaking the music box was why Six dropped Mono ‘Extracting someone from a fantasy can be deeply upsetting for everyone involved’. So now you may understand Six’s perspective of the situation, which Dave Mervik hinted at in an interview when asked why she did what she did. LN2 is shown through Mono’s perspective and doesn’t easily offer us Six’s perspective, so we can only interpret it.

Here’s how I interpret it:

‘I tried to save someone even after they betray me, but I failed to save them. I then met a boy with a bag on his head who offered me his hand, I didn’t want to take it at first because I didn’t want to lose someone else all over again, but circumstances forced me to accept his help. We gradually bonded and I tried even harder to ensure that my friend would make it out alive by putting myself at risk to help him. He did nothing when I was taken and practically torn in half (Shadow Six’s creation) but when he finally arrived, I offered him to join me in the fantasy I was in, I either didn’t know that my body was distorted or I didn’t mind it (after all, Six doesn’t really seem bothered by her monstrous form). However not only does he refuse my offer, but he forces me out of it. No matter how much I screamed from the pain and tried to stop him, he kept doing it (since Six screams and hunches over in pain whenever Mono hits the music box). I’m not given a minute to process what just happened when he destroys it because walls of flesh start chasing us immediately afterwards and I barely managed to get to the exit. I catch him but then I think:

Why? Why did he do that? I tried to save someone else but failed but this time I changed myself by putting my own life at risk to help him several times and offered him to join me in the fantasy that helped me heal from the pain caused by the man in the hat that he released even when I tried to stop it from happening. But not only does he refuse my offer but he forces me out of it against my will. No matter how much I screamed and tried to stop him, he wouldn’t stop hurting me. After everything I did for him, this is the thanks I get? I changed myself by putting my life at risk to help someone else, so why?’

And like the LN Twitter said: the more of us understand the pain that Mono caused Six than we realise.

With how the tower was collapsing as she held onto Mono, Six had to think fast. And well, we saw what happened (before people try to put words in my mouth, no, none of this justifies what happened to Mono, but makes it understandable). Afterwards when she comes out of the TV, we see her hugging herself, showing guilt or remorse before Shadow Six appears.

And finally in LN1 we see that Six doesn’t help any other kids anymore, either because she’s afraid that she’ll just lose them all over again or because what happened with Mono made her lose trust people, essentially shutting everyone out. It’s probably a bit of both. The only ones she’s shown to still trust are the Nomes, evident by how she hugs them and gives them a source of warmth/light by lighting a lantern when one is available and freeing some Nomes that got themselves trapped (such as the Nomes in the fridge and cage in the prison chapter and later in a jar in the kitchen chapter). Why does she trust the Nomes over the other kids? It could be that they remind her of the two friends she’s lost (RCG and Mono) or because she sees herself in them with how skittish they are like she is (and for good reason), or she doesn’t trust people anymore to show kindness to them but still has to the desire to be kind to something that is considered inferior to her or maybe a bit of each of these.

But unfortunately along the way she saw that the children on the Maw are turned into sausages, so when the hunger hits her, she is forced to choose between knowingly committing cannibalism or eating something that we know is also a kid but she doesn’t know, and she chose the latter option. And finally, after defeating the Lady, Six is forced to knowingly commit cannibalism to satisfy her hunger and she obtains the Lady’s powers in the process. The way she slowly turns towards the camera marks the end of what little innocence she had left, and now she exits the Maw and awaits rescue, killing any guests that try to eat her along the way.

What happens to her afterwards is yet to be seen, but with Six trying to save RCG even after being betrayed by her, to at first not trusting Mono but eventually trusting him and changing herself to risk her own life to help him several times but betraying him when a big misunderstanding occurs, to not even trying to save any of the other kids anymore, you can now notice Six’s mental deterioration.

Something to remember is that all of the monsters (except the flesh walls) are human, mostly adults. But they weren’t always adults; they were once children themselves. Whether the world went insane long ago - when they were children, or not that long ago - when they are now adults, either way they were once children too and now live to prey on the next generation of children. And as we saw and confirmed by David Mervik himself, the world has shaped Six to become one of them, now existing to prey on others to survive and all child-like innocence she had is gone.

Although the ending she got may not be as bad as Mono’s, RCG’s and RK’s, and until LN3 comes out (provided it’s actually a sequel this time) to prove otherwise, Six’s story and fate nonetheless remain a tragic one. And Six’s fate is one shared no doubt by many other children.

Thank you for reading if you’ve read all of this, I’ll see you in the next one.