#but the way he writes society is just incredibly heavy-handed

[leonstoenailunderhisbed]

Femme Fatale

Summary: Leon is a cop that got transferred to a new city in order to investigate the spike in murder cases. However, this isn’t an ordinary murder case. It is a serial killer murdering men.

Warning: mentions of blood, violence, death. !serial!killer reader x !cop Leon. Reader is 21+ (don’t drink under the legal age). Reader is female (hence the title lol)

Word count: 4,483

A/N: HELLOOOOO I feel like it’s been a hot minute since I wrote anything. I’ve been seeing a lot of short smut stories lately and I just wanted to bring something different to the table lol!!! Another murder fanfic with no smut (sorry smut lovers, but if you want a part two, I’ll write one!)

“You’ll wish you never met her at all, you’ll wish you never met her at all,” - Maneater, Nelly Fortudo

Nobody knows the true definition of being a femme fatale. It goes beyond aesthetic, but you use that for your own advantage. Seems like society does play a useful role for your adventures.

They are adventures to you, but the police like to call them "ongoing murders," whatever that meant. So, what if you killed a guy at a bar, he was being sleazy and wouldn't take no for an answer, so you acted out in self-defense. The cops believed you because why would they go against a woman who simply defended themselves? That'd tarnish their name and reputation.

So, you got away with your first murder. Easy as pie.

The memory was still fresh in your mind. You were out, hanging at a bar as you drank your savings away. Some horrible event happened prior to the night and what better way to cheer you up than a couple of drinks.

Of course, a man ogled you from the other side of the bar. Practically undressing you and fucking you in his sick and perverted mind. He was at least twice your age, what a psycho.

He had approached you, offered to buy you a drink to which you declined. Claiming you had too much to drink and had work in the morning the next day. You thought it ended at that as you made your exit, only to have life play an incredible joke at you. It wasn't incredible to you, but maybe to the universe it was.

The man had followed you and pulled into a sketchy and dark alleyway, attempting to drug you by attacking you from behind and stuffing a drugged piece of cloth against your mouth right under your nostrils. But it didn't go great for him, he's a total idiot that seemed to have no idea what he was doing. What a damn rookie.

You jabbed your elbow into his gut from behind, the man momentarily paralyzed which allowed you to swing your bag at his face. He stumbled backwards and fell. But that wasn't enough for you, was it?

No, it was not. It never is.

What is a woman if she can't bring revenge to her own self? And so, you watched as the man fell back against the concrete floor, cursing silently that he didn't hit his head hard enough. No worries, nothing a little help couldn't do, right?

You swore you weren't a violent person but as you straddled the man and beat the shit out of him, you felt nothing but pure bliss. A smile plastered on your face like a permanent reminder to the man that women aren't as easy as he thought they were. Oh, how naive men can be.

Blood covered your knuckles, his face so fucked up and bruised that it would be nearly impossible to recognize him. Until you spotted his driver's silence on the floor and stole it. This fucker needed to disappear and what better way than to do it yourself. You needed no help, you were independent. To hell with the patriarchy!

He was a heavy man, but you managed. You strangled him with the straps of your bag, watching as his face turned purple from the lack of oxygen. His eyes nearly bulging out of his sockets as he gasped and tried to pry your hands away. Disgusting, you thought.

The second he died; you didn't move. You needed to make sure he was gone for good and when he was, you weren't stupid enough to leave him there, oh god no.

You burnt him.

His body was tossed in one of those trashcans where teenagers come and lit fires while they committed underage drinking, for once you were happy those teenagers were of help.

And that was the first time you committed murder, and certainly not your last.

-

News reported the numerous cases of dead and missing men, you cried fake tears and showed fake empathy for the families of the victims but deep down you didn't care. They were all bad in your mind, letting their sons and brothers terrorize and claim what wasn't theirs in the first place.

Yeah, you became a mysterious symbol for female murderers. Nobody knew who this sudden serial killer was, much less what gender. But it gave hope to the women of the town, the ones stuck in a toxic relationship, the ones being forced to act like a mother rather than a daughter--you gave each one hope.

Right after the murders were set, the dead men would get exposed to the media. One of your victims had illegal pictures in his hard drive and you had no regret in releasing them to the media. As far as you were concerned, they could all rot in hell.

Your killings continued to pile up, each one different than the other to throw the police off tracks and make them start their investigation all over again. Gosh not only were they lazy but also stupid.

Not until that tall and blonde new cop showed in town. He was new but he seemed like a capable cop. You should've felt scared or threatened at the new addition to the station, but you didn't. You only felt amused that they had to bring outside help all because they couldn't figure out that you were the serial killer.

-

"You shouldn't be drinking during the day," a voice rang out from behind you as you sat on the bar stool, drinking away. You turned your head over your shoulder to find the new cop standing behind you. His blue uniform hugging his muscles tightly, his blonde hair reaching just below his ears and his blue eyes staring at you intently.

"It's not heathy," he added as he walked to stand next to your sitting form, to which you raised a single brow and turned your head back forward and took a sip of your drink, "Good morning to you too, Officer."

"Kennedy," he said, extending his hand out for you to shake, "But you can call me Leon if that's more comfortable for you."

You took his hand, shaking it firmly as you noted how strong he seemed to be, "I don't think anyone feels comfortable in the presence of a cop but sure," you said as you gave him a tight lipped smile.

"Can't argue with that," he replied as he took his hand away and watched you drink. There was a silence that overtook the two of you right before he spoke, he seemed rather hesitant.

"What do you know about the murders?" he asked cautiously, eyes narrowing as he stared at you, watching for any signs of... suspicion, perhaps?

"You mean the ones about the guys being found dead in a ditch?" you asked sarcastically, a half smirk reaching your lips, "Heard too much about them lately. It's all everyone seems to be thinking about these days..."

"Well, it makes sense. This killer seems to be targeting men and then exposing them for their... disturbing habits... you don't happen to know about the town's vigilante, would you?" he asked, propping his arm on the countertop of the bar and turned to face you.

You turned your head to look at him, feigning innocence at his question, "No, officer, I haven't learned anything about the serial killer. Everyone's been busy being on their best behavior..." you glanced down at his uniform, admittedly checking him out before you looked back at his face, "And I suggest you do too, have a nice day."

The would be the last time you saw the cop for the time being. You knew he was going to be tailing you from that moment, so you had to be strategic. Maybe you'd seduce your way out of jail but at the same time, isn't a little game of cat and mouse fun?

-

It hasn't been going well for Leon. As soon as he was transferred from his previous station, he's been overworked with the investigation. Sure, he wasn't a real detective, but he was still a cop recommended by a popular chief. In his email he had stated that Leon was "perceptive" and "had an intelligence beyond human comprehension."

Leon didn't know why the chief was so insistent in getting him out of that station and to a new city, but rumor has it that it was because the chief didn't want anyone to discover the affair he was having. He knew Leon would've been the first one to figure it out.

And it worked, because now Leon was sitting in an office, trying his damnest to think about all the murders. Trying to find a common denominator between all of them.

"You look like you haven't slept in days. Reminds me of my wife when we had our first child," a police officer, by the name of Robert, entered the room with two cups of coffee. Robert was his assigned partner, the seasoned detective sent to teach him the ropes around the new station. But Leon didn't need training, he was already good at his job, and he didn't need a nanny.

He offered Leon a cup of coffee, leaning back against the edge of the desk behind him as he stared at the corkboard with evidence and pictures of the murders, strings going left and right as he linked each crime scene to another, "Yeah, well, I don't have either so I'm sure I'll be fine," Leon responded as he took the coffee and sipped it.

"You're really trying to solve this? You know we've been at a dead end for days, right? Half of these will turn cold and get stored down in the archives..." Robert muttered as he glanced at Leon, to which Leon simply nodded.

"Yep, that's exactly what I'm going to do," Leon replied, as if stating the obvious, "Isn't it suspicious how all of these murders are so... different? Too different?"

Robert could only stare at Leon with confusion, "What the hell are you--No, I don't find it suspicious. I actually think we just have multiple murderers."

"You think about 20 people in this town are murderers?" Leon retorted as he raised an eyebrow at Robert.

Robert sighed exasperatedly, "Okay, maybe not, but how are you even sure this is one person?"

"Because the perpetrator has been too careful. See this?" Leon took a picture from the corkboard, a piece of evidence from the crime scene, "None of the weapons have been found. But we know that they were used. There's a slit in this man's stomach, caused by a knife... don't you see? This serial killer purposefully takes the weapon and doesn't leave it behind because they know we can track their fingerprints and it's a game over for them."

Robert was actually a bit impressed but then he scoffed, "Leon, that seems like a stretch. What if the killer doesn't even use weapons? I mean, what if-what if-fuck. I hate when you make sense..." he muttered, which prompted Leon to smirk just a bit.

"I can feel that we are slowly getting closer to solving this. We just need to think like the killer..." Leon muttered right before the lightbulb above his head lit up, "And what better way than to act the part, huh?"

Robert looked at him confused with furrowed brows, watching as Leon took his jacket and started to make his way out, "Where are you going?"

"The only place where guys roam like fish--the club," he said before he stepped out of the room and started to walk out of the station towards his car. Robert could only sigh, wishing he was young enough to catch up to Leon's speed.

-

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," you muttered as you paced around your room. Ever since that new cop came into town, it's been hard for you to continue your killings. You're almost sure he's waiting to catch you at any moment and arrest you.

It's been a couple of days since his arrival, but he's been patrolling the places you'd usually go to catch your victim, the bar, the club, hell, even the park!

He was too good at his job and it both pissed you off and stressed you out.

"Fuck!" you yelled in frustration, for the past half year, you've been killing with no problem, but now that going to stop soon enough. You couldn't let the new cop win, this was no longer a game.

This was war.

You quickly dashed to your room, hopping on your bed and getting your laptop. You usually weren't the type of girl to stalk people but screw it, this Leon Kennedy needed to get out.

But to your dismay...he was a decent dude.

Nothing too important stood out. His Facebook was boring, the only pictures you could find were posted by his family. His Instagram was dry, he'd post without captioning his pictures. Who does that?!

You learned he graduated high school at 18, and then graduated from the academy early due to academic excellence and immediately got sent to a police station to work at only 21 years old. He didn't seem to have many friends, but then again, online life was nothing like real life.

But not all was lost. You learned he was 27 years old and single. You could use this to your advantage, to become the femme fatale everyone had been whispering about around the streets.

-

Leon went undercover to the town's most popular night club, he dressed casually and out of his uniform. The last thing he needed was for him to cause more panic than the serial killer had instilled.

"One beer, please," Leon ordered at the bar. The music blasting off from the speakers on the walls, lights down low as lasers and light sticks illuminated the place. People danced around, nothing too suspicious except for the disgusting display of affection by some couples.

"Here," the bartender said as he slid Leon his beer. He wasn't usually a beer guy, but he assumed he need a light drink to push through. vodka and tequila didn't seem fitting for the job he was currently trying to do.

He walked around the club, his eyes glancing everywhere for any suspicious activity. He had found none.

Well not nothing, his eyes landed back on the bar, walking towards it to get another drink and give up for the night. Until he saw you. You were dressed in a tight little dress, your hair and makeup done but he wasn't paying attention to any of that. He paid attention to the way you were talking with a guy.

Now, the idea was still a bit weak in his mind. He had no proof that the serial killer could be a woman but something in him was setting off his buttons of suspicion. Why hasn’t he thought about it before?

Maybe because he had no real reason too. He didn’t mean it, but he thought most murders were caused by men. But he just couldn’t shake off something about you. So he lingered a bit, deciding to forget about the beer and just focus on you.

It didn’t surprise him that you were flirting back with the guy that has been talking to you, he was handsome but not as handsome as himself (his own words). He stood far, making sure not to blow his cover. He hasn’t found anything remotely suspicious so it wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye on you, right?

That’s when he followed you out the club, the man walking next to you and guiding you to his car. That was weird but he’s heard of one night stands. Personally, Leon wasn’t that type of guy.

The streets were crowded at night and he lost sight of you for a quick second, until he spotted your figure getting pulled into an alley. Suspicious enough? Very much so. He didn’t hesitate to take out his gun from the waistband of his pants, getting ready to defend if anything were to happen to you. He was a cop and a gentleman after all.

But as he approached the isolated alley in which he last saw you, it was unexpectedly dark and quiet. Leon’s steps were slow and quiet as he walked further into the alley, his gun aimed and pointed in front of him in case something decided to jump at him. Luckily nothing did.

Although he did hear a sound. What was that? He wondered as he stepped deeper into the alleyway. His shoes rubbing off the cracked concrete floor until he was met with a horrific sight.

The man that had tried to take you to his car was found dead on the floor. He immediately dialed emergencies and went over to the man, it all happened to quickly and his eyes darted around to try and find you.

-

You knew you were being followed that night at the club and your suspicion was correct when you saw the familiar sight of a certain blonde man on the reflection of a car’s window. He’s astute, too astute for his own good.

Much to his dismay, the man you killed died on the way to the hospital so he couldn’t give out a statement of who had attacked him or what happened. But Leon wasn’t going to rest until he found you, was he?

You debated flying to another country, turning your back and leaving for good. But something stopped you from doing so. What about your job? What about your family and friends? They wouldn’t believe you if you went abroad in your own for no specific reason.

Curse you Leon Kennedy.

-

After that night, he’s been practically living in the station. Evidence piling up but he had no solid evidence that it was you who committed the crimes. His word alone couldn’t be trusted for two reasons; he didn’t even you actively attack the man and his opinion as a cap was already biased! He was in a pickle. It didn’t help that the higher ups pressured him into speeding up the case, they wanted the culprit to get caught already as all the men in the town cowered in their homes. Scared that they would be next.

Not so fun when the shoe’s on the other foot, huh?

He knew he shouldn’t but he did anyway. His stalked for your information, sneaking into the town’s city hall to retrieve your files like birth certificates and such. Turns out the police didn’t hold these documents, the city hall did.

He had found your address and immediately began to drive to your place. He needed answers and he didn’t care that he was breaking police code. He knew it was you, you had to be involved in this somehow.

As he approached your place, he wanted to pound at the door like they did in FBI movies but he knew he had to act civil since he had no real evidence to base his suspicions on.

Once the door was opened, he noticed your startled expression, almost catching off guard by his sudden visit. And he wasn’t even wearing his uniform, “Officer,” you said as you stood by your door, “To what do I owe the pleasure…?”

“I saw you,” he said, jumping straight to the point, “The night that man died—you were with him. I saw you walk out of the club with him and then somehow, he died.”

His eyes were piercing daggers at you, almost as if he wanted to peek into your mind and read your thoughts.

But you only stared at him silently, Leon was too smart, “I didn’t feel good and he called me an Uber,” you lied casually.

“You didn’t feel good, huh?” He huffed in amusement, glancing away for a second before he looked back down at you.

“Yeah, I got drunk and started to feel sick. He did me a favor,” you continued with your lie, knowing damn well you weren’t sick at all.

He hummed and nodded his head once, nibbling his bottom lip as he stared at you with an analytical gaze.

“Take care, then,” he muttered, taking a step backwards, keeping his eyes on you. As if telling you that he was on to you. He was going to uncover your secret.

-

When he left, you felt as if the world almost stopped. Your heart was hammering inside your chest, your breathing labored as you thought about what the hell just happened. Damn you, Leon. You really know how to use that brain, huh?

You couldn’t just stop the murders, that would only give Leon more proof that you were the serial killer he was after. No, you needed to keep killing to stray him away. You did it with the other cops, couldn’t be that hard.

-

You’ve killed, but you killed less men. The police had advised individuals to remain in their homes after curfew. That it was dangerous with a serial killer still on the loose.

It was all so stupid. You were serving revenge to all the women who fell into the traps of men and here comes a man to stop you.

That’s when it hit you, what if you tried to kill the officer himself?

No, you couldn’t. That would only sell you out.

But what you could do was send him a message.

On your next victim, you planned it differently. Instead of the clean and simple murder way you usually go with, you decided that you’d be messy. Make him confused, make him believe that the serial killer was a scared person. That would shove him away from you for a while, right?

When Leon arrived at the crime scene, he saw the blood splattered around the brick walls of behind a convenience store. The body dumped inside the dumpster, his body slashed with knife wounds and face beaten up. You tried to make it seem like a man committed the murder, men were messy, right?

Unfortunately for you, in the midst of your perfectly messy murder, Leon had found CCTV footage of the whole thing with your face showing. This was solid evidence to finally get you.

-

And that’s how you ended up at the station’s interrogation room with your wrists cuffed to the table. The room was cold, grey, and bright. Almost looking like a hospital. Modern architecture kills artists.

“So,” Leon started as he sat across from you, files laying flat on the table, “Care to explain?”

“Explain what?” You feigned obliviousness.

“The murders, the blood—everything?”

You held back an eye roll, he had caught you and there was no point in lying, was there?

With a defeated sigh, you leaned back against the chair you were seated on, “I was… only trying to help,” you began quietly.

“Help? By committing murders and bringing terror to the town?”

“You don’t understand,” you immediately responded, a bit frustrated that he didn’t get to understand, “I killed those men because they’re nothing but a waste of space,” you spat bitterly.

He sat there in silence, brows pinching together as he crossed his arms over his chest, letting you continue. There’s no going back when the cat’s been out of the bag.

With a sharp inhale, you continued, “Those men, they do bad things. Prey on women and take advantage of them… I was tired, so, so, so tired, officer…” you whispered.

“When I realized that a man had tried to drug me and take advantage of me, something in me snapped and I knew then that I couldn’t sit back and let him do whatever he wanted to me. I refused to become an object for horny men that can’t keep their dick inside their pants,” you muttered, leaning forward as your eyes narrowed at Leon. You weren’t blaming Leon but he understood your motives.

“So you took it upon yourself to get rid of these guys…” he muttered, his head slowly nodding as he let the information rest in his mind.”

“I did,” you admitted, “I had to.”

“You had to?” He repeated as his eyebrows raised.

“Yes—you don’t understand what it’s like to fear for your life just because of your gender. I didn’t choose to be born this way so why should I let people treat me like shit?”

“I understand where you’re coming from but hurting other people will only hurt you,” he said quietly as he leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table, “How much longer did you think you could’ve kept going, hm? You’re a smart girl, Y/n, you deserve better than jail.”

His words were sincere and for a moment, your walls came down. He was right, in a way, how much longer could you have kept killing people before it caught up to you? Before you lost your mind? You didn’t even think about that.

Silence took over and he sighed softly, looking you over with pity. You were young, smart, and had a bright future ahead of you. He almost felt bad for wanting to catch you this whole time. Almost.

“What’s done is done,” he finally said, breaking the silence, “You committed unforgivable crimes…” his voice trailed off.

“But you had a good reason for them,” he muttered and pulled the files back towards him, “You were defending yourself and your friends during these occasions. It was self defense,” he said firmly, as if he was changing your story.

Wait, what?

The files in his hands held the pictures of you violently killing people, but never once did he actually open that file. Instead, he made up a story for you…

“Why?” You whispered, staring deeply into his eyes. He shrugged and stood up, “Everyone’s been on their best behavior, right?”

-

It’s been a few days since you’ve been questioned. Leon had gotten rid of the evidence and instead made up new ones that led to the story he fabricated for you.

It was all surreal.

Never once in your life, you would’ve thought a cop would help you. You felt shocked, baffled, and confused. But a part of you was grateful. You should’ve known the court system of this town was just as careless as the police station before Leon came because all they did was give you a slap on the wrist and let you go. Once again, not wishing to have their reputation tarnished.

You’ve stopped your killings, for obvious reasons. But, you were glad you’ve lived your five seconds of fame. Even if your identity was never exposed to the public.

You owed it all to Leon. Too bad he had left town. He returned to his city, claiming he had some unfinished business (most like with his chief for throwing him into this town so unexpectedly).

Part of you missed him, it was fun while it lasted, right?

[canmom]

The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere, 000-012

Or, what if that mural was the heart of a web serial.

I'm reading The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere, thanks largely to the enthusiasm of @azdoine and @lukore on my dash over the last few months.

This is absolutely not gonna be a liveblog in the level of detail of the great Umineko liveblog project. Rather I'm gonna be aiming at something like the comics comints series or those occasional posts on anime. Or indeed what I wrote about Worth The Candle last year. I must create a robot whose purpose is to watch to see if I start writing detailed plot summaries and hit me with a stick labelled 'remember you have a job now'.

That outta the way, let's talk flower!

No, not that flower!

I will start with an anecdote. When I was at university, I ended up attending a talk by court alchemist senescence researcher Aubrey de Grey, who at that time did not yet have a 'sexual harassment allegations' section on his Wikipedia page. The main thing that struck me at the time was his rather spectacularly long beard. But I did listen to his talk about ending aging.

de Grey's schtick is that he, like many people in the transhumanist milieu, believes that medical technology is on the cusp of being able to prevent aging sufficiently well to prolong human lifespans more or less indefinitely. He believes that the different processes of aging can be understood in terms of various forms of accumulating cellular 'damage', and that these will begin to be addressed within present human lifespans, buying time for further advancements - so that (paraphrasing from memory) 'the first immortals have already been born'. He has some pretty graphs to demonstrate this point.

At that talk, one of the audience members asked de Grey the (in my view) very obvious question about whether access to this technology would be distributed unevenly, creating in effect an immortal ruling class. de Grey scoffed at this, saying he always gets this question, and basically he didn't think it would be a big deal. I forget his exact words, but he seemed to assume the tech would trickle down sooner or later, and this was no reason not to pursue it.

I'm sure de Grey is just as tired of being reminded of how unbalanced access to medical technology is in our current world, or the differences in average life expectancy between countries.

So, I was very strongly reminded of de Grey as The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere laid out its major thematic concerns and characters. I was also put in mind of many online arguments in the transhumanist milieu about whether it would be a good thing, in principle, to end death.

In particular, of course, comes to mind transhumanist Nick Bostrom's short story The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant, in which death is likened to a huge dragon that demands to be fed trains full of humans every day. In the story, humanity's scientists secretly build a giant gun to kill the dragon. Naturally, despite all the doubters and naysayers who foolishly feel obliged to justify the existence of the dragon, the gun works. Bostrom's imagery is incredibly heavy-handed (particularly the trains à la Auschwitz), but just in case you didn't get it, he also spells out the moral explicit at the end: basically, every day not spent putting resources to abolishing death is adding up more and more bodies to the pile of people who don't get to be immortal.

So far, Flower seems to be shaping up to be a critical intervention into that milieu, with a much more grounded view of death and a much stronger model of society - admittedly not a high bar but it's going good so far!

At the time of writing this commentary, I have read the prologue and first two six-chapter arcs, namely Mankind's Shining Future (1-6) and Pilgrimage to the Deep (7-12).

the general shape of things

We are introduced - from the perspective of sardonic, introverted Su, who is going to be the protagonist of our time loop - to a group of brilliant young medical wizards, who have just been invited to visit the headquarters of a secret society whose mission is precisely to abolish death. Su's grandfather was some kind of controversial luminary who was expelled this organisation, and he also did something to her, which is giving her some kind of ulterior motive to find her way into this society.

We know pretty much from the outset that this is a time loop scenario: Su has been explicitly given the opportunity to replay the scenario in the hopes of find an alternative outcome, by some kind of presently mysterious parties. This first part is the 'control' loop, i.e. probably more or less how things went down 'originally'.

I believe Umineko is an explicit inspiration for this story, and the influence is pretty evident. But parallels with the Locked Tomb series, especially Gideon the Ninth, are also quite noticeable. @lukore spoke of it as the STEM to Locked Tomb's humanities, and I can already kinda see it, although we haven't got into the real meat of the scenario yet. This story began serialisation four years ago, making the two works roughly contemporary. The latest chapter was published in the last couple of weeks - no idea if I've arrived just in time for the ending!

Stylistically, it's generally pretty heavy on dialogue and long asides. The characters are a bunch of mega nerds who love to have big philosophical and political discussions, but their dynamics are well enough realised and their dynamics clear enough that it can double up as naturalistic characterisation. So far, the discussions have been interesting to read.

Below I'm going to make some notes and comments on various elements of the setting and story. In a followup post (because it got too long) I'm going to talk a lot about entropy. Perhaps you will find this interesting!

the world

The first few chapters are dedicated pretty hard to exposition. We find ourselves in a distant-future setting - one in which it seems reality has totally collapsed and then been rebuilt using magic, creating a somewhat oddball universe which lacks things like the element iron, and also electromagnetism. This seems like it would have pretty severe implications for just about everything!

However, the 'ironworkers' have, after producing a series of trial and error 'lower planes' that didn't quite get it right, landed on a fairly close approximation of how things used to be on the old world. Though by 'fairly close approximation' I mean like... it's a bowl-shaped world and the sun and stars are artificial lanterns. But still, there are humans, and they seem to work more or less like we're used to humans working, apart from the whole 'magic' thing.

So, an alt-physics setting. Praise Aealacreatrananda, I love that shit.

While electromagnetism might be out, the more abstract physical principles like thermodynamics still apply, and the humans of this universe have managed to find analogues to a number of things in our world. Instead of computers, they have 'logic engines' which run on magic. Horses seem to have made it in, so we get delightful blends of historical and futuristic concepts like a self-driving computer-controlled horse-drawn carriage taxi.

The biggest difference is of course that in this setting, magic - more on that in a bit - has solved most medical problems and humans routinely live to around 500. The setting is ostensibly a semi-post-scarcity one, although a form of money exists in 'luxury debt', which can be exchanged for things like taxi rides, café food and trips on the space elevator.

Politically, we are told that the world has enjoyed a few hundred years of general peace, broken in living memory by a revolution which put an end to a regime of magical secrecy. There are lots of countries, and an alliance overseeing them.

There's a few other oddities in this world. Something called a 'prosognostic event' can happen if you see someone who has the same face as you, and whatever this is, it's bad enough news that everyone is constantly reminded to veil their faces in public and there's some kind of infant 'distinction treatment' to mitigate the risk. Given that, in the regular world, nothing particularly bad would happen if you ran into a long-lost identical twin, it suggest there is probably something a little fucky about how humans work in this world!

There's evidently a fair bit of effort put into the worldbuilding of fictional countries and historical periods. The important elements seem to be roughly along the lines of:

our world is currently in what they call the 'old kingdoms' period, which is poorly remembered;

next up comes an 'imperial' period of high transhumanist shenanigans in which society was ruled by 'gerontocrats' who got exclusive access to the longevity treatment, but this all somehow led to a huge disaster which destroyed og earth;

the survivors built the Mimikos where humanity currently lives using magic and created some kind of huge iron spike that holds the universe together; there was subsequently a 'fundamentalist' period in which a strict cutoff point was put on human lifespans and a lot of the wackier magic was banned;

now we're onto a new era of openness following a small revolution, while the major political structures remain largely intact.

Writing a far-future setting is hard, because trying to deal with the weight of history without the story getting bogged down with worldbuilding details is a fiddly line to walk. The Dying Earth series of Jack Vance might be a relevant point of comparison. Vance leaves the historical details vague - there are endless old kingdoms and strange artefacts and micro-societies for Cugel and co. to stumble on. Far more important than the specifics of history is establishing the vibe of a world that's seen an unimaginable amount of events layered on top of each other and is honestly a bit tired.

Flower makes things a bit more concrete and generally manages to make this work decently well. I do appreciate the asides where Su talks about, for example, the different architectural styles that layer up to make a place, or the way a technique has been refined. It establishes both that Su is the kind of person to notice this sort of thing, and also helps the world feel lived-in.

the names

The story doesn't do a lot with language. The story is written in English, and the narration will occasionally make reference to how things are phrased (e.g. how divination predates the suffix -mancy). We can probably make the standard assumption that this is all translated from $future_language, with the notional translator making a suitable substitution of whatever linguistic forms exist in that language.

The characters are named in a variety of languages. Our main character's full name is Utsushikome of Fusai. We're told that this is "an old name from Kutuy, and means something like 'mysterious child'" - so Kutuyan is one of the languages spoken in this world. It's blatantly got the same phonotactics as Japanese, and indeed if I search up 'Utsushikome', I find an obscure historical figure called Utsushikome-no-Mikoto, wife of the Emperor Kōgen; she has no article on English Wikipedia, but she does have a brief one on Japanese wiki. Just as Su says about Kutuyan, 'Utsushikome' is written 欝色謎 in Japanese, but it relies on archaic readings of those characters and wouldn't read that way in modern Japanese. We could perhaps assume a good old translation convention is in effect where Kutuyan is replaced with Japanese.

A lot of characters have Greek names, as do various setting elements. One exception is Kamrusepa, or Kam, who is named for an ancient goddess of medicine worshipped by the Hittites and Luwians. I know basically fuck all about Hittites and Luwians but it's a cool little nod to mythology, and it won't be the only one!

I'll run down a list of characters and my comments about them in a bit. But many are named after gods or other mythological figures.

the magic

Most of the divergences come from magic existing. Certain humans are 'arcanists', who are able to use the 'Power', which is a magic system with a highly computational flavour. Thanks to Su's expositional asides, we know that an incantation is something like a short program written in cuneiform with the ability to gather information, perform maths, and manipulate particles. An example we are given is a spell called "entropy-denying", which is the following string of cuneiform:

"…(𒌍𒌷𒀭)(𒌍𒁁𒀭)𒅥𒌈𒆜𒈣𒂠, 𒋢𒀀𒅆𒌫𒃶,𒈬𒊹."

We're told that spells always start with phrases ending in 𒀭, and end in 𒊹. Beyond that, I'm not sure how far the author has actually worked out the syntax of this magic system - probably not in too much detail! Seems like the kind of thing it's better to leave vague, but also she seems like kind of nerd who would (positive). It's conceptually a reasonable magic system for a world where more or less realistic physics applies.

The use of unusual scripts for a magic system isn't that unusual - the old European occultists who wrote the [Lesser] Key of Solomon loved to write on their magic circles in Hebrew, and in modern times we could mention Yoko Taro's signature use of the Celestial Alphabet for example - but the specific use of cuneiform here seems like it might be a little more significant, because a little later in the story the characters encounter a mural depicting The Epic of Gilgamesh, which of course was recorded on cuneiform tablets. Remains to be seen exactly what these allusions will mean!

The magic system is divided into various disciplines defined by the different ways they approach doing magic, with the disciplines breaking down broadly along the same lines as the modern scientific disciplines. For example, our protagonist is a thanatomancer ("necromancer" having become unfashionable), which is the discipline dealing with death; she's specifically an entropic thanatomancer, distinguished by their framework viewing death as the cessation of processes.

Magic relies on an energy that they refer to as 'eris' (unknown relation to the Greek goddess of strife and discord). We are told that eris must be carefully apportioned across the elements of a spell or shit blows up, that it can be stored, and it accumulates gradually enough that you don't want to be wasteful with it, but so far given little information about where it comes from.

Magic in this story generally seems to act as a kind of 'sufficiently advanced technology'. It's very rules-based, and used for a lot of mundane ends like operating computers or transport. Advancement in magic is something like a combination of basic research and software development. But the thing that makes it a magic system and not merely alt-physics is that it's at least a little bit personal: it must be invoked by an individual, and only certain people can operate the magic. We're told a little about how wizards are privileged in some societies, indoctrinated in social utility in others, and expected to be inconspicuous in the present setting. It's not clear yet if you need some kind of special innate capacity to do the magic, or if it's just a matter of skill issue.

With one exception, our main characters are a gaggle of wizards, and exceptionally skilled students at that. They're at an elite institution, carrying high expectations, even if they are themselves fairly dismissive of the pomp and ceremony. They have grandiose plans: Kamrusepa in particular is the main voice of the 'death should be abolished' current.

the cast

We're entering a cloistered environment with high political stakes hanging off of it. Even if I hadn't already heard it described as a murder mystery, it would feel like someone will probably be murdered at some point, so lets round up our future suspects.

Su (Utsushikome) is our protagonist and first-person POV. She's telling this story in the first past tense, with a style calling to mind verbal narration; she'll occasionally allude to future events so we know for sure narrator!Su knows more than present!Su. She's got a sardonic streak and she likes long depressing antijokes, especially if the punchline is suicide. She will happily tell us she's a liar - so maybe her narration isn't entirely reliable, huh.

Su is more than a little judgemental; she doesn't particularly like a lot of her classmates, or people in general, and generally the first thing she'll tell you about a character is how well she gets on with them. She introduces the theme of 'wow death sucks' in the first paragraph, but she is, at least at this point, pessimistic that anyone will manage to do anything about it for good.

Her magical specialisation is entropic thanatomancy, roughly making processes go again after they working coherently.

Her name is a reference to an obscure Japanese empress, as discussed above.

Ran is Su's bestie from the same home country. She is generally pretty on the level. She likes romance novels and she is pretty sharp at analysing them. She will cheerfully team up with Su to do a bit or bait someone else when an argument gets going.

Her magical specialisation is Divination, which is sort of a more fundamental layer of magic, about gathering information by any means. In medicine it's super advanced diagnostics.

Her name is too short to pin down to a specific allusion. Could be one of a couple of disciple of Confucius such as Ran Geng, or a Norse goddess of the sea.

Kam (Kamrusepa) is the de facto class prez and spotlight lover. She's hardcore ideological, the story's main voice of the de Grey/Bostrom death-abolishing concept so far - I think she straight up calls someone a 'deathist' at some point. She loves to tell everyone what she thinks about everything, and getting the last word.

Her magical specialisation is Chronomancy, so time magic. It's described as secretive and byzantine, but also it can do stuff like (locally?) rewind time for about five minutes. No doubt it has something to do with the time loop.

As mentioned above, she's named after a fairly obscure ancient deity of healing and magic.

Theo (Theodoros) is a fairly minor character. He's scatterbrained and easily flustered, he has a similar background to our protagonist, and he's not great with people. His name is shared with a number of ancient Greek figures, so it's hard to narrow it down to one allusion. I don't think his magic school has been mentioned.

Ptolema is a cheery outgoing one, someone who Su dismisses as an airhead. And she is at least easy to bait into saying something ill-considered. Her specialisation is applying magic to surgery. As a character, she tends to act as a bit of a foil to the others. Bit of a valley girl thing going on.

'Ptolema' is presumably a feminised version of the renowned Greek philosopher Ptolemy.

Seth is the jock to Ptolema's prep, and our goth protag Su doesn't particularly like him either. ...lol maybe that's too flippant, I may be misapplying these US high school stereotypes. To be a little more precise then, he's pretty casual in demeanour, flirty, likes to play the clown. He specialises in Assistive Biomancy, which revolves around accelerating natural healing processes.

Seth is named for either the Egyptian god (domain: deserts, violence and foreigners) or an Abrahamic figure, the third son of Adam and Eve granted by God after the whole Caim killing Abel thing.

Ophelia is someone Su describes as 'traditionally feminine' - soft-spoken, demure etc. (Gender in this world appears to be constructed along broadly similar lines to ours). Indeed we get a fairly extended description of her appearance. Her specialisation is Alienist Biomancy, which means introducing foreign elements to healing (not entirely sure how that differs from the Golemancy mentioned later).

Ophelia is of course a major character in Shakespeare's Hamlet, best known for going mad and dying in a river.

Fang is the only nonbinary member of the class, noted as the most academically successful. They're not on the expedition, but the characters discuss them a little in their absence, so maybe they'll show up later. It seems like they have a bit of a rebellious streak. Their magical specialisation is not mentioned.

Fang is a regular ol' English word, but I gave it a search all the same and found there's an ancient Chinese alchemist of that name. She is the oldest recorded woman to do an alchemy in China, said to know how to turn mercury into silver.

Lilith is the teenaged prodigy in computers logic engines, and Mehit is her mother who accompanies her on the trip. They've got a big Maria and Rosa (of Umineko) dynamic going on, with Mehit constantly scolding Lilith and trying to get her to obey social norms, though in contrast to Maria, Lilith is a lot more standoffish and condescending to the rest of the gang. Lilith specialises in 'Golemancy', which means basically medical robotics - prosthetic limbs and such. She spends most of her time fiddling with her phone logic engine, and will generally tell anyone who talks to her that they're an idiot. Sort of a zoomer stereotype.

Lilith is named for the Abrahamic figure, the disobedient first wife of Adam who was banished and, according to some Jewish traditions, subsequently became a demon who attacks women at night. There may be some connection between Lilith and the lioness-headed Mesopotamian chimeric monster Lamashtu, which I mention because Mehit is an Egyptian and Nubian lion goddess.

'Golemancy' is probably playing on the popular fantasy idea of a 'golem' as a kind of magic robot, but given the Jewish allusion in Lilith's name here, I do wonder a little bit if it's going to touch on the Jewish stories of the Golem which inspired it - a protective figure with a specific religious dimension.

There are some other characters but they're not part of the main party on their way to the function, so I won't say much about them just yet. Also it's entirely possible I went and forgot an entire classmate or something, big whoops if so.

the events

In true Umineko tradition, the beginning of the story narrates in great detail how the protagonists make their way to the place where the plot is going to happen.

To be fair, there's a lot of groundwork to be laid here, and the characters' discussions do a lot to lay out the concerns of the story and sketch out the setting, not to mention establish the major character relations. A murder mystery takes a certain amount of setup after all! There's plenty of sci-fi colour to be had in the 'aetherbridge', which is a kind of space elevator that lifts you up to a high altitude teleporter network. (It's technically not teleportation but 'transposition', since teleportation magic also exists in the story, with different restrictions! But close enough for government work.)

They go to a huge space citadel, which is kind of a transport hub; some cloak and dagger shit happens to hide the route they must take to the mysterious secret organisation. They find a strange room with a missing floor and a mural of the Epic of Gilgamesh, albeit modified to render it cyclic. What does it meeaaaan?

The idea of a secret society of rationalists is one that dates back to the dawn of ratfic, in HPMOR. It was kinda dumb then, but it works a lot better here, where we're approaching the wizard circle from outside. The phrase 'Great Work' has already been dropped. I love that kind of alchemical shit so I'm well into finding out what these wizards are plotting.

the dying

A lot of the discussions revolve around the mechanics of death. Essentially the big problem for living forever is information decay. Simple cancers can be thwarted fairly easily with the magic techniques available, but more subtle genetic slippages start to emerge after the first few hundred years; later, after roughly the 500 year mark, a form of dementia becomes inevitable. It's this dementia in particular that the characters set their sights on curing.

One thing that is interesting to me is that, contra a lot of fantasy that deals with necromancy (notably the Locked Tomb series), there appears to be no notion of a soul in this world whatsoever. The body is all that there is. Indeed, despite all the occult allusions in the character names, there is very little in the way of religion for that matter. Even the 'fundamentalism' is about an idea of human biological continuity that shouldn't be messed with too much.

Su distinguishes three schools of thought on death, namely 'traditional', 'transformative' and 'entropic'. The 'traditional' form attempts to restore limited function - classic skeleton shit. 'Transformative' sees death as a process and uses dead tissues together with living in healing. Su's 'entropic' school broadens this 'process' view to consider death as any kind of loss of order - a flame going out as much as an organism dying. At the outset of the story, Su has discovered a 'negentropic' means to restore life to an organism, which she considers promising, even if for now it only works for fifteen minutes.

This is an interesting perspective, but the devil is in the details. Because processes such as life or flames, necessarily, result in a continuous increase in the thermodynamic entropy of the universe. And yet this idea of death-as-loss-of-order does make a kind of sense, at a certain level of abstraction.

Elaborating on this got rather too long for this post, and I think it can stand alone, so I'm going to extract it to a followup post.

the comments

As is probably evident by the length of this post, I am very intrigued by The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere. The setting is compelling, and it seems like it's got the willingness to bite at the chewy questions it raises instead of acting like it has all the answers, which is I think one of the most crucial elements for this kind of scifi. I like how unabashed it is at having its characters straight-up debate shit.

Of course, this all depends where they go with it. There's so many ways it could be headed at this point. I hear where it's going is 'dark yuri' and 'Umineko-inspired murder mystery', so that should be really juicy fun, but I do end up wondering what space that will leave to address the core theme it's laid out in these first few chapters.

Overall, if this and Worth the Candle are what modern ratfic is like, the genre is honestly in pretty good shape! Of course, I am reading very selectively. But this is scratching the itch of 'the thing I want out of science fiction', so I'm excited to see where the next 133 chapters will take me.

Though all that said, I ended up writing this post all day instead of reading any other chapters or working, so I may need to rein it in a bit.

[bumblingbabooshka]

I’m fascinated by the previous ask’s mention of anime “or the Vulcan equivalent” since anime is literally just Japanese animation would Vulcan animation have a distinctive enough style to warrant a distinct name? What is the Vulcan cultures’ views on animation as an art form (in your opinion).

I don't know enough about animation or art as like an evolving discipline as it relates to society/culture to say much about it in an intelligent way but the newest Dungeon Meshi Extra makes me think about it in a purely 'what would be fun' way

Vulcans also have an incredibly long lifespan so it'd be funny if Vulcans were used to listening to stories that are much longer than other species. [See: Tuvok singing his children a 348 verse story as a lullaby and his children loving it]

You know those soap operas that go on for like decades? Vulcan soap operas are going on for CENTURIES.

I think a lot of the most popular stories on Vulcan center around enlightment or war. In fact I think a lot of Vulcan is probably dedicated to those topics - I headcanon that there are multiple museums and monuments about the many wars Vulcan fought with a heavy emphasis on the great toll it took on their people and how awful these actions were. They almost blew up everything with nukes! But then logic saved them...I believe this is also a common thread in stories that aren't about war - being saved by logic. A woman almost falls for charlatan...but logic saves her. A man almost kills his brother...but logic stills his hand. Etc Etc. A Vulcan author could probably write thousands of books in their lifetime, depending on the age they started. I think having an author with hundreds of books is fairly common and Vulcans are often a bit anxious about reading very good authors of other species...what if they die before they finish writing?? Television shows having like 40 seasons isn't that rare and I think their method of storytelling would probably have to differ from ours in order to facilitate that. That's interesting, isn't it?? I wonder about Vulcan media that isn't Surak's teachings. Like, Tuvok says he likes to read - what's he read about? In 'Riddles' Neelix mentions a "Proto-Vulcan Drama" called 'Clash on the Fire Plains' which has 23 parts. Tuvok apparently has this in book form in his quarters but he's often reading things off his PADD which I assume are also Vulcan literature. It seems that a lot of Vulcan stories we hear about are meant to teach some sort of lesson even if they are also entertaining. When it comes to ongoing media (EX: Television show) I think they'd probably follow a series of arcs and situations with the same characters learning and growing. If you start watching season 82 of a Vulcan program then go back to season 7 it's like a whole new set of characters but they just changed because of their experiences. (As your Vulcan friend will rant to you). It gets a bit ridiculous but it's a bit fun too~ I headcanon that Vulcans in Starfleet will often get together to watch popular Vulcan tv shows' new episodes...alleviates some missing home. Others join in and soon we're seeing tv shows from all over the universe! Surprisingly, Vulcan and Klingon programs are fairly similar in the aspect of 'a lot of battle focused shows which teach lessons' but the exact lessons differ, of course. Oh I bet Vulcan tv shows would also have so much intrigue and drama about clans and marriage and propriety etc which Klingons would love. Klingon: So T'Eyanra is going off with Sarun? Even though she was made aware that Sertik is ill and might be plagued with fever? Vulcan: Yes. And do not forget - Sarun's clan changed the water rights of her own, though she does not know this yet. Klingon: -settling in- Sarun's clan is without honor! That knave... -gasp- and the Ektinslahrah ritual is tonight! Vulcan: -also settling in- Indeed. Oh god this was about anime wasn't it? Well just apply all that stuff I said to anime somehow...Vulcan anime is like one piece's length and death note's complexity but with a shocking amount of painstaking slice of life. I think animation would be taken as seriously on Vulcan as it is on Earth - I can't think of anything that'd make them take it more or less seriously? I picture Betazoid animation would have a heavy emphasis on showing feeling though - like visibly as an ever present cloud behind the characters' heads and you have to know what all the colors mean.

[sdwolfpup]

I just finished reading HFoG and oh. Oh. My. God. I need to rant (you can totally ignore this if you'd like).

First of all, the scenario you've created fits them so well. Brienne as a mechanic is an amazing idea. She's still doing something stereotipically male (and kicking ass) at best unnoticed and at worst cast aside as no one takes her seriously or they outright mock her. You've kept her under patriarchy's thumb, and also as a powerful, simmering force waiting for someone to turn up that heat!! What an excellent mirror to her situation in the books.

Second: the extremely high risks + high adrenaline + mightily physically demanding + high rewards of F1 is another excellent transposition of their survival/quest situation in the books. I feel like that, as a setting, is what makes it feel very genuine to them as characters. Your characterization is great too! They're slightly different to the books but still familiar (they would probably act like this in this more modern, more subtle flavour of a patriarchal society). I mean. just. Man. MAN.

Also, turning a bit more to Jaime: The way all the events unfold was incredible. We go steady, quite calm but with an undercurrent of stress and anxiety, building, some doubts, triumphs, more building, more triumphs and then BAM. The dreaded doldrums where we pick up the pieces of a horrible shipwreck. Jaime never getting to that P-1 absolutely broke me. I literally held my breath reading those paragraphs, where time stops for the whole circuit after the crash, and the heavy moment of silence before Brienne hears him over the radio... MAN. I thought you were going to give him at least one P-1 before he lost his hand, making it bitersweet already at that point, and when you didn't I was SCHOCKED. You held back on that element and it worked WONDERFULLY towards the end. JB'S P-1 felt so earned, so fought for. Talk about good storytelling. AAAAHHH!!!!!

I ate it up between yesterday night and all of today. I slept at most, like, four hours. I couldn't stop reading. Congratulations, honestly. I usually don't read fics this long (or leave reviews this crazy under anonimity lol) because authors tend to meander (not a bad thing necessarily but it does get tedious at this scale) but this was SO not the case. Every. single. paragraph. mattered. MAN!!!!! (man counter: IIII)

I know you're probably quite done with it (and what a fucking project you did, my god), but if you ever want to write about JB in that universe again I see myself forced to BEG YOU ON MY KNEES to do more of their radio banter in your missing scenes section. I absolutely love it, the subtle flirting, the encouragement, and the oopsies (Jaime forgetting to turn the radio off and accidentally exposing himself as a I LOVE MY CAR MY CAR IS MY GF guy is soooooo funny). Ugh. Swooning. It has started an itch I need to scratch so bad (I feel like im going crazy a bit ngl. Give yourself a big smacking pat in the back.) that I'm just going to start re-reading it for those parts and also to get that thrill that is there between them at the beginning which is also so good! And so yummy!!!!!

Ok im done now i think.

TLDR: xoxo mwah mwah mwah i loved HFoG i worship and kiss the ground you walk on, etc etc etc. im obsessed, great job!!

"ignore this"?! Are you kidding, anon -- I'm gonna print this out and wallpaper my bedroom with it. 😂💕

I have been re-reading this ask off and on all day, wanting to respond appropriately to make sure you know how much I so sincerely appreciate you taking the time to leave this for me, and I just don't know if it's possible. I'm just... man, I'm grateful. (Man count for this post going up!!!) Seriously though: thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm gonna be riding this high all week.

(Also, I fought with myself about allowing Jaime to win the World Driver Championship and then lose his hand, so I'm always glad to hear that that choice worked for others. It was the right thing to do, but wow did that hurt to put him through it, heh. And pacing of long fics is a thing I take very personally, so I am ALSO pleased to know that worked for you, too!)

Anyway. THANK YOU. I'm gonna go back to re-reading this comment, hee.

[cometcrystal]

i find it INCREDIBLY fascinating that the gollum game gives you a female companion at one point to be his counterpart. and she is a Woman, but by our human standards, she's kind of a disgusting freak too. she looks like a bug and has a weird voice. we don't perceive her as strange because of her blindness (at least, not consciously or on purpose), but she is made blind regardless as a way to signify she is "different". there is absolutely no attempt to even pretend like these two characters have feelings for each other; mell is in love with that other "weird-ish but way closer to attractive than gollum" elf. and i don't even think gollum is aware of romance as a basic concept. and yet they have a handful of scenes that are very weirdly framed as romantic. not textually, but like... i don't even know how to describe it sorry im a little stoned. in mell's first appearance, gollum sees her through his cell door while Wizard is interrogating him, and he is distracted from the interrogation enough to just be focused on looking at her. stuff like that. it makes me wonder if there are any legitimate incels on the writing team. imagining themselves as biologically inferior, unable to draw sexual interest from the girls that "friendzone" them. thinking they know why they're being rejected: they were born with a weak jaw, have bad posture, have an overbite, or any other insecurity. by curse of birth, they are at the bottom of the social food chain. they hate being gollum, so they lash out at women, and everyone else too. even if they thought the girl was "in their league", if she was strange and nerdy like him, but in a feminine way to complement his superior knowledge. but he doesn't realize that his repulsiveness has NO connection to his appearance. the reason he is rejected is because he holds women, society, etc. to such heavy blame in his heart. so much poison directed at their lot in life. obviously, it's probably just some weirdly-animated and/or written scenes. the entire game is weird, it's very possible some of the shots are just awkward. but it's interesting to unpack isn't it?

[bananarose]

FFXIV Write - #9 "Fair"

This one is about my boys, back before they left their village. Knowledge of Viera lore will help you understand this one but it's not too lore heavy, just really fluffy. Because they hadn't left yet Lavandin and Aurelius use the names Sune and Fessa respectively. (Lavandin/Sune is the one on the left, Aurelius/Fessa is the one on the right)

Masterlist

With shaky hands, knuckles turning white, Sune gripped his lance. He struggled to maintain eye contact with the boy across from him, who held his weapon with experienced hands, dropping into a well-practiced stance. Sune tried to imitate Fessa’s stance, shifting uncomfortably on clumsy legs. The stronger viera shook his head, gently indicating he was doing it wrong. Again. Sune took a deep breath, shifting again, slowly, watching for Fessa’s reaction. Fessa nodded, and lunged forward.

Truthfully, Sune was hopeless in battle. Even in a mock fight like this, he shook like a leaf in the wind. The older viera, tasked with training the younger ones to become formidable wood-warders like themselves, were nearly at their wit’s end with him. Sune simply did not pick up on their teachings, weak and easily distracted. The issue was, he had no interest in fighting, or struggling to survive in solitude. He had always assumed that when he came of age that he would join the other women of the tribe in caring for their village. He had grown up surrounded by strong and impressive viera women, and something in him always assumed that would be him someday. He had watched as the others around his age had started to display certain characteristics, those that would determine their role in society for the rest of their lives. It took a bit longer for him, but eventually the time came, and he was whisked off by the other male viera. This life didn’t suit him, he had come to quickly realize.

The head of Fessa’s lance clashed with Sune’s, easily knocking it out of his hands. “You have to hold it steady, not too tight but not too loose. Being disarmed will, effectively, secure your loss against most enemies.” Fessa twirled his lance around in his hands, jamming the end of it into the dirt.

“I know, it-it’s j-j-just” Sune sighed heavily, defeated, scuffing the toe of his boots across the ground in frustration. Strong arms came from behind, wrapping around his own and adjusting his grip. 

“Like this, you needn’t squeeze the life out of it now.” Fessa chuckled, close enough to Sune’s ear to make him shiver. He took slow, deliberate breaths, focusing on the older boy’s teachings instead of how warm his arms felt. Those arms moved away, only for a moment, before Fessa placed his hands on Sune’s hips. “And you need to fix your stance, a light breeze could knock you over if you stand like this…” Gentle pushes to his hips and back had Sune standing in the proper stance. He quickly tried to memorize the feel of the stance and Fessa’s hands before he could move away. Blush colored his cheeks at the thought and he gave a nod, unable to speak. Fessa smiled innocently “Much better. We go again.” 

Fessa grabbed his lance out of the ground, spinning it in a way that could only be described as showing off, before dropping back into his own stance. He gave a nod, and lunged once more. This time, Sune would not be so easily disarmed. Fessa grinned, impressed as he jumped backwards. They circled each other, lunging and parrying in something that could actually be considered a spar this time. “Much better! What improvement a quick adjustment makes!” Fessa chuckled mirthfully, putting some more energy behind his movements. It was like a dance, the way they twirled, kicking up bits of dirt and grass in their wake. 

Then Fessa did something incredibly, and completely… Not. Fair.

Moving in close, lances clashing once more.

Fessa winked.

Embarrassingly, that was more than enough to throw Sune out of focus, his lance soon clattering to the dirt. Fessa’s own joined it as he moved in close, breathily heavily from exertion. “Very good…” he spoke softly, laying a hand on Sune’s cheek. 

“Well, I have a good t-teacher, so…” Sune was soon lost in the gray eyes that stared back at him. They held eye contact for what felt like an age. Fessa leaned his forehead against Sune’s, lips barely an ilm apart. They breathed the same air for a moment before Sune remembered, he should be angry. He pulled back indignantly, crossing his arms in front of him. “Wa-wait! Th-that was hardly f-fair! You only disarmed me because you d-d-distracted me!” 

Fessa laughed, reaching to uncross Sune’s arms and take his hands into his own. “Perhaps if you weren’t so easily distracted…” Sune’s face burned hot, cheeks turning pink. He muttered in annoyance, but didn’t pull away.

“So not fair…”

divider credit - cafekitsune

[tailsrevane]

[book review] tehanu by ursula k. le guin (1990)

if you read a plot summary of this you could be forgiven for thinking something along the lines of “huh, not much happens in this one it sounds like?” but i’ll be damned if this isn’t the best book of the series so far.

we return to the story of tenar, the protagonist of the tombs of atuan. like ged with arren (i guess i had better start calling him king lebannen, but this is past tense so suck it), tenar also takes someone under her wing, in this case a girl she names therru. but unlike prince arren, who was burdened by nothing other than an overabundance of subby disaster lesbian energy (look i’m not gonna assume one way or another but i have my congratulatory message for starting hrt mentally queued up & ready to go), therru has to deal with some real trauma and a disability.

this book explores recovery pretty thoroughly, through tenar, and through therru, and through ged. it has one of the most stunningly insightful observations i’ve ever read, that “a wrong that cannot be repaired must be transcended.”

in tenar & therru’s stories, there’s also a pretty heavy exploration of misogyny. and the way this intersects with trauma & recovery. people see the scars that were inflicted on therru by men, and blame her for them, think that she’s scary & needs to be avoided. meanwhile the men who did this to her roam freely & participate in society freely, free from stigma. and fucking hell if that isn’t the most tragically relatable shit ever.

but i might be giving you the wrong impression about this book. it doesn’t wallow in this stuff. it doesn’t point at it and go “hey that really sucks, oh well.” that’s just not what le guin’s books have ever been about. the misogyny & the ableism & the victim blaming are important for how they inform character, for how they define obstacles, but at the end of the day they’re the framework for seeing how these characters take their agency back, how they tell the world “fuck you for treating us this way” and just… keep going.

okay, real quick, i should… if you’ve read this, or will read it, you’ll probably justifiably conclude that i find the way the vile antagonist of this humiliates the heroes when he has them under his power briefly. and like… okay, yeah, that shit would be hot as fuck in a more consensual scene, i will fully admit that. but still, fuck him, fuck his entire ideology, and fuck dudes like him. cool? cool.

on that note, this book also spends a lot of time exploring what power is, and what it means. and for all the examples of power being used badly, i think the closest the narrative comes to stating its own position is when tenar confides in ged that therru “obeys [her], but only because she wants to,” ged observes, “it’s the only justification for obedience.” and just. yes. all of the yes.

le guin’s writing is just special. it has incredible pages-long breathless passages, it has incredible literary montages, and then sometimes it just distills everything down to an incredibly insightful single line here or there. the rhythm of it is just so real, so lifelike. it really does make sense that her version of magic is contained in words, because in her hands words are magic.

s-rank

[miniscule-meow]

Something Unexpected (16)

Writing Masterpost

Part 1

Part 15

Next part

Wordcount: ~2.3k

~*~*~*~

The party for their engagement finally rolls around. The staff around the castle had been in a dither about it for weeks. Day after day Princess Larkspur has had to sit, literally chained to a table making decisions that really have no point whatsoever. It was completely asinine. A group of ladies crowd around the table showing her different swatches of fabric, holding different gatherings of flowers. They ask millions of questions, what’s the color scheme, what type of flowers does she prefer, how should the table settings look, what color should the napkins be. They went on and on and on. It made her want to chew her own leg off so she could finally be free of the bindings and just fly out of there. She wanted to scream, “I don’t care!” at the top of her lungs, over and over again.

But she quells her frustrations thinking back to the conversation that Prince Oliver had with her. He told her to play by his rules and to be on her best behavior and that might earn her some better treatment. Do the opposite, and it isn’t hard to see how things could become so much worse. So, she figures she might be able to earn herself some extra freedoms here by playing nice. And besides, it might impress the right people if she does a good job, and that might earn her extra freedoms as well. At this point, she would do nearly anything to not have to wear the golden chain and be escorted around the palace.

The guards walk her about like some kind of dog, it is humiliating. At the very least, these ladies appear to be valuing her opinion. No matter how annoying it is, they are actually listening to her, she has to give them that. She is being treated like a proper princess, fulfilling the duties she is called to do. Apparently, if she had grown up in this cursed, backwards human society, this is the very thing any young girl would dream about doing. So, she picked floral arrangements, and she picked colors. She even entertained the subject of tablecloths and napkins for about two hours.

It takes the whole day for everyone to get her ready for the party. Her makeup is done for her, in her opinion it is entirely too detailed to be seen by any of the humans in attendance, but no one asks her. Her hair is twisted half up in an several elegant braids that come together elaborately into a neat bun, the rest is left flowing over her back in copper waves. She wears a green dress that is honestly stunning. It hugs her waist just so, and the skirts flow gently to her ankles. The front has a high halter neckline with a plunging golden mesh section that goes down nearly to her bellybutton. The back is nonexistent, allowing her wings free range of movement behind her.

Her wings shimmer with fine fairy-made jewelry that doesn’t incumber her flight, not that she imagines she’ll be doing much flying. She is absolutely dripping with jewels. The whole outfit is of course ruined by the golden band that is locked onto her ankle as she steps out of the room set aside for the fairies. Prince Oliver meets her at the door.

“Princess.” His voice is low, and formal. He barely even looks at her. He’s handed her chain and he simply attaches her to his lapel. “You may rest upon my shoulder.” He says this in a way that doesn't seem to be a suggestion.

Her stomach turns knowing that she spent all day getting all done up like this, just to be an accessory on his jacket. She’ll have to be his perfect little boutonniere. She grimaces and perches herself on his shoulder as he directed her to, unsure of where else she would even go.

This is going to be incredibly boring. She thinks dryly as Prince Oliver leads her into the grand ball room. Music is playing lightly from a string quartet across the room. So many humans are already milling about. The lady’s dresses all look heavy and dull, the men’s suits look incredibly stiff. This certainly isn’t a party for fairies. Lark isn’t convinced that this is even what a party for humans is supposed to be.

It’s so dull, everything is so rigid. Especially watching the humans perform their so-called dances. Everyone moves about like clockwork. Everything is so specific and planned. Of course, she cannot join in. She asked Prince Oliver if he wanted to dance, and he huffed a short mirthless laugh in response. She supposes she is much too small to participate, so she is stuck observing from the sidelines. At least Prince Oliver has to sit and watch and be just as bored as she is.

The night dredges on at a snail’s pace. People crowd around them, talking to the prince, and ignoring her completely. Or, they step too close to coo over her like she’s some exotic hamster with wings. Some cringe at her from a distance, as though she were some over-sized moth. She catches a group of ladies sneering over at her, then giggling and whispering to one another. Certainly they’re jealous that a “little thing” like her could have taken the prince’s hand away from them. Not that they would have had a chance anyway. Lark is very impressed that she is able to keep herself from rolling her eyes. I would gladly trade places with you, if I could. She thinks bitterly.

The monotony of the party drags on, but the worst part absolutely has to be the eating. All the humans are gathered together at one long banquet table. She is ceremoniously unpinned from her captor’s- or rather- her prince’s lapel, and she is affixed to her own place at the table. She is just on the table, level with the plates. They couldn’t be bothered to give her an elevated place, though they did make a single table her size for her to sit at. She supposes she should be grateful for that at least.

She feels an aching loneliness inside her heart. How grand it could have been, where her prince not a tyrant, where this kingdom not so monstrous. This party could have intermingled fairies and humans together in one crowd. This party could have symbolized a coming together of the kingdoms. This party could have actually been fun. But no. She is the lone fairy in the crowd, an oddity, a prize that has been won. This is only punctuated by her sitting alone in a sea of humans looking down on her, if they decide to pay any mind to her at all.

Before her is a mass of shifting hands, and walls of bodies. Everything is so loud. Cutlery scraping over plates, everyone is shouting and laughing and chewing. A hundred things are happening all at once, and she feels like she might explode.

It all comes to a head in one slow-motion moment. A glass is carelessly tipped over, spilling its contents all over her. It soaks her beautiful emerald gown with wine and the rolling glass shoves her little table clear to the floor. She flies up, out of the way of the glass, and is quickly smacked out of the air, engulfed in a palm. She is whisked up and away from the danger but the chain connecting her to the table snags taut and jerks her leg painfully. She lets out a small shout as Prince Oliver mumbles a curse under his breath.

She realizes all at once that this is the first time that he’s held her. Every other time they have interacted he has elected to touch her as little as possible. A guard would place him where he wanted her, and deal with her chains. Perching on his shoulder earlier today was the closest they had been. But now, his fingers completely surround her. He holds her just a little too tight. She feels her heart hammering against her chest, her wings pressed uncomfortably, but not painfully, against herself. She finds it hard to breathe with her face squished against his massive digits and his fingers constricting her ribs. She squeezes her eyes shut and tries to pretend that she isn’t being semi-suffocated by his clumsy fingers. She supposes she should be glad that she doesn’t have to bear the weight of a table full of humans resting their eyes solely on her. Think positively Lark.

Once he gets her unchained, he holds her cupped in both hands, like a child that has just caught a firefly. He excuses himself and carries her off, away from the noise of the party.

He plops her soggy form down onto a bathroom counter, letting the chain fall limp around her. The first thing he does is not check on her. Instead, he first washes his hands, drying them before taking off his jacket and setting it neatly aside. She looks down at her dripping gown, trying to wring out some of the wine as he rolls up his sleeves. He turns the faucet on once more, testing the water temperature with a finger before he collects her in his hand. Wordlessly, he brings her under the stream of water.

“Stop! Stop! Stop!” She shouts, completely soaked through. He jerks her backwards, out of the water as she sputters.

“What? Too hot?” He reaches a hand forward to check the water temperature again. She pushes wet hair out of her face to more properly glare at him.

“No! You are trying to drown me!” She shouts, all of the fear and humiliation from the night threatening to boil over in this moment

“I am not. I am just trying to help.” He furrows his brow down at her, setting her down with a wet plop and shutting off the faucet. Obviously, he doesn’t understand how being held in a loose fist and doused under a waterfall would not be helping the situation.

“You are not helping! This is so much worse! How would this not be worse?!” She flexes and balls her hands a few times, trying to calm herself down, trying not to cry. “Can’t you just take me back to the room and let me put something else on? This dress is ruined, my hair is ruined, my makeup is ruined.” She huffs, exasperated. “I’m fine, by the way. Not that you asked." She glowers a moment before adding "And my leg hurts, thanks to you and your stupid chain, but aside from all that, I guess I’m fine!” She’s shaking with rage.

Prince Oliver doesn’t even apologize. He frowns down at her, and nods. He dries his hands and collects his jacket. He picks up the end of her chain, like he’s going to walk with her down the hall like the guards to. If she were his size she thinks she would try to strangle him.

“Well?” He says, obviously impatient.

“I. Can’t. Fly.” She shoots back, obviously equally impatient.

“What do you mean you can’t fly?” He furrows his brow again. He does that a lot, she hopes he gets wrinkles.

“I mean I can’t fly! My wings are soaked, but who’s fault is that.” She sneers up at him.

“Tch. Fine.” He collects her in his hands again. It’s just as uncomfortable as it was the first time. Maybe even more so considering that she’s absolutely drenched now. It's clear that doesn’t like holding her. Well good. She thinks, because she doesn’t like being held.

She gets herself cleaned up, with the help of her ladies in waiting. They all of course want to know what happened, and after that they just want to gossip about the party. It must all be so romantic and exciting to them. She grimaces, but lets them keep their fantasy. Rose colored glasses and all.

They dry her wings, put her hair up in an attempt to mask how wet it is, and her makeup is re-done. She wears a new dress. This one is powder blue with sheer puffy sleeves that come to a cuff at her wrists. The top ties behind her neck, but the bodice is corseted below her wings. The skirt billows around her, though stops just below her knees. Oh, these humans will be so scandalized when they can see her ankles and her shins. Good, she hopes it makes one of them faint.

She is escorted back to the door, there is a landing in the human sized door where a fairy sized door is cut out. As she reaches for the doorknob she catches the tail end of a conversation.

“…A shame that you have to babysit that little insect.” It’s a woman’s voice. Prince Oliver grumbles something in response, but notably does not defend her. “You must not be having any fun at all.” She can hear the pout in her voice through the door.

“It’s not about me. It’s about my kingdom.” He says nobly, Lark rolls her eyes while she can. She clenches her jaw and quietly peaks out the door. She sees the prince and some lady that she might have met in passing at the party. She’s pressed up against him, her arms slung over his shoulders, he has his arms caught around her waist and is holding her close to him. Lark quickly retreats back behind the door, her stomach twisting itself into knots. She wasn’t foolish enough to think that her and that monster could fall in love or anything, but the realization drops in the pit of her stomach. This is how it is going to be. He will have his love, and she will be the decoration adorning his lapel. What a sorry existence.

But what he said is true for her as well. It isn’t about her. It’s about her kingdom. The sacrifice of her freedom right now is saving all of the innocent families back home from unimaginable suffering. The tension between her kingdom and the human’s kingdom was only getting worse and this arrangement brings peace.

If she was being honest, it could be worse. She could be locked in a metal cage; she could be starved; she could be dead. She’s still a princess. She goes to banquets; she wears fine gowns. So what if she’s kept on a leash and has no one to talk to. It’s for her kingdom. She nods thinking to herself, Alright. peptalk over, lets go finish this heinous night.

[donuts4evry1]

lets ramble abot my first jellyfish oc(s)

Since I'm not planning on making this idea into an actual game anymore, all lore is fair rambling game :)

Their full names are as follows:

Aurealis Aurita Vita (15) and Chrestos Chironex Vita (11)

they are brothers :)

I'll ramble under the cut, hehe

Aurealis Vita was born to Pleione Vita and Chryos Vita, two prominent figures in the noble society. He hails from a kingdom of human-marine animal hybrids, operating under a monarchy of crown jellyfish.

Aurealis themself was a hybrid with moon jellyfish (Aurelia labiata, to be exact) as well as his mother, while his father was a hybrid of a black sea nettle. As a sort of hybrid species, their hair acts like jellyfish tentacles. This fact will be important later.

Chryos was... not the best father, but his mother was loving and warm, so his early years were great.

Then came Chiro.

Aurealis was only 4 years old when Chiro was born and his mother died.

All the odds were against her with the birth. Coming from a long line of box jellyfish hybrids, there was a small chance that she could give birth to one.

Even then, newly born box jellyfish hybrids usually don't have venom potent enough to kill, but Chiro was different. His venom was unusually strong, and Pleione died in childbirth.

Everything changed then. Chryos upgraded from a not good father to an absolutely terrible father- often showing preferential treatment to Chiro and berating Aurealis for not meeting his standards. Sometimes verbally, other times physically. Sorry :(

Chiro himself was a precocious child, showing more interest in books than others. He quickly grew to be more smarter and competent than Aurealis, and stronger too. He often injured Aurealis on accident on account of his deadly hair, which would grow longer or shorter depending on his emotional state.

He still was not happy, however. He longed for affection and validation that didn't come from his father- which only came when he did something destructive.

The servants obviously feared him, and no matter how nice he was, he couldn't help but feel self conscious about their nervous demeanor around him.

Aurealis loathed Chiro, and she would bully him to make themselves feel better. He took the bullying- even internalizing it, because he felt as if his own existence were the cause of all the problems. Admist all that, he gained an interest in nematocytes, and spent much of his time studying them, and finding cures and uses for them.

Eventually, Aurealis had enough of life at home, and ran far, far away, to a whole other place full of different people and different... Everything, really. Leaving Chiro alone. Leaving everything they knew behind.

Honestly, their story came out of a desire for me to write something wholly dramatic and emotional, and I really liked it. I could develop it so much.

I latched onto Aurealis in particular, because her story involved heavy themes of self-hatred and the different ways to cope with it. They belittled others, they acted the opposite of the way they actually felt in a "fake it til you make it" sort of way (ie. ore-sama like). Of course, I give him a redemption arc, but they eventually have to deal with the fallout of their actions and I think that's great :).

Chiro, on the other hand, dealt a lot with gifted kid burnout and a different sort of self-hatred. He feels immense guilt for events that he had no control over, and seeks to fix them. He doesn't feel worthy if he doesn't have anything of worth to offer anyone, and his story is just. Incredibly sad.

Especially since terrible things could happen to him (I haven't decided yet tbh). Which I will ramble about in a different post. All I will say is that I named his theme is named "Lethe" for a narrative reason, hehe.

So anyways. They're the perfect comfort characters.

Recently I've been super into writing the brothers as adults (hence the florist Aurealis) and... Ugh. I've been missing them more and more lately, especially since I still need to write and design for Ite!

[wri0thesley]

I'd love to request more Naoya smut with him and a now pregnant!reader from that breeding fic because him busting a nut thinking about how good they'll look knocked up really made me feel some type of way!!! maybe reader-chan will even finally get a smooch from this HORRIBLE man. If you are not into doing continuations on requests no worries tho and thank you for your incredible writing as always, Nat!

reader can have a little smooch. as a treat. don’t let naoya hear you say he’s not a good husband <3

Expecting - Naoya x Fem!Reader (3.3k)

Both of you got what you wanted. Naoya got more than he bargained for. sequel to covet.

warnings: not sfw, minors dni! afab reader, fem pronouns. pregnancy sex, light lactation, misogyny, power imbalance, breeding kink, mentions of alcohol, naoya perhaps having some Feelings???.

[comments/reblogs are much appreciated! // my jjk masterlist]

Naoya catches you every so often for the next month and you easily roll onto your back for him, helpless under the brush of his fingers and the snap of his hips. He smirks at you when he passes you in the corridor, but you have nothing to show for all of the times you’ve warmed his bed – yet.

When you do, though – when a month and a half passes, and you are beginning to feel sick in a morning, and your monthly bleed has still not made itself known – you go to Naoya with deference in your eye. Once a servant, always a servant – and you are not stupid. You know that what you carry inside you is a bargaining chip.

Naoya wants someone who will submit, and you want an end to the life of drudgery and roughened hands and back-breaking work, of being ignored or reviled or mocked for having the misfortune to not be born with Zenin as a surname. Naoya takes you to a private, discreet physician with an iron grip on your arm and his light eyes sharp.

It’s amazing, how quickly a man like Naoya Zenin can set things in motion – when it’s not simply confirmed that you’re carrying his child, but that you’re carrying his son. His heir.

It’s so easy for him.

Suddenly you are no longer a maid, but Naoya’s betrothed – and though the other members of the household look at you in disgust, knowing that you spread your legs for the title, none of them dare risk Naoya’s ire by being outright rude to you. He and his family spin it like silk; not that Naoya took advantage of a servant, but that you have been part of some grand, beautiful Cinderella story – that Naoya is in love with you.

(It’s probably for the better that the Zenins prefer servants who can see cursed spirits, at the very least – if you had not had any kind of talent for jujutsu, who knows what would have happened to you? Naoya would not have risked his son being born utterly ordinary).

And then you are Naoya’s wife. It wouldn’t do, of course, for the future head of the family to have his heir and son born out of wedlock, even if society have progressed enough that you falling pregnant with said son was before the betrothal. The latter is a disgrace; the former is a laugh over a cup of sake in the dark, a toast to Naoya’s virility, a wink-wink-nudge-nudge at how lucky Naoya is to have found someone who gives themselves up so utterly and completely and easily, including their virtue--

You know that Naoya is not in love with you. You are fairly certain that the only thing Naoya loves is his name, and the power imbued therein. Still. You share a bed with him, and you’re given silken kimonos and pretty hair ornaments and anything that you ask for, and you are . . .

Respected is not quite the right word. Not for a woman who is Naoya’s. Certainly, he does not respect you.

But you are not reviled, not ignored, not beholden to the demands of your betters. Now, you are one of the betters, and if your fellow servants are frustrated that they have to bow to you in deference, they do not dare show it knowing that if you asked Naoya, he would have them punished for the transgression.

You had perhaps thought that once you were bearing his child, Naoya would lose interest in you. You know as well as anyone that nobody would bat an eyelid at Naoya seeking his pleasure somewhere else; it’s almost expected of him to have a mistress, a concubine, to go and sow his wild oats just in case the one he has placed inside of you does not yield the crop expected--

But he doesn’t.

Naoya hates you out of his sight. He is always touching you; hands sliding over your hips, cupping where your bump has become soft and round and pronounced, snapping servants to attention if he thinks you look tired or wan or pale. You accompany him almost everywhere. He looks up from speaking to his father to seek you out, as if to reassure himself that you are still there – and some tension in his shoulders seems to drain away.

He is still Naoya, of course.

You are still swiftly reprimanded by him if you speak out of turn, he still gets servants to do anything for you so he doesn’t have to do it himself, you still walk three steps behind him with your head bowed unless he bids you to do something else – but as time goes on, and your hips widen and your stomach grows and you feel the baby kick, something in him softens.

And something else hardens.

His desire on your flesh, on your form, does not wane. You grow used to the feeling of tangled silken bedsheets below you, of Naoya’s handsome face above you, of the groan and the whine as he spills himself inside of you for the third time that night. And you would be lying if you said you didn’t like it.

That initial thrill, of being wanted by someone like Naoya, doesn’t fade at all, even though you too are now bowed to in the corridors and the people below you have to jump at your command. And Naoya is not cruel for no reason. Despite the arrogance in his tone, the condescension that drips off of his slow, drawling words, the particular way he has of raising one eyebrow and letting his gaze crawl over you – you have come to enjoy being his.

You did not want equality, after all. You knew your place.

You just wanted better – and Naoya has provided you that in spades.

He’s got his arms spread out over the pillows, his shoulders strong, his eyes hungry as he watches you strip off the kimono you have been wearing today. Your wardrobe now is the height of luxury; all beautiful embroidery, delicate colours, fabrics that cost more than your former monthly salary. Kimono are not made to cling to your body; though people can tell that you are pregnant, it does not over-emphasise your hips or the newly swollen, heavy breast, or the curve of your stomach. Those are things that Naoya never tires of seeing, as the fabric pools around your ankles and the hadajuban is discarded and so are your underwear, and you stand before him utterly bare and unmistakably carrying his child.

“Stay there,” he says, “let me look at you.”

You are a good, well-trained, obedient thing. You stand there as Naoya’s gaze roves over you, straying over and over again to where your hips have filled out even more, where your stomach is curved – where your breasts have begun to droop a little from how heavy and swollen with milk they are. He sighs as he looks you over, and it is the sigh of a man who is indeed very pleased with his work.

“You can move,” he says. He moves the covers off of him, and you are not surprised to see that he is bare; that his cock is already stirring, heavy and thick between his thighs. “Come.” He crooks a finger at you, and you are grateful to be able to move, to take the weight off your ankles as you’re permitted to sit on the bed beside him. His arms wrap around you – they are strong, and certain, and he holds you like you are his property.

Which you suppose you are. Your head lolls back onto his shoulder and he makes a soft huff of amusement, but doesn’t say anything about how brazen you are. You are permitted some special favours, now that you are Naoya’s, and now that you are fulfilling your purpose so beautifully.

Naoya’s lips brush your ear, his tongue lapping at the curve of your neck, the joint between throat and shoulder. You sigh prettily, the warmth of his mouth on you making you shiver. One of his hands curls around your breast, enjoying the heavy weight of you in his hand. Thumb and forefinger gently pinch your nipple.

He was rough with you the first time, but now he treats you like porcelain – and the idea that you are precious to Naoya Zenin sets your stomach aflame, makes your breath stick in your throat. He tugs at it softly, coaxing you to sigh, a drop of liquid leaking from the sensitive nub as you squirm backwards into his lap. His tone is lightly warning as he says;

“Come on, be good. It’s a good sign, sweetheart.”

He calls you sweetheart in front of other people and the ones who have bought this rags-to-riches Cinderella story exchange looks that say ‘isn’t she lucky?’. You hear the light edge in it, the smirk, the loftiness – but it always seems to break into something that’s almost fond, when he’s inside you and touching you and his teeth bite into your neck.

“Just that your body is doing what it’s supposed to do,” your other nipple is subjected to the same treatment, and you feel Naoya’s breath hitch, his cock stir behind you and dig into the small of your back. “I think the moment he’s in his nursery I’m going to fuck another son into you, dearest.”

“Mm?” You say, a little breathless as his hand goes lower. He sweeps his palm over the curve of your stomach, pausing where the skin is tight and swollen. His cock twitches once more at the reminder of how utterly his you are, and how wonderfully you are doing your purpose. How lucky he is, to have found someone submissive and well-trained and obedient and sweet, who looks so luscious full of him.

You drive him to distraction even when you don’t realise he’s looking at you.

“Thighs apart,” he grunts, into your ear, and you comply with the docile nature of someone raised to serve. He loves that about you. Loves, too, when he dips his fingers between your legs and your slick coats his digits, a soft whine catching in the back of your throat as he circles your clit and little shocks spark all through you, making you almost clamp your thighs back around his hand.

You do not, though. You are well-behaved. And you and Naoya have played this game enough times that you know that this is leading to relief for both of you.

One of his long fingers slides inside of you and you widen your thighs more, your soft whimper breaking and pitching – it’s such a servile, sweet little noise that Naoya cannot help but crook his finger, let it rub against the textured spot on your inner walls that has you clenching and gasping.

Since your pregnancy, you have become so sensitive. Naoya is the kind of man who hates working to pleasure a woman – who considers your orgasm a choice, and his a foregone conclusion. But with you swollen and full with his seed, he is slow and indulgent – and it is so easy, now that a brush of his palm makes you shiver and a tug of his teeth on your earlobe makes you gasp.

The finger is pulled out of you, and Naoya raises it to your lips, hooking his finger inside so you open your mouth and let him press your own slick onto your tongue.

Your tongue gently suckling at his finger reminds him of the insistent pounding of need inside of him; the stiff cock, leaking pre-come. He’d gotten so distracted touching you and enjoying you he’d almost forgotten about his own pleasure, and he sighs as he props himself up on pillows and reaches for you.

“Get comfortable,” he tells you.

His preference is to have you beneath him; that, he thinks, is his wife’s proper place. But it has begun to be difficult, with your stomach so distended – and he is nothing, he thinks to himself with more than a touch of smugness, if not an indulgent provider. A good husband.

(That’s what he thinks, anyway. You are not hurt. You get pretty things, and him in your bed, and the estate’s servants at your beck and call, an expensive wedding ring on your finger and the honour of his name affixed to yours, and his seed taking root inside of you. What else could you ask of him?)

So you are permitted to spread your knees, to climb on top of him – to gently sink your tight, wet, heat about his cock and seat yourself comfortably on the muscle of his thighs and the flat planes of his stomach.

“If you had my view,” he says, teasingly. “Mm, you were really made as breeding stock, weren’t you?” The words make heat rush to your face as he cups your hips in his hand again, squeezing the new covering of plush flesh that you’ve acquired since your pregnancy. “My wife.”

The words send a quiet thrill through you. You sigh as he bottoms out, as your body meets his entirely; your hands splaying on his shoulders. He is not flat against the bed – that position is too weak, not fitting for a man of his stature. But he is propped up with pillows behind him, so that he can admire how you look as your teeth bite into your plump bottom lip and you lift yourself just a little off his straining cock, before letting yourself fall back down.

He lets you set the pace. If you are to be permitted to ride him, he thinks, you may as well be the one doing all of the work. Part of him, too, is afraid of touching you too much – of hurting you, when you have something so precious inside of you. He would not admit that to himself – that’s not a thought process befitting of someone of his stature. But . . . it nibbles at the corners of his consciousness.

He cares about you. He does not want to hurt you. He does not want you to be uncomfortable – not when you are doing such a good job, when you are so lovely for him, when he is so grateful to have found you--

It’s no more than I deserve, he reminds himself.

And to brush back thoughts that are not proper for his elevation station in life, he lets himself watch the bounce of your breasts. Lets his fingers dig into the even softer, rounder thighs. Enjoys the sight of your mound bouncing on his cock, the feel of your slick walls clinging to his cock.

You are so beautiful, swollen with his child.

It is the first time he has ever looked at a woman and saw power in them. There is, he thinks, a power in what you have – in the glow about your skin, the brightness of your eyes, the curves and roundness and soft, supple flesh. The thought almost frightens him – but then, you push up again and your eyes meet his own for just a moment and he remembers that you are swollen with his child and have the power of him inside of you, and it becomes comforting.

Without him, you’d be nothing.

So he watches you with hungry eyes as you move your hips on his cock; as his length sinks inside of you, as you angle yourself just so – so that every stroke of your hips makes his cock rub against the place inside you that earlier had you seeing stars. Your breath is getting faster and faster, your fingers on his shoulders flexing as the tight string of your release is wound inexorably closer and closer.

Naoya allows himself a groan; a light thrust of his hips, in time with your own. The chase of your warm, tight walls as you try and pull away. He lets his gaze wander to how his cock is coated in your slick, all wet and shining in the light of the bedroom – and he is once more reassured. This is his. You are his. This wetness, this need – this is all for him. The way your body has changed is because of him.

His own release is creeping up on him.

Today, though, he decides he will be merciful – he reaches forward , curving his fingers just so, so that he can toy with your clit as you continue to fuck him. He rolls the bud with the pad of his fingers (soft; he wields just one weapon, and most people do not get to see it. Most of his harder work is done with his technique, and you have seen him apply expensive hand cream to keep himself handsome), knowing your body as well as he knows his own.

He prides himself on that, and you have spent enough nights in his bed that it is second nature to him. Women are predictable, he thinks, smirk on his face as your channel clenches around his hard cock and you come, whimpering out his name--

(In bed, he prefers Naoya-sama, and you are a good wife. Your tone is servile, soft, obedient – and in return, Naoya is almost sweet to you.)

He thrusts his hips roughly up into you, chasing his own release as your body spasms and trembles about him. You are still so tight; so hot and taut where the aftershocks are making you tremble. It’s the sight of your body, quivering under your release, that does it in the end.

Your hips and stomach and breasts and thighs, all rounded with the miracle of bearing life. All softened and plump; meek and pliant, a perfect little wife. His perfect little wife.

As he feels the tension inside of him snap, one of his hands winds about the back of your neck, pulling you closer.

Naoya’s grunt of pleasure is lost in the kiss, his mouth against yours hard and hungry. He is not willing to give up his dominance even here – but . . .

He has not kissed you so intimately before.

He has always avoided your mouth, preferring his lips on your chest or neck – turning your face away if it had seemed you might go for his mouth (later on, he had not bothered – he knows you well enough now to know that you would not dare.)

He tastes like wine. Like fancy, expensive sweets; the kind that you could have never afforded before you were his, but he has had at his disposal for his whole life. Like a cross between freedom and a prison--

He groans as he fills you up; his cock twitching, shooting out thick ropes of his come to land thick and heavy in your insides. Your whimper at the sensation is lost in his mouth, but Naoya fails to miss it – the fingers around the nape of your neck stroke through your hair, almost comforting, as he pulls back from you.

His lips are shiny, full and pretty. The grin that he gives you is crooked – and though you know it should not, though you know you should hate him for being arrogant and cruel and considering you lesser than him, the grin sends a rush of affection all through you.

If you were sentimental, you would say that the affection is mirrored in his own pale eyes.

(Naoya is glad you are not; you cannot see, beneath the triumph that you are claimed and carrying his heir and the hunger for your body and the pleasure that you are exactly the kind of wife that he wanted, that perhaps he does care about you.)

“My little wife,” he says, and he brushes his thumb over your cheek, hot with the rush of blood. “You’re so good for me.”

And you’ll carry on being so.

You’re so lovely when you’re expecting.

[mrs-march-ahs]

how the evans would act when they have a crush on u ^^

How The Evans Act When They Have A Crush On You & How They React When You Tell Them You Like Them Too

Award for the longest title goes tooooo... me!

JAMES SUCKS BUT I MAKE UP FOR IT BY DOING BOTH KYLE’S AND A DETAILED KIT

Two other requests-

Could I please request how the Evans would react to their best friend (reader) admitting they're in love with them? 

Heyo! I’m not sure how this would go but how would the Evan’s react to a nervous/insecure reader confessing to them?

-I hope this is satisfactory, even though I don’t think it’s what you two wanted<3

Enjoy! :)

--

Tate

-Would always just be interested in you

-Wanting to help you, watch you, talk to you, just constantly be around you

-But he’d also be insecure whether he was annoying you, so occasionally he would make himself invisible and just watch you

-Whatever hobbies you had, he’d love to watch you do them, paint, draw, write, play games

-If you played any instrument he would love to lay on your bed and listen to you, no matter how good or bad you were

-He would leave little sweet messages on the chalkboard and leave little post-it notes for you to find

-They would have fun little facts about birds or other trivial stuff but you would find them cute

-The occasional fact about something romantic, like ‘Every time you kiss somebody, your heart beat increases by 10-15 beats per minute’

-He might go a little far and leave a message like ‘Your dress looked pretty’, which you would find creepy since you didn’t know Tate was a ghost

Kit

-He thought of ways to tell you how he felt but because it seemed like your family was gonna live in the murder house for a while, cause you were all settling in well, he didn’t want to risk losing his friendship with you, since you were the only ghost with whom he really got along

-You walked down to the basement and said his name in a sing song voice, “Tateeeee”, “Come out come out wherever you are!”

-He showed up and you asked him if he wanted to go out on a real date

-He was obviously nervous, because you didn’t know yet that he was a ghost, but when he hesitated and you looked upset, he said yes right away

-You ran up and hugged him and kissed him on the cheek, making him blush and laugh, and whilst you were at school, he got some things ready and got candles and a table cover so make your kitchen look like a restaurant

-He ordered McDonalds delivery and got your chicken nuggets under a serving platter for effect

- “We are dining on, nuggets of the chicken”

-Although you were a little disappointed and wanted to go out on a real date with him, you found his effort cute

-He definitely played footsie with you under the table the whole date

-Definitely walked you to your room

- “Well… this is me…”

- “Just wanted to make sure you got home safe”

-Kissed you

oh my god I got so carried away

-You would first meet Kit when you first come and move to Massachusetts

-One day you want to venture out and get an taxi to go to town, only a few minutes later to realise you don’t have your wallet

-You awkwardly tell the driver that if takes you back home quickly, you can get money and you will pay him right away

-But since Boston men aren’t usually so sweet, he just kicks you out, leaving you to wander the motorway alone late at night, far away from your home and hoping to quickly find somewhere to go

-Eventually you stumble upon a gas station, and as you walk up, a hand appearing on your shoulder makes you automatically turn around and push whoever touched you to the ground

-The man in blue uniform gets up slowly with his hands up defensively, “Hey hey, didn’t mean to startle ya, miss”

-You apologise, feeling stupid for this kind of encounter, but he doesn’t seem to mind as much as you’d think

- “It’s always nice to see a woman able to protect herself”, he smiles

-He offers to drive you home, and you thank him dearly, explaining to him that you don’t have a car yet, having only just moved here

-He offers to take you to buy one, knowing an awful lot about cars, and to convince you further, tells you that any man working in a car salon will try to sell a single lady a piece of junk for a high price

-You agree, thinking that the offer is sweet, and he takes you to buy yourself a car, to make the date even more fun, Kit tells you to pretend you’re an old married couple

- “Miss Walka over here needs a car, good Sir”

-At some point while looking at cars, Kit holds your hand and you don’t even notice

-He negotiates a good deal with the salesman, and you get a car together

- “Your husband just got you an awfully good deal, Madam, he’s a man who deserves a good meal and a cold beer if I’ve ever seen one”, the salesman laughs, signing the last of the papers before handing Kit the keys to your car. “Oh, he’ll get more than that”, you say to tease Kit, before smiling at him sweetly. Kit blinks at you, before turning back to the salesman and shaking his hand. As the two of you walk away, Kit looks at you in disbelief, the thought of your dirty words clearly plastered in his mind. “Did ya mean what you said back there?”. He says, as he opens the car door for you. “Whatever do you mean?”, you act stupid. “I was just pretending to be your wife, Mr Walka”

-When he has a crush on you, he gives you sooo many compliments

-Little dirty innuendos

-Would definitely call you and talk to you late night on the phone until one of you fell asleep (house phone if they had them)

-He’s the kind of person to tell you that he got a visit from a cute dog earlier at the gas station and it made him think of you

 Kyle

-Every time you go to get gas from Kit, he gives you only a little amount, so you have a reason to keep coming back

-One time when you go get gas from him, you forget your wallet again, and he teases you about it

-He lets you off and pays for your gas

- “I owe you, Mr Walka”

- “How about a date?”

-You smile at how confident he is, and nod excitedly, having been waiting for him to ask you for a while now

-Kit winks at you and waves as you drive off, completely melted inside about finally getting his girl

-Even though he’s always confident, he’s still a little shy and awkward around you when he sees you in class

-If all of his friends are in a class messing around, throwing stuff, being loud, and you walk it, he tells everybody to shut up because there’s a lady present

- “Hey careful, make sure you don’t throw it at her”

-It’s not until he sees you at a huge party, that he’s confident enough to go up to you

-Even though he’s more than happy to flirt, he’s just not confident enough to do that last step and ask you out somewhere

-He’ll bring you a drink and  talk and flirt with you, and you’ll definitely get the hint

-He slowly lifts his arm up and stretches it over you, trying to do the classic yawn move, hoping you won’t notice or mind. You look over at him and narrow your eyes in fake suspicion.

- “Didn’t you come here with a movie star? Surely you get handsome men bringing you drinks all the time?”, he says, motioning to the drink in your hand.

“You calling yourself handsome?”, you tease him. Kyle laughs a breathy awkward laugh and nods. “Well yeah”

-When you do ask him for a date, he insists that he take the initiative to plan what you two do

-Clearly wanting to make a good first impression, he’d take you somewhere interesting

-Aquarium, in which he’ll make up clearly fake facts about the fish just to make you laugh

-Bowling, just so he can tease you about how much you suck

-Mini golf, so, even though you know how to play, he can wrap his arms around you and help you put

-And if he does take you to the movies, you aren’t spending a dime

-He’ll also wrap his arm around you not-so subtly

Franken Kyle

“Whatcha doin there, hm?”. Kyle leans into your ear and whispers.

“Just in case you get scared, you can cuddle up to me”

“Kyle we’re watching the Lego movie”

Jimmy

-You’re a witch at the academy, and with Kyle’s very slow progress to getting better, both Zoe and Madison are getting slightly tired of having to constantly take care of him

-But you don’t mind, finding his Frankenstein state cute

-Whenever he stumbles into the kitchen by himself you always help him make food

-If he’s ever struggling with anything, he usually comes to you, knowing you’re the most patient out of them all

-Then, one night, all the teens in the academy go to a party, while you lay in bed

-But when the rain starts to get really heavy and the first thunder growls, Kyle rushes into your room, before slowly knowing and peaking his head out, clearly scared

-You let him come and lay with you, rubbing his back to calm him down

-Although no real words are spoken, it’s from that moment that you decide to take on all responsibilities relating to Kyle, the good and the bad

-He’s admired you from afar for a very long time, ever since the first time you joined the circus

-You were incredibly flexible, and always showing off to everyone and practicing on stage

-He would always come and watch you practice, cheering you on more than anybody else

-You called Jimmy ‘my cheerleader’

-It made him blush every time

-Amazon Eve always told him to just ask you for dinner, but the only thing that stopped him was the thought that you wouldn’t want to go out and be seen with a freak like him, especially since your body looked so normal that you didn’t have to hide anything

-Eve and Paul reminded Jimmy that it’s him who’s always the most confident in going out into the real world, and he mustn’t be scared

-When they all plan to go to a diner together, as a protest to being shunned from society, you find his leadership charming and happily go with them

-Even though you all get kicked out, you calm Jimmy down and take care of him when his dad beats him up

James

-You wipe the scars on his face and tell him how brave you think he is

- Trying to gain confidence, you take a deep breath before making the move. “Maybe the two of us should go to that diner”. Jimmy looks up at you, as if he expects you to keep talking. When the nerves hit you all at once, you begin rambling. “You know cause if the two of us go and they’re okay with that then maybe we can start going with the others one by one, and then you know we’ll ease our way back into society and stuff”. You laugh a breathy laugh, but Jimmy says nothing. With every silent second passing, your heart begins to break. But luckily for you, Jimmy speaks up. “Wait, are you asking me out? Like… on a date? To the diner?”. “What if I were?”, you quietly reply. He smiles wide and pulls you closer to him, “I’d love that”.

-James is definitely the least subtle

-Constantly giving you compliments, kisses and gifts

-Opening every door for you and listening very carefully to everything you say

-He doesn’t want you to even think about another man, so he overwhelms you with every way he can show you he likes you

-I can imagine him organising a big ball or event at the hotel just so the two of you can dress up and go together

-He is also the most confident out of them all, although he is a softie around you, he has no trouble asking you anything he wants to you

-He’ll kiss your hand a lot and you’ll eventually get the hint

Kai

- “I would be most delighted if we were to make our relationship more official, and vow fully loyalty to one another”

-You agree and he is over the moon

-Once the two of you are in a relationship, the compliments, kisses and gifts don’t stop

-He will give you your space without him, but when the two of you are in the same room together, he treats your precious time together as if it’s sacred

-He will approximately 43 seconds into your relationship begin planning how he’s gonna kill you

-You can tell Kai likes you when he’s harsher on you than he is on other members of the cult

-He’ll be pissed at you for being a distraction for him

-He’ll definitely tell you when he’s impressed with you, when you murdered somebody or helped him plan something

-Even though he definitely would not want it

-If you proved to be smarter than him in any aspect, he’d be furious

-You’d be sat on his sofa while he’s talking to you about having to kill Sally because she’s getting in the way of him winning city council

- “Samuels looked at where she lives, and it has no back doors, no nothing, it’ll be impossible to get in her house without smashing windows and causing attention”

“Why don’t you get Ally to go to her first? If Meadow convinces her to go to Sally to talk about the cult, then the front door will be open”. Kai looks at you with angry eyebrows. “We’ll sit in the car and wait for a few seconds, she’ll let Ally in, won’t lock the door straight after her, and then let them talk for a minute before we just walk right in”

-His ego won’t let him take suggestions from somebody below him, so even though he wants to be proud of you for being smart, he’s mad

-He’ll sit for hooours trying to think of any other solution he physically can think of, to not go with what you suggested

-Around the cult, he’d treat you like everybody else though

- “Y/N’s idea was brilliant, Ally just walked in and they walked straight to sit down, she didn’t lock the door”

-He’d praise you to encourage you to think of ideas, which he would later be mad that you have

━━━━━━♡♤♡━━━━━━

-You’d find out how he felt about you during pinky power

-After being suspicious that he may have feelings for you for a while, you realised this is the only way to truly find out how he feels without him trying to manipulate you

-He’d ask you about something deep, and you’d latch on after he finishes a sentence to ask him your question

- “I have a question for you”

“Go ahead”

“How do you feel about me?”

Kai stays silent and continues to look you in the eye, taken aback by the question but not wanting to show it.

“When you’re with me, how do you feel?”

“I think you have real potential, you’re strong-”

“I’m not asking the Divine Ruler, I’m asking Kai, Kai Anderson”

He takes a deep breath before unintentionally breaking eye contact for a few seconds to think. You wait anxiously for the answer, and with every second passing you know what it will be.

“You’re special”, he starts, looking you in the eye again. “You’re valuable to the group, and to me. And I think you’d be a great… mother”. The last catches you off guard, not expecting Kai to be a family man or to think about this with you.

“You… you want me to… have your children?”

“I think our children would be indestructible, strong, powerful, decisive. They would be the seed of the better future”. Although it was a little forward for somebody you’ve never even kissed, you were beyond flattered, knowing how specific Kai is with traits in people.

“Let’s make a baby”, Kai says.

“Whoa whoa”, you laugh and unlink your pinky with his. “We’re not even dating, Kai”

“Why date if children is the ultimate purpose?”

“Then don’t look at is as dating… look at it… as getting to know the mother of your future children”

-Kai would love this and you’d soon end up dating

-And have like 6 kids

@milly-louise  @amourtentiaa  @kitwalker02  @tatestripedsweater  @therenlover  @maria-akira         @tatesimper  @thxc0untessesgl0ve  @mossybank  @ahsxual  @mxlti-fand0m-imaginess  @mrs-march-ahs-biggest-fan  @kitwalkerangel  @kitisagoldenretrieverboy @darlingkitt  @blackbat2020@elaineygrace @kaiandersonskoolaid  @undeadcortez @whiiiiplaaaaash

As usual, if you wanted to be added or taken away, dm me or comment!! I won’t mind! <3

[kirschteinsj]

Pinky Promises

Nanami x fem! reader

Warnings: nothing too much! maybe language but overall just a bunch of fluff and lovey dovey stuff 

Word Count: 2.9k

Summary: Domestic Nanami and reader, just thinking about how much they love each other. sappy and cute stuff.

A/N: Hi! ^_^ Second time posting, I’ve had this one shot saved for a bit now! finally posting it lolz. I've noticed a lot of people have written domestic Nanami pics or drawn art, very glad society as a whole has this perception of him. it truly heals the soul I think. anyway, I hope u like this and sorry if there’s any grammar errors I wasnt able to catch U_U im thinking of doing a hc post next.... unsure hm, we’ll see ^_^!!

“I’m hooooome.” He says loudly as he steps through the apartment door, setting his briefcase down and taking off his beige coat. Putting down the grand kitchen knife she was using to chop up spinach, she rushed to the door with a smile and engulfed the tall blonde into a tight hug, saying hello. She took a deep breath, inhaling the soft scent of his cologne, the smell of something sour and musty soon taking over. Her face scrunched up and she let out a giggle.

“Oh god, Nanami, you stink, what did you go against today?”

“Nothing too bad. Just a grade 3,” He sighed “A smelly grade 3.” He sounded disappointed, probably because he knew he stunk too. Though the smell was horrendous, she still remained in his arms and he still held on just as tight.

“Are you tired? I was thinking of making dinner with you tonight but if you’re too tired I can-”

“No no. I’m fine. Just let me wash up and I’ll help out.”

“You sure?” She asked looking up towards him, questioning once more to reassure. He looked down and pressed a gentle kiss to the top of her head.

“I’m sure, dear.”

While he showers upstairs, she gets back to readying the ingredients so they could begin cooking their masterpiece as soon as possible. Tonight she had chosen chicken alfredo with a tossed salad; One could say it was her favourite, but saying that would imply that she would eat it when cooked and served by whomever. But to her, she would only eat it when it was him who had made it for her.

Y/n adored him. He adored her. To her, he was her light. She could simply not imagine life without him, not after he had come in and changed her in such a way. She never in a million years would have thought to be so in love with someone. To have known someone who cared enough to hear all about her day or listen to all her tangents, whether they made sense or not. Who listened to her talk forever about anything just so he could see the faint glow of passion in her eyes. Someone who remembered the small details in regards to the things she loved and the things she despised; Like how she hated the feeling of peanut butter on her fingers and how she absolutely admired the scent of fresh pages in a new book. Sometimes, she felt undeserving of him.

He admired her like no other. Never did he believe he’d be capable of opening up to anyone in such a way, at least not until she walked into his life. He could write a million lists, all full of everything he loved about her. The way she smiled cheekily at him after a witty remark, how she'd give every hug as if it was the last, the way she was oh so patient with him. It took him time to become vulnerable in the slightest, he just didn’t know how to do so without burdening her. She knew his job was hard, he’d told her. But rather than running away like he expected, she stayed with him right by his side. She refused to leave him over that. If anything, it made her want to stay more since she felt the need to be there for him. It felt like a punch to the gut but a good one. “So, is this love?” He had asked himself then. Nanami had someone who brought out the much more joyful side to him. At the end of the day, he knew he’d walk through the front door only to see her, arms wide open and with a big smile offering a cozy hug. She was his home. Sometimes, he felt undeserving of her.

Putting the final piece of broccoli into the container, she tidies any clutter and went back to their shared bedroom. Sinking into the bed and falling on it with a plush thump, she lets out a deep sigh mixed with some sort of a groan. She herself was exhausted from work too to say the least. She didn’t deal with curses or anything like that, but she did teach a class of 9 year olds which one could consider just as frustrating. Yawning, she checks her phone to read the time: 6:15 PM. Nanami hadn’t been in the shower for too long, a small nap wouldn’t hurt. Quickly, she settled for a little 30 minute nap. That way, she could get up soon enough to help him out in the kitchen and not abandon him to do everything on his own. She turns her phone off and slowly, her eyes shut.

…

Y/n slowly opens her eyes and notices a grey throw blanket placed on her, something that she doesn’t recall going to bed with earlier. “Must’ve been Nanami.” Grabbing her phone, she turns the screen on, wincing at the incredible blue light piercing into her skull. “Fuck.” she mumbles. Once her eyes adjust, she glances back at the screen for the time: 7:30.

“FUCK,” she says, voice croaking “I overslept.” With the speed of light, she leaves bed and runs down the hall to the bathroom to freshen up. She soon makes her way over to the kitchen silently, slightly ashamed and guilty. Y/n mumbles a whine with a frown, “He’s probably done making things now. I could have helped.”

The kitchen is filled with the delicate scents of sauces, cheese and herbs. She watches him from the door frame, admiring her boyfriend. He stood in front of the stove mixing at the sauce for the alfredo, which scent alone made her mouth water. Nanami seems to be in his own world, as he stands humming to himself softly, stirring the pot of sauce and adding in the broccoli and spinach, not seeming to notice y/n. With a final stir, he carefully sets the lid and turns to rinse his hands. Her gaze sits upon his figure, how his grey oversized shirt slightly clings to his shoulders and loosens as it goes down his body. Looking down, she noticed the bright red christmas pyjamas he had on, the ones with adorable little reindeers all over them. Grinning, she remembers how she had bought those for him. She purchased a matching set for the two of them and insisted on wearing them all day on Christmas last year. Nanami had responded to the idea with a stern “No” which left y/n in shambles. She didn’t expect him to agree, but hey, a girl can dream. However, on Christmas day, lo and behold, she had woken up to find Nanami sitting on the couch, watching the news with his reindeer PJs on. Immediately, she had attacked him with hugs and kisses and all Nanami did was sit there and accept them, secretly loving it the whole time.

A deep voice throws her out of her thoughts. “You know, it’s rude to stare, right?”

Y/n chuckles quietly and makes her way over, wrapping her arms around him from behind, snuggling into his back.

“I like to stare at you, you’re cute,” she breathes in his scent once again, “ah, you smell so much better now. Like the nami I know.”

“I am not cute. I am a grown man.”

“C’mon, you can’t possibly be saying that right now. Not while you’re wearing these pants.” She coos, gently patting his butt. He goes silent, refusing to rebuttal knowing that he’s lost. He leans against the counter, his front facing her. Though he didn’t say anything, y/n sees this as an open invite to his arms. The rope of his arms finds her waist this time, her arms in an embrace around his neck.

“Whatever, tell me, how was your day, hm?” He posed, changing the subject.

“Same old, yenno. The kids and I had a discussion today about drugs and safety. It was cute, hearing them rat out their neighbours for smoking cigs and talk about how yucky they thought alcohol is. It was… sweet. How was work for you, hon?”

“Shit.” He retorts, closing his eyes, “Work is shit.”

“Oh come ON, I’m sure it’s not always that bad, right? Say, how’s your friend doing, you know, the one who kinda looks like one of my makeup brushes! Isn’t he good company?”

“Yeah, if good company means having to deal with a nuisance to society on a daily basis then by all means, yes, Gojo is wonderful company.” He joked, loosening his grip on her and making his way over to the stove to check on his sauce. She follows, opening the first drawer and pulling out a silver spoon, “You’re so mean sometimes. I think he’s a great guy to be around! I met him once, such a flirt.”

He teases calmly, “If you love him so much, why don’t you get with him?”

Taking her spoon, she lowers it into the pot and brings it back up to her face, blowing on it carefully before she puts it to her lips to taste. “Hmm, I would. But I don’t think he’s as big as you. I’ll have to pass.” She smirked, putting the spoon into her mouth as he watched and sighed in disappointment.

He glares,“God, you’re something else.”

“I’m just kidding, babe.” Bringing her spoon down for another taste. He swats at her hand and she retreats it with a whine. “Don’t do that. You’ve tried it already, and will again when we get to eat.” He scolded tenderly, “Plus, you shouldn’t be given these privileges anyway. It’s not like you helped out or anything.” He smiled, teasing her.

“Nanamiiii, I’m sorry,” she whines, half laughing, “I promise, I was going to help! I just got a little bit sleepy and sort of lost track of time…” He turned over to her and lifted her face with a finger under her chin. Laughing, he delicately caresses her cheek, tapping it admirably with a curled finger. The blonde chuckles and looks her in the eyes, “I’m just joking with you, love. I know you’ve been tired lately, I can tell. Why haven’t you been resting?”

Her smile falls and she sighs. Y/n wrapped her arms around his waist and brought him into her, hiding her face into his chest. It was true, she was exhausted but she didn’t deem it to be anything so serious. Work was just heavy this past week from having to grade her students’ work in time for report cards. All she wanted was the best for her kids and was finding ways to get the kids out of their comfort zones enough to do well in class. That reminded her, Nanami also mentioned having a student of his own.

She takes her face out of his chest and glances upwards. “It’s just this week of work, I promise I’ll be back to normal soon. I’ve just been busy with lesson plans and activities, yenno. Anyway, speaking of students, how’s the one you’ve been assigned to?” She posed in a soft tone. Half smiling, he turned around to add the strained pasta to the sauce, scattering it into the pot.

“He’s special. Quite lively. And cheerful. He reminds me of you sometimes,” his voice strains as he stretches to grab the bowl of cooked chicken to finally add into the pot, finishing the meal, “He’s got potential.” Y/n beamed with happiness. Nanami really seemed to like this kid and if he thought you had potential, then it sure as hell meant you had it.

She lets out a squeal, “EEEEEEK!!! That sounds amazing! I’m so happy for you!” Nanami suppressed a laugh and rolled his eyes, “It’s not that-”

“This calls for a drink, don’t you think?” She babbled with excitement, “We should have some wine! Right?”

Grabbing her wrist as she skipped her way over to the bottle, he reminded her, “You have school tomorrow. You always end up having more than needed and struggle to wake up in the morning.” Y/n frowned at his words, to which he noticed and tried to fix, “Tomorrow’s Friday, you can drink plenty tomorrow, hm? I’ll drink with you.”

“Ugh, fine. You’re right. But you have to promise.”

“I promise you ca-”

“No! You have to pinky-promise.” She demanded, pouting as he stuck out her pinky finger.

His heart skips a beat. Was she always this cute? Her angelic eyes stare into his tired ones. Bottom lip poking out, awaiting Nanami’s pinky to interlock with her own. He knew she took pinky-promises very seriously despite her grown age. It was among one of the many petty details that he cherished. Something about this pinky-promise was enough for her to ensure trust onto someone, it made him laugh. Her naivety is what made her so kind hearted, what allowed her to see the best in people. He felt that this naivety is why they’re together to begin with. He didn’t ever think she’d give him a chance. He reminisced of their first few encounters. The way she did her hair back then, the way she dressed, her shy smile and how she’d look at the floor whenever she’d blush. Maybe it was her timid nature that made him fall head over heels for her. Or maybe it was her generosity. Perhaps her beauty. He was unable to simply confine the reasoning for his infatuation with just a few traits. She grew overtime, more comfortable and less shy, she was more confident around him but he knew he could still make her blush so badly that she’d have to hide her face from him. He enjoyed their banter, her company. He felt it was luck. Or maybe it was fate. Who knows. He didn’t want to think so much about it. He wanted to live in the moment, adore her in this present time. In that instance, he felt the strong urge to kiss her. And so he did.

The kiss was short and sweet, yet full of an unfathomable amount of love. It took her aback, she didn’t quite see it coming. She too stood in the present moment, then and there, cherishing the man she loved.

His lips leave hers and he extends the smallest finger on his hand, declaring, “I pinky-promise.” And a ginormous grin washes over her face. In a whisper, she squeals and scoops her arms around his torso, resting her head onto his chest. They stay like this for a while, not too long really, but to them it felt like an eternity being in each other’s affectionate embrace. He goes to speak and she feels the vibrating boom of his voice make his way up from his chest.

“I love you.”

She sighs, “I love you too.”

Turning her head, y/n smoothly gets on her tip toes and clasps her arms around his neck, giving it a tender kiss and attempting to make a trail leading up to his sharp jaw. Catching onto her tactics he laughs, putting his big hand against her face and pushing her back.

“Seriously?” He chuckles, “You couldn’t wait till after dinner? Come on, take out the plates.”

“Wait for what? I was just kissing you! You’re so dramatic, Nami.” She lies, playing innocent. She knew damn well what she was trying to do. She wasn’t going to admit to it though. Taking out the plates and utensils, she readied the table.

…

After dinner and meaningless conversation, the two lovers tidied and headed towards their room. “Do yo wana wah a mohee tomowwow nie?” Y/n proposed from the bathroom as she brushed her teeth. He perks his head up, confused, “Do I want to what?” She spat into the sink and rinsed her mouth, repeating her question.

“I said, do you wanna watch a movie tomorrow night? Like at home? There’s this documentary I saw on Netflix, it looks really good! It’s crime related.”

“That sounds fine with me. Though, that’s only possible if you don’t end up drinking too much. I always have to get you to sleep early when you drink.” He states nonchalantly, nose poked into a thick book. She rolls her eyes and smiles, “I promise I won’t drink all that much.” Shifting his book to the opposing hand, Nanami silently takes his pinky finger and holds it out to y/n. She snickers and reciprocates.

“You’ve now pinky-promised. Don’t break it, y/n.”

“I never do.”

The nightstand lamp illuminates the room with a soft yellow glow. Shadows of objects on the nightstand hang on the walls. Laying in bed on her phone, y/n turns over to Nanami, who was still reading his book. “Nami, come lay next to me, I wanna cuddle. Please?” Her voice faint. He looks down at her and puts his book away immediately. He could use a cuddle too. Bringing himself down, he lays on his back, y/n closing the gap between the two. Their legs intertwine, her arm and head resting on his chest while one of his hands rested on her bum, the other dotingly playing with her hair. Neither of them spoke a word for a while. Until y/n broke the silence.

“So, were there no other pairs of pants you had left to wear or-”

“Please, be quiet.”

[astro-syd]

Jimin’s Duality (From an Astrological Perspective)

Jimin has become quite famous for the dual nature of his personality, so today I’m here to give a bit of astrological insight into this phenomenon! Jimin easily transitions between his sweet, adorable, mochi self and his passionate, intense stage persona. Neither of these “personas” are an acting stunt of any kind. They’re true aspects of Jimin’s personality! He simply knows which moments are the most appropriate and effective for channeling each side of himself, and all of these sides show up clearly within his natal chart. Let’s take a look!

Cancer Ascendant: child of the moon

Jimin’s Ascendant falls within Cancer, a cardinal water sign ruled by the moon. This also means that the moon is Jimin’s chart ruler! It holds a lot of significance in his natal chart.

Because Cancer rules over your home, family life, childhood and foundations, people with their Sun or Ascendant in this sign tend to have a very sweet, innocent, even childish nature about them. They tend to keep in touch with their inner child as they grow older, and might have something of a mischievous nature because of this too!

Cancer and the Moon often rule the mother in astrology, so people with this ascendant can easily take on a very motherly, nurturing quality. Jimin has been known to keep a close eye on the other members and he’s often the first one rushing to comfort them if need be.

This also somewhat stems from his emotional intelligence and sensitivity. Those with a Moon ruler tend to be very sensitive to emotions and mood swings, and Jimin is no exception. He’s highly empathetic, and with his Libra Sun & Mercury in his 4th house (ruled by Cancer), one of his natural gifts revolves around bringing balance to others’ emotional states. Others will feel magnetically drawn to him for healing.

Cancer is a common Ascendant to see in people within performing arts careers. This is because of their emotional availability and talent for expressing feelings. There’s something about Jimin’s vulnerability which makes people empathize with him, understand him on a very human level, and even want to protect him, much like you would a small child. It definitely contributes to his very “cute” and “sweet” vibe, even if he is a fully grown adult who’s capable of handling himself, haha.

Cancer rising people are very sensitive to their environment. When Jimin is put on unfamiliar ground, he will tend to withdraw or act shy until he feels more comfortable. He’s also likely to become flustered easily, especially when he’s in public and knows he’s got many eyes/cameras on him. His overarching moods and personality take on a very changeable quality, much like ocean tides. The ways in which he chooses to present himself are often highly based upon his immediate environment.

The Ascendant also holds a lot of weight over someone’s physical appearance. Cancer rising people can have a round, moon-like face shape and cute apple cheeks, especially when they smile. They’re known for a very large, bright smile, and large, puffy lips. Cancer natives often possess tiny hands and feet, and might even have something of a frail appearance.

They usually are quite soft-spoken, and with Jimin’s Moon residing in Gemini, this sign will have a lot of influence over his tone of voice. It definitely contributes to his light, “angelic” tone and the emotional quality of his singing. The Gemini influence here also appears in his sloping jawline and more pointed chin.

Moon in Gemini: messenger of emotion

Within Jimin’s chart ruler residing in communicative Gemini, he definitely knows how to put his feelings, memories, and experiences into words. Even if he doesn’t like to talk about his feelings too often, they’ll naturally bleed into his speech, his writing, and his art.

His emotions are easily influenced by others’ words as well, and this is especially true of his family and the people he loves. ARMY has picked up on the fact that our Jiminnie loves praise, but he’s not really using it as an ego boost. His feeling states are genuinely affected by the words of those around him. Watch the way his whole face lights up when the members compliment him and you’ll see what I mean. This also makes him more sensitive to negative feedback though, so he has to be a little careful about the opinions he chooses to expose himself to.

One of his greatest life lessons is to learn how to articulate his own inner feelings and experiences, as well as encouraging others to do the same. Allowing himself to be vulnerable and emotional is not only extremely healthy for him (even more so than the average person), but it also helps others to feel more comfortable and healed when doing the same.

In his childhood, his family members probably spent a lot of time talking about their feelings, but they might have struggled to actually feel them and discuss these emotions from a genuinely vulnerable standpoint. This is part of Jimin’s ancestral lesson to carry out in this lifetime!

His moon resides in his 12th house, which is a highly intuitive and spiritual placement. The 12th rules all things unseen, including spirits, dreams, secrets, hidden enemies, and religion. It’s a very foggy, mystical house. A lot of his feelings and mood swings are at least somewhat subconscious, which is also why it’s very healthy for him to speak about them. Communication will help to draw his emotions out of this hazy house and into the light of day where he can then process and make sense of what he’s feeling.

The 12th also rules the collective unconscious, so Jimin unfortunately also has a very good understanding of all of the underlying pains, traumas, and wounds of our societies. He’s very good at understanding human nature and human suffering, which makes him a great artist and an incredible healer, but it’s also a heavy burden to bear. Much of his empathy stems from this awareness which he’s possessed from a very young age. It’s possible that he even has psychic or empathic abilities of some kind, regardless of whether or not he’s in touch with them.

He’s a very trustworthy confidant. Jimin is a great listener, and because the 12th house rules secrets, he’s fantastic about protecting people in this way. He can be trusted with just about any information and will genuinely take these secrets to the grave. He enjoys the process of healing and supporting others, and protecting their most sensitive memories, experiences, and information is just another way for him to nurture those around him. This is another part of his appeal as a celebrity- he simply feels trustworthy, especially when he’s speaking from the heart and caring for those around him. He’d also make a great therapist, haha!

Libra Sun & Mercury: creator of harmony

Jimin has both his Sun and Mercury residing within fair and balanced Libra. It’s a sign which enjoys showing a polite, friendly, peaceful, and harmonious attitude, especially in public. Jimin is very much aware that there’s a time and a place for all aspects of his personality, and he knows when to utilize each side in order to achieve the best response from the public. He knows how to play an audience very well while still coming from a very genuine place within himself.

Because Libra is ruled by Venus and rules over the house of partnerships, these people tend to be natural flirts- and Jimin is definitely no exception. Flirting with others and generally being a huge tease is very fun for him, in fact he sees it as something of a game (more on that in the next section). He likes to charm others and be received well in the eyes of the public as much as possible.

Libra is a very non-confrontational sign which dislikes conflict, and Jimin can act as a peacemaker within their group whenever disputes or misunderstandings occur (though all BTS members share this energy to some extent). When appearing in public or voicing his opinion in interviews, he often has a very well put-together, diplomatic vibe about him.

Scorpio Venus, Mars, & Pluto: the playful devil

So, we’ve discussed our charming, diplomatic prince Park Jimin, as well as our cute and loving mochi, but where on earth does that stage persona come from?! Let me introduce you to Jimin’s most deadly placements: His Venus, Mars, and Pluto all within his 5th house in Scorpio.

Venus and Mars are both planets which deal with romantic relationships. Venus in astrology tells us about the sorts of people, things, and experiences we’re attracted to, as well as the kind of person we’ll be within a romantic relationship. It rules over the arts, fashion, partnerships, and commitments. Mars, on the other hand, is a lot more masculine and aggressive. It rules over our anger, our motivations, and our drive. It can indicate how we’ll chase after the people, goals, and experiences we desire in life.

Jimin has both of these romantic, charismatic planets in his 5th house, which rules performance, the arts and creativity, fun and games, parties, lighthearted romance, and children. It’s very common to see actors and performers with strong planetary placements within this house, but Jimin certainly has quite the combo working for him here.

The emphasis around his intense, passionate, and charismatic stage persona comes from the sign we’re in: Scorpio. It’s ruled by Pluto, the Underworld planet, and rules over all things dark, mysterious, and taboo in society. Secrets, mystery, the occult, psychology, sexuality, and power all fall within this planet’s reign.

People within strong Scorpio placements like to dive deep into their relationships and experiences. They like a little mystery, but the appeal comes from the act of uncovering these secrets. They often make great detectives or psychologists because they’re fantastic at understanding human nature and getting to the bottom of a situation.

This is the reason behind Jimin’s intense stare. Many Scorpios are known for having really intimidating eyes, and it’s because they almost seem to peer straight into the depths of your soul. It can feel as if they’ve exposed all of the things you wish to keep hidden simply by watching you- and with their keen observational skills, maybe they have.

That said, the lure of the dark and mysterious catches the eyes of many- and Jimin uses these placements to his advantage when performing. Scorpio is a fixed water sign, so you can think of it like the depths of the deep ocean. His art, movements, and power are all influenced by this energy. His movements are fluid but powerful, his art is deep, emotional, and moving but still mysterious and somewhat guarded, and even just this side of his personality seems unique and captivating when compared to his usual off-stage personality.

This is also a sign which is prone to obsession. Jimin’s work ethic and attention to detail has been praised time and time again, and it likely stems from the careful attention he gives to every aspect of his work until it meets the image he wishes to portray. He knows what the audience wants to see and how best to meet their expectations. He lets you glimpse into his power, his depth, and his sexuality through his performances, but never exposes more than he wants to.

Remember that those Libra placements love to tease, and in the 5th house here, he plays his movements like a game. His performances become a place where he can momentarily flaunt the darker Underworld energies within his personality, knowing that the audience will respond well when it’s within the right context. The sides of himself which are deep, obsessive, jealous, intense, and passionate find an outlet on the stage, and he needs this outlet to avoid taking these energies out on either himself or others in more destructive ways.

His Mars conjuncts his Pluto here, which is a wildly powerful placement. Pluto is the planet of death and rebirth, destruction and transformation, and in joining with the God of War in a chart, these two become a major force to be reckoned with. You can see it in his confidence on stage, his presence, and the ways in which he influences a crowd. He’s magnetic and attractive, and he can command attention without hardly lifting a finger.

In any other sign, this combination of planets has the power to become incredibly destructive (and in fact, it can be the worst in Scorpio if not handled properly), but Jimin’s grasp on this force he embodies is admirably strong. Remember when the other members said that he’s the scariest when angry? You wouldn’t want to see this placement out of control. The same forces which can give the strongest ability to understand, uncover, and heal others’ hidden wounds also has the potential to use them for harm.

Jimin, however, understands his power and channels the most intense sides of his personality into his art. When he steps onto a stage, he knows exactly what he’s there to do. He has rehearsed tirelessly, he knows what he wants to portray and how to achieve it, and he has a great sense of how the public will respond to his every move.

His chart is water dominant, and he’s a constant reminder that the water element is not just sensitive and emotional. Jimin’s Moon ruler pushes and pulls at ocean tides in the same way he influences our emotions. The same waters which flow through Jimin’s heart and psyche also have the power to create new life or flood entire cities. He’s a great example of how our charts become what we make of them. He’s successful and powerful while still retaining his humility, he’s sensitive and emotional without being too fearful or avoidant, and he’s understanding and manipulative but uses these forces for healing. An angel, perhaps?

[lioncunt]

any way the wind blows review!!!

gonna put it under a cut but tl;dr i really really loved it and even the things that i was on the fence about i’ve decided i love as well lmfao

so i kind of knew going into both this and wayward son that the plot wouldn’t really EVER be as narratively satisfying as carry on’s. it would definitely be interesting and have a lot of cool thematic elements, but in terms of being a grand deconstruction of the “chosen one” genre, it couldn’t ever get better than carry on. and i’m so happy rainbow didn’t try to MAKE it that. she didn’t pull a supernatural and up the stakes to impossible, outlandish degrees. both wayward son and awtwb had realistic, fascinating plots that served as a metaphor for the internal struggles of the characters.

the reason i’m beginning this review by talking about the plot is because it’s what i’ve seen the most criticism directed towards. and like i DO get it, i also was taken aback at first at how the actual plot is kind of background noise for the first couple hundred pages. but like...i think it WORKS. again, this whole trilogy is a deconstruction. that’s its PURPOSE. obviously it’s doing other things as well, but it started by taking this well-worn and well-loved trope and completely turning it on its head, giving us permission to acknowledge all the damage it causes and how our love of this type of story is honestly kind of harmful. we turn off that part of our brains when we read harry potter or something else with traumatized child protagonists, in order for us to actually enjoy it, but the simon snow trilogy has always said, “hey, this is kind of fucked up, huh? you’re allowed to think that.”

anyway, the way that translates to the plot here is that there’s not always some huge mystical big bad, or obviously evil antagonist. the horror can be going on in the world around you, in the background of your day-to-day life dealing with your own shit, creeping up on you until suddenly your loved ones are spouting off nonsense that is an absolutely CHILLING allegory for eugenics, by the way, which i’ve seen NOBODY talk about. the clear political parallels were so well done, but not heavy-handed, and they worked wonderfully as an ending to this story. simon at the end being a target for an angry mob, who are victims of intense ableism themselves (the metaphor of being a weak mage = having a disability), how these religious extremists will point at what they deem abnormal and use them as a scapegoat, the disgusting “survival of the fittest” mentality leading to “i can make this society great again” - it was all just incredibly well written, in my opinion. and the fact that it happened so slowly, in the background, made it all the better. you don’t really notice how bad it’s getting until it’s BAD.

it also, again, works so well as a manifestation of the characters’ inner strife. others have put it better than me already, so i won’t talk about it too much, but the fact that the book is saying you don’t need to be like everyone else in order to accomplish great things and have a good life, you don't need to have magic, you don’t need to be human, you don’t need to be neurotypical or able-bodied or straight or white or ANYTHING these people will have you believe in order to make you obedient to them and hateful to others -- it’s fantastic. 

this kind of segues into the other big criticism i’m seeing, which is simon and baz’s one-day breakup. again, this has already been analyzed well, so i won't ramble about it, but wayward son was their breakup. metaphorically speaking. and i’m glad that it didn’t take some big, grand moment for them to get back together, even though it would have been narratively cathartic. that’s not how life works - it was so much better and realistic to have simon face the harsh difficulties of TRYING than dragging out a separation plot line that would have added NOTHING to his character. or baz’s. the only thing about their entire relationship that i would have done a bit differently is shorten the timeline, because a year and a half is a very long and honestly unrealistic time to go in a relationship without talking about sexual history or going on dates, even if there’s a lot of baggage. but that’s not that big a deal and i’m easily able to look past it.

(as a side note I'm getting annoyed at seeing all these takes that there’s too much sexual content. like i get it because the first two books are solidly YA and this is being marketed as YA even though it’s definitely NA, but like....sex is important. sex scenes and sexual content are an extremely important part of depicting the human experience. and lack of sex as well!! every single intimate scene between them was NOT super graphic and had such incredibly important significance narratively and character-wise - and yeah that includes any kinks that were brought up, like jesus they’re in their 20s and have been in a non-sexual relationship for a year and a half i think it’s pretty fucking relevant that there are intimate scenes!!! anyway moving on.)

i really loved penny and shepard’s plot - their relationship was so wonderful and charming and excellent for their characters, and i only wish we could have gotten their demon plot threaded into the larger picture, because after shepard was cured it felt like they were just standing there. that’s one of my very few complaints about the book. but they’re such good characters and i love them SO MUCH.

AND THANK GOD FOR AGATHA AND NIAMH. like i cannot put into words how fucking happy i was when i realized where that was headed. the cinematic nature of agatha and niamh helping the goat give birth while simon’s flying in the chapel and being targeted by a mob was just. so cool like i can’t even describe it it was so coooooool and then agatha and niamh KISSING and agatha found her PLACE and I'm so happy for her.

just in general the characters and relationships were fucking exquisite. i can’t help but love the way RR writes, especially her dialogue. it’s so real and three dimensional and her characters truly come alive and i care about them and love them so much. i’m so happy they’re happy, i wouldn’t have been able to stand it if they weren’t.

and everything got wrapped up so well in my opinion!! i don’t know what the hell people are talking about when they say they still have questions, like girl what about??? simon found his family, simon got a sword that isn’t tied to trauma, baz found out that he’ll get to grow old with simon, all their families are okay, penny and shepard are in love, agatha’s herding goats and a lesbian, there will probably be new threats and antagonists but they'll be able to handle them, life will continue to be difficult but they’ll get through it like WHAT do you not understand what’s not clicking i genuinely want to know. 

ok actually i have ONE single question and that’s. did baz pick up the sword at the end. because the way it’s written it sounds like he did and i like do not understand that at all. someone answer please.

anyway that’s my review 10/10 would recommend

[volchiitsass]

all the information about the whelan familly will be placed under a read more due to the trigger-heavy content which includes: themes of child abuse & neglect, human-trafficking, mentions of sect/cult behaviors, and religious extremism. if there is anything i forgot to tag, please don’t hesitate to reach out. please note this is an informational post, the want ad will be a separate beast. if you wish to contact me regarding this or anything else my discord is hard-hearted hannah#3446. 

ABOUT

WHO ARE THE WHELANS?

Tracing their father's lineage back to Douglas, Ireland the Whelan family's ancestors got here much the way everyone did: desperation. Featuring a storied line of devout believers, these god-botherers have steadily radicalized over the years into what you see now.

The Whelans would be considered Fundamentalist Neo-Catholics by most outsiders looking in with a strict adherence to the tenets written by the founding members of the sect that calls themselves Soldiers of God. The S.O.G. were founded in the Appalachia and as such have spread throughout the mountain range and beyond. They have kept to themselves and have had very limited interaction with the folks of Magnolia until recently. * Please note that the Appalachian range runs through the following states  Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. The S.O.G. are not in all these states, but they are spreading. The original settlement is called Little Heaven and is located in Virginia.

WHAT DO THEY BELIEVE?

Per the sermons delivered by Jeremiah, the Whelan family has been brought up to harbor a heavy distrust in government, modern medicine, and modern society as a whole. They believe the world has de-evolved into a global version of Sodom and Gomorrah, and that the Apocalypse looms like a guillotine.

As such they have dedicated themselves to a simplistic lifestyle that is free of electronics. Yes, you read that correctly. One landline exists in the main house but otherwise there are no cellphones, no laptops, no Ipods, no MP3 players, no televisions, no microwaves. Contemporary music (i.e. anything that isn't exclusively religious themed and to Jeremiah's liking) was not allowed.

The children are taught to read and write and they are also taught mathematics, but their history is more than a little fuzzy as the curriculums had to pass inspection by (who else?) Jeremiah. As such the Whelan family's youth have a very skewed look at the world.

They believe that due to the fact that they are godly folk that follow the tenets they will be spared in the face of Armageddon while the rest of the folk who do not follow their specific doctrines are damned to hellfire. Happy stuff, huh?

WHY DO THE CHILDREN GET SENT AWAY?

Typically the boys are sent off at sixteen to various installations in the Appalachians to learn 'soldiering' which is just...well, there's a reason the government is investigating them. Let's just say that. Once they pass testing they are considered apart of the Militia of the Lord and are officially men in the eyes of S.O.G..

Patriarchal in nature, the girls receive the same education as the boys but with further studies in homemaking, sewing, gardening, etcetera. Daughters are sent out to other compounds to be made ready for the life of a wife, but that doesn't mean they don't get their hands dirty too. And Jeremiah typically was very selective about which of his children/wives he sent away. Women are also taught how to hunt, trap, fish, and other basic useful life skills because you just can't have dead weight at the end of the world.

EW, JEREMIAH!

An important thing to remember is that most cult or sect leaders are described (even by their past victims) as incredibly charismatic and Jeremiah really was no different. He could sell a ketchup popsicle to a lady in white gloves on a hot summer day is what I'm getting at here. When he was happy everyone was happy. When he praised you it probably felt like you were the star of the show. When he was mad...well...you get the idea. The older kids that still remain remember fuzzy glimpses of a kinder man.

HOW DO THEY GENERATE CASH FLOW?

They are farmers, but most of the kids have developed talents in quilting, animal husbandry, etcetera. In Ag circles they sell their wares, but Jeremiah was also into seedy, shady dealings. Doing what and with who? Will be revealed...eventually. (If you’re interested in having past dealings with this norsty man let me know.)

HOW DID JEREMIAH FIND WIVES?

Some were sent down from other S.O.G. settlements, some were runaways he managed to hook in around Magnolia or in the greater South Carolina area. If you were dopesick he helped you overcome your addiction, if you were homeless he gave you shelter, his courting process was very manipulative, very highlight reel marketed as paradise with a side of family and purpose that was usually missing in the lives of the women he targeted that were not from S.O.G. settlements in the mountains.

DID WOMEN BRING CHILDREN WITH PREVIOUS RELATIONSHIPS WITH THEM?

For those that were not essentially traded to him from the S.O.G. settlements the answer is yes. Though it is important to note that both woman and child were given new names once they decided to stay on. The illusion of choice was important to Jeremiah. CAN THESE PEOPLE HAVE SUPERNATURAL GIFTS?

Of course they can, but it would be very dangerous for them. The children grew up believing that anything to do with magic was evil. That going against the natural order was a one-way ticket straight to the hot place. So if any of the Whelans do possess talents that are not the norm they either a) don’t realize it or b) keep it to themselves for fear of punishment.  IN THE INTEREST OF NOT MAKING YOU READ 1000 PAGES OF MY INSANE RAMBLINGS I ALSO HAVE A TIMELINE SET UP THAT I CAN REFER PEOPLE TO AFTER I BEAUTIFY IT AND MAKE IT READABLE. WANT AD WILL HOPEFULLY BE OUT LATER TODAY.

[hargrove-mayfields]

Memories Are Golden

The prom of ‘85 was just one week away. If you asked Steve how much involvement he would’ve have in the event, not even a month ago he would’ve guessed it to be nothing more than maybe taking a flyer home and immediately throwing it in the trash.

Because he wouldn’t be able to go anyways, him and his date didn’t exactly abide by the administration's rules, or society’s, for that matter, so he didn’t care about the whole thing, until last minute, when Nancy had successfully convinced him to be a part of the prom committee with her.

The conversation had basically been a very lengthy guilt trip, he’s well aware of that, and her whole, ‘best moments of our lives’ speech hadn’t really done much to change his mind either.

In the end, Steve had only decided he was going to do it for three reasons: he’d get extra credit in the teacher in charge of prom, the math teachers, class, he wouldn’t have to go to any of his morning classes, and Robin joined in on Nancy’s bullying him because her and Heather would be apart of the committee too.

So now for the next week leading up to the big day, Steve has to spend his mornings in the gym putting up the decorations for the grand march.

But it isn’t all bad, because their small little task force made up of the other poor souls Nancy had rallied to do this with her is all of his friends, Nancy and Barb and Robin and Heather, with the addition of one very begrudging Billy Hargrove.

The girls were all the type you’d expect to be into this thing, the crafty ones mixed in with popularity, and everyone knew Steve would do anything to show school spirit, especially if Nancy bullied him into it, but nobody actually expected Billy of all people to even show up.

He certainly looked more likely to be the one crashing the prom than hanging up little foil stars on the walls, and anyways, rumor had it he only was on the committee as an alternative to detention for smoking weed under the bleachers.

But Steve knew that had absolutely not happened, for one thing, Billy’s weed stayed tightly locked up in his bedroom, thank you very much, and for another, he was there completely willingly. Steve knew that, because he’d been the one to tell Billy to sign up.

Which, when it really got right down to it, Billy honestly was the only reason Steve was even doing this whole thing. They were used to working in a couple of very limited interactions on the court or in the few classes they shared, but with the prom committee they’d be required to spend at least four hours together every day. It was the golden opportunity, even if that wasn’t the way Nancy intended it.

So maybe Billy does show up a little late every morning on purpose, just to keep up appearances, but he’s got a smile on his face, hidden behind the styrofoam coffee cup he gets from the cafeteria as he seeks out Steve and sits beside him in the bleachers to wait for that days instruction.

“Mornin’ Bill.” Steve mumbles tiredly, used to coming in late every day and getting at least an extra hour of sleep most days.

Billy nods and hums in his throat as his only response, so Steve asks him, “You wake up on the wrong side of the bed this mornin’?”

And of course, in true Billy fashion, he flashes Steve his most shit eating grin, and says all nonchalant, “Always do when I wake up alone.”

It’s so cheesy, and very obviously meant to get to him, but Steve can’t help the blush that creeps up his neck. He’s still trying to think up an equally as flustering comeback, when the teacher in charge finally shows up.

She announces that this year’s theme was ‘under the stars’, which Steve thought sounded incredibly tacky, but there was still no way it would be any worse than the godawful ‘hollywood’ theme from the year before. Hawkins High had a reputation for a lot of things, but creativity was not one of them.

They get split up into groups, Nancy and Barb in charge of the promo, the writing up, designing, and printing of the announcements and tickets, and Robin and Heather got the delicate detail work, blowing up balloons, laying down the artificial grass squares and hanging or putting in place whatever the other groups made them.

Billy and Steve, on the other hand, were stuck with all the dirty work, the manly jobs. They’re the ones who have to paint the banner that’s going to go over the door, and carry anything that’s considered too heavy and hang anything too high (even though Barb really isn’t that much shorter than them), and set up the tents and string the electricity to the lights in the fake lamp posts.

Quite frankly, Steve doesn’t think it’s fair that they have double the workload as the girls, most of the week had been dedicated to their work, but he just can’t bring himself to complain about getting to watch Billy working every morning, still barely awake yet, his hair pulled up so it didn’t get paint or that much glitter in it.

~~~~~~~~

On their last day in the gym, all that’s left is to sort out a few last minute details, the final squares of fake grass are laid out, lights are tested and glitter is spread out on everything. It doesn’t take too awful long, so they end up with just under three hours leftover to kill.

What they’re supposed to do is report back to their morning classes and try to catch up on all the work they’ve been missing out on for the entire week, but Billy isn’t looking to worry about a bunch of school work, so he tries to convince the rest to skip those last few hours with him.

From Barb and Nancy he gets an instant no, which, he was honestly expecting that. They’re responsible girls, and he can’t blame them for giving two shits about their education. The fact of the matter is though, that he doesn’t.

What he isn’t expecting as much is for his best friend to tell him no, but Heather’s too excited about her senior prom to get in trouble the day before it, and he can respect that.

He already knows that if Heather’s not going, Robin’s not either, so he waves her off before she even bothers trying to explain herself.

That just leaves Steve, and lord knows Billy’s been a bad enough influence on him that he doesn’t even have to ask if he’s ditching, so when Mrs Mitchell and the girls leave, they follow behind until they’re out in the hallway, then duck out of the back entrance of the gym.

Most of the time when people skip they just go home considering the lack of literally anything at all to do around Hawkins, but with Steve’s house too far away for it to be worth leaving, and Billy’s stepmom still at home, that sort of wasn’t an option for them.

Usually they don’t skip for those very reasons, but today they have a handwritten excuse to be out of their classes until exactly 12:15, so in a way, it isn’t so much like skipping as it is just using their free time wisely. Or at least, that’s how Steve rationalizes it, earning from Billy, who thought it was sweet that his former bad boy felt it necessary to make excuses for skipping, a chuckle and a warm smile.

They decide to just hang out on the school grounds, nowhere in town to go but the diner and the stores downtown, and they weren’t in the mood for food nor did they have enough money to blow buying stupid shit they didn’t need, so smoking and sneaking kisses by the tree line on the practice field it was.

It’s nice, but Billy doesn’t like the quiet, furrowed brow as he plucks blades of just growing grass trying to think of something to say that would break the silence. Steve just waits patiently with a lit cigarette burning out between his fingers for Billy to speak, listening intently when he finally says, “You know, s’a shame that I can’t take you to the prom after all that work we did for it.”

“Nah, prom’s way overrated.” Steve blows him off, not wanting him to feel bad about it, personally viewing the dance as stupid anyways, in a way sort of glad he doesn’t have to go, “It’s just a way to pay for new football uniforms and make kids who piqued in highschool feel good about themselves.”

But Billy doesn’t even laugh at that, flicking the head off a dandelion to keep his hands busy as he basically mumbles, “Guess you had time to think ‘bout it already.”

“Yeah. I guess I just always thought dances were kind of dumb. Now that I’m not King Steve anymore I just don’t really see a reason to bother with ‘em.” Steve explains, sliding his hand over to Billy’s across the tips of cool blades of grass, linking their pinkies together and leaning his head against his shoulder, soft touches like these the only way Billy could tell the difference between an open conversation and an argument.

“Still, think it’d be nice to be able to show you off. Let ‘em know what they’ve been missing.” Billy admits, a shy crack of a smile, like he was afraid to bring it up, and it makes Steve smile back, looking straight into the vulnerability behind his blue eyes and saying so softly it’s almost a whisper, “S’not necessary, B. I’m all yours.”

Billy pulls his hand away, a flush on his cheeks that wasn’t just from the warmth of the sun, overwhelmed by the affection just a bit, not uncomfortable with it, just not used to it, and bumps his shoulder into Steve’s, telling him, “God, you’re such a sap.”

“Hey, you’re the one that wanted to take me to the prom.” Steve says, barely even defensive, making Billy smile again.

There’s a break in the conversation, both of them flustered and thinking about the other, until Steve interrupts the quiet this time, leaning back on his hands in the grass and suggesting, “We could do our own prom though, you know.”

“Whaddya mean?”

“Well, we can’t do the real thing, obviously, but I don’t have any other plans tomorrow. You should drop by.”

“You’re really askin’ me to be your prom date?” Billy smirks, but the vulnerable hope in his eyes gives him away, and makes Steve’s heart flutter, though he replies nonchalant, “Who else? Be there at 8:30?”

“It’s a date. See you then, pretty boy.” Billy says with a smile, leaning in to kiss Steve, but getting interrupted by his watch beeping, their break time almost up already.

Steve chuckles and kisses his nose, and says, “Guess we better get back then.” waiting for Billy to leave first so his boyfriend had a head start to get into the school before him.

Billy throws a wink over his shoulder as he retreats towards the gym doors, and suddenly the weight of what they’d just agreed to settles with Steve.

Maybe this prom thing wasn’t as overrated as he thought, because did he ever feel over the moon right now, blushing like an idiot and just standing there dazedly until he hears the bell ring inside the building.

Apparently it showed too, that butterflies in his stomach feeling he had for the rest of the day, if the fact that Robin pulled him aside in the cafeteria for an emergency meeting about why he couldn’t wipe the goofy grin off his face was any indication.

He told her some lie, something about one of the teachers he got his makeup work off of cutting him some slack, and Robin doesn’t believe that, but she knows it’s none of her business, so she lets him keep smiling.

Still, as much as Steve was looking forward to this, at the end of the day when he waved at Billy from across the parking lot, he got nervous. Like, speeding back home to Loch Nora in under ten minutes on a normally fifteen minute drive nervous.

Because he still has a lot of shit to get done between now and tomorrow night when Billy is supposed to show up.

For one thing, his house is a disaster. He almost never cleans it until it’s too late, half-assing the dishes and overloading the washing machine and hiding things in closets usually the day before his parents were supposed to get back.

Another thing is how should he dress? He had a few fancy suits of his own from outings with his parents and past dances, but he knew Billy wouldn’t. Still, wouldn’t it be rude to underdress just because he assumed Billy would be too poor to clean up?

And what did people even do at prom? Get drunk and have sex? If Billy wanted to do that he would’ve just said so. How was Steve supposed to figure out what else they were going to do? The rest of prom is just bad dancing and even worse food, was that something he was supposed to include?

What if he’d sent the wrong signal in the first place and it wasn’t just going to be them? What if Billy showed up at his door with a bunch of other losers skipping out on prom night and this wasn’t really special at all?

The thing is, he knows he’s being irrational. Billy’s not the type to care about this stuff, and even if he did he wasn’t gonna like, break things off just because their little fake prom in Steve’s living room wasn’t perfect. That’s just ridiculous.

So he tries to redirect that initial panic into productivity. Get at least something planned out and put together before he freaks all the way out and loses his motivation.

He decides to do it in small parts, tonight he’d start with the cleaning and getting everything he already had together, and tomorrow would be for shopping and decorating.

Because he’s got such a scatterbrain, he makes a list of all the things he needed to get done before 8:30 tomorrow night, and already he feels the stress start to dissipate with each thing he gets to check off, the living room cleaned until Ruthie would approve, picking out a nice sweater he’d never worn before, fancy but not too much, and tracking down all the things he already had, a record player, the fancy wine Billy said he liked, and a couple of strings of fairy lights and tinsel.

~~~~~~~~~

The next morning he goes straight to Melvald’s, with the rest of his checklist to but candles, more decorations, a boutonnière, just to do it, and maybe something other than takeout to eat for once.

He must look as nervous as he feels, dumping his purchases on the counter, because Joyce smiles that understanding smile of hers, and asks him, “Last minute jitters before prom?”

“You could say that.” He responds breathily, trying to return the smile.

“Jonathan and Nancy decided not to go, but it sounds like it’ll be fun.” Joyce says with a nod, and Steve realizes he’s given her the wrong impression, explaining, “Oh, I’m not going to the real thing either, just hanging out with a friend tonight.”

“Well that sounds nice anyways.” She says, as she rings up his stuff remarking, “You must really like this friend to go all out like this.”

“Yeah he’s-“ Steve physically shakes his head, a reminder to stop talking before he gets himself caught, backpedaling with a shaky excuse, “I-I mean, it’s not like it’s a prom date , it’s just, you know, two guys hanging out.“

Joyce puts her hand on his, that same warm smile still on her face, and tells him, looking him right in the eye as if to say, ‘I know, but it’s okay’, “I’m happy for you, Steve. Have fun tonight.”

Steve nods, a flush to his cheeks as he leaves the store with not another word than, “I… Thank you Mrs. Byers.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

Billy knew absolutely jack and shit about school dances.

The first and only he’d ever been bothered to go to was way back in elementary school, and that didn’t exactly hold a candle to the fucking prom.

It helped some that it wasn’t the real thing, but Steve was talking like it might as well be, and quite frankly, he wanted it to be. This was going to be special goddamnit.

But before he can even think too much about it, he realizes none of that will matter if it turns out he can’t show, so he brings it up with his dad at dinner.

At the table is where he’s least likely to get beat if Neil said no, so that was always the time he chose to ask for things. “I know it’s, uh, kind of last minute ‘cause it’s tomorrow night, but could I go to the prom?”

Neil quirks an eyebrow, seeming mostly uninterested, “With who?”

“Nobody as a date.” Billy explains, using the cover story he’d been coming up with since the minute Steve asked him, or rather in anticipation of, “Heather has a spare ticket ‘cause her actual date ditched her last minute and she asked me if I would go with her.”

Neil nods, seemingly believing him, and asks, “When’s it start?”

“Uh, about 8, I think, so I’ll probably leave at like, 6:30 or so.” Billy throws it out nervously, tapping his fingers against the underside of the table, and freezing when Neil speaks.

But he doesn’t get yelled at, it’s just a simple, calm, “Susan, do we have anything planned that time tomorrow?”

“No, dear. Max is going with her friends at six, but other than that...” Comes her timid response without a hitch, and Billy already knows he’s in the clear before Neil gives his response, still not looking up from the table.

He agrees, but with a few conditions that Billy wouldn’t dare disobey, “If you drop your sister off first, you’ve got yourself a deal. Just don’t come home if you’re drunk, and don’t waste all my damned money on pictures.”

Billy nods, his heart racing in anticipation of something he was pretty sure at this point wasn’t going to happen, though some part of him was still waiting for the slap across the face and a never your mind as he says dutifully, “Yessir. Thank you.”

~~~~~~~~~

Billy starts getting ready six hours early for two reasons: for one thing, the sooner he’s ready, the more time he had away from Neil and to psyche himself up to knock on Steve’s door, and for another, his hair on a normal day takes at least an hour if he doesn’t want it frizzing out or losing it’s curl or getting heavy, and this was his prom, he was willing to spend a whole day on his hair for the sake of looking nice, even if there were no pictures of it.

Of course Max, being the little nuisance she is, follows him to his bedroom when he goes to get ready, holding the door open with her foot so he couldn’t slam it in her face, and earning herself a grumbly, “What do you want, Maxine?”

“I thought you told me you weren’t going to the prom.” She says it like she caught him doing something wrong, as if plans couldn’t change, and it pisses Billy off a little bit.

“I’m not-“ He starts to explain, cutting himself off when somewhere in the house Neil pops the tab on a beer can, a tiny sound Max probably hadn’t even picked up on, but if his father was out and about in the house Billy doesn’t want to admit what he’s going to in front of him. He opens his door wider and ushers his step sister in, immediately shutting it behind her and finishing what he was saying,  “I’m not going to the prom.”

She quirks an eyebrow, through Billy’s eyes maybe looking a bit too much like her step-dad when she does it, “Why’d you tell Neil you were?”

“Crashing the after party. Thought it’d look better if I said I went.” He just shrugs, half assing the lie, and, picking up on that, Max fires back smugly, “You’re lying.”

Billy snaps, no longer looking at her while he starts lining his shit up on his makeshift vanity, getting ready to get ready, “Yeah, I am. But it’s really none of your business, shitbird.”

“Are you going on a date or something?” She looks at him knowingly, if not a little surprised, and asks as it dawns on her, “Oh my god, do you have a boyfriend?”

“Maxine Nicole!” He hisses through his teeth, turning to glare at her and seeing that she’s holding his hair spray that he literally just put out, probably planning on stealing it, “Jesus, give me that.”

She lets him snatch it out of her hands and puts it back in its spot on the vanity she told him didn’t count as a vanity multiple times, rolling her eyes, “Yeesh. I’ll take that as a yes then.”

“If you’re going to tell on me Max, I swear to god-“ He starts, defensive, more vulnerability in his voice than intended, but Max insists honestly, the most not bratty she’s been since she stepped into his room, “I’m not, I wouldn’t.”

Though it doesn’t last very long, her not being a brat, because she immediately cracks a big smile and asks Billy, “Who is he though?”

“Mind your own, Max, Christ.” Billy blows her off, catching glimpse of himself in the mirror and taking note of the barely there flush to his cheeks, pointing to the door and telling his meddling step sister, “Out.”

“Awww, Billy-“ She tries to whine, but he cuts her off, “ No. Out. Of. My. Room.”

But Max offers quickly, like it’ll change his mind, “I’ll do your hair if you let me stay.”

And maybe it doesn’t immediately change his mind, but it does successfully stump him, because he’s asking her, equal parts genuine curiosity and sarcasm, “Why would I let you touch my hair?”

“No reason.” Max says, looking down at his carpet, definitely overplaying the bashfulness in bringing up her answer to appeal to Billy’s emotions, “I just thought, and maybe it’s stupid but like, most guys have their moms to fuss over them for prom, but, you know, you don’t, so I wanted to, I don’t know, be a good sister and do that for you or, whatever.“

Billy sighs, that had been exactly what he was thinking about all night last night, how his momma would be proud of him for finding a way to do this with the person, the boy he loved, and how she could’ve been there to do exactly what Max said, so he agrees, “Alright shitbird, guilt trip successful. You’re not kicked out.”

Max claps her hands together and sits on her brother's bed, getting all of Billy’s wrinkled button ups tossed at her from where they had been previously shoved, unfolded into a dresser drawer, and a command to, “Help me pick a shirt.”

She asks him while she’s unfolding all of his shirts he’d thrown at her and spreading them all out over Billy’s bed, “Are you going to button it.”

“What do you think?”

“Billy. It’s your prom.”

“Fine. One more button.”

“Two?” She tries to bargain, but he shuts it down again, making her giggle when he jokes, his tone level like it's a real threat, “One or I‘m going shirtless.”

“Then I pick.. this blue one.” Max says and puts her hand on a navy blue, quarter sleeve shirt after careful consideration of holding each button up up to Billy and thinking hard about it, but one more once over and she changes her mind, handing Billy a white shirt with snap buttons instead, “No, no, no, wait, this one with full sleeves is better. Yeah, that one for sure.”

“Sleeves it is.” Billy says taking the shirt and hanging it on the door so he’d remember to iron it, crudely shoving the rest of the button ups back into the drawer, and asking Max, “Will I need to wear like, a coat or something?”

She shrugs asking him smugly, “That depends on who it is.”

“Sensitive information.” Billy says immediately, when she looks like she’s going to argue shutting her down before she can say anything, “Which means I’m not tellin’ you.”

“Can I guess?” Max asks, making her case by reasoning with him sweetly, “Please? You wouldn’t be telling me that way.”

He genuinely considers it for a minute, and decides it’s whatever, in his head assuming there was no way Max would be able to figure it out, so he waves his hand with an eye roll, giving her the go ahead to start guessing.

Her first question is, “Okay, okay. Is it.. someone I know?”

“Yep.”

Max furrows her brow, and asks, “Do I like him?” To which Billy shrugs and responds, “Probably.”

“Um, is it…” Max snaps her fingers, an idea coming to her, “Is it Tommy?”

But again she’s shut down, because for somebody she’s supposed to probably like, she sure does a lot of complaining about Tommy, and he calls her on it, “Do you like Tommy?”

Max hums thoughtfully, taking a second guess, “I guess not. Is it Keith?”

Billy shakes his head, giving her the most confused look she’d ever seen on his face as he asks, or basically exclaims, “Who the fuck is Keith ?”

“Well excuuse me for not knowing a lot of guys around here!” Max says, defensive, making Billy roll his eyes again and turn back to digging through his drawers for a decent pair of jeans to wear with a button up, most of them stained and worn.

“Not Tommy, not Keith, who’s left?” She thinks hard then gasps, connecting something in her mind, a devious, knowing little smile on her face, “Is it Steve?”

Billy doesn’t answer her, quite frankly doesn’t know what he should say. It’s his fault, letting her guess between the only three boys his age in town she apparently knew, but now that Max knew who his mystery boyfriend was he wasn’t feeling so hot.

Honestly, some part of him is expecting Neil to come busting through the door any second, like this was some sort of run around way of finding him out, but after a few minutes of her squealing like teenage girls do, he realizes all he has to face is an excited little sister.

He flushes, and asks her over his shoulder, his forcing his tone to sound bored, “Are you done?”

“Yes.” Max says, nodding, but she smiles wide and dissolves into a fit of giggles again, covering her mouth with her hands when Billy crosses his arms, and insists, “Okay, okay, I’m done!”

“Good.” Billy says, but he can’t help cracking a smile. He angles his mirror down towards the floor and sits in front of it, telling his sister lightly to, “Help me with my hair then, shitbird.”

Max sits behind him, and runs her fingers through his hair, “You should’ve put curlers in it or something last night.”

Billy rolls his eyes, realizing as he does so for the dozen things time since Max barged in that she maybe learned that from him, deciding that doesn’t even warrant a response, and hands Max the comb and one of the many cans of hairspray off of his vanity.

She sits up on her knees, and brushes back the hairs just behind his ears that always frizz out and lose their curl, holding them at the back of his hair with a bobby pin, one of the blond ones she bought specifically for him so he could use them without immediately getting caught using ‘girly’ things, but had so far been too scared to anyways.

It looks strange on him, looks more like something Max would wear than him, but honestly he doesn’t hate it, so he lets her keep going, only frowning a little when she adds a pearl adorned hair clip, big enough it looks more like a fancy brooch, to the back of his hair.

She sprays it with so much hairspray it’s tacky, scrunching it up so his curls are tighter, and smoothing the sides so they won’t come unclipped.

When every curl is in its place and approved by Billy, who insists he’s not in the least bit emotional about what Max had said early, that thing about having nobody but her to fuss over him, she hops up, telling him to, “Wait one minute.” while she runs to her room.

She returns with her bulky pink Caboodles box, the one that has all of her mostly unused makeup in it, tapping him on the shoulder and telling him, “Alright, turn towards me.”

Her plan didn’t work though, at least he’s almost positive it was her plan to break down his defenses just so she could use him as her dress up doll anyways, but he isn’t having it, telling her quickly to “Put that shit away, Max.”

“Why? You wear makeup everyday.” Max observes simply, making Billy hiss and tell her to lower her voice, “Yeah, but never the extra strength shit that makes your eyelashes curly and your face pretty. Neil will sniff this out the second I step out of this room.”

Max just shrugs, “Then I’ll make sure he doesn’t see your face. It’s not a big deal.”

“He’ll make it into one.”

“I think your senior prom is an even bigger deal, though.”

Billy sighs, once again losing to her arguing skill, and turning to face her like she told him, “You owe me if I get caught like this.”

Max rolls her eyes and does her magic, each second that passes Billy regretting agreeing to turning the control of his appearance over to his little sister, expecting to come out of this looking like her Diva doll, fidgeting more and more the longer it takes her.

Just before he’s about to panic, Max tells him, “All done.” and lets him look in the mirror.

He blinks repeatedly at his own reflection, surprised to see he didn’t have sparkly eyeshadow up to his eyebrows or rouge on his cheeks, just a tasteful amount of lip gloss and a copper tint to his eyelids, framed by darker than usual eyelashes and the smallest bit of eyeliner.

She gets impatient after a few minutes of Billy not saying anything, and pushes his shoulders to turn him around again to look at her, staring at him until she decides what she thinks is missing.

She hurries to the upright jewelry box in her mother’s room, and brings him back a clip on pearl earring for his right ear, opposite the chain of silver stars she already picked for his left.

“Here, it’ll look better if you have earrings in both ears.” She reaches up, pushing his hair out of the way and clipping the earring on, letting him do the screw on the back himself so she didn’t make it too tight.

Billy lowers his hand and scrunches his nose, leaning in slightly towards the mirror, “They don’t match.”

“It looks nice though. You look really pretty.” She tells him honestly, not realizing the impact the simple compliment, though not so simple for somebody like him, has on her brother until he’s trying to subtly blink away tears behind mascara coated lashes, pretending like that wasn’t the case and telling her, “Whatever, it’s too late to change it now if you want to be on time.”

He does one last once over himself in the mirror, though he knows he’s going to be using his car windows for the same purpose at the last minute, and shoos Max out of his bedroom door, trying to hurry out of the house before Neil can stop him and see him all dolled up.

He’s got one hand around the door knob and his keys through his belt loop when his dad does stop him, his heart just about stopping as Neil calls from the other room, “Do you have flowers for the girl?”

“I have a corsage in the car.” Billy lies, hoping his tone is sure enough for Neil to buy it.

“Good. Just remember what I said, boy.” Neil says, still from the living room, so Billy lets his posture relax a bit and breathes out a quiet sight, saying casually, “Get Max to her friends, don’t spend any money, and don’t come home drunk, I got it, dad.”

“Watch the attitude, William.” Neil says low, the air going still for a minute until he adds, “And have fun tonight.”

“Yessir.” Billy says, ushering Max quickly out the front door, sighing when it closes behind them.

~~~~~~~

Billy drops Max off at the Wheeler’s, just driving around Hawkins until it’s time to show up at Steve’s, making sure to stop past the Holloway’s place just in case Neil went asking around wanting to know if anybody saw his car in the neighborhood.

At 8, he decides he doesn’t want to show up empty handed, buying Steve some flowers like he’d lied and said he had for Heather from Melvald’s, not understanding the knowing look the cashier lady has in her eye when he brings a dinky bouquet of flowers to the checkout counter.

He rings the doorbell at 8:30 on the dot, checking himself out one last time in Steve’s window while he waits, fifty cent roses held behind his back.

On the other side of the door, Steve stands in the dining room, now adorned with cheap party decorations that would’ve made his mother pitch a fit, waiting a whole thirty seconds before he goes to answer it, trying to collect himself first.

Billy smiles wide, and, as cheesy as it was, seeing him standing there all dressed up taking Steve’s breath away and stealing the words right off his tongue, Billy having to invite himself in because Steve was busy catching flies.

He hands him the flowers, nodding towards the silver tinsel wrapped around the banister, the stars hanging in the archway that lead into the living room that were almost identical to the ones they hung from the basketball hoops at school and saying, “Place looks nice.”

“Oh, uh, thanks.” Steve says, quickly adding, “You know, you look nice too.”

Billy smiles softly, looking at him with that ‘you’re an idiot Steve Harrington’ look he was so used to by now, “C’mon, Stevie, we’ve been dating for four months now, you don’t gotta be all awkward with me still.”

“I’m not, I mean it, you look really good, Billy.” Steve says, smiling now that it’s his turn to fluster Billy.

“Oh by the way, I almost forgot. Got you this just because.” He remembers, handing Billy a box with a floral pin inside, pink roses with lace, and telling him expectantly, “It’s a boutonnière.”

But Billy doesn't open it, just raises an eyebrow and says, “I thought you did corsages for prom?”

“Corsages are for the girls.”

“Ah. Got it.” He says it like he already knew that, like he was hoping maybe Steve didn’t, so Steve offers, not really understanding it, but knowing what he means all the same, “It came as a set, I still have the corsage upstairs, if you want it.”

Billy nods and pins the boutonnière to Steve’s shirt instead, explaining simply, “Just so we match.”

Steve runs upstairs and gets the corsage, giving Billy a minute to actually appreciate just how much went into decorating this place, snickering to himself when he imagines Steve having to stand on a step ladder to put the string lights so high up on the wall.

Steve tosses Billy the box from the top of the steps, letting him open it while he comes back down and ties it around his wrist, having to tie it twice because he put it on the wrong way the first time.

Billy asks him, shaking his wrist to make sure the bow is tight enough, “So what’s our official plan for tonight, Stevie?”

“Honestly I don’t really know. I’m sort of just winging it here, I don’t know what you even do at prom.”

“You never went at all?” Billy asks, surprised miss priss hadn’t dragged him along to their junior prom last year.

“Nope. Like I said, overrated.” Steve confirms, and Billy smiles wide, saying, “I’m sure I got a few ideas in mind then.”

~~~~~~~~

Billy’s idea basically consisted mainly of drinking all that fancy wine Steve had gotten out of the cellar specifically for this, shoving his tongue down Steve’s throat, and complaining about the real prom happening up at the school.

Honestly, Steve suspects things wouldn’t have been so different had they actually gone, but he can tell the fact that they weren’t able to go was still bothering Billy, judging by the sheer number of times he brings it up.

After what must be the tenth time that night Billy brought up Heather and Robin getting to go, Steve asks him, “Do you wish we were there?”

“No, that’s the thing. I couldn’t give a damn less about the whole dance, a thousand times over I’d rather just be here with you.”

“But?”

“But I wish we had the choice to go, you know? It’s just, bugging me that if we had genuinely wanted to go, we couldn’t’ve.” Billy rants, very obviously having been holding this in, “And I keep thinking about all the other gay kids who don’t have a big empty house or a safe place to do what we’re doin’.”

“Yeah, but it’s really not a big deal. Prom is pretty much all for the parents anyways, and the way I see it we, and all the other people like us, we’re so used to disappointing them, what’s it matter if we don’t go?”

“Just, I don’t care about the event or whatever, but it feels like we’re missing out on something. Like maybe we should’ve just swallowed our pride and went with Hetty and Robin anyways.”

Steve stands up abruptly, picking up their wine glasses and kicking the coffee table all the way over to the far wall to clear the floor, offering Billy his hand, “I know you feel like you’re robbing me of something by us not going, but we don’t need all of that for this to be good. I meant it when I said that’s superficial to me anyways. We can make it mean something to us.”

Billy looks up at him, still bothered deep down, but out of ways to argue about it, and accepts Steve’s hand, wrapping his arms around the back of his neck when he pulls him close by his waist.

It’s not really a slow dance as much as it is an excuse to just be close to one another, to breathe each other in and sneak kisses and be sappy, but that’s was this whole thing was about. They could’ve just hung out tonight if they wanted, and honestly they probably would’ve anyways, but they called it a prom, put that title to it that made both of their hearts pitapat.

Steve had always heard, even felt it a few times before, that when you were with the person you loved, everyone and everything else would melt away around you until it was just you, but somehow, this was different than that.

Because that would mean there were times when his world didn’t revolve around Billy, and that there was ever a moment when he could focus on anything but the boy he loved, and that just wasn’t true.

This wasn’t performative, wasn’t a relationship formed on the status of being able to show off that they were better for being in love either, this was simply Billy and Steve, dancing in their tennis shoes on Ruthie's carpet, snickering when a particularly sappy song came on the radio, barely able to be separated long enough to turn to side B, falling in love all over again under the stars.

~~~~~~~

When the wine bottles are all empty and the stack of records has been spun through, Steve’s schnockered, and insisting they get a picture, searching the house for an old Polaroid camera and making Billy stand with him in front of the fairy lights strung

They only had three chances to get a good picture, no new packs of film and only a few left in the camera, so Steve took all three.

The first one was upside down and so off center he was hardly in it, Steve being maybe a little more drunk than he thought, and the second Billy closed his eyes because the flash was too bright, but it didn’t matter too much anyways because the film didn’t develop properly and the picture was nothing but reddish-yellow tinted blackness anyways.

The third one by some chance turns out fine, maybe a little blurred because he moved and still not quite centered right, but it’s a picture, something to hold onto the memory of this night forever when the hangover wore off and things got a little blurry, and that was important to the both of them, for different reasons.

As soon as it develops, a little 8 by 10 of Billy kissing his cheek, Steve runs upstairs to hang it on the cork board above his desk before it gets misplaced, dating it and doodling a little heart with a S+B inside it, hiding the picture behind a ribbon for a middle school art contest and a picture of him and his parents.

Billy hooks his chin over his shoulder, his hands traveling a bit lower than Steve’s waist this time as he watches what he’s doing. He hums and asks, when Steve stands up straighter and turns in his arms to face him, “So? What have you got planned for the after prom, Stevie?”