#and then theoretically as the rounds go on it gets closer

[nicoappreciation]

i saw your own personal rigging among the bracket and i applaud you. keep up the good work king

LMAO i’m not sure what you mean the bracket was seeded based on the poll i put out a week ago HOWEVER i did break ties by just placing the one i liked more higher LOL

[prone-to-fleeting-obsessions]

Dating Veritas Ratio hc's

Out of all the hsr men, I'd imagine he'd be the most irritated figuring out he has a crush

A crush? A stupid little manifestation of his irrational emotions???

He'll stew over it a while, picking it apart like the most complex of equations, his stoic expression not wavering

So what if he's around you often? So what if he unconsciously seeks you out, it doesn't mean anything...

He'll hammer that narrative over and over until it becomes truth, or as close to truth as his mind will allow

You'll act like a married couple, though

He'll scold you without any real irritation, eyes narrowing as he pulls you closer to just fix the problem himself

A leaf in your hair? Your sleeve unrolled? Coffee stain on your shirt?

Honestly, how could you be such a careless mess...

Wait, no. No don't go, you're his careless mess—

It'll become a new normal to just have him occasionally once over your appearance, looking for things he can fix and doing so without a word

He also takes it upon himself to make you a healthier and more rounded person

No you're not eating garbage calories for the third meal in a row, yes you are drinking a full glass of water as he reads you excerpts from his book on how quantum chemistry applies to theoretical engineering under Nous's 63rd law of imaginary quantum information science, and there will be a quiz after so pay attention

If asked about why he's often seen by your side, he'll usually answer with a glare and an insult, commenting on the lack of even borderline decent conversationalists around

You're probably not really going to get an actual confession out of him, because that would force him to admit defeat to those annoyingly persistent feelings that just won't leave him be

If you take the initiative of backing him into a corner, you get to watch him flounder a bit, an expression of agitation and a growing warmth throughout his whole body as he skirts the topic with overly complex excuses

He's a big fan of doing different things in the same space, talking isn't necessary

Occasionally, when he remembers you're still there, he'll glance up from his book to see how you're faring, before getting back into it

He has a bit of a staring problem, in a way

It's just that he's so up in his head often, usually easily loosing sight of his surroundings, and you just happen to be the most pleasing thing to keep his eyes on

He'll look away when he notices you staring back, but it's not long before you feel his eyes trained on you again, as if studying every little movement as he works out equations in his head

Of course he does need alone time, usually spent reading in the bath

But that period seems to be getting shorter and shorter as his focus is constantly broken by unconditionally looking around to find you while deep in thought

He will absolutely use you as a blank canvas to throw ideas and thoughts on if he can't work through something in his head

By explaining it to you in mind numbing detail, he'll usually run headfirst into the solution, and it's a treat to watch his eyes widen ever so slightly as he pauses, immediately thanking you curtly before moving straight to writing

Your sense of curiosity is his favorite trait, the one he wants to nurture and encourage you to feed

He's not expecting you to be as smart as him, that would be an impossible expectation, but he will not allow you to give in to ignorance, to get in the habit of complacency, as it is the enemy of growth

He's an intimidating figure to most, both from his status and sharp tongue, so it's not uncommon for low-level scientists with something to prove to seek you out

Sometimes to get information on him, sometimes to test your intelligence, as if trying to prove themselves better than the company the great Dr. Ratio chooses to keep

He's quick to nip that in the bud, though

His crossed arm stoic faced glare would scare away anyone who isn't keen on being picked apart verbally

He'll claim it's all to avoid tainting you with their idiocracy, and that you really shouldn't keep such company

Tries to use selfish logical excuses constantly to get things he wants from you

"I've already chosen your hotel room for this trip, it'll be next to mine so I don't have to travel as far to compare notes in the morning."

"Honestly. You're coming with me to dinner so I won't waste my time working around your schedule later."

"No. You are absolutely not going to get a closer look at those monsters because I'm not cleaning up the mess you'll no doubt get yourself into by being so reckless."

"You're really going to waste your valuable time entertaining those IPC buffoons? They have more credits than brain cells. Stay here, lest their ignorance rub off on you."

He means well, under the insults and unapproachable demeanor

And, at a certain point, he really can't imagine the rest of his life without you close by

[adverbally]

Think of the Tender Things

Written for the @steddieangstyaugust prompt ���‘Keep breathing, please.’” | wc: 773 | rated: T | cw: hospital, premature baby | tags: adoption, new parent anxiety, hopeful ending | title from “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by Simple Minds

———

The NICU has its own window, far enough from the regular nursery to seem intentional. It makes sense to Eddie, theoretically speaking— keep the preemies and the sick babies away from the healthy ones so the comparison isn’t so startling. It just doesn’t work that well if they have to walk past the full-term nursery anyway.

They pause to observe the fat, happy newborns who will be going home in the next day or two. They’re all chubby cheeks and chunky limbs, round little tummies swaddled tightly with matching caps on their heads, just like the parenting books advertise.

Steve’s hand squeezes his, and Eddie knows he’s feeling the same thing: that’s how it should’ve been, and all of the guilt and fear and bitterness that goes along with that line of thinking.

They keep walking down the hall until they reach the door indicating the special care nursery. The glass there is smaller, since fewer babies fit in a room when they’re surrounded with incubators and ventilators and monitors galore.

The second bassinet from the right has a card with a stork that says “Baby Boy Munson” and wow, that’s going to take some time to get used to. Eddie gets closer, almost pressing his nose against the glass, to get a better look.

“He’s so small,” Steve says beside him. “I figured he would be, but…”

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees. It says right there on the little card: three pounds, thirteen ounces. Sixteen inches long. Not the smallest baby there but noticeably smaller than the ones they just walked past. “A lot of hair, too.”

“Yeah.”

They’re quiet after that. There’s not much they can comment on before they have to acknowledge the fact that they’ve just become adoptive parents a full two months ahead of schedule.

Their son (holy shit) seems even smaller with the tubes and wires obscuring him. Eddie identifies an oxygen cannula, a feeding tube, chest leads, an IV, and a blood pressure cuff, plus a few other lines he doesn’t know the purpose of. When you factor in a diaper that seems to dwarf half of his tiny body, there’s barely any skin visible. And from what Eddie understands, they’re lucky that more serious care isn’t necessary.

“Thirty-two weeks. That’s not… it could be worse,” Steve said after they got the call from the adoption agency that morning. The whole drive to the hospital, he rambled about lung maturity and the suck/swallow reflex and birth weight, going into one of Eddie’s ears and out the other as he tried to focus on the road.

Steve was the one who read all the books. Even the parts about premature births and what could go wrong throughout the pregnancy. “I’d just rather know and be prepared,” he explained. “Just to cover our bases.”

Eddie had skipped those chapters. It felt like bad luck, like tempting fate or something, as if avoiding it would prevent anything from happening. In retrospect, he wishes he had more of a clue about what’s going on, what their future will look like.

Any future seems far away when the present is so uncertain. Eddie watches his son squirm, with his too-long limbs and his too-big head, and he watches his chest rise and fall with each breath. His tiny lungs are working and he’s moving and none of his machines are beeping, and that has to be enough for now.

Just keep breathing, please, he thinks desperately. Keep growing and getting stronger and we’ll worry about the rest later.

When Steve breaks the silence, his voice is small. “Do you think we can hold him? Or, or touch him, at least?”

Eddie doesn’t want to. He knows it’s just his anxiety talking, but he’s terrified that he’ll pull some essential line or do something wrong. He was supposed to have another two months to prepare for this. How do people prepare for this?

“Ed, are you okay?” Steve’s voice startles him back into awareness.

“Yeah, just…” He pauses to think about how to say it without alarming Steve. He settles on, “I’m scared.”

Steve throws his arms around Eddie’s neck and pulls him into a tight hug. “I’m scared, too,” he confesses in a whisper. “I think we’re gonna keep being scared for the next eighteen years, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do it.”

Eddie tucks his nose just under Steve’s ear and breathes him in, sweet shampoo and hints of spicy cologne in the collar of his jacket. They stay like that for long moments before Eddie sighs and pulls away with a decisive nod. “Okay. Let’s go meet our son.”

[toastedjeans]

Siren Tower AU!

I wanna keep this more on the silly side, but here's the basic gist of it.

There's a huge tower submerged in the ocean where many sirens and other sea creatures have found a home, and somehow humans have discovered it. They want to study and explore this tower, and the sirens are NOT happy about it, not wanting their home to be potentially destroyed. Pretty reasonable. But now, this random middle aged pizza baker somehow gets roped into this whole mess.

And here's the characters! (I tried to keep their heights accurate but idk if i succeeded)

And down there is some more info about everyone!

HUMANS (and Brick)

Peppino

He still has his pizzeria, but it's located a little closer to town. While business is slightly better than in game, he still has debts. But hey, he has his own apartment!! No more sleeping in the back of the pizzeria or on the floor!!

Peppino will sometimes just come to the shore or the port in the evening or at night to clear his head or be alone with his thoughts. Depressed guy. Will sometimes talk to himself when he thinks he's alone. He isn't necessarily afraid of the ocean, but because he can't swim, once he's in water the fear kicks in and he starts panicking.

He doesn't believe in sirens, mermaids, or other such creatures. Thinks they're just made up to tell scary stories of the sea. Jokes on him, he's about to meet the jolliest shark gnome man he's ever seen.

Brick

A gigantic rat that lives with Peppino, who didn't get a say in this. Just appeared one day, and no matter how many times Peppino tries to get rid of him, Brick always comes back. After a while Pep reluctantly accepts him and sometimes even takes him for a walk.

Brick actually loves to swim, but doesn't stay in the water for too long cause Pep won't join him. Like, he'll just leave if Brick stays too long. Kinda rude if you ask me.

Mr. Stick

Tax and debt collector, and a friend of Peppino. He often comes over for a pizza, then proceeds not to eat much, and rarely pays (he either says he's deducting it from Pep's debts or he lets someone else pay). He's kind of a piece of shit but outside of the whole money business he can be pretty nice.

He strikes me as a gambler tbh, either he's extremely lucky or extremely unlucky. Likes playing poker, and invites Peppino and Hazel to play after work from time to time.

Doesn't believe in sirens, but if he ever saw one he'd try to exploit it for money. He wouldn't kill it or anything though, mainly because he's too weak and he doesn't know how to handle guns.

Noisette / Hazel

She runs a little cafe near Peppino's pizzeria, and is good friends with him, but can sometimes be a little annoying. They hang out after work from time to time. When she notices that Peppino is having a rough day, she'll sometimes bring over a free cup of coffee or a slice of cake for him. Sometimes experiments with... interesting... food combinations, which are strangely popular.

She has loved mermaids and sirens since she was young and is very fond of them. Once she discovers they're real, she becomes even more fascinated and obsessed with them. You better believe she wanted to be a mermaid when she was young.

SIRENS

Gustavo

A little round shark man who is perfect in every way. He's curious and adventurous, and even though sirens and humans are enemies since, uh. A long time. He doesn't believe that humans are inherently evil. He'll help out whenever and however he can, but can get very aggressive when his friends or brethren are threatened. You will regret it if you anger him.

Noise annoys him often but they don't harm each other. He isn't really friends with Noise, but he will defend him if he's threatened or attacked.

One day he saves Peppino from drowning, which makes other sirens sceptical of him, especially those who think humans are evil. He will later try to learn human language to be able to communicate with Peppino better.

Noise

Goblin shark. He can theoretically go on land for a bit, but needs some water nearby. He's a little sceptical about humans, but not outright hostile. He likes annoying pretty much everyone, especially Peppino once they meet (he thinks his reactions are funny).

He throws sea urchins and pufferfish at others like bombs, as he (like most sirens) is immune to their poison / venom. While he's usually an unhinged gremlin, he just about melts when with Hazel. But of course he tries to hide this from others.

Fake Peppino

Created by Pizzahead from DNA of frogs, newts, and Peppino (obviously). He was meant to be a weapon for sirens against humans, and thus is supposed to be hostile. Unfortunately, he turned out to be extremely affectionate, and he loves hugs. Much like Gustavo, when friends are attacked, he can get downright deadly. He can also regenerate body parts like an axolotl, unless his brain has been damaged. Like, you can rip both his arms off and they'll grow back within a day.

He becomes close friends with Gustavo, and is kind of fascinated by Peppino (other humans too, but mostly Peppino). He would play in the water with Brick once they meet, and become friends with Hazel. Can go on land as well, but prefers the water. He communicates with croaks, gurgles and other noises, and can speak very limited human language (very few fractions of words or sentences, it just sounds like gibberish), taught to him by Pizzahead.

Pepperman

Lumpfish (idk either just roll with it). He's kind of indifferent to humans, but he does think he's better than them. I could see him making a brush or something out of seaweed to draw. And then always getting upset that his drawings never stay cause of the water, but he keeps drawing anyway. Blames Noise for destroying his art even if he knows it's the water (Noise thinks it's funny). "Borrows" seaweed from Vigi's farm to make new brushes. But he'll also make statues out of various rocks and other things he finds laying around. Mostly of himself. Some humans think they're built from ancient civilizations, while others think it's some sort of elaborate hoax. Nobody recognizes Pepperman's talent :(

Vigilante

Sea slug. He genuinely believes humans want to kill sirens for nefarious reasons, possibly cause he's a little older i guess. Hands just appear when he needs them.

He has an underwater equivalent of a farm (like, he grows and tends to seaweeds, anemones, corals, etc), that he inherited from his grandpa. He'd love to just tend to the farm all day, but feels obligated to punish anyone who does wrong. Unofficial officer / sheriff of the sea. He still has his cowboy hat because i said so let me be silly on main.

Pizzahead

Ribbon eel. He can give others a little shock as if he had like a hand shocker thing. It mostly just hurts a bit and isn't lethal cause cartoon logic. He does not like humans, but mostly because he grew up with everyone around him telling him they're evil. Actually he's very curious and fascinated by humans, which is why he decided to clone Peppino. Mostly cause he sees him the most on the shore. Somehow. How he actually got his DNA is a mystery.

Later on he decides / attempts to make Fakey into a weapon after witnessing how strong Peppino is. He obsessively learns human language and tries to understand as much about human culture as he can. But he'll twist things around and tell others that he does it to "better understand their weaknesses". Right.

Pizzaface

Stingray. The leader of sirens in the elusive Siren Tower. He HATES humans, especially after some divers discovered the tower and continuously come there to explore. Basically just doesn't want his and his fellow sirens' home discovered or threatened. He's disappointed in Pizzahead because he taught himself human language, even after given an explanation (or excuse).

SPECULATION CORNER

Aka characters i can't quite figure out what to do with yet

Burton

A whale shark bc I can't get enough of sharks apparently. Sharks are cool okay

Alternative: just Mr. Stick's husband who sometimes comes with him to Peppino's

Gerome

A sentient rock and John's older brother, who always took care of him and helped him with the tower. Now just does maintenance and keeps John company.

Alternative: Peppino's janitor, but still made of rock because that's silly

John

A sentient rock that used to carry the tower around through the oceans but somehow got cursed and is now part of the foundation and can't move anymore. Was he a siren before? Or just a pillar? Or maybe a fish made of stone? We don't know.

[causticjuice]

Kinktober Day 17 — Fisting

Copia x (mostly) gn!reader

Sorry for the late post, I could've theoretically uploaded it on time but I wasn't feeling it I guess.

Notes: I’m not sure what happened here. I saw ‘fisting’ on the Kinktober list, went “Hm. Sure.” and this thing fell out of me (I know very little about actual fisting lol sorry). Reader is called ‘Master’ by Copia, I think I would still classify that as gender neutral but I guess it's debatable, definitely leans masculine. Copia could be as Papa or Cardinal here, it's not specified.

Tags: smut (18+ MDNI), impact play (implied), bondage, degradation, anal fingering and fisting, sub Copia

Word count: 1.1k

ao3

“You’re doing so well,” you rub your thumb over the wet black streams running down Copia’s face, “I think it’s about time to take out the gag. I miss hearing you beg.”

You reach behind his head to undo the clasp and let the item fall onto his red-streaked, abused thighs. A long string of slobber follows it down, easily sliding over his already coated chin. His forearms are bound together with crimson rope behind his back, the forced position curving his upper body into an irresistible arch. He’s sitting on his heels and looking up at you with adoration and respect, awaiting your next move.

“Is my little slut ready to have his hole stretched now?”

“Yes, Master, please.”

You guide his body forward, his hips propped up by the pillow you placed in front of him. The side of his face is pressed to the cold floor and the new sensation sends a shiver down his spine. You slide your hands over his round ass, applying more pressure as you go. From between his cheeks you see the glimmer of a red gem and spread him to take a closer look.

“This is new. Did you get it for me?” you ask while pressing a thumb down on the object.

“Ah- yes, to match the, uh, rope,” he explains, trying to keep his composure.

“Good. You know I like you in red.”

You take the butt plug between your fingers and start to pull on it slowly, allowing Copia to adjust to the change. Once it’s out, you replace it with the thumb of your other hand, only down to the first knuckle, while you put the toy away. You wiggle the digit inside of him and he squirms in response.

“Ah, ah, be good now. You won’t get what you want if you don’t wait,” you chide.

“S- sorry, Master.”

You remove your hand from his body to focus on meticulously covering your hand in a generous amount of lube. As you take your time, you watch him do his best to resist making any noises or movements, to be as patient as he can be. When you’re ready, you stay still for just a little longer and admire his form, bent over and eager for you. You place a hand on his lower back to signal your return and then use it to spread him open.

“I’m going to put my finger in your ass now, is that okay?”

“Sì- yes, please!” he whines.

You rub the pad on your finger over his rim a few times before pushing in. Once it’s all the way in, you begin to slowly slide it in and out, deliberately avoiding his most sensitive area.

“More,” he whimpers.

“What?” you ask with a characteristic melody to your voice that alerts him to change his tone.

“I- sorry, could you please add a finger, Master?” he corrects himself.

“That’s better,” you reply and grant his request.

When the second finger is inserted, you pick up your pace slightly and curl to stimulate his prostate. His quiet moans egg you on to tease him further.

“Are you ready for another finger already, whore? So loose, that took no time at all.”

“Oh- sì! I’m ready!” he moans and rocks back into you.

You put a third finger inside and spend a while working him open, getting him prepared for the main event. He’s meeting every thrust of your hand with an opposite one of his hips, fucking himself on your fingers and humping the pillow with his cock. The noises he’s making are obscene, almost enough to break your own composure, to tell him how fucking hot he looks right now, how much he turns you on, how you wish you could fuck him senseless. But you keep your unaffected, stern façade and continue the scene.

“Is it time for the dirty slut to take my whole fist?”

“Sì! Sì, ti prego, please, Master! Yes!” he pleads in a high pitched, wrecked voice.

“Since you asked so nicely…”

You apply a little bit more lube for good measure and slip a fourth finger in his hole. You inch deeper into him, stopping just before your knuckles and lean over to look at his face. He looks completely blissed out, eyes rolled to the back of his head and mouth gaping with a pool of drool gathering under it. When he notices your stillness, he focuses his attention on your face and the look of pure trust and devotion on his face almost makes you melt. You push in down to your wrist, ripping a filthy scream from him.

“How does it feel?”

It takes Copia a while to respond, the feeling of your whole hand inside him apparently wiping his mind clean. You wait patiently and the moment you were about to repeat your question, he pipes up.

“Good! So good, Master! So full- please, don’t stop!”

You move your hand deeper with a twist, letting your knuckles run over his prostate and he nearly gets away from your grasp on his hip with how he jerks at the stimulation. You begin to rock his body back and forth to help relieve the tension in his cock, considering that he is too blissed out to do so himself. Once he catches on to the rhythm and starts to move on his own, you turn your attention back to your fist in his hole. You rotate and thrust your hand in ways that make him whine and plead so loudly that anyone walking by the door could hear, despite the soundproofing.

His ruts get sloppy and uncoordinated as he gets closer to his limit, so you reach your free hand to his restrained one in silent praise and to give him a physical and emotional anchor. As his orgasm rushes through his body, his cum smears between the pillow and his stomach and you gradually slow your hand until he can take no more. You coo praises at him while pulling out of him bit by bit, keeping your fingers wrapped around his wrist.

“You did so, so good. Took it all so well. My good, obedient boy, there you go.”

You take apart the knots on his forearms and help him up to go over to the couch where you prepared a blanket for him ahead of time. When you’re done cleaning him up, you wrap him in it and stroke his messy hair as he rests his head on your thighs.

“Grazie,” he says in a breathy, raspy voice, destroyed by the earlier moans and screams.

“Of course. Now go to sleep for a bit, hm? I’ll be here when you wake up,” you whisper into his ear.

He hums, his breath already slowing as he drifts off.

[sonkitty]

The Sideburns Scheme Post #34

(For reference: The Sideburns Scheme)

Crowley, Good Omens 2, Episode 3, I Know Where I'm Going, Keys

...

Sideburns Check

The sideburns are still short. The previous scene mostly provided a view of the left sideburn. This scene mostly provides a view of the right sideburn.

This scene is the second and last of the two in this private room with Aziraphale. As my theory goes, the sideburns are shorter here because of Crowley's and Aziraphale's relationship being very similar to human partners.

...

Brighter Red Streak Check

Most of the camera work shows Crowley's right side for the hair. As such, there are not many cuts to look for the more saturated red streak of hair.

But the streak is playing games with us this round, for anyone looking for it.

The streak makes itself known when Crowley talks about the miracle measurement based on how many people could have been brought back from the dead. Then it is one evident streak where the top front hair is splitting. The streak is with the batch of hair to Crowley's left near his part.

The conversation moves on. Then when Crowley talks about getting Nina to do the love thing with Maggie, the streak is actually two streaks. One is where it is but not as saturated in its red. The other streak is with the batch of hair tilting to the right, still generally above Crowley's left eye. It's also not as saturated in red as the earlier version.

When Crowley reluctantly reaches into what is probably a pocket to get the keys, the stronger saturation for where the streaks should be are gone though the hair is at least a little lighter in color. The hair generally stays that way for the rest of the scene.

...

I have mentioned a theory that doesn't quite fit that the streak is an after-effect of a Big Miracle from the first draft or an earlier draft of the story that put the Book of Life into the matchbox. This scene making the streak definitely at its strongest visibility when talking about the miracle looks like the story is indeed hinting that the streak is at least related to the miracle to hide Gabriel where I speculated the characters tricked themselves into setting the alarms off in Heaven.

Another theory I have is that the streak is a result of the lightning in episode 1 even though it was visible for so much of the chronologically given story before the lightning ever shot out.

It's the same issue with the Big Miracle idea. Maybe things can change retroactively, at least in some scenes, or it's the blend of the two or more theoretical drafts of the story.

...

Hairstyle Changes

In the cuts that do not involve the camera seeing Crowley from the door to the room, Crowley's hair is stronger in saturation, especially to Crowley's right. The lighting in general favors his right. The top hair sweeps in more with a curl upward. Above Crowley's left area of his left eye and near his part for his hair, this top hair splits with only some in the front tilting more strongly to Crowley's right. That way, some darker hair behind it is still visible. The hair that stays closer to the left is the hair that briefly gets that brighter red streak.

Additionally, on the right side of Crowley's head, at least two tendrils take shape that curl downward, then upward.

The hair is darker and lacking in saturation for the cuts where the camera sees Crowley from the door to the room.

...

Earthly Objects

(For reference: Earthly Objects | Earthly Objects Study - Crowley's Sunglasses)

If you've read Part 2 of my Earthly Objects posts, a lot of the below is going to be very familiar with the main edit being that I am paying attention to the pockets Crowley makes with his left arm and when the Tied Hands are visible. Skip ahead if you like.

A fascinating example I've found of rule-following by Crowley and Aziraphale is when Muriel intrudes on them. I can’t fully explain the mechanics of the rules because like I said, I really do think Crowley is an expert at this game. Whatever is happening here is advanced stuff. I'm going to walk you through what he does to get this scene where it needs to go. He does it with style.

Before Muriel intrudes, Aziraphale had already made sure to have a cup of tea visibly touching his hands to start the scene in the room. Crowley poses to indicate he is touching a blurred stack of books in the room, even if Aziraphale's body obscures confirmation of that touch while Aziraphale closes the door. Crowley's left arm is shown as him placing a hand on his hip.

That pose creates a pocket with the left arm and torso. Crowley's legs make a pocket between themselves and the bottom of the screen. Both tie strands are visible, including to their tassels. Once that door is closed, the tie claps and tassels of the tie will not be visible until Crowley is about to hand over the keys. His Tied Hands might even retie when he's doing that. Next is the cut where Muriel's back is shown, looking in on the room; the Tied Hands are visible then too.

During Crowley's and Aziraphale's conversation, Crowley's right arm keeps telling us he's still touching that stack and not moving away from it. Blurs, I believe at this point, allow a pass, and so this one seems to be allowing some kind of pass and then hold so long as Crowley keeps at it.

The story lets him without confirming that is the touch on camera. We are never going to see that confirmation. He displays his left arm and even says, "One fabulous kiss, and we're good," as if that's a clue he is allowed that one time to show that one arm until a certain thing is going to happen. The number could be a dialogue point in whatever is happening here. That left arm returns to implying its previous touch as well.

Crowley has an earthly object prepared for the scene. He fully intends to give over those keys despite his grumbling. It might be very important that the car keys earn a specific point because they move the story along.

Ready for the pass, he has those keys in his left hand, skin contact and all, perhaps a little blurry on a camera from behind him, but still, he's got them.

Muriel opens the door, crosses past the threshold of this private conversation, and says, "All done?" No earthly objects. No hello. No knocking. We have an outright intrusion here! At least there was a question, but it might not have been enough due to what Crowley does.

Crowley pulls the keys back toward himself immediately. From the view behind Muriel, his pose is returned to match what it was when Aziraphale closed the door at the start of the scene even though Muriel's blocking the blurred stack of books. The left arm pocket is not clearly shown from behind Muriel, but preceding cuts made sure it was known to be there.

Aziraphale's frustrated because of the rules. Crowley is going to do several things to handle this situation.

First, Crowley smiles and answers Muriel, then asks Muriel about being interested in humans being in love. That’s a question. Then he even stops Muriel from saying names. He's saying the names himself, so his implied hold with both arms might be allowing him to keep dragging out a lot of the dialogue until he gets what he wants. Assuredly, Aziraphale seeming to get quite turned on by this talk is about the love, but he's also watching the master of this game at work.

Eventually, Muriel brings out a notepad and pen. That's two earthly objects. Between both Muriel and Crowley, that interaction meets the requirements, regardless of the initiating question from the whole intrusion. Aziraphale has kept quiet the whole time though he at least smiles. Crowley's left arm readies itself for what comes next. His right arm is still implying the touch behind him.

Muriel's eyes move their attention from Crowley to the notepad. Spanning only a few frames after this shift, Crowley's blurred hand shows the keys for the touch and tosses the keys toward Aziraphale. Without checking frame by frame, it looks instant based on the notepad, not the eye movement from Muriel. He knew exactly what he was doing. There is a slight possibility that secretly trusted friend Muriel was actually giving him a cue, but I lean more toward that not happening myself. However, I do have an overall bias toward Crowley.

Aziraphale manages the catch, thankfully. You can tell he was nervous and is grateful. He winks. That gives one point to him for the keys in his hand and another point for the wink as a self-touch since he’s a supernatural being holding an earthly object. The pair need one last point.

Muriel's attention remains on their notepad for the entire toss.

Crowley's right arm maintains its implied touch throughout the entire scene, even after the toss is done. He does one last thing to close it all out. He gives a sour grimace to allow his cheeks an active touch on his new sunglasses. At least, I think that's how the sequence is intended to be.

So, my current guess is that the scene is three different interactions. The first is between Aziraphale and Crowley. They already had their points but the story doesn’t want just points (or, as noted, the implied touch may have allowed some kind of hold). Those keys needed a relevant pass between these two players. Muriel’s intrusion reset things, so that another interaction of three points between Crowley and Aziraphale was necessary.

Crowley takes over to be the one character to interact with Muriel, get them their own points without involving the keys in this intentionally isolated interaction. His precise timing is impressive. Then there’s the third sequence covered above (keys, wink, grimace). To help keep these interactions separate, Muriel should not see the pass.

Now that I suspect Crowley and Muriel are actually friends, the intrusion itself might have accomplished something I will never truly understand.

...

Muriel is pocketed between the shoulder-angel and shoulder-demon when looking into the room. They make little pockets with their arms for that part too.

Muriel uses an actual jacket pocket to get their notepad.

...

Story Commentary

The story did not show a night pass between Episode 2 and Episode 3. For me, I would guess it's a new day because Crowley's stopped wearing his turtleneck even though he can manifest it or stop manifesting it whenever he wants. Otherwise, if one bothers with the clocks and the sunlight, that also hints that the day has changed. Another eventual hint is Nina's clothing has changed.

Even though this room is the most private setting we know of for Crowley and Aziraphale, Aziraphale makes a point of using the name "Jim" instead of "Gabriel," whereas he was perfectly fine with saying "Gabriel" out in the street in episode 2.

Aziraphale saying he told Gabriel that bookshops are always closed on a Wednesday then implies this given day is Wednesday. That action helps ensure, intentionally or not, that Muriel and Gabriel continue having no visible interaction during the story.

Crowley has his third of three scenes mentioning "train," meeting a Rule of Three even though the word is said 4 times total. The word "train" and these complaints will not be said again.

This scene has Crowley emphasize, "We humans of Earth..." as part of the context that allows the short sideburns and the face touch to the sunglasses.

It's also a general clue that the sideburns are short based on "human" context, such as the nature of his relationship with Aziraphale and that Muriel entered the bookshop with the literal word itself.

When Crowley says, "waiting for a few days," his left eye is more visible than usual from the given angle with the new sunglasses. He's either giving Muriel a clue that they have to wait for the two of them to meet up again later or is using the power of suggestion—not quite as strong as compelling—for Muriel to wait on researching human love.

Even though we'll see that Muriel questions Nina after this scene, they will actually relay what Crowley told them ("waiting a few days because humans are weird, and that's how it works") instead of how their actual interaction with Nina went.

I really like this scene.

...

Muriel

This scene with the keys is the front bookend to the Muriel scene with Nina. Aziraphale's scene with the car is the back bookend to this scene with Muriel.

...

That's it for this post. Sometimes I edit my posts, FYI.

...

Main post:

The Sideburns Scheme

[butterflydm]

s3 spec (distracting myself from waiting for the new episode)

Well, it's a Thursday morning and it's hours until the new episode (plus I have to wait until after work to watch) so... wild speculation about s3! Guaranteed to have many wrong guesses! Let's go!

(contains spoilers through book 8: the path of daggers)

What is it going to mean in a practical sense that s3 will be a 'closer' adaptation of book 4?

What do the characters do in book 4 that needs to be adapted?

I'll start with the easiest person first: Perrin needs to meet Faile and begin the process of falling in love; and he needs to go to the Two Rivers to defend it from Whitecloaks and Trollocs. This is Perrin's clearest and most cinematic plotline in the entire series. It's also been pretty cleanly set up in the show already.

In the books, he goes to the Two Rivers with Loial, Gaul, Bain, Chiad, and Faile.

speculation: the show, he will first meet Faile in the Two Rivers, there as a Hunter of the Horn; Bain and Chiad will go with him in Aviendha's stead, because Aviendha will obligated to go back to the 3FL; Loial has a friendship with Perrin and it makes sense that he would go - in the show, Perrin is the person that Loial has spent the most time with and is closest to; Gaul will probably be introduced when we get more Aiel at the start of s3 and will decide to go with Perrin... maybe because Chiad and Bain are going with him?

Alanna and Verin might also likely be waiting for Perrin in the Two Rivers.

Second easiest: Rand needs to go to the Aiel Waste, go to Rhuidean, and become the Car'a'carn. He's already in place to find out at the end of this season or the start of next season that he's potentially the Aiel's Car'a'carn, but needs to prove it. Moiraine may tell him that he needs an army and the Aiel are fierce warriors, plus he may want to learn more about his biological parents and their past. Moiraine and Lan would naturally want to go with him to keep training him, so that part's easy.

In the books, Egwene goes with him to learn how to be a Dreamer from the Aiel Wise Ones. But that's a book 3 plot and she hasn't touched on it at all yet this season. Will we see any hints of her being a Dreamer this season or will that begin at the start of s3?

Theoretically, Egwene doesn't have to go with Rand to Rhiudean -- she could go back to the Tower with Elayne and Nynaeve so that she and Elayne can take their Accepted tests, find out that Liandrin has flown the coop, and get clues on where to chase her. Then she Dreams and learns she needs to go to Rhuidean, and so she... travels there on her own? While Elayne and Nynaeve head off to chase the Black Ajah on their own? This would mean that Liandrin is 100% revealed to Siuan as Black Ajah. idk this part is wobbly for me (narratively, it's so much easier if Egwene just goes to the Waste with Rand)

Mat also needs to go to Rhuidean. If Egwene does go back to the Tower, then Mat could go with her and then onto the Waste (but why would he ever want to go back to the place he was imprisoned for months? a second round of dagger healing?)

It feels like we need the redstone doorway, or something similar, to keep Mat on his path to Rhuidean rather than going back with Perrin to the Two Rivers. That was the question that Mat originally entered with, iirc -- should he go home to the Two Rivers? And he was told to go to Rhuidean instead.

Will the parts of book 4 that happen in Tear mostly happen in Falme instead?

They can't interrogate any Black Ajah, because there aren't any around in Falme, but we could see the bubbles of evil, we could see the redstone doorway (Turak, as a collector of ancient oddities, might be the owner of it in his version), and we could get the beginnings of the Forsaken Civil War that is kinda happening around this time, as Lanfear works to defend Rand while another Forsaken is sending Shadowspawn to attack him. None of that really needs to happen in Tear specifically.

On an interpersonal level, we might get Rand and Egwene's final breakup in the first episode or so of s3. They've both been through so much, they're on different paths, etc.

The pace in the series has been pretty fast (the Seanchan showed up this season so much sooner than I expected).

New characters that s3 will introduce: Faile for sure; a bunch of Aiel for Rand & co to interact with; and Elayne & Nynaeve may still end up dealing with a Seanchan who was left behind when the Seanchan run away at the end of this season. They might introduce Melindhra next season, to give her relationship with Mat time to develop before the big betrayal. When I did my reread, I was actually really surprised at how little Melindhra there was. We'll probably be getting Moghedien and Asmodean, and potentially Rahvin or Graendal as well. We kinda need both a 'claim Rand' faction and a 'kill Rand' faction in the Forsaken.

We'll probably get an episode focused around the Battle of the Two Rivers (Perrin episode). Hopefully we'll get a focused episode for Rhuidean as well (Rand & Mat episode). So that's two out of eight. The coup should happen this season -- maybe that will be our big midpoint moment, when the momentum of the season shifts? That's three. And the finale would be Rand at Alcair Dal & then capturing Asmodean, while Nynaeve faces off against Moghedien?

So: first episodes does the setup of expectations for the season; then we travel to our new locations from Falme; we get introduced to Caemlyn at some point (are we going to have multiple episodes with scenes in Caemlyn?); boom the coup happens; boom Rhuidean happens; boom the Battle of the Two Rivers happens; then Rand goes to announce himself as Car'a'carn and faces off against Asmodean and ends up with him as a captive teacher.

ep1: Falme taking the place of Tear in terms of set-up events

ep2: having left Falme at the end of ep1, we arrive at our destinations? maybe this is Egwene & Elayne's Accepted tests

ep3: Perrin arrives in the Two Rivers, Wondergirls leave the Tower (again), Rand arrives in the 3FL

ep4: the Tower coup happens when Elaida arrives to find Elayne missing (again)

ep5: Rhuidean?

ep6: something something... maybe Nynaeve & Elayne's plotline?

ep7: battle of the Two Rivers

ep 8: alcair dal & asmodean

Things from the first four books left to be tackled in future books at that point: just the taking of Tear from the end of bk3, basically. Mat's luck, potentially, though that might still get introduced this season (not sure there's time but, hey, it very well could be).

It does make sense to me to wait on introducing Tear until Callandor actually matters in the story which isn't until... wow, The Path of Daggers, I think, is the first time that Callandor really matters in the story. That's when Rand uses it against the Seanchan and it messes him up and he ends up killing some of his own people. Which would mean that it wouldn't need to happen until even after The Box (TM) and Dumai's Wells and such. Is that right? That feels so late in the story for the book 3 Quest Item to actually matter!

Hmm, Tear as happening AFTER the kidnapping would basically make it replace Illian, which I could see working (Rand ruling Illian literally never matters narratively in the books - it's never really a full setting the way that Cairhien, Tear, or Caemlyn are; it has a strong emotional beat of Rand feeling like he's earned it as Rand al'Thor and not just the Dragon Reborn, but that kind of beat can be done in other ways).

idk it depends in part on how they're going to be handling Caemlyn and on Elayne's storylines, because she and Rand need a solid chunk of time together. How and when will the show carve out the time for them? Could the Black Ajah hunt actually lead our main players back to Cairhien, and they meet up with Rand there with the Aiel?

haha okay I am trying to peer WAY too far in the future and we just do not have enough information for that right now. I'm just way too impatient for tonight's episode, lol.

[zoeykallus]

Ahola! Zoe how are you? ✨✨

Can I request some HC on how batchers would react to their children going through puberty? And how they would comfort and explain to them how it works and they would probably be upset because their baby is growing up 🥺🥺

Oh, interesting question...

The Bad Batch HCs - Puberty And Its Pitfalls

Puberty - How do our boys deal with their kids going through one of life's most difficult phases?

__________________

Hunter

He senses something is coming before it really gets started and takes his offspring aside to have a reasonable conversation.

"There are some changes coming your way. Physically but also mentally."

His child looks up at him critically.

"What kind of changes?"

"How well are you being educated at school? Have you talked about puberty yet?"

The child rolls their eyes, "Oh, you mean that. We learn all about it in school."

"I don't think you really learn everything," Hunter says doubtfully.

"The Holonet knows the rest. Dad, I don't really want to talk to you about it."

Hunter sighs and says, "Listen, just one thing, okay?"

"Alright"

He looks at his child urgently and says, "There will be days when everything will be too much for you, you will feel overwhelmed, feel many intense things at once. But that phase will pass. If you ever want to talk, you know where to find me, okay? You can always talk to me, you know that."

Another eye roll, but then, a smile, "I know, Dad".

Echo

He got material, reading material, An audiobook and some handouts.

"You should take a closer look and listen to all of this in the near future."

His child looks at him questioningly.

"If you have any questions about it, come see me".

Echo waits several days, but his child doesn't ask questions.

"And did you read the stuff I gave you?"

"Yes"

"And?"

The child shrugs and says, "Dad we learn this in school and things that are unclear can be looked up in the Holonet"

"You don't have any questions for me?" he asks, puzzled.

With a shake of their head, his offspring answers in the negative.

Echo sighs.

"Please don't grow up too fast"

The child laughs, "Relax, dad, just because I can handle this on my own doesn't mean I don't need you anymore."

Echo smirks and says, "You're smarter than your old man."

Wrecker

He feels a bit insecure and overwhelmed. His child's changing moods are getting to him, but he knows where it's all coming from. Tech has given him some good tips and provided reading material.

Wrecker is open and warm; his children, despite what they may be going through, find it easier to open up to him and seek advice or help in an emergency. Patience, understanding and caring, characterize him as a father.

"It seems like yesterday when I couldn't get you off the animal merry-go-round at the fair," he says wistfully.

"Dad, that was 11 years ago."

Wrecker sighs.

"It was still only yesterday to me. You grow way too fast, it's like you're getting married and moving out tomorrow"

The child laughs and squeezes him warmly.

"Oh, dad, I'm still here".

Wrecker squeezes his child and sighs again.

"You know you can talk to me about anything, even boys and girls and stuff".

The kid laughs, "I'll be fine dad, but if I'm not, I know where to find you."

Tech

He showers his child with reading material and gives one lecture after another until the child's ears almost bleed. It is very likely that Tech will have to be slowed down a bit by his partner or another family member.

A child going through puberty is a challenge that Tech takes seriously, too seriously, perhaps. He really exaggerates his efforts. He has read far too many reports of other parents' experiences and has been unsettled by many a horror story.

Theoretically, he is prepared for all eventualities. Even for the absolutely most improbable cases, for which he nevertheless admits a certain percentage of probability in the back of his mind. He is prepared. At least, he hopes he is.

"It's probably going to be scary," he says seriously.

His child says matter-of-factly, "I'm already educated, Dad."

"I meant for me"

Crosshair

He leaves as much as possible to his partner. The whole thing is an unpleasant, embarrassing topic, he thinks. So he tries to avoid big conversations about it.

But he has a basic conclusion.

"It's going to be exhausting, for all of us, but especially for you. You'll have the wildest ideas and thoughts. At best, don't give in to them. If someone touches you against your will, you tell Daddy, so he can kill the person"

"Um, okay Dad"

However, if his children really do seek his advice, he will of course try as hard as he can. But he doesn't tell anyone that he is sad about how fast his children are growing up, and tries to hide it in any case.

Ko-Fi (If you feel like giving me some coffee)

@rintheemolion

@andyoufollowyourheart @clone-whore-99

@brynhildrmimi @kaliel2310

@misogirl828 @tech-deck

@meshla-madalene

@chxpsi

@thebahdbitch

@nahoney22 @ladykatakuri

@darkangel4121

@ttzamara

@arctrooper69

@padawancat97

@agenteliix

@allsystemsblue

@palliateclaw

@either-madness-or-brilliance

@ortizshinkaroff

@andy-solo1

@hunterssecretrecipe

@heyitsaloy

@greaser-wolf

@extrahotpixels

@hated-by-me

@hunterxcrosshair

@malicemercy

@bebopsworld

@echos-girlfriend

@cpnt616

@dangraccoon

@jediknightjana

@pb-jellybeans

@antishadow2021

@sleepycreativewriter

@starwarsnerd111

[suckerforcate]

Secrets and Candor

Chapter 1 : Secrets

Pairing: Laindrin Sedai/Reader

Word Count: about 1800

Warning: Some violence, not really anything bad

Summary: Instead of Nynaeve you find Liandrin and her son, you want to help her. Will she let you? Chapter 2

(Also made a playlist for Liandrin)

A/n: Heyy, I'm back!!! This time not with Moiraine but with Laindrin. I'm just loving Kate Fleetwood atm and Liandrin is super hot ;). Hope someone will like this! Would love a comment, repost or like <3

■----------------------------------------■

You hadn't meant to intrude, and you hadn't meant to upset her. You had merely meant to check that she wouldn't do anything stupid.

You had been walking through the corridor when Liandrin had passed you, hoded and suspiciously fast. Your eyes had followed her and you had seen a little ampoule in her left hand. It was filled with a red substance you recognised as chrimsonthorn. In a high doses deadly. What the hell was she doing with chrimsonthorn?

As she had rounded the corner you had followed her. You had meant to catch up with her and just ask her, but she had been too fast and everytime you had rounded a corner you had simply seen the end of her coat around the next corner. She was too fast. And when you had cought up it was too late to simply ask

You rounded the last corner and suddenly stood in front of an open door. One look inside made you regret having followed Liandrin. She was sat on the side of a bed the hand of an old, very sick man I hers. She was talking to him and stood up, walked over to a little table and put some chrimsonthorn in a carafe and poured boiling hot water on top.

"Now, you must try and get some of this down. It'll take the edge off the pain." Her voice was softer than you had ever heard it before. She moved gently, and tenderly cared for him. Helping him drink some of the chrimsonthorn tea and gently holding his head up.

"There, there, there. Yes, shh. That's better, this is better. Shh." She put the drink down and gently put the mans head down again. She looked at him with pure love and care, and you moved a little closer to the doorframe. Feeling drawn in by her gentleness.

Suddenly she looked up and towards the door and spotted you. Her features immediately hardened and you could nearly see her panic. She straightened up, never letting the man's hand go.

"What are you doing here?" Her voice lacked her usual strength and confidence. It was wavering, slightly breaking. She was definitely panicking.

"The chrimsonthorn, I saw you and I thought you were going to do something stupid." You gently said, already regretting all the decisions you had made in the past fifteen minutes.

"Walk away from this place before I do something we both regret." Her tone was icy and theoretically left no room for arguments, but you weren't just anyone. You looked at her sadly, seeing that -whoever he was- the man meant something to her. And with Liandrin that was rare.

"He's in pain." You gently said and stepped into the room, yet still close to the door. She turned away a little but her eyes remained on you.

"You think I don't know that? I can't heal him." The man wasn't the only one in pain, that was clear by the tone of her voice. Her lip was trembling, like she was holding back tears.

"His hand, it's spasming." You slowly, carefully stepped closer, and her eyes widened at the movement. She was surprised at how bold you were, most people were afraid of her. But you weren't most people and you weren't afraid of her. Especially not if she was in pain, you simply wanted to help.

"It means the pain is in his heart, too. The chrimsonthorn won't help with that. He'll still be hurting when you go." Your tone was gentle, simply explaining, never judging. She looked down at him, panic rising in her. She hadn't known that.

"You need tumeric milk to help smooth the inflammation and I could..." she didn't let you talk any further as her hand shot up and she slapped you right across the face.

"Get out! Before I kill you, you get out!" You looked at her a little surprised. She had screamed the words and yet her voice was cracking, it was thin.

"Liandrin, please let me-" You started again, desperately wanting to help her. You saw her lip tremble, she was close to breaking down in tears. You wanted to reach out, hug her, help her.

"Get out, you stupid woman. Get out, get out!" She cried, the tears now standing in her eyes, threatening to fall. In her desperation she wanted to channel, hit you against the wall, something, anything but you stopped it. Shutting her weave off before it could even really build.

You wanted to help, but saw that it was to no avail and left her be. For now.

Leaving through the corridors near the room, you could hear her cry and apologise to the man. It broke your heart.

A few days had passed since the encounter between you and Liandrin. And it was all you could think about. It was not unusual for Liandrin to spit fire and threaten or insult people. But there had been more to her behaviour. She wasn't simply angry. She had been scared, afraid. She had broken down crying for heaven's sake. That was very unusual for her.

The thought to talk to her had crossed your mind, but something held you back. Not fear. You didn't fear Liandrin Sedai, unlike most. But you didn't want to push her, to cross her boundaries after her previous reaction. And yet, you wanted to help.

The decision was taken from you as Liandrin walked through the door and sat down on the chair without looking at you, or saying anything.

"Liandrin?" At first you didn't understand why she had come until you saw the wound. It wasn't particularly big or dangerous, any Aes Sedai could have healed it. Still, she had come to you. Maybe she did want to talk?

"If you say anything to anyone, I will kill you."

Alright, no talking then, threatening again. You had just started to heal her wound. It didn't take long and a few second later you were already done.

"Liandrin, this is ridiculous." You simply answer as you took your hands back from the wound and your weaves subside. Your words make her look up at you, albeit just for a moment.

"I have no reason to tell anyone about what I saw. I don't even know who the man was. Why would I use this against you? I wanted to explain to you what to do, help ease his pain, because I wanted to help, not get information. I know it's hard for you, but just sometimes, try to trust people."

You see her eyes widen ever so slightly at your last words. Without a word she stands up and goes two steps towards the door. She doesn't turn around, doesn't look at you. But she stops walking for a second.

"He's my son." And she's gone.

The words can't seem to leave your mind. They nearly drive you crazy. You have no explanation for any of the things that happened in the last few days, and you don't actually need one. All you know is, that you want to help. And now, knowing what he means to Liandrin, even more so.

It's late, the corridors are empty and the novices are asleep. You meet no one on your way to Liandrin's room. Thankfully so. As you stand there, looking at the wooden door you hesitate. Should you do this? Are you going too far? She had made it very clear that she wanted you as far away from her son as possible.

Your wish to help did win in the end. You gently knocked and stepped back a little from the door. It didn't take long until you heard soft footsteps and a moment later the door opened.

Liandrin's face appeared, she looked like she had already been ready for bed. Her hair was down and fell over her shoulders completely, her make up was gone and she wasn't wearing her usual clothes anymore. A pale red linen shirt was messily tugged into a pair of dark red trousers. The upper button of the shirt was open and exposed an unusual amount of skin. Your eyes flickered down for a short moment. You weren't sure, if she had noticed.

She looked beautiful, younger, carefree. At least until she fully realised who was outside her room. Her features hardened immediately and she straightened up.

"What do you want?"

"I want to talk."

She immediately tried to shut the door but you reacted fast and held it open. She glared at you, like trying to threaten you just with her eyes.

"Liandrin, please." You persisted and stepped forward. Even if she would have tried she wouldn't have been able to shut the door now. Your body blocked it.

Wordless she turned around and kept the door open. You took it as an invitation to follow, so you did. Gently you closed the door behind you. Liandrin slowly turned around, you had to admit that it looked quiet scary, like an animal ready to fight. And yet, you weren't afraid of her. Her stare was icy and she held her chin high, proud.

You could see through her, she felt vulnerable. Afraid, and she didn't like that you saw her like this. Without her facade of clothes, make up and her usual strict hair.

You took a step forward and she immediately took a step back. You sighed.

"Liandrin, I want to help." Her gaze softened for a moment before she scoffed.

"You stupid woman. Why do you think I would ever trust you?" Her tone was low and steady, yet full of rage and hatred. You thought about your words thoroughly before speaking.

"I already told you, I don't want information. I now know he's your son," she slightly jumped at the mention of her son, "because you told me." You emphasised that last part and held her gaze.

"I don't even want to know anything else. I don't expect you to tell me what happened or why it's the way it is. I just want to help ease his pain. I could accompany you once a week. It'll only take a few minutes." She turned her face away, didn't look you in the eye anymore. You could practically see her think.

"I assume you used the tumeric milk I suggested, cause you're not stupid. You're just afraid." You knew how risky it was to say something like that to Liandrin, but you didn't care.

She looked down and slowly steped closer to you. Her eyes met yours, though hers were filled with rage. You liked how close she was. Why did you like it?

"I will-..." She started talking, tone icy. You interrupted her immediately.

"I'm not scared of you, Liandrin." You stayed calm, held her gaze, didn't shy away. You wanted to reach out, stroke her cheek, take her hand, something. But you didn't. Though it didn't seem to be necessary. She stepped back, looked away and talked.

"I'll get you at dawn. One word to anyone and-..."

"...you'll kill me. I know." You smiled slightly, turned around and left her be. Though not without a last glance at her form, at her carefree state. She met your eyes, confusion just slightly apparent in them and you left.

Whatever had just happened in there, you took it as a win.

[thisisnotthenerd]

i’m having exu calamity thoughts at midnight.

when the ring of brass meets at the ivy table in the palazzo por’co, it’s mentioned that this is the first replenishment for the ring of brass as a whole. when you consider the age differential of the pcs, this becomes way more interesting

patia was the first--’middle-aged’ for a member of a species that can live over 700 years is probably around 300-400. given patia’s general avalir native energy, i’m going to put her on at the younger side of things. avalir was raised from toramunda 292 years prior to the calamity--i don’t think she would be old enough to remember that. this is a woman who has lived her entire life on avalir, and given it to the city that birthed her. the memory erasure and removal of patia’s parents could have happened within the first 100 years or so of patia’s life, and any alignments with apogee solstices pin it to around her 50-60s. it’s still feasible for patia to have known the raven queen pre-ascension, though i’d put it at young adulthood more than childhood. there really isn’t a good way to give an exact estimate of her age as compared to a human lifespan given that she’s probably been the keeper of scrolls for the city for probably a good century, and the granddaughter of an archmage, the archmage who brought avalir to the skies. it tracks for her to be a member of the ring of silver from her position alone. she’s maintaining the city’s google archives, and setting records (ha!) while doing it.

patia’s theoretical age: 300ish

patia’s human lifespan equivalent: late 30s early 40s. feels older than her peers by a wide margin, for good reason. armed with knowledge, money, and her family’s good name, this kennedy equivalent can only go up from here.

laerryn’s listed age is around 100-150. this is a woman born in the sky with a brain that kept her city there. funnily enough, she could have been born around the last apogee solstice. i’m not saying it happened. i’m just saying that a woman who’s spent her life searching for a way beyond the stars, being born during a confluence of leylines, a major celestial event? maybe not a coincidence. when compared to patia, she’s so young. it’s crazy for her to be both the architect arcane and hierophant abjura. it is unbelievable to me that people could overlook her, but i guess that’s how she cultivated her work. hats off to aabria iyengar for making an extreme prodigy CON wizard who can square up with primordials and win. laerryn is doing an extreme amount of work maintaining the spell engines that keep that city afloat. I’m unsurprised that she gets mad enough to kill the speaker of the fourth, magister micah cormorant, in a single round of fireball and construct slam attacks.

laerryn’s theoretical age: 120ish for apogee solstice lineup. probably older--closer to 130-140.

laerryn’s human lifespan equivalent: around 25, maybe a little older. she’s an elf, but holy shit. this is someone who became an adult a few replenishments ago. she’s girlbossed her way into the heart of this city with a finesse that few can match.

it’s easy to think that for a while it’s just the two of them, but realistically, the ring of brass probably starts being a thing within the last two decades. laerryn would not have been old enough or important enough to rub shoulders with patia socially at least until adulthood. i’m imagining a young laerryn going to the librarium incantatum to find obscure references for her research often enough that they get introduced and strike up a mentorship/friendship.

loquatius is a little tricky. we know he’s around 150 as of exu:c, based on the average fey lifespan of around 300 and the fact that laerryn doesn’t know if he would be alive to see the next apogee solstice. we don’t know when he left the feywild to chase the truth in avalir. but the herald’s tome is well established, and so is he, as the herald of avalir, voice of the council, scribe of crowns. so either he came like 50 years ago and had the time to set it all up himself, or the herald’s tome was already an existing institution. i’m leaning towards the former--he seems like he would have started elsewhere, gotten frustrated, started his own publication, outcompeted everyone else, then turned into the exact thing he didn’t want to become. anyway. this puts him around middle-aged, like patia, so that’s where i’m going to put him. also this gives a nice window of time where he’s working his way up, and a way for him to get introduced to laerryn in a work context where both of them are revolutionaries in their fields.

loquatius’ theoretical age: 150ish.

loquatius’ human lifespan equivalent: late 30s early 40s. this doesn’t matter as much for him either--he’s fey, and wasn’t really operating on human standards anyway.

evandrin is even more difficult, given how much we just don’t know about him. he’s a half elf, so he’s running a little slower than the humans of the party, but not by much. i’d say he’s in his late teens/early 20s when he first meets laerryn, while she’s around 110. this gives them a good window of friendship pre-zerxus & ring of brass. if he was working his way up though the ranks, i could see them becoming friends while she’s working on a spell engine keyed to an alarm system for the chancellor’s guards in her capacity as hierophant abjura. or maybe the chancellor’s guards cause some destruction that she has to deal with as the architect arcane. this would put him at mid-late 20s when he has elias and meets zerxus in cathmoira, and mid-30s when he dies.

evandrin’s theoretical age: late 30s.

evandrin’s human lifespan equivalent: still late 30s as of the eve of the replenishment while he’s in the astral sea. not a huge difference, because half-elves basically just double a human lifespan, but mature at the same rate apparently.

zerxus is canonically 37, so i don’t need to put in any work to know that about him. zerxus, in his early adulthood, is on cathmoira doing some kind of paladin/oracle training that gets him to a level where he’s the runner-up to evandrin for the position of first knight when evandrin passes. maybe the position’s at least a little hereditary. something to think about later. doing a lot of work in terms of physical protection of the city--who needs an army when you’ve got a widowed paladin with a belt of storm giant strength? just let the guy get his grief out and enjoy having a principled first knight instead of fucking kevin.

zerxus’ theoretical age: early 20s when he meets evandrin and elias, ~30 when evandrin dies, and 37 at the eve of the calamity. no need for human lifespan equivalent.

nydas is around the same age, given that they grew up together in cathmoira. we know nydas goes off to be a pirate for a while before coming to the golden scythe and becoming the guildmaster--late teens through early 20s at the very least, and he’s commanding power and respect by the time he properly makes it to the skies. this tracks for when the nasty trifecta would start to meet, and sets a solid foundation for his role as the bank roll for the city of avalir. also someone doing a fuckton of work, but getting more credit for it.

nydas’ theoretical age: mid-late 20s when he gets to avalir and becomes the guildmaster, late 30s by the eve of the calamity. no need for human lifespan equivalent.

cerrit is the last of the bunch to turn up, and for good reason: he’s probably in his early 20s, no older than 25. eisfuura seem to exhibit a marginally different growth pattern than aarakocra--maya and kir are 7 and 5, but for human equivalency, like 14 and 10. a rough doubling makes sense, especially because they do say maya is 14 at one point. so, cerrit is probably like 20-25. rose up through the ranks of the eyes of avalir super quickly because of his keen sense and ability to catch things that others couldn’t. i think it tracks for him and wrayne to have gotten married a little earlier than laerryn and loquatius. also the fact that his lifespan is shorter just makes his absence from his family life more depressing. it’s less time, sure, but more to miss. also it’s very funny that maturity wise he could be older than everyone except for patia but chronologically closer to laerryn’s equivalent age. it’s so funny that laerryn is afraid of a bird that literally just showed up less than a decade ago. and then you see that the bird is terrifying in a fiercely competent kind of way.

also, i think this lends credence to the fact that cerrit has been a little separate from the friendship dynamic of the rest of the group: laerryn & patia are best friends, the seelies have romantic nonsense all the time, laerryn & evandrin were friends, which brought zerxus into the fold, and nydas had connections to both the trouble trio and zerxus. cerrit probably made a connection through patia, and immediately became a moral force. also this sets him up to join post-evandrin, making his friendship with zerxus all the more interesting. anyway.

cerrit’s theoretical age: early 20s--i’ll say 22 for now

cerrit’s human lifespan equivalent: early 40s. this man instantly became the handler for all of these people. my god.

anyway to be at that table is to simultaneously be an extremely overworked millennial and also maybe older than god and/or just old enough to graduate college. very fun and spicy age dynamics that could have been explored more, but i’m happy where they are, as you can see.

[captaincaptainfisher]

Hello! Welcome to the chapter of the growth records where I try very hard to write SOC as aro/ace without falling to the "he's a robot who doesn't understand normal biological stuff" trope. I pray I did ok (and please tell me if I didn't) (also sex mention ig)

Growth records, entry 15.

First, an update on the pups.

At a few cycles old, they have both opened their eyes and begun crawling around. They have made a few attempts to walk upright and even managed a few steps, but they're still rather unsteady on their feet. Their personalities have remained consistent. The blue one is loud and confident, exploring further into my structure and on occasion needing to be corralled back by Socks. The grey one is much calmer and quieter, sticking closer to his guardian and watching curiously when I work. I am still brainstorming names... I am determined to do better than Socks.

The pup grown from the white tuft remains in vitro. I can make out very little of its features from outside the machine looking in, but it seems to be a little smaller than the others were at birth. Its heartbeat is very weak, but slowly getting stronger... I believe it will survive to birth, but suspect some form of deformity or defect has occurred during development.

Socks has spent a significant amount of time by the machine lately, staring at the fetal pup. I hope, for his sake, that it makes it.

Now... onto some rather exciting recent events.

Socks has been exploring the structure with the pups, teaching them about life and the creatures there and *especially* about pole mimic plants. They've been learning rather quickly... just like he did.

At one point, he took them back through the portal. To see it? To learn? To meet their "source material"? I do not know. But...

Well, to add some context, he rushed into the portal after I made the discovery that the machine not only produced slugpups, but theoretically, could produce adults as well. Socks was halfway out the door already as I was wondering how this would work...

He returned several hours later with two identically grey pieces of fur, and as I attempted to put the machine to work, the reasoning for his haste became clear.

The machine did indeed do as I expected- sped past the fetal stage in a matter of minutes, zoomed through adolescence, and in a manner of hours, two adult female slugcats emerged from the machine.

Their bodies are mostly grey, with an identical purple stripe down their backs. Their fronts have a more interesting pattern that extends from their muzzles down to their bellies, with more stripes of the same colour on their arms and legs. One has these patterns in a light pink, the other yellow. They are very similar in body structure as well as in colour, both being a fair bit smaller than Socks (though he is rather larger than average, so I don't believe this is a trait of their sex) with short, round snouts and long, thick tails.

After a brief period of disorientation upon exiting the artificial wombs, they immediately began interacting with Socks with an air of familiarity and friendliness. They seemed to recognise each other, which has very interesting implications for the use of my machine.

Firstly, the way they act with Socks is enough to lead me to believe they have retained the memories from whoever the fur belonged to before Socks brought it to me. I'm going to have to carefully monitor the pups as they grow to see if they also remember anything of a previous life elsewhere. I'm also going to look over the blueprints of the machine again... There were several times during assembly when the reasons for doing things didn't make sense to me as I followed the instructions. Hidden in one of these confusing moments must be an answer to how an entire personhood can be transferred through only the DNA in a scrap of fur.

Secondly, the way they act with Socks is teaching me more about their species.... And perhaps what a neglectful caregiver I have been.

My only previous experience with romantic companionship was from observing the ancients and other iterators. I never saw much need for it. I had iterator friends, even an ancient or two I was close with, and their friendship was something that gave me the will and the way to keep going during some of my darkest moments. But I never had any desire to kiss them, or have them be one person more special to me than anybody else. Some other iterators built romantic relationships with each other, but as we're all stuck in our cans, it only seemed to make them more lonely missing each other.

In a similar vein of things, some iterators were created with the ability to copulate, and some were not. The ones that were had more frequent visits from the ancients, and I occasionally heard the ones that weren't wishing that they were. It always seemed odd and unnecessary to me. Like many, the Karma 2 mural was painted on my old structure, and I often instructed my overseers to avoid it so I would not have the strange visual.

I have mentioned before that I occasionally forgot that Socks required food when he was a pup, due to myself having no need for it.

In a similar way, due to my own complete disinterest, I never considered that he might desire a romantic or sexual partner. I thought of companionship, but assumed that I would be enough of a friend to him to cover that basis, though I never imagined we would form an actual bond.

But his excitement at finally having others close to his age to interact with... It tells me I might have been wrong.

He treats them both with similar levels of affection, and they have both quickly bonded with and assumed mutual care of the pups.

The one in pink seems very cheerful, and has been quite excited to explore my structure and play with both Socks and the pups. The one in yellow has been much more mellow (if you'll pardon the rhyme) and seems to get on well with the grey pup. She has been quietly observing me for some time... I have not yet given them the mark of communication, so I know she is not listening to me, but she seems to be doing her best.

I'm glad that Socks is not lonely anymore... Though I may have to make some accommodations to my structure for the increasing slugcat population.

And get better at thinking of names.

Recording ends.

[elithilanor]

Arwen Sapphic NSFW Alphabet

Minors DNI

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Hope this pleases, anon

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A = Aftercare (What they’re like after sex)

So good to you. Lots of tender cuddles and soft kisses. Wrapping you both up in blankets and bringing in sweet drinks. Another gentle round if you’re up for it.

B = Body part (Their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Your mind. She loves how smart you are, how witty, how casually capable you are on such a wide range of conversations.

She loves her hair. Between the color and the waves, it reminds her of both sides of her lineage.

C = Cum (Anything to do with cum basically… I’m a disgusting person)

She squirts pretty easily, so she thinks you should too (spoiler: it takes you waaay longer to get there ;)

D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Would love to watch you get railed by another elf and have you tell her afterwards that she’s better.

Would take you on a balcony to show everyone you’re hers.

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

She’s had a lot of experience with kissing in dark corners of Imladris but not much else. She’s read a lot of books so she has a large theoretical knowledge. You learn together what the two of you like.

F = Favourite Position (This goes without saying. Will probably include a visual)

Wrapped around you with her hands or strap between your legs

Sitting on your face while you eat her out

You tied up and waiting for her; bonus points if you’re shaky and breathless in anticipation of straining against the bonds and whining in want for her

G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc)

Absolutely. She loves laughter and tries to bring more levity to most situations. Has been known to tickle you to distraction then kiss you senseless.

H = Hair (How well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.)

Thanks her Edain heritage, she’s got a good patch of hair down there and it’s the same color as her head. She keeps things trimmed up but likes to let it grow out in the summer

I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…)

She’s so soft and full of love for you. Every touch on your skin is intentional to bring you closer and closer to coming apart in her arms

J = Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon)

She likes to masturbate in the morning before getting ready for her day. It keeps her very relaxed and focused.

K = Kink (One or more of their kinks)

Mommy/Naneth kink - loses her mind when you call her mommy; loves taking care of you and tell you how good you’re being for her

Restrictions - let her tie you up so you can’t touch her or move while she’s making you feel good. That’s it, sweet girl, hold still she’ll say as she dances over your skin with feathers and ice

Temperature and wax play - she loves making you into her own work of art. Ever had your skin painted on? She’ll show you how amazing it can be and how much sensation it gives

Spanking you always gets her (and you) so wet

Loves leaving you covered in hickies and bite marks, especially on your breasts. Let her leave little red marks all over your skin.

L = Location (Favourite places to do the do)

Basically anywhere semi-public but fairly low-traffic. She’s got a handful of favorite places like this one stack of books in the library, the jasmine and rose gardens on the full moons, the public baths, etc

Loves when you both can get away for a day or two and she can take you apart on the side of the road with your skirts thrown over your shoulders

She also just really likes having you on the floor and in your candle lit bath

M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)

I cannot emphasize enough how much she likes it when you call her Naneth

When you get riled up and whiny after she’s spent all day teasing you

N = NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Non-sexual age-play

Pretty much any hard kinks. She likes playing with you but not being over-hurtful

O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc)

Both, with a slight preference for receiving. She wants to make you feel good but you just willingly below her with your tongue just really gets her going. She’s not gentle either, she’ll ride your face hard especially the closer she gets to coming.

P = Pace (Are they fast and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.)

It’s honestly a mix and very dependent on mood and how much time you have before someone will find you. Just because you’re in a semi-public place does not mean it’ll be quick.

Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)

Conceptually, yes! But she’s rarely ever quick when she’s teasing…just a little longer, you’re almost there

R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.)

Depends! She’s more open to scenarios and new role playing than anything else. Naneth? Headmistress? My Queen/Lady? Yeah

S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…)

She can actually get fairly oversensitive if she’s already squirted once or twice so she’ll need a break from being touched. Those are the lulls in between rounds where you wrap yourself in each other’s arms and kiss and giggle and tell each other about your day

T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?)

Yes. She’s got a lovely strap and vibrator collection in varying sizes and materials which she’s likes watching you clean and pick them when she asks.

She loves using them on you, but she always opens you up with her fingers first. For the obvious comfort and safety, but because you’re hers and she wants to be first of anything when she’s taking you.

She’s also in the process of getting a good amount of plugs because she likes teasing you by having you wear them all day and squirm.

She prefers either you or her fingers touching her and rarely using any toys on herself.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

She’s a menace and she knows it. She teases you mercilessly from the aforementioned plugs, tying you up and refusing to let you touch her or yourself, taking you in a corridor but not letting you finish to staring you down across the crowded Hall of Fire, holding your wrist when training, and brushing against you while walking with you.

She especially loves pressing you against walls and telling you exactly what she wants to do with you and as soon as you beg her to - please Arwen please just - she’ll smile and twirl away to return to her duties.

V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)

She’s incredibly loud, but rarely screams; lots of moaning that just gets louder and louder until she comes

W = Wild Card (Give a random headcanon for the character of your choice)

She’s got occasional little freckles all over her body and there’s little concentrations on her breasts and hips, almost like constellations in the night sky

She hates wearing undergarments and loves cross dressing (not that elves care the way that humans do)

She really enjoys anal play for the sheer fact that it means she can fill all three of your holes with her fingers, a strap, and another toy. She loves driving you to a distracted, babbling mess of thanks yous

X = X-Ray (Let’s see what’s going on in those pants, picture or words)

There’s a wonderful nsfw lotr creator on here under the handle sanissë and one of her hcs is that Celebrían has the fattest pussy in Arda. I hc that Arwen inherited it.

Eating Arwen out is one of Arda’s greatest treasures.

She the softest skin and the softest breasts

Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

Fairly average! She’s down when she’s down and doesn’t care that much when she’s not.

Z = ZZZ (… how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

She drops off fairly fast actually. Tease hard, sleep hard I suppose

[tacticalhimbo]

Which canon character does your OC not respect at all? Why?

Who would probably have a crush on your OC?

Is there a canon character who would die for your OC?

For Laverne!!

questions from the fandom oc ask meme

tysm for asking!!

Which canon character does your OC not respect at all? Why?

well, besides haines (i already ranted about him fjsljfsljf) i'd probably say the next candidate for that title is lazlow. which is really funny because she does work with him at times thanks to tony's clubbing business.

but she just... dislikes him. again, it's the egotistical "holier than thou" attitude a lot of men in los santos seem to have, especially in the entertainment industry. plus she's heard about some of the behind the scenes stuff for his show and is... less than amused by them.

that said, he's usually just crying in the club's office or on the dance floor making an idiot of himself, so she can't complain too much in terms of their interactions (as they're usually brief)

Who would probably have a crush on your OC?

hmm... excluding some roleplay headcanons (not out of validity; i'm still on the fence of whether or not to make it canon considering some actual canonical in-game events), i feel like the contact that would end up developing a crush is probably agatha baker.

laverne holds a huge stake in the diamond casino, with owning a penthouse and having saved the business/investing a large share into it, so they do meet up a lot outside of criminal activity to just. exist. the hustle and bustle of the city is nice, and it's nice to also travel about the floor and play a few high-stakes rounds of blackjack, but laverne almost views the casino as a getaway.

it's on the edge of the city with easy highway access. her penthouse there is much more guarded than her apartment in the city (and sure, she has temporary suites in her businesses, but those are hardly comfortable)... and if she really needs to get away from the noise, agatha's opened her door more than a few times. they'll share drinks and look out the privacy glass onto the casino floor and catch up like that. talks about business grow more personal, and so on.

and for agatha, i imagine/headcanon that's really the only reprieve she gets, too. considering how tense the dealings were prior to laverne's intervention, and the overall stress of running a business like the diamond.

so they both just kinda pine for one another in a classic case of "do i feel this way because i'm actually relaxing for once, or does it go deeper than that?" fasdlfskjflsdkf

Is there a canon character who would die for your OC?

not really! and it's not because people don't like her; she's actually very close with a lot of her recurring business associates (e.g., lester, agatha baker, etc)... it really just stems from the fact that, at the end of the day, everyone in los santos is out for themselves.

lester learned his lesson with the unholy trinity and would prefer not getting burnt.

agent 14, brucie, lazlow, and agatha are closer but not that close (and mileage varies). they've got their lives and obligations beyond her, so it's just not a risk they'd take.

and tony's… tony. while he would be the most likely to put himself in a situation where he could theoretically die for her, laverne just wouldn't let him. she knows his history and she knows he has luis out there, and she's not about to be the one to tell him that he lost one of his closest people.

[hekates-corner]

Apothecary Diaries | WN Translation | Arc 9 - Chapter 12

Hey, whichever way you found this: Welcome!

For a couple of reasons I ended up here - I relay all that happens in the chapters, playing wine-aunt, as I translate to the best of my abilities.

So, be warned, all the spoilers are waiting down below. Want spoilers - but less? My dm's/asks are open!

New here? Here's the Masterlist.

Enjoy!

Chapter 12 | Farming

For the next two days, Maomao and the others helped Nenshin with his work.

Which was pretty close to the answer Maomao was looking for.

Narrator-Mao leads us through the explanation that, after putting the hoe in the ground and turning over the damp soil, they found worms, ants and small beetles - as well as long masses/clumps, where a closer look revealed that they were eggs/egg masses.

The chicken that had been pecking at the worms then pecked at the egg mass. In her head she wonders “Locust eggs?”

As narrator she lets us know that she would’ve liked to calculate how many there were per tan, but that she didn’t have the time to do that. Once she found an egg the chicken had missed, she picked it up and put it in a jar.

In her mind she notes how many there must be.

Narrator-Mao goes on talking about how people who hate insects would go crazy about this, even if the contents of her jar are still few. Despite being used to dissecting locusts, it’s not something she wants to see or likes either.

Meanwhile she lets us in on the fact that Lahan-nii, the expert farmer, had a special way of holding the hoe - while Basen had his incredible strength and how different the amount of soil is they have to dig up.

In her head she’s just glad that Basen is doing things right.

Narrator-Mao tells us that she’d been worried he’d refuse, because it’s not the job of a soldier, but apparently she was lucky that Jinshi cared about locusts quite a bit. So, Basen quietly helped her.

Thanks to that, she fills us in, the guards and farmers they’d brought along were also helping her. It looks like they’ll be done with the digging by the end of the day.

In addition, Chue - who had joined before they knew it - was moving around near the two of them, collecting locust eggs. Two children were behind her. They’re the siblings that ate the roasted sweet potato - and they seem to think that if they help they’ll get more of them.

“Maomao-san, there are a lot of them, would you like to see them?”

“Chue-san, I don’t want to see them. If it’s mantis eggs, I’ll take it.”

Mantis eggs, she tells us, are used as a medicine called Sohyosho. Since it can’t be acquired in large quantities, it’s quite valuable. (that’s real btw)

“The eggs here are about to hatch. A small one’s coming out.”

“It’s already spring, isn’t it?”

One generation of flying locusts is as long as 3 months, starting march. It's said that they lay about 100 eggs each at a time. This is what was written in the encyclopedia that was in the Shi clan’s fortress. Those born in spring lay new eggs in summer.

They don’t breed all year round, and at this time of year, the eggs laid in the fall are hatching. The eggs are laid hidden in the ground, exposed by akiko/autumn plowing - and once exposed, they become food for birds and small animals.

Maomao wonders, in her mind, if Lahan (the actual one) hadn’t said that before.

Narrator-Mao notes something about him having mentioned rat/mousecalculation.

One pair of mice births 12 children - making the total 14. Of those 12 children, 6 females and the mother bring 7 more pairs into the world - from which, each of them births another twelve.

Of course, this formula is just a theoretical calculation. Not everything grows without dying.

If the number of locusts were to increase in the same way as this rat-calculation, it will be important to reduce the number at an earlier stage.

She calculates in her head that a mass of locust eggs is about 100, 100 times ten is 1000, 100 times 100 is 10.000.

Narrator-Mao goes on that, if they were to get rid of them now, they could lower the amount of locusts appearing later by many times - and that it seems locusts lay their eggs in areas that are moist to some degree.

She thinks that, since there’s a river nearby and plenty of grass to feed on, this area is the perfect spawning ground.

Then notes as narrator that the reason why they (villagers) didn’t dare to cultivate a field is probably to attract locusts.

At that point Nenshin approaches her, a glass of locust eggs in hand.

“Now all that’s left to do is burn them.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“Ah. Last year I missed a lot of locusts because I was late with this.”

Narrator-Mao recalls that a farmer of this village had also said that they had a lot of damage from locusts the year before.

“Was the yield quite small?” She asks and Nenshin nods.

“We don’t have any savings, just what we eat. If we pay taxes, we’ll starve. We would no longer be able to afford to buy daily necessities from peddlers, so we would have so sell our cattle.”

“But you said that the feudal lord not only exempted you from taxes but also gave you support.”

“That’s right, he’s a really nice lord.” Once again, Nenshin made a face as if he was going to throw up.

Maomao then asks him directly something along the lines of “What is it that you don’t like about that? It seems like you have a thorn in your side/like it's a thorn in your eye.”

Nenshin explains that, he’s not saying this as former bandit, but they(village people) are just trying to take what they can get. To him, they’re like locusts. If you don’t want to starve, you should take proper care of your field - so that you don’t starve.

Maomao asks if "that’s why" - the reason why the fields in this village aren’t well taken care of is that.

Nenshin responds: “That’s right. It was the same with last years bugs.” and goes on to explain that while they were disgusted, looking at their fields being eaten with dismay - the village chief was always thinking about how he could get the sympathy of the lord, always thinking about how he could make him cry. Nenshin felt like a fool, pulling off the locusts that were biting the leaves and killing them one by one.

Narrator-Mao wonders if the fear of past locust plagues has changed Nenshin - because this doesn’t seem like the behavior of a former bandit who has done all kinds of evil deeds.

She then corrects herself in her mind: No, that’s wrong.

As narrator adding that, from the start, Nenshin probably had an earnest/serious personality. He was born and raised as a bandit, so he learned how to use a bow and started killing people as he was told.

Ethics isn’t something you are born with.

“And judging from the current atmosphere in the village, it seems like they received a lot of money.”

“Right. This hasn’t changed in the last ten years. Even if the harvest fails, the lord will help us. He’s a good lord to everyone.”

In her mind she wonders “Good lord..”

Narrator-Mao wonders where the money for this support comes from. It could be extracted from trade. If Saito was that prosperous, it’s fine to send the money to rural areas.

“If you’re making the money, I think it would be better to build at least one of those waterways/canals.”

She goes on, as narrator, that the less labor is involved in transporting water, the more different work can be done. They could even cultivate new fields.

Nenshin admits that that’s what “that man Rikuson” had said too - Maomao replies with a simple “Is that so.”

Narrator-Mao then tells us again that, once she’s back in Saito, she has to find out how Rikuson found out about the former serf’s existence.

(And then, after all this, days worth of work they did for him, mind you……..)

“By the way, I’m sorry to ask you to help me with my work, but don’t you have other business in this village?”

“Business…….” - Maomao rests her chin on the handle of her hoe and closes her eyes.

“Ah!” - Maomao looks around. She approaches Lahan-nii, who isn’t only digging up the soil but also starting to make ridges.

Maomao: We won’t plant anything here.

Lahan-nii: ?!

She thinks “Shit, he’s making his usual face.”

He(?) denies it, but the farmers are completely on board.

“By the way, aren’t you going to spread the popularity of potatoes? I think that’s why you brought the seed potatoes.”

“..... that’s about it.”

It seems like Lahan-nii has something on his mind.

“The people here have no willingness/motivation to work in the fields, right? If they were to produce more potatoes, do you think they would cultivate them properly? They probably won’t use the old fields for new crops, and I don’t think they have the willpower to cultivate new land.”

“Certainly/Indeed.” Maomao is convinved.

Lahan-nii says that that’s why he wanted to meet the only person who cultivated a decent farm.

Maomao catches on, goes “So that’s what it’s about.” but Lahan-nii already knows better as well: “But I don’t think that old man can do it.”

Maomao agrees, with a simple “It’s impossible, I guess.”

The last former serf of this village. In addition to working on his own field, he also has to perform the fall plowing ceremony, which is called a ritual. Work that was supposed to be completed in fall, continuing into the spring, so no matter how you look at it, there’s not enough manpower.

“Can’t we just leave one person here to help?” They look at the other farmers.

Lahan-nii argues that the people he brought with him are here because he is *in case she’s wondering*. It’s not good to be left behind in an unfamiliar place/You can’t just leave them in an unfamiliar land, in the middle of nowhere.

They seem to have been brought all the way from Hisashi-Shuu.

“Right.” - Narrator-Mao notes that Lahan-nii acts like an older brother in the strangest ways - and that, if he had been born into a normal family, he would’ve been a good eldest son. (damn girl)

Lahan-nii adds that he’s glad his father isn’t there - and something about how he said he’d show them the potential of potatoes yet he didn’t actually know what to do. (the second part’s not wanting to be read, clearly.)

Maomao then says something along the lines of “Let’s at least make the sweet potatoes tasty….. Potatoes……” (it’s a fragmented sentence I can’t make full sense of)

Maomao looks at the two children clinging to Chue’s back. She sets down the hoe and approaches them.

“Hey, you want to eat the sweet potato again sometime”

“Want to eat!”

“I want to eat it! I want to eat!”

The sibling's eyes sparkled.

“It’s my first time eating something so sweet. It was sweet like a raisin.”

“Raisins?”

“Sweets are precious around here. There’s no honey and sugar is a luxury item.”

Chue spins around with a large jar on her head.

“... I wonder, can we use that/Could that work?”

Maomao grinned/chuckled and returned to Lahan-nii.

| Notes & Chapter 13

At long last, a chapter that didn't completely hate being translated.

There's not much to say this time. There is the expression thing where it's not quite clear for me if Maomao is pulling an expression or if it's Lahan-nii, but we'll survive that. The same goes with where Nenshin has the thorn.

I honestly just love it for Nenshin that he waited days, until they were about to wrap up all the work, before asking if it's fine for them to spend all their time with his task. Just, gold.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this one. I'll see you soon with the next. Stay safe!

[twink-between-worlds]

little pink bunny

..i dont know. its just wars bein sick, legend bribing him to sleep using his dark world form, and twilight being a dick. nothin special.

relationships; legend & warriors & twilight

ao3 link; x

kofi

“Just this once, okay?” “Okay.” “Because you’re sick.” “Cause ‘m sick.” “And you’ll take a nap if I do this.” “An’ I’ll take a nap if you do this.” Legend let out a huff. “Twi, give me your necklace.” The rancher paused, turning and raising a brow. “You sure? You don’t seem to be particularly fond of its effects.” “I’m not. But Wars is sick and this is a one-off. He said he’ll sleep if I do this for him.” “Alright.”Twilight shrugged. “Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.” Legend already knows he’ll regret it. “Thank you, Twilight, now hand it over.” The rancher tossed the necklace over, a small grin on his face. Legend chose to ignore it. Or, well, he made a very poor attempt to ignore it. He made the decision to flip Twilight off before holding the crystal in his hands, allowing the darkness to consume him. “Aww.”Warriors giggled, and Legend let out a heavy sigh as Warriors picked him up, cooing at the pink bunny in his hands. “Twi—rancher are you—are you seein’ this???” “I’m seeing it, Wars.”Twilight stifled a laugh, watching as Warriors placed the tiny ball of pink fluff on his chest, playing with the bunny’s ears. “Ay—watch it.”Legend squeaked out, voice smaller and softer than when he’s in Hylian form. “Don’t call him cute,”Twilight quickly informed Warriors, trying very hard to not laugh. “Kit hates that and will bite you.” “Kit?”Warriors blinked, still idly playing with Legend’s ears as he turned to look at Twilight, confusion written on his face. Twilight grinned wide. “Legend is a kit. A baby bunny. That's why he’s so small. I’ve called him that since I found out.” “I told you not to call me that.”Legend protested, huffing when Warriors laughed and simply held him closer. “He’s so…so small!”Warriors whined, clearly a bit too emotional over it, before he gasped. “Could I carry him around in my scarf if I wanted to???” “No.”Legend snapped, glaring—or, at least, attempting to glare—at Twilight when the rancher hummed in thought. “You could, probably.”Twilight nodded. “He’s been carried around in Four’s hood before, don’t see any problems with him being carried around in your scarf.” “Stop encouraging him, Twi.” “That’s not going to happen, kit.” Another sigh, and Legend ducked his head down, burying his face into Warriors’ undershirt. Somehow, it’s less mortifying than Legend had thought it would be. He’d take this over dealing with Twilight enabling Warriors’ antics any day. …he will never admit that out loud. “So—so, theoretically, when ‘m better—” “No, Warriors.”Legend mumbled, but was ignored. “—I can carry Legend ‘round for a bit in my scarf?” “I dunno, you’d have to ask him.” “Fuck you, Twilight.” “I love you too.” Legend shifted to look up again, to glare at Warriors and Twilight, but instead found Warriors looking at him expectantly. “What?” “When ‘m better can I carry you ‘round in m’ scarf?” “...you’re not serious.” “I am.” “If I say yes will it get you to shut up and go to sleep?” A pause before the captain nodded quickly, and Legend let out a heavy, drawn-out sigh. “Fine. But you have to go to sleep now, and it’s not happenin til I know you’re able to stand on your own two feet without issue. Got that?” “Mhm!”Warriors shot him a tired, slightly wonky, grin. “I got it..” “Good.”Legend huffed, settling back down. There was a beat of silence, Twilight sinking back into the chair in the corner of the room, and Warriors’ hands stopped moving, resting on Legend’s head as his breaths evened out. “Are you really gonna let him carry you around in his scarf when he’s better, kit?”Twilight asked once he was sure Warriors had fallen asleep. “Haha, very funny Twilight. No, of course I’m not.” “You know he’ll hold you to it.” “Hopefully he’s sick enough to not remember the conversation.” “Oh,”Twilight mumbled, but Legend felt him staring so shot him a look. “Yanno…” “Yanno…?” “You’re so hard to understand. I’d love to study you.” Legend rolled his eyes. “Get out.” “Yep, I’m going.”Twilight sighed, pushing himself up off the chair. “I’m telling Shad that he can study you next time we’re in my era, though.” “Nobody is going to study me! Good gods.” “So you say,”Twilight whistled, heading for the door. “Sleep well, kit.” “...yeah yeah, just get out Twi.” The other left with a laugh, and Legend made an irritated noise, shuffling around for a bit before he slipped out from Warriors’ hand, hopping over to lay on the pillow beside Warriors’ head. “Night, dumbass.”Legend mumbled, gently nudging Warriors’ face with his own before settling down on the pillow, eyes shut. If, by chance, he saw Warriors’ lips twitch up into a smile before his eyes had shut, he decided to ignore it in favour of sleeping.

[marypsue]

Third (I think? Maybe fourth?) watch of Stranger Things season one completed in one four-episode sitting tonight, and some things clicked that hadn't come together for me on previous watches, primarily character motivations.

I have struggled with the general canon portrayal of Hopper as A Guy We're Supposed To Be Sympathetic To juxtaposed against his decision to sell El out. I got close to figuring it out after the last watchthrough - in season one, it's not about El metaphorically standing in for his daughter, it's about saving Joyce from the pain of losing a child - but I really think I've cracked it this time. Between episode 3's “Please don’t be my kid", and the parallel in episode 7(? 6 and 7?) where Brenner tells Karen Wheeler that he wants to help her find her son but she has to trust him and almost the exact same words come out of Hopper's mouth in the same situation to Joyce, and the way David Harbour plays the moment Hopper cuts open Will's fake body and everything that comes after that - like cutting into what might be a child's corpse is The Line, and he knows it, and once he's crossed it, well, he's already done that, he's capable of anything - and how he initially tries to keep Joyce from coming with him to the lab and how he doesn't even seem to be trying to come up with a plan other than 'break in, wing it'?

I'm pretty sure now that he was planning to sell El out from the moment he walked out of the gym. It's all about saving Will, it's all about Will metaphorically standing in for the child he couldn't save, and do you know what he'd do for that? For a chance?

Anyway. Apparently I was wrong when I said that trying to engender sympathy for Brenner was undermining season one, since apparently 'feel bad for the guy who does abhorrent things to children because he was sad for unrelated reasons!' has been baked into the show from episode one and I was just too busy concentrating on the abused child who escaped captivity and discovered the world and found friends and a family for the first time and gave up everything to protect them, who is the real heart and soul of this show, ask literally anyone who's watched it, you fucking walnuts to see it.

I'm good. I'm good. I'm so normal about this television show you guys.

Speaking of Brenner, the other thing that struck me this go-round was just how much his primary motivation seems to be curiosity. I really struggled with this, too, especially when I was working on the road goes ever on (yes I'm going to link to it every time I mention it on here, it's still the thing I'm proudest of writing), and I don't think I'd quite nailed his character down by the time it got posted. Like I don't think what's in that fic is implausible for his character, necessarily, but I really leaned on pride and a desire for control (and a certain arrogant sense of invincibility) as motivating factors for his character in that fic. And while they're all definitely built into him, I think now that they actually come second to the curiosity.

The Gate gets opened in the first place because he immediately and without question gives up on spying on Russia (theoretically the whole point of this exercise) to go off on a wild goose chase for a scary noise that spooked his psychic spy. He 'dies' onscreen because the Demogorgon comes out of a wall and while everyone else is shooting at it (and getting murdered for their trouble), he just wanders on up, unarmed, unafraid, slightly awed, for a closer look! I'm quite sure that's why he actually lets Hopper and Joyce go after Will - he's not expecting them to come back out, but if they do, think what they could tell him about what's on the other side! He just wants to poke things and see what happens! Sometimes what happens is that whatever he's poking bites his finger off! Science is neat, but I'm afraid it's not very forgiving! Man I wish I'd figured this out before posting the monster longfic because I could have made his entire arc so much better and more convincing with this in mind!

I don't know if that's consistent with how they show him in season four, and frankly, given the degree of character drift (or outright assassination) everyone else is showing in season four, I don't particularly care.

Also, importantly, his primary power - and weapon - is trust. He wields authority to command trust, which he absolutely does not deserve, and it's notable that in the finale he asks Joyce for her trust and she refuses to give it to him. And she's the first and only person to refuse to give it to him. She's been lied to, mistreated, disbelieved, written off as crazy, and she is the only person on the entire show who can see right through him.

And yet, then there's that parallel drawn between Brenner asking for Karen's trust and Hopper asking for Joyce's, and she does place her trust in this man who ultimately gets her what she was looking for all along - and she never asks what the price was that was paid for it. I have to ask myself, now, does she ever wonder? Is that part of the distance between them in season two, the reason why neither of them acted on what was clearly supposed to be attraction between them? Because choosing to trust is not the same as trusting?

Season one really did have levels, and lots to chew over, and new things to find in each watch. When this show is good, man, it is good.